1-2-3 Restart! Our January book pick is The Coldest Girl in Coldtown!

We went AWOL there for a while. Exams and life sucking all fun out of everything got in the way, but we're hitting the big reset button and starting afresh! Though in a far less dramatic way than what they do on Doctor Who these days... We are starting 2014 by reading The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black.

About the novel:

Title: The Coldest Girl in Coldtown
Author: Holly Black

Published: 2013 by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

"Tana lives in a world where walled cities called Coldtowns exist. In them, quarantined monsters and humans mingle in a decadently bloody mix of predator and prey. The only problem is, once you pass through Coldtown’s gates, you can never leave.
One morning, after a perfectly ordinary party, Tana wakes up surrounded by corpses. The only other survivors of this massacre are her exasperatingly endearing ex-boyfriend, infected and on the edge, and a mysterious boy burdened with a terrible secret. Shaken and determined, Tana enters a race against the clock to save the three of them the only way she knows how: by going straight to the wicked, opulent heart of Coldtown itself. 

The Coldest Girl in Coldtown is a wholly original story of rage and revenge, of guilt and horror, and of love and loathing from bestselling and acclaimed author Holly Black" (from the author's website)

Why we chose it:

We both want to read this novel by a writer we've both either read or heard a lot about and have been recommended to us. Besides, the concept of monsters and humans forced together in what sounds like a kind of prison cities? Murder and mayhem? Revenge? Yes, please.

buy (affiliate link): The Coldest Girl in Coldtown (bookdepostiory.co.uk)

Book Chat: Out of the Easy!

Kiwie: So how did you like it?

Kat : It was okay, but not my favourite book ever, to put it like that. It was a bit slow a lot of the time.

Kiwie: Agreed, it wasn't bad in anyway, but not great either. A bit meh. I felt that we were waiting for something through the whole novel (which I admit we were, but her acceptance/rejection to that school or if she got out of New Orleans was not what I felt I was waiting for).

Kat: That's how I felt as well. It was as if the book never really started. We jumped into it in the middle, read for a bit and then it was over without anything ever happening. Sure, I got angry with her mum and felt sorry for the Josie, but her story wasn't really very exciting. And I had much higher expectations to the feel and mood of the book, being set in New Orleans. I know Josie didn't like the city, but I still felt that the book could have been set almost anywhere warm.

Kiwie: New Orleans was not a "character" the way you might be led to believe by the title... I wish it had been. I also felt that the gallery of characters were made to be inclusive of all people ever in a way, sometimes that was pointless. For instance the whole Stephen thing, Josie sort of liking him (as well as obviously being attracted to Jesse), but then he turns out to be gay. That was a bit of a cop-out, either make HER decide or leave the hint of a love-triangle out of the damn story!

Kat: Yes, you're right. I felt like a lot of things never really got resolved, people just left or died in the end.

Kiwie: Right, and then Willie just shipped Josie out to Shady Cove when things got messy and she hung out there and flirted a bit with Jesse and it was just very boring filler!

Kat: I know! I felt like the author could have done so much better, as the book was well written and the characters was fairly developed, it was the plot that fall short of my expectations.

Kiwie: The characters were nice, they had some depth and weren't all the same, and the writing wasn't bad at all, but the plot really wasn't exiting at all with the exception of a few times.

Kat: True. My mental health kind of went out the window as I was reading this and I was wondering if my inability to enjoy the book was directly linked to that, but now I think not. The book was really not what it could have been, but I didn't hate it.

Kiwie: Also all the characters were either good or bad, even if Josie had complicated feelings towards her mother she was always bad, and even though Willie (in addition to being a madam) clearly wasn't "good" in the traditional sense she was always the good guy.

Kat : I almost wish I did hate it, because then at least I would care more about the book!

Kiwie: To sum it up: Meh.

Kat: Yeah. I don't really think it's much else to say about this book. Good it wasn't longer

Kiwie: No, which is sad, because I really wanted to like it, I just don't.

Kat: Me too.

