Christmas Special: Book Awards!

Full disclosure: This entry has nothing to do with Japan. Well, if you stretch it you could call the contents this entry the reason why I haven’t been posting as much about Japan. Regardless, actual Japan related  posts will return after the holidays where I will surely have plenty of madcap adventures to report on based on my plans with my awesome friend. If you’re only here for Japan stuff feel free to skip this one but I personally think it’s pretty entertaining; your loss.

 It all started with Twilight.

Well sort of. Actually it all started with a parody of Twilight but details. At the beginning of 2014 I was out of my normal element. My sweet ever present companion dog Rose was slowly dying and unable to handle the stairs down to my room yet insisted on being by my side. As a result I moved base to the guest room on the main floor, away from my desktop and other frivolities. Around this same time a reviewer who I greatly respect finished a project to create a crowd sourced parody of the Twilight-esque paranormal romance genre; it was called Awoken.

I’d been following the project for months, eagerly awaiting the release and it was everything I had hoped for. I lamented my loss as I finished the book. Now what would amuse me? And so I began contemplating something I had never even considered before. I decided to read the Twilight Saga Series.

I felt like a criminal as I loaded the book on my kindle. I had frequently made my opinion of the Twilight phenomenon well known and it was not a positive one. Yet I found that once I opened the book… I could not stop. It was amazing. Well, it was terrible, mindless, self-insert fantasy with a hint of abusive behavior but it was fabulous. It wasn't until finishing the second book that I truly understood by fascination. To summarize, during the 2^nd book, Edward abandons Bella and she begins behaving in suicidal ways to get a part of her brain to yell at her in Edwards voice (I’m not making a word of that up). That’s when I understood it; my favorite books have always been about crazy people and Bella was a poster child for an insecure, mentally unstable woman in an increasingly abusive relationship. Not only that, her world played it straight as something to aspire to which put a comical twist on it that made me less emotionally attached to the characters so I could enjoy it without being emotionally drained. And so when I finished the Twilight Saga Series… I wanted more.

...but she was still hungry.

I began voraciously consuming series. I went back to the reviewer who wrote Awoken and took the books that inspired it as new victims for my appetite. Occasionally I broke up the silliness of the paranormal romance genre with some dystopia or problem novels but one after another I devoured until I had read 100.

And now, because I am a researched minded psychology major who likes over-analyzing things I've decided to give some awards to the books I've read over the last year. A full list of the book I read can be found here but a list of the series, authors, and genre will be at the bottom.

I just really like to analyze things ok?!

Spoilers will be kept to a minimum and marked but please realize there will be some especially in the angry awards.

Best Book I Read Award

Winner: Wintergirls
Wintergirls was genetically designed for me to love. It’s a well written, interesting story dealing with the mental state that results from and encourages an eating disorder. The author, Laurie Halse Anderson, excels at this kind of story as she has proven before with Speak which is one of my all-time favorite books ever written. The stories usually start after a massively traumatic event has happened and detail the further descent and/or recovery and Wintergirls is no exception. One thing I especially appreciate about Anderson’s stories is that she does not feel the need to shove a relationship in. I also read Just Listen which was essentially Speak with a love interest and it really highlighted for me how much that throws off the atmosphere that Anderson achieves. As a fair warning, Wintergirls is heavy. There are some major triggers in the book and I found myself crying on to my kindle more than once reading it. I still strongly recommend it for anyone who wants to better understand why eating disorders count as mental disorders.

Runner Up: The Vampire Lestat & Moth Diaries
This one ends up a tie because I felt like both of these books deserved mention. Let’s start with The Vampire Lestat, though. During a year of reading paranormal romances with paper thin backstories Lestat was a hurricane of fresh air. The books main focus is to develop a backstory for both Lestat and the origin of vampires and hundreds of pages are devoted to both. Compared to the usual paranormal romance stories where the mysterious vampire/werewolf/other being has just spent the last century brooding, Lestat was an absolute joy.

The other book requires a bit more explanation. The Moth Diaries is a self described “vampire” story though in my opinion it’s very much not. The “vampire” never drinks blood, is seen in daylight, and is connected to moths, not bats, so we only have our protagonist’s word that she’s vampiric. Our protagonist herself turns out to be a rather unreliable narrator as the story delves deeper into the twisting rabbit hole. It’s a book about crazy people that leaves you wondering what’s actually real; of course I love it. 

Best Camp Book Series I Read Award 

Winner: Tiger’s Curse Series
I found out about Tiger’s Curse through the same reviewer who started me on this crazy journey. While writing the parody of the genre she and her crew read several series and out of all of them the consensus agreed that Tiger’s Curse was the worst. And oh, yes, it is. It’s almost a work of art in how bad it is. To begin with, we have a white-as-the-driven-snow protagonist running around India being the chosen one and saving the country. What makes this fact infinitely worse is the fact that the author, Colleen Houck, knows absolutely nothing about India beyond a 5 minute Google search and it shows. Add to that highly questionable morals, completely inhuman characters, and Houck picking and choosing inspiration from several other Asian countries once she got tired of bastardizing Indian mythology and you have the recipe for a disaster of epic proportion. And yet, it didn't make me rage. Perhaps it was how clearly incompetent the writing was or the fact that the characters weren't particularly sympathetic but I enjoyed it quite a lot for camp value. I actually spent 4 hours once on a skype calling telling a friend the story of all 4 books while she got progressively more intoxicated to ease the pain. I have good friends.

Runner Up: Hush, Hush Series
[Hush, Hush mild spoiler]
Hush, Hush falls in the same category as Tiger’s Curse in that it is completely incompetent in an enjoyable way. There’s a bit in the first book where our love interest/stalker tells our protagonist straight to her face that he is here to kill her. Her response? “I felt safe with him”. Basically, it was easy to watch bad things happen to protagonist and only giggle in glee at her own idiocy. In case you were wondering, Hush, Hush is “twilight with fallen angels”.

