Ode to chocolate chips

Earlier this week I got talking about poetry at random with some coworkers which reminded me that last week I'd been scrolling through my Facebook feed when I came across a haiku I wrote back in 2009 for a class. So, I'm posting that haiku as tonight's blog post on the subject of creative writing.

The chocolate chip:
Bringer of gooey delight, 
Tasty muffin mate. 

I was on a chocolate chip muffin kick at the time.

-- Ren

First Read Friday: The Chess Queen Enigma by Colleen Gleason

     Title: The Chess Queen Enigma (Stoker & Holmes, #3) [ARC]
     Author: Colleen Gleason
     Publisher: Chronicle Books
     Published: October 6, 2015
     Number of Pages: 351
     Genre(s): Mystery, Sci-fi, Steampunk, YA
     Date Read: October 25, 2015
     Acquired: Goodreads Giveaways

Summary: 
It is my great pleasure to introduce you this evening to one Miss Alvermina Holmes, daughter of Sir Mycroft Holmes, niece of the esteemed detective Sherlock. She would prefer that you call her Miss Holmes, or if you must use the familiar, Mina. Mina is every bit a Holmes, she is following in her uncle's famous footsteps as a master of deductive reasoning (although she still has much to learn). May I also introduce you to her associate Miss Evaline Stoker, sister of Mr. Bram Stoker, oh yes, and she's a trained vampire hunter. Together they form the team of Stoker & Holmes, under the guidance of the indomitable and infamous Miss Irene Adler they endeavor to become a crime fighting force to rival the likes of Holmes and Watson. 

The year is 1889 and our intrepid young heroines have been tasked by the Crown to act as diplomatic escorts for a foreign Princess as she attempts to restore the relationship between her country and England by returning a letter that will lead to a loss chess piece, a white queen. On the eve prior to their assignment to escort the Princess of Betrovia, Evaline gets drawn into a mystery involving her friend Pix. Inevitably everything goes bottoms up, the letter ends up stolen and Mina and Evaline are called in to track it, and the queen down. Mina deduces that their adversary in this endeavor is someone they have faced before, their own Moriarty if you will, a criminal mastermind known only as the Ankh. What, if anything does the Ankh and the missing chess queen have to do with Pix's mysterious client? And is everyone around them really who they appear to be?

Review:
I must preface this review by noting that the copy of the book that I read is an uncorrected advanced reader's copy that I received from the publisher via Goodreads Giveaways. Therefore, without having a finished copy of the book in hand I cannot say for certain whether or not any of the problems I had with this book actually appear in the final version of the novel. Overall, I really enjoyed this book. I love books that take characters we know and love (or historical figures in the case of Bram) and give them bigger and more complex lives than we saw them have in their own stories. In this instance those beloved characters serve as background characters to give the two main characters a reason for existing, but I love that. There are things that Mina Holmes and Evaline Stoker can do that Sherlock and Bram could not as characters.The steampunk meets urban paranormal fantasy mashup intrigues me as well, you can't have a character called Stoker without having vampires. This is the 3rd book in the Stoker & Holmes series, but it is the first one that I have read. I went to the public library last night and borrowed the other two.

I'm betting that many of the problems I had with this book stem from the fact that I didn't read the first two before reading it. The story felt rushed to me over all, and like there were too many side plots that the author had to hastily try and fold into the main plot...which caused the main plot to get sort of diluted. The Dylan story line, that felt out of place for me, but that one I definitely expect is because I haven't read the first two books yet. Wedging the vampire portion of the plot (the Pix storyline) into the puzzle of the chess queen seemed unnecessarily contrived, it seemed more like its purpose was setting up the 4th Stoker and Holmes book rather than driving the plot of this book. And the actual enigma of the chess queen? I feel like that was the one storyline in the book that didn't get as much attention as it should have, it just to me any way felt like that investigation was just happening whenever they didn't have something else on the go. And the last thing that bothered me? The something else on the go usually related to men. I feel like Mina and Evaline shouldn't be concerned about men or what men think of them etc. but Evaline spends time telling us how jealous she is of another female friend of Pix's and also trying to sort her feelings out for him. Mina spends quite a lot of time trying (and failing miserably) to deny that she has feelings for Inspector Grayling (the Lestrade to her Sherlock). I'm telling you, if I am picking up a novel called a Stoker and Holmes novel, I am NOT picking it up for the relationship dramas of young Victorian ladies, I am picking it up for kickass vampire hunting a damn good mystery...and I just feel like both of those things were somewhat afterthoughts in the novel. 

