“Lips Touch: Three Times” by Laini Taylor

 

Title: Lips Touch: Three Times
Author: Laini Taylor
Read Date: 14 February 2012 (how appropriate!)
Goodreads Reading Progress Status Updates: Click here.
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Review Preview: I was enchanted. Three times.
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Three tales of supernatural love, each pivoting on a kiss that is no mere kiss, but an action with profound consequences for the kissers’ souls:

Goblin Fruit: In Victorian times, goblin men had only to offer young girls sumptuous fruits to tempt them to sell their souls. But what does it take to tempt today’s savvy girls?

Spicy Little Curses Such As These: A demon and the ambassador to Hell tussle over the soul of a beautiful English girl in India. Matters become complicated when she falls in love and decides to test her curse.

Hatchling: Six days before Esme’s fourteenth birthday, her left eye turns from brown to blue. She little suspects what the change heralds, but her small safe life begins to unravel at once. What does the beautiful, fanged man want with her, and how is her fate connected to a mysterious race of demons?

Once upon a time, the Creator showered the Gift of Words upon the Earth and somehow, an inordinate amount gravitated toward Laini Taylor.

Lips Touch: Three Times is an impressive collection of stories which showcases Taylor’s mastery of evoking images and emotions using her words, and her husband Jim Bartolo’s distinctive and breathtaking art.

What I loved, in general, about the three stories in this book, is how well Taylor seems to understand human nature and our deepest hopes and fears, and how well she manages to articulate all of it as if she can read our souls.

Kizzy wanted to be a woman who would dive off the prow of a sailboat into the sea, who would fall back in a tangle of sheets, laughing, and who could dance a tango, lazily stroke a leopard with her bare feet, freeze an enemy’s blood with her eyes, make promises she couldn’t possibly keep, and then shift the world to keep them. She wanted to write memoirs and autograph them at a tiny bookshop in Rome, with a line of admirers snaking down a pink-lit alley. She wanted to make love on a balcony, ruin someone, trade in esoteric knowledge, watch strangers as coolly as a cat. She wanted to be inscrutable, to have a drink named after her, a love song written for her, and a handsome adventurer’s small airplane champagne-christened Kizzy.

 
Goblin Fruit is the shortest story of the three, but it’s also the most whimsical. It reads like a fairy tale, so much so that if I were a screenwriter on Grimm, I’d probably ask permission to write an episode based on this. And Taylor’s style is so evocative, I could almost taste that kiss and that fruit.

Spicy Little Curses Such As These is my favorite of the three. If I were an animator like the awesome Ben Hibon (of The Tale of the Three Brothers fame), I’d turn this story into an animated short film. I love the exotic Indian setting, the Maleficent homage, the mythology, the classic Lost Diary plot point, and just the entire crafting of the story, really.

He had imagined himself, fancifully, to be half in love with the writer of the mysterious diary, but now, seeing her, that vague fancy was swept away by the exhilaration of actually falling in love with her, not by halves, but fully and profoundly.

 
Hatchling is the more fantastical of the three. If I were Tim Burton or maybe Henry Selick, I’d make a movie out of this one. I love how Laini also drew from world mythology like she did with Spicy Little Curses, but still managed to come up with something unusual. The world has a Labyrinth / The Dark Crystal / Mirrormask kind of vibe to it, but probably a little wilder, what with the supernatural creatures involved.

For all three stories, Taylor definitely delivered on her promise that the kisses will have profound consequences. Yup, it all started with a kiss!

I may gush and rave about this book all I want here, but I don’t believe I can adequately capture the magic and draw of Lips Touch. My advice? Buy it. Read it. Reread it. Fall under its spell three times. Every time.

Cover Reveal: “The Raven Boys” and “Taste”

 
Maggie Stiefvater recently announced that her new project is a 4-book series called The Raven Cycle. The first book is The Raven Boys.

Filled with mystery, romance, and the supernatural, The Raven Boys introduces readers to Richard “Dick” Campbell Gansey, III and Blue Sargent. Gansey has it all—family money, good looks, devoted friends—but he’s looking for much more than that. He is on the hunt to find Glendower, a vanished Welsh king. Legend has it that the first person to find him will be granted a wish—either by seeing him open his eyes, or by cutting out his heart.

Blue Sargent, the daughter of the town psychic in Henrietta, Virginia, has been told for as long as she can remember that if she ever kisses her true love, he will die. But she is too practical to believe in things like true love. Her policy is to stay away from the rich boys at the prestigious Aglionby Academy. The boys there—known as Raven Boys—can only mean trouble. When Gansey and his Raven Boy friends come into her life, Blue realizes how true this is. She never thought her fortune would be a problem. But she was wrong.

Maggie has additional info about her main characters, and a song that inspired her while she was writing, here: click!

I’m excited to read this come September 18th, and hope that Maggie will continue to exceed the quality of her writing with each new novel.

I’m likewise excited to read the new YA supernatural romance by Filipino author Kate Evangelista, entitled Taste.

