Literary PSA: Sorcery & Cecelia: or The Enchanted Chocolate Pot

Long ago I decided to start a NEW THING: Literary Public Service Announcements. Essentially, I'm going to pimp a book that I read before I started blogging, but that I want to foist upon the world due to its high levels of sheer awesomeness for the good of the public and all that jazz. Instead of me just telling people over and over that they should read something "JUST BECAUSE!!!1!", I've decided to actually explain in a more eloquent fashion just why my favorite books are my favorites.

Last time on Literary Public Service Announcements: Tamora Pierce

Goodreads | Amazon | Barnes and Noble | The Book Depository

I first read this book a bajillion--okay, fifteen, but that's basically a bajilliaon--years ago and remembered nothing about it, which makes sense, since I was, like, nine. I don't think it was the right book for me then, either, since at age nine I don't think i was quite ready for all the dry Regency goodness this book has to offer.

But I've been in a terrible reading slump recent, which has not been helped by NaNoWriMo, let me tell you, and nothing was grabbing me. Nothing. So I decided... you know, maybe I should look at the 2983473 books I own that I haven't read. Maybe I should turn to the backlist books for guidance, and read something entirely no-pressure, with  no deadlines or release dates. No nothing. Something romantic, and fun, and full of all the tropes and treasures I love best.

And lo, I spotted Sorcery & Cecelia, which I have owned since the tender age of, like, nine.

Literary PSA: So You Want to Read Tamora Pierce

Long ago I decided to start a NEW THING: Literary Public Service Announcements. Essentially, I'm going to pimp a book that I read before I started blogging, but that I want to foist upon the world due to its high levels of sheer awesomeness for the good of the public and all that jazz. Instead of me just telling people over and over that they should read something "JUST BECAUSE!!!1!", I've decided to actually explain in a more eloquent fashion just why my favorite books are my favorites.

Last time on Literary Public Service Announcements: The Mediator series by Meg Cabot

I was inspired to toss this post together because Angie started reading The Song of the Lioness quartet after many years of me bellowing about Tamora Pierce and TO MY UTTER GLEE she got completely into it and yelled at me about her feelings and asked which Tamora Pierce series she should read next.

I have very definitely opinions about the order in which Tamora Pierce series should be read.
I do want to preface this with the disclaimer that I am not the great authority in all things, no matter how much I wish that were true. This is not like Buzzfeed; there will be no tossing around of the word "definitive", because this is a categorically not definitive post. It's just a Gillian's opinion post, which you can take with either a grain or a mountain of salt.

Literary PSA: The Mediator series by Meg Cabot

Long ago I decided to start a NEW THING: Literary Public Service Announcements. Essentially, I'm going to pimp a book that I read before I started blogging, but that I want to foist upon the world due to its high levels of sheer awesomeness for the good of the public and all that jazz. Instead of me just telling people over and over that they should read something "JUST BECAUSE!!!1!", I've decided to actually explain in a more eloquent fashion just why my favorite books are my favorites.

Last time on Literary Public Service Announcements: The Immortals series by Tamora Pierce

And now this week's PSA:

Literary PSA: The Immortals by Tamora Pierce

 Long ago I decided to start a NEW THING: Literary Public Service Announcements. Essentially, I'm going to pimp a book that I read before I started blogging, but that I want to foist upon the world due to its high levels of sheer awesomeness for the good of the public and all that jazz. Instead of me just telling people over and over that they should read something "JUST BECAUSE!!!1!", I've decided to actually explain in a more eloquent fashion just why my favorite books are my favorites.

Last time on Literary Public Service Announcements: Scarlet by A.C. Gaughen

And now this week's PSA:

Literary PSA: Scarlet by A.C. Gaughen

Literary Public Service Announcements is one of my favorite blog features. Essentially, I'm going to pimp a book that I read before I started blogging, but that I want to foist upon the world due to it's high levels of sheer awesomeness, for the good of the public and all that jazz. Instead of me just telling people over and over that they should read something "JUST BECAUSE!!!1!", I've decided to actually explain in a more eloquent fashion just why my favorite books are my favorites.

Last time on Literary Public Service Announcements: I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith.

