Top Ten Tuesday

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted for us book blogger types by the Broke and the Bookish. They provide a topic, and all of us participants post our answers on our blogs and we hop around checking out one another’s answers! This week’s topic is: 

Top Ten Most Memorable Secondary Characters

1. Fred & George Weasley from the Harry Potter series
Even before I started reading the books, these cheeky boys were my favorite characters.  Not to mention that the casting was near perfect in my opinion.

2. Isabella Linton from Wuthering Heights

She was whiny and self-serving (similar to Catherine) but she also managed to hold her own against Healthcliff.

3. The Woman in Black from The Awakening

This woman was a metaphor for the life without marriage during the time period of publication, and really helped exemplify to Edna what would eventually become her fate. 

4.  Felicity from the Gemma Doyle trilogy
She dared to be herself and love who she wanted in a time when it wasn’t accepted.  Sure she was a bit self-centered, but what Victorian girl wasn’t? 

5. Cade from Losing It 
I wanted so badly for Bliss to wake up and realize how in love Cade was and treat him better for it! He did get his own fantastic story in Faking It.

6. Cinna from The Hunger Games trilogy
He was the first to really help Katniss become the face of the Rebellion.  Plus, his costumes were brilliant. 


7. Jasper from the Steampunk Chronicles
He’s the only American character that appears in all three Installments, and I still feel like he has a ton of secrets yet to be revealed. 

8. V’lane from the Fever series
He is most definitely a prat to Mac, but I have to say that he was still one of the best parts of the series. 


9. Chuck from the Maze Runner series
This boy was endearing and much more important to Thomas’ development in the Maze than you’d think. Excited to see how this young man portrays him in the movie! 


10. Kat from the White Rabbit Chronicles
She was everything she needed to be for Ali and more.  She was strong willed, feisty, and intelligent.  

Who are some of your favorite Secondary Characters? 

Book Review: The Kill Order by James Dashner

Before WICKED was formed, before the Glade was built, before Thomas entered the Maze, sun flares hit the earth and mankind fell to disease. 

Mark and Trina were there when it happened, and they survived. But surviving the sun flares was easy compared to what came next. Now a disease of rage and lunacy races across the eastern United States, and there’s something suspicious about its origin. Worse yet, it’s mutating, and all evidence suggests that it will bring humanity to its knees. 

Mark and Trina are convinced there’s a way to save those left living from descending into madness. And they’re determined to find it—if they can stay alive. Because in this new, devastated world, every life has a price. And to some, you’re worth more dead than alive.

Release Date: August 14, 2012


Since I was so disappointed with the conclusion of The Maze Runner trilogy, I was very hesitant to pick up my ARC of The Kill Order when it arrived.  In fact, I waited so long that the book came out in stores before I finished it.  The story starts in a place not familiar to us, but with characters we know well–Thomas and Teresa. 
Then of course, the storyline changes and we are introduced to an entire cast of new characters.  Dasher does an excellent job of explaining the hardships that the characters had to go through after the onset if the deadly sunflares and what the outcome is for those who survived. After this, we are thrown into the lives of Mark, Trina, and their friends who are trying to survive in the mountains of what was former North Carolin.  As a North Carolinian I appreciated that part!  The action quickly starts and the narrative is interwoven with the present and Mark’s memories of the past in order to help explain the current relationships among the characters and what they’ve been through.

While I really appreciate learning where “the flare” disease came from and reading about its mutation and spread, it was really hard to root for these characters when they are fighting against an inescapable disease and a world of crazy infected people.  I felt myself really keeping a distance from them, because I figured they weren’t going to make it.  I’m not going to tell you whether they do or not, but the ending tries to tie a nice bow around the entire package…but it simply didn’t work for me.

I think that had Dasher provided more information in the final scene that it would have packed more of a punch and I wouldn’t have been left frustrated.

Overall, I’m going to give The Kill Order 3 Bards for being “Okay.”

Top Ten Tuesdays!

Every week The Broke and the Bookish hosts a meme for book blogs!  Each week the topic is different, and this week the topic is: 

Top 10 Books Written In The Past 10 Years That I Hope People Are Still Reading In 30 Years

The literary canon is revised monthly with the release of new novels that experts regale as the “next big thing” or an extraordinary addition to fiction.  So, these are just ten of the books that I hope remain in the literary canon for the next thirty years. 

1. The Book Thief 

This book, told in the point of view of death, gives a horrific and poignant portrait of life in Germany during the Holocaust.  It is extraordinarily written, and illustrated, by Markus Zusak. 

2. Finnikin of the Rock

Wonderful story building, excellent characterization, and 

Marchetta plotting. A great example of YA Lit.

3. The Hunger Games 

There are so many important political and social themes in this trilogy that will make it resonate with generations beyond ours. 

4. The Invention of Hugo Cabret 

Selznick revolutionized the picture book and chapter book with “Hugo,” and Scorcese directed a wonderful adaptation of this fantastic historical novel.  Not only do readers learn about the intricacies of the film industry at the turn of the century, but the story about Hugo discovering a world beyond his clocks is wonderful. 

5. Divergent 

Since dystopias are such an important pattern in YA lit right now, I think it is safe to say that the face of children’s literature studies is changing–and this novel should remain in the canon for study. 

6. The Maze Runner

Along with other dystopias, I think that Dashner’s Maze Runner would be an excellent book to study along side the classic, Lord of the Flies.  There are many comparison and contrast prompts that could be created. 

The last four novels are ones that either I studied in school or read for pleasure that I believe need to continue being a part of the literary canon.  Most of you are probably familiar with these since they are classics, so I won’t go into detail about why I want to keep them in the canon except the fact that I loved reading them and learning about them. 

7. 100 Years of Solitude– Gabriel Garcia Marquez

8. Frankenstein – Mary Shelley

9. To Kill a Mockingbird– Harper Lee

10. King Lear – William Shakespeare

I cheated by adding these last 4 books, since they weren’t written in the past 10 years. This was a hard one!

What are some books that you hope to find people still reading/studying in 30 years? 

Book Review: The Death Cure by James Dashner

Thomas knows that Wicked can’t be trusted, but they say the time for lies is over, that they’ve collected all they can from the Trials and now must rely on the Gladers, with full memories restored, to help them with their ultimate mission. It’s up to the Gladers to complete the blueprint for the cure to the Flare with a final voluntary test.

What Wicked doesn’t know is that something’s happened that no Trial or Variable could have foreseen. Thomas has remembered far more than they think. And he knows that he can’t believe a word of what Wicked says.

The time for lies is over. But the truth is more dangerous than Thomas could ever imagine.
Will anyone survive the Death Cure?

To be quite honest, I was a bit disappointed with the final book in the Maze Runner trilogy. The first book was so well constructed and provided such great insight into human nature and the consequences of decisions.

The second was all right, nothing too spectacular about it, but it was better than the third.

I appreciate what Dashner is trying to do with the trilogy, providing readers with the fear of an uncertain future, as well as a fear of trusting in a corrupt authority. However, the book felt more full of exposition and “telling” rather than “showing.”

Plus, the ending really put me off because it seemed that if this *spoiler alert* escape had existed the entire time, then why not put those that are immune there and just finish the tainted human race off? It felt as though Dashner wrote himself into a corner, and he needed to add an escape route to help save his ending. It simultaneously provides hope and sadness.

Longtime fans of the trilogy should read this to finish the story of Thomas and the Gladers. However, I believe that the first novel in this trilogy, The Maze Runner, could stand alone as a modern day Lord of the Flies.

I give it 3 Bards on the basis that I really liked the story world…but I did not like the ending.