Book Review: Immortal by Gillian Shields

Release Date: August 4, 2009
Publisher: Katherine Tegen Books
Age Group: Young Adult
Pages: 368
Summary:
Wyldcliffe Abbey School for Young Ladies, housed in a Gothic mansion on the bleak northern moors, is elite, expensive, and unwelcoming. When Evie Johnson is torn away from her home by the sea to become the newest scholarship student, she is more isolated than she could have dreamed. Strict teachers, snobbish students, and the oppressive atmosphere of Wyldcliffe leave Evie drowning in loneliness.

Evie's only lifeline is Sebastian, a rebellious, mocking, dangerously attractive young man she meets by chance. As Evie's feelings for Sebastian grow with each secret meeting, she starts to fear that he is hiding something about his past. And she is haunted by glimpses of a strange, ghostly girl—a girl who is so eerily like Evie, she could be a sister. Evie is slowly drawn into a tangled web of past and present that she cannot control. And as the extraordinary, elemental forces of Wyldcliffe rise up like the mighty sea, Evie is faced with an astounding truth about Sebastian, and her own incredible fate.

Gillian Shields's electrifying tale will dazzle readers with suspense, mysticism, and romance. (From HarperCollins.com)
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Evie Johnson, the main character and first person narrator of Gillian Shields's Immortal, arrives at the train station near Wyldcliffe Abbey School for Young Girls on a cold and rainy night and loads her things into a taxi. She tells the taxi driver, "Wyldcliffe, please," and settles in for the ride. When the taxi reaches Wyldcliffe and Evie tells the driver her destination is the school, however, he refuses to take her to "that cursed place". Evie gets out of the cab and ends up wet and unhappy--but the reader ends up hooked.

Immortal is a fun read, in large part because--as with the taxi driver refusing to take Evie to "that cursed place"-- Shields really goes to town with the gothic cliches. Wyldcliffe Abbey is a rambling old building, complete with a lake, ruins, and a grotto on the grounds. The "high mistress" of the school is severe and intimidating. There's also an old necklace, plenty of rain, a beautiful boy, a ghost of sorts, and some dabbling in the occult. To top it off, Evie is a scholarship student, and as such is made to do chores around the school. At this point even Evie notices how much her life is beginning to resemble a novel or a fairytale and says to the other scholarship student:

"Don't you think all this doing-chores stuff is a bit over the top? . . . . You know, like Cinderella, only with about two hundred ugly stepsisters. What else do they expect us to do? Sleep in the cellar?"

While Evie doesn't sleep in the cellar, she does sneak out of Wyldcliffe at night to be with the mysterious Sebastian, who tends to steal the show whenever he shows up, even when he's being annoying. (Which he does a lot.) No matter how entertaining I found him, though, I found his and Evie's fast blooming love a bit hollow.

Steering away from the boy, Immortal weaves two story lines into one plot, one tale belonging to Evie and the other to the journal of Lady Agnes, a teenage girl who lived in the Abbey in the 1880s when it was still a home, not a school. Of the two, I prefered Lady Agnes's narrative; Evie is more of a drama queen, and her narration is frequently redundant.

In putting the two stories together, Shields establishes a definite pattern that, while establishing unity between the two plotlines, also becomes repetitive in an amusing way. The last line of each journal entry by Lady Agnes is echoed in the first line of Evie's next chapter.

Example 1:

[Lady Agnes] There can be no harm, surely, in something so beautiful?

Turn page.

[Evie] Sebastian was beautiful, just as I had remembered.

Example 2:

[Lady Agnes] I have never felt so alive.

Turn page.

[Evie] I had never felt so depressed.

And so on and so forth.

All things considered, Gillian Shields's Immortal is deliciously creepy, gothic, romantic, and mildly addicting--a good, fun read. When I began reading, I thought Immortal was a standalone title, but it's clear from the ending that there is at least one more installment to come--in 2010 according to Shields's page at HarperCollins--and this looks like a series worth getting into.

Book source: My local library.

Musical Monday (10)

Every Monday I post whatever song I can't get out of my head or just can't get enough of because Mondays can often be less than marvelous, and music is happy--even when it's sad. If you'd like to join the party, just make your own Musical Monday post and leave a comment!

