Nose in a Book - Archive

Blog Tour: Q&A with Lesley Livingston author of Once Every Never

Good morning! I have a special treat for you today! This is my very first blog tour and author Q&A. Today I’ve got some questions for Lesley Livingston the author of Once Ever Never, a book about a teenage girl who instead of doing touristy things while she visits her Aunt in London, finds herself smack in the middle of a war between the Celts and the Romans. I sent Lesley some very unoriginal questions and she came up with some superbly fun and original answers!

Tell me a little bit about yourself. When I read a book I always want more information about the author than what is generally included in the author bio. Somehow it helps me to connect with the book more.

Lesley Fun Facts time! Let’s see… I used to water-ski. I also used to down-hill ski. Backwards. Sometimes, that ended poorly. I once had a hamster named Spartacus. When I was a kid, I named my shiny white and gold ten-speed bike Apollo. I chew my lower lip when I can’t figure out a plot problem. It’s highly surprising to note that I still have a lower lip. I own a pair of moss-green cowboy boots that I wear on an almost constant basis. They are awesome. I’m pretty sure I met a ghost once. By ‘met’ I mean it tried to push me down a hillside in the middle of Wales. I am not to be given chocolate-covered coffee beans. EVER. For the sake of myself and those around me.

Where do you get the inspiration for your books? (I know this is a pretty lame question but I am actually curious!)

That’s not a lame question at all! (Heh… there are days when I wonder that very same thing, myself!) I get inspiration from a lot of places, but I do find that I draw frequently and deeply on history and mythology and folklore. For Once Every Never, the germ of the idea came from a visit to the British Museum in London, where I spent a great deal of time staring open-mouthed at glass cases containing some of the actual artifacts that Clare comes into contact with in the story. I was, of course, also profoundly inspired by the story of Boudicca, the fierce Celtic queen, herself.

I’m not very good with history so can you fill me in on how much of the Boudicca parts of the story are true and how much is artistic licence? Were Connal and Comorra real people? Did they really find bodies in the Norfolk Broads?

Essentially, the basic storyline I’ve set out in the book sticks fairly closely to what happened to Boudicca—as far as we know. We don’t actually know a great deal, in fact, and what was written about her contemporaneously was, of course, written by Romans. Specifically the historians Tacitus and Cassius Dio. The details are sketchy, but the bullet points—her rebellion, the subsequent massacre, and her ultimate defeat in AD 60 or 61 are accepted fact. So, too, it’s a fact that she had two daughters. There names aren’t verified to my knowledge but Comorra and Tasca are the two possibilities I came across in my research that I liked best. As for Connal, he is a creature of my imagination. Sometimes, I like my imagination. (I like it too!)

As far as I know, there have been no known discoveries of bog bodies found in the Norfolk Broads… yet. But my Spirit Warriors are based on similar finds—specifically one bog body in the British Museum called Lindow Man, who was discovered in Cheshire in England.

I found Clare to be a really interesting character. I loved her attitude and her fearlessness. Is she like you at all?

Yay! Thank you for saying that. I’m very fond of Clare, too. She’s headstrong and generous and funny and sharp but not the most… how shall I say… ‘intellectually curious’ character I’ve ever written. At least, she doesn’t start out that way! Once she does find herself compelled to act by circumstances, though, I think you’re right—she is fearless. Part of that is a kind of ‘never say die, never think things through’ attitude, but it serves her well. I think I probably would have spent more time trying to work through the problems she faces—and probably would have just wound up getting impaled on a flaming arrow or something. So… Go Clare!

I haven’t read any of your other novels. Can you tell me a little bit about them?

Sure! The WONDROUS STRANGE trilogy is about a 17 year old girl named Kelley Winslow who, while rehearsing an off-Broadway production of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, discovers that the Bard didn’t make all that stuff up: Faeries are real, she is tied far more closely to that supernatural community than she could ever have imagined, all of Central Park in New York City is a gateway to the Otherworld—the Faerie Realm—and it’s opening. Only one things stands between the city and looming Faerie peril, and that’s Kelley. And a fierce, handsome changeling named Sonny Flannery. Okay—that’s two things. (Sounds interesting, I’m definitely going to look into those!)

What is your favourite book or author?

Can I say Shakespeare? I know his collected works can’t really be considered a ‘book’ per se, but man! That guy could really write! (Thank you, Captain Obvious…)

Doesn’t she sound friendly and fun! You should definitely check out Once Every Never – I really liked it and it was well written and original.