Best YA Series Award

Winner: Uglies Series
[Pretties mild spoiler]
Oh dystopia, what have they done to you? This year I read 4 dystopias (5 if you count The Host) and only one of them remembered what dystopia was supposed to be. Dystopia is all about taking a modern social issue and building up a new world around an extreme end of that issue. Where Delirium, Matched, and Divergent all failed Uglies succeeded. I grant that it wasn't an overly original idea but Westerfeld made it a creative world with interesting characters. A lot of people seemed to dislike the 3^rd book because it wasn't particularly happy or uplifting but c’mon people, it’s a dystopia. I have to admit that a big reason I like this series was how much more realistic it seemed to be than a lot of the other books. In particular, there is a moment when the protagonist reunites with the first person she had feelings for after having moved on and gotten a new boyfriend. She tells him that situations change and as a result people and their needs change. I can’t begin to tell you how refreshing that is in the world of YA books where the first love is always the greatest love ever and you never move on from them.

As a warning of sorts I will say the first book took a while to get going and I almost dropped it. But once the dominoes begin to fall its worth all the waiting.

Runner Up: Wings Series
Out of the all the more traditional “twilight-with-whatever” type series I read this was easily the best. In fact, comparing it to Twilight seems rather cruel since it had much more rounded characters, a creative world and mythology for the fairies, and no one can be accused of sexual assault or stalking. This series also wins the “non-absent parents” award for having parents who not only know what’s going on but do their best to support and help their child in dealing with the paranormal. They are still kept in the dark about several things but it’s a young adult book, what can you expect. I also extremely appreciate the series for an optional epilogue in the last book that addresses some of the PTSD the characters would have as a result of the events they witnessed. It may seem like a small thing but it really goes a long way to ground the story in some form of reality. Overall, a solid fantasy series.

Best Problem Novel Award

Winner: Wintergirls
I've already gushed about Wintergirls so I’ll use this space to instead define the “problem novel”. I actually only recently learned of this genre title and found that it essentially applies to all my favorite books; books with real world “social or personal problems” that are being dealt with for the first time. For example, Wintergirls focuses on the protagonist dealing with the death of her friend and the continued struggle with anorexia knowing that an eating disorder is what killed her friend. Other better known problem novels include The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton and Go Ask Alice (anonymous author).

Runner Up: Hate List
I think Hate List becomes more and more important as shootings, especially school shootings, become increasingly common. Hate List is from the perspective of a school shooter’s surviving girlfriend who was also injured in the incident. Beyond that, she unknowingly helped write the list of names that her boyfriend used as a target list on his rampage. The book deals with the conflicting feelings of loving someone who has done something so horrible and trying to continue your life after it has been completely shattered. As with most of this genre it comes with both a trigger warning and a firm recommendation from me.

Most Boring Series Award

Winner: Fallen Series
[Fallen mild spoilers]
Oh my Goooood this series was boring. To steal a joke from the Goodreads page, the second book was named Torment and it was just that. For the record, the “torment” going on in Torment is our protagonist not being able to be with her boyfriend always. The series is essentially a greatest hits of the protagonists many lives (a la reincarnation) and her violent death in all of them. And despite all that, it’s still. so. boring. It gets Twilight-syndrome in the finale and forgets to have a real antagonist, climax, or anything other than diplomatic negotiation. The only reason I finished it was a stubborn determination to finish what I started and the hopes that it would improve. It did not. I would not recommend it to anyone.

Runner Up: Halo Series
I suppose for Halo your mileage may vary. Maybe you like being preached to by an author who could not legally buy cigarettes when writing this book. I do not. Honestly, when I realized how young the author was it made the entire series make a lot more sense to me. Only teenagers think they have all the answers and know how everything is supposed to be and that’s what this book announces with a megaphone that it has. But I’m going to try not to rag too hard on it since it’s the proud runner up of a few other awards. I’ll be back.

Biggest Letdown YA Series Award

Winner: Premonition Series
[Premonition mild spoiler]
Premonition was such a disappointment for me. It started out strong with interesting characters, a creative paranormal world, and a remarkable amount of well described violence and gore for a Twilight knockoff genre book. And then… it started going downhill, picked up speed, and never stopped. The fact that both books 3 and 4 were essentially the same with one annoying character kidnapping our protagonist and holding her hostage until the dues ex machina at the end of the book really wore my patience thin. But this is another multi-award winner so I’ll keep it short and end there for now.

Runner Up: Fallen Series
Like Premonition, Fallen had an acceptable, if a bit tedious, book 1 that dropped in quality as the series continued. Fallen was my first genuinely boring and unenjoyably bad series which makes it stick out all the more in my mind. Like Premonition, it had some interesting characters introduced in the first book which got me excited only for them to fall away in order to shoehorn more silly love story in. Given the content and ideas involved, this story didn't have to be as bad as it was and yet it was just so unforgivably bad.

Most Rage Inducing Award

My alternative title for this award is the “alligator under the rug” award; allow me to explain. It’s like your friend invites you over to his house to show you this new alligator he got. “Wow, that seems like it could be quite a lot of trouble” you remark. “Yeah but he’s cool!” your friend replies. “Hey, look over there a moment!” As you turn to look, your friend drapes a rug over the alligator. “So, you uh, wanna bring your cat over to my house sometime?” your friend questions. Wondering if he is insane you carefully reply “No, you have an alligator. I don’t want it to eat my cat.” “Whaaat? I don’t have an alligator!” “Dude, I just saw it. In fact, I can see its outline under the rug. Just because you covered it doesn't mean I forgot it’s here.”

How it felt to read these books.

Winner: Divergent Series
[Divergent mild spoilers]
I’m really going to try to keep this short. I make no promises.

If you ask my mother she’ll probably remember a period of time around February of this year when I just would not shut up about a book I read and how mad it made it. This was that series. The first book in the series was recently made into a movie which I have not seen but I’m sure some of you have and are thus familiar with a bit of the story. In my opinion, the first book was acceptable; not good but I could squint and ignore most of the plot holes if I allowed myself. I have a theory that at some point during the writing of book 2 someone told the author that she needed to address how this dystopia happened and why and talk about the world outside this small city. And so she threw her hands into the air yelling “FINE!” and wrote down as little as she possibly could and called it a day. The world building is really where the series falls apart but I’m saving that rant for a later award. A bad world with plot holes the size of Texas doesn't have to doom a book (though they usually will) as long as it has other redeeming qualities. Say, a good main character. Divergent does not have that. Our protagonist Tris is infuriating and is actually called out in the book on her borderline suicidal behavior making her into an adrenaline junkie. Yet despite the author calling attention to that fact and showing it is bad she doesn't stop writing that behavior for Tris. In fact, the only character I felt any connection towards was Tris’ boyfriend who constantly called out her terrible behavior. So with a bad world, massive plot holes, an ending that simply does not work and an irritating main character Divergent was pretty rage inducing.

