Dorothy Must Die by Danielle Paige: Villains Week

Dorothy Must Die is an amazing book by Danielle Paige and is my first post for Villains Week!

This book is one of the weirder classics remixes that I've read: the concept is that Dorothy, instead of going happily home to Kansas, returned to Oz, hungry for power. Becoming princess, she's changed Oz for the worse... the Good are now wicked, and the Wicked are good. Or are they?

Amy Gumm is the Other Girl from Kansas, arriving in Oz also via tornado. As she moves towards the Emerald City, she learns terrifying things about Dorothy's new regime and is recruited by the Revolutionary Order of the Wicked on a mission: kill Dorothy. But who's really Good? Who's really Wicked? Where should Amy stand?

Definitely a teen book with some unpleasantly graphic descriptions of the violence, magical and otherwise, of the evils of Dorothy and her sidekicks, plus some unnecessarily inappropriate references.

However, I do kind of like the plot twists and worldbuilding here. I've read The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and while I can't say I think L. Frank Baum would agree with this book, he might chuckle at it or at least be interested. With the total reversal of Good and Wicked, you never know who the villains are. The characters, too, are interesting, definitely dynamic. Indigo with her tattoos, Jellia, Maude and Ollie, and the Revolutionary Order of the Wicked too, they all are people I want to know better, to find out what happens to them.

I'd say three stars for the excellence with characters and plot, although the theme is definitely not my style. It's certainly memorable in that I will never see Dorothy or Oz the same way again!

Three stars

Happy reading!

~Citali

Villains Week!

Welcome, dear readers, to the last week of October: Villains Week!

Villains Week is going to be absolutely amazing! It's the end of October, the perfect month to showcase the villains who stalk the shadows, haunt the houses, and creep and crawl... but also the human ones, the ones who cry in the corners, scream their pain to the world, beg for mercy, or never, ever take off their shoes.

We'll have posts almost every day to celebrate the best (or worst?) villains in the books we've read!

Hist whist,
~Citali

Paper Towns by John Green

A book I'm sure you've heard of: Paper Towns by John Green. As I'm a proud nerdfighter (Vlogbrothers forever!), this review will be unabashedly mixed with references. As a nerd and a reader and an enthusiast for knowledge, nerdiness, weird references, and decreasing worldsuck, I strongly recommend this Youtube channel. Just saying.

Note: I am aware there is a movie. In fact, I am aware there is a movie because I watch John's Youtube channel. I also read this book, An Abundance of Katharines, and The Fault in Our Stars because of the Youtube channel. However, I have seen none of these movies.

Okay! On to the actual review!

Q (Quentin) has always half-had-a-crush-on, half loved Margo Roth Spiegelman, his neighbor and childhood friend/family friend/acquaintance. At school, where both of them are seniors, Margo is the queen and Q is a lowly peasant: they haven't talked in a long time, ever since they found a dead body together (long story). One night, though, Margo opens his window and drafts him as her getaway driver in a prank-filled, heartbeat-increasing-to-dangerous-levels night of revenge involving eleven extremely carefully planned catfish-related pranks. After one night of amazing fun together, though, Q shows up back at school to realize that Margo has become a mystery. As he and his best friends wonder where she's gone, Q has to come to terms with the way he's always seen Margo, and the way she really is.

Although pleasantly mature in terms of truths meditated, Paper Towns definitely is teen, with high school senior characters and references to language and other not-so-child-appropriate ideas... Personally I feel that the nature of the story gets better at the end and is worth wincing at the teen-y-ness, but if you are uncomfortable with that... yeah.

Paper Towns is, however, an absolutely amazing book. I really love the way John Green writes: his characters are teenagers, but they uncover truths of life in their thoughts. A summary can't do this book justice because it's less about the still-amazing plot and more about learning about each other. Whitman, Margo, and Q all have different ways of looking at looking at people that I all think are extremely powerful.

Five stars!

I'd recommend John Green's other books, An Abundance of Katherines and The Fault in Our Stars, as well as his tumblr, his youtube channel(s), and his ideas.

