2014, meme, top ten tuesday

[Top Ten Tuesday] – #33 – Top Ten Underrated Characters I’d Share My Birthday Cake With

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Top Ten Tuesday is an original weekly meme created by The Broke and the Bookish. I thought this would be a fun way to share a condensed version of potential rambles and thoughts that I have.

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This Week’s Theme:
 Top Ten Underrated Characters
I’d Share My Birthday Cake With

Initial Thoughts:

So….

(Last weeks theme: book characters that’d sit at your lunch table) + (This weeks theme: underrated books/authors) + (day of birth [Sept 9]) = today’s theme. With cake.

I figured I’d try to incorporate them into one topic, sort of. I can’t say whether or not I identify with the underrated/underdog characters in novels but they’re definitely among my favourite characters even if they have less screen time (in terms of not being the main hero/heroine). Though it’s very possible that some of these characters aren’t underrated after all. Either way, I’d hand them a slice and tell them, “you done good.”

….I guess it’d also be awkward to cut the cake into 11 sections (though I will dismiss the fact that I would probably enjoy eating a larger slice) so it’d probably be cut into 12; and you, said reader, can enjoy a slice of celebration for these characters as well.

As per usual, images link back to their respective Goodreads.

Continue reading [Top Ten Tuesday] – #33 – Top Ten Underrated Characters I’d Share My Birthday Cake With →

meme, music monday

[Music Monday] – #10 – rePLAY: Symphony of Heroes (Concert Review)

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I had the pleasure of viewing rePLAY: Symphony of Heroes two nights ago (Sept 6, 2014) at the Sony Centre for the Performing Arts (Toronto, CA) and it was definitely an audible eargasm even if you aren’t a gaming fanatic. Video game music, like many movie/television or trailer scores, has found some of the most compelling, emotional, and beautifully written audio drama scores today. Don’t be led astray by video game soundtracks even if it might have a connotation of being geek chic (maybe?). It seems as though gaming isn’t always taken seriously but there’s a wealth of game scores that truly lift the whole audiovisual experience of what gaming involves. I mean, you might be able to watch a movie or play a game without sound and find limited enjoyment in it but it’s not quite the same, right? Can you imagine how Super Mario would feel if the main theme never existed? It becomes more than just a achieve success in beating the game mentality (even though that’s important too), it comes back to what music is and the purpose it serves—and I’ll let you decide what that means to you.

But unlike my usual Music Monday’s where I pair a book with a song, this post is more of my thoughts on the concert.

rePLAY is different than its predecessor, Play! A Video Game Symphony, which made its debut in 2006; and was the first video game-oriented concert I attended. Unlike Play!, which solely focused on the music, this revamped concert series incorporates a greater sense of a narrative element to the viewer. As an audience, we were told (by a narrator) that we are a hero of a story but will soon discover ourselves and experience our limits and the perils of the journey through the eyes of other heroes before us (i.e. protagonists of popular franchises). This was a neat integration to tie the concert together but it does make me wonder if there’s any flexibility in the arrangement choices to fit each chapter. I’ve compiled a rough title and franchise arrangement for each chapter. The venue [regrettably] did not hand out programmes, so I’m basically doing this all from memory, Google, and those who I attended the concert with. That being said, the list provided may not be fully accurate and is subject to change.

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2014, ARC review, Book Review, coming of age, contemporary, mystery, sexuality, standalone, substance abuse, YA

[Review] Evidence of Things Not Seen – Lindsey Lane

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Book Title:                   Evidence of Things Not Seen (Standalone)
Author:                          Lindsey Lane
Number of pages:   224

Synopsis:

evidence of things not seen (lindsay lane) coverWhen high school junior Tommy Smythe goes missing, everyone has a theory about what happened to him. Tommy was adopted, so maybe he ran away to find his birth parents. He was an odd kid, often deeply involved in his own thoughts about particle physics, so maybe he just got distracted and wandered off. He was last seen at a pull-out off the highway, so maybe someone drove up and snatched him. Or maybe he slipped into a parallel universe. Tommy believes that everything is possible, and that until something can be proven false, it is possibly true. So as long as Tommy’s whereabouts are undetermined, he could literally be anywhere.

Told in a series of first-person narratives from people who knew Tommy and third-person chapters about people who find the things Tommy left behind—his red motorbike, his driving goggles, pages from his notebook—Particles explores themes of loneliness, connectedness, and the role we play in creating our own realities.

(re: Goodreads @ Evidence of Things Not Seen by Lindsey Lane)

Should this book be picked up? the tl;dr spoiler-less review:

– Open, interpretative narratives about the realities of life masked behind the mystery of Tommy’s disappearance. Some are coming-of-age stories with limited scope, others are charming tales of family, but they’re all uniquely independent lives with tangible difficulties
– Twenty very different narrators joined by the six-degrees of separation to Tommy Smythe; reads like a collection of short stories
– A quick, well-paced read despite a variety of darker societal issues that may not be explored in much depth (i.e. child and teenage sexuality, mental health disabilities, science versus religion, murder, physical and substance abuse)

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Initial Thoughts

I’m stumped as to how to go about saying anything about this novel. It’s different; twenty POVs different, and there’s a certain disjointed connectedness (wait, that doesn’t even make sense does it?) about this read that’s mind-bogglingly weird and interesting at the same time.

Also, I just reviewed the synopsis and I’m confused as to whether or not there’s supposed to be a name change or not (re: Particles, in the last paragraph).

Full disclosure: I received an advanced reader copy of Evidence of Things Not Seen through Netgalley for an honest review. I extend thanks to Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR) under Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group for providing me the opportunity to review this book.

Disclaimer: Potential spoilers inherent to this review from here onward.

Continue reading [Review] Evidence of Things Not Seen – Lindsey Lane →

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