Random Review: The Fallen (series) by Thomas E. Sniegoski

Book(s): The Fallen 1 and The Fallen 2 (previously published as individual titles The Fallen, Leviathan, Aerie and Reckoning)

Author: Thomas E. Sniegoski

Genre(s): Young Adult fiction, Fantasy, Paranormal Romance(sort of)

Review:

Sniegoski’s series is well written, but in my opinion he takes the “angels among us” tale a bit too far. Without sharing too many spoilers, I found these books to be over my threshold of tolerance with the attitude that many writers have recently  taken towards writing about God and Heaven and Hell as if they are intimately familiar with it. These books portray God as a weak being who needs an 18-year-old boy’s help to get the fallen angels back to Heaven. It also implies that without the angels on Earth to keep things in order, the world would pretty much self-destruct. Finally, the book makes you almost feel sorry for Lucifer Morningstar (i.e. Satan) because he got kicked out of  Heaven and must suffer Hell (which is also quite oddly defined). All-in-all the books felt slightly sacriligious (and this from a girl who loved Cassandra Clare’s series The Mortal Instruments which also was about Nephilim.) . I think that fantasy and supernatural writing is interesting and is usually ok in moderation; however, I do have a tipping point. After watching 6 seasons of Supernatural, I am going to quite watching because one of the angels declared himself “God” …. Not a god as in Greek mythology or something, but the God. (See Supernatural Season 7 premiere preview here.)

However, this issue may not be a problem for you. If not, I would definitely suggest you read the series. The characters are intriguing. The plot is fairly well laid out and executed. And, most of all, Sniegoski doesn’t have the Stephanie Meyer Thesaurus Addiction or the Bad Editing of L. J. Smith‘s Vampire Diaries series. So, read on brave soldiers if you dare!

On Screen: The Fallen movies . . .

The series was made into an ABC Family Original Movie in 2006 and followed by mini-series formatted sequel in 2007. Both the made for TV movie and the mini-series later came out on DVD as Fallen (Parts 1-3), Fallen: The Beginning (Parts 1 & 2) and Fallen: The Destiny(Part 3) . [Note: This DVD release is quite possibly due the recent Vampire Diaries fame of lead actor Paul Wesley.]

Get a glimpse of the movie by watching on here [YouTube].

New Release: The Fallen 3  . . .

Available from Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble and other booksellers as of September 6, 2011.

Reasons to Read 1: It’s better than watching bad YouTube videos about the book …

READ THE BOOK! Only 19 days to finish “A Tale of Two Cities”!

Thoughtful Thursdays: Finding time to read . . .

Do you have trouble finding time to read? I sure do! I have been meaning to get a head start on our September books, but so far have only read two or three pages. With that in mind, I searched around the good old World Wide Web to see what others had to say about the problem. 

In a 2005 article, Cynthia Crossen of the Wall Street Journal writes:

I’m what’s known as a big reader, so maybe asking my advice on finding time to read is like asking a fish how it finds time to swim. But here’s how I read.

I rarely set aside a specific time for it. Reading simply fills all the interstitial moments in my day. I read with my coffee in the morning. I read on the subway, while waiting at the doctor’s office, while on hold with the cable company, in the checkout line at the supermarket and before falling asleep at night. I can even read in moving cars (if I’m not driving). I read in segments of time as short as the 30 seconds that something’s being heated in the microwave.

Esther Lombardi of About.com answered the question “How do you find time to read?” for About.com readers:

Despite your best efforts, it’s sometimes difficult to stick with your plan to finish that list of books. Other projects get in the way. You may find yourself overwhelmed by the size of the book you’ve chosen. You may just let the habit of reading slide or slip until you’ve forgotten much of the plot and/or characters; and, you feel that you might as well just start over. Here’s a solution:Determine a Reading Schedule.

Blogger Sassy Monkey addressed the issue as well in a recent blog post where listed ten main reasons she can find time to read. Her take on reading is that times isn’t always the main issue:

Most people tend to assume it’s all about finding time to read. While time is a factor, it’s definitely not the only thing that contributes to the quantity that I read.

So, in essence, writer one says to read whenever you can find 30 seconds, writer two says to create a reading schedule and writer three says that time may not actually be the issue at all. In other words, there is no concise opinion about how to squeeze a 600 page novel (or two) into your schedule. The best advice I found was on a blog by someone named Jennie Elyse (or maybe I just liked her blog because she quoted Dumbledore?). 

Over at her great blog Jennie Elyse gives this wonderful advice that I need to apply to my own reading:

I’ve realized that I waste most of the time that I could be reading. I don’t watch a lot of TV, but I do have a few shows that I watch religiously. Fortunately, their off-seasons stagger. Otherwise, I’d be watching TV a lot. I’ve noticed that after one of my shows is over, I’ll still sit in front of the TV, not really watching, checking Facebook and Twitter for signs of life. If there aren’t any, I’ll usually aimlessly surf the Internet or play Solitaire. I have no idea why I do this. All I know is that this habit desperately needs to be broken.

I’ve taken the first step. I’ve determined what wastes my time. TV and my computer are my main frivolous culprits. What are yours? Do you have any? Now, I need to take the second step and get rid of these culprits.

To generalize what I think she is saying in her full post, we all need to “balance” and “prioritize” our time to allow a reasonable amount of reading. Hiding in the corner with a book all day leaves important things undone. Putting off reading till absolutely everything else is finished causes books to go unread and simply gather dust in the corner. My suggestion is to follow her advice and determine which “culprits” eat up your time, be it Facebook, Twitter, Conan, TLC or Glee. Cut out the useless time drains that you don’t really care about but usually end up getting sucked into. Then, use that time to read. 