Enjoyable read, just not 100% what I was expecting. Won't stop me from reading the rest of the series though.

--Ren

On trying to blog again & one reason I love public libraries

Well, it's been a long time since I wrote a post. I have been very neglectful of this blog for quite awhile now. I managed to fall out of the habit of writing regularly and then avoiding starting up again became a habit. About a month ago I thought to myself that I missed writing and that I'd like to get back into it again, and a set of ideas for different themes I could use on this blog popped into my head. But then I just put it off because I wasn't in the mood to start writing/scared of starting again because I can be a real chicken about putting myself out there to be judged. My best friend Angie, who is my biggest supporter (along with my mother) and my biggest encouragement and inspiration, is doing a blog post every day this month. So after reading one of her posts earlier this week I told her how much I love reading her writing, and when I told her that she said she loved mine, and she's not the type of person to just return a compliment like that or to bullshit me so I believe her when she tells me my writing is good. So with that encouragement I thought, you know what, I'm going to do it too, I'm going to do a blog post every day from November 3rd to December 3rd to get back into the swing of writing. Well you'll notice it's November 5th now and this is my first post of the month, Tuesday night I got sidetracked by: CSI: Cyber, The Flash, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D and Scream Queens, and last night I had a few errands to run, some volunteer work to do, and I was just really into the work I was doing on the house I'm building for Angie in the Sims 2 (which I was still working on again tonight as well) so I didn't end up getting around to writing any entries. I decided that tonight, no matter what I was going to start, so my month of a blog post every day starts now, with this post, and will last until December 5th. After December 5th I will try to blog as regularly as possible, whether that will be every day or not remains to be seen but I will keep it up this time.

As far as they ideas for themes I had in mind, I thought that, in keeping with the theme I have for this blog that I would write about:

- General reading/writing topics on Mondays
- Fun things I come across at work (I work in an Academic Library) on Tuesdays
- Comics/Comic TV/Films on Wednesdays (Mostly so I can geek out about The Flash and AoS which come on on Tuesday nights)
- Libraries and library associations on Thursdays
- Book reviews on Fridays
- And time permitting on the weekends I thought I'd post some creative writing in order to help me get back into doing creative writing regularly too

So since it's Thursday, I thought I'd end this first post off by talking about libraries. Specifically tonight I'm going to talk about something I love about public libraries. I love the reader's advisory service offered by public libraries. For those of you that don't know what reader's advisory is, I offer the definition from the Online Dictionary for Library and Information Science:

Reader's advisory is a service provided by experienced public services library staffers who specialize in the reading needs of the patrons of a public library. A readers' advisor recommends specific titles and/or authors, based on knowledge of the patron's past reading preferences/requests. This type of information is also provided by reference works such as Reader's Adviser: A Layman's Guide to Reading published by Bowker. For genre fiction (sci-fi, fantasy, romance etc.), the standard guide is Genreflecting: A Guide to Reading Interests in Genre Fiction (Libraries Unlimited, 2000) by Diana Tixier Herald. For online readers' advisory, try Find a Good Book: If You Like... from the Hennepin County Library, or Book Browser from Barnes & Noble.  (Reitz)

