Character Connection: Froi from Froi of the Exiles

It's been a long LONG time since I've written up a character post. But Jen over at The Introverted Reader is changing up the way she is hosting this feature and instead of once a week, we all have a month to think up, and write and link up a character connection post! So I'm hoping I will participate more and I encourage you all to join us because writing about favorite characters is fun, yes? Yes! Do join in! Here's the link for this month's version.

So as you all well know, I've recently been taken with the books by Melina Marchetta first about Finnikin and then about Froi. I love both of these characters, but today I'm highlighting Froi.

I love him first and foremost for the fact that he has changed so much between the two books! In the first book, he's basically the bad guy. We, as readers, really truly don't like him much. He does some pretty bad things, and he's just rotten. But the other characters end up seeing something in him, which makes us as readers also look at him differently. By the end of the book, it seems we are all giving him a chance.

Between books, he has grown up and learned a lot. The change is pretty staggering. So by the time the second book starts, we REALLY have to look at him differently! But what I especially like is that he doesn't totally lose that bit of him that made him feisty in the first book. His temper and bad streak is still there and comes out at some pretty funky moments!

So as the book starts out, even though he's changed and grown, we are still thinking of him as this thief boy. But wow, he does some amazing things and turns out to have such a good heart that our view of him changes and changes and changes some more! Then we also learn more about his background and where he truly comes from, which is quite fascinating. Then,by the end, of course, we are totally in love with him!

Isn't it great when that happens!!

I do hope you find time to find out for yourself what a great character this Froi is!

"I'll come and find you wherever you are. I'll not stop breathing until I do."

Top Ten Tuesday: Tips for New Bloggers

Well, this seems to be the theme for the past month or so! But since it's the prompt over at The Broke and Bookish for our top ten list today, I'm going to go ahead and list out my newbie blogging tips once again.

Top Ten New Blogger Tips

1. Be consistent... meaning post often... or at least on a regular basis, whatever you choose that to be.
2. Comment a lot... both on others' blogs and in response to comments on your own blog.
3. Participate... there's lots of events and memes and if you want people to know you are out there, you've got to let them know by participating in things! I think Twitter could also be included here because Twitter is nothing if not participating!
4. Keep it fun... remember not to stress about  blogging, it's supposed to be fun and if it's not, change something.
5. Be personal... mix up the review and meme posts (and giveaway posts) with personal posts and discussion posts so readers will get to know you, and not just what you are reading.
6. Make it look good... don't let your blog get cluttered, or too busy with weird and/or moving backgrounds, or loud with music, or hard to read with strange colors, or annoying with too many spelling/grammatical errors.
7. Be original and creative... which may seem hard with how many blogs are out there, but you can always find your own little spin on things. Don't be scared to go with any fun ideas you have! Just see what happens!
8. Make yourself available... put an email up, and links to to other places you can be found, and make it easy for people to find these things.
9. Give credit... be sure to link up to other bloggers when mentioning them... or their ideas and memes. This always makes people happy!
10. Most importantly, be yourself... do what you want, blog about what you want, do it how you want. There really are no rules except for.... play nice with others.

What would you add to my list? Did I forget something huge? What have you learned so far as a blogger?

Vacation Book Reading

Some of you may have noticed my moaning this week (I can't remember where... Twitter? Goodreads?) about how vacation reading plans never seem to work out. It's so frustrating! So I thought I'd take my moaning further to a full on blog post here.

So let's see, this past week I took five books with me on vacation and bought one more while gone. One of those books I was nearly done with, I had maybe 30 pages left, and so I finished that, though it took me the first three days of the trip. (Froi of the Exiles by Melina Marchetta)

Then, I started another book, and read 125 pages of it ( Before I Go to Sleep by S. J. Watson)  And the other book I read about the same amount of pages (Return to Exile by E.J. Patten.) BUT, I had hopes of finishing them both, and starting on yet a third!

So why is it so hard to read while on vacation? Do you have the same problem? I always expect to have so much down time. I figure I can read while driving, and at night and in between things. But, it never happens.

In the car I end up wanting to watch the scenery fly by (what are road trips for anyway if you don't look out the window and watch stuff, you know?) Besides that, I'm not the best car reader anyway.

The down time never happens because we always end up going non-stop for the most part. When ever we find some down time, we are thinking... so now what do we do? What's next?

