My Feelings about Matched by Allie Condie

Post: 3/17

So Yesterday I wrote a post about books people love that I hate/hate that  I love. In that post I brought up the book Matched by Allie Condie, who you probably know got rave reviews and bunches of hype for her Matched series. I hated it and said as much. One of my readers asked why and I began to respond in a comment and then realized that it was much too long, and so you get what you see here today.

Where to begin with this…

I’m sorry, if you loved this book because I’m going to have to rip it to shreds right now. I apologize in advance.

To start off, the whole book just ticked me off because I love Lowis Lowry to death. I have read The Giver six times and it’s amazing and she’s amazing and… yeah. You get it right? So when I read Matched I wanted to go club whoever let it out of the slush pile because I saw so much of the work being dead on The Giver. It’s a society where your job/mate is choosen for you, the fact that you have to take ‘pills’ to suppress your natural emotions and sedate your brain. Anything half way decent in that book was ripped right out of the giver and then basted in Condie’s particular brand of bland.

Besides this ,Condie decided to spice things up with a little forbidden reading/books (*ehm* also from The Giver). The MC’s only redeeming quality is that she likes poetry but the reasons behind this rebellious behavior are hidden in the soup of Allie Condie’s pacing. For some reason she throws in Dylan Thomas’ poem “Do not go gentle into that good night” and okay I guess I get it (its a dystopian, the poems about not submitting to authority), but… just WHY? WHY! Why did you throw a piece of (really overused in the first place) literature. It was like throwing a pretty dress in the mud because you thought it’d make the mud look better. All you’re doing is ruining the dress.

On the same note with the fact that the poetry is completely irrelevant since we have no reason other than the MC’s grandfather’s death*(if i remember correctly) for her to like it  we equally have no reason for her to like Ky over Xander. It made less than zero sense to me! The only reason she starts to like Ky anyway is because the ‘society’ has a glitch in her Match card (that tells her about her match) and so it totally defeats the purpose of her rebelling since the idea came from the society in the first place! Besides that, why would Ky’s information even have been in the same pool to match with her if he was a lowly worker? It doesn’t make sense. There’s no way that the computer/matchers (or whoever matches people ,I forget how it happens) would have those two sets of data in the same place. So, yeah, GAPING PLOT HOLE!

Then when Ky and the MC do get together I just found the romance so BLAH. I didn’t really like Ky in the first place. Xander was obviously a better choice. Neither of them had much personality, but at least Xander was kind of happy go lucky! Then Ky is banished or sent away and the MC is all: boo hoo! Then the Peace keepers (or whoever the law enforcers are) come in and are like, “take these pills now!” and so she hides her pill and doesn’t take it. OOOOHHHHH rebellion! Not really, keep reciting your poetry dear.

Anyway I just really hated it and it made me beat my head against my desk and cry wondering how she got a million dollar contract for THAT.

Now, for those of you who loved the book, feel free to yell at me and tell me why I am wrong! I love a good debate 🙂

*The euthanization of old people, yeah, that’s from The Giver too. Just saying.

GoodReads is a Paradox

Post: 2/17

There are few things in life that consistently shock me over and over again. That incredibly short list has a large star next to finding out someone hates a book I love. It baffles me. How anyone could hate a book that I love t is just bizarre. You have to wonder what goes through their head as compared to yours. Is it even possible that someone could disdain a  piece of literature as much as you love it? It’s likely the most dysfunctional paradox ever.

The reason I bring this up is because my dearest bookish friend just finished FIRE by Kristin Cashore the other day. And oh my goodness I am absolutely in LOVE with that book. I love everything about it; the characters, the plot, the moral, the world building. It’s all simply genius and I was so excited to have my friend read it. It’s a beautiful piece of writing and I couldn’t wait to rave and rant about it with her when she was finished.

So, I decided to GoodReads creep today.

And what I found was astonishing. She’d finished the book… and she’d given it TWO STARS. TWO STARS! Was that even legal? I was sure she’d miss-clicked, but no, her review said she’d given it as much. When I asked her about it she just kind of waved it off, “It was alright” she said. And this is where I’m dumbfounded.

