YA Fiction: Psyche in a Dress by Francesca Lia Block

Publisher: Joanna Cotler Books (HarperCollins)
Date: 2006
Format: hardback
Acquired: purchased from Bookcloseouts.ca
Read: because I love myth retellings
Pages: 116
Reading time: 45 minutes

Psyche, seventeen, abandoned by her mother, used only as an actress by her father, has never known Love - until he climbs through her window one night. The two become lovers, even though Psyche has never seen Love's face. But one night she chooses to reveal his true form, and, tormented by self-doubt, Psyche chases Love away forever. She yearns to be transformed as the women in the ancient Greek myths were, and embarks on a journey through Hell and mythology to discover herself and find her true Love once again.

What verse novels lack in details, they more than make up in lyricism. Francesca Lia Block's Psyche in a Dress is no exception. Her writing and the story are unique, creative, dark, insightful, raw, engrossing, heartbreaking - in short, the makings of an amazing novel. I started this book thinking it would be just a retelling of the tale of Cupid and Psyche + modern high school drama. What I got was so much more. Psyche in a Dress transcends both of these expectations. It covers multiple dramatic Greek love tales (in fact, a basic understanding of Greek mythology is almost essential to completely understanding the plot) as Psyche morphs from Psyche (of course) to Echo, Eurydice, Persephone, Demeter, and herself. Modern high school drama? There's none. Instead, you get exploitative father-daughter relationships, masochistic dating, slave driving employers, and mothers who just want what's best for their children.

I also started reading Psyche in a Dress thinking that I'd read half of it one night and half of it another. I read it straight through, non-stop, and never even thought of putting it down. The story, in all its simplicity and darkness, is that engrossing - you just completely lose yourself in it. Also, by the ending of the novel I was about to cry, and that's extremely rare for me and books. High emotions and I don't get along well, but we were beginning to here.

Literary Hop Winner!

Thanks to everyone who entered my giveaway as part of the Literary Blog Hop! SusieBookworm has gained some new followers, and if it gains only eleven more, there will be another giveaway in honor of reaching 250. :) But for now, the winner of Grendel by John Gardner is...

Victoria Zumbrum!

Please check your e-mail for the message I am about to send, Victoria, and I'll get your book mailed out to you by the beginning of next week!

In My Mailbox #13

How's everyone been lately? I apologize for being slow on posting, but I only have two more weeks left before I'll (hopefully) be able to have more reading time.

For review:
I, Robot: To Protect by Mickey Zucker Reichert (publisher)
Bright and Distant Shores by Dominic Smith (Atria Galley Alley)

Won:
The Hidden Goddess by M.K. Hobson (thanks, Mary and Candace!)
Came with an awesome and beautiful fan bag and lavender sachet, too!
Liesl and Po by Lauren Oliver (thanks, Once Upon a Twilight!)
The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater (thanks again, Once Upon a Twilight!)

From Random Buzzers:
Ingenue (The Flappers #2) by Jillian Larkin
A Time of Miracles by Anne-Laure Bondoux
Your Own, Sylvia by Stephanie Hemphill
The Other Countess (Lacey Chronicles #1) by Eve Edwards

Purchased:
Omega by Camille Flammarion (Amazon)

Mooched:
Cherokee Dance and Drama by Frank G. Speck and Leonard Broom

Literary Giveaway Blog Hop!

It's been a while since I participated in a blog hop, so I thought I'd join a new one hosted by Judith at Leeswammes' Blog! She hosts these periodically throughout the year, and I've enjoyed entering the giveaways - no YA or romance books allowed, and a lot of people give away classics.

So what am I giving away? A copy of Grendel by John Gardner! I love Gardner's novels and read this one back in July; here's my review. The copy is very lightly used, with the same cover as pictured below.

To enter: Leave a comment on this post with your e-mail. If you're a GFC follower or e-mail subscriber, let me know for some extra points. Following is not required, but it's greatly appreciated! US addresses only, due to shipping. The giveaway's open from October 15 to October 19.

Don't forget to check out all the other great blogs: Leeswammes Devouring Texts The Book Whisperer Seaside Book Nook The Scarlet Letter (US only) Rikki's Teleidoscope Bibliosue Curled Up With a Good Book and a Cup of Tea The Book Diva's Reads Gaskella Lucybird's Book Blog Kim's Bookish Place The Book Garden Under My Apple Tree Helen Smith Sam Still Reading Nishita's Rants and Raves Ephemeral Digest Bookworm with a View The Parrish Lantern Dolce Bellezza Lena Sledge Blog Book Clutter I Am A Reader, Not A Writer (US only) The Blue Bookcase Book Journey (US only) The House of the Seven Tails (US only) In One Eye, Out the Other (US only) Read, Write & Live Fresh Ink Books

Living, Learning, and Loving Life (US only) Bibliophile By the Sea Laurie Here Reading & Writing Reviews Amy's Book World (US only) Teadevotee Joy's Book Blog Word Crushes (US only) Thinking About Loud! Kinna Reads Sweeping Me Minding Spot (US only) Babies, Books, and Signs (US only) Lisa Beth Darling Tony's Reading List SusieBookworm (US only) Tell Me A Story Close Encounters with the Night Kind Nerfreader Mevrouw Kinderboek (Netherlands, Belgium) Boekblogger (Netherlands) In Spring it is the Dawn No Page Left Behind Elle Lit

Come Back Later: The Dovekeepers by Alice Hoffman

Source: publisher (Scribner)

Great book, wrong time. As I received my ARC from the publisher (either in a giveaway or for review, through Shelf Awareness), I feel like I need to write something about this novel, though I haven't finished it. Yet.

