Hey everybody! I know. It’s been a month. Bad Meagan! I had my reasons? (No, not really.)
All righty. Book number three is a book Iv’e been meaning to read since I saw the Doctor Who episode “The Unicorn and the Wasp,” which is all about Agatha Christie and how awesome she is. And, after reading Murder on the Orient Express, I have to concur.
This is a pretty famous book with a pretty famous ending, but if you don’t know what happens, caution ahead.
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Tagged agatha christie, Books, doctor who, mysteries, reading, writing
I know, I know. I lied to you guys. I make promises about intellectually challenging books, and then I run to the Young Adult section. What can I say? I love me some YA fiction. Also, I will eventually (probably) read the Intellectually Challenging fare, because like half of them were books I have to read for a class. They’re sitting on a shelf above my desk right now, mocking me.
Anyway, Flora’s Dare is the sequel to Flora Segunda, which was the first book by Ysabeau S. Wilce. I loved Flora Segunda, since it had an intelligent, kind of quirky female lead without the need for her to be super pretty or for guys to be falling all over her. In fact, I find both of these books admirable because, unlike so many books (targeted at both teens and adults), the main plot isn’t about finding a boyfriend/girlfriend. No, Flora has bigger problems.
Both books are set in the imaginary city of Califa, a place where there’s magic, but it’s forbidden, where everybody wears kilts all the time, where there was a war years and years ago against the Mayan stand ins the Huitzils, which the Califans lost. Flora’s mother is the General in charge of Califa’s army, her father is a former soldier driven to drunkeness by his time as a prisoner of war, her older sister is a soldier, and her best friend (Udo) wants to be a pirate when he grows up. By tradition, every member of Flora’s family becomes a soldier on their fourteenth birthday (the age of adulthood in Califa), but Flora wants to be a Ranger, part of a special division in the army that was disbanded after the war with the Huitzils.
I was a little hesitant going into this book, because I’d liked the original so much and sequels can often be much, much worse than the first book in a series. But there was the same spirit of fun throughout the book, and even greater odds were at stake in this one (in the first book, Flora almost dies, in this book, the city is threatened with destruction). Wilce continues to mix the ancient and the modern with devious glee – in this book, there are mosh pits and horse rides, lipstick and swordfights. There’s magical possessions and giant octopusses and earthquakes and red, sparkly, magic shoes. It’s a delightful ride.
I was also happy that we got to learn more about Flora’s family. Actually, the theme in this book seemed to be people are not as they seem. Without giving too much away, almost everyone Flora runs into turns out to be different than she originally imagined them to be, from the powerful Lord Axacaya to Flora’s sister Idden, to the miscreant Springheel Jack to Tiny Doom. It’s impressively and subtly done.
I realize that I’ve been blathering on for paragraphs and paragraphs and you probably still have no idea what the book is about, but trust me, it’s good. If you like fantasy or young adult fiction, or just books that are plain fun, you should pick this (and the previous book in the series) up.
I’m afraid actuality interfered quite harshly with my world of reading and writing and then reading some more these past couple of days – I just moved into my new dorm room, and spent the whole day unpacking boxes and cleaning the floor and other such equally banal tasks. The good news: my roomate is an English major, as are the girls across the hall, so I should finally have some company in that way. The bad news: I unpacked all of my books and realized what an embarrasment of riches I have in that area. The books, which I hadn’t had all in one place for quite some time, completely fill my six foot tall bookshelf plus piles of books on top, more stacks on my dresser, and more on my desk. I might have to cull a few in the upcoming weeks.
Of course, in the way that I can’t when I move, I’ve been unable to sleep, so I thought I’d do this instead, and read some of Possession by A.S. Byatt, which is turning out to be quite good, but I figured it was time for a break since I just hit a fifty page block of letters between two of the characters. That book, along with the strange newness of my environment and the freezing fog that’s spread over the entire state has made me feel a little bit like I’m in England right now, which is kind of cool and kind of weird.
I have an internship starting on Tuesday, but I don’t know what I’ll do till then – read, I guess.
Hi. I know this is kind of massively off topic, and I’m sure all of you are getting spammed with tons of ways to help the people in Haiti who are recovering from the massive earthquake that hit there. But I’m going to bug you just a little more with a couple of ways/places you can give money. I don’t have very much, and I’m sure that many of you don’t have tons of money either, but every little bit really does help aid organizations to survive.
Red Cross: Text HAITI to 90999 on your cell phone, and $10 will automatically be added to your phone bill. All $10, a hundred percent of that, goes towards the Red Cross, your cell phone provider gets none of that.
Alternatively, if you’re on your parents cell phone plan still, like I am, you can go to this page to donate to the Red Cross over the internet.
Google :Google has set up a really sweet page with a couple of really quick ways to donate money through their system here. They also have links for up to date news about the situation, as well as a google maps view of the area affected.
World Vision: World Vision is a Christian organization that’s most well known for their program where you can sponsor a child in a developing country for a few dollars a month. They’ve set up an emergency Haiti relief page here.
Save the Children: Another great organization targeted towards mostly helping children all over the world, they’ve worked in Haiti for years, and they actually have people out in the field in Haiti right now, working on helping people there. They’ve set up a Haiti Earthquake Children in Emergency fund.
World Food Program: The WFP is an organization dedicated to helping end hunger for the one billion people who are starving in the world. They’re on the ground right now, and they’ve set up an emergency fund.
Seriously, anything you can give to any of these organizations (which, I”m pretty sure, are all super legit and have been around forever, if they’re not, tell me and I’ll take them down) is needed in Haiti right now. The earthquake hit their capital city particularly badly, and this isn’t a first world country, it’s a country that’s been struggling with a lot of problems, key among them poverty, for a long time. I know you’ve probably heard way too much about giving to Haiti today, and will for the next couple of days, but problems like this don’t go away. If you can’t give very much or any money because you just don’t have it/don’t have a credit or debit card/are really young (I don’t think anyone reading this is super young, but you never know), then think about blogging or twittering or posting something on your facebook about it.
Are there any great charities out there who are sending money to Haiti that I’ve missed? Tell me about it. Should I go back to reading books and never discuss world affairs again? Also tell me about it.
A small update: @uncultured on twitter posted a link to an article explaining the dangers of sending material goods instead of money for aid.
Though I like to pride myself on choosing a variety of material to read, tis is actually a load of bull. I have a pretty small range of books that I read (I just really like spaceships, okay?), and the area I’m most lacking in is nonfiction. My sister and my dad blow through nonfiction books like they’re nothing, but for me, they’re always harder to read. For the past couple of years, I’ve made a serious effort to read more nonfiction, with mixed results. I love books about books, like The Professor and the Madman or The Man Who Loved Books Too Much, but stuff about politics or economies or stuff like that falls seriously flat. So, I thought I’d ask ya’ll (I’m not even Southern but I use ya’ll - is that weird?) what good nonfiction books I should be reading. I like space and NASA and books, that sort of thing, if it helps at all, but really, any books that were nonfiction that you thought were good reads would be great. If what you suggest sounds interesting, I’ll add it to the list and probably read it for this blog.
Book #1 for this year is A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby. I’d picked this up in a Barnes and Noble when I was Christmas shopping, and it looked interesting enough, but I didn’t get it then. I actually happened across it last night while I was looking for textbooks, and it was at a significant discount, so I figured I’d give it a go.
The basic premise of this story is, it’s New Year’s Eve in London, and four people from completely different walks of life (Jess, JJ, Martin, and Maureen), have, independently of each other, decided to commit suicide by jumping off of the roof of the same building.