September novel: Out of the Easy

It seems that our reading circle flat lined sometime late July, but as the trees start ti wither we intend to blossom, or at least get back on track. For September we intend to read Out of the Easy by Ruta Sepetys:

Title: Out of the Easy
Author: Ruta Sepetys
First published: 2013

From the publisher/book website:

It’s 1950, and as the French Quarter of New Orleans simmers with secrets, seventeen-year-old Josie Moraine is silently stirring a pot of her own. Known among locals as the daughter of a brothel prostitute, Josie wants more out of life than the Big Easy has to offer.

She devises a plan get out, but a mysterious death in the Quarter leaves Josie tangled in an investigation that will challenge her allegiance to her mother, her conscience, and Willie Woodley, the brusque madam on Conti Street. Josie is caught between the dream of an elite college and a clandestine underworld. New Orleans lures her in her quest for truth, dangling temptation at every turn, and escalating to the ultimate test.

With characters as captivating as those in her internationally bestselling novel Between Shades of Gray, Ruta Sepetys skillfully creates a rich story of secrets, lies, and the haunting reminder that decisions can shape our destiny

Why we chose this book:

We have both encountered talk about and reviews of this book online, on YouTube, Goodreads and blogs, and we've been intrigued. A book set in 1950s New Orleans, starring a seventeen-year-old, born of a prostitue, trying to get out and into a new life? Could be great.

What we expect from it:

Kiwie: I want to read this mostly because of the New Orleans setting, I have slight fascination with the city (or rather it's portrayal), but haven't really read anything about it lately which is why this is a book I've noticed and keep seeing and going "oh yeah I might read that" but not actually getting far enough to even stick it in my to-read list on Goodreads. Plus I'm guessing this is also a coming of age story, which I like.

Katastrofekat: As Kiwie already said, this book caught my attention because of it's setting. I have been fascinated with New Orleans since I read the first books in Anne Rices Vampire Chronicles when I was a teenager. Then I read Poppy Z. Brites vampire novels a few years ago and was reminded of how wonderful I found this setting. I hope this book has some excitement and some of that dreamy mood from Poppy Z. Brite. The description sounds very promising and I'm very excited going into this book

World War Z by Max Brooks

So, things didn't go quite as planned this month. I finished the book and completely forgot to write anything about it and then Kiwie didn't finish it. She might write about why, but she told me she bought the audiobook, like me, but she hadn't been in a mood to listen to any audiobook this month. So she will finish the book but she probably won't write about it here. I was planning to make up for that by writing a long review but that did not go as planned either. I have been feeling kind of rubbish lately and don't have much to say about the book, so this month you just get the short review from Goodreads. Just know that this is us being human and not the book being bad. I liked the book a lot, I just can't muster the will to write a lot about it at the moment. So, have a short review:

This is my favorite zombie-book. I loved the way the book is out together, how it really feels like you get to hear many different peoples stories. This book felt very real and it must have been a hard book to write, with so many points of view and so many people from differing countries. To research this book must have been a nightmare and I'm very impressed with the finished result. 

Also, this book was very fitting as an audiobook. It really made the oral history of the zombie war come alive.

Death's Daughter (Calliope Reaper-Jones #1) by Amber Benson

This wasn't one of my favorite books I have read for this book club but I did find it quite enjoyable. The idea was a good one and this was that kind of book I loved to read when I was younger, so I enjoyed taking a trip down memory lane, so to speak. 

Calliope is trying to live a normal life in New York, normal job, normal friends and normal interests all included. But she is the daughter of Death and even though she doesn't have any contact with her family, she gets dragged right back into her old life when her father is kidnapped along with her oldest sister and almost everyone working for him. Calliope is the only family member left who can take over her fathers job and if she don't do it, her fathers powers and immortality will be revoked and he might be killed. So Calliope don't have much of a choice, she has to become Death. Of course becoming Death isn't that easy and she has to complete a series of challenges before she can get her powers and everything gets really complicated when she is also accused of being her fathers kidnapper.

The book was exciting and the idea was a good one, but where this book failed a bit for me, was Calliope. She had an okay personality, but I just didn't like her that much. One of her go to reactions when life fights against her is to sit down and cry while she waits for someone to help her. I would have liked her to be a bit more kick-ass and luckily she gets better during the book. I also liked that she didn't change her personality during the book. She started out as shopping loving girl and she was still the same when the book was over, even though I don't think I would be good friends with her.

