Giveaway: Sing Me to Sleep

You've read about this book all over this blogosphere and desperately want to see what it's about? Here's your chance! One lucky winner will get this book from the author herself, which is very exciting news, especially since this giveaway is international! Here are a few rules and also some helpful tips on how you can increase your chance to win a signed (!) copy of Angela Morrison's Sing Me to Sleep.

1. The giveaway is international!
2. The giveaway is open to February 22nd.
3. Please, do not forget to leave your email in your comment! No email, no entry.

You can get extra entries for doing one or more of the following:

• +4 if you blog about this giveaway
• +2 if you leave the link to the giveaway on your blog's sidebar (+4 if you use a graphic)
• +2 for following (never too late to start!)
• +2 for tweeting about the contest (leave your Twitter ID)

The winners will be chosen randomly and then notified by email.

Special thanks to Angela Morrison for making this fantastic giveaway possible!

Review: Sing Me to Sleep by Angela Morrison

Angela Morrison's sophomore novel Sing Me to Sleep is not a hard book to read. The pages turn smoothly, the story is believable enough and there is enough universality in these teen characters to strike a chord with most readers. And I am happy to finally get to review this book after taking control of my life again, after so many exams, obligations and other nasty stuff.

One thing I loved about Morrison's writing is that she is not afraid to take the extra step and show us how high school indeed can be gruesome and harsh. The protagonist of the book, Beth aka "The Beast" is forced to live with constant ridicule, as well as insults and attacks (both verbal and physical). Some of the scenes in Sing Me to Sleep shocked me with their honesty and brutality, and even though I didn't always care for the more romantic side of the story, it was how genuine the book was that made me rate it positively.

There is a huge story about a love triangle, a singing competition and more YA stuff that are mostly okay, but it is the realistic portrayal of characters that wins the prize. Beth is insecure, but not an idiot. She is fully aware of the world around her, and even though she is in desperate need of an attitude makeover (neatly connected with her physical makeover), we never really lose faith in her. The hunk named Derek is also not a typical, boring romantic interest. Not only does he sing in choir, he also has a secret or two, and it is exactly these details that make us care about these characters.

I could name a couple of things that do not exactly work in the book, mainly the poetic attempts scattered throughout the book, or many unnecessary narrative detours (we don't really have to know how singing in choir works in such detail), but it is refreshing to find a YA book that doesn't rely on vampires and werewolves for its thrills. Sing Me to Sleep is a fun, clever little book that, while it's certainly no classic, is also far heavier and thought-provoking than your regular beach read.

REVIEW: 3/5

Review: Eclipse by Stephanie Meyer

Welcome to my first unfinished book review. I know some of you Twilight-heads (does this expression even exist?) will not enjoy this, but I was unable to get through the third installment in Stephanie Meyer's uber-popular Twilight saga. And that isn't to say I haven't tried. I carried that book around for weeks in my bag, which is a huge effort if I do say so myself, since the book is so huge. I tried reading it for periods of varying length - nothing. And here's why.

If there is a lesson Meyer should learn from more experienced (and acclaimed!) authors, is that withholding information is not a good thing. Sure, there's a lot we didn't know about Snape or Dumbledore until The Deathly Hallows, but the journey has never been tedious and pointless. Even more importantly, the Harry Potter books (and I know these are not the only books Twilight can be compared to, but are probably the most popular fantasy books ever written) always felt planned inside and out. The author always seemed to know exactly where she was going with this or that, and not one character or plot point was included without a reason.

Eclipse starts pretty much where New Moon left off. Now, if you, like me, felt that New Moon was uneventful and unnecessary, prepare for more of that this time around. Bella and Edward are madly in love (of course), there are incredibly non-interesting flashbacks to the pasts of most major characters and a danger lurking in behind that is as dangerous as it is dull. The problem is we never know what the hell is going on. Being put in Bella's point of view is a rather dismal affair, since no one seems to care to explain to her what everything that is going on in the book actually means, to the point that one inevitably stops caring at one point.

Secondly, the series' most interesting character, Edward, is ridiculously underused this time around. It seems like somewhere along writing New Moon, Stephenie suddenly decided to switch to Team Jacob, making her male protagonist an incredible bore. Edward is only interested in marrying Bella, he is so concerned about her safety and what not, he doesn't even respond to her frequent attacks of horniness, he becomes a silent know-it-all and finally, he pales in comparison to Bella's other suitor, the bad-boy werewolf Jacob, who even kisses her sloppily at one point. And if you think this might be just the exposition of the novel, you're wrong. This is what's going on for more than half of this overlong affair.

If you write a popular, thrilling and fun debut novel such as Twilight, you might think again before you choose to clumsily build upon a story that was so effective and almost stand-alone. New Moon had its moments, but it was mostly a way to introduce a new plot development for the third book. And now that the third book has arrived, I just wish none of it had ever happened.

RATING: 2/5

Happy New Year

Keeping a blog is a contemplative thing. Very introspective if you do it honestly, and if you go back and read your past posts, it is easy to see how easily people change or maybe even go different directions, even though they never knew they were making a decision.

Of course, we are book bloggers and although the manifestation of our feelings and identity, always evident through our book reviews and interactions with fellow bloggers, is different than those who simply type about their day-to-day life, the essence is still the same. We write about what matters, and after reading so many books and interpeting so many ideas, we know that something matters only if we see it that way. We embrace the subjective, the abstract, but in turn get an amazing view into ourselves, because the books we read are who we are inside.

This is why I would like to thank each and every single one of my fellow book bloggers. Thank you for writing such wonderful posts and making me want to write as well. Thank you for reading all those wonderful books, thus making me want to read them. Most of all, thank you for being open, honest and supportive. We are making each other's words matter and thus liberating ourselves enough to spot what's right and wrong with the world we live in.

I wish you all the best in 2010, in terms of health, wealth or any other way you define happiness.

xoxo
-Nikola

Giveaway Winner - P&P&Z/S&S&SM

After a long, long delay, I am lett ing you know the winners of the contest. These three people will win a set of both books, sent to them by the publisher. I hope they will love the books and I'm looking forward to the reviews! And the winners are...

Ryan G

brizmus

Trisha

Congratulations! xoxo

Many thanks to Melissa Monachello, without whom this giveaway wouldn't be possible!

In My Mailbox #2

Finally, a new blog post, and a new vlog! Hope you like it! Here are the books I mention in it:

• Eclipse by Stephanie Meyer
• Going Too Far by Jennifer Echols
• Sing Me to Sleep by Angela Morrison

Blog Back Soon

Dear bloggers,

Sorry for not posting in a while. I know it's really bad, and that I even had a giveaway going that doesn't have the winners yet, but don't worry, it's about to change. I've had a lot of trouble with my ISP, as well as school work, but I expect to write a post/do a vlog tomorrow and then go from there.

Thanks for generally reading my blog, and sorry about this.

xoxo

Nikola