The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn (the Movie!)

Yes, yes, yes! Breaking Dawn, the fourth and final novel in the Twilight Saga is very much being made into a movie, in spite of previous rumors that Summit Entertainment would be stopping after Eclipse (to be released this upcoming June!).

Here is the press release from Summit Entertainment:

BILL CONDON TO DIRECT SUMMIT ENTERTAINMENT'STHE TWILIGHT SAGA: BREAKING DAWN

Los Angeles, CA April 28, 2010 — Summit Entertainment has confirmed that Academy Award winner Bill Condon will direct THE TWILIGHT SAGA: BREAKING DAWN, based on the fourth novel in author Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series. THE TWILIGHT SAGA: BREAKING DAWN, is currently being written by Melissa Rosenberg, and will star Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner. Wyck Godfrey, Karen Rosenfelt, and Stephenie Meyer will produce the project.

"Bringing Stephenie Meyer's BREAKING DAWN to the screen requires a graceful and intelligent hand and we believe Bill Condon is exactly the right steward, having shown equal and abundant talents of immense creativity and subtle sensitivity," said Erik Feig, President of Production and Acquisitions, for Summit Entertainment.

Added author Stephenie Meyer, "I'm so thrilled that Bill wants to work with us. I think he's going to be a great fit, and I'm excited to see what he does with the material."

"I'm very excited to get the chance to bring the climax of this saga to life on-screen. As fans of the series know, this is a one-of-a-kind book—and we're hoping to create an equally unique experience," said Bill Condon.

THE TWILIGHT SAGA: BREAKING DAWN illuminates the secrets and mysteries of this spellbinding romantic epic that has entranced millions.

Condon is well known for writing and directing DREAMGIRLS, KINSEY, and GODS AND MONSTERS, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay in 1999. He was nominated for a second Oscar for his screenplay for the movie musical CHICAGO in 2003. Most recently the multi-hyphenate directed the pilot episode for the Showtime series "The Big C" and produced the 81st Annual Academy Awards telecast, hosted by Hugh Jackman.

Hmm. Well, while I'd like to say I'm confident that Condon will do a much better job than both Hardwicke and Weitz, I really can't, considering the fact that I haven't heard of any of his previous movies (which I would not think is a good sign!). But I'll cross my fingers (and I suggest you do, too)!

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Just Like That by Marsha Qualey

From the back of the book: “When Hanna breaks up with her boyfriend of almost a year, she knows she’s supposed to feel . . . something. Liberated, maybe? Sad? Instead, there’s only one thing she feels for certain: She’s in for a pretty dull winter. Her job in the swimwear department certainly isn’t very exciting. But in an instant, everything changes. Hanna finds herself the bearer of a major secret: She was the last person to see two teenagers before they died in an accident on the icy lake, and she thinks she could have prevented their deaths. She can’t possibly tell her mother or her two best friends. She can’t tell anyone. Even drawing and painting — always her therapy in the past — aren’t the recipe for calm they once were. So when Hanna finds herself drawn to Will, the elusive boy she’s noticed around town, the kind of boy who’d quicken any girl’s pulse, she doesn’t hold back. Anything. What she learns about him will astonish her. But what she learns about herself — her friendships, her family, her life — will affect her far more.”

This book is terrific! In spite of the fact that very little happens during the book--it mainly focuses on Hanna's guilt over not warning the two teenagers who die, her and Will's relationship, and her friendship with Maura and Kelsey--I think Qualey did a fabulous job with what little bit of a plot she had to work with.

Qualey's developement of the main characters was stunning. Hanna is an artist, to the core, and Marsha Qualey beautifully wove that aspect of her through the plot. Hanna's character was easy to relate too, and Will was a really awesome guy--he definitely played a major roll in majority of the surprises throughout the book. I think that it was the characters themselves--and how well you grew to know them--that makes the book so good, so difficult to put down. The characters suck you in from the start, really. Its not so much the plot.

Just Like That wonderfully showed how its the smaller things--the things that, at the time, don't seem so big--end up changing your life the most . . . end up changing you. And i thought this to be a very important thing; most teenagers, and some adults, even, don't seem to realize how much all of the little things we do can effect us later on in life, how much the small mistakes, the small achievements, mold you as a person. And I think Qualey hits this dead on.

With great characters, quite a few plot twists, unbelievable shocks, and an awesome author, Just Like That is the a perfect short read, and a great book to get sucked into. Check it out!

