Fic Bra (Reviewing "A Great and Terrible Beauty")

I just finished reading Libba Bray's novel "A Great and Terrible Beauty" and I do have to say that it was a difficult read to the finish. While the writing of the novel was solid, this book was a filled with too much teenage female angst for me to really appreciate it.

Set in the Victorian era, the novel is told through the first person view point of Gemma Doyle, a sixteen-year-old Brit living with her family in British occupied India. On the morning of her sixteenth birthday, tragedy strikes Gemma's family and her mother is murdered, but under the most peculiar set of circumstances; Gemma has a supernatural vision of her mother's murder before it happens. After her mother's death, the family returns to England, where Gemma is sent to Spence Academy, a finishing school for girls. Here, Gemma's powers continue to develop and she begins to learn about her mother and her connection to a shadowy group of magic users called the Order. Part fantasy, part horror, part historical fiction, the novel is strongly written and the girls of Spence Academy well developed characters.

My main trouble with his novel is that it has a LOT (I mean A LOT) of teenage female angst - the struggle to fit in, the cattiness of girls, the embarrassment, etc. I felt that a lot of the angst was over wrought and I struggled to make it through chapters that weren't a part of the magic story line. After two action packed novels, this book seemed to move too slowly for me and included too much of the quotidian of British boarding school girls. I will NOT be reading the rest of the series, but I WOULD definitely recommended them to a teenage reader. The book is solid, just not my cup of tea.

Five Defects

1. No, seriously. The angst! Maybe I'm just too old for this book, but the angst felt spectacularly overwrought. <-- Facebook discussion with my fellow librarians leads me to believe that my statement about my age might be true.
2. The magic use felt so underplayed. I wanted something that felt more dangerous or had bigger consequences throughout the novel.
3. What kind of ending was that? I'm not sure I liked the denouement and conclusion of this novel. 
4. Am I missing something about this book that makes it fantastic? I've read the reviews and they seem to be completely positive without any issues besides the cover of the book being a little too girly for boys. 
5. It took far too long for anything interesting to really happen. I felt like the entire beginning of the book was exposition and that the climax didn't happen until much farther along in the novel - somewhere in the last 100 pages or so.

Five Delights

1. The writing is solid. The prose isn't too soppy and character development, setting description, etc. are all done with an obviously skilled hand.
2. The last 100 pages or so of this novel are great. The action picks up and I'm far more involved in what is happening.
3. I love the descriptions of British occupied India that exist in the beginning of this story.
4. Gemma has quite a few marvelous one-liners that zing wonderfully.
5. The book keeps you guessing - I do have that to thank.

523.8 (Stars)

Last class of the Wilton III course is covering a cake with fondant and decorating it. Here's mine!

Fondant balls and star cutouts

I went with a simple yellow base with purple and white fondant cutouts and rolled balls. The technique is fairly simple - cover the cake with buttercream (enough to have a fairly smooth surface), roll enough 1/8" fondant to completely cover the cake plus an inch or two on each side. I played with the pearl powder to make the cake very shiny. You can see the effects of pearl power in the photo below.

Fondant ball border with pearl powder

Gum paste glue holds the stars on the cake and the balls on the base. It's a fantastic technique, but I HATE the taste of fondant. Blech. I'd prefer buttercream alone anyday.

Fic Rig (Reviewing "Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children")

Started and finished in a handful of hours this afternoon/evening, "Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children" by Ransom Riggs was a particularly pleasant read.

In this novel, the gruesome death of sixteen-year-old Jacob's grandfather sends Jacob on a journey to a remote island off the Welsh coast, where he discovers that the stories his grandfather told him of his childhood are more than the mere fairy tales that Jacob had thought them to be. Using a strange and bizarre collection of vintage photographs from the personal archives of collectors, Riggs tells an spell-binding, haunting story using first-person narration, allowing reader's to unravel the mystery of Miss Peregrine and what makes her charges so peculiar alongside Jacob. Riggs blends together elements of time travel, mutant powers, and the quick action and plot twists of a thriller to create a truly delightful novel that will keep readers on the edge of their seats.

Five Defects (extremely nitpicky)

1. I wanted MORE description in some places, but this is probably because I like flowery writing and Riggs doesn't use excessively floral language or sentence structure.
2. The photos, while connected strongly throughout most of the book, sometimes seem superfluous.
3. With so many kids in Miss Peregrine's Home, I wanted more background for some of the kids beyond a statement of their powers.
4. Why do Jacob's parents exist? They play very narrow roles in the novel and seem very flat. Mom barely exists at all. And what was the point of making him the future heir of the Smart Aid empire? Some parts of the back story for Jacob aren't really important at all.
5. WHY IS THERE NOT ANOTHER BOOK, YET!?! Correction - there is another book! Why do I not have it yet!?

