What My Brothers Taught Me

Some of you (most of you) know that I have two older brothers, Aaron and Adam. Aaron is thirteen months older than me, Adam is my twin brother and older by seven minutes. It's been a long-standing family joke that in my unwillingness to be born combined with my in-born challenging nature and desire for more space, I kicked him out of the womb.

They have both gone off to college now, Adam yesterday and Aaron today in the early morning.

The house is unnervingly, disturbingly, too bloody quiet without them. 

Aaron, Adam and I shared six years of childhood together before our youngest sister Julianna was born. Julianna increased our sibling shenanigans, but now we became the Flores Four, as opposed to the Flores Three. In the six years we shared, we had Jurassic Park (which is where Aaron got his dinosaur preoccupation), Babar King of the Elephants (which is where Aaron and I got our delusions of royalty), The Many Adventures of Winnie-the-Pooh, The Princess Bride (which is where Adam and Aaron got most of their jokes), Bible stories, pretend games and at one point, a bed room. (They had a bunk bed and I had my own.)

I know most girls (well, none of my nearest and dearest friends) don't have the strange situation of being a combined younger sister and twin sister. I possess that singular distinction all on my own. And I know in most cases, most girls are not so tightly entwined as I am with my brothers. I know their moods like I know my own, they know my temper and preferences better than some of my own dearest girlfriends. I think it would be no stretch to say, that before I understood how wonderful having female friends could be, my brothers were my best friends.

They taught me about video games (though they both knew I didn't care), the names of dinosaurs (though I mispronounced them most of the time), and Monty Python sketches. They showed me how guys think and how they react and, yes, what mistakes not to make when it comes to matters of the heart. They kept my secrets and I kept theirs and we shared most of them together. Adam taught me how to laugh and patiently helped me through my math homework. Aaron taught me how to dream and write. Adam willingly played chauffeur for my outings to the library (though he can't stand them) and when we were driving together, he'd play his music, loud and scream-y and sometimes (most of the time) near incomprehensible, and explain to me why he liked it, what put it above the rest. Thanks to Adam, I know about Paramore, A Day to Remember, Pierce the Veil, La Dispute, and Thousand Foot Krutch.

They both have patiently endured my Taylor Swift, my hormonal mood swings and my decidedly strange sense of humor. They let me read aloud my favorite books to them, Howl's Moving Castle, Percy Jackson and Sammy Keyes. They have made me laugh, made me cry, broken my heart and mended it again, gave me strength and gave me patience and yelled "PWNED!!!!" when I did succeeded.

No girl in the world has such brothers as I do. No one could be as lucky and as blessed as I am.

Their return can not come fast enough.

Over & Out,
Rachel

Hopeless. Completely Hopeless

I. Can't. Stop. Watching. It.

It is just that awesome.

Can't freaking WAIT for December 14, 2012.

Well, I actually have things to say, besides starting 2012 off with my overwhelming fan-girling joy. No, really. I did! Stop looking at me suspiciously!!

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You're still looking.

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STOP IT!!!

Ahem. Where was I? Oh yes, things I wanted to say. What were they?

Oh yes, reviews! Because I promised. I keep my promises. Because Oi'm a good girl, Oi am!! (Bonus points to anyone who guesses the quote correctly.)

This is a first, two different books by the same author! A new favorite recently discovered by impulse (as usual),Laini Taylor. If you haven't heard of her, go pick up her stuff, because the lady can write. Really, truly write, like, create whole worlds and atmospheres in only a few paragraphs. Both of what she's written have been National Book Award finalists. I've been checking up on her website pretty regularly, so I've been seeing how her process works, and ya know, I like what I see. Quite a bit.

