Harry Potter Moment of the Week (20): Favorite Magical Item

Harry Potter Moment of the Week is a meme hosted by Uncorked Thoughts. The aim of this meme is to share with fellow bloggers a character, spell, chapter, object or quote from the books/films/J. K. Rowling herself or anything Potter related! A list of upcoming topics can be found here.

This week's topic is:
Favorite Magical Item

This is such a tough question! Off the top of my head, I'd love to own a wand, invisibility cloak, flying car, and photos/paintings that move. I think one of the coolest items in the whole series, though, is the Time-Turner. Of course there are so many things that can go wrong if it's not used properly, but I'd love to be able to get a few more things done in a day, like the way Hermione was able to go to all of those classes in Prisoner of Azkaban. The Time-Turner also probably holds a special place in my heart because it was key in saving Sirius and Buckbeak. :D

I'd also like to mention that I would give anything to be able to charm my bag the way Hermione did to hers. I constantly fill my purse to bursting, and with a bag like Hermione's, I could carry as much stuff as I wanted without worrying about my shoulder breaking, haha!

Game Plan Blog Tour: Review

Welcome to my stop on the blog tour for Natalie Corbett Sampson's Game Plan! I have a review of the book for you today, but first here's a little more information about this Young Adult contemporary novel:

Game Plan
By Natalie Corbett Sampson
Publisher: Fierce Ink Press

* A copy was provided for review for the blog tour.

Synopsis: Just because the play goes wrong, doesn't mean you quit the game.

Ella Parker seems to have everything: great friends, an awesome family and a star position on her high school basketball team. The only thing missing from her life is a boyfriend. That changes once she catches the eye of Sam Cleveland. With Sam by her side Ella has it all. When a drunken night results in an unwanted pregnancy, her perfect life is turned upside down and she’s faced with an impossible decision.

Katherine Frayne has always wanted to be a mother. But with the last results of her in vitro fertilization pointing to no chance of a baby, her hopes are dashed. Then her husband Danny suggests they adopt. At first Kat is resistant, but she soon warms to the idea.

Ella and Katherine must navigate their lives amidst tough decisions, the consequences of which not only affect them but those they love the most.

Review: If you’ve happened to read reviews for some of my less than successful attempts at reading realistic fiction, you might recall that the contemporary genre has to work rather hard to command my reading attention. Game Plan caught my eye because of the opportunity to view its narrative from two perspectives—that of Ella, a pregnant teenager, and Katherine and Danny, a childless couple hoping to adopt. I thought it would be interesting to see how their lives converged, and I wasn’t disappointed with that aspect of the novel. There’s certainly a touching story here, and in a book packed with so much emotion, I think it’s careful not to come off as cloying. I did have a few minor issues with the book, but they weren’t enough to lessen the story’s impact.

The novel’s pacing is something I struggled with occasionally. Game Plan chronicles almost a year in the lives of its three main characters, and there were times when I felt that the month-by-month format was a bit too much. It takes Ella quite a while to realize she’s pregnant, and then it’s an even longer wait page-wise until she gives birth. While the book maintained my interest throughout, there were spots where its momentum seemed to stall. The later chapters moved at a steadier speed, and they were the most absorbing to read.

It also took me some time to warm up to Ella. In the beginning, I was frustrated with her because she couldn’t see that Sam, the father of her baby, wasn’t exactly decent boyfriend material from the get-go. There was something about him that made me dislike him instantly, and with every subsequent chapter, his actions only sank my opinion of him lower and lower. I was also bothered by Ella’s inability to see how fake and shallow her “friend” Karen was until Karen blatantly turned on her. I do have to say that Ella matures significantly over the course of the novel and is a much wiser character by the end of it.

For me, the emotional center of the book was Katherine and Danny’s story. Their struggle to become parents is just heartbreaking. They go through an anguishing cycle of being considered as adoptive parents only to receive the call that they were not the couple chosen. Each disappointment edges them closer to their breaking point, which is gut-wrenching to see. Whereas I felt that Ella’s side of the narrative sometimes became sidetracked in subplots, such as her developing romantic relationship with Charlie, her brother’s longtime best friend, I thought Katherine and Danny’s tale was more tightly focused and flowed smoother.

Overall, Game Plan was a satisfying read that explored some heavy topics without turning into one big cliché. Including the view of prospective adoptive parents in a novel about teen pregnancy was a definite asset and what I liked most about the book.

All in All: If you enjoy contemporary fiction that both breaks and warms your heart, you might want to give this a try.

Find Natalie Corbett Sampson:

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Bookish Stuff I'd Like to Accomplish Before 2013 Ends

As we edge ever closer to the end of 2013, I've been giving quite a bit of thought to what's transpired book-wise so far this year. With not that much time remaining until 2014 arrives, here are a few things I still hope to get done before we officially welcome a new year.