Possession by Elana Johnson

Posted by Lahni in Dystopian Fiction | Young Adult - (1 Comments)

Possession by Elana Johnson
I really have no idea how to summarize this book so I’m going to do something I rarely do and use the publisher’s description.

Vi knows the Rule: Girls don’t walk with boys, and they never even think about kissing them. But no one makes Vi want to break the Rules more than Zenn…and since the Thinkers have chosen him as Vi’s future match, how much trouble can one kiss cause? The Thinkers may have brainwashed the rest of the population, but Vi is determined to think for herself.

But the Thinkers are unusually persuasive, and they’re set on convincing Vi to become one of them…starting by brainwashing Zenn. Vi can’t leave Zenn in the Thinkers’ hands, but she’s wary of joining the rebellion, especially since that means teaming up with Jag. Jag is egotistical, charismatic, and dangerous–everything Zenn’s not. Vi can’t quite trust Jag and can’t quite resist him, but she also can’t give up on Zenn.

This is a game of control or be controlled. And Vi has no choice but to play.

I have to warn you – I have a lot of issues with this book – I wouldn’t normally review a book I had this many problems with but it was sent to me by the publisher so I feel an obligation to review it. I’ll start with the bad so I can end of on a good note, shall I?

Here we go…my first problem with it (and many other reviews I’ve read have said the same thing) is that there simply was not enough information about this future world the characters were living in. I know it’s pretty common, especially in this genre, to just drop hints about the dystopian world and let the reader figure it out for themselves and I’m ok with that but there simply was not enough information in this novel to piece it together. I had a really hard time following the plot because I just didn’t have enough background information.

Which brings me to my next point. There were times when the story didn’t make any sense. I’d go back and reread and reread and still not have a clue what had just happened. Added to this the pacing of the novel was just a little strange. At times it seemed there was so much action packed into a few pages that I could hardly follow and then things would slow right down with a whole bunch of navel gazing on the part of the main character. All of that just added to the sense of confusion I felt.

My last complaint is the characters. They were so bloody annoying. (And yes, they too were confusing.) Vi and Jag were the worst but most likely because they were the main characters. They seemed to get upset at each other over tiny little things and then leaving each other in the middle of the desert or where ever. And they fought and made up and fought and made up and fought and made up and…you get the picture. It was so ridiculous and it got old really fast. And the other characters didn’t make any sense to me either. They didn’t seem real and they were all over the place.

Now for the good. I did like the book and I thought it had tons of potential to be an awesome book. I really think a major rewrite or even just a really strict going over with a red pen could have made this book fantastic. It just seemed like a first draft – not a final published draft. Oh and my favourite thing about the book? The cover – it jumped out at me as soon as I opened the package it came in – isn’t it beautiful?

Overall my feeling after finished this novel is one of confusion and I really wish I could have understood the plot better because I think it could have been a really great book. But that’s just my opinion and there are plenty of other reviewers out there that loved the book.

Elana Johnson

Uglies by Scott Westerfield

Posted by Lahni in Dystopian Fiction | Young Adult - (3 Comments)

Uglies by Scott Westerfield

Tally Youngblood lives in a world where at 16, you have an operation to make you pretty. Until then you are considered an “Ugly”. But Tally’s new friend, Shay, isn’t so sure about the whole thing. Just before their shared birthday Shay tries to convince Tally to run away with her to the Smoke, a camp where several other uglies have gone to escape turning pretty. Tally refuses and Shay leaves but on Tally’s birthday instead of being taken to the hospital she’s taken to Special Circumstances and told that she either has to find Shay and bring her back or she’ll be ugly for the rest of her life.

It took a bit for me to get into this book and to get over the whole premise. At first the whole idea of doing surgery to make everybody pretty at a certain age seemed really unrealistic to me but as the book progressed and more information about how it all came about was revealed it became a little more believable.

As far as dystopian novels go, this one was ok. The plot was definitely intriguing and entertaining but somehow it just wasn’t believable in some sense. And it wasn’t that I had a problem with the entire premise but something about the details just struck me as a little off somehow. For example, the whole reason our society died out was because they was some virus that infected gasoline products and caused them to spontaneously combust. That seemed just a little too far-fetched for me and there were other details like that that just didn’t jive.

