Vacation: Love The Beach & Hiking, Don't Love The Absence Of Bookstores

Around this time last year, I was out in Oregon on a family reunion.

It was my first time visiting the West Coast of the United States, so it was quite an experience.

We flew into Portland and spent a few days there at a hotel. It was a pretty sort of place tucked into a heavily wooded area and it had a courtyard with a pond - which was, for some reason, kind of a dark teal color (I suspect dye). There were a lot of really interesting plants around, most of which don't grow anywhere near Michigan, and I took lots of pictures.

While we were in Portland, we went to the zoo. It was nice, although we moved through it fairly quickly due to some time constraints. They had some sort of a dinosaur exhibit going on and a few of those spit at you, so several of us ended up wet. I took pictures of the elephants, since they had a great viewing area, and I took a picture of a zebra mosaic thing on the ground. We got lunch and then we were off to do other things. Later, we met up with my great aunt and my great uncle for dinner.

After a few days, we drove out to the coast, where we had rented a cabin several weeks in advance. All of us crashed there, instead of doing individual hotel rooms, as staying together is the tradition of our family reunions.

On the way out, we went hiking in a beautiful park and took loads of pictures of the lighthouse, the ocean, and of starfish. It was my first time seeing starfish, too, and I was thrilled that we had managed to find so many.

By the time we got to the cabin, most of us were tired and done being motivated. Unpacking was awful, as usual. Of course, that was less to do with the actual experience and more to do with the fact that unpacking and packing are not my cup of tea.

Then my cousins and I put on our coats and we headed out for a night time walk on the beach. That was a rather interesting experience, given the fact that it was freezing and we got sort of lost. (Note: Getting lost can be avoided in some cases if you happen to know what your cabin looks like from the back.) But we were by the ocean and, as far as I'm concerned, a log would have been a perfectly good place to sleep. We did find our way back that night, though, so we got to be warm, which was also nice.

Over the next few days, I was in a very cold sort of paradise. I am absolutely in love with the ocean and I'm not great friends with the sun (Sunburn, anyone?), so gray skies were fine by me. There were lots of great places to explore and I got to see tide pools for the first time, which was excellent. Also, in town, there were some wonderful little touristy shops and I visited most of those. (Side note: I love small coastal towns).

There was only one part of the vacation that I didn't love, and that was the fact that there were no bookstores on the coast in the area we were located. Sure, there was a small grocery store that sold books, but they didn't sell the sort of books that I was looking for - a few YA books and the second book in a series. I know that it's probably kind of weird to let something like that bother me, but I was really quite disappointed.

So, I filled up the time I would have spent at the bookstore with other things, such as hiking through the hills/mountains and taking long walks on the beach. At one point, I even decided get up at 6:00 AM to go whale watching with my family - not that we saw any, but that's beside the point.

Overall, I had a pretty great time even without a bookstore in the vicinity. But this experience definitely made me realize that I never want to move somewhere that doesn't have a bookstore within half an hour's driving distance, because I'm not certain that I could handle that without having a mental breakdown. (Addicted? Kind of. Yeah.)

However, we went back to Portland, OR for the last few days of our vacation. And, this time, we stayed in the city area. Which was pretty cool for me because I got to go to a bookstore, and it wasn't just any bookstore.

For those of you who don't know, there's a lovely little bookstore in Portland called Powell's City of Books. (Note: This place is not actually little. In fact, it's the largest bookstore in the United States of America). It's pretty much a warehouse. It has new and used books, including ARC copies, and I had some money to spend, so...

I left really happy.

The end.

PS: You can check out Powell's at the link below, and if you ever get the chance to go there, I recommend visiting. It's a pretty cool place:

http://www.powells.com/

Harry Potter

A long time ago, in a sticky third grade classroom, there began a so-called era. (Truthfully, I don't care what they call it. It was amazing.)

It was a warm day. The windows were open to create some cool air flow, given the fact that the air conditioning in the building was faulty. My third grade teacher called all twenty-six of us students over to the reading rug - a special area of the classroom, where the teach sat on a stool and all of us students gathered around to listen to her read.

Usually, reading time was relatively uneventful. We enjoyed it, but we rarely asked for more. That day was different. On that afternoon, she opened a book with a colorful - almost jewel looking - cover that had a boy on it. All of us were intrigued. As if the cover wasn't interesting enough, then she started to read. And, for the first time in a while, nobody wanted to stop reading.

