Title: Simple
Author: elaborationlove
Fandom: Twilight
Characters/Pairings: Mike/Bella
Rating: G
Summary: Mike can't even find it in him to take advantage of the situation.
Author's Notes: AU.
Warning: None.
Word Count: 100

( Simple. )

Title: You Taste So Good
Author: elaborationlove
Fandom: Twilight
Characters/Pairings: Jasper/Bella
Rating: PG
Summary: Jasper kisses Bella.
Author's Notes: None.
Warning: None.
Word Count: 100

( You Taste So Good )

Title: A Woman in Charge
Author: elaborationlove
Fandom: Twilight
Characters/Pairings: Paul/Bella
Rating: PG
Summary: After Bella slaps Paul. . .
Author's Notes: None.
Warning: None.
Word Count: 100

( A Woman in Charge )

Title: Welcome
Author: elaborationlove
Fandom: Twilight
Characters/Pairings: Sam/Embry
Rating: G
Summary: Embry is phasing for the first time.
Author's Notes: None.
Warning: None.
Word Count: 100

( Welcome )

Does anyone know about an LJ virus? My dad is convinced LJ gave us a virus (because the laptop I use kept popping up with window after window of LJ) and stuff, but I find it's very unlikely. This computer is pretty junky anyway and it's not like I'm the only one who uses it. Anyway, any information would be greatly appreciated. If you've commented lately and I haven't responded, it's because I haven't been coming on here. I'm just doing some trial jumping on once in awhile, like now.

Anyway, I miss my LJ so give me some proof it's safe!

Title: The Read Thread
Author: Roderick Townley
Year of Publication: 2007
Genre: YA, fantasy/scifi
Pages: 294
First Line: "The space was narrow and dim and smelled of dead rat."

Summary: How do you avenge--or forgive--your own murder four hundred years after it happened?

Prompted by recurrent dreams, sixteen-year-old Dana Landgrave uncovers an ancient crime that has drawn the same souls together through three lifetimes.

There's nothing sinister about the girl's sunlit twenty-first-century American life in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Yet, centuries ago, terrible things were done--by someone she knows! Could it be her easygoing, easy-to-look-at boyfriend, Chase? Or her younger brother, Ben, who has been confined to a wheelchair since a school bus accident? What about Gianna, her inscrutable enemy on the yearbook staff? Or her eccentric psychotherapist, Dr. Sprague?

As Dana summons courage to reenter the past, each incarnation propels her to new discoveries--and new suspicious--until the threads of all three lives converge in a devastating revelation.

(Source: Back of book)



Review: I didn't care for this book all that much. I read it pretty quickly but it got really tedious and pretty repetitive, especially towards the end. Characters were, for the most part, a bore, and the general situation (not the plot--that was pretty original) was pretty generic. I probably wouldn't recommend this unless you have some burning desire to read about reincarnation and crazy people. Personally, I only read it because I've been to Portsmouth, New Hampshire several times.

Worst part: How repetitive it got. And it was really obvious that it was a GUY writing a GIRL'S point of view. He wasn't very good at it....

Best part: Uh...um...hmm...I guess Ben was kind of cool. Definitely beyond his years.

Grade: C-

Other Books by This Author: Sky, The Great Good Thing, Into the Labyrinth, and The Constellation of Sylvie

This is a teaser from Maggie Stiefvater's BALLAD, a novel involving homicidal faeries and kissing that's coming out October 1st.

He turned towards me. For a long moment, he stood facing me. I was held, anchored to the ground – not by his music, which still called and pushed against the music already in my head and said grow rise follow – but by his strangeness. By his fingers, spread over the ground, holding something into the earth, by his shoulders, squared in a way that spoke of strength and unknowability, and most of all, by the great, thorny antlers that grew from his head, spanning the sky like branches.

Then he was gone, and I missed his going in the instant that the sun fell off the edge of the hill, abandoning the world to twilight.

Buy it here. Enter the contest at Maggie's blog here.

Title: Kiss the Cook
Author: elaborationlove
Fandom: Twilight
Characters/Pairings: Jacob/Bella
Rating: G
Summary: Jacob does some cooking for Bella.
Author's Notes: None.
Warning: None.
Word Count: 100

( Kiss the Cook )

Title: On the Phone
Author: elaborationlove
Fandom: Twilight
Characters/Pairings: Jacob/Bella
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Jacob and Bella talk on the phone.
Author's Notes: None.
Warning: I don't want to spoil it, so...sexual themes?
Word Count: 100

( On the Phone )

Title: Dishes
Author: elaborationlove
Fandom: Twilight
Characters/Pairings: Jacob/Bella
Rating: G
Summary: Bella is doing the dishes and Jacob offers help.
Author's Notes: None.
Warning: None.
Word Count: 100