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Blood Promise by Richelle Mead

In Shadow Kiss, Richelle left us with a cliff hanger to kill. Now, Rose has abandoned the last living Dragomir, and her best friend, Lissa, in an attempt to keep her promise--and kill the only man she has ever truly loved. Blood Promise, the latest installment in the Vampire Academy series, takes us to Russia, and, coincidentally, to Dimitri's home.

With an action-packed kick, this novel truly hits home, with the most fantastic plot, and twists and turns galore. This is novel was, by far, the most emotional novel in the Vampire Academy series, and one of my favorite. The characters just get better and better, and, if possible, more dimensional.

In my personal opinion, the best part of the entire book—surprisingly enough—was the ending. I always hate the endings of books. But this one, since I knew there was going to be at least two more (thank GOD for that!) I truly loved. It ended with such a twist, and one of the best kind!

See, you pretty much already know what’s going to happen from the beginning—what has to happen—which is Rose going to Russia and hunting down Dimitri. So, most of the book was a given. But then, when you think its all over, BAM! And, all of a sudden, you know exactly how Richelle could write two more books in the series.

Despite my overall high thoughts of this novel, i have to say it was also probably one of the slowest to get going. The first two-thirds of this book is slow-paced and so torturous that i nearly quit at it, and most definitely had the urge to throw it at something. ut, even with my annoyance over the slow start, i cannot deny how much i loved this novel, or the new mysteries the next novel is bound unveil.

Blood Promise is a novel bound to please . . . and to destroy many Dimitri-lovers hearts. It ends with a true cliff-hanger, one i am sure cannot be topped. Mead really blew my mind with this one, and i can't WAIT to see where she goes from here! A truly astounding novel!

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book-to-movie list!

Here's the list again, folks, with a few additions and some different links. Mostly for re-circulation purposes, but here ya go!

A

Airborn (Kenneth Oppel)
Airman (Eoin Colfer)
Alchemyst, The (Michael Scott)
Amulet of Samarkand, The (Jonathan Stroud)
Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging (Louise Rennison)
An Abundance of Katherines (John Green)

B

Beastly (Alex Flinn)
Boggart, The (Susan Cooper)
Book Thief, The (Marcus Zusak)
Burning Time, The (Carol Matas)

C

Certain Slant of Light, A (Laura Whitcomb)
Chasing Vermeer (Blue Balliett)
City of the Beasts (Isabel Allende)
Cry of the Icemark, The (Stuart Hill)

D

Diary of a Wimpy Kid (Jeff Kinney)
Dragonfire (Donita K. Paul)
Dragonriders of Pern (Anne McCaffrey)

E

Eclipse (Stephenie Meyer)
Eddie Dickens and the Awful End (Phillip Ardagh)
Ender's Game (Orson Scott Card)
Everlost (Neal Shusterman)
Extraordinary Adventures of Alfred Kropp, The (Rick Yancey)

F

Flipped (Wendelin Van Draanen)
Fly Girl (Omar Tyree)

G

Giver, The (Lois Lowry)
Graveyard Book, The (Neil Gaiman)
Great and Terrible Beauty, A (Libba Bray)
Great Gilly Hopkins, The (Katherine Paterson)
Guardians of Ga'Hoole (Kathryn Lasky)

H

Here Be Monsters (Alan Snow)
Here, There Be Dragons (James A. Owen)
Highest Tide, The (Jim Lynch)
Hobbit, The (J.R.R. Tolkien)
Host, The (Stephenie Meyer)
House of the Scorpion, The (Nancy Farmer)
Hunger Games, The (Suzanne Collins)

I

Inkspell (Cornelia Funke)
Interworld (Neil Gaiman and Michael Reeves)
If I Stay (Gayle Forman)

K

Killing Sea, The (Richard Lewis)
King Dork (Frank Portman)

L

Larklight (Philip Reeve
Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
Little Girl Lost (Charles de Lint)
Looking Glass Wars, The (Frank Beddor)
Looking for Alaska (John Green)
Lost Years of Merlin, The (T.A. Barron)
Lovely Bones, The (Alice Seabold)

M

Magyk (Angie Sage)
Marked (P.C. + Kristen Cast)
Maximum Ride (James Patterson)
Monster Blood Tattoo (D.M. Cornish)

N

Naomi and Ely's No Kiss List (Rachel Cohn and David Levithan)
New Moon (Stephenie Meyer)

P

Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief (Rick Riordan)
Peter and the Starcatchers (Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson)
Peter Pan in Scarlet (Geraldine McCaughrean)

