FF--Most Emotional Scenes

Gain new followers and make new friends with the Book Blogger Feature & Follow! If this is your first time here, welcome! You are about to make some new friends and gain new followers -- but you have to know -- the point of this hop is to follow other bloggers also. I follow you, you follow me.

The Feature & Follow is hosted by TWO hosts, Parajunkee of Parajunkee's View and Alison of Alison Can Read. Each host will have their own Feature Blog and this way it'll allow us to show off more new blogs! 

How does this work? First you leave your name here on this post, (using the linky tools -- keep scrolling!) then you create a post on your own blog that links back to this post (easiest way is to just grab the code under the #FF picture and put it in your post) and then you visit as many blogs as you can and tell them "hi" in their comments (on the po.st that has the #FF image). You follow them, they follow you. Win. Win. Just make sure to follow back if someone follows you! 

Tell us about the most emotional scene you've ever read in a book - and how did you react?

Lots of epic, emotional scenes out there, but one that sticks out in my mind is from A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. I read it in the 10th grade and the way the teacher did it was interesting. She would have us read/discuss a few chapters, then not pick it up for several weeks or even months. She did that constantly so it took us all year to finish it. I know a lot of my classmates weren't a fan of this tactic, but I kind of liked it, only because the book covers several years and by taking all school year to read it, it kind of felt like we were keeping real time with the story.

Anyway, there's a scene where Lucy finds out her husband is going to be executed and she swoons. Carton catches her and carries her home. He obviously already knows what he's going to do, so when he lays Lucy down in her home, he puts his mouth close to her ear and whispers, "The life you love."

I remember my heart just melting when I read that. To make it more interesting, Lucy's young daughter enters and makes a comment about Carton being in love with her mother. Interesting that a child had that kind of insight. 

Anyway, I haven't read it since high school, but I still remember the story (especially that scene) and the impact it had on me.

How about you? What's the most emotional scene you've ever read?

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Thoughts for Thursday--Fairy Tales

Thoughts for Thursday is a new meme hosted by Musings on Fantasia and LKHill.  In this meme, we share thoughts or quotes that we know or have recently come across. Each week there is a specific subject or theme. These can be quotes from books, quotes by famous people, (quotes by YOU, perhaps ;D). Anything from anywhere is game, though we do ask that you keep your quote to a few sentences at most. Don't quote, for example, entire passages of a book or essay. These can be funny quips, cool sayings, hair-raising antidotes, movie lines, any kind of quote you can think of!

Just have fun, collect awesome sayings by awesome people, and try to be inspired!

This week's theme is quotes about fairy tales!

Fairy tales do not tell children that dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children that dragons can be killed.--G.K. Chesterton

Dragons and bridges are very much something out of fairy tales and fantasy.--John Howe

When fairy tales are written in the west, they're known as folklore. In the east, fairy tales are called religions.--Paul Henderson

Life itself is the most wonderful fairy tale.--Hans Christian Anderson

Every man's life is a fairy tale written by God's fingers.--Hans Christian Anderson

What do you think? Which quote is your favorite? Do you have one to add?

P.S. I'm doing a guest post today over at Kinx's Book Nook about why I love to read. Hop on over and check it out! :D

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Great Conflicts--Guest Post

Today I've agreed to guest post over at the fabulous Ann Marie Meyer's blog about great conflicts. Hop on over there and see what you think! And be sure to thank Ann-Marie for hosting me! :D Happy Wednesday!

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Top Ten Tuesday--Historical Recommendations

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created here at The Broke and the Bookish. This feature was created because we are particularly fond of lists here at The Broke and the Bookish. We'd love to share our lists with other bookish folks and would LOVE to see your top ten lists!

Each week we will post a new Top Ten list  that one of our bloggers here at The Broke and the Bookish will answer. Everyone is welcome to join. All we ask is that you link back to The Broke and the Bookish on your own Top Ten Tuesday post AND add your name to the Linky widget so that everyone can check out other bloggers lists! If you don't have a blog, just post your answers as a comment. Have fun with it! It's a fun way to get to know your fellow bloggers.

Top Ten (Classic/Historical) Books I Recommend the Most

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What's That Got to Do With the Price of Blue M&Ms?

So on Friday night, I found myself in a tiny grade school multi-purpose room in Roy, Utah. One of my youngest brothers, Micah, was the star of his school play, a fun, colorful production they named A Seussical. The Grinch, the Cat in the Hat, the Whos, and many others all shared the stage, singing rhyming songs and reciting well-known Seuss lines. A person's a person no matter how small...I meant what I said, I said what I meant. An elephant is faithful one hundred percent...My brother played Horton, and had many solos and much stage direction. He did wonderfully! So proud of him! He's the kind of kid that quiet, but extremely talented. There's a clip below, though it's a bit hard to see.

So what's this got to do with blue candy? My dad was filming the production on his ipad, so he was in the very back by the window. I sat beside him, and a woman in the row in front of us got her kicks some candy from concessions.