 Like I said above, and I believe I've mentioned before, I work in an Academic Library, I am a trained library professional. I've taken a course specifically geared toward learning how to do reader's advisory for genre fiction. I provide reader's advisory for friends, family and people I know on Facebook quite regularly. But reader's advisory is not what I do every day, I don't know all the tricks and tools and I am willing to admit that. Although in this instance it took me 4 days before I was willing to admit defeat and turn to the Waterloo Public Library for help, because I felt like I should have been able to do it myself. After finishing Colleen Gleason's The Chess Queen Enigma last week I got it into my head that I would love to read some steampunk that is set in Victorian Canada instead of Victorian England, so I started hunting for some. After 4 days of trying the only thing I found was an anthology of short stories that won't even actually be published until next April! (Sad face, I want it now!) So this afternoon I admitted defeat and emailed the WPL for help sheepishly. I was totally, absolutely thrilled and impressed when I got a response less than an hour later with 3 titles that they had found that fit what I was looking for! And the staff member who contacted me was even helpful enough to place a hold on the item they had for me, put in an Interlibrary loan request for the one that could be obtained through ILL and submit a purchase order for the one that couldn't be! So yes, if you're ever stuck trying to find something for you next read, or for a specific type of book you aren't even sure exists, ask the staff at a public library, they are really good at it!

Ren

Cited:
Reitz, Joan M. "Online Dictionary for Library Sience - R." ODLIS. ABC-CLIO, n.d. Web. 05 Nov. 2015.

Reading Challenges: 2014 Wrap-up

Well clearly I failed at one portion of my self assigned reading challenge, in my initial post for my 2014 reading challenge I said I was going to post updated reading bingo cards every month, something which I obviously never did because there are no further posts about it on the blog. In fact there weren't many posts at all from me over the last year. A total of 6 posts for the year and that's it. 2014 was a strange year for me, I started writing e-book reviews for Parajunkee's view if you recall, but not long after I started doing that I was laid off from my job in early February and so all of my energy ended up going into job hunting so having to write a book review every two weeks became too much for me and I ended up stopping after only about 3 reviews :(. It took 6 months to land a new job, but I did and it's a wonderful job and I love it. It's a full-time permanent position and it makes me very happy. I've been there since August and I've got enough of a routine down now that I think I will have more time to blog this year. I've missed writing about books and reading actually so it'll be nice to do it again. I don't think I'll give myself a fixed schedule right off the bat, but that may come again.

So, let's get down to business. Reading challenges, I like them, I do them every year as you know. For 2014 I said my goal was 52 books, and I surpassed my goal again :D (thanks largely to finding the entire Archie Americana series on the shelves at the library I work at, so that knocked out 12 books in about 5 days which caught me back up after getting behind). I ended the year with 62 books. As you'll see if you visit my books in 2014 shelf on Goodreads, which I just linked to in the previous sentence, you'll notice an eclectic mix of comic books, really old YA, lots of new YA, a crapton of different types of fantasy, some mysteries, and a whole lot of harlequin and harlequin imprints books. I discovered the joys of paranormal fantasy romances last December in the push to finish my 2013 reading challenge. This year I discovered that those category romances you find in the bookshelves of department stores, or at least the Nocture category specifically, are actually pretty good! Yeah they're smutty, but I like smut, fanfiction got me into smut haha. They're fast little entertaining reads that I can get through in one sitting, I like books like that as I have mentioned before. If you go back and re-read the post about my 2014 reading challenge, or if you can just remember that far back, or even just back to the first sentence of this post, you'll remember that in 2014 I didn't just have a number in mind for books, but I decided to play Random House's reading bingo as well.

Let's have a look at my finished cards then and see how I did.

My Cards (as of Dec. 31, 2014)

General reading bingo:

Young Adult reading bingo:

Out of both cards there were only 6 squares that I wasn't able to fill in with any of the books I read. I did read a book set in Paris, but it wasn't a YA book so I couldn't count it. 

Coming up next? A post about my 2015 reading challenge :)

The Queen of Swords by Nina Mason #BlogTour

Check out my review for today over at Parajunkee's View: The Queen of Swords by Nina Mason #BlogTour http://ift.tt/1rP8GqS

Feature & Follow – #190 #FF

Feature&Follow Fridays are a blog hop hosted by Parajunkee & Alison Can Read.  Each week a different question is posted by the hosts & the followers post their answer!  This is a great opportunity for bloggers to network and interact. 

This week’s question –

Change the Plot. If you could, what book would you change the ending or a plot thread? Go ahead and do it...change it.