Other than that I did really enjoy the book. It was well written, the characters were believable and well developed and as I mentioned before the story was interesting. Previously, I said that the one was only ok but I think that may do the novel a disservice. The problem is that when compared with books like The Hnuger Games, there really is no comparison. Or even comparing to some of Westerfield’s other (non-dystopian) novels, like Leviathan and Behemoth, Uglies (and Pretties, which I am almost finished reading) is just not the same quality. I’m not even sure I’m going to read the remaining books in this series.

That being said, I know these books have been reviewed extensively in the book blogging world and that many people have loved them. Here are some more favourable reviews:

Scott Westerfield

White Cat and Red Glove by Holly Black

Posted by Lahni in Fantasy | Young Adult - (1 Comments)

White Cat by Holly Black

Cassel Sharpe is the only member of his family that isn’t a curse worker. And he’s trying his hardest to be normal when he finds himself sleepwalking, trying to catch a white cat. After he’s kicked out of his boarding school for nearly falling off the roof of his dorm in his sleep he begins to realize that things with his family and his history aren’t actually what he thought they were. I can’t tell more than that without giving away major plot points.

I really enjoyed this book. It was something completely new in the whole supernatural powers genre. The story was well written and captivating. I recently read Tithe by the same author (her first novel, I believe) and while I really enjoyed the story, the plot was really jumpy but she seems to have improved – a lot!

If you are at all interested in this genre, this series is a must read.

Red Glove by Holly Black

*This may contain spoilers if you haven’t read White Cat.*

Cassel is just beginning the year at school when he is taken in by the FBI, informed that his brother has been killed and they suspect the murderer has also killed at least another five people. They blackmail Cassel into helping them find the killer. The only problem? Cassel soon suspects that he actually killed most of those people, but he knows he didn’t kill his brother. He also knows that if he cooperates with the FBI he could have bigger problems than being a murder suspect. He also has to deal with the fact that Lila has been worked to love him and the curse doesn’t seem to be wearing off.

I liked this book even better than the first one. Cassel has this way of working a con and getting himself out of the most difficult situations that makes for very entertaining reading. And although the books aren’t meant to be comedic, some of the characters are pretty witty and I laughed out loud several times. I also really liked the characters, Cassel especially. He has a lot of depth. Sometimes you read a book and the hero is just so good and perfect it’s kind of annoying but Cassel is real. He’s been raised in the world of the con and the mob so you’d expect that he’d be comfortable with a little bit of lying and deceiving and he is. But he’s not evil either. He’s uncomfortable with the fact that he’s killed people and even tries to reverse it. The other characters are real and believable too. Some are likeable and some aren’t, but I think that’s the point.

I wasn’t expecting to enjoy these two books as much as I did and I can’t wait for whatever happens next in this series!

Holly Black

Firewing by Kenneth Oppel

Posted by Lahni in Canadian Author | Challenges | Children | Young Adult - (1 Comments)

Firewing by Kenneth Oppel

Griffin Silverwing has heard all the stories about his famous father’s adventures and feels he will never match up to him. So when his friends dare him to steal fire he does it. Unfortunately, it results in one of his friends dying and Griffin being sucked into the underworld during an earthquake. When his father, Shade, finds out what has happened he follows Griffin into the underworld where they must make a pilgrimage in order to return home. And of course, Goth is back causing all kinds of mischief.

I enjoyed this book just as much as the first two, if not more. This one was definitely darker and was written with older audiences in mind. I don’t know if this was intentional but there seemed to be a lot of religious symbolism which added some depth to the novel.

As with the previous two stories, the novel was full of adventure and although it followed a well established pattern for adventure stories, it was completely unique because of the nature of the adventures. I don’t want to say too much more because to do so would give away the story but trust me when I say that the adventure never stops and it’s really quite a captivating novel.

Once again, I can’t find enough good to say about Oppel as an author. Not only does he tell a fascinating story but he writes it beautifully as well. I’ve found that reading books aloud to my son (as I did this one) has given me a greater appreciation for they way a novel is written. Some books are much harder to read aloud than others but never Oppel’s. His words just flow off the page and are a great pleasure to read out loud.

My son and I both enjoyed this book. Here’s what he had to say about it:

“I liked that the book was about bats. I liked everything about the book. Griffin was my favourite character because he was brave and he saved his friends. I would give this book a 10/10.”

Kenneth Oppel

Half Brother by Kenneth Oppel

Posted by Lahni in Canadian Author | Challenges | Young Adult - (Comments Off)

Half Brother by Kenneth Oppel

Read for: Canadian Books Challenge

Oh, how I love Kenneth Oppel. I was unsure about this one to start, but I should not have doubted!

