lady_sarai

Okay, so I stayed up until 3 am last night, even with my fever and headache, because I could not stop reading my book.

I read A Curse Dark as Gold, by Elizabeth Bunce and it is absolutely amazing. No, really. AMAZING. I could not stop reading it.

I've been trying to figure out how best to tell you all how great this book is, and I just don't have the words. It's a retelling of Rumpelstiltskin, which is amazing enough, but it's possibly the best version I've ever read. Seriously. It's so different and yet the same, and the world in this book is so real and rich and amazing.

And Charlotte!! Charlotte is so awesome, and fierce and loyal and protective and logical and stubborn and strong. She's flawed in just the right ways to keep her from being too perfect, and in believable ways, and not annoyingly at all. She's wonderful. And Stirwaters! The Mill is a character in itself and it's awesome. I have a soft spot for inanimate objects/places/buildings that have Character--like Woodwold in Spindle's End by Robin McKinley. I love everyone we're supposed to love in this novel. Rosie, and RANDALL and Harte and the whole town of Shearing! And oh, the descriptions of the wool and cloth making. (aradiachiba, you will love this book. Seriously.)

And it's well paced and beautiful and I could not put it down for the last few hundred pages because I had to know what was going to happen. And I IMed zoe_chan and told her that this book was BREAKING MY HEART because it WAS.

I feel like this is totally gushing and ridiculous and not making sense, but it's the best I can come up with right now because I have so much GLEE over this book. I swear at one point I HUGGED IT while I was reading, and another time I was flapping my hands anxiously and when it was over I could just kind of HOLD IT and look at it adoringly and I NEED SOMEONE TO READ IT AND GUSH WITH ME. REALLY. If just one of you reads it, you MUST TELL ME. Because this is so going in my list of Favorite Books, along with all of my precious Robin McKinley books and The Last Unicorn. Really.

So. Read it. Please.

(And how unfair is it that this is the author's first book? I WANT MORE. NOW. If anyone gets Scholastic book orders, let me know so I can order an anthology one of her stories set in this world is going to be in, because it is only going to be in those book orders and since I do not have my own classroom or my own children yet, I am sorely out of luck on that front. It makes me SAD.)

All right, so scribophile and three_nails are completely right about Twilight by Stephenie Meyer. GUH.

I haven't read as much as I would like, which is the price I pay for having both a terrifically good book AND a persistantly gripping plot bunny at the same time. As well as, you know, a family and holidays. ;) But I just finished Chapter 13, where Edward and Bella go to the meadow.

::flails in flailiness::

Oh, Edward. Yep, in love. Dammit. Also, Bella? Is very kick-ass.

I particularly loved "Yes, you are exactly my kind of heroin."

::more flailing::

Also, the language is very beautiful in this book.

aradiachiba and zoe_chan? Go. Get the book. Read it.


...And now I'm back to Bruce/Richard for a while, hopefully. It's an interesting transition.