And now for this week's PSA:



Review: Scarlet by A.C. Gaughen
Goodreads 
Release date: February 14th, 2012
Publisher: Walker Children's Bloombury
Series: #1 in the Scarlet series
Source: purchased
Rating: YES YES YES A WORLD OF YES.

Many readers know the tale of Robin Hood, but they will be swept away by this new version full of action, secrets, and romance.

Posing as one of Robin Hood’s thieves to avoid the wrath of the evil Thief Taker Lord Gisbourne, Scarlet has kept her identity secret from all of Nottinghamshire. Only the Hood and his band know the truth: the agile thief posing as a whip of a boy is actually a fearless young woman with a secret past. Helping the people of Nottingham outwit the corrupt Sheriff of Nottingham could cost Scarlet her life as Gisbourne closes in.

It’s only her fierce loyalty to Robin—whose quick smiles and sharp temper have the rare power to unsettle her—that keeps Scarlet going and makes this fight worth dying for.

 

 I love this book. It's an obsessive kind of love. Whenever I see someone talking about this book on Twitter, I thrust on my scarlet cap and swoop into the conversation and shriek, "ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT SCARLET?!" It's the kind of love where sometimes I think about Rob and Scarlet and my chest kind of gets all crunched up with feelings.

I've always been fascinated by the legend Robin Hood--"I steal from the rich and give to the needy/He takes a wee percentage but I'm not greedy!--and yet I know very little about it. It's a passive fascination, apparently. But Scarlet, and they way the book reimagines the legend completely, ignited my interest. Gaughen's Robin is a moody twenty-one-year-old with a heart of gold, and her Will Scarlet is a knife-flinging, rough talking, tough-on-the-outside-and-marshmallow-soft-on-the-inside teenage girl.

AND I LOVE THEM TO PIECES.

Separately. Together. Wounded. Whole. These characters, you guys? This ship? I CANNOT. Scarlet is wounded (and literally scared), she doesn't know how to trust, and she doesn't think she deserves good things. She has a past she's running away from. And you KNOW how I feel about books in which girls are disguised as boys (hint: I love them lots). Plus, she has a way with knives and can climb trees in a trice. This girl. I want to be her when I grow up.



The book is written in a rough, lower class dialect which is amazingly consistent, if probably not historically accurate, but I adored it. Her voice is clever and brilliant and sharp. Scarlet is the genderbent version of Will Scarlet, one of Robin's right hand men. Little John is now a charming ladies man, Friar Tuck is just "Tuck", the barkeep, and Gisbourne... well, Gisbourne is still one creepy, villainous mofo. MAN IS THIS GUY THE WORST. He's the evillest evil to ever evil. Even more evil than the Sheriff, who is bleeding the people of Nottinghamshire dry and taking all their monies.

It's a "stay up until the wee hours to finish" kind of read. Secrets are revealed, and villains villain, and our heroes try to thwart them, and sometimes they succeed and sometimes it's all a disaster. This book gave me a MAJOR book hangover.

Okay. Let's talk ships. This SHIP. There is a bit of a love triangle-esque thing, and while I GOT this one, plotwise and characterwise and Scarletwise, it's not my absolute favorite aspect of hte novel, mostly because the character of John doesn't quite work for me. BUT. Rob and Scar? Roblet? Scarbin? BE STILL MY HEART. This is such a frustrating and painful and yet gorgeous romance. I remember clutching my book and hissing, "Kiss, you fools!" So blind, my babies were.



I have it one good authority (Gaby, Jessie) that book two is even SWOOOONIER. I may explode. I can't wait until February to know what comes next! Because the ENDING. WHOOOOOOA.

And now some quotes:



“Why do you tell Rob everything first?” 
 “Didn’t. He figured it out on the way up from London.” 
“How?” 
“I wouldn’t never bathe with him or pass water when he were near. He got suspicious quick. Seems real boys are awfully eager to parade their bits around.”

“So what can I do, then?”
“It’s life, Rob. Nothing to be done.”
“Make no mistake,” he told me. I looked up. “We do what we do—” He halted, then stepped one foot closer. “I do what I do because I will always believe that no matter how awful life gets for however many of these people, there is something I can do about it. There is something I will do about it.”
I nodded. “That’s why you’re the hero, Rob, and I’m a thief.”