Runner Up: The Host
[The Host SPOILERS]
Remember how I gave this award the alternate title of the “alligator under the rug” award? Yeah, The Host actually is what inspired that metaphor (though Divergent has a rather large alligator itself). The Host deals with issues of humanity, sentience, and autonomy. Actually “deals with” is probably the wrong phrase to use, it’s more like The Host is a cat bringing in its latest kill and depositing it on the floor in front of you before staring to see if you will appreciate this “gift” or yell at it. I chose the latter. Stephanie Meyer invokes elements of real science fiction but gets frightened by the complex ideas and sweeps it under the rug hoping the audience will forget it was ever brought up. We are constantly told that the aliens are incredibly peaceful and even unable to lie and yet this idea is constantly challenged by things like aliens violently murdering their hosts and humans who are not “fit” to be hosts. I don’t know what humanity ever did to Stephanie Meyer but she really seems to hate us with the human protagonist being portrayed as remarkably less likable than the alien protagonist.

In one particularly cringe-worthy scene the alien protagonist is speaking to its love interest (yes, even a sparkly tentacled alien parasite gets a love interest) and the human whose body it inhabits is observing from her prison inside her own body. The love interest actually asks if the human conscience would mind “stepping out” for a moment so he can privately talk to the alien hijacking her body. He later discusses how “unfair” it is that the alien is subject to her host’s irritation. Gee, that must be horrible, compared to the human host’s actually unfair position in which she is literally a prisoner of her own mind and cannot control her body or speech to reach out to the people she loves who are right in front of her. Being a parasite is so hard.

I could write a dissertation about how this book disregards women’s autonomy but I’ll wrap it up. No real antagonist, no real climax, dues ex plot devices, women must suffer to be strong, motherhood is the best thing ever, plot holes galore. The end.

Most WTF Love Triangle Award

Winner: Premonition Series
[Premonition mild spoilers]
Love triangles in young adult books, paranormal romances in particular, are more common than coherent plots nowadays. But the Premonition series would not be outdone by others! No, it features not two men after our protagonist, not three, but four.  I really wish it had been three so I could call it a love wreck-tangle but I suppose love pentagon will have to do. Let’s look at our lucky ladies bachelor options shall we? We have: the one true love (Edward style), the soul mate from all her past lives, the high school ex, and the undead Scottish fairy/vampire hybrid that keeps kidnapping her and trying to turn her undead against her will. Wait, how’d that last one get in there? When even the antagonists are in love with our protagonist things are officially out of hand.

Runner Up: The Host
[The Host SPOILERS because it’s a terrible book and you shouldn't read it anyways]
So I've already mentioned how The Host has two main protagonists; the human Melanie and the alien parasite Wanderer who controls her body. I've also mentioned that the alien gets her own love interest while Melanie has her own- oh hey this one actually is a love wreck-tangle! Anyways, this situation spawns a few problems. First off, the alien finds herself attracted to Melanie’s boyfriend because they share a consciousness and thus feelings and later once they are split Melanie finds she also has the after effects of the alien’s attraction to its love interest. That’s a little creepy. What is easily far creepier is the fact that a human man fell in love with a shiny, tentacled parasite whose species is responsible for mass genocide. The book goes to great lengths to say that the love interest cares about the alien’s personality and not Melanie’s human body but… I don’t buy it. Of course in the end they find a nice 17 year old Caucasian pretty lady body for our alien to inhabit but it’s still a shiny, tentacle parasite whose species is responsible for mass genocide. I dearly wish there had been a shortage of hot, white 17 year old bodies and the alien could’ve taken over a balding, middle-aged man body. Now assure us the love is of the personality and not the body!

Most Inhuman Villain Award

Winner: I Swear
[I Swear SPOILERS]
This year I read books with villains including all of the following; fallen angels, trolls, the government, Scottish vampire/fairy hybrids, Ghede God of voodoo, Ares God of War, the forces of Heaven, the forces of Hell, politicians, and Satan. And they were all beaten by one character. A teenage girl.

I Swear is a problem novel that was rather disappointing mostly because of its villain. The story focuses around a pack of girls who bully another girl until she commits suicide. In the aftermath the individual girls must deal with their guilt and how things escalated to this point. Well, 4 of the girls do that. The 5^th girl is the ringleader of the group who instigated most of the bullying and is the proud winner of this award. To paraphrase the events of the book, she repeatedly harassed a girl to the point of suicide then immediately uses the news and press to boost her own popularity and “take a stand against bullying” to look good on her resume. Oh, and she blackmails the other girls into silence and control. This is not normal teenage behavior or even human behavior. This is extreme sociopath behavior. In the books I read Ares caused wars and death and Satan betrayed people. So what? That’s what they do, I’d be more surprised if they didn't. But this? This is not how real people act and for a book trying to be based in reality it felt remarkably one dimensional.

Runner Up: Tiger’s Curse Series
[Tiger’s Curse mild spoilers]
Tiger’s Curse wins for similar reasons as I Swear in that the villain is human (or at least starts out as human) and never shows a shred of humanity. He beats his wife until she is pregnant then straight up murders her for the crime of having a daughter. The daughter is then raised in the abusive home until he uses her in his schemes, she tries to protect other people and he kills her on the spot. Even if you are a power hungry sociopath you have to understand this is bad use of your assets. So your wife had a daughter when you wanted a son? Why not… I don’t know, try again? It’s not like women have one baby setting and can only produce children of one sex. During the events of the series our villain also commits mass murder, threatens to rape our protagonist, brutally tortures a love interest (no! not his pretty face!), and turns into a literal monster by the end. Even Satan is more human than that.

Best World Building Award

Winner: The Vampire Lestat
As I said before, this book was focused on providing background about Lestat and the origins of vampires in the Vampire Chronicles world; basically it was almost 500 pages of pure world building. I can’t even start to summarize without devoting several pages to the cause so you’ll just have to trust me on this. In fairness, I do realize that comparing an Anne Rice book to self-published bad books ripping off other bad books is kind of unfair. Too bad, it’s my list and I think it deserves credit. Lestat>Edward.

