Writer of young adult fiction, fantasy, and science fiction.
Author: byjehunter
I'm the author of the Black Depths and Artifacts of Avalum series. I'm also a reader and I love posting young adult book reviews and blogging about everything related to books. In the morning, I can be found drinking coffee and wishing it was still dark outside. In the afternoon, I'm stuck at my day job, and in the evening, I'm probably working on my latest creation.
I finally found time this summer to pick up the second book of The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer. I wasn’t sure I would be into Scarlet so much because I loved Cinder and entire first book is told from Cinder’s point of view, and Scarlet changes that up, but I quickly fell in love with Scarlet.
Cinder is loosely based on Cinderella, and Scarlet is loosely based on Little Red Riding Hood, but she’s strong and fearless and easy to love. Just as the entire futuristic world of the Lunar Chronicles is easy to love.
I’ve already started reading Cress, who is loosely based on Rapunzel, though I’ve left that book at home while I roam the country on my epic road trip, more on that later.
So, I actually started writing this post back in June, but then got swamped by travel and life and never got around to finishing it. So, here’s my best attempt at coming up with a list of planned reading for the remainder of summer (which is thankfully still a bit more than a month long).
As I get ready to head off on my first fourth lakeside vacation of the summer, I’m going through my books to pick out the novels I want to read next. Lately, I’ve been into a mix of literary fiction, science fiction, and fantasy (which the science fiction and fantasy being either Young Adult or Adult—I’m not choosey). I’m hoping to get through eight books this summer, some of which have been on my bookshelf for a long time, and a few that are more or less new arrivals.
As it stands, my To Be Read shelf is over a hundred books deep (possibly even closer to 150), so I really want to get cracking on it, but there are also a couple books that I have on my reader that I would like to read as well, and let’s not forget, I still have Don Quixote to finish! *Note: some of these books I’ve already finished, since I’m late with this post, lol
The Girl From Everywhere
The Ship Beyond Time
The Thousandth Floor
Blue Lily, Lily Blue (finished)
The Raven King
Authority (Southern Reach #2) (finished last night)
Champion (Lengend #3)
Don Quixote (I’m still only halfway through this one)
So there it is, the list. Maybe I’ll even be able to read a few bonus books (I have a feeling Don Quixote might get brushed aside for A Shadow Bright and Burning, or Strange the Dreamer, which I’ve wanted to read forever).
I’ll let you know how I do. And I should have some book reviews up later this week. How is your summer reading going?
The clouds are rolling in and they are bringing something. Describe the feeling of the air: is it light or heavy? Does it smell sweet or sour? Does it feel warm or cold? Use all five senses and describe how the viewer is feeling as they watch these clouds.
Next Wednesday, on August 1st, I’ll be reading at Readings on the River, a summer session of Saskatchewan Writer’s reading their work at the Shakespeare on the Saskatchewan tent on the Saskatchewan river in Saskatoon (how many times can I say Saskatchewan in one sentence?
It starts at 615pm and goes until around 715pm, ending just before the play at the main tent starts. Next week, August 1st, it will be the Merry Wives of Windsor. Why not come out and double up on entertainment? I’m not quite sure what I’m going to read yet, but I think I’m going to pick something more funny than serious. Hopefully the weather’s nice! The event poster is below.
Describe the action as your character pulls the fencing off this storm drain and climbs inside. What are they looking for? Why? Don’t forget to describe the smell.
Well, I’m sad to say that my days of sitting in my basement all alone and writing stories has come to an end. Or am I? I had a wonderful four months working from home on a collection of literary short stories, thanks to the wonderful Saskatchewan Arts Board, who awarded me a grant. If it wasn’t for people who support the arts, I never would have got this time, which means I never would have developed fantastic new stories to share with you and the world.
But good times can’t last forever. At least not until I get enough sales to replace my annual salary (which is a pretty good size). And part of me missed my day job. I missed having coworkers to visit with, I missed my afternoon walks around the pond and through the garden, somedays I even missed the cafeteria.
But, I’m pretty sure I will miss the writing life more. I’ve always wanted to be a writer, and by that, I mean I’ve always wanted to spend eight hours a day coming up with characters and stories and events, and thinking about ‘what ifs’ ‘and thens’ and ‘maybe’. I’ve never dreamed that writing would be less work than this, and after my four months off, I know it’s not. In fact, it’s often more than eight hours a day because once I could immerse myself in writing full-time, the thinking rarely stopped. My mind was free to roam, and I didn’t have to force it to concentrate on contracts and applications and coworking. It was wonderful.
It seems (from all the internet articles about it), that being able to afford being a full-time writer is a more and more difficult thing. Whether it’s due to the abundance of free articles and stories on the web, changing media (to television, to film, to Twitter), I can’t say. And maybe it has always been difficult to make a living from art. Maybe it’s always been that a couple of people are lucky and the rest of us are relatively unknown. All I do know is that I have my plan to write, whether it’s on the weekend or late in the evening, I will always be writing, because I love it. Not because I hope to become rich and famous, but because I love to think, I love to think about our world and what powers humans, and I love to think about possible other worlds, other realities, and other possibilities. A writer is just what I am.
Now that I’ve finished up a couple major projects, I’m moving on to the next step in the process, which is shopping those projects around and trying to find them a home. Meanwhile, it is also Camp NaNoWriMo, so I’ve also returned back to writing genre fiction, which is a nice break from the literary, though-provoking work I was doing (Not that my genre fiction isn’t somewhat though provoking—at least, I hope it is). To that end, stay in touch for updates regarding upcoming presentations and publications, or because otherwise I’ll miss you.
Young Adult Book Review: The Fates Divide by Veronica Roth
I’m going to start out by saying, if you read my review of Carve the Mark then you likely know what I’m going to say about The Fates Divide. There were multiple points where I was confused, where things didn’t seem to make sense. Mainly, in The Fates Divide, it was character description. To me, I felt like people actually changed how they looked in this book. And Yma, she has white hair in The Fates Divide, yet in Carve the Mark I was under the impression that Yma was trying to seduce Ryzek. So yeah, confused.
That said, what I love about Roth’s writing is her ability to describe what it is to want to belong. Both the Divergent series and Carve the Mark have this same theme: do we chose to belong, or do we belong to who or what we are born? What choice do we have in our own lives, in our destiny? I love that Roth asks this question, and does so in a way that feels natural.
The Carve the Mark world was vivid, even if I was confused. There was a lack of description of things like space flight—exactly how far apart are these planets? How long does it take to get to one from another? I’m a scientist, this is the kind of information I want to know!
Overall, I would give The Fates Divide 3/5 Stars, mostly because by the end I just really felt like I wanted to be done. Though I will say that the ending was much better than the ending of the Divergent series.
J. E. H U N T E R 