Let me tell you why I love me some YA! YAY!!

These are the reasons I love Young Adult literature in no particular order. Maybe I'm wrong on some of them but if that's the case I don't want to be right!

1. I am never, ever , never, ever gonna grow up! YUCK! (And I guess my reading preference reflects that!)

2. I firmly believe that YA authors have to work harder than adult authors to create as good of a story. An adult author can throw in a sex scene or extreme violence to amp up the excitement or use a whole bunch of cuss words throughout. A YA author doesn't have the option to deploy "cheap tricks" to get the job done. (Now I love me some adult fiction too, nothing like a good romance novel for mind candy! But some of the most thought provoking books I've ever read are YA.)

3. YA seems to be able to generate more excitement. (Such as events, release parties, blog tours, etc; it's just really cool world to be a part of!)

4. YA fans, bloggers, authors are some of the best people you can meet!

5. YA books make better movies and TV shows.

6. I read YA because I kind of want to remember my "glory days" of youth or wish I had such days.

7. Or...I want to remember why it's better not to be so young anymore.

8. The boys of YA are totally the most crush worthy. (And this is not creepy because they are FICTIONAL, after all.

9. YA is in a way more smexy than adult. The tension build-up in a good YA can not be beat.

10.  Stephenie Meyer, J.K. Rowling, John Green, Maggie Stiefvater, Jennifer L. Armentrout, Beth Revis and all the other great YA authors out there for giving me worlds I want to be a part of!

Click here for Beth Revis' contest post!

Review: Fathomless by Jackson Pearce

"It's {the ocean} nothing to be afraid of," I say fondly. "You just have to remember that it doesn't care. It doesn't want to kill you, but it doesn't love you, either. That makes it dangerous, but it also makes it reliable. You can trust the ocean because it's always the same." 

~Fathomless, page 122.

I love the beach. I love the ocean, the water, the salty breeze, the sand, the marine life (except for sharks), the atmosphere. I love it all. I also love ocean lure. One of the first movies I remember ever seeing in the theater was Disney's The Little Mermaid. I was captivated--there are people that live in the ocean?! WHAT? How do become a mermaid?? I'm not sure I have outgrown this phase. Imagine my delight in the mermaid trend in YA lit!

See my posts on Fathomless Release Party 

and my Fathomless Teaser Tuesday!

My first mer-read is Fathomless by Jackson Pearce. This is book three in Jackson's retelling of fairy tales companion series. (The first was Sisters Red, which is a retelling of "Red Riding Hood" and the second is Sweetly, a retelling of "Hansel and Gretel." Since they are companion books you don't have to read them in order but if you do you are rewarded with little tid bits here and there but not required for understanding and enjoying the current read.) Fathomless is a retelling of "The Little Mermaid," not the Disney version, but rather the original Hans Christian Anderson version. Incidentally, I would recommend you reading the original because it is quite different from the Mouse's version.

This was outside our rental house on Tybee Island.

I thought, surely they put this up just for me!

Having read Jackson's other retellings and having a preconceived love of all things mermaid, I was totally prepared to love Fathomless. I was not disappointed in the least! I totally loved everything about it. From the beautiful cover to the very end, I was enamored by this book. It's tragic yet hopeful. There is so much intricacies going on in this book I fear it will be hard for me to explain the premise at all or review without being very spoilery. You have Lo, the mermaid, and Celia, one third of set of triplets with special powers, and a boy, oh the sweet, guitar-playing, cute boy. Le sigh. If you have read many of my posts before you know I'm a sucker for those love triangles. This triangle tends to border the life and death, with or without a soul line, so the stakes are high!

Pic from our trip to Tybee Island earlier this year.

Relevant to this post. There's talk of a pier in Fathomless.

Also, through out this book there was a lot of discovery of self for the characters which I really enjoyed. It was like we were on the journey of self discovery with them. I found it interesting to watch them develop, deciding who to trust, what was important, how to use their gifts, when to sacrifice for the betterment of another. This book was good on the surface but you could easily delve deeper into the introspective reflections if you were so inclined.

"How could someone without a soul remember what it 

felt like to have one? That's like asking each drop in the 

ocean to remember its time as rain." 

~Fathomless, page 64.