So, first review! Daughter of Smoke and Bone, her first full-length novel, first book of a trilogy. The story takes place in Prague, a welcome and refreshing change from New York, London, or Paris, your typical "cool-character" stomping grounds. Our heroine is Karou, blue-haired, multi-tattooed, multilingual art student, with ninety-three sketchbooks filled with beings she calls chimaera. She's endlessly surprisingly, completely mysterious, and at her core, very lonely. See, the chimaera in her book? They're real. They raised her from infancy. She's sworn never to talk about them to ordinary humans, for obvious reasons. Karou has no idea where she's come  from, who her parents are, and why the chimaera raised her at all. Brimstone, the taciturn, enigmatic leader of the group, refuses to tell her.

The greatest mystery of Karou's life? Brimstone's collection of...teeth. He has contacts over the world, hunters, scientists, human traffickers (urgh), who provide him with this unexpected commodity, human and animal both. What is the collateral?

Brimstone pays them in wishes. 


Got your attention yet?


This book must be savored, slowly, like hot chocolate on a winter's night. Or the best piece of tiramisu you've ever had. You can't just rush into it. It brims over with fairy tales, glitter, wishes, flight, angels and monsters, marionettes, and a surprise ending you will never see coming. Take my word for it. And oh, yeah, the mysterious hot boy who is by now requirement for YA literature? His name's Akiva and I want to marry him now. Not even joking. If I was a totally awesome, blue-haired girl like Karou, I'd be set. 

Second review! Lips Touch: Three Times, which is like a novella, but not quite. There are three separate stories, nothing in common with each other, except for one thing: They each feature a first kiss. The first story, Goblin Fruit, is about Kizzy, who hates her decidedly weird life, her weird family with their crazy superstitions, her still half-grown body that doesn't cooperate with her. Kizzy's a girl who makes me think of me, of all the girls who want. Not for any one thing, mind you, but for everything. To be beautiful, to be desired, loved, thrilling, inscrutable, dangerous and all around amazing. I still am that girl to a certain extent, but I've better channeled it now, into my writing. Kizzy's been warned all her life to beware of the goblins, who will tempt striving young woman with out-of-season fresh fruit and drive a girl out of her mind desire for their unnatural taste. But Kizzy doesn't listen and Jack Husk, the beautiful new boy at school who pays unexpected attention to her, just might be her first kiss...if he's not the death of her first.

The second story, Spicy Little Curses Such as These, takes place in British Raj, where readers get a look into another culture's version of Hell. Estella, called "the old bitch" by her countrymen, is the Ambassador to Hell. She bargains regularly with a demon, trading children's souls for the ones of wicked men and women. But the demon isn't satisfied. To make life harder for Estella, he insists on adding curses to their negotiations.  The worst one is when he curses a newborn baby girl with the most beautiful voice ever to come from human lips. Anyone who hears it will fall down dead on the spot. Anamique, the cursed girl, lives her life in self-imposed silence, until the handsome former soldier (fresh from the horror of World War I) James Dorsey falls in love with her and Anamique returns his love. It's a train wreck waiting to happen, and yet...Anamique, though silent, prevails and overcomes. She's easily the most intriguing character I've run across in a while.

The third and final story, Hatchling, is not be read lightly. It deals with some pretty adult issues, tangled up in a fantasy story with touches from the ancient religion of Zoroastrianism thrown in. Èsme lives a fairy-tale life with her mother, Mab. They know no one, they live alone with each other, and Èsme knows no other life but that. Until one day she wakes up to the howling of wolves...and her left eye suddenly turns ice-blue. Mab panics at the sight of it, and snatches her daughter away, running from the Druj, soulless, immortal shape-shifters. It's not unlike the changeling stories from European folklore, but much darker. Read it with caution, and carefully, or you'll miss key plot points. I missed parts of it myself when I first read it. 


Now, this possibly the longest blog entry I've written yet! If you've come this far, let me congratulate you...and hope you pick up the books I took so much time to review! You won't regret it.


Over & Out, 
Rachel

Gosh DARN It!

  

You realize what this means, people? 

It means I am going to have READ the dang book, WATCH the dang movie, and possibly develop another ridiculous book obsession. 

I hate that I am so easily swayed by a song from one of my favorite artists.  

Over & Out,

Rachel

The Day After (...Or Two)

Two days after Christmas and now I choose to update??!!