He smiled a little, looking at me. “You think I’m unbearable?”
I shrugged. “Sure. You ain’t like nobody else. Sometimes I don’t know what to make of you at all.”
“This coming from the thieving, knife-throwing outlaw girl. As if there were anyone like you in the wide world.”
“Yeah, but you see right through me.”
“It’s not that I see through you,” he told me. “It’s that I see you. You don’t want anyone to see you, but I do.”


 Never would I have a man saying what or who were best for me, and that were all there were to it.


He let go of my face, but his fingers caught in my hair a bit. “You have nice hair, you know.” 
My pipes felt tight and I couldn’t much breathe. “Thanks,” I managed. “Um, you too.”

Okay, so I might have picked only Rob/Scar quotes. I regret nothing.

Literary PSA: I Capture the Castle

  It's been a while since I did one of these, but long ago I decided to start a NEW THING: Literary Public Service Announcements. Essentially, I'm going to pimp a book that I read before I started blogging, but that I want to foist upon the world due to it's high levels of sheer awesomeness, for the good of the public and all that jazz. Instead of me just telling people over and over that they should read something "JUST BECAUSE!!!1!", I've decided to actually explain in a more eloquent fashion just why my favorite books are my favorites.

Last time on Literary Public Service Announcements: The Year of Secret Assignments by Jaclyn Moriarty.

And now this week's PSA:



 'I write this sitting in the kitchen sink'. Cassandra Mortmain, seventeen years old and poised 'between childhood and adultery', is already a deadly observer of human behaviour. She lives with her family in the remnants of a moated medieval castle. Money is so short that her beautiful older sister declares she would marry the devil himself to get it; their father, an experimental novelist once briefly imprisoned for attacking his first wife with a cakeknife, now suffers from writers' block and sulks in the gatehouse. His second wife, Topaz, is an artist's model who wafts about communing with nature, naked under her macintosh. But when the American heirs to the castle turn up - an energetic mother and her two eligible sons - Cassandra is quick to sense that their lives will change ...

Best known as the author of The One Hundred and One Dalmations, Dodie Smith wrote this charming and funny novel in the forties. Exiled in America with her pacifist husband, and desperately nostalgic for English eccentricity, she created her own. The result was an immediate bestseller, admired by writers as diverse as Lady Antonia Fraser and Armistead Maupin, and has been made into a film. As the Punch reviewer wrote, it is an excellent novel: 'fascinating, well written, vividly imagined, and crammed with interesting and living characters'

Goodreads

 

I briefly considered writing this in the kitchen sink, but that would be colossally uncomfortable, and also computers shouldn't really get wet, and I am, sadly, not that eccentric.

 I Capture the Castle tell the story of seventeen-year-old Cassandra and her family, living in not-so-genteel poverty in a vast and crumbling castle. She wants to be a writer like her father (only much less weird and experimental), so she starts a diary, and ends up chronicling the most significant six months in her family's lives.

 This is the sort of book that seems to have been made for me. It's extremely British, and I love the British. It's funny, heartfelt, and full of wit. It's It tells the story of an eccentric family with a pair of sisters who fall in love with a pair of brothers... and everything gets messed up. It has a glorious movie adaptation with some of the most handsome--



Oops. Sorry. Got distracted there. But the movie adaptation perfectly captures the wit, charm, and longing of the original, and of course the casting of Stephen is utterly--



FOCUS. I mean, young, tank-top-wearing Henry Cavill is not, sadly, in this book, but there are SO MANY ROMANTICAL ENTANGLEMENTS. Hot heirs to local estates, ruggedly handsome local gardeners, American boys with wicked senses of humor. This book, it overflows.



"I regret to say that there were moments when my deep and loving pity for her merged into a desire to kick her fairly hard."

Cassandra is my literary sister. Her voice is so engaging and delightful and lovely. She's funny, she's quaint, and she's observant. She's the plain younger sister who thinks she's logical and writerly, but she learns fast that love can change a lot of things. Her elder sister, Rose, lives  like someone in a Jane Austen novel, desperately waiting for a rich heir to rescue her from her really dire financial situation (the book is set in the 1930's, for the record). Oh, wait, look-y there. The two young, rich, eligible heirs to nearby Scoatney Hall have just returned from America. Rose sets her sight on the eldest, but of course, things aren't that simple.

