Book Review: Hex Hall by Rachel Hawkins

About a month ago, I ran into a friend I haven't seen since she graduated/I went to Australia. We caught up, chatting about books and such. I mentioned that I was usually disappointed with the Young Adult novels I've read, at which point she said, "Oh my god, read Hex Hall!! It's so awesome! Here, read the blurb right now; I have a picture of it on my phone."

I was intrigued, so I requested the ebook from the library. I got the file a few days ago. I devoured the book. It's a quick, fun read that does have teenage angst, but not annoying amounts of it. The relationship-angst doesn't take over the rest of the plot (thankfully!). My only complaint, having just finished its sequel (but that's for a later day), is that there are clear areas where Hawkins could have developed the characters a little bit more in Hex Hall (IE: in Book 2, Hawkins refers to things that weren't in the text of Book 1, but very well could have been).

Things that made me giggle:

• References Edith Wharton's Age of Innocence

“Archer?” I asked, raising my eyebrows. Hey, you might be able to take away my magical powers, but the power of sarcasm was still at my disposal. “Is your last name Newport or Vanderbilt? Maybe followed by some numbers? Ooh!” I said, widening my eyes, “or maybe even Esquire!” (21)

References Edgar Allen Poe's "Cask of Amontillado":

I should say upfront that I have never been in a cellar in my life. In fact, I can see no reason why anyone should ever go into a cellar unless there is wine involved. (159)

Poking fun at horror genre conventions (vampires, in this case):

The “Holy-crap-that’s-a-lot-of-pink” Zone would have been a more accurate description. I don’t know what I was expecting a vampire’s room to look like. Maybe lots of black, a bunch of books by Camus . . . oh, and a sensitive portrait of the only human the vamp had ever loved, who had no doubt died of something beautiful and tragic, thus dooming the vamp to an eternity of moping and sighing romantically. What can I say? I read a lot of books. But this room looked like it had been decorated by the unholy lovechild of Barbie and Strawberry Shortcake. (33)

Hawkins also references pop culture, which I find so refreshing. A lot of paranormal books I've read like to pretend Harry Potter, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Star War/Star Trek never happened.

"So if you can heal with your touch, why are you working here as like, Hagrid, or whatever?" (199)

And snarky-amusing inner dialogue because, honestly, who isn't going to think this?

“Hey, no problem,” I said, even though all I could think was, Slobber! Werewolf slobber! On my skin! (103)

This may not be a reference to the videogame Portal, but it should be:

Jenna gave me a sympathetic look and cleared our empty plates. “Sorry in advance for what you’re about to see.”

“What?” I asked as the dining hall began to empty. “What’s going to happen?”

Jenna shook her head. “Let’s just say you may regret that second piece of cake.”

Oh my God. Regret cake? Whatever was about to happen must be truly evil. (69)

And we have teenage girls who obviously have no idea how teenage boys work:

"...if Archer had to be stuck in the basement with any girl at this school, I'm positively thrilled it's Sophie Mercer [our heroine]. Archer wouldn't look at her twice." ...

“She does have big boobs,” Anna mused.

Elodie just snorted at that. “Please, Anna. Big boobs are not enough to compensate for being short and plain. And that hair!” (207)

I was going to point you all to my twitter feed (topix #HexHall) to see my amusing tweets about it, but twitter has decided not to play nice. If you really must (or have something to procrastinate on), you can scroll through my twitter feed until you get to November 24. But only do this if you have absolutely nothing better to do. Honest.

River City Quilters' Guild Quilt Show

My mother is a quilter. She's also a seamstress. As she said today, she "can make anything with fabric." That's not bragging, it's just the truth. She's very talented. She also likes to attend quilt shows that are within a reasonable distance of Ye Olde Homesteade. When she discovered the River City Quilters' Guild Quilt Show was this weekend in my backyard, she called me and we decided to go on Saturday.

I am not a quilter, but having been raised by one, I do appreciate them. And I like looking at the pretty quilts.

We toured the vendor room(s) first. I'm always on the lookout for The Perfect Purse Pattern; we happened to find a fairly decent one today. It's called the Bermuda Purse, but I've forgotten (if I ever knew in the first place) the vendor's name. She'd sold out of the pattern yesterday, but took our information and will send it to my mom when the show is over. We found some fat quarters on sale (3 for $1!) that we I couldn't pass up. I am proud of myself for not actually getting ALL THE PURPLE FABRIC, but instead acquiring the pretty white-and-black-floral, light gray, and merely most of the purple fabric. Current plans are to turn it into a Bermuda Purse.

