Waiting on Wednesday: Antigoddess by Kendare Blake

"Waiting On Wednesday" is a weekly event hosted by Breaking the Spine to spotlight an upcoming release that we're excited about. This week I'm waiting on Antigoddess by Kendare Blake.

The Goddess War begins in Antigoddess, the first installment of the new series by acclaimed author of Anna Dressed in Blood, Kendare Blake.

Old Gods never die…

Or so Athena thought. But then the feathers started sprouting beneath her skin, invading her lungs like a strange cancer, and Hermes showed up with a fever eating away his flesh. So much for living a quiet eternity in perpetual health.

Desperately seeking the cause of their slow, miserable deaths, Athena and Hermes travel the world, gathering allies and discovering enemies both new and old. Their search leads them to Cassandra—an ordinary girl who was once an extraordinary prophetess, protected and loved by a god.

These days, Cassandra doesn’t involve herself in the business of gods—in fact, she doesn’t even know they exist. But she could be the key in a war that is only just beginning.

Because Hera, the queen of the gods, has aligned herself with other of the ancient Olympians, who are killing off rivals in an attempt to prolong their own lives. But these anti-gods have become corrupted in their desperation to survive, horrific caricatures of their former glory. Athena will need every advantage she can get, because immortals don’t just flicker out.

Every one of them dies in their own way. Some choke on feathers. Others become monsters. All of them rage against their last breath.

The Goddess War is about to begin. 
Antigoddess comes out September 10, 2013.

Confessions of a Hater by Caprice Crane

As Hailey Harper is packing for move from New York to California, she comes across her older, popular sister's diary entitled, "How to Be a Hater."  Hailey uses her sister's tips to give herself a makeover as she enters her new high school, only to discover she has no interest in being friends with the popular kids.  As she forms real friendships with other girls who are usually invisible, Hailey decides to use her sister's diary to beat the popular girls at their own game.

It was a way less good version of Mean Girls.  Instead of mean girls we call them "haters."  To teens actually use the term "haters?"  I felt the "teen" language was very forced in this book.  Maybe it's actually spot on, but from what I've overheard of girls talking to each other in class, I would say this book sounded, well, like an adult trying to make her characters sound like cool teenagers.  And it was a little painful.

So yes, Hailey loses weight and gets a new wardrobe and decides to be confident and is immediately taken under the wing of the most popular clique in school, lead by queen bee Skyler.  Hailey then realizes these girls are total bitches and doesn't want to hang out with them, so she goes and finds her own friends.  But now she's a target for the mean girls.  I mean, the haters.  She makes some friends and then they decided they will fight back against the haters, using Hailey's sister, Noel's diary as a guidebook.

It was too much of everything.  Every possible teenage cliche was thrown in here, and it was just too much.  We have Hailey's new best friend Anya who got pregnant last year.  We have another girl who shoplifts.  We have teen Adderall snorting.  We have parent's having an affair.  We have dating the boy who use to date the popular girl.  We have awkward first blow-job moments.  We have friends cheating with another friend's boyfriend.  Are we missing anything?  And out of all the drama that was happening, the only one that kind of related to the plot was Anya having been pregnant.  Emily being a shoplifter?  Totally irrelevant.  Kura snorting Adderall, ODing and ending up in the hospital?  Random.  There's a couple mentions of Hailey being worried about her, and then at the very end like two sentences about how Kura OD, was hospitalized but don't worry she's going to be fine.  What?  What was the point?  The blow job scene?  Completely gratuitous.  And Hailey decides she's going to make it extra special and sucks on Altoids to make it tingly and ends up causing her boyfriend considerable pain.  Just weird.

There were too many plot points that went nowhere.  Too much popular brand name dropping.  Too many characters who just seemed to be there to be "the shoplifting one."  "The fat one."  "The drug snorting one."

Watch Mean Girls again instead.  Lots more fun.

Confessions of a Hater comes out August 27, 2013.

Giveaway: Love in the Time of Global Warming by Francesca Lia Block

 A fabulous giveaway for you!  An ARC of Francesca Lia Block's Love in the Time of Global Warming!

Seventeen-year-old Penelope (Pen) has lost everything—her home, her parents, and her ten-year-old brother. Like a female Odysseus in search of home, she navigates a dark world full of strange creatures, gathers companions and loses them, finds love and loses it, and faces her mortal enemy.

In her signature style, Francesca Lia Block has created a world that is beautiful in its destruction and as frightening as it is lovely. At the helm is Pen, a strong heroine who holds hope and love in her hands and refuses to be defeated.

This is a short one! Giveaway runs until Friday, August 2, 2013.

This giveaway is now closed.