This week's song is "Her Morning Elegance" by Oren Lavie from the CD The Opposite Side of the Sea. It's a great video, and the song says "Monday morning" to me.

Betsy-Tacy Box Set Giveaway at author Lauren Mechling's blog!

The Betsy-Tacy books are being reissued by HarperCollins, and in celebration of that author Lauren Mechling (Dream Girl, Dream Life, The Rise and Fall of a 10th Grade Social Climber coauthored with Laura Moser) is giving away a shiny new box set of the books.

How to enter: Simply go HERE, find the September 24th post titled "Betsy-Tacy Box Set Giveaway and much more!!!" (sorry--for some reason the internet isn't letting me post a direct link to the post) and leave a comment telling Lauren your childhood reading obsession.

I don't know about you, but I've never heard of the Betsy -Tacy books before. Lauren gives a nice rundown:

For those of you who don't know, Betsy Tacy is a classic childrens / young adult series by Maud Hart Lovelace that has die-hard fans in Nora Ephron, Laura Lippman, Meg Cabot, and myself. Seriously, it's hard to throw a rock and not hit somebmody who grew up devouring these books. You can read the wikipedia entry or take my description: Little House on the Prairie meets Gossip Girl. (Okay, that was bad, but it's early still).

Set in fictional Deep Valley, Minnesota, the charming as all get out books followed Betsy from the age of five to her early twenties.

The wikipedia entry linked above is also helpful. I also did a little Googling (is that a word?) and found the website of The Betsy-Tacy Society. (Seriously, these books inspired a society.) I'm curious now, and I think they look like good reads.

So far there are no entries in the contest, and I think I may go drop a comment. DO NOT make it that easy for me to walk away with the goodies. Go! Enter! And good luck!

Happy Fall!

Yes, I made fall cookies. With pre-made dough. But it's the thought that counts.

I also emerged from my homework pile to have hot chocolate, go on a walk, and find some leaves to crinkle under my feet. I love fall, and I had a marvelous first day of it. I hope you did too :)

Musical Monday (9)

Every Monday I post whatever song I can't get out of my head or just can't get enough of because Mondays can often be less than marvelous, and music is happy--even when it's sad. If you'd like to join the party, just make your own Musical Monday post and leave a comment!

This week's song is "Seattle" by The Classic Crime from Seattle Sessions. Why'd I pick it? Because the weather man says it's supposed to rain today--and if you haven't guessed it from the song title, there's a lot of rain in this video.

Are you BookSexy? 2009 BBAW Interview Swap

In order to celebrate Book Blogger Appreciation Week I participated in an interview swap. I was introduced to tolmsted of BookSexy, a blog built around the motto "Who you are is what you read" and dedicated to helping readers find books that make for great conversation long after they've been read. I was intrigued by the ideas behind BookSexy, and it was a pleasure talking with tolmsted. Here's the interview:
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I really like the idea behind your blog, BookSexy. Could you explain it again here?

BookSexy started out based on a hypothetical situation – if you were spotted reading a book in public (for example: on the subway or in a coffee shop) what book would it be? What would it say about you? What kind of people would it attract and who would it repel? When I notice someone reading, especially strangers, I'm always trying to see the title of the book. A book is a kind of billboard to the world about who you are.

BookSexy is meant to direct readers to books that provide something to talk about after they're done reading. It’s not about the bestseller list – though those books might end up being reviewed on the blog. It’s not about Literature with a capital ‘L’. I just feel it’s important that people read good books; just like you should eat healthy food, wear clothes that look good on you, and get a great haircut. The blog motto is “Who you are is what you read”.

As I'm saying all this, I don't want to be misunderstood. I'm not trying to set myself up as the arbitrator of what people should read. Booksexy is about letting people know what books are out there and what is important (or not so important) about them.

How long have you been blogging? What inspired you to start?

