Series Sunday: Divergent

(Divergent #1)

Series Sunday is a bookish meme hosted by Literary Marie of Precision Reviews. I encourage all of my fellow book bloggers and bookhearts to play along.

• Read an installment of a series.
• Share your review/recommendation below.
• Include the title, author and series name.

"Welcome to the day we honor the democratic philosophy of our ancestors, which tells us that every man has the right to choose his own way in this world. Or, it occurs to me, one of five predetermined ways." ~ pg. 32

My Series Sunday pick is Divergent, the first book in the Divergent trilogy by Veronica Roth. Beatrice "Tris" Prior is a sixteen-year-old living in dystopian Chicago. The city is divided into five factions (groups formed to seek a single-minded goal):

• Abnegation (the selfless)
• Amity (the peaceful)
• Candor (the honest)
• Dauntless (the brave)
• Erudite (the intelligent)

On an appointed day, all 16 year olds are given simulation tests and the chance to pick which faction to devote the rest of their lives to. Beatrice must decide whether to stay with her Abnegation family or transfer to Erudite or Dauntless. In the initiation process, Tris is struggling to rank high among peers and keep a secret hidden that could mean death if it is revealed.

The unexpected romance took a backseat. It took me 64% into the book to "get it." I couldn't understand why it was a bad thing, let alone dangerous, to be divergent. What is wrong with being multi-faceted? Then it clicked. The government wants to control society and have everyone act and think according to their assigned factions. Divergents pose a threat because they belong to more than one faction and cannot be conditioned or predictable. Divergents' brains are spread across different factions making it impossible for the government to control them. So bottom line, divergents must be killed. Sound confusing? You are not alone; but that is my explanation. Readers of the series, please chime in with your thoughts. Then check back soon for my rating of the movie adaptation. I hope it is clearer on the big screen.

My edition is the complete series collection. It includes Q&A with the author, quotations that inspired Divergent, a playlist, writing tips, and a faction quiz with results (my favorite of the bonus material).

Other than the obvious confusion of the plot, I look forward to watching the movie adaptation and continuing the series. I don't know where the author came up with this idea but the thought of factions is not unrealistic. I can totally see the world being divided into personality groups and controlled by the government. Wait—isn't that already happening?

Title: Divergent
Author: Veronica Roth
Published: May 2011
Pages: 329
Edition: eBook
Book Rating: ♥♥♥♥
Movie Rating: (To Be Updated Soon)

 

First Lines Friday

First Lines Friday is a bookish meme hosted by Literary Marie of Precision Reviews. I encourage all of my fellow book bloggers and bookhearts to play along.

• Grab your current read(s).
• Share the first line(s).
• Include the title and author.

"I pace in our cell in Erudite headquarters, her words echoing in my mind: My name will be Edith Prior, and there is much I am happy to forget."

~ Allegiant by Veronica Roth

 

Guest Post: D.W. Carver

Author of Nightmares and Other Therapy

Welcome to Literary Marie's Precision Reviews. Today we have a special guest post from D.W. Carver, author of Nightmares and Other Therapy.

Guest Post:

I am D W Carver, English, married with three adult sons and live in a suburb of London. I have been writing ever since I learned how. I have no real memory of a time when I started to write stories but know the first ones were simply written versions of the tales I used to tell myself when I was in bed trying not to think about monsters and bogeymen.

In the late eighties I worked for a national UK mental health charity as a counsellor, travelling round East London and Essex and running self-help groups. In those days lay organisations weren’t given much credence by the professional services and to be fair there were a lot of people out there who took their personal suffering as an ideal apprenticeship for teaching others ‘the right way’ and didn’t do a lot of good. This lack of interest from the health professionals actually helped us a good deal as my charity developed what to us was a common sense service – helping people to overcome practical difficulties one at a time. For example, one of my first clients was a young agoraphobic mother who couldn’t do the walk to school and used to go to the front door every morning in her night clothes when neighbours passed and ask one of them to take her son to school, allowing them to believe she was too lazy to do it herself. We helped her by planning a way she could practise the walk in company, with people stationed at the beginning and the end and eventually alone. In a very short time she was able to do the school walk by herself.

That was fairly typical of my experience – people needing very little actual help to overcome anxiety problems that had crippled them for years and when I began to write novels I often used this device. My lead characters (almost always female) were psychically injured by past events and brought themselves back to a full life with their own power of will and growing self-confidence. Naturally, my books involve a lot more gangsters, killers and general sociopaths than I tended to meet in the real world, but I did encounter my share of dangerous people.

