Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Mini review: YA fantasy book bug

Since I'm back from Sabah, I caught a very serious bug. Book bug that is. Surrounded by my sister's vast collection of books, I decided to challenged myself to read 100 books this year and joined the Goodreads website that I check religiously every day now instead of Facebook. My sister has tonnes of books. Really.. tons. Bucketful. Boxes. And currently most of her books are YA books. YA is young adult which literally means teen stuff.

Apparently in the US the reading trend right now is YA paranormal romance ala Twilight. If I was living there I'd probably be a writer already as writing such story is much more my alley than writing romance novels which I was trying to do for years. (Without success..) Love story with magic and fantasy seems a lot more interesting than just love story. Hehehe..


But some of these YA fantasy is such a bore. Really..I hate it when the character get all mopey and depressed and all that matters in her life is the strange mysterious guy who suddenly turn up in her life who happens to be a fallen angel (gasp) fairy prince (ooooh) or a vampire (damn!). And some of these books are best sellers in the US which made me go..damn..I wish I can write stuff like that and be rich!

For example Melissa Marr's Wicked Lovely is just plain stupid. A girl being stalked by a fairy prince who's obsessed with making her his Summer Court Queen. Duh... The series is such a hit but I just don't have the heart to follow the other books in the series let alone finish this one. It was a struggle really.
Verdict: 1 star


Then what about Becca Fitzpatrick's Hush, Hush a girl who fell in love with a scary fallen angel? This guy is not even nice or rich or smart. Cue Edward Cullen. At least he's ridiculously rich and nice. It's just a case of teenage hormones going overdrive and being attracted to the brooding, bad boy in the school. Yawn..get a life..will you? Don't these kids have SAT's to study for?
Verdict: 2 stars

Fortunately there are some good ones..like Unearthly a girl who's part angel with powers who's obsessed with this cute guy who supposedly she have to save in the future but instead fell in love with another not so cute guy. The not so cute guy is so into her that he'll do anything. Poor guy. I felt sorry for him. He's a bit of a hillbilly.
Verdict: 4 stars

Haha..and what about a boy falling in love with a girl who came from a long generation of powerful witches and warlocks? That's kind of interesting considering that the boy gets zapped by electric everytime they kissed. She's not your average Beautiful Creatures, I mean she can make rain fall down when she's pissed.. now you're talking. And it is indeed a nice change to read a book from a male POV. Although I do think Ethan is a big softie.
Verdict: 4 stars

But my current favourite is of course Kirsten White's Paranormalcy in which the main character is a actually a normal human girl who hunts paranormals for a living. Evie is a refreshing change from all the other boring, sad characters of the YA paranormal romance. She's witty, funny, loves pink and very normal. And she actually electrocuted the hero when they first met. Ooooh so not love at first!
Verdict: 5 stars

Maybe I can write something like that. How hard can it be to write such slush..once upon a time..there was a girl with eyes like fire who like to kill beings. Supernatural beings that is..after all she was one herself...and on the story goes...

19 comments:

  1. Hehe...I've been wanting to read books written by my dearest sis...since well, since we were kids! LOL

    Go sis go! Write that book of yours. Publish it! Become rich (if possible) & famous! And then...credit me a bit. Kekeke ;)

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  2. You know..I have written stories on old exercise books and old hardcover notebooks..some of them went missing..probably in sabah..hehe

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  4. Yup! I think I saw those notebooks of yours while we packed up things into the store. U want them?

    Err...but there seemed to be a few here. I think I'll just bring them to you when I go back for our year-end trip extravaganza. Hehe :)

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  5. Keke...sorry for the deleted comment kidik...I misspelt something... (and well, u know me. The misspelt irks me until I've decided to just delete the comment) Kuikui ;)

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  6. wah..thanx..they still exist..huhu have u read them?embarassing

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  7. By the way kidik, i think u r going to surpass ur 100 books reading challenge target...hehe.

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  8. i understand your feeling...sometimes i guess depressed as soon as i saw in which category a book is and without the review i would be lost
    .
    i prefer paranormalcy too

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  9. I have to read beautiful creatures, it seems so good!

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  10. Hahah finally, someone else who realizes how dumb Hush Hush was! All I hear is rave reviews about it. "Don't these kids have SAT's to study for?" Lol. Great reviews, and I really like how you put a bunch of similar books together and do short reviews on them. It's fun. :)

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  11. Mini reviews! This could catch on. Thanks for posting!

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  12. Thanks guys. Sometimes I feel guilty for not liking a book that everyone else seemed to love. I love doing mini reviews because I'm juggling so much with studying, doing my thesis and a very active 2 year old.

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  13. I am very shocked. You didn't like Hush Hush? I'm happy you liked Unearthly, but really? Hush Hush? I'm baffled. :) Oh well, opinions are there for a reason. :D

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  14. Wow! I don't think you enjoyed 'Hush Hush'. (-; I confess that I am still intrigued by it, but I appreciate your honest review.

    Thanks!

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  15. I was planning on reading hush hush, but I don't know... maybe I will give it a try :) Paranormalcy seems great :D I've got to read it and unearthly

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  16. This is one of my favorite books! If you haven't read it yet, you need to because, in my opinion you are missing a lot!!

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  17. I loved Hush Hush so much it was an awesome fun and fast paced read from beginning to end

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  18. Maybe it's just me but i didn't mind reading Wicked Lovely - might not be for everyone but it wasn't that bad :) The storyline although 'stupid' as you put it - was still different to a lot of others - something different isn't a bad thing :)
    xx

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  19. I have only read Paranormalcy among those books. And I love Paranormalcy! It's one of my favourite. Love Evie and Lend.

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