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Pitch Green Blog Tour--Guest Post and Review

Hello All! Today I'm happy to host fellow JFP authors, The Brothers Washburn, who are promoting their fantastic new YA horror novel, Pitch Green. I've recently read this in preparation for the tour and LOVED it!

Trona is a small, smoggy,  insignificant town in Colorado. Besides a booming chemical plant, the only thing that characterizes this dismal town is dirt, sagebrush, and an enormous abandoned mansion.
Seven years ago, as Camm herded a pack of trick-or-treaters past the mansion, her young neighbor Hugh disappeared, becoming just one of many children who have vanished  from Trona over the years . Now a senior in high school, Camm is still haunted by the tragedy and is sure the answer to the mysterious disappearances lies hidden in the decaying mansion. Joining forces with her best friend, Cal, who also happens to be Hugh’s older brother, Camm naively begins a perilous search for the truth.
As things spiral out of control, and others die, Camm and Cal discover it will take all their combined ingenuity to stay alive. An unseen creature, lurking deep within the bowels of the mansion, seems to have supernatural powers and is now hunting them. Unless they can make sense out of the few pieces of the puzzle they manage to unearth, the monster will certainly destroy them, and like so many others before them, they will be gone without a trace.

Review

I received a copy of Pitch Green through my publisher, Jolly Fish Press for review. I read it in preparation for the tour, but I confess, I didn't really know what it was about. Because of that, I picked it up with no expectations whatsoever. What I found was a delightful, well-written, YA horror story. I breezed through this novel with no trouble at all, and always excited to read more.

Camm is a typical teenage girl, dreaming of life at a big Unversity to, in part, escape her small town. Children have been disappearing inexplicably for years, including the younger brother of her best friend and boyfriend, Cal. When things get interesting and mysterious, Camm takes it on herself to investigate what never seems to have been investigated. What she finds is a twenty-year-old secret, separably entwined with her small town's history.

Both Camm and Cal are great characters. They come across as real kids--and real smart ones--with real problems. They made me smile and root for them constantly. The mystery was well-written, making me turn pages, and the pacing was perfect.

The book would be a bit scary for younger readers--even I shivered a few times--but it's not at all explicit. PG-13 rating in my book.  I never read much YA horror in my day, so I can't say for sure that it's comparable to something like Fear Street, but it seems to me this would be a good comparison. Overall, I found it to be delightful and would recommend it to anyone who wants a fun, creepy read!  Hats off to the Brothers Washburn! I look forward to their next novel with great eagerness. 

Smoldering Inspiration

By The Brothers Washburn

            Berk and I have been asked several times to say what inspired us to write Pitch Green, our scary young adult novel about two teenagers hunted by a fearsome creature that lives in an immense and bizarre mansion that is located in their desolate, desert town.  This is a hard question.  I sometimes feel that the most inspiring thing I come across anymore is a plate of warm chocolate chip cookies, accompanied by a tall glass of cold milk.

            Not the stuff of novels, scary or otherwise.  We have reached this point in our lives where we have seen and done, well, not “it all”; but all of it that we have wanted to see and do.  It is not so much that we are beyond inspiration, but that inspiration has moved on to influence younger, better-looking people than us.

            Perhaps that is the secret of Pitch Green.  It takes place in the deep desert in the real-life mining town of Trona, California.  This is the town of our youth, where we grew up, on the doorstep of Death Valley.  The novel is based on a scary late-night story that has been a part of our lives since we were children.  It is a story we told on scout outings.  We told it to our friends, girlfriends, cousins and even to a few people we didn’t like.  We told it around campfires, on road trips and even in a school class.  This was a story we loved.  And, we loved to use it to scare the crap out of each other.

The Brothers Washburn

            So, while inspiration may evade us now in our white-hair days; we were able reach back, (way freaking back) to those days of yore, (I think it is federal law that says you are not allowed to have “days of yore” until you reach at least 50 years of age) when inspiration was an everyday event--back when inspiration came in a box of cereal, when inspiration was always just around the corner.  It was in the last book I read, in the latest episode of Star Trek or Lost in Space, or in the simple smile of the pretty girl next door.  Oh, to be so inspired again.

            But, I wax sickenly philosophic.  Sorry.  I guess we really were inspired to write this book; but it just so happens that the inspiration came to us a very long time ago--over forty years ago.  It has been sitting, smoldering inside us, waiting to burst into flame when we were all done growing up (if that’s possible), when we could look back and see more clearly.  Some things do get better with age.  In a way, that is kind of inspiring in and of itself.

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Anna Karenina Movie Review + Thoughts for Thursday--History

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I've been wanting to see Anna Karenina since it first came out, but either it never came to the Northern Utah movie theaters, or it was just here and gone, which is code for I missed it. I was a little unsure, because while I'm glad I persevered and got through the novel, it wasn't my favorite story ever and I really didn't like Anna as a character. Still, I was curious to see how a film maker would handle the material. When it turned out to have an R-rating, I became suspicious again. Granted, the book is about a married woman who has an affair, so some sexual content is to be expected, but I was afraid maybe this was one of those movies where they made the plot an excuse to create cheap porn.

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