1. Read Divergent. I've lost track of how long I've been saying that I'm going to read this book. I'm habitually late in reading mega-hyped books, and that's what's happened with Divergent. I will read this book. I will read this book. I will read this book . . . .
2. Complete the Australian Women Writer's Challenge. I fizzled out with both the Paranormal Reading Challenge and the Sequel Challenge, especially once my reading time took a severe cut. I'm 1 book away from completing the AWWC, however, and that's totally feasible. I'll most likely go with a Melina Marchetta title.
3. Read a Christmas-Themed Book. I got this idea last year, when I wished that I'd thought to read Dash and Lily's Book of Dares much closer to the holidays. This year, I've got my eye set on Let It Snow: Three Holiday Romances by John Green, Maureen Johnson, and Lauren Myracle.
4. Buy Some Bookshelves. My lack of shelf space has reached a critical level, and I need to address this crisis. ASAP.
5. Go to the Library. The library and I have been strangers since . . . August? Yeah, it's been a loooong while. Toooo loooong.

I really wanted to make the move to WordPress this year, but it's just not going to happen in the near future. It's definitely still on my to-do list; there's a big question surrounding the projected date, however.

I aim to check off everything on this list by December 31. Time's-a-tickin', so I need to quit writing about what I'm planning to do and actually put those plans into action.

Are there any bookish goals you're still hoping to achieve before 2013 is over?

Harry Potter Moment of the Week (19): Most Touching Moment

Harry Potter Moment of the Week is a meme hosted by Uncorked Thoughts. The aim of this meme is to share with fellow bloggers a character, spell, chapter, object or quote from the books/films/J. K. Rowling herself or anything Potter related! A list of upcoming topics can be found here.

This week's topic is:
Most Touching Moment

Without a doubt, the most touching moment in the entire series for me is in Deathly Hallows, when Harry uses the Resurrection Stone in the forest and sees his parents, Sirius, and Remus. I cannot tell you how hard that scene made me bawl the first time I read it, and I don't shed tears over books very often. When I saw that scene in the second DH film, I pretty much needed to mop my face. Factor in that Harry is about to face his own death—could this moment possibly be packed with any more emotion? I need to wrap up this post now, because seriously, I'm getting teary-eyed all over again.

Review: Quantum Entanglement by Liesel K. Hill

Quantum Entanglement (Interchron #2)
By Liesel K. Hill

* A copy was provided by the author for review.

To Sum It Up: Returned to her own time, Maggie anxiously awaits word from the Interchron team. It appears, however, that danger has followed her in the form of a powerful young woman with a talent for blocking Maggie’s neurochemical abilities. When some familiar faces from the future arrive at last, they’re not quite whom Maggie was expecting. Meanwhile, Marcus and Karl are on a perilous mission of their own to find and eliminate Colin, who is more determined than ever to kill Maggie. With the survival of the resistance against the collectives on the line, some tough battles lie ahead for both groups if they hope to see Interchron again.

Review: The last two dystopian novels I’ve read have both been sequels, and I’m pleased to report that Quantum Entanglement is another winner. It provides just enough details from the first book, Persistence of Vision, to reacquaint you with the world and bring you up to speed with the characters while avoiding spending too much time recounting what happened before. It’s not long until the action kicks off, and it doesn’t let up from there.

Quantum Entanglement finds the team split into groups, each on a separate mission. Maggie and her brother, Jonah, wind up being rescued by David, Lila, and Kristee, a new arrival to Interchron in Maggie’s absence and a time traveler, when Jonah’s girlfriend, Justine, turns out to be superhuman and homicidal. Meanwhile, Marcus and Karl are hunting another psycho, Colin, to remove him as a threat permanently. The novel shifts between the story lines, with the occasional look in on Doc and Joan back at Interchron. In addition to all of this going on, there are flashbacks and quite a bit of time travel. Thanks to the deft storytelling, though, you always have a firm handle on what’s happening, and the time jumps are never confusing. In fact, they supply insightful, and often chilling, glimpses into society at different moments in time. Maggie gets to see firsthand what the world is like right before its collapse, and it’s an eye-opening experience to say the least, not just for her but for the reader as well.

Karl was my favorite character in Persistence of Vision, and Quantum Entanglement only endeared him to me more. I love his sense of humor, his devotion as a friend to both Maggie and Marcus, and the fact that he’s just a badass. You couldn’t ask for a better traveling companion or fighter by your side, and Karl’s personality was the main reason why his and Marcus’s chapters were my favorites. I was also really intrigued by Marcus’s flashbacks to his past; they shed a lot of light on his strained relationship with his brother, David. We learn something very interesting about Doc, too, but if you’ve been waiting for him to divulge everything that he seems to be keeping under wraps, you’re going to have to wait a little longer. Though I’ve been dying since the first book to know all that Doc appears to know but isn’t sharing, I have to admire his superior secret keeping skills.

Quantum Entanglement seamlessly picks up where Persistence of Vision leaves off and takes you on an intense journey with its characters. From Maggie’s struggle to counter Justine’s seemingly unstoppable abilities to Marcus and Karl’s attempts to stop Colin, a sense of foreboding hangs over the novel. There’s quite a twist toward the end; I’m eager to see how it fits into the bigger picture of the next book, which, based on events here, promises to be a thrill of a novel.

All in All: Liesel Hill continues to impress with this series. There’s no shortage of action and surprises in Quantum Entanglement, which, along with Persistence of Vision, should be on your dystopian to-read list.