I just think it’s funny how one book, the SAME book can get such opposite reactions from two seemingly similar people. My bookish friend is indeed quit similar to myself. In fact we are often told that we are “the same person” (jokingly of course) it doesn’t help that we say things in unison at times or finish each others sentences. And it’s like that all across the board. People all have a varied reaction to every novel. Matched by Allie Condie for instance. FAILURE. JUST FAILURE if you ask me, but there were plenty of people who gave her a five-star review!

Why?

Because readers bring something to a novel that the author can never expect. An X factor that changes with each one. A readers past experiences, values, and knowledge, all effect how the book is read and in turn experienced and received. The reason people hate books you love or love books you hate is because they see something you don’t or don’t see something you do in the text. When people say it’s all about how you look at things they are right as rain.

This my friends, is why GoodReads is a Paradox.

So go ahead and tell me about books your friends hate and you love or vice versa!

Vacation Kills Me

Vacation always sends me to fiery doom.

Ironic? Indeed.

That’s not to say I don’t enjoy vacation. I do, it just kills my writing. And honestly it makes no sense. I have extra time to write. Super duper loads of extra time just piling up around me, so instead of writing, I do what? I sit around and muse on nothing. Well… not nothing. To be fair with myself, I have been thinking an awful lot about how  my story is going to go. But, that’s just brain building.

I haven’t gotten anything on paper… or… umm on-screen.

Instead, I sit on the beach, watch House, Rizzoli & Isles, and Burn Notice in the hotel, and also I take pictures. Lot’s of pictures. Too many pictures.

So, I’ve been on vacation for a week and a half now and have manage to do nothing but muse on plot possibilities, and write this post.  Sad isn’t it? I’ll just be glad when I get back home to my desk. Where I have a schedule and I can focus. The beach is also not conducive to electronics so transporting my lovely laptop out their wasn’t really an option anyway. Even if I could focus among the seagulls and screaming children.

The worse part?

I return home for one week from our family vacation, then I go on my own little vacation to Oregon.  I’m telling myself I’ll write while I’m there, but let’s be honest.

Anyone else have trouble writing on vacation?

Why I Left, and Why I’m back.

Wow, embarrassing this absence has been. (Yikes Yoda sounding! ) I think it’s time I explain myself.

So, it’s mostly because I was sacred. Scared out of my freakin’ mind. I was in a slump and a bad one at that. I have been for something like 3 months now.  I’d written scarcely anything and the longer I went without writing the more scared I got that I couldn’t do it. There was no way I could write, could get words on paper like I had before.

I spent every afternoon staring at a blank screen for at least ten minutes, and the closing it down. It was too empty. There wasn’t any way for me to fill that page, it would just swallow all my words up! 3 MONTHS… 3 MONTHS! I felt useless.

Then I would open WordPress, but I couldn’t write a post. How could I write a post to you all when I couldn’t even write a simple paragraph in Word? I can’t tell you how many drafts of posts I have piled up on here, 6 or 7 I think.  I would start one but I couldn’t finish. I felt like a hypocrite. Here I was trying to tell you all how to write, when somehow I wasn’t even a writer anymore.

Then yesterday, around 5PM I opened up word again. I began writing my new novel (forced myself too,no matter how bad I knew it would be), but something was wrong. I couldn’t get into that ‘writing groove’ you know the one. The one where once you find it you can just roll along indefinitely in it, with words flying everywhere. So, instead of closing down that document I opened up some old files. I went through the second draft of Before This Ends as it now stands (unfinished), then I stumbled around some other files until I found last years NaNoWriMo disaster Ablaze (an unfinished first draft that involves phoenixes, fire, and castles). And suddenly I got that shine in my eye. I could feel it.

This piece that I’d given up on, it wasn’t so bad. Actually, it was… dare I say, kind of good ( in a first drafty way of course)? So, I started. I had left off right in the middle of a conflict. I don’t remember what pulled me away, but I just started and then I was going, just going. I didn’t want to stop. It was like all the writing had built up in me and I was just flying away at the keys. Why had I thought this was going to be hard?

Granted my writing skills are a bit rusty, but a little elbow grease and a couple thousand words can fix that! So yesterday I pumped out something like 4,000 words and am quite happy with myself. Yeah Ally! You aren’t in the writing pit of despair anymore.

My point: Novel Ideas will be getting better because I no longer feel like a hypocrite. See, I’m writing this post right now! :)) So for those of you reading this (if there are any left… haha) thank you so, so, SOOOO much for sticking with me. You will never know what your support means to me.

