Author Archives: TheHouseworkCanWait

Blog Tour: Battlefield by J.F. Jenkins + GIVEAWAY!

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Book Blurb: 

Cadence, JD, and Orlando couldn’t be more different from one another. Under normal circumstances, the three wouldn’t so much as say hi to each other if they could get away with it. Then an alien crashes through the roof of their local mall, and everything changes. Not only do the three teens gain new abilities, but they’re also chosen to help fight in an intergalactic war where the next chosen battlefield is Earth.

Reluctant at first, they change their minds when the fight hits close to home. Teenagers from school start to go missing, and some are dead. Together they must learn to work together and solve the mystery behind these disappearances before more lives are lost.

Author Info:

J.F. Jenkins lives in Minneapolis where she spends most of her time creating and plotting world domination – something that has been in the works for roughly 13 years.

In her free time she works as the local coffee wench and dominates the minions of the pixilated world on her PS3.

She’s also got a little man (J Walk) and a little man trapped in a big man’s body (J Dawg) to take care of along with her two fur babies Ushi and Tibu.

She is currently unrepresented by an agency. Email jfjenkinswrites@gmail.com with questions and comments.

Links :

Blog | Twitter  | Amazon

My Review:

Battlefield had a lot of things going for it. First, the premise of an alien war coming to Earth, asking regular kids to help them fight it, and then giving them superpowers. All of this is awesome. I would totally see the movie.

Second, the characters are fun. My favorite was probably the dark and guarded Orlando, but I also liked JD and Cadence. They each had their own personalities and quirks and struggles, and I liked reading their interactions (although the dialogue was a little hard to follow at times).

It was a quick and fairly easy read, and the pacing kept me engaged. I was able to easily follow the plot and the shifts in POV between the three teens and Alan, their alien mentor.

From the cover and the blurb, I got the impression that Battlefield would be full of crazy sci-fi action and battles, and while there was some of that, most of the book was character exploration as we got to know the three teens and Alan, and as they played around with their new abilities and learned to play nice with each other. There’s nothing wrong with that; you just need to adjust your expectations accordingly.

That said, Battlefield did have a few issues that I struggled with. The first was just realism in the lives of the teens. At the beginning of the book, before they receive their powers, it is established that Cadence is not, shall we say, the sharpest tool in the shed. However, as we meet Cadence she is puzzling through her math homework, specifically this problem: x+4=6. She must solve for x.

This is kindergarten math. Literally. I have a child just starting first grade, and this sort of math is what she was doing in school last year. I don’t care how remedial Cadence’s classes are, I doubt they sent her back to elementary school.

Or then there’s Orlando and his abundant wealth. He lives in a mansion roughly the size of Buckingham Palace (okay, I made up the comparison, but to hear it described, that’s about right), complete with an entire secret wing thousands of square feet and multiple stories in size, that his sister has never noticed. Apparently she has never walked completely around the outside of their house.

Then he decides to furnish said secret wing with furniture and appliances from IKEA, and he buys two of everything so that he can tell his sister the bill was so he could decorate a different area of the house, and the bill to completely outfit the equivalent of two modest-size apartments with brand-new IKEA everything is $5,000.

Trust me, I’ve spent long enough browsing the IKEA catalog to have a decent idea of what it would cost to furnish an entire house/apartment. Twice. And it’s a lot more than $5,000, even when you are doing it with sleek but cheap Swedish furniture.

BTW: The IKEA shopping spree? Totally my dream. I’m still in mourning that I moved from a place with an IKEA to a place without an IKEA.

So those are just a couple examples of unrealistic elements that left me scratching my head, saying, “well that’s not right,” which in turn took me out of the story.

And yes, I realize I’m talking about a book with alien superpowers and complaining that math problems and IKEA prices took me out of the story. But as always, the fantastic stuff I can buy. I’ve never been to Alan’s homeworld. I don’t know what’s possible there, or what possibilities he brings to Earth with him. It’s the stuff that I’m familiar with, the stuff that’s based here that I need to feel real. And there’s a bunch of little stuff scattered throughout the story that just didn’t ring true for me. Not enough to ruin the book. But enough to take me out of the story, and I think the goal of any story is to immerse the reader from beginning to end.

Aside from the little details not ringing true, the other main problem I have with the book is that it seems to end in the middle of the story. I was actually shocked the book ended where it did. It’s not a cliffhanger, it’s not a resolution, it doesn’t follow a big action scene. It just…stops. I felt like I had just read half a book, and then it was over. It’s good that there’s a sequel, Control, because otherwise we’ll never get answers to any of the big questions raised in Battlefield.

Overall, Battlefield was a fun concept and a quick read with likable characters. No, the execution wasn’t up to the standards of some of the best YA sci-fi I’ve read (and keep in mind, I tend to be pretty nit-picky in my reading), but it was still entertaining.