 

I read this book for the first time when I was about thirteen or fourteen. It was one of my mom's favorite books from her childhood, and soon it became one of my own. It's a classic that reads more modern, that feels accessible and will make you giggle and swoon. There's a bittersweet strain through his book as they fade further into poverty, and her formerly successful author father gets more and more stuck in writer's block. He hadn't written a word in ten years, and the whole town thinks he's a drunk, even though he really just sits up in his tower reading detective novels. For a long time, Cassandra and her stepmother coddle him, believing him to be a genius, but finally they snap and... well, things start changing.





There's also a scene where the hot guys arrive for the first time at the castle while Cassandra is in the bath. 

Hilarity.

It's hard to summarize this book, honestly. When boiled down, it could sound trite or predictable. When summarized a different way, it can sound melodramatic and soap-operatic. And, well, it is, in a way. But it's also eccentric, hilarious, strange, wonderful, and perfect for Janeites and/or those with a raging case of Anglophilia.

Other covers:

 

 

 

And one more for the road:

Literary PSA: The Year of Secret Assignments by Jaclyn Moriarty

Recently I decided to start a NEW THING: Literary Public Service Announcements. Essentially, I'm going to pimp a book that I read before I started blogging, but that I want to foist upon the world due to it's high levels of sheer awesomeness, for the good of the public and all that jazz. Instead of me just telling people over and over that they should read something "JUST BECAUSE!!!1!", I've decided to actually explain in a more eloquent fashion just why my favorite books are my favorites.

Last time on Literary Public Service Announcements: IF I STAY by Gayle Forman.
And now this week's PSA:

 

 Three girls. Three boys. Two rival schools.
This could get messy.

The Ashbury-Brookfield pen pal program is designed to bring together the two rival schools in a spirit of harmony and "the Joy of the Envelope." But when Cassie, Lydia, and Emily send their first letters to Matthew, Charlie, and Sebastian, things don't go quite as planned. What starts out as a simple letter exchange soon leads to secret missions, false alarms, lock picking, mistaken identities, and an all-out war between the schools--not to mention some really excellent kissing. Goodreads

I LOVE Aussie YA, and this is probably my favorite Aussie book ever. It's told in letters, emails, texts, school notices, transcripts, diaries, etc., and actually makes me laugh out loud every time I read it. This is my absolute favorite epistolary-style novel EVER. Granted, it's a tough technique to pull off, so there aren't many. But seriously, it's flawless here.

Technically, it's the second in a loosely related series, but I've never read the first book, Feeling Sorry for Celia, so it's obviously not necessary. It's a contemporary, but it has so much spunk and whimsy and quirkiness that elevate it beyond your average realistic YA. What happens in this book would probably never happen in real life, but more's the pity for real life.

TYoSA follows three close-knit best friends attending the upper class Ashbury School: ditzy, bossy, enthusiastic Emily; whip-smart, reckless Lydia; and musical, fatherless Cassie. Tensions have grown between Ashbury and Brookfield, a local public school, and in an effort to ameliorate the tension, the two schools form a pen pal program. Obviously, this leads to shenanigans galore, such as false identities, make out sessions, pranks, secret assignments, and blind dates both successful and disastrous. There will be moments where you CHEER and FIST-BUMP, moments where you might tear up, and probably lengthy sessions where you pee yourself laughing. This book is a great blend of genres and feelings and, most of all, VOICES. All the characters have such distinct voices I'm kind of in awe. Nobody sounds alike. You get first person letters from the three girls and the three boys they write to, and yet it's never confusing.

The only thing that ever did confuse me about this book was basically my own stupidity. See, it's set in Australia, right? Which is in the Southern Hemisphere? And I live in the US, which (basic geography lesson for those tragically raised without globes) is in the Northern Hemisphere. Basically, our seasons are reversed. And the book is divided into sections by season, meaning all the months in my head were TOTALLY THROWN OFF. It's weird! You Aussies have Christmas in the middle of the summer! The school year starts in January! And you have all those weird Easter breaks and things! MINDBOGGLING.