( Dishes )

Title: Take Two
Author: elaborationlove
Fandom: Twilight
Characters/Pairings: Jacob/Bella
Rating: G
Summary: Bella jumps off the cliff again.
Author's Notes: None.
Warning: None.
Word Count: 100

( Take Two )

Title: After the Rain
Author: elaborationlove
Fandom: Twilight
Characters/Pairings: Jacob/Bella
Rating: G
Summary: Bella waits for Jacob on La Push.
Author's Notes: None.
Warning: None.
Word Count: 100

( After the Rain )

Title: Rabbits in the Forest
Author: elaborationlove
Fandom: Twilight
Characters/Pairings: Jacob Black
Rating: G
Summary: Jacob spends some time in the woods after running away.
Author's Notes: None.
Warning: None.
Word Count: 100

( Rabbits in the Forest )

Title: Wintergirls
Author: Laurie Halse Anderson
Year of Publication: 2009
Genre: YA
Pages: 278
First Line: "So she tells me, the words dribbling outwith the cranberry muffin crumbs, commas dunked in her coffee."

Summary: Lia and Cassie were best friends, wintergirls frozen in matchstick bodies. But now Cassie is dead. Lia's mother is busy saving other poeple's lives. Her father is away on business. Her step-mother is clueless. And the voice inside Lia's head keeps telling her to remain in control, stay strong, lose more, weigh less. If she keeps on going this way--thin, thinner, thinnest--maybe she'll disappear all together.

In her most emotionally wrenching, lyrically written book since the National Book Award finalist Speak, best-selling author Laurie Halse Anderson explores one girl's chilling descent into the all-consuming vortex of anorexia.

(Source: Back of book)

This review contains spoilers. They are pretty obvious spoilers, but...

Review: Usually I'm not interested in this sort of stuff. This book wasn't really any different. I was going to drop it after awhile but then something came up about some local land marks and stuff and I like reading books that take place around where I live so I kept at it. I can't say I'm glad or not glad that I did. It's one of those books that I definitely could have lived without reading, but I don't necessarily regret reading it. I enjoyed the style and the characters, specifically Lia's step-mother and Emma, were pretty interesting. Anderson managed to even surprise me with one twist involving someone Lia meets during this tale.

Like most anorexia books that I've read, I have a big problem with it. The books usually are about a relapse and then end with a "yay the character will be happy and healthy for ever more". Well, this isn't an exception. The problem is, they've had one relapse--what's to stop them from having another? Now, of course, these people aren't real people and stuff, but prove to me it won't happen again. Do an epilogue of when she's sixty or something and a quick recall of how she never again did relapse. /end rant.

All in all, it's not something that's totally necessary for you to read. I liked the style, which I was surprised with, because I didn't like Speak at all. And it seems Anderson is allowing her books to be type-casted, if that makes any sense. Always about big, scary things in teenage girls' lives. But if you're interested in anorexia, it has some interesting stuff in it.

Worst part: As I mentioned, the book doesn't really have any final solution. There's no way of knowing if she'll relapse again or not.

Best part: I actually really liked this style. I usually don't pay attention to style, but I liked this one.

Grade: C+

Other Books by This Author: Speak, Catalyst, others.

Title: Cupid
Author: Julius Lester
Year of Publication: 2007
Genre: YA
Pages: 196
First Line: "A long time ago, when Time was still winding its watch and Sun was trying to figure out which way was east and which way was west, there was a king and queen."

Summary: Cupid is the god of love and a tireless maker of mischief. When he breaks out his bow and quiver, nobody's safe. Sleepless nights, embarassing poetry, nausea...What could be more fun? Only, perhaps, seeing the god of love humbled with a little heartache of his own.

(Source: Back of book)



Review: This book wasn't too bad. I'm usually not into Greek/Roman mythology, but I picked this up because who doesn't love love? The ages say for 12+, but really, I think it should be more like 15 because there's a lot of talk about sex and stuff. I adored the narrator of this book. While the narrator was never given a name (and I wish he had...but there is a short afterward by Lester that explains some), he was incredibly witty and very funny. The title is slightly misleading because, while I didn't count, I'd risk saying that the book is more about Psyche than Cupid. Or, even, more about their relationship than just Cupid.

So if you're interested in good narrators (not necessarily just authors--narrators are different), mythology or just looking for something a little different, pick this book up.

Worst part: There were some parts of the book I felt were unnecessary and sort of made it longer than it had to be. It's not a really long book but there were parts where I felt like I had been reading for too long.

Best part: Like I said, the narrator was so funny.

Grade: B-

Other Books by This Author: When Dad Killed Mom, others.

