Book Log: How I Live Now, Life As We Knew It, City of Bones

31. How I Live Now, by Meg Rosoff

In the not-too-distant future, Daisy, a Manhattan resident, is sent to live with her cousins on the English countryside. At first, the English countryside is something of a paradise. Daisy forms an instant bond with her cousin Edmond, and she spends her days gallivanting with her cousins. Until the war comes. A nameless enemy invades England. At first, Daisy and her cousins live in a sort of untouched paradise, separated from the war by the countryside. But then the war finds them, and Daisy and her cousin Piper are separated from the boys.

This book is clever and engaging and it draws you in and then it breaks your heart. I didn't expect the direction the book took. It shocked me. I kept thinking that something would change, that the direction would turn back, but it didn't, and that is the brilliance of this book. It is a war story, and in war, things often start out kind of okay and then move to awful. It feels true. It hurts. Daisy's voice is incredibly vivid - I can almost hear it in my head even now, a week after reading it. Daisy, her family, her world - they all stand out in stark colors in my head. This is one of those great books that lingers in your heart after you've finished reading. Many thanks to frannyzooey for suggesting it to me.

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32. Life As We Knew It, by Susan Beth Pfeffer

Miranda is a typical teenager, and her diary reflects that: changing friendships, fights with her mom, and homework. When she begins to hear reports that an astroid is on course to crash into the moon, she barely pays attention. But when the collision shifts the moon off its axis, Miranda's world is changed forever in an instant. Massive tsunamis, earthquakes and volcanos wipe out millions, and all of the things Miranda used to take for granted begin to dissapear: food, water, gasoline, and contact with the outside world. Miranda records her family's struggle to survive in her diary, and we follow as things go from bad to worse.

This was my second disaster book in two days. It is completely different from How I Live Now, but possibly even more compelling. It feels real. It feels like something that could happen to us, right now. This is a quiet book. We don't see New York submerged, and we're not witness to the volcanos - all we see is Miranda's family, stockpiling food, rationing batteries, and clinging to each other. We see them grow and mature and adjust. This is a haunting book. It's been three days since I finished it, and I still can't get it out of my head. I literally could not put it down. Buy this book. Buy it now, and then set aside some time and start to read it. It is just that good.

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33. City of Bones, by Cassandra Clare

When fifteen-year-old Clary Fray goes out for a night of clubbing, the last thing she expects to witness is a murder -- especially one where the body vanishes without leaving a smear of blood, and she's the only one who can see the teen, tattooed murderers. This is Clary's first meeting with the Shadowhunters, warriors with the blood of angels in their veins trained from birth to rid the world of demons. Within twenty-four hours, Clary is pulled into their world where myths are real when her mother is kidnapped, her apartment is ransacked, and Clary herself is attacked by a demon. As Clary struggles to make sense of things and stay alive, she must figure out why she suddenly has the Sight - and why the demon world is suddenly so interested in her.

This book is interesting. If I had never read Cassie Clare's HP fanfiction, I definitly would have had a different reaction to it. It's a fairly well-written action book, with not a lot of character development, but a lot of flashy supernatural beings and an shadowy underworld populated by hot people. But having read most of CC's fanfic, I couldn't help but pick up parallels. Clary reminds me an awful lot of a cross between Harry and Ginny. The main hottie, Jace, reads almost exactly like CC's Draco. And the back history plot involving all of the teen character's parents reminds me almost disturbingly of the HP stories involving James and Lily and young Snape and young Lupin, etc etc. Not to mention the friendly werewolf with a familiar name. Or the bad guy named Valentine, presumed dead but still eerily alive, and disturbingly connected to our heroes. It just - it feels derivative of CC's fanfiction, which is of course derivative of JK Rowling's books. It's not fair, I know. It's not a bad book by any means. It's entertaining, it's snappy, there's plenty of supernatural action (both fighting and romantic) and if it isn't too deep, well, we can't have everything. If I hadn't read CC's fanfiction, I would think it was a fine, entertaining novel. But because I have - I just felt like I was rereading the Draco trilogy with a different names and a slightly different plotline.

I'm interested to see if and how this book will influence the discussion about fanfiction vs original fiction, about whether writing fanfiction is good for your original fic. I am looking forward to all of your reactions when this book comes out in April.