We also found a vendor selling Australian Aboriginal fabrics. It'd be perfect to fill in the gaps my Australian Aborigial fabrics (purchased while I was Down Under) have so we can actually turn it into a cohesive piece (of whatever). But it's been awhile since we looked at my fabrics, so we took a card and will order fillers later.

At the end of the day, I purchased an embroidered, fabric-covered composition notebook. Considering the amount of work that went into it, $15 was a very decent price. I also purchased a book on wire-wrap jewelry. Specifically, it offers advice on how to make end-caps for beads and how to wrap certain kinds of beads/stones.

1. Doodles, 2. Pretty quilt., 3. Pretty purple quilt, 4. Curved log cabin quilt, 5. Birdhouses!!, 6. Purple & gold quilt, 7. Birdhouse quilt, 8. Birdhouse block, 9. Birdhouse block, 10. Flower yo-yos, 11. Monochrome quilt, 12. Kimono focus fabric, 13. Serengeti nine-patch, 14. Kimono quilt, 15. Beehive applique, 16. Insects applique, 17. Flower applique, 18. Teacup applique, 19. Murphy the Mighty Moose, 20. Colorful quilt, 21. Attic window quilt, 22. Composition notebook cover, 23. All Wired Up

State of the Phone Address

I've owned a Blackberry Pearl since Summer 2008. I loved my Pearl. It was small, light, durable (I dropped it so many times I finally broke and had to replace the screen! After which it continued to work like a champ), had a half-QWERTY keyboard, and a great calendar. The only thing it didn't do was browse the internet and clean my apartment. The first is because I chose not to purchase a data plan and the second is because it doesn't have arms or legs.

My dad had been quietly encouraging me to "get a data plan!" or "get a real smart phone!" so I didn't "turn into a dinosaur*" for about a year now. I've been eligible for the no-longer-free-but-still-affordable upgrade for a year. I resisted because it's change and wrongwrongwrong and I liked my Pearl!

Last month, I finally relented and exchanged my Pearl for the Blackberry Torch. Sometimes, I'm a little retarded. But I really liked my Pearl and the Torch was also Blackberry, with a touchscreen and a real keyboard. It's like a bike with training wheels for me!

I was happy with it, until about day 20. It started having issues opening links unless I used the touchpad. I knew Blackberry had limited apps, but I didn't realize how few until I opened the BB App World. There wasn't even a Wells Fargo app! What's up with that? It also started having processor issues. It'd run really slowly for no apparent reason (I keep open apps to a minimum), and by day 32 was freezing and restarting for no reason at all.

Fortunately for me, on about day 26 I walked into AT&T and asked to exchange it for the iPhone 4s. I'm sad to report that yes, it is as cool as everyone claims and yes, it is 1000x better than Blackberry.

I actually would have preferred an Android phone. I've used the BB interface, I've used to iOS interface via my iPod Touch, but I've never used an Android operating system. Unfortunately, all of the Android phones on display/available at AT&T are too big for my little-girl hands. Maybe in 2 years they'll have small-hand-friendly Android phones again.

*Dinosaurs are awesome. If someone figures out how to make pet dinosaurs, I want one.

In Which I Succumbed to Pinterest

Have you heard about Pinterest yet? If not, you're probably a man or not on the internet much. It's basically a virtual, communal pinboard full of the most amazing and/or awesome ideas ever. You can go check out what I've pinned over here.

Last month started the whole I-must-do-everything-on-pinterest (which is even worse than I-must-do-everything-on-the-internet, because Pinterest helpfully has everything easily accessible and filed appropriately), when I did wire-wrap jewelry and modified bobby pins, and then attended a craft fair. I thought that was the end of it, I really did.

Then I discovered a tutorial for felt flowers. Amidst my other errands, I wound up at Jo-Ann's and Michael's and came away with this:

10 pieces of felt in an assortment of colors, including sparkly red and sparkly white for Christmas-inspired flowers, fabric quarters, a covered button kit, and pin backs. I fortunately already have a hot glue gun, courtesy of my mother, otherwise I would have bought that, too.