I did like Calliopes sister, Clio. She was one of my favorite characters in this book and I don't think Callie would have gotten far without her. I also loved Runt, one of Cerberus pups which is a great support for Callie during this book. 

The story isn't the most original but I thought that Amber Benson did it in an interesting way and although parts of the book was a bit predictable, overall I enjoyed it. In the end she managed to surprise me couple of times and the book was an easy, entertaining read. All in all, the book had a few short-commings, but I enjoyed spending time in this universe and I might keep reading the series, even if it's mostly to get to know some of the minor characters a bit better.

P.S. A little note about why we are only reviewing one book each, even though we were supposed to read both. I can't review The Ocean at the End of the Lane because I haven't gotten it yet. I pre-orderd the book but it has yet to turn up in my mailbox. This is why we are reviewing one book each, even though Kiwie has read them both and I will most definitely read The Ocean at the End of the Lane as soon as it turns up. 

Katastorfekat

The Ocean at the End of the Lane

My initial thought after finishing this: Beautiful. 


When I first started reading I wasn't entirely sure if this book would sit well with me. It is the first Neil Gaiman book I've pre-ordered. The first adult fiction book he's published after I fell in love with his words (which was sometime before the Graveyard book came out, which I got for Christmas in a really pretty edition from my aunt who is magical at gifs. Or psychic. Or she just talks to my mother.) for real. After I somehow learned that Gaiman is a writer who writes books. Weird, I have Coraline sitting on a shelf and it's been sitting there for years, and I've read Sandman and you know been generally aware of Gaiman since I was a kid, but it wasn't until 07/08 I really got into him and read most of his fiction. So I was worried I was going to be let down because I've built him up. I wasn't.

This was and wasn't Gaiman as I've know him. The book started off like books do, uncertainly, teaching the reader it's language and I was puzzled for a while, but by page 50 I was so drawn into the story that there was no putting it down until the final page. I read every single word. If books are boring, or parts seem to not be relevant to the overall plot I often read, but don't register much of what's going on. That didn't happen. Gaiman writes beautifully, sometimes his descriptions and observations make me go "this is truth" or feel like I'm having a eureka moment, which is a wonderful thing, or just making the words seem very real. (*coughpage112cough*) I'm expecting to see a lot of quotes from this floating about the web, in pretty fonts and on pretty pictures. 


It was beautiful, and scary and I wish it was longer and not. I also want to tip my hat for his naming skills. Ursula Monkton! Sounds villainy to me.

Not to mention the beautiful name and the cover of my edition. Well, the book underneath the dust jacket as well as the dust jacket (do you even call them that?).

Yes, there are flaws, yes there were parts where I wished someone had edited the language differently, but for the most part I wouldn't change a thing. I think this is a lovely little book and I cried at the end. There's a magic to it, and while the universe is intangible it isn't annoyingly so, not to me anyway (I know others will disagree). This is not my favoirte Gaiman novel (tie between American Gods, Coraline and The Graveyard book!), but I loved it.

Again: Beautiful, I wish I could say something better, but that's all I can come up with.

Best wishes,
Kiwie

July Novel: World War Z by Max Brooks

An oral history of the zombie war

Title: World War Z
Author: Max Brooks
First Published: 2006

About the novel:

The Zombie War came unthinkably close to eradicating humanity. Max Brooks, driven by the urgency of preserving the acid-etched first-hand experiences of the survivors from those apocalyptic years, traveled across the United States of America and throughout the world, from decimated cities that once teemed with upwards of thirty million souls to the most remote and inhospitable areas of the planet. He recorded the testimony of men, women, and sometimes children who came face-to-face with the living, or at least the undead, hell of that dreadful time. World War Z is the result. Never before have we had access to a document that so powerfully conveys the depth of fear and horror, and also the ineradicable spirit of resistance, that gripped human society through the plague years.

Why we chose this novel and what we expect from it:

Why not? It has a certain reputation/level of fame, it has been turned into a move and it presents itself in a documentary style, and of course: ZOMBIES!

Kiwie: No idea what to expect I've heard people love it and I've heard people hate it. All I know is: Zombies that nearly destroy us. Which is good, as I like both zombies and destruction!

Katastrofekat: