Spring Into the Future Tour: Miami

Hey everyone! I'm so excited that Tahereh Mafi, Veronica Rossi, Anna Carey and Cynthia Hand are going to nbe in Florida this Sunday (4/28) and I happen to be off!

I've read Mafi's first novel Shatter Me which was one of the best books I've ever read. I've had the pleasure of seeing her And Rossi before and they are awesome!

I've also read Rossi's first novel Under the Never Sky and Roar's short story on my Nook and it surprised me how much I ended up loving it.

Carey's Eve and the second novel Once both took my breath away with its advanced world building and dire stakes.

The only book I haven't had the pleasure to read yet is Unearthly but I've decided to change that by starting it now.

What I want to know is if you are going to be at the Miami stop. I'd love to meet any of you that are!

Saturday Discussions: Do you re-buy books?

So it seems like a trend nowadays for series to get a cover change at least once before it is finished. While I think this is really annoying, sometimes it can be for the best. For instance, Shatter Me went from this:

Girl in a white dress with a glittery starburst in the background that has nothing to do with the book.

It was changed to:

Interesting, stange, arresting and completely unique much like the writing style underneath it.

This was such a good move, I can't even describe my happiness.

However, sometimes we get things like Across the Universe by Beth Revis. I love this series but three cover changes? One for EACH new book that was released? That's just craziness and sadly, I think they got worse.

First cover:

This cover is gorgeous and arresting and out of this world beautiful.

Second set:

This set is okay. I basically like that A Million Suns could sort of match the first cover from Across the Universe.

Third set:

Sorry, I fell asleep. I mean, really? You go from the first gorgeous cover to that? No freaking way.

So with all these cover changes, I want to know if you re-buy your books so you can have a matching set.

For me, it used to matter a lot. I used to have to re-buy the book so my set could look beautiful on my bookshelf. It just made sense to me. But as cover changes kept getting more and more ridiculous, I started hesitating. Now, I'll only re-buy books if I really like the new covers.

However, I feel like most cover changes hurt the books rather than help them because the covers never live up to the first one and I don't even want them on my shelf.

What about you, do you re-buy?

And to end this, here's a list of series made worse with cover changes:

• Nightshade series by Andrea Cremer
• Across the Universe series by Beth Revis
• Fury series by Elizabeth Miles
• Anna and the French Kiss (series) by Stephanie Perkins

Divergent Casting News!

The Divergent movie news is really rolling now that we've got out main characters. I'm please to announce that some of the adults have finally been cast. This is especially exciting as I've been waiting to hear who got the part of Tris' mother, Natalie Prior.

Ashley Judd as Natalie Prior

Tris' mother has to have a certain softness about her while still being able to keep her secrets (and turn into a badass). I'm not really sure about this choice. I've really only seen Judd in softer roles so I'm not sure how she is going to come off as Tris' mom. I'm cautiously optmistic about this casting.

Tony Goldwyn as Andrew Prior

Don't know much about this actor at all but I think he looks enough like Woodley (Tris) to be her dad.

Ray Steveson as Marcus Eaton

Now this looks like a good choice to me. This guy is bulky enough to be intimidating but also looks like he might have a silver tongue. I'm definitely all for this choice for Marcus Eaton!

What do you think of the adults? Is Ashley Judd going to be strong enough to stand up to Kate Winslet?

Book Review: Otherborn by Anna Silver & Kindle Fire Giveaway

Otherborn by Anna Silver

Reading Level: Young Adult

Paperback: 300 pages

Publisher: Sapphire Star Publishing (March 4, 2013)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 1938404327

ISBN-13: 978-1938404320

Series: Otherborn #1

Source: Ebook provided by publisher

Cover: As far as small publishing houses go, I think this cover is pretty great. It fits with the story, the font works well for it and the two girls that are both a little different keep me interested.

First Sentence: It wasn't like her to be this nervous.

Mini-Review: Otherborn is as alive with vivid characters as it is with a rich and diverse world.

Summary:

London and her teenage friends live in a reprocessed world.

Confined within Capital City’s concrete walls, London has done the impossible and the illegal. She’s created something New- a song. But her mentor, club owner Pauly, is not impressed. Since the historic Energy Crisis forced everyone behind walls generations ago, the Tycoons have ensured there is truly nothing new allowed under the sun. Pauly warns London to keep her song to herself, if she knows what’s good for her.