Wow, I'm lame.

Anyways--great news, wonderful news, fantastic news, absolutely awesome and amazing news!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I HAVE A NEW LAPTOP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

After four years of struggling with my old one, which I've had since I was twelve, which is now sort of the family hand-me-down (though I wouldn't wish it on anyone), which by today's standards is like using a horseless carriage, or being powered by steam or coal, I write this entry on a beautiful, shiny new Acer laptop. My sweet girl handles like a dream, she does.

Did I just call my laptop a girl? Even though I've never understood that practice and I've always teased my brother Aaron about calling his laptop 'girl'?

Why yes. Yes, I did. And I totally get it now, even though I still think it's a little weird.

My mom and dad, who are the BEST parents in the history of parents, surprised me with this one for Christmas on Sunday. I totally and completely didn't even see it coming; all I saw on Christmas morning after coming home from church was a large wrapped package sitting away from the general debris. My brothers were handing envelopes in wrapped paper, which turned out to be the order forms for their new laptops, since they do need them. I was happy for them, of course, though I do remember thinking, "Okay, well, now that they have new laptops, maybe I'll get one of their old ones." It wasn't the brand new, shiny laptop I originally had in mind, but I figured, Okay, I can still work with that.

Then my mom said the mysterious wrapped package was me.

I had a thought in my mind, Oh, maybe it's a new laptop, but I dismissed it almost immediately. I knew I was getting a new laptop in the spring. That's what I was saving up for. I thought it was a new pair of boots. A very tall, heavy pair of boots, but I was okay with that too.

Then I started unwrapping it.

I saw the brown box first, with the words Acer on the side. I knew Acer was the same people who made my old laptop, but it didn't really register in my mind. It was like my brain was saying to my eyes, "I know that word, I know what it means, but it couldn't be, could it? Could it?" 


It was.

I screamed then, one sharp, short sound of joy and hysteria combined, ear-splitting enough to make Aaron protest, "Woman!" from the other side of the room. Then I started crying. Full on tears of joy were shed in my family's living room, my hand over my mouth and shoulders heaving. I kept saying over and over again, "You didn't? ...You did! You did, you did, you did..." like a broken record. It must've been five whole minutes before I could compose myself enough to lunge across the room and lock my father in a hug, sobbing and saying, "Thank you...thank you...thank you..."

Like I said: Best parents in the history of parents.

My cup runneth over that day, because of the generosity, the love, the blessings that my parents shared with us. And also more importantly, because of the blessings God has given to us, last year and this year. Two days after the fact and I still can't believe this beautiful machine is mine.

We're gonna catch fire, my girl and me. Just watch us run.

Over & Out,
Rachel

Pretty Things and Lovely Pictures

I. Have. REVIEWS!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thank you libraries who provide the books I desperately want to read, but am too lazy (or too cheap, take your pick) to buy for myself. But think of it as a way to discern if I really want to the book, or am I just seduced by a pretty cover.

The being seduced by a pretty cover bit is more likely. And do I commit that worse of childhood sins by, in fact, judging a book by it's cover? Yes. Yes, I do. I am not in the least bit ashamed. Ha-ha!

Anyways. Moving on. So, first up on the review docket is a book I've heard some really great things about, from critics and other published authors. The Night Circus, by Erin Morgenstern, is her debut novel and what a debut it is. The Night Circus takes place through the 19th to the early 20th century, all around the world. It's main setting is Le Cirque des Rêves or the Circus of Dreams, a name that suits it perfectly. It's a fantastical circus where the kind of beauty you only dreamed of exists, and as you read the book, you find yourself wishing that it did in the real world, just so you could see it for yourself. The story centers around two young magicians, real magicians, Celia Bowen and Marco Alisdair. They have been trained since childhood for a mysterious and fierce competition, Celia under her careless, sometimes cruel magician father, and Marco under an enigmatic man in a gray suit. Despite being competing against each other, Celia and Marco eventually fall in love, with Le Cirque des Rêves being the backdrop. 