Ben’s dad, a behavioural psychologist, has just transfered from the University of Toronto to Victoria to start a new, exciting research project. The plan is to raise a chimp as part of the family and see if they can teach him ASL. At first, Ben wasn’t too thrilled about having a new little brother or being that weird family with the chimp. But very quickly, Zan (the baby chimp) became very important to him and he to Zan. (I feel like this is a bit of a spoiler but it’s right there on the book jacket so here goes…) Eventually, Ben’s dad decides that the project isn’t going as well as he had hoped and he decides to shut it down. Of course, the question now becomes, what will happen to Zan?

I loved pretty much everything about this book. First, I loved the characters – they were so real. I’ve never been a teenage boy so I can’t say for sure, but Ben seemed pretty typical to me. There were parallels between Zan and Ben that were so fun and at times funny to read about. With Ben starting at a new school he decides that in order to survive, he’ll have to become the alpha male. And it actually seems to work for him.

Ben’s dad was also a strong character. For the most part, he was pretty unlikeable but that was the point. He had a hard time relating to his son and that was made even harder by the fact that after telling Ben that Zan was going to be a member of the family, he proceeded to treat him as nothing more than an experiment while Ben was busily bonding with him. When they shut down the project, for reasons that Ben couldn’t understand, he was extremely unsympathetic to Ben’s protests and alienated him even more. I can’t say whether or not they worked that out without any spoilers but I’ll just say that it was real.

This story was about so much more than just a chimp living with a human family (which, really, could be a pretty interesting story right there). It’s about relationships, Ben’s relationship with his parents, his friends, Zan. It’s a coming of age for Ben and for Zan. It’s about the issue of animal testing and where to draw the line.

I just have to address one more issue. The book takes place in 1973 and I read a review in the Globe and Mail that stated that the book may be inaccessible to teens because of the absence of cell phones and facebook. First off, I don’t think that gives teens enough credit. It’s pretty lame to say that they might not be interested in the book because there are no cell phones in it. But more importantly, I hardly noticed. The time period really wasn’t all that important to the story. There was only once that I thought “Why don’t they just use their cell phones?” and then remembered that they didn’t have cell phones in the seventies.

Overall, this was a great read, of the quality I’ve come to expect from Kenneth Oppel.

Kenneth Oppel

Along for the Ride by Sarah Dessen

Posted by Lahni in Chick Lit | Young Adult - (Comments Off)

Along for the Ride by Sarah Dessen

This is the first e-book I’ve ever read but I don’t have any specific device for reading e-books so I just read this one on my computer. Obviously, that’s not an ideal way to read a book but the ease of getting the book from the library and not having to remember to return it was pretty nice. I’ve definitely been an anti-e-book kind of girl and I’m still not planning on buying a dedicated device but I’m starting to see the appeal.

Anyway, Auden, whose divorced parents are both a little self-involved, decides to spend the summer before heading off to university, with her father and his new wife and infant child. When she arrives, she’s surprised to find her normally put-together step-mother, on the couch looking like she hasn’t slept or showered in a few days and not so surprised to find her father completely oblivious to the stress his wife is feeling. As Auden tries to come to terms with what’s going on a home, she begins to form friendships with some of the locals who have issues all their own.

I loved this book. There is something so comforting about Sarah Dessen’s novels. She’s so good at telling basically the same story over and over but still making it a completely new and different story (if you know what I mean). Her main characters are always individuals, they never feel like the same character from book to book (which a lot of authors that are a prolific as her tend to do). And the story is always unique. And her writing is just so easy to read. It just flows. I can read through her books so quickly and not even realize how much I’ve just read because it’s just so effortless. Someday I’m going to run out of Sarah Dessen books to read and that’s going to be a very sad day for me!

Sarah Dessen

Ysabel by Guy Gavriel Kay

Posted by Lahni in Canadian Author | Challenges | Fantasy | Young Adult - (2 Comments)

Ysabel by Guy Gavriel Kay

Read for: CBC 4

15-year-old Ned is in Provence, missing the last two months of school, while his father, a super famous photographer shoots photos for a new book. The first morning he is wandering around an old cathedral, while his dad shoots outside. While in the church he meets Kate, a young exchange student from New York. As she is showing him around the church they catch a man climbing out of a tunnel he shouldn’t be in. Over the next few days, Ned runs into the mysterious man several more times. But it is on the evening of Beltaine when Ned and Kate are in a place they shouldn’t be, when the story truly begins. Ned calls his father’s assistant, Melanie, for help and when she arrives she is swept into an ancient story that has been replaying itself over and over for 2500 years. Ned and Kate and a few others must enter the world of the mysterious man to rescue Melanie before she’s lost forever.