A word of warning for potential readers: I spent many years working in rough areas and what is fairly common-place behaviour from my experience might be shocking to others. I recall long ago that an editor asked me to ‘water down’ an episode in one of my books as, to him, it was unbelievable. This had already been diluted from something that had actually happened in my presence.

Book Description:

My novel ‘Nightmares and Other Therapy’ is about Michael and his teenage girlfriend Laura as they run away to avoid Michael’s arrest and find somewhere to start a new life. 

Hospitals are supposed to help. Michael found that wasn't always true. Michael couldn't understand the nightmares that made him violent on waking, mostly because he didn't have the courage to think his problem through. Eventually, pressured into entering a mental hospital by his employers he thought that here he would find answers and a way to a better life. He was never more wrong.

Excerpts from Reviews:

For starters I really enjoyed how this book was written. The tone and pace of the book made it all the more enjoyable.

Although this isn't necessarily a happy book, I'd still recommend it. It's well written and is very thought provoking.

The characters are a lot of fun. It was unique and the major plot point that separates this novel from the others on the shelf. The split persona between Michael and his imaginary friend is extremely well-done.

It was well written, with believable and realistic characters.

Fast paced thriller/chiller that kept me up late into the night. Very original story line.

Those who like a good thriller will enjoy Nightmares and Other Therapy.

About the Author:

For more information, please visit www.dwcarver.com 
Click here to order or add Nightmares and Other Therapy to your reading wish list.   

 

Guest Post: J. Cafesin

Author of Reverb

Welcome to Literary Marie's Precision Reviews. Today we have a special guest post from J. Cafesin, author of Reverb.

A Life in the Arts:

How do you get good at anything?

Practice.

How do you get great?

Obsession—Practice most all the time.

Pick any famous author, artist, musician, and they'll all have obsession in common. And while we, the public, enjoy the fruits of their creative labor, those closest to these individuals were/are generally left wanting.

Charles Schulz, creator of the Peanuts comic strip, “was an indifferent and often inattentive father and husband.”

Rod Serling, of Twilight Zone fame, “worked 12 hours a day seven days a week, [and] his wife, Carol, tended to their daughters, Jodi and Anne.”

Adrienne Armstrong, wife of Billy Joe Armstrong of Green Day said of her husband after the release of the album American Idiot, “I think it challenged us to a new level, pushed us pretty far, the farthest I ever want to go.”

The creatives above are all men. All married and all had/have children.

Now lets explore a few famous women.

The romance novelist Jane Austen never married. She was, in fact, 'relieved in later life to have avoided the pitfalls of married life, not least the huge risks of childbirth, “all the business of Mothering.”' 

Georgia O'Keeffe, the surrealist artist “wanted to have children but agreed with him [her husband, Alfred Steiglitz] that motherhood was incompatible with her art. She needed to focus all of her attention on her painting.”

Oprah Winfrey, the media mogul has never married, “the very idea of what it means to be a wife and the responsibility and sacrifice that carries—I wouldn't have held that very well." And she never had children. “If I had kids, my kids would hate me. They would have ended up on the equivalent of the "Oprah" show talking about me; because something [in my life] would have had to suffer and it would've probably been them."

Ms. Winfrey had the guts to address the unvarnished, unspoken truth when she referred to the “responsibility and sacrifice,” in being a partner and parent. The investment of time, physical and psychic energy it takes to keep a marriage vital, and the even greater demands of being a conscientious parent, interferes, and often waylays the creative process.

Men have historically been the breadwinners in the family environment. And while this trend is slowly changing, the fact is women who seek personal excellence, especially in the arts, often have to choose between pursuing greatness and being, at least, an available partner and parent. Even today, men rarely have to make this choice. Regardless of this disparity, anyone, man or woman, obsessed with becoming great [at anything] should recognize the 'sacrifice' and costs to pursuing brilliance.

As a wife, mother, and a writer, my creative muse is constantly vying for prominence over the needs of my husband and especially my children. When my kids were babies, the creative process encountered fewer distractions. I could stay rapt in story, run dialog in my head while changing diapers or pushing them on the swing at the park. Small kids, small problems. Big kids, big issues. Now the parent to a tween and teen, my siren is often overwhelmed by the very real traumas and trials of adulthood my children face every day. To help them navigate these tumultuous times, I question, probe, even invade their space to stay connected, be there for them as a sounding board, a trusted confidant to lean on, to envelope them in a hug and hold them when they're falling.

