Youth!

So apparently while I wasn't paying attention, Amazon switched from the easy to maneuver .azw format into the hair-ripping, gut-busting, rage-inducing .azw3.  You wouldn't think that three could make much of a difference, but oh, how it does.  My whole formatting process was completely thrown off and it took me two days of downtime to figure out how to properly format.

I took a jaunt with Scrivener, finding it very, very painful to work with.  I tried Writeway, which I had a lot more success with, but that I'm still not convinced I want to plunk down 25-50 dollars for.

In the end, I did it by hand.  (And with a little help from Calibre.)

But the good news is: Youth is now for sale!

You can buy it on Amazon

Or Barnes and Noble

Or even Kobo!  (Okay, not Kobo yet, but it's coming!)

"Youth for you, when you can appreciate it most."

A blessing? A curse? One pill can restore the aged, the infirm, the terminally ill to the sprightly, energetic days of their early twenties. One pill reverses cancer, strengthens bones, restores eyesight... makes the user young again.

There is only one side effect: 100% Death within one month.

Louise Smith has been virtually abandoned by her family. Her children have moved away, mostly out of touch. Her husband spends his days in the care of a nursing home, too mentally ill to be safely home. Is her life worth living?

Louise must decide: tough out her days, or one pill for the final hurrah.

Book Review: A Monster Calls

A Monster Calls: Inspired by an idea from Siobhan Dowd

A Monster Calls is a story about a grade-school boy, Conor, dealing with his mother's deteriorating condition due to cancer.

This book had a lot of hype for me, a lot of people saying it's the must read of 2011. All in all, I had one laugh-out-loud moment and one tear-jerker moment. This book is teen fiction, which means I could read the entire thing in an hour. However, I chose to read it slowly and really savor the images, so I took three days to complete it.

It was recommended I read the book in hardcover and I am glad I did. The pictures, especially of the yew monster were pretty amazing, even in gray scale. They do add a certain element of "being there" to the story.

It was a decent story and I mostly enjoyed it, but I did find it seemed to drag a bit toward the end. The monster was a very thought-provoking character and really stole the story for me, much more so than Conor or his misunderstood semi-barbaric grandmother. I also found Conor's dad to be a completely aggravating loser of a man.

In the book's defense, as soon as I finished it, I turned around and loaned it out. It's a good story, as I said. I do think people should read this book, and I agree it should be read in a format in which the pictures can really be studied - this is the type of book that was made for print over digital.

I'm not sure I'll read it again, or won't read it again, unless I get an urge to delve into the pictures again (the most likely scenario). The brick-and-mortar hardcover price was staggering, I would have liked to see it priced more in the $12 than the $20 range.

I'll give A Monster Calls 7 yew berries out of 10.