Five Delights

1. I love the X-Men/superpower feeling of this book without actually making it a superhero novel. It feels fairy tale like, but definitely has a "superpowers" vibe.
2. The novel keeps you guessing enough that even I didn't completely figure out who the bad guy was going to be!
3. The most gentle, non-obtrusive magical time travel ever! Cleverly hidden worlds make me very pleased.
4. The photographs are creepy in just the right way to add to the story.
5. I love any novel that has some sort of historical setting. This meets both the needs of readers who want something modern and something historical. I want to know more about the other Homes for Peculiar Children mentioned in the book. I want to know what happens beyond this novel! So excited to read the next book!

Fic Cla (Reviewing "Clockwork Angel")

It has been a spectacularly long time since I've read anything but children's books, but getting ready for a teaching placement this fall at a local high school, I'm back in the world of reading YA literature.

My first novel as I dive back into the world of YA lit is "Clockwork Angel" by Cassandra Clare. The first book in Clare's "The Infernal Devices" series and prequel to her "Mortal Instruments" series, the book was a fantastic, beautifully sculpted read. This book threw together some of my favorite things in any novel: Victorian England, the supernatural, a tiny romance side plot (love triangle?), and a smattering of steam punk sensibilities.

I think the thing that pleasantly surprised me about Clare's novel was that even with a female protagonist, it was romance light and extremely action heavy (blood, guts, slaying, etc). Tessa Gray, our female protagonist, finds herself in dire peril (kidnapped, held prisoner, and "tortured") within the first few chapters of the novel, and the action doesn't let up after that. How could I possibly say no to a book that opens with the line "the demon exploded in a shower of ichor and guts"?

If you want a synopsis of the book, you can go read the summary and review provided by Amazon by clicking the link above. I don't want to go into the details here. There is far too much awesome in this book for me to even being writing a decent short summary. I'm just going to include my Bottom 5/Top 5 list below.

Five Defects

1. Sometimes the plot moved SO much, I felt a little disoriented if I wasn't close reading.
2. This book starts with a prologue. It really didn't need one... even though it did have an AWESOME opening line.
3. The character of Jessamine. I never did like a stuck up rich girl. I'm hoping there is more character development for this poor girl in future books.
4. How very many times Will's looks were mentioned in the book. I get it. He's pretty.
5. WHY DO YOU END LIKE THAT!? You answer none of my questions book!

Five Delights

1. Poetry and literature integration throughout the novel is fantastic. I love that Tessa, Will, and the other characters often quote poetry or prose that fits the moment. I also love that each chapter begins with pieces of poetry that are by and large taken from poetry the characters would have read and been familiar with.
2. I think it might be shaping up to be a Team Will or Team Jem decision. I don't know how I feel about this, but I know that I like it. Who's side are you on?
3. Beautiful, descriptive prose that doesn't get too flowery or long winded. I love that Clare is just as likely to write about the blood and battle as she is about Tessa's feelings and thoughts. I have no problems imagining this world in gritty, glorious detail.
4. A female protagonist who OBVIOUSLY changes in the book and learns how to make decisions for herself by the end. Yes, some of her decisions are based on "female propriety" and "pretty boys", but generally, I'm not annoyed by Tessa at all. She's hardly what I would call wishy-washy.
5. I cannot wait to read the next one! If all my questions are left unanswered by future books, though, I will probably start to hate this series... but the ending definitely makes me want to read the next book.

745.92 (Floral Arts)

The photo above represents what we learned in Wilton III this week - how to make gum paste carnations, roses, and calla lilies.  By far my favorite are carnations, although they're the most tedious to make. I'm not fond of the calla lily, so I didn't make more than one. I think that each of the flowers has a charm to them and that they make ordinary cupcakes something fantastic.

I've also been practicing with my camera and photo light box recently and I'm getting better at the photo taking. I really do love the way the gum paste carnations look - they seem so life like! I broke my veining tool making them, though. I'll need to buy a new one before class on Friday.

The cupcakes pictured are lemon cake with raspberry filling and a raspberry buttercream. I'm sure they'll be much appreciated at work tomorrow morning.

641.86539071 (Cake Decoration, Education)

I started the Wilton III course this Friday. While most of class was pretty boring (rehashing gum paste and fondant use and doing a LOT of prep work for gum paste flowers), I did learn one useful skill that I immediately put to use: bow making.

50/50 Fondant and Gum Paste Bow on Buttercream Ruffle Cake

This was also my first attempt at the ruffle technique for frosting a cake and I have to say that I'm pretty happy. Much like the rosette technique though, it takes about 1-1/2 recipes of butter cream to complete it. This cake is HEAVY. The bow I made isn't the typical bow for a Wilton class, either. It's thinner, one less layer of loops, and is wavy edged. I hated the bow I made in class, so I decided that I'd try again to make something I liked. I'm happy with this one.

Coming Soon...

I'm starting Wilton III on Friday this week. Look out world - there are some fondant and flowers coming your way!