Princess Elisa is a disappointment to her people. Although she bears the Godstone in her navel, a sign that she has been chosen for an act of heroism, they see her as lazy and useless and fat.

Yes, you read that right. Fat. I read an enormous amount of books. The amount of overweight heroes and chubby heroines is astoundingly small. Some authors believe that describing the main character as fat will make him or her less appealing to the reader. Often, in Young Adult books, everyone tends to be beautiful and thin.

Rae Carson threw all of those preconceptions away and created Elisa, who is, in my opinion a superb heroine even though she loves to stuff herself with pastries. Even in the beginning of the book you see that what Elisa lacks in stereotypical attractiveness she make up for it with intelligence. She is smart. She is surprisingly wise for her age. And she bears the Godstone.

When the book starts, Eliza is married to King Alessandro of Joya d’Arena. She does not know her husband and neither does he know her. Immediately after, Elisa journeys with her new husband and his men to Alessandro’s country and they are attacked by Perditos. Even though she’s not fit, Elisa still manages to save her husband’s life. She is taken to the palace and is demotivated when Alessandro doesn’t publicly announce that he’s married to her. But it’s not until she is kidnapped by desert people that the story really starts to unfold.

I don’t want to spoil the intricate plot, but I’ll tell you this: The Girl of Fire and Thorns is magnificently thought out and its execution is even more stellar. Elisa’s adventures take her from her royal life to the desert, and we start to know more about what it means to be God’s chosen. Elisa’s mind begins to sharpen as she strategizes against the enemy that’s about to invade her husband’s country.

Moreover, Rae Carson (and in this she reminds me of Scott Westerfeld in a particular part of Specials) has the guts to do what some authors can’t: kill off certain characters that have wormed their way into your heart. You won’t see it coming, and when it does, I can almost guarantee you you will be floored.

Carson also does a great job in the writing department. Her prose is fluid, elaborate without being complicated and, most of all, captivating. She crafted a fantasy universe that’s different from the norm. The names she chose for her characters have a more… Latin feel than in usual fantasy worlds.

But the most important part of the book—its heart, as you will—is Elisa. I cannot stress it enough on how she’s an amazing, compassionate, real character. How you connect with her, how she grows within you, how she reacts and plots, how compassionate she is to other people without being weak… She’s a fantastic character.

So, in short: The Girl of Fire and Thorns is a great, surprising book, a breath of fresh air in fantasy settings. And it also has one of the best characters I’ve seen in a long time. If you choose to read it—and I hope you do!—you will almost certainly be satisfied that you did. As for me… The sequel, The Crown of Embers is on the mail and I absolutely can’t wait for it to arrive so I can sit down with it and devour the continuation of Elisa’s journey.

Paperback: 448 pages

Publisher: Greenwillow Books (21 Aug 2012)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 006202650X

ISBN-13: 978-0062026507

Flaming good ideas

I have no idea if you’ve already decided what you’ll wear for Halloween, and even if you have your costume all lined up, these tutorials are pretty cool. Use them as inspiration for the next convention you want to attend if Halloween isn’t your thing.

I give you Cora from Vintage Or Tacky with a Hunger Games inspired make up tutorial

From xxMichaelJames a Marilyn Manson inspired look

And lastly for today we have Julia from MissChievous.tv with a sexy pirate look

I’m loving the research for these blogs, because I get to see some of the most amazing tutorials with some incredibly interesting people.

More very soon.

In a future where education is a game held in defunct shopping malls across America and students are the brands, Kid is a minor player. The daughter of a single mother who struggles to meet bill payments, she doesn’t set the trends or follow them. Until the day she witnesses a prank played in the cafeteria of the Game by a group called the Unidentified that could be a media stunt or a band of disenchanted kids rebelling against a system based on mindless consumerism.

Her curiosity drives her to uncover the secret at the heart of the rebel group, the Unidentified; risking her friendships and education in the process.

It was a delightful surprise to find the characters in The Unidentified to be realistic and believable across the board. The students in the Game are young; ready to question the world and their role in it but not quite sure how to change the problems that they find. The narrator, Kid, stood out from her peers with her mixture of confused naivety and her willingness to find answers and do what’s right. The friends Kid makes as she searches for answers, and some of the friends she already has, are amazing. They all have their own personalities and, while they may be as confused as Kid, they stand by one another and work at not selling themselves out.

There are so many snippets of wonderful in The Unidentified that even if I wanted to ruin the book for everyone, I wouldn’t be able to list them all. The thing that really stood out to me, though, was the relationship between Kid and her mother. It’s an incredibly side-line topic; but every sentence that Kid’s mother is in shines. She is there, doing her best for her daughter and checking up on her as much as she is able. Better still, Kid doesn’t blame her for this; she’s proud of her. In an era where YA novels with abusive, neglectful or dead parents are the norm, Kid and her mother are a breath of fresh air.

The world-building of The Unidentified is possibly the only issue with an otherwise superb novel. I hesitate to mention it, because it did not affect my reading enjoyment in the least, but the world hasn’t been explained as fully as it could have. Children are put into the Game to test commercial products and innovate their own. Outside of the Game they have no rights, are able to be monitored by their parents at all times and cannot enter certain shops. With children being the market research for the brands; how do the brands make the money? Adults don’t have the same tastes as teens and the teens can only buy from select outlets.