Here’s hoping we can all get our reading time in!

 

Monthly Book Selections: September Edition

From The Times List:

Title: The Adventures of Augie March

Author: Saul Bellow

Year: 1953

Publisher: The Viking Press, later by Penguin Classics

Length: ~ 600 pages

Synopsis: I have no idea what this book is about so you should probably see the Wikipedia listing here.

Quote about the novel:

Augie comes on stage with one of literature’s most famous opening lines. “I am an American, Chicago born, and go at things as I have taught myself, free-style, and will make the record in my own way: first to knock, first admitted.” It’s the “Call me Ishmael” of mid-20th-century American fiction. (For the record, Bellow was born in Canada.) Or it would be if Ishmael had been more like Tom Jones with a philosophical disposition. With this teeming book Bellow returned a Dickensian richness to the American novel. As he makes his way to a full brimming consciousness of himself, Augie careens through numberless occupations and countless mentors and exemplars, all the while enchanting us with the slapdash American music of his voice.

Source: Richard Lacayo, Time Magazine

Where to find this novel: 

I was actually excited to be able to get this novel through my school library. I checked online and it was also at my local public library. If you can’t find a free way to borrow it (Legally, of course!), it can also be found new and used on Amazon. The even have a Kindle edition for those of you who don’t want to lug around a 600 page book.

From the Classics List:

Title: A Tale Of Two Cities

Author: Charles Dickens

Year: 1859

Publisher: Multiple publishers over the years

Length: ~ 400 pages

Synopsis: ”It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.” ~ Dickens

Quote about the novel:

“This one has been on my should-have-read-a-long-time-ago-and-will-someday-get-around-to shelf for many years. I had never read any Dickens aside from a Christmas Carol, and was blown away by the beauty of his writing and truly impeccable storytelling. Characters and plot lines that at first seemed random and unrelated came together so beautifully in the end! Remarkable!”

Source: Kate, GoodReads

Where to find this novel: 

I won’t be paying for this one or making a trip to the library thanks to the many free Kindle editions offered on Amazon. If you want a paper copy though, I’m sure it can be found at almost any library or bookstore. Barnes and Noble usually has the classics pretty cheap!

Hello readers!!!

You may be wondering what idiot would undertake reading from two “100 greatest” book lists at one time . . . Well, that would be me.  Some of my friends are reading the Classics list while others prefer to read newer selections as featured in Time Magazine’s wonderful list. So, in the years (Yes, it will take years!) to come I hope to read through both of these lists with friends. I will be posting a short review of each book and hopefully my friends will also post about their reading experiences. We are all working full time or are in graduate school, which means that we will have to make time to read. It will be beneficial time spent though. As the master (Dr. Suess, of course) says, “The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.” I can’t wait to start reading and learning from books I’ve never read and even re-reading some old favorites!

So, for the organized ones of you who care, this is how things will go.

Schedule: Each month we will read one book from each list. The titles of the two books for each month will be posted on the first day of each month. You may choose to read one or both books. Even if you only read one book per month, you are not required to read from the same list each time. We do ask that if you read ahead, please don’t post spoilers.

Reviews/Comments/Discussion:  Everyone will have until the 20th of each month to read the books. Reviews and/or comments can be posted on a book any time after the 20th and not be considered spoilers!

Choosing A List: Some of the book club members are definetely committed to reading from only one list. If you would like to do  this, I suggest you put some thought into which list you want to read from before we begin. That way you won’t get half way through and start wishing you were reading the other books. Be aware that there are quite a few books on the Classics list that are written in Old English and/or are set in the Regency period. If this idea makes you bored, I suggest you read the Time Magazine list. If you want to read more wholesome, non-violent books, you should probably stick to the Classics.

Motivation: The hardest part of keeping up with reading through a book list is the need to make time to read your books each month and sometime struggling through books you don’t particularly care to read. Feel free to reach out to other book club members for inspiration, encouragement and motivation. Also, you can fully expect me to share some corny motivational quotes like the ones below.

“A man practices the art of adventure when he breaks the chain of routine and renews his life through reading new books, traveling to new places, making new friends, taking up new hobbies and adopting new viewpoints” ~  Wilfred Peterson

“When you reread a classic, you do not see more in the book than you did before; you see more in you than there was before” ~ Cliff Fadiman

“Reading is a means of thinking with another person’s mind; it forces you to stretch your own.” ~ Charles Scribner, Jr. 

Re-Reading Books:  Some of us have already read quite a few of the books on the list. That being said, skipping over books isn’t beneficial for anyone. The rule will be that if you have read the book in the last year you will have the option of not re-reading it and just discussing it with the group after they finish. You can take this time as a short reading break. The other option for people who have read the book within the last year, is to  substitute an alternate version or similar novel.

Examples:

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies substituted for Pride and Prejudice

Scarlett substituted for Gone With The Wind

The Dharma Bums substituted for On The Road

If you haven’t read the assigned books in the last year, we ask that you re-read them with us so that you will have a fresh perspective on the story to share with the group.

I am so looking forward to reading with you all! If you would like to be added to the group, please email me at bekadawn88@gmail.com. Look for the first book assignments coming soon on September 1st!

Peace, Love, & Reading.

Beka