RTW: Best book of July

This is easy, and not just because I haven't read a ton of books this month. DAUGHTER OF SMOKE AND BONE by Laini Taylor was not only the best book I've read this month, but one of the best books I've read ever.

Everything about it was awesome, and it's so completely unique. The setting, the characters, the writing, the plot, all of it. Also I loved that when weird mythological stuff happens in the normal everyday world, people notice. It adds a layer of reality to the book.

I could go on about it, but I won't. It's amazing. That's all.

What was your favorite read this month? Visit YA Highway to share!

RTW: Villains

This week's RTW question asks: Who is your favorite literary villain?

Reading this question, two characters came immediately to mind. And they are both the same type of character: a sort of maybe villain.

First: Severus Snape. He's not too nice to Harry right from the start, and he's kind of a sketchball. I mean, sure, Harry can be kind of an entitled little pest, so I kind of liked that he had a few people who weren't fawning over him. But seriously you just never. knew. what was going on with Snape. He would do nice things, then he would do bad things. Dumbledore trusted him, but no one else seemed to--or seemed to even understand why. By the seventh book, I had grown kind of fond of Snape, because he'd been such a huge part of the books and he seemed like a person with a lot of really shitty decisions to make. Plus, it was fun to have that confusing emotional back and forth that comes from just having NO idea what to make of someone.

Second: Mrs. Coulter in the His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman. Mrs. Coulter is another one of those confusing characters. She does some really effed up things. And at first she seems pretty much like a straight up super villain, but as the trilogy goes on, you start to almost...understand her. I mean, she still makes effed up choices. (Stop kidnapping people, Mrs. Coulter!) But she's kind of badass. I can't say I ever truly liked her. And if we hung out, I would not eat or drink anything she gave me, and I would probably also not be alone with her because I'd fear she was going to kill me, but by the end, you realized that she did actually have a heart in there, and that her villainous behavior wasn't just for the sake of it.

So I guess I like ambiguous villains. The kind who aren't corrupt to the core, but maybe are a little more morally flexible than the average person might be comfortable with.

Who's your favorite villain? Visit YA Highway and share your link!

RTW: Inspiring images

I like finding pictures of scenery when I'm writing. Sometimes I find them to help me describe something, when I have a picture in my head but want it to be clearer, and sometimes just because I like looking at pretty pictures of scenery. (I am also one of Those People who takes a thousand pictures of scenery while on vacation and hardly any pictures that actually have me in them.) In fact, I have a folder on my computer for each WIP, specifically for pictures, plus a folder for pictures that make me feel inspired but don't fit with any WIP--yet.

So here are some!

For my futuristic ice age WIP: 

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High Fantasy WIP:

I stole this image from someone the last time we did an images RTW. It is perfect.

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Source: The super old computer game Myst

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I have about a million more for each, but I suspect that is plenty of images for you all to look at! What about you? Do you have images that inspire you while you're writing? Visit YA Highway to add your link and see what others said!