Runner Up: Wings Series
As I said previously Wings is a “twilight-with-whatever” type book (fairies, in this case) and is the best developed of all of them I read. Wings takes the time to build up the fairy society and world, both good and bad. It’s one of the very few books I read where our paranormal creatures have another separate society that is quite different from our human one. Usually it’s just “boarding school with werewolves” but the fairy world of Wings is remarkably different down to small details that make it seem plausible and real. Also it gets bonus points for remembering gay people exist and mentioning them. Seriously, out of all the books I read only 2 series and one novel remembered gay people exist.

Worst World Building Award

Winner: Divergent Series
[Divergent ENDING SPOILERS]
Remember how I said Divergent’s author really didn't want to deal with world building? Well she wins the award for it. To best illustrate this point I have to spoil the ending so stop reading if you don’t want to know.

In the 2^nd book’s climax it was revealed that there is indeed a world outside the gated walls of the town Tris lives in. Tris and some others escape to the outside and learn that their walled city was actually a well monitored experiment to create “divergent” people like herself to fix the “broken” genes most people have. Tris is sad because her boyfriend is “broken” according to this and they all decide this is a racist (geneist?) idea. So her crew decides to use conveniently placed memory gas in the laboratory to rewrite everyone’s memories to think that “broken” people are ok too. Yay, the end, happily ever after!

Oh wait hang on… The author also said that this was one of many labs scattered all throughout the USA running similar experiments and reporting back to the government who authorized these tests. So I guess if one day the lab that happens to have the supply of memory gas phones in to the boss and says they don’t see the need to experiment any more it’s going to raise some questions. The author never addresses this and gives the big, dumb happy ending anyways because she really doesn’t want to deal with a world bigger than the walled city. But I can still see the alligator under the rug.

Runner Up: Matched Series
[Matched SPOILERS]
As I’ll talk about in the next award, Matched and Delirium were almost identical; both were dystopias where love is controlled or bad and there is an uprising to fight against it. But when Delirium gets outside the padded room in books 2 and 3 it actually develops and creates a world while Matched is too busy chasing butterflies and talking about wuv. The 2^nd book really highlights this when one of our protagonists is put on the front lines “fighting” against an enemy army. Who is this army? Why are they killing people? Why don’t they just fly the planes over the city? Author? Hello, are you there? Who is this resistance that shows up in book 3 and why should I believe they are any different from the current people in power? What’s their long term plan to change the current state of affairs? Do they have healthcare? Anything? Nope, we’re just gonna focus on wuv and how great wuv is. Which leads me to my next award…

Where’s the Resolution Award

Winner: Matched Series & Delirium Series
[Matched & Delirium ENDING SPOILERS]
Both Matched and Delirium end up with a final confrontation between the organized, controlling society and the free spirited rebels fighting for more freedoms. I guess this is just a difficult story to wrap up since neither of these books have a conclusion. No, really. Delirium ends with the rebels charging the city in the middle of the action. We never know if they succeed and if so how they change things. Matched ends with the rebels taking over after releasing a plague and then failing to control it and accidently killing loads of people before fixing it. But aside from that colossal mistake they don’t do anything, Nothing changes once they are in power and the ending is essentially the main character starting an art gallery. That’s nice but… not really relevant. Neither were in any way satisfying since we never see the gains from all that was sacrificed up to this point.

Runner Up: Halo Series
[Halo ENDING SPOILERS]
Have I mentioned Halo was really boring? Because it was really boring. I guess that makes it fitting that it had a really boring ending. So here you go; protagonist gets forced away from love interest by plot contrivances and finds a group of rebel angels to make her a literal fallen angel so she can go back to her teenage crush. They reunite. Credits roll. Um what? Why are there rebel angels? What about all the trouble you caused in the last 2 books? Wasn’t Satan after you for killing his son? Isn’t heaven mad at you for abandoning your job and failing to be an angel? Do you not think that either of these forces can find you at your boyfriend’s house? I want someone to write a follow up where both God and Satan show up and play rock-paper-scissors for protagonist’s soul and drag her off to suffer for all the damage she caused. But I’ll address that a little later on.

I Can’t Believe it’s not Plagiarism Award

Winner: Covenant Series & Obsidian Series
As I was looking for more books to read earlier in the year I used the website Goodreads to make me recommendations. I had rather enjoyed the Vampire Academy series and was looking around for other things like it when I was suggested the Covenant series. I think this suggestion was about on par with someone saying they like pet rabbits so you suggest them a rabbit pelt; technically the same but with a few very important differences. Let me share with you the top 3 highest rated comments on the first Covenant book’s Goodread page.

Yeaaah, it's that obvious.

 Yeah, in this metaphor Covenant is the thin, soulless version of the thing you like. The first book is scene for scene, almost detail for detail the same as Vampire Academy. Eventually as the series progresses it moves farther from Vampire Academy but the damage was already done at that point. I do want to note that Vampire Academy started a spinoff with the love triangle third wheel getting his own story and Covenant announced it is doing the exact same thing so it never strays too far from total ripoff. The worst thing is Covenant removed a lot of the stuff I liked from Vampire Academy like the consequences at the end and instead added a lot of things I hate like slut shaming. Covenant is by Jennifer L. Armentrout who also wrote “twilight-with-aliens” known as the Obsidian series and it’s also quite disturbingly similar to its “inspiration”. While I’m sure there’s worse plagiarism out there none is more blatant that this in my opinion.

Runner Up: The Mortal Instruments
Ok maybe I spoke too soon about blatant plagiarism. If you've ever read the Harry Potter books (so, basically everyone) and you were to read The Mortal Instruments series you’d notice a lot of characters are very similar. This is because The Mortal Instruments was originally a Harry Potter fanfiction focusing on Ginny and Draco. But that’s not really the issue here. The Mortal Instruments changes the world enough and has a story line entirely mostly separate from Harry Potter so while the inspiration is obvious it’s fine as an original story.