And for those of you in a writerly slump. Believe me when I say I understand, and it WILL get better.

 

Update:

When I published this post this is the quote WordPress gave me:

The desire to write grows with writing.

-Desiderius Erasmus

Ironic.

Because I Am Magical

Best vanishing act ever. I know.

Here one day. Gone the next. What have I been doing? I mean, besides letting Novel Ideas fall into disgusting disrepair? Well I’d like to think this all happened because I am magical. Didn’t Houdini disappear and never return or something? Or was he the one squashed by the elephant he made appear on stage? Ummm… okay never mind.

As much as I would like to tell you that my absence from blogging was a cleverly planned illusion it wasn’t. It was LIFE. Oh my… not magical. *

So, what has my absence been filled with?

Mostly stressful business. School work ( you know the stuff they tell you will make you an intelligent, and functional member of society), Track meets (luckily the season is over in less than two weeks.), oh and standing on-top of large trees in California:

Me in a large tree near Lake Tahoe CA. Inspiring isn't it?

So besides a week’s escapade in California, I’ve mostly been (as I said) busy. Unfortunately, not in a writing way. I haven’t gotten much of anything done writer wise since I last posted in March. That is the main reason I haven’t been blogging. I can’t stand to have a ‘writing blog’ when I’m not actually… you know… writing. I feel too hypocritical spouting off advice when I’m  not actually applying it myself.

Thankful things will be slowing down soon. Track ends the week after next, school is out on May 18th, and there are no large trees to stand on in Cincinnati so I think that about covers that.

Anyway, I’m posting just to let you all know I’m alive. Also I’ve decided to cut back on book reviews. It’s a lot to review EVERY book I read ( because I read ridiculous amounts of material) and… well I just don’t have the time to do all of it. So, I’ve made an executive decision and decided to review only books that I either REALLY love, or just need to rant about (because, let’s be honest, my reviews are a lot of ranting anyway).

So, I hope to get back on a bi-weekly blogging schedule in May, and look forward to talking to you guys again! Thanks for sticking around.

Now I have to go catch up  on reading I’ll the blogs I’ve missed!

* Just to let you know after I made that Houdini reference I looked him up and apparently he died from Peritonitis.That doesn’t sound very magical either.

I think we bear a resemblance.

 

Well… This is Awkward :/

*Que the strange apparition parting from the mist*

Oh, wait. Nope. That is just Ally.

I’ve been gone for what? two and half, three weeks?

Awkward…

I suppose I ought to explain myself.

Well, besides a number of personal issues. I’ve begun some new classes this semester one of them being the large and terrible abomination of Algebra III! I mostly veg out in that class and then go home and blankly stare at the book until I think I can read the first equation. All of which takes about four hours… Then I give up and go cry like a sissy girl.

Obviously, I hate algebra, and being able to study and pass that class thus far has been a nightmare.

After adjusting to that for about a week, I figured ‘hey let’s get back on the blogging train!’

Fate had other things planned. Things like a case of the flu. Ugh. A REALLY bad case of the Flu. So I spent four days shivering and sniveling in my house. Fun.

This lead to me being way behind in Algebra (I just finished all the makeup work this past Friday).

Then to put a cherry on top of all this, Track season started last week! Yeah! But, not exactly conducive  to a blogging schedule.

As you can see it’s been kind of crazy! I literally didn’t touch my laptop for something like a week. When I say I didn’t touch it, I mean I didn’t even boot  up the internet. The thing was in hibernate mode for SEVEN FULL DAYS. DAYS.

I have internet withdraw!

So, there above me are the excuses for why I haven’t been around. I’ll be back on schedule this week (so long as I’m not struck by lightning or anything…)

Since I’ve been gone I haven’t been able to look at your all’s blogs(super sorry for that), so what’s going on? Any news? Tell me please!

Also to Gab’s I AM SENDING YOU YOUR E-BOOK TONIGHT! I am dreadfully sorry for the delay!

And to RaeAnn: I am getting around to those edits I promised you. You’ll have them before the week is out!

Que the PANIC

Holy crud I have NOTHING DONE! NOTHING… and now I am a mess of panic, and am madly scrambling around my room trying to figure out where I went wrong! I have had to email my chapter of ABLAZE to Carolyn for THREE DAYS NOW! THREE! And have I written it yet? NO! Why? I’m not sure, because I suck at life probably. UGH!

