Feature/Follow Friday

Feature & Follow Friday is a blog hop that expands your blog following by a joint effort between bloggers. Feature & Follow Friday is now hosted by TWO hosts: Parajunkee and Alison Can Read.

This week's question:

Q: What book would you love to see made into a movie or television show and do you have actors/actresses in mind to play the main characters?

Synopsis

Love conquers all, so they say. But can Cupid’s arrow pierce the hearts of the living and the dead—or rather, the undead? Can a proper young Victorian lady find true love in the arms of a dashing zombie? 

The year is 2195. The place is New Victoria—a high-tech nation modeled on the manners, mores, and fashions of an antique era. A teenager in high society, Nora Dearly is far more interested in military history and her country’s political unrest than in tea parties and debutante balls. But after her beloved parents die, Nora is left at the mercy of her domineering aunt, a social-climbing spendthrift who has squandered the family fortune and now plans to marry her niece off for money. For Nora, no fate could be more horrible—until she’s nearly kidnapped by an army of walking corpses. 

But fate is just getting started with Nora. Catapulted from her world of drawing-room civility, she’s suddenly gunning down ravenous zombies alongside mysterious black-clad commandos and confronting “The Laz,” a fatal virus that raises the dead—and hell along with them. Hardly ideal circumstances. Then Nora meets Bram Griswold, a young soldier who is brave, handsome, noble . . . and dead. But as is the case with the rest of his special undead unit, luck and modern science have enabled Bram to hold on to his mind, his manners, and his body parts. And when his bond of trust with Nora turns to tenderness, there’s no turning back. Eventually, they know, the disease will win, separating the star-crossed lovers forever. But until then, beating or not, their hearts will have what they desire.

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I would love to see Dearly Departed made into a movie, mainly because I think the whole steampunk Victorian era-meets-zombies things would make for an AWESOME movie! 

As far as the casting goes, I don't have any particular actors that I have my heart set on, but I have been watching the TV series Merlin recently, and I think that actress Katie McGrath would make for a great Nora Dearly.

As far as the rest of the cast goes, I've got nothing so far, but I haven't exactly put a lot of thought into it either. 

Hope you all have a great weekend! 

Review of A Brush of Darkness by Allison Pang (Adult)

Title: A Brush of Darkness Author: Allison Pang Pages: 343 Publication Date: Jan. 2011   Source: Free read of the month at Pocket After Dark

Back Cover

The man of her dreams might be the cause of her nightmares.

Six months ago, Abby Sinclair was struggling to pick up the pieces of her shattered life. Now, she has an enchanted iPod, a miniature unicorn living in her underwear drawer, and a magical marketplace to manage. But despite her growing knowledge of the OtherWorld, Abby isn’t at all prepared for Brystion, the dark, mysterious, and sexy-as- sin incubus searching for his sister, convinced Abby has the key to the succubus’s whereabouts. Abby has enough problems without having this seductive shape-shifter literally invade her dreams to get information. But when her Faery boss and some of her friends vanish, as well, Abby and Brystion must form an uneasy alliance. As she is sucked deeper and deeper into this perilous world of faeries, angels, and daemons, Abby realizes her life is in as much danger as her heart—and there’s no one she can trust to save her.

First Lines

"Cat piss and cabbages."

In a Sentence

With a fabulously funny protagonist and a creative mythological background, the only part of A Brush of Darkness I didn't fall completely for was the romance.

My Thoughts

I remember first adding A Brush of Darkness to my to-read list awhile ago when I read Tara's review of it at 25 Hour Books. Tara and I tend to have pretty similar tastes in books, so when she said that she really enjoyed it, I knew I'd have to give it a try. When I heard from Ashelynn at Gypsy Book Reviews that A Brush of Darkness was one of the free reads of the month at Pocket After Dark, I decided to give it a go sooner rather than later so I could take advantage of the free read.

A Brush of Darkness was one of those books that had me literally laughing out loud while reading it. The main character, Abby Sinclair, was hilarious. She's got this fun, snarky, devil-may-care attitude that just makes it a blast to read about things from her perspective. However, at the beginning of the book, I got the feeling that there was more to Abby than I was initially seeing. Turns out my instincts were on, because as the book progressed, I was able to see that Abby's humor and sarcasm, while definitely part of her nature, were also being used to cover up some serious underlying issues that she hadn't quite been able to work through yet. A Brush of Darkness revealed the facets of Abby's characters in waves, allowing the reader to learn about her little by little, but holding enough back to inspire curiosity.