The controversy is that in the original fanfiction form of the story Cassandra Clare plagiarized many, many people many, many times. And the published story of The Mortal Instruments is very, very similar to her fanfiction, almost line for line at points. This makes it a problem. Clare actually had her worked removed and was banned from a major fanfiction website because of the plagiarism claims. Honestly, that’s as far as I wanted to read into the issue so you can do more research if you’re curious. Because the more I read about Clare the more I found my winner for the next award.
(If you’re particularly curious this person did a really thorough write up of the issue)

Most Horrible Human Being Author Award

Winner: Cassandra Clare (Mortal Instruments Series & Infernal Devices Series)
So plagiarism is bad. But that’s not why Clare is on this list. She earned this award by just being a colossal dick. Honestly, I've heard claims about her for quite a while and figured they were blown out of proportion but in researching the plagiarism claim I inadvertently learned more. Apparently she went as far as to try and get someone kicked out of their college for speaking badly of her online. Also she’s bragged about tracking people down and calling them or the police in the area for posting negative things about her. So yeah, I’m going to keep this section short since I don’t want her to try and get me fired. Though now that I think about it, it would be hilarious if she tried, given my supervisors.

But yeah, moral of this award; Cassandra Clare is a bad person. Her books are decent so borrow them from a library or a friend but maybe let’s not support someone who harasses people.

Runner Up: Colleen Houck (Tiger’s Curse Series)
I don’t actually know all that much about Colleen Houck as a person. In fact her winning this award is entirely because of the values, opinions, and general ignorance she presents in her Tiger’s Curse series. Yeah, it’s that bad. From the protagonist yelling at a guy who asked consent before kissing her to the time she implied crippled women are incapable of being proper mothers and are undesirable (see the quote section at the very bottom) to just her plain ignorance of everything about India. This woman has taught god knows how many impressionable kids terrible stereotypes about India (and China and Japan and…) and she’s planning to do it again with Egypt. Seriously, at the very, very least at least spend a day learning about the country before you try to tell an entire four 5 book story there.

Strong Heroine = Suffering Award

Winner: Tiger’s Curse Series
[Tiger's Curse vague spoilers]
 I have a theory that YA authors with female protagonists struggle to find a way to show how strong their protagonists are. Usually they opt away from being physically strong and instead seem to focus on making their protagonists suffer a lot and from their endurance they are shown as strong. That’s a fair enough idea except that like all things it seems to get taken to its extreme conclusion and I feel more like I’m watching reading a boxer wailing on a bobo doll except the bobo doll is a 17ish year old girl. Of course the suffering can also be mental or emotional but from all the New Moons and Torments I've read I decided not to dignify that with my attention. Instead let’s talk about Kelsey from Tiger’s Curse.

Throughout the four book series Kelsey gets: bitten by a vampiric kappa that poisons her and drains her blood, is cut up by a bear and nearly freezes to death, is poisoned (again), has a shark bite a chunk out of her leg, is nearly drowned by a kraken, is held hostage complete with rape threats, self immolates, and is heartbroken a bunch by her own self-doubt. Man she sure is strong! Or just really dumb to keep putting herself in these situations.

Runner Up: Strange Angels & Divergent
[Strange Angels & Divergent vague spoilers]
 I really just want to runner up the entire genre and be done with it. I spent way too long trying to remember all the stuff that happens to Kelsey in Tiger’s Curse. Instead I’ll try to give credit where it’s due. Divergent’s protagonist gets beaten up a hell of a lot, shot, nearly thrown in a pit, gets shot some more, and probably should have fractured ankles from jumping out of moving trains. Strange Angels’ protagonist also gets beaten up a lot, gets bitten by a vampire or two, gets beaten up more- in fact she spends the first 2-3 books in a constantly state of bruised disarray, gets burned badly, gets traumatized, and generally just has a lot of pain. I’m sure I’m forgetting things too.

Never Explained Title Award

Winner: Strange Angels Series
This series does not involve angels, strangely. Maybe that’s why it’s called that. In fact angels are only mentioned once twice in the series. Both times it’s by a love interest saying he’s our protagonist’s guardian angel but he’s really not particularly strange (in universe). The times he says this are also little throwaway lines, like the author realized she never explained the name and threw in a line to try and justify it. Nope, not buying it.

Runner Up: Hush, Hush Series
I want to joke that “hush, hush” is just what Patch tells the protagonist while he encroaches on her personal space time and time again and that’s why it’s the title. Sadly, that’s too self-aware for the author who seems to find his aggressive behavior “sexy”. Otherwise… yeah there’s no explanation, ever. No one ever says “hush, hush” except in my editorializing as I read.

What’s in a Name Award

Winner: Existence Series
There seems to be a plague of special snowflake syndrome going around YA books lately. All our protagonists need incredibly unrealistic unique names so we can remember them from the other 50 blank slate characters we read. This year I encountered all of the following names: Patch, Vee, Dank, Pagan, Dru, Graves, Daemon, Ky, Luce, Tamani, Tally, and weirdest of all, two Seths. Like really, who names their kid Seth? Weirdoes. Anywho, the winner of this award goes to Existence for naming a living incarnation of Death as “Dank”. Ok, technically it was Dankmar which means something in some language but they only called him that once in all 4 books so I’m ignoring it. The incarnation of death then falls in love with a girl named Pagan and the two have a mutual friend named Gee. I bet they all had the worst childhoods ever.

Runner Up: Halo Series & Unearthly Series
[Unearthly mild spoiler]
 The runner up for this award goes to two different characters in two separate series; the connection is that they are both angels. Halo’s protagonist, a full blood angel, was named Bethany Church and Unearthly’s half-human, half-angel was named Christian. The latter name didn't bother me all that much because it was made a joke in the book. The mother of the kid didn't know her son was half angel and he actually jokes about “can you imagine knowingly naming an angel Christian?” Halo, however, does not understand how jokes work and is deadpan about having a family of intelligent angels surnamed Church.

“Consent? What’s that?” Award

Winner: Tiger’s Curse Series
Remember how a few awards back I said that in Hush, Hush Patch was particularly creepy about personal space and aggressively physical? Yeah, that’s a trend. Tiger’s Curse goes a step beyond though by actively making fun of seeking consent. Sometime around the middle of book one our love interest asks protagonist’s permission to kiss her and she mocks him for it and scolds him. Then later she mocks him again as “Mr. Asks-for-permission” as if that is a bad thing. I've already said that the author put really questionable morals in this book but this one irritates me the most. Later in their relationship, the protagonist is discussing sex with her love interest and he firmly says no, not until the curse making him a tiger most of the day is broken. Protagonist then gets mad at him for denying her and ignores his logical argument. Hey, Houck (author), consent applies to both men and women and having either partner act like the protagonist does makes them a really horrible person. No means no. Period. Oh, and later the protagonist gets kidnapped and nearly raped because all YA protagonists need to be saved from rape at some point. That said….

