Yalit - Blog Posts
@davidhasselhoff demonstrates swag in California. One for the west coast !!!
Okay y’all, Melissa here and we have something extremely important to discuss today. I just finished reading the third book in the Winner’s Curse trilogy, so let me give you the spoiler-free lowdown on...
The Winner’s Kiss
First off, I’ll just say that I hate the title. Like, YES there is considerably more kissing in this book than in Crime (LOLLLLL ‘cause there was none in Crime), but kissing wasn’t the point of this finale??? I personally think that The Winner’s CROWN would have been a much better title (also would have kept the “C” trend. It’s actually perfect. ugh no one consults me.)
BUT I will TOTALLY take a dumb title over the AWFUL NEW COVERS they were proposing! For those of you who somehow missed that whole debacle, Macmillan announced back in November that they were going to do a complete overhaul of the covers. Before the series was even finished. After releasing the original cover for the new book (as seen above). COMPLETE MAYHEM ENSUED.
UGH. I physically cannot look at them. The best part, though, is that... Don’t these covers look familiar? Hmmmm... Like, super familiar.
WAIT. I KNOW.
Look at that. It’s uncanny. And so unfortunate. ‘Cause unlike Celaena of Throne of Glass, Kestral is not an assassin. IN FACT she can barely throw a knife. No, Kestral uses her wit and smarts to tear you down. As soon as you show any weakness, she will destroy you with her words and war tactics. She’s very Sherlockian at times. So these new covers make no sense.
But this rant has a happy ending! Macmillan heard our cries! They listened! Over Christmas they announced that they were throwing out the new covers and going back to the originals. Which is HUGE. I have been lamenting various cover changes since the dawn of time and no one has ever listened. It is so heart-warming.
Anyway, the point of all of that is that I would take a title like The Winner’s Poop Bucket if it meant I didn’t have to look at those covers on my book shelf. REJOICE.
So let me get back to my thoughts on the actual content of the final book, haha.
The Winner’s Kiss (foreal this time)
Ugh, guys, it was SO. GOOD. You will not be disappointed in this last installment. I will admit that I had been extremely hesitant about starting this book because I just couldn’t see how everything would be resolved in a way that I wanted.
First, the ending of Crime was BRUTAL. Like tear my heart out, throw it on the ground, and jump on it repeatedly brutal. Let’s just recap the ending real quick (if you don’t want to be spoiled because FOR WHATEVER REASON you haven’t read Crime, don’t read):
Kestral gets shipped off to a prison camp in the north
Arin sails away for his home in Heran
They both said some pretty gross things to each other beforehand
My babies, come back! Love each other!
So how was Kiss going to fix everything?! Even if Arin and Kestral somehow made their way back to one another, how could they reconcile all the things that were said??? Needless to say, I was emotionally distraught before I even started this book.
BUT WORRY NOT. Marie is badass, and she throws some completely unexpected twists at you from the very beginning. And, between you and me, she COMPLETELY makes up for the lack of kissing in Crime. And then some. (I’m wiggling my eyebrows right now). Girlfriend totally got my back.
And, some might say more importantly, she wraps up the major conflict with the emperor of Valoria in a way that I greatly enjoyed, but didn’t guess at all. You go, Marie. Like, I had a couple guesses for how everything would end, but even when I only had 50 pages left to read, I still had no idea. So HOLLER.
The Winner’s Kiss is definitely worth the wait and all of the drama over covers. Honestly, I’m going to go back and read it again ‘cause I sort of inhaled it this time around lolllll
The book doesn’t actually come out for another month (March 29), but GUYS IT’S SO WORTH IT. Just hold out a bit longer! And then come back here and discuss it with me, obvs.
Peace, Melissa
Wolf by Wolf by Ryan Graudin
Man oh man oh man oh man OH MAN OH MAN. This book was ammmmaaazzzziinnnngggggg. So good. Wow. Five stars. Fiver.
