Book Review: Delirium by Lauren Oliver

Posted by Kat Kennedy on May 19, 2012 in Reviews | 3 comments

Delir­ium by Lau­ren Oliver

Pub­lisher: Harper­TEEN
Pages: 580 (Hard­cover)
Series: Delir­ium, #1

Rat­ing:  

Before sci­en­tists found the cure, peo­ple thought love was a good thing. They didn’t under­stand that once love — the deliria — blooms in your blood, there is no escap­ing its hold. Things are dif­fer­ent now. Sci­en­tists are able to erad­i­cate love, and the gov­ern­ment demands that all cit­i­zens receive the cure upon turn­ing eigh­teen. Lena Holoway has always looked for­ward to the day when she’ll be cured. A life with­out love is a life with­out pain: safe, mea­sured, pre­dictable, and happy.

But with ninety-five days left until her treat­ment, Lena does the unthink­able: She falls in love.

I have said this before and I’ll say it again.  I have no prob­lem with an implau­si­ble story vehi­cle.  As long as the ride is good and it relates a moral or philo­soph­i­cal value.

But where the line is drawn is when the world isn’t con­sis­tent and in the con­fines of that world, things don’t make sense.

That’s my limit.  That’s when I start get­ting frus­trated and annoyed.  And it’s not because an author tried some­thing new, okay?  Lau­ren Oliver is AMAZING.  She is a great author who is eru­dite and ver­bose and inter­est­ing to lis­ten to.  I’ve seen her speak live and frankly to an audi­ence and her abil­ity to relate to them and express her­self is fantastic.

But this novel still didn’t work for me. Delir­ium, unfor­tu­nately, failed for me.  Which is sad­den­ing, because Lau­ren Oliver is a good author and I know, with Delir­ium,  she was reach­ing out and try­ing some­thing dif­fer­ent.  I just wish it had been more successful.

Now, here’s where it all bug­gered up:

Cover Reveal and Giveaway for Stormdancer by Jay Kristoff

Posted by Kat Kennedy on May 18, 2012 in Cover Reveals, Giveaways | 90 comments

We here at Cud­dle­bug­gery are excited to help reveal Jay Kristoff’s US cover for his debut novel, Stor­m­dancer, to you all!  Aside from this incred­i­bly awe­some cover, there is also one give­away hosted on our blog.  At the end of the post is an oppor­tu­nity to enter a sec­ond Give­away!  If you missed it, check out our inter­view with Jay Kristoff here.

Hot New Titles 18 May 2012

Posted by Kat Kennedy on May 18, 2012 in Hot New Titles | 6 comments

Author Interview with Jay Kristoff

Posted by Kat Kennedy on May 17, 2012 in Interviews | 24 comments

Steph and I got to sit down and chat with Jay Kristoff, Author of the much-anticipated Japan­ese Steam­punk Stor­m­dancer.  We talk about his new US cover which we will fea­ture on the blog tomor­row as well as a glo­ri­ous sur­prise!  We would like to apol­o­gize to all the peo­ple emo­tion­ally trau­ma­tized and dis­turbed by the fol­low­ing con­ver­sa­tion and men­tal images it may pro­duce.  And Pat Roth­fuss.   And Jay’s mother.

Don’t for­get to join us tomor­row at 12PM EST for Jay’s spec­tac­u­lar cover reveal – here on Cuddlebuggery!

Kat Kennedy:  Steph and I are hav­ing a live inter­view with debut author, Jay Kristoff for the cover reveal of his book, Stor­m­dancer.  Before we get to the actual cover, I wanted to dis­cuss the fact that I am actu­ally a bud­ding cover designer and I did up a few mock cov­ers of Stormdancer.

JUST IN CASE!  You know, if it’s not too late to change it or any­thing if you see some­thing you like…

Stephanie Sin­clair:  It could be nec­es­sary. You never know.

Jay Kristoff:  Ok, wow me. I am ready to be wowed.

Stephanie Sin­clair:  Shall I do my drum roll?

Kat Kennedy:  Please do.

Stephanie Sin­clair:  *drops drum­stick*

Kat Kennedy:  So, with this one, what I was going for was a really lit­eral trans­la­tion of the title.

Book Review: I’ll Tell You Mine by Pip Harry and Giveaway

Posted by Kat Kennedy on May 16, 2012 in Featured, Giveaways, Reviews | 30 comments

I’ll Tell You Mine by Pip Harry

Pub­lisher: U.Q.P.
Pages: 264 (Paper­back)

Rat­ing:  

Kate Elliot isn’t try­ing to fit in – that’s the whole point of being a goth, isn’t it?

Every­thing about her – from her hair to her clothes – screams dif­fer­ent and the girls at her school give her a wide berth. How can Kate be her­self, really her­self, when she’s hid­ing her big secret? The one that landed her in board­ing school in the first place. She’s buried it down deep but it always seems to surface.