As I read the book (devoured it, really), I kept thinking of one of my dearest friends, Jamie. I kept thinking, Jamie would love this book. The kind of beauty and elegance that exists in The Night Circus is exactly the kind she and I could spend hours gazing at, simply marveling. And I'm pretty sure the costumes and the acts described within it would send her into raptures too, if she were to see them exist in real time. Ms. Morgenstern write the story like a fairy tale, like a myth, like Shakespeare (and that is the highest compliment I can give anyone whose works I read). I kept skimming back through the pages, reading beautiful descriptions over and over. So, anyone who wants to get me a Christmas gift? The Night Circus is at the top. 


My next review is a children's book, the debut novel of William Joyce, best known for the Rolie Polie Olie animated series, Dinosaur Bob and Meet the Robinsons: Nicholas St. North and the Battle of the Nightmare King. In this work Joyce, along with Laura Geringer, take on what he calls the Guardians of Childhood, those mythic and elusive figures that only children can believe in, and maybe a few special adults. Starting with, just in time for Christmas, the one and only St. Nick, alias Santa Claus. But before he was St. Nick or Santa Claus, he was Nicolas St. North, dashing bandit and mythic highwayman of Russia. 

Nicholas St. North, the daring devil.

Yes. Santa Claus as a bandit. The Bandit King, no less. He is described as "he once defeated an entire regiment of cavalry with a bent steak knife--while he was eating." Remember what I said last entry about their being fantasy for children and then there was fantasy for children? I'm honestly not sure where this one lies. Because me, the incorrigible child at heart? I enjoyed this book, and I think any child under the age of twelve would too. And any child over the age of twelve might enjoy, but in the same way they might secretly believe in Santa Claus--they'd never admit it out loud. 


It's pretty much exactly the kind of book that only a really special child would enjoy, where the children are the heroes, the adults are kind and wisely (and in the case of Nicholas St. North, a swashbuckling buccaneer of fun and good times), the magic straightforward and simple (light--good, darkness--bad), and the villains are creepily evil. The story is again, simple enough. Pitch, the Nightmare King, has returned to do battle on earth and send every living thing nightmares. The only one who can stop him is the Man in the Moon, Tsar Lunar and the great wizard Ombric Shalazar, the last survivor of the great city of Atlantis. Ombric lives in Old Russia, in the enchanted village of Santoff Claussen (sound familiar at all?), where he teaches all who live within it's magical borders magic, curiosity and the languages of creatures (insect is included). When Pitch, the Nightmare King, returns to the land, help comes from an unlikely source: the titular Nicholas St. North. At first, Nicholas could care less about the oncoming onslaught of nightmares about the unleashed on the world. He just wants treasure, adventure and excitement. But the children of Santoff Claussen convince him to help them and the adventure begins. 


This is the book for a child who already knows and the adult who remembers what it was like, to believe in something so fiercely, it could come true with the power of that belief. 


I have a couple more reviews, but I'll save them for next time. To whet your appetites, as it were. So y'all come on back now, y'hear? I am chock full of devious, people. 


Over & Out,
Rachel


P.S. The next book in The Guardians series is E. Aster Bunnymund and the Battle of the Warrior Eggs. 
...I'm honestly not sure if that's really awesome or just extremely silly. 

The Return of the...Blog

Ahem. There are lots of things I could say, such as "I had work" or "I had school" or "I had fleas" (no, I didn't actually have fleas. No, really. That's just me making things up). Or I could just say, "I am a lazy bum and I humbly beg everyone's forgiveness for not updating earlier."

Yeah, I could just say that.

So yes. I'm back! And hopefully, more entries will be coming up here soon and I won't be acting like there aren't people waiting on me to actually open my mouth and say something. Though I'm pretty sure you guys all have lives of your own and do not, in fact, wait with baited breath for a new blog entry to come up here (though I wouldn't mind if you did. It would make me feel like my ramblings are worthwhile).

Apologies out of the way now? Good.