What he doesn’t know is that London is keeping an even bigger secret: she dreams. And she’s not alone. London’s band-mates and friends have begun dreaming as well, seeing themselves in “night pictures” as beings from another world. As Otherborn, they must piece together the story of their astral avatars, the Others, in order to save their world from a dreamless, hopeless future.

When Pauly is murdered and an Otherborn goes missing, London realizes someone is hunting them down. Escaping along the Outroads, they brave the deserted Houselands with only their dreams to guide them. Can they find their friend before the assassin finds them? Will being Otherborn save their lives, or destroy them?

Review:

I went into Otherborn expecting it to be a hard read, not because of what it was about, but because I hadn't been able to focus on reading much lately. What I found was a vivid. detailed world the pulled me in with characters that made me want to keep turning the page until there were none left.

I've read in other reviews that some people found London a little rough. I can definitely see their point. She is hard headed and guards her heart stronger than her steel-toed boots guard her feet. It makes her harder to be likable but growing up in a world like London's, I'm pretty sure another girl wouldn't have survived. I actually found London to be the perfect blend of roughness and vulnerability. She is tough on the outside but she isn't without fear, without suffering. She doesn't like it, like many of us and chooses to push it away rather than dwell but again, I contribute that to the harshness of the world she grows up in. She's used to loss but she's also used to getting back up again and fighting for another day. I do think that her character leaves a lot of room for growth in the next installment which I am more than excited to see.

The other members of her ragtag band (quite literally, they play music and everything) felt flushed out too. Not as nuanced as London but they weren't the main character so I did expect them to be. The love interest, Rye, provided some softness to London's tough as nails attitude. While London preferred to act, Rye was a thinker. It does mean that he refused to act, but he thought through things more thoroughly and didn't let his temper control him the way London did . I thought he was a really good balance to her and I liked that I could feel like they had a history before we got there. I think it made their relationship feel more real. Zen, Kim and Avery all also felt unique. I loved Kim's fake British accent mixed with his family's proud Korean heritage and Zen's large frame containing an even bigger heart.

Perhaps a bigger character than even London was the place she was from. The use of a ruined world reminded me a lot of Anna Carey's Eve, in its inventiveness and ability to turn things we know on their head. Capital City felt alive from the dingy alleyway London stopped to take a smoke in behind Dogma to her hole in the wall room. Everything about the tight spaces and polluted air oozes off the page providing the perfect backdrop for a character like London. I liked seeing how the author chose to repurpose things--the gang running the city riding around in ice cream and mail trucks and things like paper being a rare commodity. Just as vivid were the lands beyond the city.

The other thing that I found very interesting was the choice to write this novel in 3rd person. Normally, I'm not wild about 3rd person but I think it worked exceptionally well for this book because it was close enough to London to still feel relevant. We get all of London's thoughts and at the same time, we get little glimpses of how the other characters are feeling too. The writing itself was really well done. Beautiful passages describing the world, first kisses, and bringing to life everything from a long stretching road to the smell of rot oppressing the city.

There were a few passages that could be broken up to prevent info dumping but they were far and few between. I also got a little confused switching between London and her Otherborn sometimes because I couldn't tell where the real world ended and the dream began but I get the feeling that was sort of the point. I also felt that the pacing might have been a little too fast for my liking. The one time I really noticed this is when we are told about a conversation that happened instead of shown it when Avery goes missing. Even that is minor though.

Otherborn combines all my favorite things about the dystopian genre while creating a new story that manages to feel fresh. With a slew of compelling characters, an atmosphere that I believed in and a fast paced plot, Otherborn is as hard to put down as a catchy song is to get out of your head. For a book that focuses on anything New being bad, this one sure does give us something fresh. I'd definitely recommend it!


Rating:

You can buy Otherborn:
Amazon paperback
Amazon ebook
B&N ebook

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Buffy fashions

Welcome, gentle viewers, to the 90's!

So maybe you're starting Buffy for the first time or the fortieth, one thing that you have to brace yourself for is the wild 90's Buffy fasions and there are some doozies. We're talking mini-skirts, barettes, bangs, character t-shits and baggy clothes (for the guys) galore! So I thought it might be fun to go through the fashion evolutions of Buffy with several of the main characters. Prepare your eyes for some pretty outrageous makeovers and unders as we live 7 seasons of highs and lows.

So we can't talk about fashion and Buffy without first looking at it's star. Let's take a walk through the many looks of Buffy...