Everything about you is glorious, Australia

...except that.

Anyway, that's obviously not relevant to the wondrousness inside TYoSA. These three vastly different best friends truly adore each other. It was lovely to read about. They're realistic and willing to do absolutely anything for each other. And when things start to go south for Cassie-- and I mean like CRAZY SOUTH-- Em, Lyd, and their awesome pen pals Charlie and Seb decide to do something about it. And it's such a convoluted mess of joy to watch. The plot, it twists and turns with all kinds of fun reveals and surprises. And there is quite literally four laughs a page. Lydia is my favorite. She's a total lunatic in the best way possible. Em is a particular treat as well. She's prone to malaprops and aspires to be a lawyer despite the fact that she's not the brightest bulb. All the characters are varied and complex. They come from different backgrounds and walks of life, and though they can clash, in the end they all come together beautifully. Except for SPOILER. That SPOILER is such a little !#&%(#*&@#.

The romance is awesome, the mystery is mysterious, the setting is fun (AUSTRALIA I LOVE YOU), the characters are the absolute best, and the words will have you rolling on the floor laughing. Why are you not already reading this?

Note: In Australia, and possibly a few other countries, this book is titled Finding Cassie Crazy. Which makes sense, because part of how they're trying to save Cassie is to prove she's sane. Which... who knows? It may be true! You'll have to read to find out!

 

Literary PSA: If I Stay by Gayle Forman

Recently I decided to start a NEW THING: Literary Public Service Announcements. Essentially, I'm going to pimp a book that I read before I started blogging, but that I want to foist upon the world due to it's high levels of sheer awesomeness, for the good of the public and all that jazz. Instead of me just telling people over and over that they should read something "JUST BECAUSE!!!1!", I've decided to actually explain in a more eloquent fashion just why my favorite books are my favorites.

Last time on Literary Public Service Announcements: LEVIATHAN by Scott Westerfeld.
And now this week's PSA:



In a single moment, everything changes. Seventeen-year-old Mia has no memory of the accident; she can only recall riding along the snow-wet Oregon road with her family. Then, in a blink, she finds herself watching as her own damaged body is taken from the wreck...

A sophisticated, layered, and heart-achingly beautiful story about the power of family and friends, the choices we all make, and the ultimate choice Mia commands. Goodreads

That synopsis doesn't exactly tell you what this book is about. Basically, it's about Mia, a musically talented girl with pretty much the greatest family ever. One day, they get into a car crash. Mia is in a coma, but somehow she's able to watch from outside as horrible things happen, and she must decide if she's going to stay, or if she's going to go.



This is a very famous book, and I'm sure a lot of you have read it. But if you haven't, and are skeptical, I probably know what some of you're thinking. "Girl in coma? Dead family? Grieving boyfriend? Isn't that all just a little emotionally manipulative? Like, you are just asking me to cry myself senseless." To which I say YES. ABSOLUTELY. One hundred percent. This is completely engineered not just to tug on the heartstrings, but to rip them from your chest, tie them in knot, and throw them into the sea.

I have a love-hate relationship with being emotionally manipulated. I'm the kind of person who cries in commercials. If anything remotely sad happens in a movie, I'm in floods. When I saw Toy Story 3 in a theater full of children, I was that freak in the back sobbing great, big, chest-heaving sobs behind her stupid 3D glasses (I am a very cool date). So basically, I know I'm going to cry when I pick up a book like that. The question is, is it going to feel cheap?

 See, I like when authors torture their characters, and as long as that is well done-- as long as it is organic to the characters and doesn't strain my credibility too much-- I'll enjoy the sobs.  As long the real drama comes from the characters themselves.

If I Stay does. I mean, yes, it starts off with a horrible fatal car crash, but the beauty of this book is in the characters. Even the dead characters are completely alive on the page. There is so much personality in this book, so much beautiful writing, so many characters you just want to hug. Mia is an amazing introspective girl. Kim is one of my favorite literary besties in all of YA. And I swear, Mia's parents are THE BEST parents I've ever read about. They're hilarious ex-punk rockers, now trying to be more mature for their second child, adorable and funny Teddy. What I love about this book is that despite how totally soul-wrenching it is, it's also got a sense of humor. I laughed a lot through my tears.

