artsy musings of a bibliophile

Sana

The Musing Mind: Why Serial Distress is the Worst

by

Ponderings with little bursts of cartoon art.

serial distress [sɪriəl dɪˈstres]: suffering caused by finishing a book series.

Things are serie-ous (pun intended) when there’s no term for something and I kind of, sort of, have to invent one. It’s not like my default reaction to discovering a new series isn’t, ‘Yay, at least three more books to read in the future!’ because it totally is.

However, discovering isn’t reading and reading is this really simply thing:

Source
Err yeah. 
So I’ve an issue with letting go of book series and only book series because yes to binge-watching TV shows and movie sequels forever. Let’s start off with how many series I did finish in my life because my suffering cannot be that distressful and I cannot be that lame. Right?
I was a normal kid so I managed to read the first six books of JK Rowling’s Harry Potter like a normal Potterhead person by the age fifteen. However, I read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows four years after that, in 2009. This should have been the first signal that something is going to go wrong with me. Then I read and re-read Sarra Manning’s Diary of a Crush trilogy countless of times because once upon a time, re-reading was my thing.
Then I went paranormal and read all of Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight in a span of two months in 2008 around Twilight’s movie release. I got obsessed with it and then I hated Breaking Dawn because whiny Jacob and ew plot twist.
Come to think of it, Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games is the only series that I was dying to read because I miraculously reached the it’s-better-to-shoot-myself-then-live-in-a-Katniss/Peeta/Gale-less-world-for-another-day stage. I finished the trilogy back in December 2012. It was glorious and I cried. Obviously.
Lastly, I binge-read the first three books in Richelle Mead’s Vampire Academy in fall 2013 and then promptly died. My ghost, Eve and other Twitter/blogging friends somehow convinced me to finish the series and so I did. In fact, I spent my New Year’s Eve finishing it. It was also glorious.
Five series comprising of 23 books in 23 years of my life.
Considering reader statistics, it is an ordinary number but, us bookish people are not ordinary, which makes it a pathetic number. I now know how I manage to suck so hard. What am I even doing with my life?
Oh yeah, I’m spending my life running away from series enders. ‘Also, who wants to throw me out that window?’ But- but- I’ve legit reason to do just that because after I finish a book series, I’m like this:
Source
Rather, I’m like all of those because I’ve no idea what to do with myself. If I try hard enough, I’ll be able to give a description of why I feel like side-eyeing like Side-Eye Bob on bottom right. Or why I hunch my shoulders like Tall Bob towards upper middle-right after I finish a series.
Yet, it was getting ridiculous because who needs to be in the middle of roughly 80 series with no end in sight. I wanted to get ahead while I can and so I finished Brodi Ashton’s Everneath series last week. I hated finishing it. I thought it wouldn’t matter if the series turned out to be the worst or the best ever. But it does because it made me want to simultaneously curl up and die a slow, frustrating death and rage forever.
So no, I don’t want to cry my eyes out reading Patrick Ness’ The Ask and the Answer because of too many feels, I’m nervous to read Veronica Roth’s Insurgent and Allegiant because something is very wrong with it and I don’t want to know what. I’ve more or less lost interest in continuing Cassandra Clare’s The Mortal Instruments. Clearly, I’m in the I-don’t-ever-want-to-finish-a-series-again mode but I know I’ll revert back to I-want-to-read-all-the-series mode as soon as I start a mind-blowing one. Argh.
Do you like finishing series or do you suffer from serial distress? Also, do you think I need de-stressing therapy? No, don’t answer the last one. I’m fine or will be. I think.

Monotypes vs Monoprints: Of Absent Mothers and Female Bildungsroman

by

Monotypes vs Monoprints is a feature about anything that is original or recurring in books. The basic idea is that there are some themes in fiction that are completely original and begin on an unetched canvas, so to speak, like monotypes. Whereas, the more common underlying themes that occur in books are akin to monoprints. I’d love to receive any feedback or suggestions that anyone may have regarding this feature.

Recently, I was re-reading Everneath by Brodi Ashton to write its recap and something struck me about the underlying plot. I chose to ignore it and move on, but then I started reading its sequel, Everbound, which forced me to pause and wonder about it. Why are absent mothers such a common theme when it comes to young adult fiction? So I went hunting.

A RITE OF PASSAGE TO INDIVIDUALITY

One of the views is that female protagonists need to experience some kind of a jolt to come to terms with their individuality. In other words, they need a defining moment in their lives in order to grow up. So if a mother leaves, dies or is somehow not directly involved in her daughter’s life, it is bound to bring about a change in her life. The different scenarios branch out and the character can be made to feel any possible number of emotions. In the absence of a motherly figure, the protagonist starts making decisions on her own which often have dramatic consequences. The main result however, is self-sufficiency. One way or the other, the protagonist is forced to rely on self and to abandon their trusting nature.