I neglected to take in-progress shots, but the befickle tutorial is pretty complete. I did discover that hot gluing everything is quicker and better-looking than sewing some things and hot gluing others. But if you prefer sewing, go for it!

By the end of the night, I had these:

And this:

And this:

I may or may not have jumped around my apartment squealing, "They're so cute!!"

Shameless self-promotion: They're listed in my etsy shop, also located in my sidebar.

PPS: I'm still totally amused that Blogger thinks I'm in Australia.

World Fantasy 2012

I had such a great and entertaining time at the World Science Fiction & Fantasy Convention (aka Worldcon) in August that I decided to make an impulsive decision: I'm attending World Fantasy 2012!

World Fantasy, like Worldcon, changes locations every year. I wish I'd been aware of World Fantasy earlier this year; it was in San Diego last month! Next year, it's a little farther from home... like Toronto, Canada, far from home.

I have no idea where I'll be living next year (hopefully not with my parents) or what I'll be doing (hopefully not unemployed), but fingers-crossed I'll be having a blast with my sister next November!

Fingerless Gloves

Remember when this was a knitting blog? Yeah, neither do I. Regardless, I have a finished project to share!

The office where I work isn't cold, per se, but sitting at a desk for hours at a time doesn't do much for keeping the blood flowing. I've worn my parka once or twice, much to the amusement of my bosses. To help combat the cold, I decided to knit myself a pair of fingerless gloves.

It's something I've wanted to do for myself for awhile. My mother loves the pair I made for her in 2006 when I first started knitting. I rummaged around the portion of my yarn stash that's here with me in Sacramento and found some leftover Claudia Hanpainted yarn (colorway: leopard) from my unblogged flowerbasket shawl.

I used a pattern that's been sitting in my queue for quite awhile: Susie's Reading Mitts. It's simple, quick, elegant, has sweet picot edges and works well for both solid-colored yarns and multi-colored yarns.

I made the smallest size (6" circumference), and a part of me wishes I'd made the medium (7" circumference). I think they're just a wee bit snug, but they'll probably loosen up a smidge as I continue to wear them.

The yarn coincidentally just happened to be perfect for Halloween, too!

In Which I Met Seth Grahame-Smith

As you may or may not have been aware, should you have visited my Examiner.com article about it, Seth Grahame-Smith, author of Pride & Prejudice & Zombies, came to Sac State last night.

Folks, it was magical.

I attended the event with two good friends, one of whom is a fellow PPZ fan and actually... you know... read the book. We giggled like schoolgirls. It was amazing.

Seth is such a down-to-earth guy. He related his story of trying-trying-trying to break into the screenwriter business for 10-12 years and failing, taking random freelance jobs to help pay the bills, until his editor asked him to do this little 6-week job writing about zombies and Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy. As he and his wife were also expecting their first child, he completely forgot about the project after he submitted it.

Let's just slow down for a minute and highlight two things:

1. It took him SIX WEEKS to write PPZ
2. and HE FORGOT ABOUT IT. He forgot about it!

I don't even know what to say.

Moving along... he had a lot advice/tips for aspiring writers/screenwriters/creators, most of which I've heard in some form, be it from the panels at Worldcon or listening to writing podcasts: be persistent, and write/create a lot.

He also talked about meeting Tim Burton (he calls him "Tim," finger air-quotes included, hehe) and Johnny Depp in preparation for making Dark Shadows, and how he just couldn't believe how quickly his life and career changed after PPZ was published and sold so well.

PPZ was number 3 on the NY Times Bestseller List its first week.... and then number 14 the second week... and then number 4 the third week. Why the sudden drop? The publisher only ran 10,000 copies and they ran out of books.

And then came the best part of the night, and what I'm sure everyone reading is what for me to get to: he signed books! I'm so excited, you don't even know! (I may or may not have emailed that to my mother after my book was signed.) He loved my mother's purple, brain-embroidered book-cover.

Can I just say how much I love that my book now says BRAINS?

PS: Did you know there's a giant warehouse Indiana where they have pallets of author's books and publishers drag authors there to sign about 2000 copies for bookstores to sell as "pre-signed"? My friend had one. Also: giant shredders where unsold books go to die. :(