Title: The Dust of 100 Dogs
Author: A.S. King
Year of Publication: 2009
Genre: YA (This book is tough to define, though...I'm sure adults would enjoy it, too.)
Pages: 320
First Line: "With one last almighty raor, the Frenchman fell to his knees and died."

Summary: In the late seventeenth century, famed teenage pirate Emer Morrisey was on the cusp of escaping the pirate life with her one true love and unfathomable rishes when she was slain and cursed with the dust of one hundred dogs, dooming her to one hundred lives as a dog before returning to a human body--with her memories intact.

Now she's a contemporary American teenager and all she needs is a shovel and a ride to Jamaica.

(Source: Back of book)



Review: I don't know what it is, guys, but this is the second EPIC book I have picked in a row. How awesome is that? It's tough to review this book. I can't tell you why it's so epic because that would ruin it. An interviewer at the end of the book says, "The Dust of 100 Dogs is really different than most of the novels I've read recently--it's especially difficult to describe without giving too much away,while still doing it justice." So really, just read it. This book is so incredibly smart. There are only a few qualms I had, mostly having to do with holes in the story. They weren't substantial or anything and really, it wouldn't have made a difference to the plot itself, but I would have been interested to hear about the first dog life among a few other things that were left ouf of the story.

Honestly, I can't tell you how glad I am I picked this up. At the end of the book, I felt stupid for not having seen the "twist" sooner, but it was so smart and epic that I disregarded my feelings of stupidity. But guys, really--it's brilliant. For your own good, read the bloody book.

Worst part: Uh...I guess throughout the novel, I felt there was a lot of useless stuff about a certain character but then I realized why it was there. But it was kind of annoying when it first started. And like I said about the holes above. But really, it's not like it made the book bad. Worst is a relative term.

Best part: The ending was just so clever!

Grade: A

Other Books by This Author: None.

Title: City of Glass
Author: Cassandra Clare
Year of Publication: 2009
Genre: YA, fantasy
Pages: 541
First Line: "The cold snap of the previous week was over; the sun was shining brightly as Clary hurried across Luke's dusty front yard, the hood of her jacket up to keep her hair from blowing across her face."

Summary: To save her mother's life, Clary must travel to the City of Glass, the ancestral home of the Shadowhungers--never mind that entering the city without permission is against the Law, and breaking the Law could mean death. To make things worse, she learns that Jace does not want her there, and Simon has been thrown into prison by the Shadowhunters, who are deeply suspicious of a vampire who can withstand sunlight.

As Clary uncovers more about her family's past, she finds an ally in mysterious Shadowhunger Sebastian. With Valentine mustering the full force of his power to destroy all Shadowhunters forever, their only chance to defeat him is to fight alongside their eternal enemies. But can Downworlders and Shadowhunters put aside their hatred to work together? While Jace realizes exactly how much he's willing to risk for Clary, can she harness her newfound powers to help save the Glass City--whatever the cost?

Love is amortal sin and the secrets of the past prove deadly as Clary and Jce face down Valentine in the final installment of the New York Times bestselling trilogoy The Mortal Instruments.

(Source: Back of book)



Review: THIS BOOK WAS EPIC. Better than the first two combined. While a lot of the stuff was entirely predictable (what the glass was, some details about Clary and Jace's past--I don't want to say too much to give it away), I was still excited to find out I was right. Even if you only though the first two books were just okay, pick this one up because it's totally worth it! It almost makes me want to buy the series and I just might.

Worst part: SPOILER ALERT The final battle and stuff wasn't all that well done, I think. That wasn't so epic--specifically the part with Valentine. Unlike JKR's Harry Potter series, soem of the deaths didn't seem right. It was sort of like she just threw them in there because she didn't know what else to do with the characters--one in particular...you'll see if you read it.

Best part: How epic it was. I can't even describe.

Grade: A

Other Books by This Author: City of Bones and City of Ashes.

Title: Senses
Author: elaborationlove
Fandom: Hannah Montana
Characters/Pairings: Jake/Miley
Rating: G
Summary: Miley explores the five senses when it comes to Jake.
Author's Notes: None.
Warning: None.
Word Count: 100

( Senses )

Title: Personalities
Author: elaborationlove
Fandom: Hannah Montana
Characters/Pairings: Jake/Miley, implied Oliver/Lily
Rating: PG
Summary: Couldn’t she let it go?
Author's Notes: None.
Warning: None.
Word Count: 200 (100 X 2)

( Personalities )

Title: Rebel, Rebel
Author: elaborationlove
Fandom: Harry Potter
Characters/Pairings: Draco Malfoy, mentions of Lord Voldemort and Lucius Malfoy
Rating: G
Summary: In which Draco Malfoy discovers David Bowie by chance.
Author's Notes: None.
Warning: None.
Word Count: 446

( Hot tramp, I love you so )