FITTING INTO SOCIETY

Each one of us have experienced the feeling of not fitting into society at some point and on some level in our lives. In the case of a protagonist without a mother, it gives an experience to them that only they can relate to. It is not something they want to be defined by, but they do want to be respected for it. The process of basic human development is a change of perspective; a realization that the world we live in is not the ideal world of childhood but a harsh and discouraging reality. Throwing in an absent mother quickens that process and dramatically influences the fitting-into-society part of life in a story. More often than not, protagonists seem to develop a hard exterior as a way of protecting themselves from similar experiences, which makes fitting into society a difficult venture. Yet it can be overcome by way of maturity on the character’s part.

THE BILDUNGSROMAN FACTOR 

During my research, I came across the phrase bildungsroman [bil-doongz-roh-mahn] being used to express the process of maturity of a young protagonist in a novel. The growth can be moral, psychological, social, intellectual, or spiritual. A majority of classic literature focuses on some kind of a growth and this recurs in the young adult fiction of today. There’s even a Goodreads list comprising of the best in bildungsroman fiction or coming-of-age stories. Harry Potter in one such series and it would’ve been vastly different if there was a motherly figure involved in Harry’s life. The absence of his parents, especially his mother, gave him a certain depth of character.
However, in the strictest sense, most of young adult fiction are not bildungsroman due to the short period of time such events take place in the protagonist’s life. Enduring pain formulates an identity and pain that comes from losing a maternal figure combined with themes of survival is an important element of fiction. In her article, A Girl’s Life, Stacey May Fowles states it perfectly:

‘While the male Bildungsroman, such as Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Catcher in the Rye, or The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, tends to involve the acquisition of power, the experience of adventure, or the act of rebellion, the female version seems dictated by how well a heroine can withstand suffering without flinching.’

In the end, everyone has their own way of dealing with grief and books simply open our minds via all the characters we come across. I find it fascinating to read books with such themes because every author uses a different approach. Of course, I’ve just scratched the surface of the subject matter in question and it turned out to be a monoprint in fiction. However, it is definitely one that I want to read more of.
What are some of the absent-mothers books you’ve read? How do you feel about female bildungroman? Is this something that might appeals to you in YA fiction?

Monthly Recap: January

by

January turned out to be an all-around good start to 2014 despite my thesis defense almost happening and then getting delayed. I got disheartened for a while there but it is what it is. Sigh.

LIST OF NEWSWORTHY

Snowfall
It snowed! I saw snow after four years because college made it impossible for me to be in my city for when it happened. Anyway, it was beautiful and there was snowball fights and I never want it to end.

Macaron-ed
I had my first macaron ever and it was divine. My friends and I were having tea in a cafe and they offered us macarons to try them out since they started selling it only recently. There was a strawberry flavored one and the other one was caramel-ish. I’m never getting tired of them.

All the Books
I bought seventeen books this month because I just want to read all the YA fantasy series. So yeah I went ahead and bought three complete series: Graceling Realm, The Archived, and Fire and Thorns. This is also in preparation for the ereader that I’m buying next month (yes, this is totally, finally happening).

20K Tweets
I planned to reach 20K tweets before January was over and right now, I’m at 20.3K. If only I was this motivated in other areas of my life as well. Seriously, though, Twitter is the best.

TV WATCH

I didn’t watch as much of TV as I usually do.  And yes, usually, I do watch a lot of TV.

I watched the first episode of Sherlock this month and mentally shook myself to ask just why did it take me 2 years to watch it.
Awkward‘s season finale left me feeling all fuzzy and warm.
New Girl and Brooklyn Nine-Nine make Tuesdays worth it.
The latest episode of How I Met Your Mother was so whimsical I loved it.

Reign threw me in for a loop and I’m loving the role-reversals.
I finally caught up on Revenge and it’s all gone so twisty!

MOVIE WATCH

This year, I aim to watch all the movies I so easily watchlist on IMDB. I might actually succeed. I think.

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 (thumbs up) – It was ridiculously funny and I loved Barry the strawberry. Why aren’t foodimals real?

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (thumbs up x 10) – I cried ten times. It’s so beautiful and sad and perfect. I can’t-
Stuck in Love (thumbs okay) – I liked Logan Lerman but the point of the movie is all lost on me.

LIST OF READS

I’m actually ahead on my Goodreads challenge this month. Yeah, that’s how rarely I’m ahead when it comes to this challenge. Ha.

