{"id":2996,"date":"2006-06-05T23:13:00","date_gmt":"2006-06-05T23:13:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/?p=2996"},"modified":"2018-11-20T05:25:26","modified_gmt":"2018-11-20T05:25:26","slug":"summer-read-magic-use-it-or-lose-i","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/?p=2996","title":{"rendered":"SUMMER READ &#8211; Magic: Use it or lose it"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s time to talk about Summer Reads again!<br \/>I know &#8211; it&#8217;s not officially summertime until well into the middle of this month, but I don&#8217;t care. I&#8217;m already giving in to the sapping sunshine, wanting to stretch out, catlike, with a book and let the world roll on without me.<\/p>\n<p>If you&#8217;re ready to dive into summer in another world, Justine Larbalestier&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.booksense.com\/product\/info.jsp?affiliateId=ReadersResponse&amp;isbn=1595140220\"><b>Magic Or Madness<\/a><\/b> is a book that reaches out and pulls you in. Australia isn&#8217;t where many fantasy novels are set, but the choice is perfect as the antithesis of the East Village, New York &#8212; it might as well be another universe.<\/p>\n<p>Reason Cansino is trying to escape from her grandmother &#8211; a crazy woman who is <em>convinced <\/em>she&#8217;s a witch. Her mother has told her stories about The Witch for years &#8211; that she killed her cat, that she kidnapped kids &#8212; and Reason knows enough to be wary and scared. Her mother, Sarafina, has taught her all sorts of things in case of emergency: the layout of her grandmother&#8217;s house, things to do to drive her crazy, since she really believes she&#8217;s magical &#8212; and things to make her safe. Reason&#8217;s name as good as locks her into believing in logic and rationality. But when her mother loses it and ends up institutionalized, there&#8217;s no one left to live with but her grandmother &#8211; the witch. And then Reason starts to lose her grip &#8212; the day she steps out of a locked door in her grandmother&#8217;s house, she finds herself in New York.<br \/>Suddenly magic is <em>real.<\/em><br \/>Why has her mother been lying to her all these years?<br \/>Who&#8217;s the chick who gives her a coat and a hot fire to thaw her out, after she steps into an East Coast snowstorm?<br \/>What&#8217;s going on?<\/p>\n<p>This arresting novel comes with a sequel, which I&#8217;m hoping to jump into soon. It&#8217;s a quick afternoon read, and has that page-turning intensity which would probably make is smarter to read the first one with the sequel right next to you!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s time to talk about Summer Reads again!I know &#8211; it&#8217;s not officially summertime until well into the middle of this month, but I&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[5],"class_list":["post-2996","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2996","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2996"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2996\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3540,"href":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2996\/revisions\/3540"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}