Conjured by Sarah Beth Durst

Eve has no memory.  She doesn't remember where she lived before, what she looked like before or what her name was.  If she tries to use her magic abilities, she has terrible visions and loses consciousness.  She has been told she's in a witness protection program, protected from a powerful magic-welding serial killer.  Eve remembers nothing of this, and everyone seems to be waiting.  Waiting for her to remember...something.

I had a hard time getting into this at first.  I found the beginning dragged, and you have so little information about what's going on and I found this annoying rather than intriguing.  But I stuck with it and it got much more interesting.  And pretty dark.

Eve not only has no memories of her life before now, but she suffers random memory erases.  She might find herself suddenly sitting at a table, and the last thing she remembers is from three weeks ago.  She keeps losing days, and she doesn't know why.  And no one will explain anything to her.  Eve wants to feel safe, but she doesn't know who to trust because her memory is so spotty.  The only person she really feels comfortable with is with Zach, who Eve meets while working at the library.  Zach is completely non magical, but when he kisses Eve, he can use her magic.  And if doesn't make Eve pass out.

Spoiler

News

Amazon adds a comics and graphic novel imprint.  From PW.

Author Curtis Sittenfeld lists ten books she never gets tired of reading to her kids.  From PW.

Book trilogies and series - what's the point?  From The Guardian. 

Apparently teens still love print media and "traditional" library services.  From SLJ.

Diamond releases a list of Common Core graphic novels.  From PW.

Joyce Valenza's top 25 websites for teaching and learning.  From TheDigitalShift.

Librarians winning Eisners.  From PW.

Alex London talks to Marie Lu.  From SLJ.

Things aren't so great for librarians in Florida.  From SLJ.

Amy Elizabeth Smith, author of All Roads Lead to Austen: A Yearlong Journey with Jane, ranks all of Austen's novels.  From PW.

Tamora Pierce wows YALSA at Edwards celebration.  From SLJ.

Gated by Amy Christine Parker

Lyla has grown up in the Community.  It's safe there.  Nothing bad happens.  Everyone works together, and their leader, Pioneer, takes care of them all.  But Pioneer has predicted the end of the world, and only they, in the Community, will be saved.  Although she's been raised for this, as the time approaches, Lyla is having trouble saying goodbye to the world she knows.  It's even harder when some outsiders cause her to question all that Pioneer has told them.

When I read the description on the back, I wasn't totally sure what it was going to be about.  Was this a dystopia? It kind of sounded like a dystopia.  It was NOT a dystopia, which was kind of a relief.  I think, much like I experienced with vampires, I am reaching my dystopia threshold.  But this was not a dystopia, it was our world, and a kid in a cult.

The book did a very nice job of showing how perfectly intelligent people could be pulled into something like this.  Cults pray on people who are vulnerable, and Pioneer went looking for people after the terrorist attacks on 9/11.  People were scared, and the idea of living in a closed off community where things were safe was appealing.  Lyla's family had recently suffered the kidnapping of Lyla's younger sister, which completely broke her mother.  Her family jumped at the chance to leave a place that held so much pain.

Black Spring by Alison Croggon

Lina is the daughter of a village lord.  She has grown up with her companion, Damek, and they are inseparable, devoted to each other in a way no one understands.  Lina is a witch, and although wizards are revered and respected, withes are put to death.  Only Lina's status as a lord's daughter protects her.  But Lina's life is filled with tragedy, and long after he death, a stranger to the village uncovers the whole sad story.

It was Wuthering Heights.  And there really isn't much more to say.  In Alison Croggon's author blurb it says, "This book is my love letter to Emily Bronte, whom I've adored since I was a child."  So her love letter was rewriting Emily Bronte's book.  Plus wizards.

I did not like the original Wuthering Heights.  I am not a fan of Gothic romances, and had no patience for a book full of unpleasant people making their lives, and everyone else's, unpleasant.  They all came to a tragic end, and it's your own damn fault!  Ugh.  Couldn't stand it.  So knowing this was a retelling of Wuthering Heights, I was skeptical going in, but it might be good, you know, if the author decides to do something with it.

But Croggon did not do anything with it.  She just rewrote it.  Exactly as it was.  Only with a slight magic aspect.  A magic aspect, I might add, that added absolutely nothing.  What was the point of Lina being a witch, or there being wizards that wanted to kill her?  Nothing came of it.  It was just the Wuthering Heights story retold, with nothing original added.

So that was disappointing, and also made me wonder, could I do this?  Can I take a book in the public domain, essentially rewrite it, as it is, maybe throw a slight fantastical element in, and get it published?  Why aren't I doing that?

Black Spring comes out August 27, 2013.