Speaking of characters, I also really enjoyed what Pang did with the minor roles in this book. A Brush of Darkness comes with a cast of secondary characters who are, as their designation suggests, in the background for a lot of the book, but at the same time, their presence was one of the things that made the book so enjoyable for me. I especially liked the miniature unicorn Phineas, who added quite a bit of fun to the overall story.

The only issue I had with A Brush of Darkness is one that I wasn't going to mention at first, because I'm afraid it might have more to do with some frustrations I'm currently feeling with trends in the publishing world, and less to do with the actual quality of the book. However, since it's always been my policy on this blog to review books based on my personal reaction to  them, I decided to mention this: I wasn't completely sold on the romance. Now, I've got to include some disclaimers after that statement. First of all, it's not like the romance was eye-roll-inducing or anything like that. I just didn't feel it. I didn't even mind Brystion as a character, but I found that I was way more interested in the plot than the relationship between Brystion and Abby. However, I do suspect that many fans of the paranormal romance and urban fantasy genres will have no problem with it at all. Like I said earlier, my little issue with it probably stems from the fact that I've been over-saturated with mediocre or unrealistic romances in the majority of the books I've been reading lately, so I've become a bit burned out (which probably means I should have waited to give A Brush of Darkness a go, but hey, it was free).

Nevertheless, I really did enjoy A Brush of Darkness overall. Abby was a great main character, and I had no problems staying interested in the story throughout the entirety of the book. I'm planning on reading the sequel, A Sliver of Shadow (which is scheduled for release February 28th), sometime in the future. I think the majority of PNR and UF fans will enjoy this book in at least some capacity, so you might want to consider adding it to your to-read list!

Links

Add A Brush of Darkness to your to-read list on Goodreads.
Find author Allison Pang online.

Not sure about this review? Compare our tastes in books. (Goodreads)

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Rating

A few flaws but worth reading

Have Your Say: 3 Star Ratings

Have Your Say is a feature on Mindful Musings that encourages the discussion of topics that are currently relevant to readers, book bloggers, and the Internet community as a whole. Stop by to share your opinion and check out what everyone else has to say! 

Today, I'm going to bring up a topic that has been on my mind lately. 

Get the hint? Yep. I'm talking about three star (or in my case, heart) ratings. Why, you might ask? Mainly because I think there are a LOT of misconceptions around the book blogosphere about three star ratings. Now, granted, three star ratings differ from blog to blog, which brings me to a very important point: if you're reading a review that includes a rating, make sure you take the time to locate the reviewer's description of his or her ratings. On most of the blogs that I read, these are fairly easy to locate. Personally, mine is located on my left sidebar, but you can also see the image below.

Though there are some differences, at the same time, I think that quite a few bloggers that use rating systems on a five point scale have similar feelings about three star ratings. Here are a few three star (or a star equivalent) rating descriptions from book blogs I frequent.

Tara from 25 Hour Books

"Liked it"

Lisa from A Life Bound by Books

"I liked it."

Taschima from Bloody Bookaholic

"We had some good times, read it when you can. (Liked it)"

Kelly from Radiant Shadows

"Good, but not particularly memorable."

Saz from Saz 101

"But just to clarify: for me '3 stars' isn't negative. In fact, it's positive. I liked this book. For the most part, any complaints, irritations, or recurring rashes I have with books rated 3-stars and up are fairly minor compared to how much I actually enjoyed the book."

Small Review

"I liked this book overall, but there were enough things that bothered me to affect my enjoyment."

Nikki from Wicked Awesome Books

"Good"

These are definitely not ALL the ones out there, but I think I've made my point. 

Recently, I made the decision to start including my descriptions directly below my rating when I review a book. Why? Because frequently, I feel like some people aren't quite getting what I mean by a three heart rating, even though what I mean is pretty much summed up in these descriptions. 

If you read the description of my three heart rating, it says a few flaws but worth reading. But here's the deal...I still get a LOT of comments on my three heart reviews that say something along the lines of oh...I'm sorry you didn't like it. But here's the thing, a three heart rating usually means I DID like it. It just means that I didn't find anything overly fantastic or phenomenal about it. 

While I appreciate each and every comment made on my blog, these comments always give me kind of uneasy feelings, because I'm not sure that people making these comments are really understanding what my three heart rating means. It seems like a lot of people always grab onto those first three words (a few flaws), but ignore the words after the "but:" WORTH. READING. I consider myself to be a fairly critical reviewer, and I know I can get a little picky in my reviews sometimes, but just because I point out a few issues that I had with a particular book, that doesn't mean that I didn't enjoy the book overall. Out of all the ratings I give here on Mindful Musings, three hearts are BY FAR the most common. To get a four is quite an achievement, and a five is virtually unheard of. But that's just the way my mind works. It doesn't mean that books I give threes don't have their own worth and merit. A three usually means that I'll be continuing the series (if there is one), and a lot of three books still have spots on my personal bookshelf. 