Happy reading!

~Citali

P. S. One more week until Theme Week: here's a hint! "Greatness inspires envy, envy engenders spite, spite spawns lies. You must know this, Dumbledore." (Guess the speaker!)

Guess Who? (Or, I Suppose, "Guess What", but "Guess Who" Sounds Cooler)

It's Willow!

Hopefully you guys all saw Citali's awesome Classics Week post about L. M. Montgomery's Emily trilogy, and if you haven't check it out.

We're going to be doing another theme week this month, and instead of spoiling what it's going to be about, we decided to let you guess. Every once in a while, we'll drop a little hint about what our theme's going to be.

(On a related but tangential note, anyone have an idea about what we're going to call these? "Theme Weeks" is just kind of... bland. Leave suggestions in the comments!)

The first hint is going to be two quotes and a picture. Well, not really two quotes. No, no, no, that would be too easy. We'll give you about half of each quote, leaving you to figure out the rest. :-)

1. "By the pricking of my thumbs..."
2. "Every fairy tale needs a..."

Enjoy! Leave your guesses in the comments!

~Willow

How I Read

It's Citali now! Over the summer, I've been reading and rereading more books than I usually have an opportunity to do during the rest of the year (because life is busy and crazy for me and for everyone). So much reading makes me think about what makes a reader happy. It's not just
a good book, but also how you read: do you read for meaning, or for a good story? Do you prefer ingenious world-building and ideas or dynamic characters? Do you hate cliffhangers, or love them? What's better, a series or just one book with a good ending? Philosophical books or humorous novels?

Here's what I love, dislike, and learn from in the books that I read.

I love ideas like having fairies on your rooftops or dragons who collect window glass or wizards who live hidden among us and go to magic schools or children who can climb through a closet to find whole new worlds or robots who can be fairy godmothers: ideas that build a world and are just made for you to imagine that world beyond just one story. I love characters who make you shake your head and laugh and disapprove and love them all the same. I love nonfiction that makes you want to act on it. I love when a book ends with a hint of wonder and joy and the satisfied feeling that everyone ended up in the best possible perfect way. But at the same time, I love when an ending is sad but sad in a way that brings the story full circle, and it gives you a feeling that while the world isn't fair, it isn't so bad if you think about it. I love that feeling at any ending, when it's perfect and I smile and slowly close the book and just gaze out and think and absorb the feeling.

I don't like books with a plateau-ing plot. I groan at books that show my world unrealistically. I hate lukewarm endings where a character's fate is left up in the air and you know it will be there forever because it's an ending.

How I learn from books: that's complicated. I've read books for clubs and courses where I had to think about themes, symbols, and applications of the book's message to real life. While that seems onerous, it does help me think and enjoy the books. Most books, though, I don't read for meaning and rather for a good story.

How do you read? Do you introspect after every book, seeking meaning? Do you prefer different ways of ending books?

Happy reading!
~Citali

Dragons, Detectives, and Dogs: September's Book Haul

Hey, guys! Willow here. I know it's been a while since I've posted, sorry, but I've been pretty busy lately. Remember last month Citali made a book haul post? We've decided to do one of those every month, so that you guys can stay updated on what we're reading.

We're taking turns, so I get to write this one. Technically, it's September's book haul, but since the first week of October has passed, I'll include the books I read this week.

This book haul might be formatted a little differently from the last one. I hope you don't mind.

Let's get started!

Read

City of Bones by Cassandra Clare (Book 1 in The Mortal Instruments series)

The Will of the Empress by Tamora Pierce

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, and Life, the Universe, and Everything by Douglas Adams (these are three separate books, by the way)

Cat Among the Pigeons by Agatha Christie

Percy Jackson's Greek Heroes and The Sword of Summer by Rick Riordan (TSOS being the first book in the Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard series; I'll fangirl about it in a later post)

A Great and Terrible Beauty, Rebel Angels, and The Sweet Far Thing by Libba Bray (All three books in the Gemma Doyle trilogy)

