Thursday Thoughts: Let's End Things, The Power of Books, Kiersten White

This is a new feature that will be looking at blogging, books, and anything of any relevance to the YA Blogosphere in short form. It's meant to start a discussion by offering quick thoughts from Mari and P.E. on a variety of topics. 

Maybe Some Endings Should Be Final

by P.E.

There are some series that, after the original story is over, continue with spinoffs and movies and short stories and the like. Recently, I have come to the opinion that although I may have enjoyed the original series, I don't want any more. Let the story end. It was nice while it lasted, and it's over. Let's move on. Often, the extra isn't as good as the original series, so it feels a bit like its taking something away from the quality of the original. All's this to say, sometimes endings really should be endings. I don't want any more Veronica Mars, or The Vampire Diaries, and I'm sad to say this but the Bloodlines series has really done nothing for me.

The Power of Books

by Mari

I've never really given this much thought but it's a very big part of reading. That is, the power books can have on a reader, both negatively and positively. The power I keep mentioning can be any kind but the one I've come to identify is the emotional type. Books really know how to pull at our emotions and sometimes even settle into my mood. I'm think about all of this because of If I Stay and Where She Went. I was sitting in a dark cinema with one of my friends ecstatic to finally have the chance to see the book come to life and while I choked up quietly my emotions were nothing to the girl who was sitting down the aisle from me she was bawling. This was the movie. Fast forward to the present in which I'm listening to the Where She Went audiobook, a favourite from a couple of years ago, and I'm rushing into a sort of angry sadness. I'm in the depth of Adam's grief and sometimes it's hard to pull away and realize that, I'm not sad, it's Adam. This power is very brilliant but also terrifying at the same time.

Kiersten White Confuses Me

By P.E. 

I've written features about authors I really like. And surely, there are also authors I avoid because their work doesn't appeal to me. It seems to lack depth, it is light and shallow, and I don't think it's very much quality. There is no author that confuses me more than Kiersten White. I'm pretty much ready to write off her books, and then she writes Mind Games, and the even better Perfect Lies. These stories are dark, morally ambiguous, layered, and so engrossing. In short, they are everything I wanted from the Paranormalcy series or The Chaos of Stars. It's what I like in them that is missing from her other books. It becomes clear to me that White is perhaps using different styles, and it's a little hard to know whether I want to read books by her, because she is capable of writing stories that I love and that resonate with me and she has also written stories that I can't stand. In any case, I love her writing in Mind Games and Perfect Lies. 

-P.E. and MARI