At Barinkoff Academy, there’s only one rule: no students on campus after curfew. Phoenix McKay soon finds out why when she is left behind at sunset. A group calling themselves night students threaten to taste her flesh until she is saved by a mysterious, alluring boy. With his pale skin, dark eyes, and mesmerizing voice, Demitri is both irresistible and impenetrable. He warns her to stay away from his dangerous world of flesh eaters. Unfortunately, the gorgeous and playful Luka has other plans.

When Phoenix is caught between her physical and her emotional attraction, she becomes the keeper of a deadly secret that will rock the foundations of an ancient civilization living beneath Barinkoff Academy. Phoenix doesn’t realize until it is too late that the closer she gets to both Demitri and Luka the more she is plunging them all into a centuries old feud.

The lovely cover is by artist Liliana Sanchez.

There’s no release date set for Taste just yet, however, there’s more info about the book here: click!

I’m curious to see how a Filipino author will spin a supernatural YA tale with non-native characters, settings, and mythology. I know that good writers can mask their ethnicity when they write fantasy, but when the author’s own culture bleeds through the stories a little, sometimes it makes for a more interesting read.

Snapshots: Supernatural Infestation

 
Dash and Lily’s Book of Dares saw the last of my book hamsters. Now, my books are infested with these supernatural cuties.

Out with the hamsters, in with the Caspers

(Still don’t know why WP is being a pain with the photo resizing. Sorry.)

That’s a shot of one of my favorite passages from Laini Taylor’s Lips Touch: Three Times.

Snapshots: These books have British accents

 
Caution: O.C. Fangirl Blogging

When I started collecting Brandon Sanderson’s books, the very first one I bought was the UK mass market edition of Mistborn: The Final Empire. Although the US covers look and feel more like classic fantasy, the UK covers have a certain minimalist appeal. I tend to be OC about editions, so I hounded the stores until I got the entire Mistborn trilogy in matching editions.

I made sure to get the UK editions for his subsequent epic fantasies, although I gave up on getting them all in mass market format because Gollancz’s mass market The Way of Kings was split into 2 volumes. And when The Alloy of Law came out, the local store stocked only the regular paperback.

The UK edition of Warbreaker very recently appeared in another local store, so I got a copy even though I already read the e-book, so that I can complete my collection. I also want to read Warbreaker again to stick tabs on the pages with my favorite passages, and to just generally enjoy all of Lightsong’s witty dialogue. And I couldn’t resist the lilac-colored font.

(O.C. comment: Warbreaker’s title doesn’t have curliques on the spine. It bothers me.)

As you can see, my copy of Elantris is still a mass market US; it looks so out-of-place in that group. Keep an eye out for the UK edition in stores for me, will you, Pinoy friends?

So why do I like collecting the UK editions aside from the endless amusement I get when I imagine hearing the narrator speak in a British accent inside my head? If you don’t have the moolah to get a hardbound copy, then the UK mass markets are a good value for your money. They normally cost just as much as the US mass market, but the UK MMPs, particularly the Gollancz ones, have better paper and print quality. The British eds are also a little bigger (Elantris and Mistborn in the photo above are both classified as MMPs), so the font size is more comfortable for the eyes.

As for Sanderson’s other books, I’m still missing volumes 3 and 4 of his Alcatraz series for young adults. I got the 1st volume at the Scholastic Warehouse Sale, and the 2nd just randomly appeared in another store. I saw volume 3 somewhere else, but it’s a hardbound copy, and I’m hesitant to get it.

And although I’m 25 pages into the 1st volume of The Wheel of Time, um…that’s not on the table today, ‘kay? ‘Kay.

Next mission: Procure a copy of the Mistborn Adventure Game.
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Shout-outs! — Thanks to Aaron for the heads-up on Warbreaker, and to Leia for calling the store to reserve a copy for me.

“Game of Thrones” Season 2, Trailer 2!

 
Lookie at trailer #2 for Game of Thrones Season 2!

 
“Power resides where men believe it resides. It’s a trick.”

Let’s do the Syrio Forel Swordfight Dance of Joy!

“Dash and Lily’s Book of Dares” by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan

 

Title: Dash and Lily’s Book of Dares
Author: Rachel Cohn and David Levithan
Read Date: 27 January 2012
Goodreads Reading Progress Status Updates: Click here.
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
Review Preview: Excellent premise, wonderfully written, but a little too self-conscious to be truly romantic.
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“I’ve left some clues for you.
If you want them, turn the page.
If you don’t, put the book back on the shelf, please.”

So begins the latest whirlwind romance from the New York Times bestselling authors of Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist. Lily has left a red notebook full of challenges on a favorite bookstore shelf, waiting for just the right guy to come along and accept its dares. But is Dash that right guy? Or are Dash and Lily only destined to trade dares, dreams, and desires in the notebook they pass back and forth at locations across New York? Could their in-person selves possibly connect as well as their notebook versions? Or will they be a comic mismatch of disastrous proportions?