BookSexy started as another blog entirely. I set it up to consolidate the reviews of books I thought my friends would be interested in reading. Up until that point I’d been sending out mass emails to people I knew which I figured had to be getting pretty annoying. The expanded version of the old blog and those emails became BookSexy. Once I realized I wanted to reach a wider audience I felt like I needed to focus my message. Because I read all over the map - so it wasn't going to be a cookbook blog, or a fiction blog or a history blog. I asked myself why I felt certain books are more important than others. I looked at the kinds of books I was recommending and who I was recommending them to. It really came back to my friends. They’re a really interesting, successful group of people. They’re great at parties and in social situations. I feel that has a lot to do with the fact that they’re all readers… whether its non-fiction, fiction, newspapers, etc. They’re interested in the world around them. Which is where I got the name, BookSexy. It’s been around since 2008.

Are you persistent when reading books you don’t enjoy rather than putting the book down and walking away? Why or why not?

This is a great question, and its one I’ve been thinking about. I’ve been promising a review of A.S. Byatt’s The Children’s Book on my blog for about 3 months now! Reading it has been like pushing a boulder uphill. I just can’t wrap my head around it. Normally, I might give up and put it aside – but this is a book that I think it's important to finish. Because it was nominated for the Booker Prize, because A.S. Byatt wrote Possession, and because it’s a difficult book (you follow the lives of about 20 characters throughout the story). People who’ve read it seem to have strong opinions. It's a book people can talk about.

There have been other books I’ve started reading and feel no guilt putting aside unfinished. Usually because the writing was terrible, the plot unoriginal or the author lacked the ability to edit him or herself. This may sound harsh - but life is short and there are a lot of books out there. Unless the book is important in some way I’m not going to waste time reading it if I don't want to.

What genre do you lean towards?

I'm pretty much all over the map - I just grab things that look interesting to me. But unfortunately I have a lot of interests!

When a book is adapted into a movie, the book becomes more widely read. How do you view the social activity of reading in connection with movies and other extensions of books?

This is entirely my opinion, so take it as that. I’m not so sure that a movie gets people to go out and buy books. For example – did people rush out to buy Cormac McCarthy novels after No Country for Old Men came out? A lot of people bought the first Harry Potter book before the film version - and then complained about the film leaving bits out. I’m sure it sold more books later and helped to sell the subsequent novels, but it was already a literary sensation on its own. The same with Twilight and The DaVinci Code. These books were bestsellers separate from the film versions.

In my experience, I’ve always found that going from a movie to the book or a book to the movie was a disappointment. More often than not they aren’t the same story (Daniel Day Lewis in Last of the Mohicans for example. Loved the movie, but found the original book frustrating because it wasn’t the story I expected). Maybe they provide a middle ground for the reader and the film watcher to meet. Still, I feel that they’re two unique and separate experiences that while they might share things in common, are not the same.

What bothers you the most about the books you don’t like?

Well first, I think there needs to be a definition of what you mean by "like". There are a lot of books and authors I don’t like. I still recognize that they are good books and strong writers. Tom Robbins is one of those...I can’t stand him but he is like a trapeze artist with words. It’s really amazing what he puts on paper. I hate his books – his characters do nothing for me. In fact, they kind of turn me off.

But if you’re asking me about what makes a bad book – well for me it comes down to the writing. I hate gimmicky stuff, like a cliffhanger at the end of every chapter. Or authors that never edit, so that a story that could have been told in 150 pages takes 495. Or over-used plot devices. (Actually, Julian Barnes in Flaubert’s Parrot had a very funny list of types of novels that should be banned - I'd recommend picking up that book and skipping to that part).

Do you feel that lack of editing is a common problem in books?

Oh definitely. I've read books that went on for literally 495 pages (I wasn't making that up) where they could have easily gotten away with half as many. One of my favorite authors, Kazuo Ishiguro, writes these incredible books - and they're always slim. I think some writers mistake quantity for quality. A good example is Faulkner's novel Sartoris. It was originally called Flags in the Dust. His editor gutted it,and it's a better book because of it.

I don't write, I can only speak from the point of view of the reader. But don't you find that the best books leave you some room to fill in the blanks. They let you connect the dots, rather than inundating you with every little detail in case you might miss something?

What’s your favorite book of 2009 so far?

That’s tough. I suppose I’d have to go with Brother Gardener’s: Botany, Empire & the Birth of an Obsession by Andrea Wulf. It’s a non-fiction book about how Britain became a nation obsessed with gardening and agriculture. It was very well written and it explained a lot about how we’ve come to be where we are today environmentally. The individual stories are interesting and entertaining. At the end you’re left with a big picture view of the whole thing, of how the men she discussed, without any formal coordination, changed gardening & agriculture around the globe.