This is something I think about a lot actually. Pretty much every time I finish a book I stop and think about how I would have done it if I were the author. If I could change any ending of any book though, I would change the end of Mockingjay I know why Suzanne Collins did what she did with Prim and I know it's not supposed to sit well with the reader but I don't care, I would change it in a heartbeat. At that point, with everything else that Katniss had dealt with, to do that to her too was just absolutely needless, it really makes it feel like the sacrifice that started the entire revolution was a little bit in vain.

Following me: Use whichever method you prefer! The sidebar has options for email, GFC, G+, and RSS!

- Ren

Reviewing at Parajunkee's View

So I mentioned in my last post, very briefly, that I am now an e-Book Reviewer over at Parajunkee's View. I've written 2 reviews there so far, the second one went live today. Going forward, each time one goes live I will share a link here on the blog. For now I am sharing the first two here together: 

#Review of Netherworld by Lisa Morton

#Review of Queen of Hearts: Volume 1 - The Crown by Colleen Oakes

Enjoy!

- Ren

The Goodreads Tag #goodreadstag @goodreads

My best friend Angie told me that she was recording a video and that it was for something that I should include on my blog, so of course I asked what it was, and I was promptly linked to Sarah at A Little Bit of Literature's The Goodreads Tag post which is of course right up my alley. 

1. What was the last book you marked as 'read'?

Queen of Hearts by Colleen Oakes so that I could write a review of it for Parajunkee's View, where I am the new e-Book Reviewer. My review goes live early next week and I will be linking to it here when it does :)


2. What are you currently reading?

I have a couple of e-Books, and one print on the go that I started awhile back and that have been sitting stagnant because I got distracted by other books. I'll get them all finished at some point. The book that is currently my active book is probably J.K. Rowling's The Casual Vacancy which has been sitting on my to-be-read shelf since it came out, I figured now was a good time to actually pick it up and start it, so I picked it up the other day and I've read the first few chapters. 


3. What was the last book you marked as 'TBR'?

I have a huge TBR list, both virtual and physical, and I am constantly adding to it. The most recent book added to my virtual TBR list on Goodreads is A.G. Howard's Ensnared which is the 3rd book in her Alice in Wonderland adaptation series and will come out in 2015. The book most recently added to my physical TBR shelf is Bedlam's Bard by Mercedes Lackey which I borrowed from a friend after asking her which Mercedes Lackey book I should start with if I wanted to get into her stuff.

4. What book do you plan to read next?

I try not to pick books ahead of time because usually when I do this I end up feeling forced to read that book even if it's not at all what I am in the mood for. So I let my mood dictate what I am going to read next, which is probably why my TBR list is so long but oh well. That all being said the next book I know for sure I will be reading is the next book I'll be reviewing for Parajunkee's View, and it will be one of:  The Queen of Swords, The Casquette Girls or Gift of the Phoenix. 

5. Do you use the star rating system?

Short answer yes. Long answer, my way of setting a rating doesn't have any fast or hard rules, it's very fluid. There are different reasons I could give a book a 5 star rating, for example all the Harry Potter books get 5 stars because I love absolutely everything about them, but I also rated TFIOS at 5 stars, am I as obsessed with it as HP? No. But it wrecked me emotionally so it deserved 5 stars. And then there's the low end of the scale where even if I absolutely laughed my self silly enjoying the book if it is badly written it will get no more than 2 stars.

6. Are you doing a 2014 Reading Challenge?

Yes I am! two! I am doing the Goodreads 2014 Reading Challenge, my goal is 52 I am already at 12. I am also doing the Random House Reading Bingo cards, I know you only need to get a line to win but I am so totally aiming to fill the entire card for both adult and YA.

7. Do you have a wishlist?

I have multiple wishlists. Seriously. I have the "books I want eventually list" the "books I want ASAP" list and the "if you want to buy me a gift buy me these books" list.


8. What book do you plan to buy next?

Champion by Marie Lu because I need to know how that series ends!! I keep forgetting that it's actually out so I haven't bought it yet! I was going to buy it when I went to the World's Biggest Bookstore last month but I also had Dangerous Women and Rising Red in my hands and we still had a few more hours of walking ahead of us so two heavy hardcovers was enough!

