Review: The Unbound by Victoria Schwab

Title:The Unbound
Author: Victoria Schwab
Source/Format: Purchased, Hardcover
Age Range: YA
Publisher/Publication Date: Hyperion, January 28, 2014

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I don’t know if I have the words to sum up how much I loved The Unbound—I really don’t think I do. This book was amazing, and I didn't think it was possible to like it more than the first book—but I did. It’s been some time since I read The Archived by Victoria Schwab, so when I was in the bookstore and saw the hardback of The Unbound I decided to get it. I have no regrets.

All of my favorite characters from The Archived were back and dealing with the fallout from the last book. Mackenzie Bishop was more broken than not—her reactions were realistic given what she went through. I liked the fact that she wasn’t just ok about everything. I loved Mackenzie and her family I really got their relationship with one another. Their reactions to certain situations in the book were completely understandable, and I liked the way the tension was portrayed as they did their best to protect their daughter. Their concern, gosh, it was awesome. I love it when the family is more involved with the main characters, so in that aspect it was completely well-done. And Wesley Ayers…what can I even say about him? He was nice, and he truly did care for Mackenzie. The portrayal of their relationship was nice and refreshing amongst everything else that went on in the story. There were a few new characters that attend Hyde School like Mackenzie does. They were nice additions to The Archived world.

The writing, despite being first person, was descriptive with enough detail that I could easily get into the story.The plot might have seemed a little slow at first, but there were little hints as to what was going on. I didn’t have a problem with the pacing, and ended up enjoying The Unbound from start to finish. In fact, I read it in one sitting.

Musing Mondays (18)

Musing Mondays is a weekly meme hosted by MizB at Should Be Reading, that asks you to muse about something book related each week. **There are a new list of prompts for Musing Mondays**

My Musings for the week...

Today I'm going to be answering the random weekly question: Give a list of 4 books you read last year that you’d recommend to others — and why.


Double Vision: Alias Men by F.T. Bradley. Really, the entire middle grade trilogy was fantastic and I would recommend it to just about anyone!

Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson. Oh gosh, there’s a lot of things I really liked about this book, the writing style, the world building, and the characters combined with the interesting magic system. I think a lot of people would like this one, which is why I recommend it.

Courting Magic by Stephanie Burgis. Ok, I know this one isn’t a full length novel, but I recommend it as well as the books that go along with it—it was another really good middle grade series that I enjoyed.

The Archived by Victoria Schwab. I really liked this book. It has an interesting premise, plenty of mystery surrounding the Archive, and plenty of interesting characters.

There are a lot of other books that I recommend, but listing them all would make this post too long. Happy reading!

The Friday 56 (18)

  The Friday 56 is a weekly meme hosted by Freda's Voice where every Friday you pick a book and turn to page 56 or 56%, and select a sentence or a few, as long as it's not a spoiler. For the full rules, visit the the page HERE

"A natural inclination when it comes to conveying exposition is to tell. After all, the most efficient way we humans have of conveying complex ideas is with language."--Video Game Storytelling by Evan Skolnick



What's on your page 56 this week?

Discussion: Short Stories

I recently read Until Midnight by Melissa Landers, which got me thinking about short stories—you know the stories that are set between, before, or after the novels and are generally a cheaper way for readers to get introduced to a writer’s work.

Given the chance to read a short story before you read the novel, would you?

Some short stories—especially the ones that are set after a novel—can contain spoilers. That’s a given. But I don’t particularly mind them as long as they’re not too big of a spoiler. As you can see from my review of Until Midnight by Melissa Landers I read it before the novel, which I don’t even have. Yet, there was one good thing about doing so, it gave me a chance to get introduced to the writer’s style and the story to see if I would even be interested in picking up Alienated. Since the short story got my interest, I’m now curious to see where it all began. Sure, there were a few things that could have been spoilers, but I don’t particularly feel like I know the entire story leading up to Until Midnight.

So, I guess my answer would be yes. I would buy/read the short story before I bought a novel by an author I’m unfamiliar with. That method might not be for everyone, but I find that it generally works for me.

Question: What are your thoughts on short stories?

Review: Video Game Storytelling by Evan Skolnick

Title:Video Game Storytelling: What Every Developer Needs to Know about Narrative Techniques

Author: Evan Skolnick
Source/Format: Blogging for Books, Review Copy

Age Range: anyone

Publisher/Publication Date: Watson-Guptill, December 2, 2014

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Summary from Goodreads...

With increasingly sophisticated video games being consumed by an enthusiastic and expanding audience, the pressure is on game developers like never before to deliver exciting stories and engaging characters. WithVideo Game Storytelling, game writer and producer Evan Skolnick provides a comprehensive yet easy-to-follow guide to storytelling basics and how they can be applied at every stage of the development process—by all members of the team. Full Summary Here

So for my first nonfiction read of 2015 I got Video Game Storytelling by Evan Skolnick and I have to say that I really enjoyed it. This book was all about the art of putting together a good video game story, narrative, and how all of the parts should go along with one another for a better, coherent game experience for players.

“Conflict powers your story. Conflict is the burning energy that propels it forward. And if your tale runs out of fuel before it reaches its destination, you’ve got a problem” (p.7).

The very beginning of Video Game Storytelling dishes out some important advice on story conflicts and the importance of them before jumping right into the three-Act Structure. Across the various chapters, the information delves more into it as the different areas of game storytelling, breaking it down into sections. These individual sections expertly presented explanations and used well-known movies and video games as examples.

“The Monomyth is composed of two main elements: archetypes and story structure” (p.28).

This book also covered typical characters in games and their respective arcs. I found those chapters particularly interesting. Skolnick broke down the basic structure of video game storytelling into various parts that highlighted the importance of each and how they could be applied to video games. There’s a lot of information that’s covered, but presented straight-forwardly with plenty of examples of how it was all used previously. Overall, I enjoyed this book and I recommend it to anyone who wants to read it.

I received this book from Blogging For Books for this review, thank you!