Buffy- the early seasons

The first few seasons of Buffy had it's star flip-flopping a lot. It seemed like she was constantly at war with her age. Sometimes they wanted to remind us how young Buffy really was by throwing her hair up in a ponytail, giving her some high wedges and arming her with a lollipop and sunglasses. Other times, they wanted to sex her up giving her the 90's trademark miniskirts and cropped shirts. She wore a lot of pale colored dresses and skirts during the day and went with darker colors at night. Buffy's hair is in a constant state of change so you'd be hard pressed to find it looking the same in two episodes. In the beginning of season 1 it looks almost brown sometimes before they finally decide to keep it blonde.

Buffy- the later seasons

It's during the later seasons, pretty much right around the time she gets to college, that what I consider to be the "trademark Buffy" style starts to emerge. From about Season 5 on, Buffy's hair is light blonde and switched between super long or chin length short. She also varies it by wearing it wavy or straight. What I consider to be very Buffy is the spaghetti strap shirts or sleeveless tanks and the low riding trousers. She also wears quite a few long jackets in various colors. I think these seasons showcase the Buffy most people picture. It's all reds, black, and whites with leather pants and square-toed boots. Oh, and hoop earrings. Lots and lots of hoop earrings, especially when her hair is up.

Wanna dress like Buffy? Check out this my Buffy Polyvore collage:

Buffy- Slayer Style by amberinblunderl featuring high heels

Though Buffy went through quite a few changes, I don't think anyone changed their look as much as Buffy's witchy best friend Willow. Let's take a look back at some of Willow's looks.

Willow- the early seasons

In the earlier seasons, it was no question that Willow was young. In fact, most of the time she dressed younger than her age. We're talking t-shirts with cutesy characters on them, overalls, braided pigtails and I'm not sure if anyone can forget the pink fluffy sweater with the yellow flowers on it. She dresses in a lot of bold patterns and crazy colors. Her hair is always long and straight and most of her clothes are baggy and don't show her figure. In the early seasons, Willow dresses to fade out. She's a geek and she doesn't want to be noticed and it shows in her wardrobe. 

Willow- with Oz

Now, when Willow goes into college, her life is going pretty well. She's got herself a boyfriend who she's wild about and she's rooming with her best friend. Her newfound confidence is definitely evident in her wardrobe. AS the college year starts, Willow has adopted Oz's (her boyfriend) slacker style a little more. She wears a lot of long flowly skirts in wild colors and a lot of earth tones. I always remember Willow in this phase of her life in her matching brown felt jacket with Oz pictured above. Her hair is much shorter and flipped out and we get a lot of funky jewelry. She gets sort of witchy chic with a little bit of hippie tied in.

Willow- with Tara and beyond

As Willow finallty comes into her own as a witch, her style truly transforms. Gone are the days of overalls and pigtails. While her style was morphing into hippie chic with Oz, it goes full blown hippie with Tara. Now Willow start to wear a lot of long flowy sleeved tops that hug her figure and in the later seasons she goes back to more pants. We see a lot more make-up, sparkly jewelry and she bares her stomach more often. She definitely get a little more sexed up. It's great to see Willow confident!

If you want to hone in your witchy style, check out this Willow polyvore collage I put together:

Willow Style by amberinblunderl featuring high low skirts

Now that we've covered both girls so let's look at some of the men of Sunnydale. I'd like to start with everyone's favorite librarian!

Giles- through the seasons

In the beginning seasons, Giles is oh-so-deliciousy British. We're talking lots of tweeds in boring brown colors and plain shirt with ties. His straight laced ways are perfectly portrayed in his clothing. As Giles begins to carve out his own path and separate from his Council roots, his style morphs. He still goes for suits a lot of the time but he streamlines them. They are much more updated, better fitting and look mordern. Otherwise, he wear simple longsleeve sweaters and jackets. A bit of his rock-n-roll Ripper days begin to come out in his style which gives us a much more laidback look.

Do the gender swap Giles in this fun polyvore collage:

Giles- Librarian Chic by amberinblunderl featuring a pencil skirt

Finally, I think we should take a look at the one person's (alright, so person status is debatable) fashion that really doesn't change much at all.

