Waiting on Wednesday: Every Heart a Doorway and Blackhearts

Waiting on Wednesday is hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine and features books that we just can't wait to get our hands on!

This week's WoW theme is: heart-associated titles :D

Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire

Goodreads' description:

"Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children
No Solicitations
No Visitors
No Quests

Children have always disappeared under the right conditions; slipping through the shadows under a bed or at the back of a wardrobe, tumbling down rabbit holes and into old wells, and emerging somewhere... else.

But magical lands have little need for used-up miracle children.

Nancy tumbled once, but now she’s back. The things she’s experienced... they change a person. The children under Miss West’s care understand all too well. And each of them is seeking a way back to their own fantasy world.

But Nancy’s arrival marks a change at the Home. There’s a darkness just around each corner, and when tragedy strikes, it’s up to Nancy and her new-found schoolmates to get to the heart of the matter.

No matter the cost."

I believe this is an adult novel, and not a specific retelling of any particular fairy tale, but more about what happens to the children who have somehow fallen into fairy tales and have now returned to the real world. I have the feeling this will probably be pretty dark and mature, but I'm really interested by the premise.

Blackhearts by Nicole Castroman

Goodreads' description: 

"Blackbeard the pirate was known for striking fear in the hearts of the bravest of sailors. But once he was just a young man who dreamed of leaving his rigid life behind to chase adventure in faraway lands. Nothing could stop him—until he met the one girl who would change everything. This is their story.

Edward "Teach" Drummond, son of one of Bristol's richest merchants, has just returned from a year-long journey on the high seas to find his life in shambles. Betrothed to a girl he doesn’t love and sick of the high society he was born into, Teach dreams only of returning to the vast ocean he’d begun to call home. There's just one problem: convincing his father to let him leave and never come back.

Following her parents' deaths, Anne Barrett is left penniless and soon to be homeless. Though she’s barely worked a day in her life, Anne is forced to take a job as a maid in the home of Master Drummond. Lonely days stretch into weeks, and Anne longs for escape. How will she ever realize her dream of sailing to Curaçao—where her mother was born—when she's stuck in England?

From the moment Teach and Anne meet, they set the world ablaze. Drawn to each other, they’re trapped by society and their own circumstances. Faced with an impossible choice, they must decide to chase their dreams and go, or follow their hearts and stay."

This is the origin story of Blackbeard, which I really don't know much about (it just makes me think of the fairy tale Bluebeard) so I'm interested to learn more. 

What books are you waiting for?

Top Ten Tuesday: Characters I Just Didn't Click With

The Top Ten Tuesday meme is hosted by The Broke and The Bookish. This week's topic is characters that we just didn't click with. I always kinda enjoy ranting about characters I didn't like, so I thought I'd join in this Top Ten Tuesday.

Plus, I just realized I haven't participated in a Top Ten Tuesday post since August 2014... how is that possible??! (Answer: the busy, stressful life of a grad student... but hey, that's over now! I'm done my program. Hopefully that means I can devote a little more time now to blogging.)

Anyway, without further ado (and in no particular order), here are the top ten twelve characters I didn't click with:

*Links are to my reviews of the books, so you can read in more detail about why a character didn't work for me. 

1.) Anna from A Witch in Winter by Ruth Warburton— specifically, the character Anna becomes once she falls in insta-love with Seth. I liked Anna to begin with, but am no fan of insta-love and what it does to characters I had initially liked well enough.

 2.) Dora from Secret Letters by Leah Scheier — she's annoyingly overconfident in her sleuthing abilities (without any reason that she should be, because actually, she kinda sucks at sleuthing) and sometimes when reading it I'd just be sitting there cringing and going, "No, Dora!!!" in my head.

3.) Victor and Eli from Vicious by V. E. Schwab— I think I'm one of the only people who didn't rave about Vicious. Sorry, but I just found the characters so dislikeable! I know that was the point, but partway through the book I was just hoping really hard for both of these guys to die at the end.

4.) Lucy from Graffiti Moon by Cath Crowley — this one is perhaps less a case of "not clicking" and more a case of a character being kinda boring and flat. Lucy was a pretty relatable character, but I just didn't really care about what happened to her.

5.) Sage from The Storyteller by Jodi Picoult — I really disliked Sage in the first part of this book. I'm not sure if that's what the author intended, but Sage was involved in an adulterous relationship and that will often turn me off a character. She did redeem herself somewhat towards the end, but overall I'm just not the biggest fan.

6.) London from Forgotten by Cat Patrick — I had issues with pretty much everything about this book, but the characterization was definitely one of them. London is a very flat, forgettable sort of character (I guess the book is aptly titled.) As I wrote in my review, "I'm not sure I could name one activity London enjoys doing in her spare time if I had to (I'm not counting hanging out with her friend or boyfriend)."

7.) Sandinista from The Sharp Time by Mary O'Connell — unlike some of the others on this list, it wasn't that Sandinista was so flat and boring that I couldn't click with her. It was the opposite problem — she was so "edgy" and cynical that I had trouble relating to her.

8.) Jacinda from Firelight by Sophie Jordan — she was one of these wishy-washy characters that keeps flip-flopping around, changing her mind every other page. And she loves to bring the angst.

9.) Sunshine from Sunshine by Robin McKinley — she was too sarcastic and jaded even for me, and I can appreciate sarcasm. Worse, she was self-absorbed and whiny, and the stream-of-consciousness writing style made following along with her thought processes even more tedious.

10.) Libby from Pilgrims Don't Wear Pink by Stephanie Kate Strohm — I liked some aspects of Libby's character, but she was so dense when it came to the two guys in her life. It was so obvious to the reader (in part, because this book relies heavily on tropes/stereotypes and is very predictable) which was the "good" guy and which was just a player. But Libby just blindly ignored what was staring her right in the face.

11.) Celaena from Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas — I know this series has a huge fanbase, but at least in the first book, Celaena and I weren't always on the same page. She comes off as sorta full of herself to start with, and pretty judgmental at times of others. We're told she's Adarlan's greatest assassin, but we really don't see it. Plus, she basically leads on two guys at the same time, and I always lose respect for characters who do that.

 
Did you have trouble connecting with any of these characters?