But then some­times your soul mates sneak up on you in the most unlikely of places. Like Nor­ris Gram­mar Board­ing School for Girls, where’s she’s serv­ing a life sen­tence, no parole, because her par­ents kicked her out.

So, how do you take that first step and reveal your secrets when you’re not sure that peo­ple want to see the real you?

There was a rea­son that Melina Mar­che­tta launched this book.  I think I can safely put up a big sign over Pip Harry’s name that says, “Watch This Space.”

And because Pip Harry is Aus­tralian – instead of being lauded as bril­liant and fan­tas­maze­balls, she just gets put in that neat lit­tle cat­e­gory of Great Aus­tralian Writ­ers like Melina Mar­che­tta, Kirsty Eagar, Markus Zusak, Garth Nix, Shirley Marr, Lucy Christo­pher and Laura Buzo.  I’m sure at least a cou­ple of them aren’t really Aus­tralian but we have a ten­dency of just claim­ing peo­ple as our own – so just go with it.

This was the story of socially awk­ward Goth girl, Kate, deal­ing with being kicked out of home, relat­ing to a bunch of board­ers and rec­ti­fy­ing her home sit­u­a­tion whilst deal­ing with her own crush­ing insecurities.

It’s about being fif­teen and stu­pid, and lucky, and angry, and con­fused and frustrated.

ARC Book Review: Blackwood by Gwenda Bond

Posted by Archer on May 15, 2012 in Reviews | 24 comments

Black­wood by Gwenda Bond

Pub­lisher: Strange Chem­istry
Genre: YA, Para­nor­mal, Para­nor­mal Romance, Ghost Story
Pages: 416 (paper­back)
Release Date: Sep­tem­ber 4 2012
Source: Net­gal­ley
Rat­ing: Unrated as did not finish.

On Roanoke Island, the leg­end of the 114 peo­ple who mys­te­ri­ously van­ished from the Lost Colony hun­dreds of years ago is just an out­door drama for the tourists, a story peo­ple tell. But when the island faces the sud­den dis­ap­pear­ance of 114 peo­ple now, an unlikely pair of 17-year-olds may be the only hope of bring­ing them back.

Miranda, a mis­fit girl from the island’s most infa­mous fam­ily, and Phillips, an exiled teen crim­i­nal who hears the voices of the dead, must dodge every­one from fed­eral agents to long-dead alchemists as they work to uncover the secrets of the new Lost Colony. The one thing they can’t dodge is each other.

Black­wood is a dark, witty com­ing of age story that com­bines America’s old­est mys­tery with a thor­oughly con­tem­po­rary romance.

WARNING CONTAINS MILD SPOILERS. CONSIDER THIS YOUR ALERT!

Well, hello there once again fel­low book-wormy types!

Over the past few days I have been read­ing a YA Para­nor­mal novel with a con­cept that intrigued me: “On Roanoke Island, the leg­end of the 114 peo­ple who mys­te­ri­ously van­ished from the Lost Colony hun­dreds of years ago is just an out­door drama for the tourists, a story peo­ple tell. But when the island faces the sud­den dis­ap­pear­ance of 114 peo­ple now, an unlikely pair of 17-year-olds may be the only hope of bring­ing them back.” Now is it just me, or does that sound fuck­ing awesome?

I didn’t think it was just me. I started it actu­ally look­ing for­ward to a ghost story in a con­tem­po­rary set­ting play­ing with one of the best known mys­ter­ies in his­tory. What hap­pened to the Lost Colony? Unfor­tu­nately I will never find out what hap­pened in this world, or if I do it won’t be for a fuck­ing long time. I caved. I’m weak. I didn’t fin­ish it. Why? Because despite the premise being astound­ingly right up my alley, the writ­ing was poor.

We Do Dick Jokes

Posted by Kat Kennedy on May 14, 2012 in Musing Musers | 46 comments

Lately, here on Cud­dle­bug­gery, we’ve had issues with peo­ple who don’t like us com­ing to post on our blog.

Dis­lik­ing us is per­fectly fine.  If you’re build­ing effi­gies of us to poke with pins and burn, if you hate every­thing we say and stand for then we’re here to say:

Great!  Fan­tas­tic!  Con­grat­u­la­tions on being an indi­vid­ual with your own thoughts.  We invite you to hate us to your lit­tle heart’s desire.  To think we’re child­ish, imma­ture, evil, hor­ri­ble, dirty, slutty, filthy, mon­grel bitches.  Go right ahead!

But if that’s legit­i­mately how you feel, then Cud­dle­bug­gery isn’t the best place to spend your time, and our posts aren’t for you to com­ment on.