Shameless Self Promotion: Guest Blog Edition

Today, I'm guest blogging for the lovely and talented Ali of Ali's Bookshelf about what's on my book shelf, and how it connects to my work in progress. Thanks Ali! 

Here are some other posts on Ali's blog that you should check out:

Review of Everneath, by Brodi Ashton

Review of The Pledge, by Kimberly Derting

Interview with Stephen Zimmer

The Gaia Wars Book Tour: Guest Post and Author Interview

Third Sentence Thursday: WE HAVE ALWAYS LIVED IN THE CASTLE

Time to play Third Sentence Thursday, a blog game (somehow I prefer this description to "meme") hosted by Proud Brook Nerd.  Here are the rules: "take the book you are currently reading and post the third sentence of the third chapter. Feel free to share one or two of the following sentences, if you’d like."

I'm finishing up Shirley Jackson's WE HAVE ALWAYS LIVED IN THE CASTLE. Like everyone else, I read "The Lottery" growing up. Since I started my WIP, I've been reading a lot of classic thrillers/horror novels. THE HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL  was the first of Jackson's novels that I read. It was just as creepy and amazing as CASTLE. Jackson's unreliable narrators take you on this ride, where at first things are scary, and not as they seem, and you try to figure out what's really going on. Then, there's the long narrative space that feels like simultaneously watching a car crash happen and being in the car as it crashes. At the end, you've returned to a farther distance, unable to look away from all the smashed up cars and bodies.

I need to look up Jackson's birthday and start the movement for a National Shirley Jackson Day, because she is that amazing.


The third of the third: "I watched her."

Today's third obviously proves there are limitations to the game. Here are the next two lines:

"On Saturday morning, after Helen Clarke had come to tea, Constance looked at the driveway three times. Uncle Julian was not well on Saturday morning, after tiring himself at tea, and stayed in his bed in his warm room next to the kitchen, looking out of the window beside his pillow, calling now and then to make Constance notice him."

Three sentences from the third chapter gives you just enough to sense the atmosphere of the book.  But if you're uncertain whether or not you'd be interested in reading, check out the last two sentences of the first paragraph of the novel:

"I like my sister Constance, and Richard Plantagenet, and Amanita phalloides, the deathcup mushroom. Everyone else in my family is dead."

These two lines just blow me away. I'm putting off the other books that I had planned to read to continue to read Jackson.  Next up is THE SUNDIAL.

Third Sentence Thursday: ANNA DRESSED IN BLOOD

I love games, especially ones with rules that I can retain (card games are the bane of my memory-impaired existence). Today's game is Third Sentence Thursday, and the rules are simple: "Take the book you are currently reading and post the third sentence of the third chapter. Feel free to share one or two of the following sentences, if you’d like."

I'm reading Anna Dressed in Blood, by Kendare Blake. I just started it last night, and tore through a good 3/4 of the novel. I've been wanting to read more paranormal YA horror/thrillers, and this book definitely fulfills my requirements.I like how there's plenty of gore, but it's not gratuitous. I also love that the "monster" in the book is complex, though the revelation of how Anna became both ghost and monster wasn't quite as complex as I would have liked.

The third of the third:

"Recently, since we really started moving around, she’s developed this hobby of intensely researching each new place we live."

It's interesting how isolating a sentence can highlight a weakness in a novel that you might gloss over when you're reading chapters at a time. In the case of the above sentence, the narrator, who is a nomadic ghost-hunting teenage boy, is talking about how his mother deals with their frequent moves. But reading over this sentence, I wonder why she's researching the places. It doesn't have anything to do with the reasons for their moves. They're going where the ghosts are, so does his mom want to know a lot about each new town?

I went back and the next two sentences sort of answer the question: "She says it makes it feel more like a vacation, to know places where she wants to eat and things that she wants to do when we get there. I think it makes her feel like it’s more of a home." Well, which is it? Vacation or home? What I'm getting at is that I feel like focusing on these few sentences highlights a problem in the novel which I hadn't noticed before. The mother's characterization is a little fuzzy, if you examine it closely. But, if you're reading fast, absorbed by the plot, you don't really notice this weakness in the novel. I'm curious to see if in playing this game in the future, I'll notice weaknesses I overlooked in most of the books I'm reading, or if some will appear stronger. 

In any case, I'm really loving the book, and look forward to finishing it tonight. For more third sentence posts, head on over to Proud Book Nerd.