The Witch of Duva by Leigh Bardugo
Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo
The Tailor by Leigh Bardugo
The Promise of Amazing by Robin Constantine
Uninvited by Sophie Jordan
No One Else Can Have You by Kathleen Hale
Cruel Beauty by Rosamund Hodge
Just One Year by Gayle Forman

LIST OF BLOGPOSTS

I posted my review of Vicious by V. E. Schwab.
I posted my goals and progress regarding bout of books 9.0.
I posted a top ten list of my bookish goals and this year’s YA sci-fi debuts.
I posted my review of The Promise of Amazing by Robin Constantine.
I posted my review of No One Else Can Have You by Kathleen Hale.
I posted my review of Cruel Beauty by Rosamund Hodge.

LIST OF BOOK BUYS

There were some awesome $1.99 Kindle deals so I had to splurge on all the books. I also plan to binge-read on series from next month onwards.

Steelheart by Brandon Sanderson
Incarnate by Jodi Meadows
Halfway to the Grave by Jeaniene Frost
The Madman’s Daughter by Megan Shepherd
All the Truth That’s In Me by Julie Berry
Graceling by Kristin Cashore
Scarlet by A.C. Gaughen
Just One Year by Gayle Forman
The Archived by Victoria Schwab
The Unbound by Victoria Schwab
Seraphina by Rachel Hartman
The Girl of Fire and Thorns by Rae Carson
The Crown of Embers by Rae Carson
The Bitter Kingdom by Rae Carson
Mammon Inc. by Hwee Hwee Tan

PLAYLIST

I listened to Invincible, Love Me Again and Youtopia on repeat this month. No regrets.


How was your January?

Review: Cruel Beauty by Rosamund Hodge

by


ABOUT THE BOOK

Cruel Beauty by Rosamund Hodge 
young adult fantasy published by Balzer + Bray on 28 January 2014
first book in the Cruel Beauty Universe series

Since birth, Nyx has been betrothed to the evil ruler of her kingdom—all because of a reckless bargain her father struck. And since birth, she has been training to kill him.
Betrayed by her family yet bound to obey, Nyx rails against her fate. Still, on her seventeenth birthday, she abandons everything she’s ever known to marry the all-powerful, immortal Ignifex. Her plan? Seduce him, disarm him, and break the nine-hundred-year-old curse he put on her people.
But Ignifex is not at all what Nyx expected. The strangely charming lord beguiles her, and his castle—a shifting maze of magical rooms—enthralls her. As Nyx searches for a way to free her homeland by uncovering Ignifex’s secrets, she finds herself unwillingly drawn to him. But even if she can bring herself to love her sworn enemy, how can she refuse her duty to kill him?
Based on the classic fairy tale Beauty and the Beast, Cruel Beauty is a dazzling love story about our deepest desires and their power to change our destiny.

THE RATING


THE REVIEW

I was almost fully taken with Cruel Beauty. Almost. Despite having been thoroughly intrigued by the enchanting prose, I found something to be amiss from the story. A dark, intricate tale with a gorgeous cover, and raving responses; Cruel Beauty managed to deliver, but not all the way. 
Once, the kingdom of Arcadia was fairly ruled by the heirs of Claudius. But then one night, the Gentle Lord descended upon Arcadia. The Sundering confined Arcadia to exist under a parchment dome for all of eternity. Adorned with a sun that doesn’t come close to the real one and demons that lurking in every shadow to keep the fear instilled, the only hope of Arcadia is Nyx Triskelion.
Leonidas Triskelion struck a bargain with the Gentle Lord and it turned out to be Nyx’s undoing. The bargain left him without a wife and two daughters; out of which one’s fate was sealed from birth. Brought up with a mindset to marry the Gentle Lord, Nyx has been taught the unusual Hermetic arts to nullify the hearts of four elements hidden in the castle, in order to collapse the castle.
But Nyx is indecisive and that indecisiveness goes a long way in overshadowing everything else about her. She resents her father for never loving her, loathes Aunt Telomache for involving herself in their lives, and envies her clueless sister, Astraia. So in her yearning for love, the barest of attention that Shade bestows on her is enough for her to get taken with him. 
Trapped into living a life she didn’t ask for, Nyx spends her days exploring the castle looking for the hearts. However, the haunting castle never stops magically changing its inner layout which I found quite enthralling. Her failed attempts to kill Ignifex has only intrigued him to the point of respecting her efforts. He sees the malice in her heart which weakens Nyx. Haunted by his own demons with no memory of how he got there, Ignifex is enchanting but only to a limit.
Cruel Beauty promised to be dark and vicious with a blend of Greek mythology with a fairy tale retelling. I enjoyed reading the intricate details despite a very complex plot. But I found Nyx to be more clingy and repetitive than wicked and the romance to be off putting. Between an overwhelming world-building and an underwhelming ending, Cruel Beauty turned out to be a majorly bland read with some truly exceptional parts.