Also, I had this song stuck in my head the entire time I was reading it. Now you can too. Just pretend it’s JD and Cadence dancing (not that JD and Cadence look like this, or can dance…or can they?).

Giveaway:

Enter below for a chance to win a digital copy of Battlefield from J.F. Jenkins!

This giveaway is author-sponsored and open internationally. Entrants must be 13 years old or older. I WILL be checking IP addresses, and people entering under multiple usernames WILL be disqualified.

Winners will be drawn on 8/16 and notified by email. They will have up to 48 hours to respond before a new winner is chosen.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Thanks to J.F. Jenkins and Heather from SupaGurl Tours for letting me be part of the blog tour!

Throwback Thursday (August 9) – The Hiding Place

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Welcome to Throwback Thursday, a weekly meme hosted by The Housework Can Wait and Never Too Fond of Books!

It’s the nature of book blogging to focus mainly on new releases, but there are thousands of great books out there that haven’t seen the “New Releases” shelf in years. We hope to be able to bring attention to some older titles that may not be at the top of the current bestseller list, but still deserve a spot in your To-Be-Read pile.

You don’t have to be a book blogger to participate! You can put up a Throwback Thursday post on your non-bookish blog; or if you don’t have a blog at all, just use the comments to tell us about a book you remember fondly.

Here’s how it works:
1. Pick any book released more than 5 years ago. Adult, YA, Children’s; doesn’t matter. Any great book will do.
2. Write up a short summary of the book (include the title, author, and cover art) and an explanation of why you love it. Make sure to link back to The Housework Can Wait and Never Too Fond of Books in your post.
3. Link up your post at The Housework Can Wait or Never Too Fond of Books.
4. Visit as many blogs as you can, reminisce about books you loved, and discover some “new” books for your TBR list!

Feel free to grab the Throwback Thursday button code from the sidebar to use in your posts.

Thanks for participating, and we look forward to seeing which books you choose to remember!

[Everyone welcome back Mandi from her blogging break! HI MANDI!]

My Throwback this week is…

 

The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom.

This book is an anomaly for me. It’s nonfiction, and I don’t generally read nonfiction. Plus, it’s about the Holocaust, and I don’t generally read about the Holocaust.  Too sad and emotionally gutting for me. I honestly can’t take it. I have a very hard time reading about suffering and cruelty on that level, knowing that it actually happened.

But a friend recommended this book as her favorite book, saying she loves it so much she keeps extra copies on hand to give away to people who hadn’t read it. And with a recommendation like that from a friend I respect, I knew I needed to give it a try.

The Hiding Place is the true story of the Ten Boom family, as told by daughter Corrie, a humble watchmaking family living in Nazi-occupied Holland during World War II. Although the Ten Booms were Christians, and therefore not a direct target of the Nazis, they couldn’t bear to stand idly by and watch as their Jewish neighbors were seized and sent to concentration camps. So they constructed a secret wall in their home that they used to shelter Jews from prying Nazi eyes.

Ultimately, they were discovered and several members of the family, including Corrie, were sent to concentration camps, where they were faced with horrors and evil beyond imagining. But Corrie eventually came through it, and the story of how she survived is amazing.

The Hiding Place is unapologetically about faith in God, so if you have strong feelings against reading something with a spiritual focus, then it may not be for you. More than that, though, I found it to be a book about love. Love for family, love for neighbors who don’t share your views, and even love for those who would seek to do you harm. I’ve never read a book — especially one based on true events — where the people involved so beautifully represented the kind of love and respect I wish all people had for one another.

Yes, there is a lot of intense and troubling content, since the book spends a great deal of time in a concentration camp,  which were hellish places. It is about a horrible, dark period of human history. It will break your heart and disturb your soul. But if you’re like me, it will also give you hope that sometimes, even during periods of darkness, people can shine.

This is a blog hop! Link up your Throwback Thursday post below!



Film Review: The Dark Knight Rises

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I love a good end to a trilogy, be it in book form or on the big screen. And The Dark Knight Rises, the conclusion to Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy, did not disappoint.

First, I know that Nolan enjoys using the same actors again and again (Christian Bale in the Dark Knight trilogy and The Prestige, Ken Watanabe in Inception and Batman Begins), but can we just take a moment to appreciate how The Dark Knight Rises was basically a giant Inception cast reunion?

Okay, now that I’ve got that out of my system (and totally want to re-watch Inception), let’s get on to the movie, shall we?

Once again, Christopher Nolan gives us a darker, grittier look at one of America’s darker, grittier superheroes. Batman by his very nature is dark, considering he goes vigilante mostly because he is coping very badly with the deaths of his parents when he was a child. He has no superpowers (unless being a bazillionaire is a superpower), and takes on bad guys using angst and fists and contraptions. But even so, previous Batman adaptations (even the Michael Keaton versions, which I L-O-V-E) still were a tad on the fantastic and comic-y side. Which made sense, since Batman is a comic book character.