9. Do you have any favourite quotes, would you like to share a few?

Most definitely, I think everyone who reads probably has at least one quote that they love; there's Snape's infamous, "Always." from Deathly Hallows of course, but that's not the only one from Harry Potter, JKR is just a fount of favourite quotes for me. There are also a few C.S. Lewis quotes that I am especially fond of such as: “What you see and what you hear depends a great deal on where you are standing. It also depends on what sort of person you are". And Douglas Adams, I can't forget him, the man who gave us the beautiful wisdom of "I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be." and "Don't Panic".

10. Who are your favourite authors?

I have many: J.K. Rowling, Lewis Carroll, Douglas Adams, Patricia C. Wrede, Garth Nix, Eoin Colfer, Kelley Armstrong, C.S. Lewis, and Rick Riodran. 


11. Have you joined any groups?

Yes but I don't actively follow any of them...

12. Are there any questions you would like to add?  

What upcoming 2014 new book are you most looking forward to? My answer would have to be, so far, of the books that I actually remember are coming out this year is A.G Howard's Unhinged which is already sitting on my shelf waiting for me to get around to it.

If you do either a video of blog post of your own please comment with a link! I would love to read your answers!

- Ren

#Review: The Fault in Our Stars by @realjohngreen

     Title: The Fault in Our Stars
     Author: John Green
     Publisher: Dutton Books
     Published: January 1, 2012
     Number of Pages: 313
     Genre(s): YA, Realistic Fiction
     Date Read: February 9, 2014
     Acquired: Waterloo Public Library

Summary: 
Hazel Grace Lancaster is dying. This is not a secret. This is not new. Hazel has been dying since she was born, as have we all been. Because dying is a side effect of living. But if you really want to get technical, Hazel is actively dying whereas the rest of us are passively dying, and she has been actively dying since they found the cancer in her body. Her cancer has always been terminal, she's never had an X chance of surviving, there's never been a surgery to take the cancer out, because it's not that kind of cancer. She has accepted all of this with a grace befitting a girl whose middle name is Grace, she has accepted that she will cease to be sooner rather than later, and she just wants to get out with as little bit of a mess as possible. She doesn't want to be a grenade in the lives of the people who she loves and who love her.

She thinks she has a choice. Right up until the moment that Augustus Waters walks into her life, she is right. But Gus changes everything. They suddenly find themselves together on a whirlwind journey that only leads to one inevitable ending. Absolute and complete heartbreak.

Review:
Oh. My. Gods. John Green what have you done to me!? Oh but does this book ever live up to all of the hype about it. Mr. Green you are as spectacular an author as you are an entertainer sir, and you are an exceptional entertainer in my eyes so draw your conclusions on how I feel about your writing from that statement.

I had seen John Green's book in the Library, while shelving them, but I had never bothered to pick one up and read the dust jacket. And then I came across the YouTube Mental_Floss list show. Well that show is right up my alley, educational and entertaining, and hosted by John Green. As I worked my way through the playlist I said to myself, before he ever mentioned his books in the videos, "Gee I wonder if this is the same John Green who wrote those YA novels everyone is talking about." Well of course he's the same John Green. Still didn't make me pick up his books, but it did drive me to his other videos (CrashCourse is AMAZING and I watched all of the humanities videos in under a month, omg.). It was as I was working my way through CrashCourse US history, with all the hype building for the TFiOS movie, that I decided that I should check out his books. So I put The Fault in Our Stars on hold at the WPL, and while I was waiting I went out and bought Looking for Alaska (which is now on the to-be-read shelf of course, because my hold came in).