Which means at night, I'm exhausted and can barely hold my eyes open for a chapter or two. Such a bummer!

Then with this trip I also made the mistake(?) of taking the computer along and so many times I found myself playing on it instead of reading. Naughty!

I dream of a vacation where I CAN actually read all day if I wanted to. I wonder if it will ever happen.

How about you? Do you manage to read on vacation? Or are you always constantly going? Do you dream of a reading vacation? Or would you feel guilty about not getting out and seeing things?

The Sunday Salon: A Trip List

Hey everyone! I'm home! It was a fun week. Here's a list of "stuff we did":

• viewed the Grand Canyon from several different spots, including up high in a tower!
• visited a small town museum and talked genealogy
• ate at a brewery
• hiked through Indian ruins
• hiked around a volcano
• had two or three picnics
• ate cactus fries

They were good!

• sat and people watched in Sedona, Arizona
• almost hit an elk
• looked at the sun, Venus, Mars, Saturn and the Orion Nebula through telescopes

It totally looked just like this!

• went on a Pluto walk
• bought a shirt that says "Pluto was framed!"
• met book bloggers at the Changing Hands bookstore
• bought a shirt that says "Fictional Character."
• walked around Scottsdale Arizona, bought a hat
• drove to the top of a "mountain" and saw the view
• slept in... a lot
• ate out... a lot
• bought two salt and pepper shaker sets, three key chains, four magnets and one bookmark
• saw The Hunger Games for the second time
• watched The Sentinel at "home" on DVD
• finished Froi, but didn't read much else.
• looked at condos 
• played Draw Something while sitting around the table with each other, for an hour and a half 
• feed backyard chickens and listened to the backyard rooster
• walked around Lake Havasu for about one minute, saw the London Bridge for about one minute
• saw the fountains at The Bellagio dance to Time to Say Goodbye
• oohed and ahhed over the signed guitars at some store in Caesar's Palace Forum Shops
• visited M and M World, but they did NOT have salt and peppers shakers (or "normal" m and m's)

It's a crazy store.

• ate at a lunch buffet
• drove home in a terrible snow storm
• made it!

Now back to real life this week? Drat.

TGIF: Musical Stories

Here's a new-to-me bookish meme that I found this morning that I feel like responding to. Check it out over on GReads blog! It's called TGIF.

Here's the question:

Musical Stories:

 If you could read a book about any song, 

which song would you love to see written down in story form?

I've sort of mentioned this before, but the song that always comes to mind when I think about this is Hazard by Richard Marx. What a story in this song! There's a boy who's not quite normal who goes to this town and finally finds a friend, but then she turns up missing he's accused of murder? What?!!! I want to know more! I want to be in his head! I want to know what REALLY happened!

Here's the lyrics:

My mother came to Hazard when I was just seven
Even then the folks in town said with prejudiced eyes
That boy's not right 
Three years ago when I came to know Mary
First time that someone looked beyond the rumors and the lies
And saw the man inside 


We used to walk down by the river
She loved to watch the sun go down
We used to walk along the river
And dream our way out of this town 


No one understood what I felt for Mary
No one cared until the night she went out walking alone
And never came home 
Man with a badge came knocking next morning
Here was I surrounded by a thousand fingers suddenly
Pointed right at me 


I swear I left her by the river
I swear I left her safe and sound
I need to make it to the river
And leave this old Nebraska town


I think about my life gone by
And how it's done me wrong
There's no escape for me this time
All of my rescues are gone, long gone


I swear I left her by the river
I swear I left her safe and sound
I need to make it to the river
And leave this old Nebraska town

And here's the song being performed:

See? Doesn't this tragic song just BEG for a book to go with it?

Blogging Buddies and a Bookstore

When we decided to make Arizona our spring break destination, I knew that one of the top things on my list would be to visit Changing Hands... a bookstore that I've heard so much about located in this area. And then, when I knew I'd be visiting this store, I thought why not suggest to a couple of my closer Arizona blogging buddies that they just happen to be there at the same time? I mean, how perfect would that be?

So the suggestion was made and the response was favorable and last night, it happened!

