Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Kwentillion: Book Spotlight


Ficsation is joining the countdown to Kwentillion's 1st Young Adult Reader Carnival! I won't be able to attend as I live a plane ride away (it's this weekend, July 21, Saturday, from 1-5PM, at the National Book Store Bestsellers branch at Robinson’s Galleria) but I'll participate by weighing in on some exciting YA titles heading for our bookshelves in the next few months. Here's one upcoming YA title that I'm very eager to pick up:

Carnival of Souls
Melissa Marr
(HarperCollins, September 4)

What is it about:

Welcome to a world of daimons. Welcome to The City. Once in a generation, daimons like Aya and Kaleb are given the chance to join the powerful ruling class through a deadly and ruthless competition known as the Carnival of Souls. For them, this is the ultimate test of survival.

Meanwhile, far from the City, exiled and hidden away among humans, is Mallory. Though she tries to live a normal life with her father, she knows that her destiny will always lead her back to the one they've left. But can she really prepare herself for what awaits her back in The City -- and at the Carnival of Souls?

Why I'm excited about it:
Melissa Marr's Wicked Lovely series shuttled the reader back and forth between the dark and mysterious machinations of faerie and gritty urban situations. In Carnival of Souls, she revisits a formula that has worked for her via a richly-layered second world, one whose social and political systems set the stage for a deadly tradition. Add some strong fantasy Hunger Games overtones to the mix, and Carnival of Souls promises to be a brave beginning to a new series.

--
Carnival of Souls will be available at National Book Store in September 2012.

11 comments:

Tin said...

Hi Chris! Loved Kwentillion! And hooray for YA! :D

A friend of mine has been lending me paranormal YA books from her library. After reading a couple, I feel that they have the tendency to be the same. Mostly it's the characters that are molded similarly.

I don't think she has anything on faeries though. I hear Julie Kagawa's is hugely popular.

If Carnival of Souls is more fantasy and Hunger Games-ish then it might be something that's for me. :)

Osing said...

Akala ko nabasa mo na hehe.

Osing said...

From bottom to top kasi ako magbasa hahaha

dementedchris said...

@Tin
You know, I actually didn't finish the Wicked Lovely series all the way through. But at the time it came out, the contemporary scenes were a bit grittier than I was used to in a paranormal YA. You're right, nowadays they do tend to be from the same mold.

Have you read The Scorpio Races? Loved that one. I suppose it has enough elements to qualify it as paranormal YA but I think it stands head and shoulders above the others.

@Oz
I actually thought of Daughter of Smoke and Bone meets Hunger Games with this one :P

Kim said...

I wasn't able to go to the Reader Carnival due to the strong rain that day. :(

I sort of speed read through the Wicked Lovely series myself. While I do enjoy the odd paranormal YA once in a while, I find it kind of annoying to find entire shelves stacked top to bottom with paranormal YA books for girls (and all with similar covers and plots) whenever I visit National or Powerbooks. Thank God Fully Booked at least has more variety!

The blurb for this book is interesting though. Thanks for the heads up. Since I usually only visit chachic's blog and she isn't too keen on paranormal YA, this one slipped through my radar.

dementedchris said...

How are you doing, Kim? :)

Check on similar covers and plots haha. Still a month to go before this one is released so I hope it's worth the wait.

Kim said...

I kind of went off the radar when I switched business units at work last year, so haven't been online (or updated my blog) since then. I'd rather reserve my free time for actual reading hehe.

Also have a little experimental project going on. Trying to write a YA fantasy book, but right now it can't seem to make up its mind whether it wants to be alternate universe or paranormal/urban YA. LOL.

dementedchris said...

Haha, go! I wish you all the best, Kim :) Looking forward to reading it already.

Kim said...

LOL. Considering that the research I've done says that the average YA novel should have 45,000-60,000 words, and I only have around 5,000words down so far... This might take a while. And also assuming that I don't give up halfway out of frustration. *sweatdrops*

I've emailed the drafts I've done so far to a few friends (mix of readers/bloggers and non-readers), but the funny thing is that it's the non-readers who have been more enthusiastic with feedback. Maybe because the readers have too many pending TBR books as is? If you want to join the beta reader pool though, I can always email you the latest draft. It's just an experiment, after all. ^^;;

dementedchris said...

Sure! Email me at dementedchris[at]gmail[dot]com. I'm writing something right now, too (a mystery) and I just run into these huge roadblocks. XP And then I went and gave myself a tight deadline for it haha.

Kim said...

emailed!