And then of course there's Adam. I put him on my list of future fictional husbands for a reason. This guy's got feels. The things he goes through for Mia... I just... I forget how to form sentences. This book has a gorgeous and layered portrayal of love in so many forms.



Plus, you will be WEEPING LIKE A BABY. I felt like I knew these characters. I remember the first time I read this book. It had just come out and I knew nothing about it. I was like, "Hey, pretty cover. Ooh, sad synopsis. But I'm in the mood for a soap opera. Let's go!" I started reading it in the bath, but then it became of one those things where you CAN'T LEAVE until you finish so you're in there until the water is cold and you're all pruney and you're just crying alone in a bathtub and it's weird.



This is the kind of book that sticks with you, even though I have trouble rereading parts of it due to SEARING EMOTIONAL PAIN. But if you love contemporary with a twist, real, emotional journeys, character development for plot, and crying until you shrivel up, you should definitely NOT miss If I Stay. It's well on its way to becoming a YA classic (and a movie!) Plus, there's an amazing sequel from Adam's point of view.

Literary PSA: Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld

Recently I decided to start a NEW THING: Literary Public Service Announcements. Essentially, I'm going to pimp a book that I read before I started blogging, but that I want to foist upon the world due to it's high levels of sheer awesomeness, for the good of the public and all that jazz. Instead of me just telling people over and over that they should read something "JUST BECAUSE!!!1!", I've decided to actually explain in a more eloquent fashion just why my favorite books are my favorites.

Last time on Literary Public Service Announcements: SHADOW AND BONE by Leigh Bardugo.

And now this week's PSA:

 

Prince Aleksander, would-be heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, is on the run. His own people have turned on him. His title is worthless. All he has is a battletorn war machine and a loyal crew of men.

Deryn Sharp is a commoner, disguised as a boy in the British Air Service. She's a brilliant airman. But her secret is in constant danger of being discovered.

With World War I brewing, Alek and Deryn's paths cross in the most unexpected way…taking them on a fantastical, around-the-world adventure that will change both their lives forever.

Leviathan is one of those books that you love mostly because you know you would have loved it as a kid. That sounds more negative than I intended. I straight up LOVE this book. It's not completely perfect but it's oh so much fun. If I'd read this book as a ten-year-old (I was the definition of a "read-upper"), I would have been obsessed with it.

Confession: I'm a history nut. I was that obnoxious kid in history class who corrected the teacher when she got her dates wrong (I only did that ONCE, okay? It was eighth grade and I was a brat). So when I heard about a STEAMPUNK ALTERNATE HISTORY OF WWI, I was like Sign. Me. Up. I will read all day about long ago wars and heirs of Empires and girls-disguised-as boys. Those are all of my favorite things.

In Westerfeld's version, the Central Powers (Austria-Hungary, Germany) are Clankers, meaning they're all about technology and metal steampunk war machines like two-legged Stormwalkers. The Allies (Great Britain, France, Russia) are Darwinists. Their war machines are not fabricated from metal, but from life. They've managed, using Darwin's theories, to harness animal's "life strands" and cross-breed them into magnificently awesome things like the titular Leviathan: a huge flying machine made from a living whale. All of their war tools are living: bomber bats, hot air balloon jellyfish, messenger lizards.

Having trouble picturing it? FEAR NOT, because the book comes with beautiful illustrations! Like so:




Prince Alek is the fictional son of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, who you either know as the heir of the Austrian Empire whose assassination started WWI, or as the dude that band was named for. Either is fine. You don't need to have much history knowledge to follow along with Leviathan. Alek, a Clanker, is on the run in a Stormwalker from the Germans and the Austrians, both of whom are trying to kill him. The other protagonist is Deryn Sharp, a Scottish girl who has disguised herself as a boy to become a military Airman.

This story is full of adventure and action and originality. The Leviathan itself is completely fascinating. I could have read about the complex fabricated ecosystem that makes it work forever. Deryn and Alek as characters feel a little underdeveloped-- we learn almost nothing about their lives before the book starts, particularly Deryn's-- but they come alive as the book progresses. And besides, the world around them is so amazingly realized that it just doesn't matter. And I actually loved Deryn. She is hilarious, brash, and brave, even if she doesn't feel like a girl in any way. The two MCs don't meet until halfway through the book, but when they do, that's when the magic happens. Clankers think Darwinist creations are ungodly, while Darwinists think Clankers crude, cold, and inferior. They're opposite characters that play off each other perfectly. And British Dr. Barlow is one kickass lady scientist with an awesome animal sidekick.