However, Nolan’s Batman has always been different from previous incarnations. He’s angrier, moodier, growlier, and just all-around scarier. As is Gotham. As are the villains. And Dark Knight Rises took all that and bumped it up a notch.

Let’s hit some highlights.

The villain in Dark Knight Rises was Bane, played by an unrecognizable Tom Hardy, who was almost a complete 180 from Heath Ledger’s Joker in The Dark Knight. While they were both terrifying and calculating, The Joker was the ultimate in crazy madmen, while Bane was a sinister and philosophical terrorist. Personally, I think this was a smart move, first of all because Heath Ledger’s performance was so amazing that any similar villain (ie: The Riddler) would probably have come across as sub-par, and also because I am a big fan of the variety of villains that Batman has to choose from, and I liked that this movie used one that hadn’t been done before (we’re just going to pretend Batman and Robin never happened).

Everything about Hardy’s performance was spot-on, which is saying something when you consider that the only part of his face he could use to emote were his eyes. The voice, the movement, and yes, the eyes, were all creepy and fantastic.

Anne Hathaway’s Catwoman (who is never actually referred to as Catwoman in the movie) was one of the things I was a little concerned about going in. I mean, I’m a big fan of Anne Hathaway, but how can anyone measure up to Michelle Pfeifer?

Fortunately, she didn’t really try. She put her own spin on the duplicitous Selena Kyle, and I found that although I entered the theater fully prepared to compare performances, I didn’t have to. I love both actresses’ take on the iconic character. In The Dark Knight Rises, I enjoyed that it very clearly came across that she wasn’t really a hero or a villain — she was simply looking out for her own interests. Hers wasn’t a redemption story, but I have always enjoyed comic characters whose alliances are tenuous, because it keeps you guessing. Guessing is good.

I also REALLY enjoyed that she used her heels as weapons. Realistic that she could do all her action scenes in them? Probably not, but if you’re going to wear 5-inch metal stilettos as part of your supergarb, may as well make them useful.

Probably one of the highlights of the movie, for me anyway, was Joseph Gordon-Levitt as the passionate young cop Blake. Honestly, JGL is just one of those actors that’s just kind of an automatic movie-improver for me. And when the movie’s already good, he just makes it that much better.

I really enjoyed having a regular cop with no mystical ninja training still doing his best to bring down the Big Bad, that sometimes he was outsmarted and outgunned and outmaneuvered, and yet he still kept trying.

Actually, speaking of that, I really liked the cops in this movie, in general, even outside of Blake and Commissioner Gordon. They weren’t the inept and bumbling force we so often see in superhero movies. For the most part, they were admirable and heroic, and I like that they were actually helpful in this movie.

The only thing about Blake I did not like was the execution of where his character went by the end of the movie. Not the actual plot device, or JGL’s portrayal. Just how it was done. But that’s a minor nitpick.

As has been the case with all the Nolan Batman movies, the weakest link for me was actually Batman himself. I always find myself liking the supporting characters more, and this one was no exception.

Don’t get me wrong. I love Christian Bale. Have ever since I saw him singing and dancing in Newsies and Swing Kids. And his portrayal of Batman/Bruce Wayne is good, second only to Michael Keaton, who will always be my favorite. But his Batman doesn’t really make me feel things the way the secondary characters do, and that’s curious.

The only part of Bale’s performance I could have done without was the insistence on growling all his lines whenever he was in his masked persona. While his secret identity is still secret, I can understand and appreciate that he wants to disguise his voice. But by the midpoint of The Dark Knight Rises, nearly everyone he comes in contact with knows who he really is, and yet he continues to growl. I don’t get it. It can’t be good for his throat.

Getting to the plot itself, it’s what you expect from the conclusion to a superhero trilogy. The stakes and the body count are higher. The damage to our hero is greater. The odds seem nearly insurmountable. And the price to pay is dearer.

Yes, there are some holes in the logic. My years of chiropractic care tell me that one scene in particular is absolutely not based anywhere in the vicinity of reality. The bag guys’ evil plot doesn’t really make a ton of sense when you think about it. And the way Batman ultimately prevails (which is not a spoiler, because at the end of a superhero trilogy, does anyone honestly think the hero will not prevail?) is a bit of a head-scratcher.

But I didn’t care. I loved the action, the world, the characters, the acting. I really enjoyed the references to the prior two movies in the trilogy, including cameo appearances by Liam Neeson as Ra’s Al Ghul, a flashback to Aaron Eckhart as Two-Face, and my favorite, Cillian Murphy as Jonathan Crane.

The Dark Knight Rises did what the end of a trilogy is supposed to do: It wrapped up loose ends in an explosive finale, and left me satisfied while still wanting more. Of the three Nolan Batman movies, this one was my favorite.