That book was Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's (Philosopher's) Stone.

And on that day, I fell in love with a story.

If I am completely honest, the Harry Potter series was a great influence on my life. It is part of the reason that I am writing today. The story wove its way into my head and I began to daydream of magic and fantasy blended with everyday life. I began to wish that I was the one attending Hogwarts, so that I could have my own magical adventures. Harry Potter made me realize that I could reach into my imagination and create.

I couldn't make a toy wand light up or fly on a broomstick.* But J. K. Rowling made magic out of words, and if she could do it, then I could make magic, too.

Today, I bring sad news...

Harry Potter is ending.

The last movie is currently in theaters. I'm going to see it on Monday. And, after I return home from the film, that will be the end. Sure, I own all of the books and all of the movies thus far, but the last movie is really the close. 

Harry Potter is not going on any more adventures - and, if he is, we, as fans, are not invited. 

It's true that Pottermore is coming out in the fall, but even that will not be quite the same.

So, today, I wrote this post as a final toast to something great. 

Dear J. K. Rowling,

Thank you. 

My cousin and I bought every single one of your books past the first two on the day it came out. We usually read them within the next three days, sometimes a week if we were trying to make it last. 

Your words have made me laugh, smile, and cry. 

You have changed my outlook on certain aspects of life. I and many others will miss the magical world that you have created. But, I'm twenty years old now and I suppose it is about time that I, and all of your other fans, start branching out and making our own magic in whatever ways we can.

Cheers and best wishes!

Sincerely,

K. L. Stevens**

*My cousin and I made wands out of wooden dolls, ribbons, sparkly wire, and metallic paints. We bought brooms from the cleaning aisle in the grocery store. My aunt made us invisibility cloaks, which very nearly work. Our cats were carted around as 'familiars' on more than one occasion (much to their chagrin). We bought spell books, which were much more like arts and craft books. We had wizard hats and potion bottles. And we probably had other things, but I cannot quite remember.

**A fan who may or may not have made a parachute out of garbage bags and sticks, taped it to a small branch, tied more twigs to the end of the branch to make a broom, and tried to jump off the roof...

Confession Time: Follow Up

After posting yesterday, I thought of a new take on this subject. Since I don't have much time right now, I'm going to have to keep this post brief, so let's get right to the point.

What if I just prefer novels that are, in essence, character studies?

I like plot, but it's always character that has me in the beginning, the middle and the end. So, if a lot of YA fiction is plot driven, is it possible that I feel less connected with it for that reason?

I think this topic has a lot of room for expansion, so I'll definitely come back to this later. But, for the moment, I'll leave you with a question. 

What do you look for in books?

Confession Time

Today, I have a story to tell you -- one that ends with a confession.


Once upon a time, I wandered into the YA fiction section of the bookstore and I never came out again... figuratively speaking, that is. It was there that I discovered fresh voices that were sharper and more in tune with everything. There were new stories about some pretty weird stuff, and genres mixed without divide. In some ways, it was like a little kid being set free in a toy store and told they could have anything they wanted. Time after time, I was enraptured with new characters and new story lines. I bought more books than I probably should have, considering the fact that I didn't have a job and was living off of holiday/birthday money gifts.

It was fantastic.

But these days? Well, let's just say that my gaze has taken to wandering once again.

The truth is, I've grown sort of bored with YA fiction.

A couple of months ago, I was going through the books in my room and I realized that there was one I had forgotten to finish reading. It was a YA fiction book that I had bought the year before and, almost immediately upon starting it, I grew very attached to it. In fact, I remembered raving about how much I liked it while I was reading it before. So, I decided to finish it up. There were only fifty pages or so until the end and I couldn't believe that I had left it alone in the first place.

Thirty minutes later, I was done with it and I was confused. Was that boredom I felt? Why didn't I care? A few months ago, that was one of my favorite books, so where were the amazing characters I had raved about? Where was the story line that had me hooked from the first page? Why did the ending -- the most important part of this particular novel -- feel like nothing more than sand slipping through my fingers? What, exactly, had I loved so much?

I couldn't answer those questions. So, I decided that I was having an off day and I put the book back on my shelf. Wrong time to read that, I thought. But then I looked at another YA book I had read earlier on, and I realized that I couldn't remember what it was about. I vaguely recalled a bossy secondary character and a club, but that was it.