Let me break it down for you. So let’s pretend that Hitler and the Axis powers never actually lost WWII. IN FACT, they won and slowly began taking over the world, filling it with death camps and just lots more death. Enter Yael. She and her mother were taken to a camp, and Yael became the subject of some extremely nasty German experiments. Unfortunately for the Germans, the experiments that were just supposed to change the pigment of Yael’s skin to that trademark Aryan White actually gave her the ability to skinshift, i.e. the ability to change all aspects of her appearance.
Fast forward ten years, and Yael has found the perfect opportunity for revenge. Every year the Third Reich hosts a cross-continental motorcycle race to commemorate their great victory, and the prize is an audience with Mr. Adolf Hitler himself. Yael only has to enter the race as Adele Wolf, the only racer and person Hitler has ever let close to him, win it, and then kill Hitler. Easy Peasy!
Unfortunately killing Hitler is not as easy as that, especially when Adele’s older, overly-protective brother Felix enters the race, along with past love interest Luka–two people who know Adele PRETTY well. WOWWWW.
Let me further break this down for you:
Alternate history!
Sci-fi skinshifting!
Super attractive love interest with murky past!
Hunger Games-like competition that pits teens against one another at the expense of their safety and lives!
Knife fights, and fist fights, and gun fights, oh my!
Death
Basically everything you could ever want from a YA.
ALSO let me just say that Yael is the most badass girl I have ever encountered. She puts Katniss Everdeen TO SHAME. She’s super complex, cares a lot about people, and has trained to KILL HITLER. idk what else you could really want.
I am also going to add that I have an extremely awful habit of reading the ends of books before actually finishing them (I am fully aware that this is shameful bye). I did that while reading this book. I WAS STILL COMPLETELY BLINDSIDED BY THE ENDING. Don’t ask me how that happens, idk. And predicting endings is kind of my job (editor over here y’all). Surprise endings don’t really happen for me anymore. But this IS an alternate history with skinshifting and motorcycle races, so what really could I have predicted lol
Read this book. It’s amazing.
~Melissa, Book Wench
Here’s a list of what us wenches are reading right now!
Under a Painted Sky by Stacey Lee & The War that Saved My Life by Kimberly Brubraker Bradley
Whatcha reading, Brett?
Wing & Claw by Linda Sue Park
By Break of Day by M L Buchman
Indeh by Ethan Hawke and Greg Ruth
Whatcha reading, Jo Ann?
Burn Math Class by Jason Wilkes
Passenger by Alexandra Bracken & Ninth Key by Meg Cabot
Whatcha reading, Tori?
Now reading
Sunday snuggles with a good book
Now reading
Perfect reading snack
TTYL I’m reading
Putting the Buddy System into play on this FridayReads
Picked out some spooky fall reads.
My good sense bitch-slapped my estrogen and told her to get a grip.
The Impossible Knife of Memory by Laurie Halse Anderson, page 67.
It was by sheer coincidence and pure awesomeness that the book I'm reading matched my backpack.
Maybe nothing will ever change for us," he said. "But don’t you want to be around when it does?
The Darkest Minds, by Alexandra Bracken @alexbracken
Our Friday Read is Not A Drop to Drink. Now we're thirsty.
Twinsies
How many twins do you think will soon be born with the names Cather and Wren? You might think not a lot because its a teen book. But I'm 24 and I love it. I think it's a book that people of all ages can relate to.
I’m loving Fangirl. Hard. I found myself remembering those awful first days of college, navigating the cafeteria and wild roommates. There were so many things I could relate to Cath about. One of my favorite quotes was:
"Do you need those?" Reagan asked. “Yes”-Cath put them on- “I need them to keep me from becoming the girl in She’s All That.”
This was a witty comment about wearing glassss that made me laugh. I wear glasses all the time. I hate the way I feel without them. I feel like when I take them off everybody’s oohing and aahing like “ooh you’re not wearing your glasses you look so pretty!” Then wonder do I look that bad with the glasses? Okay, back to reading!
