Oppression by Jessica Therrien

 

Synopsis:

Elyse knows what it means to keep a secret. She’s been keeping secrets her whole life. Two, actually. First, that she ages five times slower than the average person, so that while she looks eighteen years old, she’s closer to eighty. Second, that her blood has a mysterious power to heal. For Elyse, these things don’t make her special. They make life dangerous. After the death of her parents, she’s been careful to keep her secret as closely guarded as possible. Now, only one other person in the world knows about her age and ability. Or so she thinks. Elyse is not the only one keeping secrets. There are others like her all over the world, descendants of the very people the Greeks considered gods. She is one of them, and they have been waiting for her for a long time. Among so many of her kind, she should not be very remarkable–except for the prophecy. Some believe she will put an end to traditions, safeguarded by violence, which have oppressed her people for centuries. Others are determined to keep her from doing just that. But for Elyse, the game is just beginning–and she’s not entirely willing to play by their rules.

Review:

We’re entering minor spoiler territory here. Nothing big in the slightest, but if you’re super anti-spoiler, I won’t be offended if you skip this section!

I first saw this book on Jessica Salyer’s blog. The first thing that caught my attention was that cover – isn’t it beautiful!? Then I found out it was about Greek gods. Sign me up! You know I’m all over that.

And she didn’t disappoint. Without giving to much away here are the three things I loved most:

3. The characters. Elyse and William are instantly likeable. Their relationship is genuine and beautiful. And even the background characters steal the show from time to time. I love when that happens.

2. The action. This is a page turner for sure. I got through this book in just a couple of days. It’s an easy read (which is not a negative thing!) and a wonderful book to just sit down and thoroughly enjoy. If you haven’t figured it out yet, I highly recommend it.

1. The concept. The Greek gods weren’t really gods, but people with superhuman qualities. How cool is that? And each person has their own power according to who they’re descended from. This world within a world is rich in detail, but not overly complicated. It’s enjoyable for mythology super-nerds like me, and easy to understand for any regular Joe or Jane who wants to pick up the book.

Plus, I won this nifty notebook (that she was kind enough to sign!) from her blog tour giveaway. How could I NOT read the book after that?

Interview:

Even though her blog tour is well over with, Jessica was kind enough to let me question her about her book, the future of the series, and her life as a writer. Hope you find it as interesting as I did!

1. What can we expect from you once Children of the Gods is done? Will it be something vastly different, or do you plan on sticking with YA?

Definitely YA. I’ll probably do a standalone novel next. I’ve learned that promoting one book in a series while writing the sequel is very hard. Also I have another book partially written, but that is a very serious memoir type novel that I’m not sure I’ll be done with any time soon.

2. What types of things inspire you the most?

Good movies/books about love, and music of course.

3. Do you have any strange habits or rituals when you write?

None. My writing is very much all over the place. Although, I tend to get my best ideas in the car while my husband is driving, so much of my writing happens then. Luckily I have a very tiny netbook, and it goes with me everywhere

4. What was the most challenging scene to write?

The most challenging scenes were the ones with Ryder. He wasn’t originally written into the book. His character came about during re-writes, so it was interesting trying to fit him into the story. It worked well though…those are some of my favorite scenes!

5. What are your three favorite TV shows of all time?

Of ALL TIME?? How could I ever choose? Well, Firefly is one…The Vampire Diaries, of course (though a little part of me is ashamed to admit that, lol), and Seinfeld (it never gets old for me).

6. Can we have a little teaser for book two? Please!?

AH! I WISH! I’m DYING to let people read it, lol. Because we’re in the editing stages, I can’t Hopefully I’ll have some snippets soon.

7. If you could write from another character’s POV from your book, who would you pick?

I was JUST thinking about this. I’m planning on writing a few scenes from Kara and William’s POV just for character development (they won’t actually be in the book). Maybe I’ll release them later on like Veronica Roth did with Tobias from Divergent.

8. What is the most surprising thing that’s happened to you since becoming published?

After Oppression was published it was the #5 best-selling Teen NOOK book on Barnes & Noble for 5 weeks straight, right behind the Hunger Games Series. That was pretty surprising…and quite amazing.

So, there you have it! What do you guys think? Have you already read Oppression? Did you like it? If you haven’t, have I convinced you to go pick it up? I hope so!

Thanks again for answering my questions and for being an all around super person, Jessica. I really appreciate it!

You can find Jess in various places around the internet:

Amazon

Goodreads

Facebook

Twitter

Blog

The Short Version

I’m sure all of you writers out there can relate to the following (hypothetical, albeit truthful) conversation:

                Friend/Family Member/Stranger:  What’s your ideal job? What do you want to do when you “grow up”?

                Me: I want to be a novelist!

                Them: Oh? That sounds interesting. Have you actually written anything?

                Me: Of course. I’ve finished writing a novel. I’m in the editing stages now.

                Them: What’s it about?

                Me: Uhh…

The truth is this question always catches me off guard. Obviously I know what my own novel is about; perhaps I know it too well. How am I supposed to whittle down the plotline into a few discernable sentences that don’t make me sound deranged?

I know my characters inside and out. I know what happens from beginning to end, and I know what parts are important. That is, I know what parts are important to me. I think that’s why it is so hard to break down my story and sum it up: I go on and on about things that I feel are important to know, but really I’m just talking in circles and the person is suddenly regretting asking me this question.

So, my usual answer is this:

Me: Short version? It’s about Native Americans who can turn into animals.

Lame. Even I think that sounds cheesy and overused and boring. There’s no detail, there’s nothing there to make them even the slightest bit interested in wanting to eventually read it. But that’s the easier answer for me. I’m still shy about my writing, and terribly afraid that if I do explain my story right, they’ll gently pat me on the shoulder and signal someone to call a mental institution.

(That’s me entirely overreacting, obviously. But I’m sure you can all relate – a lot of people don’t take us writers seriously.)

When I was in college, my professor told me to write a three sentence summary of my story for her to look at before she read it. Absolutely no more than three sentences. That was an incredibly difficult thing to write. But, when I got done with it, I imagined it being on the inside jacket of my book when it’s all shiny and published. Just enough information to get the reader interested, but not quite enough that they can figure out how it will end.

But, of course, I’ve lost it.

So, please tell me: what do you say when you get asked this question? Would it do well to have a little summary memorized for occasions such as these? Do you find that when you try to explain your novel or your idea for a story, people start to look at you out of the corner of their eyes? (Or is that just me hallucinating?)