From that point on, I made a point to observe what I felt after reading new YA novels. And, after another novel or two, I began to think that what I had felt and noticed that day was a fluke. I read new novels and I liked the characters and I felt empowered at the end of the book. But then, I noticed something new that I had overlooked before. A few days after I read the newest novel I had purchased, the details were getting fuzzy. I couldn't quite remember the character's voice and that great feeling I had after I read it had dissipated. My friend wanted to discuss the novel with me, and I found myself flipping through it just to find what chapters I had really liked. Only, what I really found was that nothing in particular had really stood out to me when I went back through it.

There were no lines that made me laugh. Not like the first time I read it. There were no characters with enough depth for me to really comment on. And the story line that I thought I loved when I first read it, well, that felt rushed and sort of flimsy. I am a little lost on what to say now, because the more YA novels I read, the more I'm finding that I have this reaction a few days later.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that all YA fiction has gone down the hole (There are still plenty of YA fiction books that I adore. For example, there's Sabriel by Garth Nix and Psyche in a Dress by Francesca Lia Block, both of which I will probably end up reviewing on here at some point.), but there is something in the YA market that is really losing me these days, and I can't quite pinpoint what it is.

If I had to take a guess, I would probably say that YA books tend to move a lot faster than other types of fiction. I think part of that is meant to keep the attention of the audience and to keep them wrapped up in the story, but I'm getting the feeling that these fast-paced, compact stories aren't capturing the weight of the plot, the characters and the details.

Of course, there's a chance that this is all just a phase for me. Granted, I haven't had any reemerging feelings of fondness for the books that have lost my interest so quickly -- even after several months pass -- but there's still a chance, and I'm willing to hang onto that for a while longer. Maybe in a couple months, I'll be back with a perplexed look on my face and a totally different opinion on this matter. But, for the moment, I am not sold.

What are your thoughts on this? Anyone else in the same boat? 

PS: I'll still be finishing the 2011 Debut Author Contest. But after that is over, I think I'll be taking a break from reviewing YA books. I've got some wonderful other books that I would like to review for you, and I can only hope that you'll find enjoyment in other types of reading, too.

PPS: I have not reviewed books that are falling under this category of thought, so those authors whose books I have reviewed on here should not feel this is directed toward them. And, likewise, if I haven't reviewed a book that I said I bought, you can probably assume that I'm just busy and I haven't read it yet.

The TBR List

You know what we need around here? A TBR list. I don't know about you, but I have a To Be Read pile that's nearly taller than me (Granted, I haven't stacked them all up, so I can't say for sure). Which means... I think I'm going to keep a running list on here.

1. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larsson
2. The Water Wars by Cameron Stracher 
3. Across the Universe by Beth Revis
4. Plain Kate by Erin Bow
5. Darklight by Lesley Livingston
6. Eragon by Christopher Paolini
7. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
8. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
9. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
10. Artemis Fowl: The Time Paradox by Eoin Colfer
11. Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
12. Mocking Bird by Suzanne Collins
13. The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova
14. The Swan Thieves by Elizabeth Kostova
15. Born Confused by Tanuja Desai Hidier
16. The Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver
17. The Seeker by Phil Morimitsu
18. Dracula by Bram Stoker
19. The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
20. Daughter of Exile by Isabel Glass
21. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
22. Basilisk by N. M. Browne
23. Choke by Chuck Palahnuik
24. Prophecy of the Sisters by Michelle Zink
25. The Book of Dreams by O. R. Melling
26. Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman
27. Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanne Clark
28. Graceling by Kristin Cashore
29. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
30. Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
31. Sabriel by Garth Nix
32. A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
33. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
34. The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman
35. The Teachings of Don Juan: a Yaqui Way of Knowledge by Carlos Castaneda
36. Ulysses by James Joyce
37. Primavera by Francesca Lia Block
38. Ecstasia by Francesca Lia Block
39. The Life of Pi by Yann Martel
40. The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation Volume 1: The Pox Party by M. T. Anderson
41. Eldest by Christopher Paolini
42. A Single Shard by Linda Sue Park
43. The Psychology of Consciousness by Robert. E. Ornstein
44. The Lord of the Rings trilogy by J. R. R. Tolkien
45. The Angel Experiment (Maximum Ride, Book 1) by James Patterson

(That list is rather longer than I thought it was... considering the fact that those are only the 'for fun' books and only the ones on my shelves. I'm not sure if I ought to be sad or happy about this).

What is on your TBR list?