I didn't know you had published a book, FencerforJesus! Good for you!

I've posted a lot about that on the Writer's World thread. My book's been out since January and relying completely on word of mouth for marketing, I've sold over 150 copies. I'm trying to find ways to get word out about it and also find a larger publisher who can market to a wider audience. The responses so far for my book have been phenomenal. There are spelling and grammatical errors that neither I nor the publisher's editor caught throughout the book (very annoying) but the story has blown away a lot of people. I'm slowly working on editing my sequel right now (will stay slow due to grad school in progress).

Finished D.M. Cornish's book Monster Blood Tattoo, Book 3: Factotum. Rossamund is now a factotum. The story beginning is extremely slow-paced considering it's the final novel (it takes about 150 pages to get going). That said, once it does, the story is quality but the ending is a bit abrupt. Also, there is major clothing info-dumping - sometimes it reads like a fashion piece. Finally, no Threnody. Otherwise, fantastic new characters, dangerous adventures and great illustrations. Recommended. 7.5/10

I like illustrations, but in a book for an adult they should feel like part of the story. Well, clearly they're going to be part of the story, but they should feel integral. I dunno. The genre and type of story should play a part in determining that, too. Illustrations would help a fantasy book a lot, I think. I like Adeona's suggestion of putting a small sketch or illustration at the beginning of the chapters, and putting a full illustration every so often in the book sounds good, too.

Thanks so much for your advice! Any advice or opinions I can get help me out so much!

*Trumpet fanfare*
This is very exciting. I have finished The One and Future King after a whole year. I got dreadfully stuck in "The Ill-made Knight" portion, but "The Candle in the Wind" was pretty good. It was a bit preachy and White made Mordred a thinly veiled stand-in for Hitler, which wasn't necessarily a bad thing, but I tend to distrust books with ulterior motives. Overall, I think White's legend is really pretty good. It's more "real" with lots of human aspects and fat old lily maids. White spent most of his time in pretty obscure parts of the legend that hadn't really been touched much before: Arthur's childhood, Guinevere, Orkney, and leaves the reader to do other reading about the quests, the holy grail, and the death of Arthur. I think he even says in one point something about Malory already having written about the quests and that if you want to read about them, go read him. In the end, I understand the "classic" label. There truly is no more tragic romantic catch-22 than the Arthur legend. White is not a great master of prose or plot really, but he does enough to break your heart.

I finished the Hunger Games trilogy this morning. Wow! I was terribly worried about the ending, given that depressing endings are all the rage anymore, but this ended up fairly nice and the way I desired it. I have to say that if you walk into the series and don't have some sort of desire to read more of it or at least be curious about what happens next then you likely don't have a pulse and probably enjoy gross things like mayonaisse and unsweetened shredded wheat cereal for breakfast.

Glad you liked it, SL! And ditto on it being a heart-thumping page turner; I haven't encountered any book that was even close to being as suspenseful. Suzanne Collins is a masterful writer; that is for sure.

I'm also glad to hear that you thought the ending was satisfactory. I thought so too when I first read it, and was surprised to search the internet and discover that a lot of people really dislike the ending, and Mockingjay in general. I'm not sure why. Because it's not all roses and tulips and singing elfs? Honestly, after the events of the first book, let alone the second, I'm not sure how anyone could have thought that Katniss and Peeta could traverse the third book and epilogue relatively unscathed. That may be the Hollywood way to go about things, but it's certainly not realistic, among other things. I found Katniss' struggle with depression and trauma hit fairly close to home, as I had an uncle who suffered from PSTD, and was a contributing factor to his death four years ago. With that in mind, I found the ending of Mockingjay very...fitting, and hopeful. Yeah, they were messed up, but they found a way to go on. Beauty from ashes. Very fitting.

Anyway, I had quite a few long-ish posts that I wrote about THG books in general that are in the Hunger Games thread; perhaps I should dig that up if you'd care to read it, SL.

I can go and look for said thread and do some reading over it (which I didn't really do the first time for fear of spoilers). I honestly didn't think I'd be into THG, that it'd be just another fad or what not, but the series blew my doors off. WOW. I think Collins ended it nicely...I enjoy happy rainbows, hand holding and lovely, perfect endings as much as anyone else, and to be honest I think that's exactly what the characters got despite the evil that was thrown their way through it all.

What a great series....the best that I've read in many years.

What a great series....the best that I've read in many years.

Definitely up there, in my opinion.

I can't say i "like" Mockingjay - just too realistic and intense. I re-read the trilogy recently, and found myself skimming toward the end; it was too difficult to go through again. I don't think i've ever cried at a book, but Mockingjay has probably got me the closest.

But you're right; it's exactly the ending needed. While i understand some people's disappointment in an intellectual sense, i don't really "get" it. Certainly a lot of books deal with similar topics in a much less painful (read realistic) way and are still well-written or enjoyable, but i don't know how you'd get the impression The Hunger Games series would be one of them, especially if you've read The Underland Chronicles.

Yay for another HG fan! Will you be seeing the film when it comes out? I have some reservations about some of the cast, but not about Jennifer Lawrence...she IS Katniss. If you've seen Winter's Bone, you'll know why, lol.