 
Like Dash, who saw the red Moleskine notebook on the shelf and was intrigued enough by it to follow the instructions and then take it home, I bought this book on a whim after reading the synopsis and loving the premise.

Well, okay, it was that, but I also felt nostalgic. I seldom talk or write about very personal things, but I’ll break that rule today. See, I used to pass a notebook back-and-forth with my significant other because we don’t see each other as often as we would like. I loved when it came back to me with new drawings and doodles. (He’s an artist. For perspective: he drew the lady on my Twitter and WordPress site-wide avatar / user pic. Even his cartoon doodles are awesome. I can’t even draw a decent stick-figure image ala xkcd, so I mostly just wrote on the notebook.) One of us kept it for far too long once, so the exchange stopped. From then on, we just, as Lily calls it, “lived life outside of the notebook.” Now you know, and knowing is half the battle, but in this case, the war is over. I shall now go back to enforcing The Rule, and no questions will be answered.

Enough about me, let’s talk about Dash.

Oh, Dash, are you for real? I found myself asking that question several times. I couldn’t help being aware that it was David Levithan talking rather than a 16-year-old boy, because Dash often sounds too mature. Or rather, his words and thoughts are mature but his actions are typical teen, so he ends up coming across as pretentious, even for someone who’s in the habit of reading J.D. Salinger and the Oxford English Dictionary.

Deep down, you see, I long to be arcane, esoteric. I’d love to confound people with their own language.

 
(Please, nobody say “he’s an old soul” or I’ll throw a tantrum and a couple of Horcruxes aimed at your head.)

In theory, Dash could easily have been the “boy inside my head, who is exactly who I want him to be,” but I still couldn’t quite fall in love with him.

And then there’s Lily. She’s more grounded than Dash, even though she’s Disney-Channel-Sitcom-Sidekick Quirky. Or Luna-Lovegood-Quirky. Lily and Luna. Lily Luna. Lily Luna Potter. Haha!

I’ve always resented Hermione, because I wanted to be her so badly and she never seemed to appreciate as much as I thought she should that she got to be her. She got to live at Hogwarts and be friends with Harry and kiss Ron, which was supposed to happen to me.

 
(See? A Harry Potter reference!)

I didn’t find Dash and Lily’s romance thrilling, sadly. In my native language: hindi ako kinilig. They don’t even come close to how I feel about Deryn and Alek from Leviathan (oh how I embarrassed myself squeeing loudly while reading Goliath) or Puck and Sean from The Scorpio Races. I’m not sure if this is because I’m privy to both Dash’s and Lily’s thoughts that there isn’t much of a mystery to keep things exciting anymore, or if it’s because they and the book itself just seem so self-conscious of this entire “epistolary flirtation.”

So what kept me reading wasn’t Dash or Lily or Dash and Lily; it was the Book of Dares–the anticipation of what audacious quest they would come up with next and how they will eventually meet in person. The dares themselves are fun, especially the ones set in The Strand, the video store, Macy’s, and FAO Schwarz.

Oh, and I also love the more interesting secondary characters, like Lily’s gay brother Langston, her grandfather, her great aunt and numerous cousins and uncles, and Dash’s bestfriend Boomer.

But the real draw of this book is Cohn and Levithan’s gift with words. There are a lot of wonderful and thoughtful passages about love, relationships, literature and language, that I used up my remaining Book Hamster sticky tabs to mark my favorites.

But isn’t this a dance? Isn’t all of this a dance? Isn’t that what we do with words? Isn’t that what we do when we talk, when we spar, when we make plans or leave it to chance? Some of it’s choreographed. Some of the steps have been done for ages. And the rest — the rest is spontaneous. The rest has to be decided on the floor, in the moment, before the music ends.

 
I admit that much of my disappointment comes from expecting too much from this book and probably from thinking too much about it. You might even say I’m doing a Dash. But if you want to read something light and fun and rather bookish (in a good way) and fanciful (because it’s a beautiful word), or if you want to feel like it’s Christmas any time of the year, then give Dash and Lily’s Book of Dares a try; it goes well with a plate of cookies and a cup of English Breakfast.

Title Reveal: “Days of Blood and Starlight”

 
You can tell by the way I gushed about Laini Taylor’s Daughter of Smoke and Bone that I adored the book, so yes, this title reveal deserves its own post.

Laini has revealed that Book 2 of the series is going to be called:

She also posted this teaser:

Once upon a time, an angel and a devil fell in love and dared to imagine a new way of living—one without massacres and torn throats and bonfires of the fallen, without revenants or bastard armies or children ripped from their mothers’ arms to take their turn in the killing and dying.

Once, the lovers lay entwined in the moon’s secret temple and dreamed of a world that was like a jewel-box without a jewel—a paradise waiting for them to find it and fill it with their happiness.

This was not that world.

September 2012, woohoo!

Coincidentally, I start reading her illustrated anthology, Lips Touch: Three Times today!