Runner Up: Premonition Series
[Premonition Series mild spoilers]
Premonition takes the cake for being saved from rape. The majority of books 3 and 4 take place with protagonist held hostage by a guy who wants to make her his undead queen (that fairy/vampire/troll thing). You know what, being held hostage is a plot device, I can’t fault the author for that. What sets off triggers and gets the runner up position is the fact that the protagonist begins to develop feelings for her undead kidnapper. It’s never framed as Stockholm’s syndrome either but as “well sure he tried to starve me and break my will but he killed that other mean guy and kept me safe so he’s not so bad!” I can’t keep count of the “what?” in this series.

Least Likeable Protagonist Award

Winner: Halo (Bethany Church)
[Halo Series SPOILERS]
For an angel, Bethany is a real jerk. Not only is she pretentious as hell, thinking she knows better than the archangel Gabriel, other angels, and even freaking Heaven but she’s just a really bad angel. She’s sent to earth to heal the unrest caused by agents of Satan but she causes obscene amounts of trouble in the series for everyone. Gabriel has his wings viciously hacked halfway off, piece by agonizing piece to protect her and she feels bad about it for about a half second before going back to being self-absorbed. She starts a war between heaven and hell and then abandons heaven as a literal fallen angel so she can be with her boyfriend and never once looks back at all the trouble she caused. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out she instigated the rapture. Worst angel ever.

Runner Up: The Host (Wanderer) [The Host mild spoilers]
The Host takes the strange angle (not to be confused with strange angels) of giving us a human and alien protagonist and making the alien the more important character. This could make for a very interesting, introspective look at humanity and human behavi- pfft, who am I kidding this is Stephanie Meyer. The human Melanie is painted to be sympathetic right up until our alien Wanderer turns completely mentally human, about 15% in. Then Melanie is made entirely unsympathetic, by what Meyer tells us not what she shows, and Wanderer is made out to be a gentle flower with naught but love and a smile for all of God’s creatures. Except for the hypocrisy that the entire reason these people’s lives are ruined and they are forced to live in a cave without proper medical care is due to Wanderer’s race. I’ve already pointed out how noxious the relationship of Wanderer and her love interest is in regards to Melanie’s body and autonomy so I won’t repeat that but I will make a comparison. Kelsey from Tiger’s Curse is also a really, disgustingly bad human being but she’s so over the top that I treat her more as a cartoon character than a real human. Wanderer’s entire arc is about gaining humanity and being human so her failing to do that properly really sticks out even more than Kelsey, an ordinary college girl, aiding in murdering people and refusing to give back artifacts that could feed the entire population of India forever. Yeah, honorable mention to Kelsey and Tiger’s Curse for that one.

Eternity is a Long Time Award

Winner: Existence Series
[Existence SPOILERS]
Whenever you bring in the element of paranormal characters into a romance you have you figure out how to get your couple with a similar lifespan by the end. This is usually resolved by either A) the protagonist turning into a paranormal something or manifesting latent powers or B) the love interest turns human (less common). Usually when the first option is taken there is at least a community of other paranormals with which the main character can also spend eternity with aside from their love interest. Existence does a good job of not doing that. Our protagonist gets literally given to Death like leftovers to have for all eternity. Alone. Sure, there are a few other immortals but most are painfully boring and focus on doing their job. So basically our protagonist gets to watch her mother and friends grow old and die as well as any new friends she makes for all eternity. Sounds awesome, sign me up! (/sarcasm)

Runner Up: Twilight Series
[Twilight SPOILERS]
Twilight was smart enough to give Bella a solid community of undying brethren so while she will watch her parents and human friends die she still has vampire family and friends. Yet it wins this award, why? Because Bella still has all of eternity with her husband, daughter, and family, all of whom are wanted dead by other undead beings. If you honestly believe for one second that the Volturi (think vampire mafia) will not come back and attack the Cullen clan in the next eternity then you are willfully ignorant. I think having read The Vampire Lestat just highlights how hollow the ending of Twilight is. Eternity is a long, long time and people grow bored. Let’s check in in a few hundred years and see if Bella goes Lestat on everyone and starts a rock band.

Unnecessary Sequel Award

Winner: Tiger’s Curse
If you took a box, hot glued it shut, wrapped the entire thing in packing tape, then wrapped it in wrapping paper, then stuck the biggest, gaudiest bow you could find on the top it would still not be as neatly wrapped up as Tiger’s Curse book 4 was. And yet Goodreads informs me a 5^th book is in the works. How? Why? The short blurb available for the 5^th book already invalidates the cannon ending of the 4^th book. What are you thinking Colleen Houck?! Oh right, you don’t think. Never mind, carry on. I eagerly await both book 5 and your new series which I can already tell is the exact same except with mummies (no really).

Runner Up: The Host
Yup, The Host is getting turned into a trilogy. I have no idea how or why but I’m making these bets now:

• Love interest has to leave or is taken somewhere for the bulk of a book and protagonist just pines away
• Our alien will wait to have a Christian marriage before having sex
• Complete and utter avoidance of any series sci-fi elements, societal issues, or real conflicts
• Babies ever after

Age of Consent Award

Winner: Twilight Series
[Breaking Dawn mild spoiler]
 My last award is a special one and the best example of it is from Twilight. Jacob imprints on Edward and Bella’s daughter, Renesmee, which basically means that one day he wants to mate with her. He imprints on her immediately after she is born. This is creepy as all hell. Renesmee is going to grow up her entire childhood with Jacob being like an extra parent to her and then once she hits puberty he’s going to go all Humbert Humbert (main character of Lolita) on her and try to be her lover. That is really, really messed up. Think about the damage that would do to a child, vampiric super baby or not! There’s another case of this within the werewolf clan where a guy imprints on a child and Stephanie Meyer was aware enough to make their names a reference to Lolita the most famous book about a pederast ever written. I feel like a need a shower just thinking about it, ugh.