RE the ending of Mockingjay, spoilered a bit for those who haven't read the books.

ETA: Horray for the Lazarus add-on for Firefox. I lost that WHOLE post and was able to get it back. Phew!

I don't know if i'll be seeing the movie or not yet, but i'm watching the development pretty closely. I'm ... cautiously optimistic.

Edit: I agree with you on your spoiler, Gymfan. Definitely not out-of-character.

Kind of skirting the bounds of the book thread here, so i'll just ask if you've been to thecapitol.pn? I think it's some kind of ARG (alternate reality game) for the movie or some such; not sure yet.

Returning to the thread's original purpose, i'm going to try to find a book called Divergent - it's a pretty new, dystopian book that i read about on WORLD magazine. The author is young, and a Christian, and the excerpt on Amazon was interesting. Has anyone else heard of it? (No spoilers, please)

I knew something was up when I looked at the series on Amazon about 2-3 weeks ago and saw that the first two books got 5 stars and the last one 3 1/2. I disagree and think all 3 books should have the same very high rating.

That's my two cents on that.

I suspect that part of the reason why the third book has received much lower ratings than the first two is because a large part of it's audience is made up of kids who's favored reading fare is Twilight and HP. Not all books end up

I requested The Hunger Games from my library, but seeing as I'm almost #80 in line, it should be awhile before it arrives.

In the meantime I'm enjoying the beginning of Lewis's Cosmic Trilogy.

~Riella

I'm afraid, much to SL's distress, that I was pretty unimpressed when I read The Hunger Games recently. I started working in a bookshop last month and discovered that I'm woefully under informed about YA lit that's been published since I was a child So I've been making an effort to look at the more popular titles we're selling.

It was definitely readable enough and I don't regret reading it, but it had too many problems for me to really enjoy it. Firstly, I couldn't fully appreciate the entire premise because it's essentially Battle Royale by Koshun Takami. For those of you who haven't read this book (or seen the excellent film adaption), it's set in a totalitarian Japan which controls its population by forcing a class of teenagers to partake in 'the Program' each year. This consists of being placed on an island and being forced to fight to the death until one student remains. Guess what - for the first time ever, at the end of Battle Royale two teenagers survive. A guy and a girl. The film sequels also explore the idea of rebellion against the Program.

This aside, I could accept the similarities if it was done well enough. Stephen King wrote an excellent novel several years ago called The Long Walk which has a very similar premise - in a future totalitarian USA young people partake in a competition where they simply walk and walk until, through death from exposure or attempting to escape the walk, one person remains. What makes King's version so interesting is the look into the walkers psyche and the main characters gradual descent into madness as the walk takes its toll.

The problem I had with The Hunger Games was the writing and characters weren't enough to prop up the plot. Collin's writing is competent but not much else. I didn't find myself drawn into the world she created, and probably struggled the most with the attempts to create the Capitol. The TV appearances and characters like the stylists were just too hackneyed and cheesy for me to buy. Katniss herself was likable enough but I got bored of hearing about how she had to do everything for her family and scrape a living from the earth, instead of some original thoughts that must have occurred sooner or later.

The ending was pretty wrapped up, I was expecting a cliffhanger that would make me want to read the next book but it never appeared. I suppose the Katniss/Peeta romance might have been this elusive cliffhanger, but I failed to pick up on it if that was the case. I might read the rest eventually but I'm not in a rush. I might wait until a damaged copy turns up at work

All this being said, I do still happily recommend this to younger readers when they ask. It doesn't have the troubling morals of books like Twilight and I can hardly tell people's parents to give their young teens Battle Royale or The Long Walk, both of which are far more adult renditions of this theme. If I'd read it when I was younger and before I read titles like the ones I mentioned I probably would have loved THG.

Kate - Good to hear you enjoyed The Candle in the Wind! I'm loving The Once and Future King so far and am about halfway through The Ill-made Knight. I'm liking this section well enough but I can't quite get on board with Sir Gawaine, I don't understand how you can chop a lady's head off and have everyone be ok with it? Especially since King Arthur was trying to stop people in power doing things like chopping people's head off I'm definitely hoping to read more Arthurian literature after this, I'm drawing up a list (any recommendations are welcome!)

Recently I also read Flowers For Algernon, a sci-fi classic by Daniel Keyes that I was slightly ashamed to have taken this long to get around to. It's an excellent book, although near the beginning I had to force myself to pick it up because it's one of those novels that you know from the start will not work out well for anyone involved. I was right, it's incredibly sad. It's also a brilliant look at intelligence and what it means to us humans, and the treatment of mentally disabled people in society.

I also loved Ten Little Indians, a short story collection by Sherman Alexie. I've been meaning to read more modern works by Native American authors for a while but I was taken aback by just how much I loved this book. At one point I sat on my bed to read a couple of pages, and the next thing I knew I'd read three of the stories Each one was both funny and sad and a testament to the short story format that so many people underestimate these days. As soon as I get paid I'm ordering more of Alexie's work

My, long post is long.

I started reading the first The 39 Clues: Cahills vs. Vespers book "The Medusa Plot" (written by Gordon Korman) it's SO awesome! I've only got halfway and it's already epic! I love this series!