Spike- through the seasons

Spike is the one character that you don't see change his look. He drove into town like a bat of hell, meant to be unapologetically rock-n-roll and he's stuck with it through the seasons. In the beginning, we saw him in a lot of open button up red shirts with a tight black tee underneath and dark pants. Let's not forget the stomp your face combat boots and peroxide hair. He also has his trademark black duster (which was driven over by a truck to look worn in) and chipped black nail polish.

As the seasons continue, we see lots of glimpses of Spike earlier in his life. He's either the bumbling poet William with his dirty blonde hair longer and loose or punk in the 80's with white washed jeans and a black tee shirt with cut-off sleeves. In the later seasons, he looses his colored shirt and is mostly pictured in black t-shirts and black pants and his duster. There is a stint where he goes into regular clothes while his mind is recovering but when he's truly himself, he's got on all black, all the time.

Check out how you or your guy can hone in on the Spike style:

Spike- Vampire fashion by amberinblunderl featuring spike jewelry

I hope you've enjoyed looking at some of the Buffy characters through the seasons and talking about their fashion with me. It's been interesting seeing how the characters have evolved and how that is reflected in their clothing. It's been a doubly interesting experience since I finally got around to playing with polyvore. Hope you all enjoyed!

Please let me know if you decide to make your own Buffy collage on Polyvore. It's super simple and I'd love for you to share yours in the comment section below!

Top 5 Favorite Settings in Buffy the Vampire Slayer

You can't hear Buffy the Vampire Slayer and not think about that charming little town she comes from. Sunnydale is synonymous with its little sign that keeps getting knocked over by Spike and the graveyards Buffy roams and the hampster in Willow's room.

But the truly lovely thing about Buffy the Vampire Slayer is that Whedon didn't just stop after creating dynamic characters and amazing plots. He went further and wanted to make the small town of Sunnydale into a character itself. It's got a sunny exterior where people live and shop and sleep and eat, completely unaware of the things that go bump in the night. Then, you delve a littler bit deeper and it's got a darker side--the graveyards, the dead-end alleyways, and of course, the Hellmouth it's sitting on. Just like with a person, Sunnydale has a great blend of light and dark which is one of the reasons Buffy the Vampire Slayer is so great.

So I'm here today to talk about my top 5 favorite nook and crannies of good old Sunnydale and I hope you'll come with me to visit!

5) Sunnydale High's library- You all totally knew this one had to make the list. It's the first place the Scoobies and Giles came together so of course, it needed to be included. What I loved about the library was that on the surface, it seemed so normal. Rows and rows of books, a stuffy British librarian looking up as you walk in the door, a red-headed girl with her nose pointed to a computer screen and a metal cage to keep some of the pricer items. But then you look a little closer and start to see large, dusty tomes about angels and devils and vampires, oh my! You see a bouncy little blonde girl in the corner with headphones on, hitting a punching bag and sometimes you catch sight of a naked guy curled on the floor locked in the metal cage.

I loved how safe it felt. The library was the place for the Scoobies to meet. It's where Buffy found out she was destined to die and where they discovered Angel's dark past. But locked away safe in those walls, surrounded by books, it always felt like everything would be alright. The Scoobies worked together, studying and talking and plotting to get through the toughest supernatural problems and the worst social situations.

And then the Hellmouth opens up and a monster comes up out of the library floor and suddenly, their safe haven isn't so harmless now. It's sitting on top of such great evil that it can't contain it. To me, that scene symbolized how fragile youth can be and how things like safe places don't really exist in the real world. So many good and bad things happened there that I can't help but look at it with fond memories!

4) Sunnydale High After the Fire- I loved roaming the halls of Sunnydale with the Scooby Gang and discovering previously unexplored areas of their school. Like with all high schools, there were a lot of really good memories there. That's why going back to Sunnydale after the mayor goes crazy on it and they are forced to burn it down is one of the most profound experiences in the show and makes for one of my most memorable settings.

Sunnydale High's ruins are the literal translation of the Gang growing up. There is nothing to come back to so they have to go forward onto even scarier Big Bads with the reminder that you can never really go home. Watching them walk through the remains gave me goosebumps in the later episodes because I can remember it the way it was with them. Seeing it reduced to darkness and trash and burnt ruins is awful but I couldn't look away.

3) The Magic Box- I just said that you can never go home but you can find some place new to build on. With Giles' apartment and later, The Magic Box, that's exactly what the Scoobies did. However, right from the beginning, we know that The Magic Box isn't safe like the library was. The previous owners have been murdered, there are break-ins all the time and they have to clean up this store at least three times after Giles buys it but it is a place that has everything they need and a perfect excuse to talk vamps sans the weird looks.