Grade: A

The Dark Knight Rises is rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action, some sensuality and language.

Feature & Follow (August 3) – Reading Habits

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Welcome to the Feature & Follow Hop, hosted by Parajunkee’s View and Alison Can Read!

If you’re here for the first time, I’d love if you could follow via email, RSS, LinkyFollowers or Networked Blogs. Just let me know your follow method of choice in the comments, and I’ll be happy to return the favor.

And if you’re not new, welcome back! Repeat visitors are better than the cool side of the pillow on a hot night.

This week’s question:

Do your reading habits change based on your mood? Do you read a certain genre if you are feeling depressed or happy?

Totally. Of course, my default setting some form of fantastic speculative fiction. Those are my manufacturer settings, and they cannot be altered.

However, sometimes my brain malfunctions and I know I can’t handle complex world-building or intricate mythology. I just need something straightforward and simple. Then it’s contemporary or chick lit time.

Other times, when my emotions get strangely violent (oh come on, you know you have those moods too), I pick up an epic fantasy with lots of swordplay and rousing speeches. Or maybe a crazy sci-fi with explosions galore. The main point is that sometimes I just need carnage.

If I’m feeling sad and abnormally weepy, I can go one of two ways. Either I need to read something super upbeat and cheerful to snap me out of it, or, more often, I read something super-sad to push me over the edge, like The Book Thief or The Fault in Our Stars. Sometimes it takes being pushed over the edge for me to finally snap out of my doldrums. It’s amazing what a good ugly-cry can do.

Then there’s times I just need to mellow out, and I go to my “comfort books,” like Harry Potter, Ender’s Game, and the Farseer series. These are books that aren’t actually comforting — each one is complex and action packed — but books that I know I love so much, and am so deeply familiar with, that the act of reading them is soothing, in spite of the craziness in the pages.

So basically what I’m saying here is it’s a good thing that there’s lots of different types of books in the world.

Throwback Thursday (August 2) – Circle of Friends

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Welcome to Throwback Thursday, a weekly meme hosted by The Housework Can Wait and Never Too Fond of Books!

It’s the nature of book blogging to focus mainly on new releases, but there are thousands of great books out there that haven’t seen the “New Releases” shelf in years. We hope to be able to bring attention to some older titles that may not be at the top of the current bestseller list, but still deserve a spot in your To-Be-Read pile.

You don’t have to be a book blogger to participate! You can put up a Throwback Thursday post on your non-bookish blog; or if you don’t have a blog at all, just use the comments to tell us about a book you remember fondly.

Here’s how it works:
1. Pick any book released more than 5 years ago. Adult, YA, Children’s; doesn’t matter. Any great book will do.
2. Write up a short summary of the book (include the title, author, and cover art) and an explanation of why you love it. Make sure to link back to The Housework Can Wait and Never Too Fond of Books in your post.
3. Link up your post at The Housework Can Wait or Never Too Fond of Books.
4. Visit as many blogs as you can, reminisce about books you loved, and discover some “new” books for your TBR list!

Feel free to grab the Throwback Thursday button code from the sidebar to use in your posts.

Thanks for participating, and we look forward to seeing which books you choose to remember!

On a side note, Mandi will be rejoining us next week, fresh off her blogging hiatus! Yay! This solo hosting gig is daunting. I’m glad I won’t have to do it anymore. So here’s a preemptive WELCOME BACK, Mandi!

My Throwback this week is…

 

Circle of Friends by Maeve Binchy.

You may have heard that Irish author Maeve Binchy died this week at the age of 72. She wrote chick lit love stories set in Ireland, which I devoured as a high schooler. And this story, about childhood friends Eve and Benny that grow up to attend college with the beautiful Nan and dashing Jack, was the first book of hers I ever read.

High school was a time when I was reading books after seeing movies, and this one was no exception. However, if you’ve seen the movie, while it is…okay…it really is not a faithful adaptation of the book. Especially the end. Grr. This one is definitely a case of “the book is better.”

I love her nontraditional protagonist in Benny, who is neither slim nor beautiful, and her fierce friendship with Eve. I love the beginning stages of her sweet romance with Jack. And yes, while I kind of hate the turn the story takes, at the same time I appreciate that it’s not neat and tidy and Hollywood.

And, kind of the same as in real life, some characters experience a huge amount of growth and some…don’t. I got frustrated with the ones who just stayed the same, of course, but it still felt genuine. They were simply the kinds of people who tend to not learn or grow up. Ever. But they were overshadowed by the characters who do develop and learn and grow and mature, and I enjoyed all of it. It was the kind of book I just liked to relax and melt into.

And the fact that it’s all set in Ireland didn’t hurt.

This is a blog hop! Link up your Throwback Thursday post below!