We're an Open Book
When it comes to BookCon, BookExpo America attendees generally like to get out of dodge. In the past BookCon has been seen overcrowded and plagued with long lines.But this year we are going to write a defense of BookCon. Maybe it’s because it was in Chicago, maybe it was because exhibitors know what to expect now, but this year I think BookCon was worth sticking around for.
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I’m not much of a traveler so when I heard BEA was moving to Chicago I had no plans of going. But at the start of the year I had a change of heart and decided going to Chicago would be a bit of an adventure
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I’m kind of on a science fiction fantasy YA kick now and The Scorpion Rules has to be one of the most unique speculative YA books I’ve read in a long time.
In a world where global warming is here and territory wars have run rampant, the UN turns to an artificial intelligence named Talis to create solution for peace. Going rouge, Talis starts incinerating cities of warring countries via satellite and makes new rules for humanity; each country’s leader must give one of their children to him and if that country wants to go war that child will be killed as a sacrifice.
400 years later, 17-year-old Greta Gustafsen Stuart, Crown Princess of the Pan Polar Confederacy (so, like Canada) is one of those children. She has spent a majority of her life in the isolated school with the rest of the hostages. Greta and her cohorts accept their fate as hostages with dignity and spend their days in intense study hoping they won’t be called on to die. That is until Elián Palnik, a hostage from the newly formed country shows up. He doesn’t play by the rules and makes Greta question everything she’d ever accepted.
So, it’s basically Dead Poets Society with a cyberpunk twist.
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Kat and I have been on a bit of a blogging hiatus; between family events, moving and maybe just feeling a general spring time slump. We are back and ready to jump back in. But even when I’m away from blogging, books will always find a way into my daily life.
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Every now and then I’ll hear a podcast episode and think “THIS IS JUST LIKE THAT ONE BOOK” So, today I’m pairing amazing podcast episodes with some of Books and Sensibility’s favorite books.
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The Lunar Chronicles series is like a snowball rolling down a hill. We start off with the singular story of Cinder, a plucky cyborg mechanic. Cinder discovers she might be something more and soon a viscous plague, the future of the empire and the fate of a moon kingdom might be in her hands
As we roll down the hill with each book in the series we pick up new characters and story lines that are all incorporating and mixing together to form the giant snow ball finale that is Winter, which comes in at 900 pages or 23 hours of audio.
While the sweet and quirky Princess Winter is our titular character this book brings the entire gang together (Cinder, Thorne, Iko, Cress, Scarlet, Wolf and Kai) for one last mission to overthrow Queen Levana. Meyers just knows how to juggle a cast of characters. But she probably didn’t need to do it in so many pages. There were a lot of section I felt weren’t necessary.
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