Tazza the thylacine. I want one.

The sequels to Leviathan, Behemoth and Goliath, are even better. The world-building astounds me at every turn. If you love steampunk, I'd recommend this in an instant. And if you haven't got much steampunk experience, I'd recommend starting here.

New Blog Feature: Literary PSA

Since I only started book-blogging a couple months ago, I've only been able to review the books I've read in the last couple months. But there are so many amazing books I've read that I want to tell you guys about, and that's why I decided to start a NEW THING: Literary Public Service Announcements. Essentially, I'm going to pimp a book that I read before I started blogging, but that I want to foist upon the world due to it's high levels of sheer awesomeness, for the good of the public and all that jazz. Instead of me just telling people over and over that they should read something "JUST BECAUSE!!!1!", I've decided to actually explain in a more eloquent fashion just why my favorite books are my favorites.

Usually, trying to explain a book's awesomeness goes something like this:

 

But I shall try regardless. So for my very first PSA, I'm reviewing a book that easily cracked my top ten of 2012, and which, if you follow my blog, you probably want me to shut up about already (but which I will never do):

 
 Surrounded by enemies, the once-great nation of Ravka has been torn in two by the Shadow Fold, a swath of near impenetrable darkness crawling with monsters who feast on human flesh. Now its fate may rest on the shoulders of one lonely refugee.

Alina Starkov has never been good at anything. But when her regiment is attacked on the Fold and her best friend is brutally injured, Alina reveals a dormant power that saves his life—a power that could be the key to setting her war-ravaged country free. Wrenched from everything she knows, Alina is whisked away to the royal court to be trained as a member of the Grisha, the magical elite led by the mysterious Darkling.

Yet nothing in this lavish world is what it seems. With darkness looming and an entire kingdom depending on her untamed power, Alina will have to confront the secrets of the Grisha…and the secrets of her heart.

Ravka has got to be one of my favorite fantasy settings EVER. It's a dark, magical take on eighteenth century Russia, a time and place very dear to my heart. It's a land of rich furs and opulence but also dire winter and bloody war. When people rave about deep fantasy worlds, they mean this. I could see this place. I could walk around it and live there. I could visualize every article of beautifully described clothing. And it is gorgeous. But also menacing.

The Grisha are an amazingly inventive and fascinating creation, none moreso than the Darkling (my GOD do I have FEELINGS about HIM), their ridiculously handsome and powerful leader. Is he sexy? Is he evil? Is he both? It's so confusing! It's so amazing! The system of magic Bardugo has set here is a sort of magical molecular chemistry controlled by this strictly regimented elite. It's hard to make mystical magical summoner types unique, but Bardugo has definitely succeeded. The utter creepiness of the Fold, a swath of impenetrable darkness crawling with monsters that bisets Ravka, was, to quote Ms. Roth above, "like nothing I've ever read".

Alina is a marvelous heroine. She's tough but vulnerable, brave but realistic. As an orphan, she's swayed by a need to be loved and accepted. She's in love with her sex-drenched  dreamy swoonalicous best friend Mal, the only family she's ever known, who has clearly never thought of her in that way. But this book hits on all the emotional feels. Every character lives and breathes, even the ones who only show up a couple of times.

The writing and plot flow together so gorgeously. The narrative doesn't rely on magic, but rather characters, with the magic only there to enhance it. I read it one sitting, desperate for more. The narrative is full of light and darkness, magic and blood, love and hate, and basically, if you don't read this RIGHT NOW, you are a fool. Yes, a fool. Okay, not a fool. Books are subjective, this may not be your cup of tea, books are expensive and you can't go buying them all the time. I get it. But to me, this book is a classic, and I seriously hope you all get the chance to experience and love this gem of a story.

Wow. Almost forgot. You CAN because I'm GIVING AWAY a signed copy. That certainly worked out nicely.