Reasons for not continuing reading:
1. School - I have, at most, an hour a day to read, and this comes late at night. Sometimes it's hard to justify reading for pleasure rather than doing homework.
2. Interest - The Dovekeepers isn't boring, but when I have limited time to read, an exciting book is going to get me to read more than a less-exciting book.
3. Literary-ness and reading time - In one week I managed to read less than 200 pages of a 500-page book, and I haven't even cracked the cover this week. Hoffman's writing is great, but it's literary, so it takes me longer to read it. Not good when I don't have much time to read.

As soon as school lets up some, I will go right back to reading this. As I've already mentioned, Hoffman is an awesome writer, and I love the blend of historical fiction, fantasy, and Jewish beliefs. I love how Hoffman incorporates said Jewish beliefs into a novel without making it seem like most religious-associated fiction - trying to preach to you. The stories Hoffman is telling are amazing and interesting, but at this point it's going to take me at least a month to finish the book, and it deserves way more than just 2% of my attention.

Sci-Fi: Salvation City by Sigrid Nunez

Publisher: Riverhead Books
Date: September 2010
Format: paperback
Acquired: from publisher
Read: for review (I received my copy of this book in return for an honest review)
Pages: 280
Reading time: three days

Thirteen-year-old Cole lives at some point in the near future. The United States, not to mention the rest of the world, has recently been ravaged by a flu pandemic of epic scope that left Cole an orphan shortly after his family moved from Chicago. Adopted by an evangelical minister and his wife from Salvation City, a town populated almost entirely by other fundamentalist Christians, Cole adjusts to his new life and new faith while trying to figure out his place in the post-flu world.

The apocalypse: Only recent events could make Nunez's vision of an apocalyptic event scary. Unlike most post-apocalyptic novels, the author doesn't try to make the flu pandemic some awfully thrilling, incredibly dramatic event. The pandemic is scary because it's relatively commonplace. I was reminded of the combined swine flu/regular flu epidemic that swept through my marching band last year. Over a period of two weeks, close to half the band got sick. Fortunately, no one even came close to being hospitalized, much less died, but imagine if this flu had been super-contagious, resilient to drugs, and carrying a low recovery rate - the death toll would have mounted up, fast, as the sickness spread not only around the group, but to others as well. Such is the case with the pandemic Nunez describes, and it's not too hard to imagine after all the recent flu scares.

The post-apocalypse: Cole's life with the evangelical Pastor Wyatt and his wife, Tracy, was not like how I expected it to be. Life after the pandemic, at least in Salvation City, isn't that much different from how it was before, so Cole's position is much the same as any other orphan kid who's lost his or her parents in some awful event. And unlike post-apocalyptic books such as Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower that portray their future's fundamentalist Christians as dystopian extremists, Nunez is more sympathetic to her characters. I expected Salvation City to become a dystopia, but it's not. By the end, it's become more of a bildungsroman than anything else.

Overall: Salvation City isn't exciting (in fact, not much really happens for the last 2/3 or so of the book), but it's well-written, interesting, and different from most other science fiction books you'll read (besides the whole flu pandemic thing, it's not really even sci-fi). The ending meanders a bit before reaching its final purpose as a coming-of-age tale, but it's not an unpleasant journey. It's just best to know what to not expect from this book before you read it, so you don't get stuck with a novel you find boring because you're more of a Hunger Games-type book fan.

In My Mailbox # Something: Two-Week Edition

So I'm lazy and IMMs will only be posted when I have significant numbers of new books accumulated. Hey, school is stressful. At this point, I'm glad I'm posting reviews twice a week (edited: okay, so less than twice a week now. Thank you school, band, SAT, and college apps).

For review:
The Jumbee by Pamela Keyes (BookTrib Review Crew)

Won:
In the Name of the King by A. L. Berridge (thanks, History Girls!)
Reign of Madness by Lynn Cullen (thanks, In the Hammock!)
Reckless by Cornelia Funke (thanks, All-Consuming Books!)
A Long Long Sleep by Anna Sheehan (thanks, Endlessly Bookish!)
Lockdown by Alexander Gordon Smith (thanks, Scooper Speaks and Reading Addict!)
The Psychology of Twilight ed. by E. David Klonsky and Alexis Black (thanks, Smart Pop!)

So I ended up with two copies of Lockdown and Smart Pop sent me a finished copy of their Twilight anthology in addition to my ARC - this means a giveaway! When I reach 250 followers...but I've also signed up for Leeswammes' Literary Blog Hop Giveaway in two weeks, when I'll be giving away my extra copy of Grendel.

Borrowed:
Pretty Little Liars #1 by Sara Shepard (from a friend for our teen book club)

Mooched:
The Clansman by Thomas Dixon
Well, this one warrants some explanation: I am NOT a white supremacist or neo-Nazi or something. I am an (amateur) literary historian and this is part of literary history. My mom didn't even look at me strangely when this showed up in the mail. But then, some of our fellow historical re-enactors have some odd ways, so maybe she's just used to it.