Runner Up: The entire genre of young adult
The rest of the award goes to the entire genre. Out of the 22 young adult books I read (not including problem novels or parody) 10 of them featured a substantially older man being the love interest for a teenage girl. Many of those were hundreds of years older than our protagonist. I understand the idea of men and women developing and maturing at different stages thus making an older, more mature boyfriend attractive but this is too extreme. In those hundreds of years the characters have witnessed wars, the rise and fall of entire countries, plagues, tragedies, breakthroughs in science and yet what they care most about is being at science class so they can see generic, self-insert protagonist. I’m pretty sure this is called “grooming” and could easily apply to most of these older protagonists. So yes, the genre wins this award for making older guys who are interested in you seem charming as opposed to giant red flags.

Blogger didn't like my formatting so I had to make it a picture, sorry. Click to see it larger!

So there you have it. May next year bring me as many hilarious books and many more good ones! If you bothered to read this far first off you get a gold star but mostly I want to reward you with a few of my “favorite” quotes from the year. Enjoy!

The bold and brackets are me, everything else is verbatim.

Hush, Hush

She was quiet a moment. “What do you mean by ‘physically threatened?”
“He dragged me out of the front door and shoved me against the house.”
“But he was drunk, right?”
“Does it matter?” I snapped.

“I want the truth,” I said, struggling not to cry. “Did you come to school to kill me? Was that your aim right from the start?”
A muscle in Patch’s jaw jumped. “Yes.”
[A few pages later]
Suddenly I wasn’t so sure I wanted this. On almost every level, Patch terrified me. But deep down, I didn't think he was going to kill me.

[After dating Patch for 2 months and being told by the archangels it was not allowed]
I wanted to make a statement, and I was hurting enough not to care how drastic it was. A thought came to me, the kind of thought I never would have entertained in my life before. If I ended my life the archangels would see it. I wanted them to feel remorse. I wanted them to doubt their archaic laws. I wanted them to be held accountable for ripping my life apart, then ripping it away completely.

Tiger’s Voyage

[In regards to Kelsey thinking her foot was bitten off by a shark]
“But I’d never walk normally again. How could I ever have a normal life? I’d be crippled forever.”
“It doesn't matter.”
“What do you mean it doesn't matter? How could I help you finish the tasks? How could I—” My words cut off abruptly.
He paused. “How could you what?”
I blushed. “How could I marry and have children? I wouldn't be able to chase the kids around the house. My husband would be ashamed. And that’s only if I could convince someone to marry me.”

As we dispatched the pirates, I found myself back to back with Ren. Again, I puzzled over Lokesh and his plan. There was something I wasn't seeing. The pirates had obviously been given instructions not to harm me, though several of them tried unsuccessfully to carry me off. Bodies lay piled at our feet. Why aren't they using tranquilizers? This battle is almost child’s play.
[A few lines later]
“I will always need you. That’s why I want you to be safe. Please move back.” He turned his back on the man attacking him and pleaded with his eyes. I sighed and blasted the man rushing at him then nodded my head. The battle would soon be over anyway. With Nilima and Mr. Kadam involved, there was little for me to do.
“Alright, but save some for me.”
Ren grinned. “No problem. And, Kelsey?”
“What now?” I said exasperated as he elbow punched a guy in the face without even looking at him.
“I love you.”

The Host

As we entered the narrow tunnel, Ian threw one arm lightly around my waist.
“You know,” he said, “it’s really unfair for Melanie to make you suffer when she’s angry at me.”
“Since when are humans fair?”

New Moon

But it had been days since I'd heard Edward's voice. That was probably part of the problem. I was addicted to the sound of my delusions. It made things worse if I went too long without them. Jumping off a cliff was certain to remedy that situation.

You made it to the end! Huzzah! Now go and be free!

Later gators!

Last Dance With Mary Jane

Japanese Word of the Day:

English:
Japanese:

Timeline: September 27^th

So fun fact, I actually wrote this 3 weeks ago and procrastinated on editing the pictures until I forgot about it. Opps. Again. More regular entries will happen one day!

By the time I first stumbled into an Elementary School Sports Day practice I had already known they were having a Sports Day for weeks, thanks to Ikkoukan’s daily practices. Since there are two ESs in Ujitawara and both were having Sports Day on the same day, Allen and I decided to divide and conquer. I ended up assigned to Tawara ES (they asked me to participate) while Allen got Ujitawara ES. Since I never stay full day at Ujitawara I never saw any of their preparation but I did at Tawara.

On the Thursday before Sports Day I found myself wandering the halls during 6^th period wondering where all the clubs were today. Eventually I spotted a big group of kids in the school yard and quickly determined that they were practicing for Sports Day. I’m fairly certain the first thing I thought when I saw them was “this would be a big-ass lawsuit in America”. The kids were engaged in doing some crazy looking gymnastics involving human pyramids which I stuck around to watch. By the end I was thoroughly impressed, excited for the upcoming Sports Day, and convinced this stuff would never fly in America.

Sports Day Saturday started as a bright and sunny day. My previous Sports Day at JHS had been overcast so I hadn’t needed sunscreen but this time I was not taking any chances. I applied my sunscreen, grabbed my tennis shoes, and headed off to school.

And once again I had no idea what I should be doing. Only at ES there are a lot less fluent English speakers and less teachers overall. With all the teachers tending to their individual classes I was left to wander around pretending like I had something to do until the students started coming out. Once again the students marched in perfect columns though this time they skipped the one-armed salute and just looked like kids being silly rather than flashbacks of extreme nationalism. The columns arranged themselves in front of a pulpit and I settled in for another long principal speech.

As the speech drug into its eleventh hour I noticed a teacher hastily escorting a young girl away from the columns. As I was looking for any excuse to not stand there and pretend to listen anymore I followed them to the nearby gym where I realized the girl wasn’t feeling well. From what I gathered, she either got too hot standing there (possibly from lack of breakfast or water) or she had locked her legs too long and nearly passed out from the lack of blood flow. Either way, I helped the teacher lay her down and fan her while she rested. When students begin collapsing speeches have gone on long enough.

After a little bit of resting, the girl was deemed fit to return to her class and I followed back to the main Sports Day field. By then the speeches had ended (thank god) and the festivities proper had begun. Since all the teachers were staying with their respective classes I was left completely out of place and decided to take a post near a small tent where I could get some shade; as we all know, Madeline-plants do not like direct sunlight.

By the way, there were only 2 teams at this Sports Day since in ES each grade has 2 classes. As a result the teams were team White and team Red and events were usually one class versus one class.