TFiOS arrived this past Thursday at the library, and obviously, since I am now writing this review I have finished reading it. I started it Friday night and I devoured it in three dedicated sittings in between bouts of watching Olympic Slopestyle (YES THAT IS ONE WORD, AND A REAL WORD GOOGLE, NO I WILL NOT HYPHENATE IT!) Snowboarding and Luge; and working on job applications, with a little smattering of John Green on the side because the last video for Crash Course US History was posted. I knew a little of what I was getting myself into having been watching John Green videos lately and having watched the trailer for the movie, and being brutally honest, I didn't think I was going to like it, like at all. I am not usually a Realistic Fiction fan. I am all about the escapism of literature, but at the same time, one of my favourite things about literature is well written, intelligent, sharp witted, and insightful characters. This book is chock full of those types of characters. Hazel and Augustus, even the names, especially his, conjure to mind images of old scholars in tweed jackets with leather patches on the elbows. They are not that image, they are young and they are funny, and they are dying. They are fully aware of the tragedy of their circumstances and they both have a deliciously black sense of humour. Which I can fully appreciate. My own family, myself included, is known for our wickedly dark sense of humour. 

This is not a happy book, there is no happy ending, there is tragedy and there is death, but as I said throughout it all there is humour. I think it is a truly special thing when a book that is essentially all about dying, death and the tragedy of lost love can still have a current of humour running from cover to cover. More than once I found myself moved to near tears (that is not to say your book could not induce tears in someone else Mr. Green, but I am one of those silly over emotional people that has an easier time crying over tiny things rather than big things, and your book is a very big thing indeed Sir.), but for every one of those moments there were two where I was laughing loudly, smiling, or snorting to keep myself from laughing at something that was probably meant to be serious.

This book resonated with me, I am not a cancer kid, but I have been affected by cancer many times over. We lost my father directly after a cancer operation four days before Christmas in 2002. Before that there was my Grandmother, before that my Uncle Jim, and even before that there was my Mother's sister, for whom I am named, but who I have never met, because she was a cancer kid, she died when she was 9. Since I am being honest, all of that was why I didn't want to read this book initially, because I didn't want to read about a young girl who had to face the awfulness that is cancer. But that is in the end what makes this book so good, Hazel handles the awfulness with a complete and devastating honesty. And I am emotionally devastated having finished this book. Because every page makes you think, and every page makes you thankful for the people and the things in your life that you love and that love you. 

So maybe it's the combination of the sheer emotionality of this book, combined with the feeling I always get about the Olympics, but I am sitting here bereft feeling both simultaneously like an insignificant speck upon the Universe, but also a complete and utter triumph because I am here, and I am living, and I am able to sit here and contemplate the way a fictional book has impacted my worldview, and that's not something that everyone can do. Sometimes we need to be reminded of that in order to remember that some of the things we take for granted every day are actually a BFD.

What am I trying to get at then? GO AND READ THIS BOOK. That is what I am trying to get at. It is just so well written, and moving, and powerful. And you need to read it. Now. Or you know not, really in the end it's up to you, but I think you should read it and I think everyone should read it. It should become required reading in high schools.

Now if you'll excuse me, I am going to try and decide what book to read next, and watch some more Luge! Well after I write the summary anyway, because I wrote the review first...

--Ren

Random House Reading Bingo 2014 - My Game Boards

So it's the start of a new year and that means the start of a new yearly reading challenge. In 2013 my original goal was 52, but in June I realised that I was too far behind pace due to several things, but no excuses. Realising I was so off pace I scaled my goal back to 35, come December I was still running behind, and then I discovered some really interesting paranormal fantasy series' AND the joy's of the Download Library (The Waterloo Public Library's e-book collection). With those two things I ended up passing my goal, and if I hadn't had to keep waiting for holds to come in, I would have made my original goal. I ended up at 50/35.

This year I decided to set the same goal, 52, or a book a week. As of today, I am 2 books ahead of the game, that's right I've already read 3 books this year :D (and I've got a 4th and a 5th on the go!). I've also decided to track my books (or at least some of them) a second way. Random House posted their annual Reading Bingo cards early this week, and as I was reading through them I noticed that all 3 of the books I've read so far could fit onto the card, so I'm playing! Here are the original cards for reference: 

General Reading Bingo - YA Reading Bingo

My Cards (as of Jan. 11, 2014)

Because I'm playing this game, it's part of my goal of reading 52 books, to make sure that I fit a book for each of these squares into that 52. I'm strategically leaving the free space for a book that DOESN'T fit any of the other criteria! I'll post updated cards once a month until I've completed them.

How many book are you hoping to read this year? Are you doing any other secondary challenges?

-- Ren