I chose to marry, to have kids. And while I willingly choose to be present, available for my family, forfeiting the relentless pursuit of my creativity is a battle I engage in daily. Much of my fiction focuses on this internal war, as in my novel Reverb, through James Whren's obsession with his music, the cost to the lives he touched and the price he eventually paid absorbed in making it with his muse. My recent novel, Disconnected, explores the propaganda of the 1960s still being sold today, as Rachel struggles with the reality that we can't 'have it all,' be everything we want to be, and still be there for our kids and family.

We glorify the brilliant author, the renown artist, successes in business, often secretly wish to be one of the famous. But to become great at anything means obsessively working at the job or craft, honing a skill set with relentless practice, which is the fundamental reason why genius is so rarely achieved. The price those who solely engage with their creative muse must pay is actualizing a full and balanced life.

Book Description:

James Whren is brilliant, beautiful, rich, and taken—with his genius for creating music. Desired by many, he commits to no one but his muse. On the eve of his brother's funeral his father shatters his life, and James is left abandoned in hell with no one real to save him.

His odyssey to freedom takes him beyond the looking glass, to the reflection of friends and lovers. Humbled and alone, James escapes to the Greek island of Corfu. But instead of finding solace there, loneliness consumes him.

Until Elisabeth, and her son, Cameron...

Reverb is a love story, a psychological thriller paced with romantic suspense. It is a tale of redemption—the evolution of a modern man from solipsist to integrated awareness, the journey inadvertently awakening his capacity to love.

Genre: Psychological Thriller paced with Romantic Suspense

Pub Date: January 2013

About the Author:

J. Cafesin is a novelist, essayist, realist and idealist. For more information and to purchase Reverb, please visit www.reverbnovel.com


 

March eMags

I am Living La Vida NOOK with these March eMags:

Entertainment Weekly ~ All Eyes on Divergent

MacLife ~ Upgrade Your Apps: Better Mail, Maps, Camera, Browser, Music

Essence ~ Bravo! Our Epic Year at the Movies

Marie Claire ~ Spring Fashion: 457 Sexy & Chic Inspiring New Looks

Elle ~ Meet Dakota Johnson: The Star of Fifty Shades of Grey

Ebony ~ Salute to Black Hollywood Starring Angela Bassett

Vogue ~ The Rihanna Effect: How the Unstoppable Pop Diva Became a Full-On Fashion Force

 

Series Sunday: K is for Killer

(Kinsey Millhone Alphabet #11)

Series Sunday is a bookish meme hosted by Literary Marie of Precision Reviews. I encourage all of my fellow book bloggers and bookhearts to play along.

• Read an installment of a series.
• Share your review/recommendation below.
• Include the title, author and series name.

"It was a compulsion, like a sneeze." ~ pg. 48

My Series Sunday selection is K is for Killer, the 11th book in the Kinsey Millhone alphabet series by Sue Grafton. Nothing ever good happens when you open the door for an unexpected guest. Grieving mother Janice Kepler knocks on P.I. Kinsey Millhone's office door late one night. Her beautiful daughter Lorna was murdered but the killer was never caught, a suspect was never apprehended. Kinsey tries to piece together what happened and determine which of Lorna's friends is the killer: a local DJ, a teenaged prostitute, her sloppy landlord or his exotic wife.

When I first read the synopsis and started reading K is for Killer, I thought it was a story of hanky panky gone wrong. The deceased has a dull day job but works as a prostitute and in pornography at night. There were so many characters/killer prospects that I almost had to keep track on a sticky note. Although, it did not make the story hard to follow, thanks to Sue Grafton's skilled writing.

My only gripe with this series are the meaningless descriptions that fill the pages. It begins with a lot of repetition describing the main character Kinsey and what she does for a living. Is it really necessary? How many readers pick up a random book and start reading in the middle of a series? I am willing to bet hardly none. So why still explain Kinsey's history in the 11th installment? Anywho...I will continue on with the series. The cases are getting more interesting and I want to find out more of Kinsey's personal life.

Title: K is for Killer
Author: Sue Grafton
Published: June 1997
Pages: 260
Edition: eBook
Rating: ♥♥♥

First Lines Friday

First Lines Friday is a bookish meme hosted by Literary Marie of Precision Reviews. I encourage all of my fellow book bloggers and bookhearts to play along.

• Grab your current read(s).
• Share the first line(s).
• Include the title and author.

"There is one mirror in my house."

~ Divergent by Veronica Roth

The movie premieres in theaters today! Are you going to see it? Watch the trailer below.