R

Ramona and Beezus (Beverly Cleary)

S

Sisters Grimm, The (Michael Buckley)
Skellig (David Almond)
Spook's Apprentice, The (Joseph Delaney)
Stargirl (Jerry Spinelli)
Stoneheart (Charlie Fletcher)
Subtle Knife, The (Phillip Pullman)

T

Teen Idol (Meg Cabot)
Tithe: A Modern Faerie Tale (Holly Black)
Tomorrow, When the War Began (John Marsden)
True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle, The (Avi)
Tunnels (Roderick Gordon)

U

Uglies (Scott Westerfeld)

V

Valiant: A Modern Tale of Faerie (Holly Black)
Varjak Paw (S.F. Said)

W

Wee Free Men, The (Terry Prachet)
When the Wind Blows (James Patterson)

Crazy, isnt it? Email or comment if you've got others for me to add!

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Mortal Instruments--trilogy?

As many of you know, there is going to be a fourth installment in the so-called Mortal Instruments "trilogy".

I know, i can barely contain my excitement either!

Here's the press release from Cassie's site:

New York, NY, August 24, 2009—Margaret K. McElderry Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing, has acquired City of Fallen Angels, a fourth book in Cassandra Clare’s bestselling young adult fantasy series, The Mortal Instruments, which has over 1 million books in print. The story follows Simon, a character from the first three Mortal Instruments novels, City of Bones, City of Ashes and City of Glass, as he adjusts to life as a vampire. City of Fallen Angels will publish in hardcover in March 2011, followed by a paperback edition in July 2012.

Love, blood, betrayal and revenge — the stakes are higher than ever in City of Fallen Angels. Simon Lewis is having some trouble adjusting to his new life as a vampire, especially now that he hardly sees his best friend Clary, who is caught up in training to be a Shadowhunter—and spending time with her new boyfriend Jace. Not to mention that Simon doesn't quite know how to handle the pressure of not-quite-dating two girls at once. What's a daylight-loving vampire to do? Simon decides he needs a break and heads out of the city—only to discover that sinister events are following him. Realizing that the war they thought they'd won might not yet be over, Simon has to call on his Shadowhunter friends to save the day — if they can put their own splintering relationships on hold long enough to rise to the challenge.

“Simon has always been one of my favorite characters to write about, and I’m excited to get the chance to tell his story while revisiting some of the other characters that I love form The Mortal Instruments series,” said Cassandra Clare. “The enthusiasm for telling Simon’s story that I’ve received from the team at McElderry Books and Simon & Schuster has been great and I’m excited to be working with them to bring a fourth book to the series.”

Please keep in mind that all dates are subject to change!

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Bad Apple by Laura Ruby

To be released on October 1st, 2009, Bad Apple is the story of Tola Riley, a misunderstood artist, and the rumored affair between her and her art teacher, Mr. Mymer. Throughout the novel, you follow Tola through troubling circumstances, and learn that there is no living happily ever after—there’s just living happily. Told in a believable voice layered with sarcasm, Bad Apple is your classic tale of a teenager trying to find out where she belongs.

While I did enjoy this book, it definitely was very slow and lacked a certain drive that I personally feel books need to have. It has the sturdy plot, strong characters, and powerful voice that some young adult novels seem to lack—but it just doesn’t have the necessary suspense. I suppose that this is understandable—Ruby didn’t have much to go off of—but it still could have been much better. As I mentioned earlier, Tola’s voice is one of such honesty and sarcasm that she is nearly impossible to hate. And the general character development was just fabulous!

I found the fairy tale aspect of this book very entertaining, as the Grimm fairy tales are my favorite. Tola is a very unique artist, and most of her drawings/paintings are related to fairy tales, such as Rapunzel, Cinderella, The Robber Bridegroom, and The Goose-girl, which are some of my favorites.

But the novel was also pathetically predictable, which was depressing. I mean, just from reading the summary, you know that she’s been accused of having an affair with her art teacher—and from there it’s pretty easy to guess that this is going to be solved somehow (resolution, anyone?). And then the second you meet Seven, it’s really obvious that they’re going to be together. This book didn’t surprise me very much, and that’s something that really ruins the entire point of reading a book.

But, despite this, i honestly did love the novel--and, god, what an awesome cover! Truly, don't hesitate to grab Bad Apple the moment it hits the shelves in October.