Reread

Terrier and Trickster's Queen by Tamora Pierce (Book 1 of the Beka Cooper trilogy and book 2 of the Daughter of the Lioness duo, respectively)

The False Prince by Jennifer A. Nielsen (Book 1 of the Ascendance trilogy)

To Be Read

The Staff of Serapis and The Crown of Ptolemy by Rick Riordan (Parts 2 and 3 of his awesome crossover miniseries)

Winter Turning by Tui T. Sutherland (Wings of Fire book 7)

Storm of Lightning by Richard Paul Evans (Michael Vey book 5)

The Tournament at Gorlan by John Flanagan (Ranger's Apprentice: the Early Years book 1)

No Normal by G. Willow Wison (Ms. Marvel Volume 1)

The Copper Gauntlet by Cassandra Clare and Holly Black (Magisterium book 2)

Star Wars: Dark Disciple by Christie Golden

That's not all the books I want to read, of course, but I figure I shouldn't scare you away by burying you in my wish list. :-)

Have you guys read any of these? Do you have any suggestions or recommendations? Feel free to tell us what you think!

Happy reading!

~Willow

Worldbuilding: How I Write

I've been reading fanfiction lately, and often think about wanting to write some of my own... but I realize that a big part of what I love about writing, I can't do if I write fanfiction. What is this part? Worldbuilding. Here's why.

I think that writing is an amazing way to help get amazing ideas out into the world, to change the world that by no means is perfect but also by no means is terrible, that we live in.

Some writers focus on the characters they write: they change the world by breaking stereotypes, by having characters that reflect all of us. They write about tough fairies who are more macho than eighteen-year-old Irish geniuses; monsters who run fast-food restauraunts and sculpture gardens, girls who wear radish earrings. And while breaking stereotypes and making characters who are hilarious, brave, and all-around amazing is a truly powerful way to use writing, there's more than one way to change the world with authorial genius.

When I write, I base my stories on ideas. I've written (or attempted to write) about fairies dancing through interconnected rooftop gardens, young artists defending their solar-glass solarpunk city, girls finding a secret in a library that helps them block the storm that ravages their city. Even if there are no cities with bicentennial storm cycles, even if fairies don't exist, I believe that ideas of rooftop cardens and libraries with power and treetop solar-glass photosynthetic urban-architecture treetop optimistic-future cities... they're all possible. Possible and beautiful and goals that we should reach for. Even if we never can make it to the moon, we'll land amongst the stars.

Wonder -- that's what I want to write and read for. A school for magic, in an ancient castle? A kingdom on the moon while cyborgs and spaceships exist down below on Earth? A girl living among embassies, where next door can be Russian soil or German, and the Iranians have the best beachfront access? A secret steampunk society hiding from the floating cities? One has to be filled with a child's wonder at that. And I hope that we can build worlds and have ideas that continue this wonder and let us have fun while doing so.

P. S. I mostly talked about why I love worldbuilding. However, some of the awesome blogger/authors over at the blog Inkdrops and Raindrops have written an amazing post on worldbuilding you can read here.
P. P. S. Here's an amazing quote by Rase McCray on wonder in writing! This is a large part of my inspiration for this post.

"As readers, artists, creators, and dreamers there's still hope you will be ambassadors for wonder as a narrative force, making it not only a reason why you write, but also a technique for how you write.

Wonder’s haughty sibling, “conflict,” usually gets the acclaim, with many writers insisting that conflict is the essential ingredient to an engaging story. But consider the magical school. Whether Hogwarts or Brakebills, in the city of Ankh-Morpork or on the island of Roke, the magical school is narrative wonder writ large. We chuckle when the Weasley twins sprout beards after cheating the Goblet of Fire’s age line; we long for a Marauder’s Map that can lead us toward butterbeer.... My point is that wonder is the fun stuff, the stuff written because why shouldn't it be written? In fact, wonder often infuses the moments remembered most fondly, regardless of genre—it’s Hazel and Gus drinking champagne at Oranjee.... I write to give readers the wonder I experienced in these scenes."

Read, write, and wonder!

~Citali