What Now?

It seems like time flies by. So mainly, I wanted to talk about how I wanted to do NaNoWriMo again this year (I did it in 2009), but I don't know if this is such a hot idea, considering how bad my procrastination has become. Since I am finally a senior in college, I'm trying hard to do everything so I don't berate myself for missing out later. Therefore, I am still doing the whole being an editor of a daily newspaper thing, fashion show, a senior thesis, regular schoolwork, and putting 50,000 words on top of that could be the death of me or my grades.

In fact, my grades are going pretty badly by my standards this semester, so luckily I have picked the year where my transcript is already finalized for law school to slack off. My senior thesis seems to suck up a lot of research time without having that much to show for it, and this is sort of irritating. Going to Stanford for research this summer was fun, though, and I am thinking very seriously about pursuing a career on the west coast.

ALSO, ALSO I finished Son of Neptune. It was glorious. No spoilers, but I can say that this one hugely benefited from Percy's return as a narrator. He just shines whenever he gets page time, and you know, I don't want to sound like an angry fan girl, but the other characters don't have the kind of charisma he does to hold up a story. Just to compare, it took me six months to get through The Lost Hero. It took me less than ten hours to get through Son of Neptune. Review reactions later? Everyone knows I am actually incapable of giving a review; it is really just me saying whatever comes to mind about a book I've read. Fan fiction galore after the book, also. That is nice, though; it's a good feeling getting back to writing.

But I suppose it's early yet to figure out whether it would be a good idea to do NaNo, but I figured I should think about it and toss around some ideas. Good lord, someone give me some organization in my life, please. Someone tell me they are also doing NaNo. I certainly need a buddy if this is going to happen.

Guess What

SON OF NEPTUNE RELEASE DAY!!

Look at that picture. I just swooned. Hey, Percy.

Yeah, yeah, okay, I'll do a catchup post tomorrow. 1) I am finally done with law school applications. So I can take a breather, sit back, and wait for the letters to roll in. 2) I'm thinking about doing NaNoWriMo this year again? Is anyone with me? This may be a bad idea at this time, as I will explain later. 3) I am really bad at maintaining a blog.

Somehow, I am returning to 60 followers after my absence. Don't know how that happened. Hope I have substantive things to say from now on. Happy reading!

Goodbye, Borders

In February, I blogged that the Borders in my hometown was closing. Well, now it looks like we're saying goodbye forever, because today, Borders has announced it will be closing all of its remaining stores. My sadness then is nothing compared to now. This is terrible news for the industry, and I think it marks a moment when we have to realize the effects of e-readers, for better and for worse. I was really hoping Borders would be able to pull through. Unfortunately, this leaves Barnes & Noble as the only major bookstore chain in the country.

Not only is this sort of creepy in a B&N OWNS THE WORLD NOW way, it's drastically cutting down on the number of places people can physically browse books. I don't know about you, but one of the best things about buying books for me is stumbling on new titles by accident. How are you supposed to stumble on new titles on Amazon? They suggest things for you, but none of the suggestions are random.

Also, plenty of bad news for new writers, who depend a lot of random stumbling, since without a fan base, nobody's technically looking for them. This will definitely make marketing even more important before the release date. You could've written a jewel of a book, but if nobody reads it, benefit from word-of-mouth will be minimal. Those books that don't get a lot of promotion from their publishers — you were shit out of luck before, and it's going to be even worse now. No matter what is said about its failing state, Borders was a major chain. The complete eradication of its units is going to have a pretty substantial effect. Apparently, B&N is considering buying some of Borders' old locations, which I guess is the best news we can conceivably expect from this situation.

It's being tossed around that books are going the way of records, in that eventually, they're just going to go away. I hope that isn't true, but how can we say for sure? I will always prefer physical copies, but that doesn't mean the next generation will.

I have a lot of wonderful memories from Borders; it was where all the high school kids hung out and did their homework. There are definitely some sentimental feelings toward the stores on my part, not purely practical ones. I usually avoided giving my business to B&N, just because I liked Borders better. And for the first time, I won't be able to buy a Percy Jackson book from Borders. I'll have to get SON OF NEPTUNE from B&N in October.

Sad day for authors, readers, and the industry in general. But especially for me.

You'll be missed, Borders.