The world of The Unidentified is not something that bothers me because the novel, although entertaining, is an exploration of ideas and philosophy. In a world where people are the brands, everyone is watched constantly and nothing is a secret, how does someone find themselves? This is the question at the heart of The Unidentified. In our world, where everyone sells the image of what they are on platforms like Facebook and Twitter, the dystopian world of The Unidentified is incredibly relevant.

Teens and adults alike will love this new dystopian read. While set in an unfamiliar future; its characters, corporations and society all ring true. It is the substance and strength of the characters that prevents the story being mired down in gloom; giving it a sweet twist that is hopeful and realistic all at once.

Unidentified – Rae Mariz

Harper Collins (January 31, 2011)

ISBN: 9780061802089

Halloween in Australia, too hot to handle

I don’t know exactly when or where I learned about the concept of Halloween, probably through American situation comedies such as Full House and The Cosby Show. I don’t think we even saw someone in costume begging for lollies until I was 10 years old. Yeah, that was a few years ago now.

When that first knock sounded and it looked like we were expected to give up our hard earned Cadbury chocolate, Mum and I just shook our heads, and claimed we didn’t have any. Afterwards we looked at each other and knew this was the beginning of the end. Australia now cared more about traditions based in other countries than our own.

Things petered off a fair bit for a long time after that first year, since nobody in my neighbourhood gave those kids more than a stern talking to about patriotism and the dangers of devil worship. ~It was a small country town~

So after I moved to Brisbane I was a little shocked to see the numbers of kids wandering the streets after dark begging for lollies, and even more agog once my daughter started school, at the numbers of Halloween parties that were happening behind closed doors.

Hubby talks tough every year and gets irritated that something that’s supposed to be, in effect, a day of respect for deceased loved ones, has been turned into a way for kids to get away with vandalism and black mail their neighbours into giving them lollies… ‘or else.’ We were left the lovely gift of a dozen broken eggs on the front of our house a few years ago and ever since, he’s dutifully picked up that extra bag of bounties (worst chocolate bar ever) so if we get the knock, we’re prepared.

Now this all makes me sound like a big ol’ scrooge when it comes to Halloween. But I’m really not much more than an over protective parent, who doesn’t share her lollies with ANYONE!

I do dress up every year in my own home, even though it’s usually hotter than hell by October 31st. I gorge on chocolate… (hey, that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it) and I am impressed at the effort people go to when dressing up. However since I don’t share my chocolate EVER, I’d rather see the effort put into Supanova than have you on my front doorstep with threats of vandalism.

If you want to stick with the true traditions of Halloween, light a candle, place it in a carved out turnip and share happy memories of your loved ones who have passed. The Scotts have been doing as such since 1895.

So now that I’ve ousted myself as the biggest party pooper ever, stay tuned for some other points of view on Halloween, make up tips and costuming ideas.

Happy Halloween everyone!

Forget everything you ever knew about unicorns…
Real unicorns are venomous, man-eating monsters with huge fangs and razor-sharp horns. Fortunately, they’ve been extinct for a hundred and fifty years.
Or not.

I had been curious to read Rampant ever since I discovered that, in addition to featuring killer unicorns and teenage huntresses, it also explores the themes of female sexuality and gender discrimination, all under the guise of an epic fantasy adventure.

17 year-old Astrid Llewelyn is dismissive for years of the warnings and ramblings of her mother, who proclaims the existence of unicorns and Astrid’s lineage of unicorn-slaying. However, a seemingly chance and violent encounter with a unicorn one evening convinces her otherwise, and suddenly Astrid finds herself being shipped off to Italy, along with several other teenage girls, to ‘fulfil her destiny’.

Despite common associations nowadays liking unicorns to cuddly, cute, sparkly little critters, Diana Peterfruend appreciates the history of the unicorn as a mythological creature, and applies this knowledge by burdening her cast of female characters with a centuries-old destiny/duty to fight mythical creatures typically associated with the idea of “purity”. The innate and understandable struggle that arises for protagonist Astrid, and her young comrades, is effectively drawn and admirable in its influence on the romantic sub-plots of the novel, which for once are refreshingly genuine and credible. Astrid’s attempts at a relationship with Giovanni, for instance, begin (very realistically) not with any notion of ‘true love’ but with sexual attraction, which eventually leads to actual affection and trust, and a difficult path for both parties to navigate, given Astrid’s new ‘profession’.

Of course, there is plenty of action and excitement to appeal to readers as well, but for me personally it was the moral and social debates contained within the novel that made Rampant such a worthwhile read. The characters are also dynamic and interesting: while it’s true that there are simply too many young huntresses to get to know them all intimately, some, such as the intense Cory and the vibrant (and tragic) Phil, are intriguing in their own right. As for villains – let’s just say that the real bad guys of the narrative are not at all who you expect, and the unicorns, despite appearances, prove to be creatures of immense fascination and even empathy, rather than mere murderous beasts.

I loved Rampant so much that I immediately followed on to its sequel, Ascendant, which proved just as addictive and emotionally engaging (many tears were shed!) While at present there is, sadly, no plans for a third instalment, I highly recommend The Killer Unicorn series to anyone who appreciates a gripping yarn, some highly personable female characters, and themes that deserve more recognition in YA fiction.

Rampant – Diana Peterfruend

Harper Teen

ISBN: 0061490008

402 pages

August, 25^th 2009