Also, I have less than a week to complete edits on the manuscript I’ve agreed to look over (and that is WITH an extension)!

All I have to say for myself right now is OMG why am I on WordPress writing a post? WHY!

Because I can’t deal with the total sludge that is coming out of my brain when I try to write, that is why. I mean it’s bad, I don’t like to say I have WB (don’t even want to use the word), but I hate staring at the crap that comes off the keyboard. It’s bad, and I have to SHOW IT TO SOMEONE. I have to show this first draft crap to Carolyn, and act like that is okay? What! It’s not okay, folks. Not. OKAY!

I think I need to go take some Advil, and a nap, because Thanksgiving break is over, and that means I had school today. 6AM wake up calls, and no sleep do not equal a peppy wonderful glittery person/first draft.

I guess I have no choice but to go write some terrible blubbery junk, and email it… And Cally, if your reading this, please ignore any terribly grumpy comments your manuscript has on it. Blame sleep deprivation and my utter crappiness as a writer.

Okay, end rant. I feel better now… sort of.

(Sorry caps button I think I broke you…O.o)

Re-Do & How to’s

Okay you all are going to think I’m crazy, like totally nuts.

I’m scrapping BTE D2. ALL of  it. I got about 5,000 words in tonight and then BAM I realized, it wasn’t working it was terrible. It’s not that “I suck as a writer” kind of terrible, it was “God this could be good, but its going in the totally wrong direction” type of terrible. And so all 5,000 words of  BTE D2 are being DELETED. Don’t I frustrate you all? Because, I frustrate myself to no end. Anyway I promised you all something “good” today, and since I can’t be counted on to give you any good advice right now other than the delete button I’m going to direct you to someone who can.

Maggie Stiefvater. She just posted a page full of links on her writing advice. It has a ton of great posts about novel-writing, editing, and querying so you all should head on over THERE to look at it!

Enjoy Maggie’s advice!

Also, wish me some luck on deleting things Have any of you ever had to do this?

Embracing The Suck

Hey all I’m sticking to my schedule! See I told you I would! Sadly today’s post is going into the  “Ally can’t think straight so she’s writing this post” category. You knew all these well structured informative posts would not last didn’t you? SIGH

So here is the deal, BTE is at a stand still a complete “deer in the headlights” kind of stop. I’m really not “stuck” per say… more like frozen with”THE SUCK”. Yeah…. THE SUCK. For those of you who have never embraced THE SUCK, then let me explain. THE SUCK, is the condition when you are utterly frozen by the complete grandeur of a project that you know you can not possibly bring to its full potential. Basically you realize your suckishness.

BTE had evolved into this huge giant scale (past weaving into future) thing! It’s totally intimidating just to open up a word document and try to start. I am, as I said, paralyzed by the fear of THE SUCK. My characters are becoming too much all their traits and details are getting too jumbled up in the space between my ears.

This is really a sign that I need to write, but the longer I wait, the more THE SUCK takes over, and the more I put it off. So friends I’m off to embrace the suck at some point this night, and just get this draft started in the semi-right direction.

Good news? School started this week. Okay that’s not that great of news… but the fact that it is Friday is amazing news! So TGIF everyone! Have you guys ever embraced the suck?

CURRENT MUSIC: The Funeral by Band of Horses ( Look it up guys!) 😉

Guilt

I wish I could impress you all with some insane word count right now, like 2ooK or even 20K, but no it’s not to be! I suppose I should start explaining myself…

Here’s what’s been happening:

My work schedule has been upped to four days a week (it’s a good/bad thing I suppose)

I had a three-day long church event this week (As you can imagine it was very time-consuming )

I began BTE D2, though i haven’t made that much progress (try 2k) lol

I got new tech. We’ve upgraded from crap service to at&t and got new phones… phones like iphone4 🙂

Also I still only have half the money I need for the computer i want (I can’t resist spending money) so i’m stuck with the family laptop which has been hogged by said iphone4’s.

Anyway that is my case, it’s not a very good one. Lets see how it stands up in court. Since I haven’t been around what are y’all up  to? What have I missed besides everything? Once again sorry guys, will make it up to you this week!