So it's a bit of a mark of embarassment for me (or at the very least, mark of a lack of ambition) that most of my reading material comes from the children or young adult fiction section at the library/Barnes & Nobles/Amazon. And okay, yes, I still read picture books. But only the ones with pretty pictures and good stories! I have my standards. They may be low, but I have them.

I have a whole list of children's books that I need to get on. The Invention of Hugo Cabret (because the movie looks beautiful and I want to read the book before I see it), The Humming Room (inspired by The Secret Garden...loveliest book about gardens ever), The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place: Book II: The Hidden Gallery (it's like Jane Eyre, for the younger generation) and just, a whole bunch of them, okay? I don't have time to name them all.

But I'm keeping up with the trends! I'm staying aware! I know what kids like to read, what works and what doesn't. And what goes beyond even my extended realm of disbelief. There was one book I tried to read, The Mousehunter. It's this alternate reality where there are different breeds of mice that are extremely valuable and there are pirates and sailors who hunt them down to sell. Now, I love me a good mouse story. Brian Jacques fan, right here. But even this one was sort of like..."You're risking life and limb for a special kind of mouse?" They weren't even talking mice, either. They were like...really specialized dog breeds. And sort of absurd, honestly. So that didn't work. Then there was this other book, Dormia, about a young boy who can do all kinds of incredible things, like karate or climb walls...only when he's asleep. And if that's not enough to raise your eyebrow, he's also the heir to an underground kingdom, whose royal line is apparently defined by this sort of thing.

There is fantasy for children and there is fantasy for children. The trick is knowing the line between the two. Another trick is writing well enough, passing a message important enough, crafting a story believable enough for adults to enjoy them too.

 And don't even get me started on the young adult genres. They go through trends like my little sister goes through tennis balls. I mean, first it was vampires and werewolves. Then it was fallen angels and angels falling in love with humans. Then zombies/ghosts/undead had to get in on the action. Then there's the mash-ups that have vampires, werewolves, fallen angels and (just for the heck of it) magic-users and let's throw in the Knight Templars, just for fun! Yes, I've read a book just like the one I described above. It wasn't that great, for obvious reasons.

I promise you all, there is a reason for my wandering ways. It's because I'm teaching myself, what makes a good book for children/teens to read? Is it a believable plot? A touch of fantasy? An inhumanly good-looking boy with mysterious origins? (They do seem show up quite frequently, I've noticed). Or (amazing thought!  Shocking thought!) a story that be enjoyed by everyone. It can be done. It can be done with amazing results. It's not impossible.

But you've got to educate yourself. What sounds good in your head can be completely ridiculous on paper--trust me, I've had a lot of experience with that one. And keep reading! Always read! That's why I'm always happy to see writers who actually published still read children and young adult books. It means I am not alone and that there are others who share my philosophy. Or my lack of motivation/ambition.

Over & Out,
Rachel

Eep!

Wow, November's almost done and I couldn't be bothered to post once? I truly am a lazy bum.

So, quite quickly, here are some things I'm thankful for (though I know it's two days late):

1) My brother Aaron came home for Thanksgiving, which is always a source of thanks.
2) Halcyon House is coming along quite nicely. Angsty-Ayden isn't really my thing, but it's kinda fun to indulge my inner emo-girl.
3) All the new books I've been reading over the past few weeks. Thank God for libraries and requesting. I have so many reviews to give you people!
4) The wonderful Thanksgiving dinner I shared with my family. *dreamy sigh* It's only once a year, but good heavens, it's worth it.
6) I've been accepted into Warner-Pacific University in Portland, Oregon.
5) That the Lord was gracious enough to bless me and my family with another year and provided for us in all ways.

I hope the rest of you also had a wonderful Thanksgiving and if you went shopping on Black Friday, God help  you. I swear crazy things happen when people's blood is up and there's bargains to be had. It's like we revert back to our primitive, "bring-home-the-biggest-prize" caveman instincts. I'll stay home and watch Indiana Jones, thank you very much.

Over & Out,
Rachel