Of the Scoobies bases, the inside of The Magic Box is the most interesting to look at in my opinion. I love that they are surrounded by the tools of their trade and can always find what they need. It also happens that one of my most memorable episodes "Tabula Rasa" occurs in The Magic Box. For those of you that don't remember, this is the episode where Willow is using magic like crazy and accidently makes the entire gang forget who they are. This makes Spike and Giles believe that Spike is his son due to their "nancy boy" accents and that Anya is engaged to Giles since they both own The Magic Box. I LOVED that episode and it was so fun how The Magic Box was used as several clues to help them "figure out" who they were and what they were doing before falling asleep.

2) Spike's Crypt- As a Spike fan, it's pretty lucky that I didn't add "under the tree in Buffy's yard" too since some of my favorite scenes are Spike chain smoking outside just waiting for her to come out so he can exchange some lame insults her way. But, I digress. So, back on topic, Spike's Crypt is a must for me. The reason being is that I loved seeing how it changed as Spike began to settle into his bachelor pad in the cementary. Not only did the top become a little more homey but he did amazing things with the underground part. I loved the rugs that were obvious stolen thrown across the floor mixed with the gigantic bed. I guess it's that odd mixture of dust and old things with new things like the borrowed chair and television that made me love any thing going on in this neck of the cementary.

One thing I could never figure out though was if he slept in the stone coffin above (which he is pictured in sometimes) or the bed down below (which he is pictured in sometimes). I also love that in the beginning, his crypt is sort of creepy but as he finds his place in the Scooby Gang, the crypt becomes a little more domesticated to the point where Buffy drops off Dawn to be babysat there. Also, it doesn't hurt that this scene was filmed there:

In case you don't remember, let me refresh your mind. This is the first kiss Spike and Buffy share where Buffy wants to kiss him. She disguises herself as Buffybot to discover what Spike told Glory while she tortured him. Spike tells her that he didn't reveal that Dawn was "the key" and Buffy says that she'll go tell Glory so Spike won't be hurt again. Spike tells her not to, that he'd rather die and it earns him this tiny kiss. Many more are to follow in his place but this is by far one of the sweetest.

Now... for my number 1 spot in Sunnydale...

1) Buffy's kitchen- In the show, Buffy's house is the one thing that always remains the same until the very end. People come and go from it, it turns into different things at different times and it isn't always safe but it is always hers and it is always there (until Sunnydale is no more). I could have done the entire house but I decided to be a little more specific and chose the kitchen.

I think of the kitchen as the wind down place. After a hard night of patroling, a killer fight with a big bad or with each other, the Scoobies wind up in the kitchen to top off the hectic day or night with a snack. When Joyce is alive, she is usually there with a snack ready to go and a happy smile and when it's just Buffy, the fridge is still almost always full. It's had some of the most intense character scenes (i.e. Spike and Buffy talk about their night in Touched, the Scoobies tell Spike that Buffy left in Season 7 when they didn't back her) but it was able to maintain its calming demeanor. They gather to discuss the end in the kitchen. When one of them reaches into the fridge for a soda, I as a viewer, know that everything is going to be okay, even if it isn't at that very second. Buffy's kitchen is my breathing room, it lets me feel like there is at least one place they can go to let everything sink in which is why it is my number one favorite spot in Sunnydale.

Honarable Mention:

I know that the Sunnydale Project is all about Buffy but I have to make a mention of LA and Angel. Since it's in LA, I didn't include it in my list but I have to get this awesome setting a shout out:

The Hyperion Hotel- This old hotel becomes Angel Investigation's base of operations after their old one was destroyed. I love that they are such a small agency yet they are located in this huge hotel full of rooms in various stages of decay. Angel always has the coolest places but Hyperion Hotel totally takes the cake in the awesome category. Plus, I think it's fun that as more people join their little investigation business, more and more rooms are fixed up to accommodate them. With each episode, we see a little more of the hotel and get to know a new room or corner.

So those are the places I'd love to visit if Buffy's Sunnydale was real. There are a ton more that I could add to this list: the Sunnydale cementary, Giles apartment, The Bronze, Angel's mansion, The Operative center and caves and more but I had to give you five and I'm pretty pleased with the list (and cheat) I came up with.

What do you think of my list? Which places would make your top five?