THE QUOTES

‘And you. Leonidas’s sweet and gentle daughter, with a world of poison in your heart. You fought and fought to keep all the cruelty locked up in your head, and for what? None of them ever loved you, because none of them ever knew you.’
‘They said that love was terrifying and tender, wild and sweet, and none of it made any sense. But now I knew that every mad word was true.’

Review: No One Else Can Have You by Kathleen Hale

by

KHNOECHY

ABOUT THE BOOK

No One Else Can Have You by Kathleen Hale
young adult contemporary mystery published by HarperTeen on January 7th, 2014

Small towns are nothing if not friendly. Friendship, Wisconsin (population: 689 688) is no different. Around here, everyone wears a smile. And no one ever locks their doors. Until, that is, high school sweetheart Ruth Fried is found murdered. Strung up like a scarecrow in the middle of a cornfield.

Unfortunately, Friendship’s police are more adept at looking for lost pets than catching killers. So Ruth’s best friend, Kippy Bushman, armed with only her tenacious Midwestern spirit and Ruth’s secret diary (which Ruth’s mother had asked her to read in order to redact any, you know, sex parts), sets out to find the murderer. But in a quiet town like Friendship—where no one is a suspect—anyone could be the killer.

 

THE RATING


THE REVIEW

No One Else Can Have You is a weird book with a strikingly odd main character, Kippy Bushman, who lives in a safe, small town of Friendship, Wisconsin. I am aware of all the did-not-finish, what-a-slut-shaming-main-character, what-the-hell-is-this-book responses out there and you know what? All that coupled with a healthy dose of unease is a vital part of No One Else Can Have You. The reader has to be far out of reach of their comfort zone to read and enjoy it. So yes, I understand why certain readers couldn’t stomach all the weirdness that is this book but I could, I did and it was gruesomely aweinspiring.

The prologue of No One Else Can Have You sets such an eerie-ingly horrifying tone and that it’s hard not to cringe. It’s about a page long and it’s so disturbing that it still lingers in the back of a mind.

Kippy Bushman is equally flawed in her judgements of people and in her awkward quirkiness. She’s obviously had a hard time connecting to people which is painful to read about. Her relationship with her father, Dom, is as bizarre as the turtlenecks that are her standard choice of apparel. Ever since she lost her mother to madness and imminent death, Kippy Bushman has been overly attached to her only friend, Ruth Fried. But now that’s Ruth dead, well, that is enough of a push she needs to spring out of her shell.

You see, despite being her best friend, Ruth did not like Kippy. Sure, she appreciated their friendship but she wasn’t as good a friend as she seemed to be. And to know that your only friend in the world thinks that you’re pathetic to the point of being nauseous and that she was having an affair with a much older man only a few hours before that friend’s funeral is all just too much for Kippy to comprehend. So it’s no wonder that the funeral turns out to be the disastrous of funerals which is only the beginning.

Kippy is torn between her grief and anger over Ruth’s murder. With Ruth’s parents out of town, Dom acting all soft towards her and Ralph being his usual video-game-obsessed-neighbour-slash-second-best-friend, she turns to Davey to express her unease over Ruth’s murder and her alleged killer. Davey is Ruth’s brother back from war in Afghanistan minus one of his fingers. The almost-strangers-to-each-other duo manage to work together for a while before it all goes even further south for Kippy. With an avenging Sheriff, an overprotective father and a sketchy old lawyer, Kippy has her hands full trying to sort it all out but with a history of unintentional violence, it’s only a matter of time before the nice small town of Friendship turns on her for supporting the alleged killer.

No One Else Can Have You is a debut that tests the reader with its endless oddities. Despite being a little wary to pick it up, the disturbing prologue and the engaging mystery soon replaced my wariness. Whilst there are some things that are somewhat ridiculous and a bit exaggerated, they’re dismissible enough to not affect the murder mystery. Guessing and trying to sort out the mystery coupled with a dark and looming tone of the story makes the experience of reading No One Else Can Have You unique. If you are into reading an uncomfortable, character-driven story of a strange girl with her stranger behavior who’s too cool for a town named Friendship, this book is for you.

 

THE QUOTES

‘But I guess I still have this fear that you can catch invisible things from other people. That someone else’s insanity can creep under your skin and fry your brain.’


‘Now that I’m awake, I think of what I’ve lost and tumble between utter remorse and childlike hope, anxiously retracing all my wrong moves and praying for time machines. Part of me imagines clawing through the jungle surrounding this asylum, and crawling all the way to Davey—playing some kind of love song on a guitar outside his window, even though I don’t know how to play guitar—and begging for his company back.’