I would recommend Fathomless (and Sisters Red and Sweetly) to anyone willing to listen. Fathomless was beautifully written in a way that made me rush through to see what happens and regret rushing at the same time because I didn't make it last. I give it 4 out 5 stars, if not just a smidgen more than a 4.

Teaser Tuesdays (Aug.28)

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

This week's Teaser Tuesday comes from my current read, Intangible by J. Meyer. So far I'm liking it very much. It's Paranormal Young Adult Fiction. What's not to like, right?

She knew her heart was wrong, her mind was right. She couldn’t be with him. She couldn’t date him. She couldn’t fall in love with him. 

If only her heart would listen.

(*Thanks to J. for sending me a copy of her book!)

Obession Confession:

Hello. My name is Allison. And I am a Readaholic.

“The more you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go.” ~Dr. Seuss

　

I was going to post a review on a book I just finished but the more I thought about it, I first wanted to share about my love of reading. It seems natural to me, that understanding my love of reading should come before my attempt at explaining a book I have read. To begin, I have enjoyed reading for quite a long time. I remember in my early elementary days being really jealous of the kids who knew how to read before me but it didn’t take me long to catch up. I remember adoring that special time of the year known as the “Book Fair” and being thrilled when the teacher sent home those thin paper book “catalogues.” My mother, bless her heart, would usually end up buying me a book or two. My most exciting elementary book memory was when she got me the subscription to The Baby-Sitters Club club. Every month three books would come to me in the mail with little notebooks, pencils, and assorted prizes. I believe this might have been when my obsession with books began.

As I got older, into my late high school and college years, I didn’t read for fun as much. I was supposed to be studying and just didn’t make time for reading. But I eventually found my way back to my old love. Now this is the part where I must beg you not to judge. What really reignited my passion for reading was…Twilight. Yes, I know, I‘ve heard all the arguments against the series. (I realize it is not the most brilliant piece of written word and that Bella is not the best female role model.) But, alas, I can’t help it. I loved it and still do! Once I read the Twilight saga, I started searching out similar stories: other vampire books, other young adult fiction, other supernatural creatures, other love stories, so forth and so on. Now I am reading a fairly diverse set of fiction but I have found that I truly love the genre referred to as Young Adult Literature (YA). (Besides Twilight, think Harry Potter, Hunger Games, and many others you might not be familiar with…yet, but don‘t worry if you keep reading my blog you‘ll soon find some other good reads.) I think what I enjoy most about YA is the books are [usually] well written. (Think about it, kids wouldn’t waste their free time reading a book that wasn’t any good.) And also, I am enamored by angst filled love stories.

When I read a good book, I’m the kind of person who starts to think of the characters as my friends. I experience a sense of loss when the book is over. (This is why I tend to gravitate towards book series, my friends don‘t leave me yet! YaY!) I’ve been known to both laugh and cry while reading. Words can be incredibly powerful and beautiful. I think that I generally just love words. I love quotes, song lyrics, listening to public speakers, and good conversations. I love a good turn of phrase. And I just really adore books.

These days I try to read as much as possible and I stalk, I mean passionately follow, authors whenever possible. (My hubs just called me an “author groupie,” ha ha.) But really authors are like rock stars in my eyes. There is nothing like having a book signed by the person that wrote it, especially after you have gotten to hear them explain some of their thoughts, process, and experiences. The books just seem to come more alive at that point.

Confession: I originally only gave my number to now husband because he had the book hook up at his job. Lucky for me he turned out to be almost as big a book nerd as me! In our house we have a whole room dedicated to our “library” with probably, no lie, over 600 books. Hubs estimates we have gone to 10-20 book signings in the past 2.5 years.

The point being, I am a passionate reader and it is a HUGE part of me. I’m looking forward to sharing my thoughts on books that I have enjoyed and hope that you will to. And I hope you will share with me any good books you come across, lest my “to be read” pile starts to dwindle.

Be looking out for my first review on “Whatcha Reading Wednesday!” I just finished Clockwork Prince by Cassandra Clare and I’m starting Three to Get Deadly by Janet Evanovich. I also try to keep an audio book going in the car, my current selection is An Abundance of Katherines by John Green.  Happy reading y‘all!!!