What about you guys? Do you have trouble with people misunderstanding your ratings, or is it just me? Is there anything in particular you do to avoid this problem? 

Thanks for stopping by, and I hope you all have a great weekend! 

Review of Last Sacrifice (Vampire Academy #6) by Richelle Mead

Title: Last Sacrifice (Vampire Academy #6)  Author: Richelle Mead Pages: 594 Publication Date: Dec. 7th, 2010 Source: Purchased myself

Back Cover

The astonishing final novel in Richelle Mead's epic series!

Murder. Love. Jealousy. And the ultimate sacrifice. Now, with Rose on trial for her life and Lissa first in line for the Royal Throne, nothing will ever be the same between them.

First Lines

"I don't like cages."

In a Sentence

While I had no trouble getting caught up in the story of Last Sacrifice, I finished the book feeling a little unsatisfied.

My Thoughts

When I was typing in the book information in the box above, I had to do a double take on the publication date. Last Sacrifice was published in December of 2010?!? Over a YEAR ago?!? I remember buying this book a few weeks after it came out, and I can't believe I waited this long to finish the series. What does this have to do with my review, you might ask? Well, the fact that I was able to leave the book untouched for over a year, yet it only took me two sittings to get through its almost 600 pages says a lot about my feelings towards Last Sacrifice and the Vampire Academy series as a whole. 

Richelle Mead definitely knows how to entertain. If there's one thing I can say, it's that her books have rarely (if ever) bored me. The world of Vampire Academy not only involves a creative vampire mythology, but it also contains a cast of fun and interesting characters. Not to mention her sense of humor. I've always enjoyed the way Mead incorporates witty dialogue into her stories, and in that aspect, Last Sacrifice was no different. 

However, I want to go back to addressing how long I waited before picking this book up. Personally, I have to say that I felt the Vampire Academy series lost a lot of its charm after book three, Shadow Kiss. The third book was probably my favorite book in the series, but its successors (Blood Promise, Spirit Bound, and Last Sacrifice) just didn't have the magic that drew me to the first few books. Don't get me wrong, I have bought and read all of the installments in this series, but for me, the latter half of it hasn't quite managed to hold up to the first half. I think this reason is largely responsible for why it took me so long to actually sit down and read Last Sacrifice. At the same time (like I said earlier), I read the book in two sittings. Even though I finished Last Sacrifice feeling a little unsatisfied, Mead obviously did a good job of keeping me interested in the plot.

I think one of my biggest problems with these books is that, over the course of the series, I've become more interested in the side characters than the main ones. I loved Rose's character in the first three books, and there were times later in the series where I caught glimpses of that girl again, but after Shadow Kiss, I guess I felt that the Rose I had liked so much got a little lost in pursuing her star-crossed romance. Yes, I understand that losing Dimitri to the Strigoi was tragic, and I would expect her to mourn and even go after him in an attempt to either cure or kill him. But this, along with Rose trying to get back with him after his transformation in Spirit Bound, dragged out for three whole books (and these books aren't exactly tiny). Because of this, I got a little tired of Rose after awhile, which brings me back to the side characters. 

I really enjoyed reading about the characters of Adrian, Christian, and Sydney, and because of my dwindling interest in Rose, their stories are a lot of what kept the story going for me. Which brings me to another issue I had with Last Sacrifice. (For those of you who haven't read the book, we're venturing into slightly spoilery territory here). I hated...hated...how Rose treated Adrian. I totally understand that you can't exactly choose who you love, and I know that Rose wanted to move on after Dimitri said he was incapable of loving her, but I really wish she would have just given herself some space instead of dragging Adrian's heart around and lying to both him and herself by pretending she could love him in a romantic sense. I have no doubt that Rose cared about Adrian as a friend, but I was totally on his side at the end of the book. Rose got her happy ending, but in the process of doing so, she really messed another person up. To me, this seemed incredibly selfish, even in spite of her less-than-stellar circumstances. (End spoilery commentary).

From what I know of Bloodlines, the spin-off series set in the same world as Vampire Academy, I'm hoping that I might see what I liked so much in some of the earlier VA books. I know that Mead has talent as a writer, and I'm looking forward to reading another series by her, but I'm hoping that the tone will be a lot different than the last few VA books. Also, if you've read Bloodlines, feel free to let me know what you thought of it in the comments below! 

Links

Add Last Sacrifice to your to-read list on Goodreads.
Find author Richelle Mead online.

Not sure about this review? Compare our tastes in books. (Goodreads)

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Rating

A few flaws but worth reading