I enjoyed a lot of the books I've read this year, but I haven't really found my favorite book for the year yet. I've high hopes for Margaret Atwood's Year of the Flood. It's set in the same world as Oryx & Crake, a book I absolutely love!
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Thanks for a great interview, tolmsted! If you haven't checked out BookSexy yet, what are you waiting for? It's full of great reviews and interesting (Good interesting, to be clear) reading selections.

If you'd like to see the full story, go here to see my answers to tolmsted's questions: Duck...Duck...Duck...BOOKDUCK! (Best. Title. Ever.)

Hoping your Tuesday has been terrific,

Musical Monday (8)

Every Monday I post whatever song I can't get out of my head or just can't get enough of because Mondays can often be less than marvelous, and music is happy--even when it's sad. If you'd like to join the party, just make your own Musical Monday post and leave a comment!

This week's song is "So Much Love" by The Rocket Summer from the CD Do You Feel. Why'd I pick it? Because it makes me smile :)


The Rocket Summer - So Much Love
Uploaded by UniversalMusicGroup. - See the latest featured music videos.

I have internet again/Going Bovine book trailer!

It's been a busy first week of college, and you may have noticed that I haven't been online much--partly because of time issues as well as figuring out how to access the internet outside of the crowded campus computer labs. But that's all figured out now, and I can promise at least a few posts this week.

And now, for your viewing pleasure, the hilarious book trailer for Libba Bray's new book Going Bovine:



I'm super excited for this one!

Ballad teaser and contest put on by Maggie Stiefvater

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.
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Sounds like an exciting and enjoyable read, right? To enter the contest--Ballad content, Shiver prizes--simply post the teaser, the link to buy Ballad on Amazon, and the cover. Because Maggie Stiefvater is awesome, she provided the nice setup above in html format on her livejournal. In other words, all you have to worry about is copying and pasting. So go enter!

Musical Monday (7)

Every Monday I post whatever song I can't get out of my head or just can't get enough of because Mondays can often be less than marvelous, and music is happy--even when it's sad. If you'd like to join the party, just make your own Musical Monday post and leave a comment!

This Monday, I'm going to be busy moving back to college, so I've emerged from all my packing to try scheduling a post. I haven't tried it yet, so if the formatting turns out wonky, please know I didn't plan it that way :)

This week's song is "Suspension" by Mae from their CD The Everglow. (One of my favorite albums EVER.)

What are you listening to?

Lips Touch Book Trailer

If you didn't already know, I am oodles of excited for this one. Visit Laini Taylor's blog for a preview of the book's gorgeous illustrations.

Waiting on Wednesday (5): Going Bovine by Libba Bray

"Waiting On" Wednesday is a weekly event hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine that invites readers to share the unreleased books they're most excited for.

This Wednesday I am waiting for Going Bovine by Libba Bray.

Release Date: September 22, 2009
Publisher: Delacorte Books for Young Readers
Age Group: Young Adult
Pages: 496

Summary:

Can Cameron find what he’s looking for?
All 16-year-old Cameron wants is to get through high school—and life in general—with a minimum of effort. It’s not a lot to ask. But that’s before he’s given some bad news: he’s sick and he’s going to die. Which totally sucks. Hope arrives in the winged form of Dulcie, a loopy punk angel/possible hallucination with a bad sugar habit. She tells Cam there is a cure—if he’s willing to go in search of it. With the help of a death-obsessed, video-gaming dwarf and a yard gnome, Cam sets off on the mother of all road trips through a twisted America into the heart of what matters most. (From Amazon.com)
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Doesn't that sound awesome? I really enjoyed Libba Bray's A Great and Terrible Beauty (I haven't gotten around to reading its two sequels yet, but they're on the To Be Read list!), and I can't imagine that her writing something with a yard gnome, a video-gaming dwarf, a punk angel/possible hallucination, and a character as intriguing as Cam could lead to a bad book. Rather, I think it probably leads to a very good book, and I'm excited to read it.
What book are you waiting for this week?