I had a hard time getting into the book. At times I really liked it and would be totally absorbed but as soon as I put it down that all went away. I never had that feeling of the book calling me, needing to be read. Because of that I had a hard time finishing it. It also seemed to move really slowly. I actually didn’t really like this book that much. The only reason I ended up finishing it and not abandoning it is because I wanted to review it for the Canadian Book Challenge. I honestly can’t say why I didn’t like this book. The writing was good, the story was interesting, the characters were likable and well developed – there’s isn’t any one specific thing I can pinpoint that made me dislike this novel. I think perhaps it was mostly a timing thing. Maybe if I’d had more time to devote to reading it I would have been more caught up in the story and enjoyed it more? Who knows.

The one thing I can pick out that I really liked was the dialogue. The characters were comfortable with each other and had a witty dialogue going on that had me laughing out loud several times. Although I didn’t love this book, I will definitely be giving Guy Gavriel Kay another chance. I’ve heard plenty about him and it’s all been good.

France, Guy Gavriel Kay

Going Bovine by Libba Bray

Posted by Lahni in Printz | Young Adult - (4 Comments)

Going Bovine by Libba Bray

This was another book I picked up because it was part of the library’s summer teen survivor contest. This one I enjoyed a lot more than the other one.

Going Bovine is about 16-year-old Cameron who is pretty disappointed in life and his family when he starts seeing weird stuff. At first he just ignores it or attributes it to some bad pot, but eventually it gets to be too big to be ignored. The doctors diagnose him with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, otherwise known as mad cow disease. The rest of the book is one giant hallucination (or is it?). He sees an angel who sends him on a mission to find Dr. X who can cure him. The mission takes him all over the southern United States and teaches him a lot about himself and his family. It helps him to come to terms with his disease and his coming death.

I wasn’t sure how I felt about this book until the very end. It was a little wacky. (But maybe that was the point?) But as strange as everything that happened was, there was a still an element of the real about it that kept you wondering if it was all in Cameron’s head or if only part of it was. It also had some pretty good lines – my favourite:

‘Yes. Putopia. It stands for Parallel Universe Travel Office…pia.’ Dr. O. breaks in. ‘We haven’t figured out the whole acronym yet, but we wanted to secure the domain name before anyone else did.’

Also, Cameron was reading Don Quixote in his English class at school just before he was diagnosed and I suspect there are many parallels between the two novels but I haven’t read Don Quixote myself so I can’t say for sure. (Can anyone help me out with that?)

The book was well written, funny, poignant and enjoyable. The only complaint I have is that sometimes there was so much crazy going on I found it a little hard to follow. I also suspect there was a ton of symbolism and such that I missed out on. I bet this would be a great one to discuss in a high school English class though…

Libba Bray, Texas

Skulduggery Pleasant by Derek Landy

Posted by Lahni in Fantasy | Young Adult - (3 Comments)

Skulduggery Pleasant by Derek Landy

I picked up this book at the library because it won the Teen Survivor contest (the local library picks a few books each year and then they vote off a new book each week) this summer. It beat out Airborn by Kenneth Oppel, which I loved. I figured it had to be good. Well, I was disappointed – very disappointed.

Stephanie’s rich uncle has just died, leaving most of his money and property to her. When she is staying at his (her) house one night she is attacked by a strange man demanding a key. Just before he kills her Skulduggery Pleasant (a strange man she met at the funeral) bursts onto the scene and saves her life. He then introduces her to a world where magic exists and the bad guy, Serpine, is searching for the ultimate weapon which apparently belonged to her uncle.

First off, I’m pretty sure I went into this book with unfair expectations. Because it won the contest, I was hoping for something GREAT and it wasn’t. But if I had just picked it up without those expectations, I might have enjoyed it more.

It actually wasn’t a bad story and the writing was pretty good. I just found that the story jumped around a lot. I felt like the author was trying to build excitement and suspense but it just came off as a little hyperactive. It just didn’t seem to flow very well.

What I liked about the book though was the dialogue. Stephanie and Skulduggery had these funny little conversations which I found very entertaining. I don’t plan on reading any more Skulduggery books but I’m sure that lots of people will enjoy this book.