Elizabeth Wein, author of Code Name Verity and Rose Under Fire is coming to Barnes & Noble Oxford Valley tonight 9/20 at 7pm!
In another night of "Gwendolyn Reads" Lady G takes on Jessica Brody's Unremembered! So far so good! So fierce.
What We're Reading Now: Between The Devil and The Deep Blue Sea by April Genevieve Tucholke
Starting a new book!
Happy Halloween 2021! - here’s ‘The Monster Of Her Age’ vibing with other the-story-behind-Horror books 🧟♂️📖 and also the 👑, Shelley’s Frankenstein. A meta (sorry 😬) way to engage with the genre if Horror is not your thing, and also if you really want a YA queer kissing book 😘 Also featured are:
🎃 ‘Monster, She Wrote: The Women Who Pioneered Horror and Speculative Fiction’ by Lisa Kröger and Melanie R. Anderson
🎃 ‘She Made a Monster: How Mary Shelley Created Frankenstein’ by Lynn Fulton, illustrated by Felicita Sala
‘The Monster of Her Age’ drops on July 28 with Hachette Books Australia. Here are some reviews that mention similar-reads;
“This book is all kinds of wonderful. From its smart and nuanced look at how we respond to art, to questions of whether it's possible to separate art from its problematic artist, Binks has written a book I so wish existed when I was a film-obsessed teen. It brought to mind ‘Actress’ by Anne Enright and ‘The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo’ by Taylor Jenkins Reid but also ‘Looking for Alibrandi’ in the way it untangled secrets and pain passed down from grandmother to mother to daughter. The chats about the horror genre are so well done and made me immediately want to join a film group. The queer love story is beautifully told. And the look at how a family manages death is beautiful and real and profound. The chapter closes are all so nicely done too which is a minor point but shows that care was paid to both the big and the small. All up this is my favourite kind of contemporary YA and this book is perfection.” — Jaclyn Crupi
“A warm hug of a book that's packed to the brim with tenderness, truth, and timeless charm. ‘The Monster of Her Age’ is as much an homage to film as it is to family and heart-fluttering crushes. A must-read for fans of Nina LaCour.” — SARAH ROBINSON-HATCH, The YA Room
How do you ruin someone's childhood?
Ellie Marsden was born into the legendary Lovinger acting dynasty. Granddaughter of the infamous Lottie Lovinger, as a child Ellie shared the silver screen with Lottie in her one-and-only role playing the child monster in a cult horror movie. The experience left Ellie deeply traumatised and estranged from people she loved.
Now seventeen, Ellie has returned home to Hobart for the first time in years. Lottie is dying and Ellie wants to make peace with her before it's too late.
When a chance encounter with a young film buff leads her to a feminist horror film collective, Ellie meets Riya, a girl who she might be able to show her real self to, and at last comes to understand her family's legacy.
When your book-cover illustrator gifts you the original! 🥺🥰
In a neo-Gothic mansion in a city at the end of the world, Ellie finds there's room enough for art, family, forgiveness and love. A coming-of-age story about embracing the things that scare us from the author of ‘The Year the Maps Changed.’
How do you ruin someone's childhood? You let them make-believe that they are a monster. But sooner or later, the mask must come off...
Ellie Marsden was born into the legendary Lovinger acting dynasty. Granddaughter of the infamous Lottie Lovinger, as a child Ellie shared the silver screen with Lottie in her one-and-only role playing the child monster in a cult horror movie. The experience left Ellie deeply traumatised and estranged from people she loved.
Now seventeen, Ellie has returned home to Hobart for the first time in years. Lottie is dying and Ellie wants to make peace with her before it's too late. But forgiveness feels like playing make-believe, and memories are like ghosts.
When a chance encounter with a young film buff leads her to a feminist horror film collective, Ellie meets Riya, a girl who she might be able to show her real self to, and last comes to understand her family's legacy - and her own part in it.
A story of love, loss, family and film - a stirring, insightful novel about letting go of anger and learning to forgive without forgetting. And about embracing the things that scare us, in order to be braver.