Lookie Here

Things that happened while I was gone:

1) I got my LSAT scores back. They were great, by pretty much every objective standpoint. I sort of overreacted because I felt like I bombed it walking out, as I'm sure many people would tell you. I ended that day crying in the Olive Garden bathroom, which is the lowest of all low things, maybe with the exception of crying in a bathroom at McDonald's. I basically became a self-pitying hermit and had to be talked out of alcoholism and writing terrible poetry. So I moped for a couple of days. I'm going to a good law school and I'm going to be a real person who has employment prospects and stuff! I am retaking the test in October, but that's mainly because I'm the perfectionist freak everyone hates in life, and I have this unhealthy desire to emulate Elle Woods plus, more scholarships would be nice, yeah. But now the pressure's off, and studying has no longer become this Life-Or-Death situation. I am very, very happy about this. And looking forward to getting acceptances so I can momentarily stop worrying about my future.

2) Harry Potter 7 (Part 2) came out. Which was, all in all, a fairly good send-off. I am no giant fan of the movies, but I think the quality improved as the movies went on. The epilogue is still, as always, the most awkward part of anything, and I still hate Ginny as a character. Nevertheless, the midnight showing was fun, especially since we moved up night production in order to make it. I feel like I said goodbye when the last book came out, but even then, it was sort of sad. I am making this sound so meh, when really, I was the girl who was weeping for the second half of the movie. My friend Kevin who was sitting next to me actually turned to me halfway through and was like, "ARE YOU CRYING?"

3) My family got an orange tabby kitten! I named him Frodo, who is my favorite in LOTR. I think this is pretty much a sign that I'm going to die alone and unloved. I officially "own" a cat, and I named him after a fantasy character. Also, fun story. My roommate and I created an incredibly effective drinking game to ROTK that you should try. Drink every time:

• Gandalf does magic
• Merry or Pippin does something stupid
• Aragorn flirts with Eowyn or vice versa
• Frodo falls over
• Fake ending/fade out happens
  
• Legolas says something mysterious/looks into the distance devolved into every time Legolas is onscreen
• Someone smokes a pipe
• Elves versus dwarves rivalry is revealed
  
• Aragorn's future/lineage is mentioned
• Denethor compares Faramir unfavorably to Boromir

Have fun. Oh, and I missed the blogosphere. Will have more posts up soon!

Where Did I Go?

Really sorry for disappearing without explanation. As you know, I had to take the LSAT, and the stress was getting to me, so I just didn't have time or desire to continue blogging for a while. The test is over, and yeah, it's been a rough couple of days after. It may be that the studying is not over yet. We will see. I don't like unsaddling personal issues in public, so I think I will take a hiatus for a little bit, to get everything in order and figure out where I'm going from here (with my studying and career-planning and all that — I still plan on continuing to blog and write).

Hopefully, things settle down soon and turn out for the best.

See you soon.

Book Review: Shizuko's Daughter

Blurb — Shizuko kills herself, escaping a soured marriage, leaving her husband free to marry his mistress of eight years, and having vague ideas about making her daughter's life better. Yuki, 12, now faces a bleak world with a stepmother who tries to eradicate all traces of her predecessor and curtail the girl's visits to her mother's family. Her father is distant, taciturn, and guilt ridden, providing neither the support Yuki needs nor the discipline the stepmother wants him to exercise over the girl. Most of all, Yuki must cope with the loss of her mother and piece together some meaning for her death and ultimately for her life. Through strength and independence, Yuki comes to grips with her mother's memory, deals with her own current plight, and makes plans for the future.

Review — While not technically a novel about Asian-Americans, I felt this book deserved a mention, because it was one of the first books featuring an Asian main character that I read. I don't know what necessarily drew me to this book, but I do remember that after the first page, I was hooked. It is not often you come across a book with that kind of power.

The title was an apt choice, because Yuki spends the duration of the book struggling with the concept of being Shizuko's daughter, the daughter of a woman who committed suicide, a label she both wants to escape and doesn't. The range of emotions depicted is vast, as you might expect. There's a lot of grief and anger, but in spite of it all, this is a book that manages to be hopeful. So while what drew me in to the story was a horrified fascination with the actual suicide that is described in the opening pages, I stayed with it because the message was an uplifting one.