Events:

Races
I think races are just a standard part of any Sports Day. Once again, there were several varieties from the standard 4 students at a time until an entire grade had raced to the more… unique. One of the races seemed more like an obstacle course, starting with a stretch of running, tiny hurdles to jump over, then stopping to jump though a hula hoop and finally crawling underneath netting before the finish line. Just like at JHS they were fun to watch and all the kids got really into cheering for their friends and classmates.

Object Race
The last event was pretty par the course so how about something completely different now? I genuinely don’t know what to call this since while it was a race there was a lot more than running going on. To begin with the students had to put a large ball on a racket and balance it from point A to B. Then they abandoned it to run to an envelope on the ground, open it, and go to a nearby pile and find the item in their envelope. Then with dustpan (or other completely random) item in hand they had to run to the finish line. I think there may have been another step between the balancing and the item collection but I can’t recall it. It was strange but still pretty fun to watch

I wasn't lying about the dustpan.

Duckling Dance
I’m not even going to lie, this was the cutest thing I’ve ever seen in my entire life.
This was the 1^st and 2^nd graders performing a dance to 2 songs they had picked. The first song was the theme song to a very, very, obscenely popular show here called Yokai Watch that Allen and I had to attempt to do the dance to at kindergarten. For this the kiddos had tube bandanas on their heads and plastic “tails” tucked in their shorts. I could not look at them without thinking “ducklings”. For the second song they took the bandanas and slide them around their necks and the tails turned into capes. The second song seemed to be about being a super hero or something so the capes made a lot of sense. It ended with them all striking a superhero pose and was criminally adorable. Oh God, when did I start thinking small kids were cute?

I really hated to blur out that kids smile.

And now they're superheroes! Sure, why not.

Colored Pole Grab Game
This is another one I don’t know what to call. The classes from a grade were arranged on opposite sides of the field and large poles were placed on the midline between them. The poles were painted red, white, or half one and half the other and were of varying length. Basically, once the game began the students raced to get as many of the poles back to their own side as they could. This meant that the bigger, more heavily contested poles ended up in massive child tug-of-war matches. From my understanding, the larger poles were worth more than smaller and the solid color ones were important to keep on your own color’s side. Watching 30 kids swarm a single pole and be drug around the field was highly entertaining, though.

I think if I'd played this as a kid I'd have smacked pursuers with the pole

Three-legged Race?
I…. I got nothin’ guys. Another bizarre game, go figure. Basically this was just a race with two people conjoined via a pair of massive pants. There was one person in each leg hole and the two had to run together. Like with the wheelbarrow event at JHS each student’s partner seemed to be either a family member or teacher.

I suspect that every time I eat McDonalds here onlookers imagine my pants look like this.

Traditional Dance
This was really cool to watch. I gathered that every 2 grades performed individual dances together totaling 3 different dance segments. This one was the 3^rd and 4^th graders performing some type of traditional dance to taiko music. Beyond that I can’t really describe it well since I have very limited knowledge of traditional Japanese dance, sorry!

Confession: I picked this picture because it was easier to edit.

Lunch
Once again I got a delicious bento for my lunch! I spent the break chatting with a few of the teachers I usually didn’t get to talk to and trying to gracefully eat while being watched. I was also given a bottle of tea instead of water which I stealthily slipped in my bag and snuck a glass of water when no one was looking.

If you don't know what some of it is don't worry, I didn't either.

Kindergartner Ceremony
After the lunch break the 6^th graders lined up across from a slew of really tiny kids I gathered were from nursery. Apparently, they will be entering  Elementary school next year so the 6^th graders were welcoming them. All the littles got a paper medal to wear and proudly marched off.

Cheerleading Section
Each team has a small cheerleading section of about 3 boys and 3 girls. The girls had pompoms and the boys had colored gloves which they used for punching in the air. The cheerleaders were fairly active throughout the events but after the kindergartener medal ceremony they had a chance to perform. Each crew stepped up and performed a routine complete with motivational shouting (at least as best I could understand).

I really wanted a cool long ribbon after that :(

Tamaire
Tamaire was an event I actually knew about in advance. A few weeks prior to Sports Day when I confirmed I would be attending one of the teachers (who I really like) excitedly asked if I would do a favor. She explained to me that the kids would be playing tamaire and someone was needed to count the balls for the score. I figured how hard could counting in English be and happily agreed.

The idea behind tamaire is that there is a large basket on top of a pole and the kids try to thow small beanbag type balls into it. There is a time limit for the scoring phase and after that the two groups have representatives unload the basket one ball at a time as I counted in English. I mean what else are you going to use your token American for?

Afterwards, people kept telling me what a good job I did counting. While I know they were trying to praise me for participating I couldn’t help but sarcastically think “Gee, I sure hope I can count correctly to 60 in my own language, I have a college degree”.

I imagine it sucks to be the people holding up the pole.

Dance conclusion
The last part of the day was a dance conclusion performed by the 5^th and 6^th graders. Dance may not be exactly the right word since it was much more a display of impressive gymnastics and coordination than actual dancing. But make no mistake, the gymnastics were highly impressive and like their JHS peers it was all heavily based in teamwork. At one point the bulk of the 2 grades formed a massive human pyramid that would have caused an American lawyer to cry with joy at the lawsuit he could file.

The event ended with everyone clasping hands and thanking the audience for coming and watching their Sports Day.

Pretty sure making kids do that at school is illegal in all 50 states.

But seriously, the coordination was impressive.

Throughout the day I had made an effort to stay under or next to my shady tent but despite both that and the sunscreen I had put on by the finale my arms were slowly creeping towards a shade of pink. With the events done, a slew of speeches followed and I fled inside in the hopes I could help from the safety of a roofed building.

I quickly found that I was out of place inside and begrudgingly returned outside only to find I was out of place there as well. Well crap. I could not find a single English speaking teacher and ended up just walking around to appear busy and not like I had nothing to do.

I did notice that many parents (who I later found out were the PTA) were helping to clean and take down the decorations so I managed to help them for a while. The woman I assisted quickly realized my Japanese was limited and we communicated through pointing and smiles, which is basically my life in Japan.

By the time 4:15 rolled around I was exhausted and still had an enkai to go to. So I politely excused myself and headed home to clean up before going to the enkai you already heard about. And so ended my second Sports Day! May there be many, many more in my future.