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The Body Finder by Kimberly Derting

Violet Ambrose is grappling with two major issues: Jay Heaton and her morbid secret ability. While the sixteen-year-old is confused by her new feelings for her best friend since childhood, she is more disturbed by her “power” to sense dead bodies—or at least those that have been murdered. Since she was a little girl, she has felt the echoes the dead leave behind in the world . . . and the imprints that attach to their killers.

Violet has never considered her strange talent to be a gift; it mostly just led her to find dead birds her cat had tired of playing with. But now that a serial killer has begun terrorizing her small town, and the echoes of the local girls he’s claimed haunt her daily, she realizes she might be the only person who can stop him.

Despite his fierce protectiveness over her, Jay reluctantly agrees to help Violet on her quest to find the murderer—and Violet is unnerved to find herself hoping that Jay’s intentions are much more than friendly. But even as she’s falling intensely in love, Violet is getting closer and closer to discovering a killer . . . and becoming his prey herself.

summary from goodreads.com

This book was fairly entertaining and unique in many ways, only one of which was the plotline. But, I also found that at times where the suspense should have been building, where I should have been sucked further into the story (such as times when Violet got very close to catching the killer or found one of the murdered girls) I wanted to put the book down. That is not to say it didn’t hold my interest—because it did—but there were most definitely times that I felt myself slipping from Derting’s grip. But, the not-so-subtle subplot of romance pretty much made up for that. I also liked seeing the story from the killers’ eyes very much. Despite its flaws, I cannot deny that I loved this book.

The characters were all very developed, and there were little to no questions left unanswered by the end, which is the general put down to stand alones. Violet's unique ability definitely increased my interest, because i wanted to know more, and Jay is the ideal boyfriend. The killer(s) even had distinguishable personalities, and i couldnt help but find myself very intrigued by them. Derting has got some talent up her sleeve!

This book would be a great choice for fans of Eyes Like Stars by Lisa Mantchev, The Darkest Powers Trilogy by Kelley Armstrong, and the Wake series by Lisa McMann. What an incredible debut from Kimberly Derting! I cannot wait to see what she comes up with next. If I were you, I’d grab this book the second it hits the shelf in March.

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Book Review: Don't Judge a Girl by her Cover by Ally Carter

When Cammie Morgan arrives at her friend Macey's five star hotel for the Democratic National Convention-where Macey's father is about to receive the vice presidential nomination-she thinks she's in for an exciting end to her summer break. But if you're a Gallagher Girl, "exciting" and "deadly" are never far apart.

Things quickly go south when Macey is summoned to the hotel roof to shoot a PR piece with the presidential candidate's son. But instead of cameras, attackers descend from a helicopter and swarm the girls, commanding, "Grab her." After a narrow escape, Cammie and Macey find themselves at a top secret hideout owned by the Gallagher Academy. and thus begins Cammie's junior year at spy school.

Cammie doesn't need her genius IQ to see that the kidnapping attempt has changed everything, especially now that Macey is a major celebrity, and the school has been besieged by news crews. More disturbing, Cammie can't shake the suspicion that her mom and Mr. Solomon know more about the attack than they're letting on. After all, why weren't the attackers surprised to find themselves in combat with two teenage girls who handled themselves like seasoned pros?

But these suspicions won't stop Cammie from jumping at the chance to join Bex and Liz as Macey's private security team on the campaign trail. Before long, the girls are using their espionage skills at every turn, as Cammie gets closer and closer to the shocking truth...

What i thought: Fabulous! Absolutely, fabulous! I mean it's about a spy school, how much cooler can a book get? This book was very well written. It was definitely had more action and adventure than the previous books. The suspense built up much more rapidly, and the humor was still very there.

I adore the characters in these novels to no end. I love being in Cammie's head--she's strong and sarcastic, and also a fantastic spy. Throughout this novel, Cammie seems to gain more confidence, and you can always see the wheels turning. Liz has always been the braniac, but in this one she seemed much less vulnrable and stood her ground. Macey was, well, Macey, but you get to know her a lot better in this one.

As i mentioned earlier, this novel has a lot more action than the other books in this series. But, the downside to that is, there is very little romance, probably because the need for action overpowered it. So, while i really enjoyed the action, i was sort of missing the previous subplots of underlying romance.

With a kick and punch Ally Carter never seems to lack, Don't Judge a Girl by her Cover is a great book to just whizz through. The many plot twists kept you hanging on, and left you hungry for more. It leaves you with more questions than answers, which is both good and bad. I swear, this series just gets better and better.

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