Maybe I am not looking hard enough, but I see a lot of recycled premises in YA, like having to cope with a lie you've been told your whole life, having to move somewhere else, being the ugly duckling of school, and I'm certainly not saying here that recycled premises can't be good ones. It is pretty rare, though, to see a book that deals with successfully with suicide, and maybe that's why this book stands out to me. The point of the book is not really to try to understand the suicide (because how can anyone, much less a 12-year-old girl make sense of her mother deciding to end her own life?), but to realize that somehow, you have to pick up the pieces and move on. The addition of having to deal with a not-so-attentive father and the sudden presence of a stepmother was also exceptionally handled.

As you may be able to tell by now, I clearly have a preference for "quiet" books; not that I don't enjoy a great rabble-rousing, fast-paced action/adventure, but I tend to gravitate with my own picks toward books that lie on the literary side of the line. The parts that shine in SHIZUKO'S DAUGHTER are the scenes of contemplation, and there is some really exquisite description here. While technically a young adult novel, I would recommend this to people who are of high school age and over. Not because it's graphic or inappropriate, but because I feel like I didn't really appreciate it until later, since I read it rather early on. A real jewel of a book. Check it out if you can.

Book Review: Where She Went

Okay, another departure from AAPI Heritage Month. No worries, the next post will be another book rec, and it'll be here Friday, oh yes. Don't miss out. I fucking love this book. It's a surprise!

Just finished WHERE SHE WENT. First of all, just look at that goddamn cover. How freaking gorgeous is it? I'm so happy I went out and bought this book. IF I STAY blew my mind, but WHERE SHE WENT is forever on my list of favorites.

Blurb — It's been three years since the devastating accident . . . three years since Mia walked out of Adam's life forever. Now living on opposite coasts, Mia is Juilliard's rising star and Adam is LA tabloid fodder, thanks to his new rock star status and celebrity girlfriend. When Adam gets stuck in New York by himself, chance brings the couple together again, for one last night. As they explore the city that has become Mia's home, Adam and Mia revisit the past and open their hearts to the future - and each other. Told from Adam's point of view in the spare, lyrical prose that defined If I Stay, Where She Went explores the devastation of grief, the promise of new hope, and the flame of rekindled romance.

I should stop calling these book reviews. They're clearly just me, going on disjointed rants.

Review — All right, it sounds counterintuitive, wrong even, to say that WHERE SHE WENT was more emotional for me than IF I STAY. I mean, the first book was the trauma of losing your whole family and lying there on the verge of death in a hospital, choosing whether it's worth it or not to live, and this. What is this? This is about some emo kid's broken heart, and I'm sitting here like it's the saddest thing ever. Really wrong. This is not correct, I'm sure. Maybe, though, it's like real life, where you don't get the full impact of grief until after the fact. When Mia was dying, I was on the edge of my seat, hoping she would live, fearing she would die. I didn't have time to be sad. But if WHERE SHE WENT does anything well, it's illustrating that grief doesn't go away after it happens. It's all about that raw, emotional impact, and yeah, it packs a punch.

This book sure doesn't suffer from sequel-itis. In fact, it uses its status as a sequel to its advantage. The characters in the original were superbly drawn, and that's what made it so relatable, because you felt like you knew the family, you knew Mia and Adam. It's what made you care. But you go a step further here. The choice to switch the POV to Adam in the sequel was one of the most masterful decisions that went into this book. The adjusted lens allowed you as a reader to experience another facet of each of the characters. I came out of this book knowing Adam a lot better and actually loving Mia. Because I wasn't seeing the family scenes from her perspective, I finally witnessed her shyness, her perpetual sense of not-belonging. It was like IF I STAY was my first impression of Mia, a girl who, yeah, lay on the better side of average and I could probably come to like. I got to know her in the sequel, and I will forever be grateful that Gayle Forman gave me that chance.

No equivocation here: I liked this book better than the first, by a long shot. I'm cheap, so I'm so happy to be able to tell you, the hardcover was worth it.

I am always reading while I'm writing, so there are many, many books that go into my own. It's like a secret that I have, which books shine through which passages of my manuscript. There are a lot; completely unrelated genres, voices that are miles apart. But I stopped writing to finish reading this book. I'm definitely hoping that if I can get one thing out of it, it's this incandescent ability to convey grief.

Both books are highly recommended, so if you haven't read them already, what are you waiting for?