Page to Screen: The Mortal Instruments — City of Bones (2013)

The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones
based on the novel by Cassandra Clare

Oh, Cassandra Clare. I’ve been feeling more kindly to her as of late, due to some of her comments at the Mortal Instruments panel at Comic-Con last month. (Last month? Man, that’s like twelve mnths in nerd years.) Specifically, her commitment to passing the Bechdel Test in her novels and the film (which doesn’t necessarily make a text feminist, but trying is always better than not trying!) and being very aware of how the usual supernatural fiction fare for teen readers feature male Chosen Ones, not female Chosen Ones. (I don’t know how adult supernatural fiction shakes out on this point.)

And yet, this is still the same woman who plagiarized a great deal for her famous Harry Potter fanfic, The Draco Trilogy. (The linked report was published a year before The Mortal Instruments: The City of Bones was released. It’s pretty long—this is a shorter summary of everything.) To that, I can only say, “What a piece of work is man!”

The Sunday Salon: Bochus Yule I

I’ve been lucky to have access to some amazing libraries throughout my life, especially in my home town—my high school library was pretty good, and my home town library, where I volunteer a lot, is part of the statewide system in Georgia, which means I get access to books from all across the state. But I didn’t donate to my home town library for Bochus Yule; I donated to the library system in the county I go to college.

Review: Geektastic

Geektastic: Stories from the Nerd Herd edited by Holly Black and Cecil Castellucci

Geektastic: Stories from the Nerd Herd is one of those books I think everyone has read but me, albeit not in the massive numbers as, say, the Millenium trilogy. One of my cousins picked it up from my favorite independent bookstore the last time he visited my stomping grounds, a woman in my writing group read it ages ago, and other book bloggers have picked through it. The arresting cover—I’ve always loved pixel art—is eye-catching and the subject matter definitely appeals to someone who thoroughly identifies as a geek.

Review: City of Bones

City of Bones by Cassandra Clare

Cassandra Clare is what we geeks call a Promoted Fangirl. (Warning: clicking on that link will take you to TVTropes, where you will spend the rest of your day.) A prolific fan fiction author in the Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings fandoms under the name of Cassandra Claire, she got published in 2007, further burnishing the hopes of every geek writer that someday, they might get published. (Her fan fiction subsequently vanished from the Internet, but ask a geek other than yours truly and she’ll find you the .pdf files.) I only know of her from her well-known Lord of the Rings parody, The Very Secret Diaries. However, she’s written much more for Harry Potter–and I have to admit, it shows in City of Bones.

Teaser Tuesday: City of Bones

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!

“Mundies die awfully easily, don’t they?”
“Isabelle, you know it’s bad luck to talk about death in a sickroom.”

pg. 56 of City of Bones by Cassandra Clare

PLEASE LEAVE A COMMENT with either the link to your own Teaser Tuesdays post, or share your 2 ‘teasers’ in a comment here (if you don’t have a blog). Thanks!

The Sunday Salon: Writing Utensils

I’ve always kept personal notes in different ways over the years. When I was a wee lass (here defined as that unfortunate period called middle school), I always wrote with a good, old Bic mechanical pencil in the various notebooks I kept. I refused to write on the backs of the notebook pages, which was quite a waste of space. In these notebooks, I wrote my stories, such as they were, neatly marked in the margins what story it was. I couldn’t bring myself to write something in a notebook that was meant for fiction or something. I did not keep personal notes at all.

Sunday Salon: Highly Recommended

As I’ve mentioned in a few reviews, I often get a little fuzzy about exactly where I picked up the recommendation for a certain novel. It’s not that I don’t care, it’s just that I pick up so many recommendations on a weekly basis that it’s hard for me to keep up. (I should probably add a column to the List’s spreadsheet, which throws the rainbow motif off. Such is life!)