But first I wandered the store, of course, and everyone is right, it's a fun one! I bought a book for me (The House at Tyneford so I can hopefully join this read along still) and book for Toto (she wanted a D.J. MacHale book called Morpheus Road: The Light) and then we both fell in love with shirts that say "Fictional Character" on them. So that comprised our purchases.

Meanwhile, we loved picking out all the Utah authors' books and saying "I know her, I know him, and wow, look! They have that here too!" Brandon Mull had just been there the night before and there was a huge stack of his signed books there. While browsing the teen section, an older guy (with oxygen tank in hand) came up to us and said, "If you like teen books, I have just the one for you!" We sarcastically said back, "What... did you write it or something! LOL." And he said, "No... it's called Variant by Robison Wells." We got excited and said, "Hey! We know him! He's from Utah where we are from! Whatdaya know!" So an interesting conversation ensued, part of which we told him that he should also read his brother's stuff (Dan Wells) and he said the title puts him off (I am Not a Serial Killer.) Oh, well.

Then I began my loitering by the door in hopes some book bloggers would see me and recognize me and say hey Suey! Which is exactly what happened when Susan from Bloggin 'bout Books walked in! Yay! And then shortly after, Melissa from One Librarian's Book Reviews, and former Utah Blogger and IRL friend walked in. We talked for quite awhile there in the entrance, hoping and waiting for one last blogger. I knew she would be late, but after awhile, we decided to go to the cafe next door and eat and hope she would find us.

Which is exactly what she did! Suddenly, there was Gaye from Inside a Book saying, hey guys? Is it you? She'd been stalking all the tables in the cafe trying to figure out which group looked like bloggers! I'm so glad she found us! She'd been hosting an author event at her school and came as fast as she could.

Anyway, it was so fun to meet these three favorite blogging buddies, two for the first time and Melissa too. Just before they showed up I was feeling nervous and wondering what I'd gotten myself into, but then it all turned out okay and we talked and talked and talked until the cafe closed and they kicked us out and then we talked some more on the sidewalk until we forced the night to be done. I hate that part.

Thanks guys for showing up at the bookstore at the same time I was there!

Here we are in front of the bookstore after it closed and we couldn't get back in!
Melissa, Susan, me and Gaye

Review: Froi of the Exiles by Melina Marchetta

Book: Froi of the Exiles by Melina Marchetta
Genre: Fantasy (marketed as YA, but I think it should be adult)
Rating: ★★★★☆
 For: Fun
From: the library

This story continues in the world that began with Finnikin of the Rock. It starts out three years later, after everything from the first story is pretty much settled. Well, mostly settled. Somehow, a guy from the enemy kingdom shows up and is captured, and when they learn from him what's going on over in his kingdom, they (our heroes) decide that their king needs to be assassinated!

And guess who gets to do the job? Froi! In the first book, he was a good for nothing, raggedy, boy thief that Finnikin and company just happened to pick up along the way. During these past three years, however, he as grown to be quite the smart boy, and not only does he know several languages now, he also has become quite the fighting machine. This, among other reasons, makes him the best choice to infiltrate the enemy kingdom and get rid of the bad king who is causing all the strife amongst the kingdoms.

When Froi gets there, he begins to learn things that change everything! The plot gets deeper and deeper until my head was quite spinning! So many crazy events happened in the past that now affect all the stuff going on that Froi doesn't know what he is supposed to do anymore. In fact, he himself is much more wrapped up in everything than he would have ever imagined.

The story is absolutely incredible, and while I sometimes had a hard time keeping everything straight, I was also loving every minute of it. I will never understand how authors can have such things in their heads! It's totally amazing to me. The book is surprisingly huge (nearly 600 pages,) and that's because this story is so complicated. And actually, it ends with things just getting going! Yes, one of THOSE books!

While the first book, Finnikin, had a nice ending spot, this book should really be considered the first part of a two parter. So beware that those of you who are especially bugged by this!

I totally enjoyed this book not only because of the very unique and intriguing characters, but also because of the wonderful writing that is easy to follow, even with the complicated plot. But, as mentioned above, even though this book is found on the teen shelf, I feel it is much more of an adult fantasy, not only because of the complicated plot, but also the disturbing subject matter. Who decides these things anyway? It baffles me!

Bottom line: I totally enjoyed it!

Other Reviews:

Janicu's Book Blog
Chachic's Book Nook
The Readventurer