FBCYA Blog Tour: Diversity Talk with Tara Sim, Author of Timekeeper

timekeeper tour

Hello everyone! As I mentioned a couple of posts back, I am very excited to be a part of blog tour for Timekeeper by Tara Sim. As part of the tour, I got to interview the amazing Tara Sim. Tara, if you’re reading this, thank you for taking your time to answer the questions! I also would like to thank Bianca for organizing the blog tour, my fellow book club members at FBCYA, Sky Pony Press, and Tara herself for this opportunity.

Lack of representation is always one thing fictions, especially Science Fiction and Fantasy, kept getting called on. I am a big fan of fantasy books, and even as a fan, I could admit that it’s true. Science Fiction and Fantasy, especially what’s known as epic fantasy, is still dominated by white straight cis male authors. In term of characters, the existence of proper POC representation and own voices in mainstream SFF genre still needs to be improved. That is why when I had the opportunity to interview Tara, I decided to tackle this lack of diversity issue. In the interview, Tara explained about her view on diversity in SFF fictions, the danger of misrepresentation, the importance of #ownvoices stories, and give us some recommendations for diverse books.

About Timekeeper

Timekeeper (Tara Sim)
book cover Book title Timekeeper
Series/standalone Timekeeper #1
Author Tara Sim
Pages 368
Publisher Sky Pony Press
Year published 2016
Category | Genre Young Adult | Science Fiction, Historical, Fantasy

Synopsis

Two o’clock was missing.

In an alternate Victorian world controlled by clock towers, a damaged clock can fracture time—and a destroyed one can stop it completely.

It’s a truth that seventeen-year-old clock mechanic Danny Hart knows all too well; his father has been trapped in a Stopped town east of London for three years. Though Danny is a prodigy who can repair not only clockwork, but the very fabric of time, his fixation with staging a rescue is quickly becoming a concern to his superiors.

And so they assign him to Enfield, a town where the tower seems to be forever plagued with problems. Danny’s new apprentice both annoys and intrigues him, and though the boy is eager to work, he maintains a secretive distance. Danny soon discovers why: he is the tower’s clock spirit, a mythical being that oversees Enfield’s time. Though the boys are drawn together by their loneliness, Danny knows falling in love with a clock spirit is forbidden, and means risking everything he’s fought to achieve.

But when a series of bombings at nearby towers threaten to stop more cities, Danny must race to prevent Enfield from becoming the next target or he’ll not only lose his father, but the boy he loves, forever.

The stunning first novel in a new trilogy by debut author Tara Sim, Timekeeper is perfect for fans of Cassandra Clare and Victoria Schwab.

Continue reading “FBCYA Blog Tour: Diversity Talk with Tara Sim, Author of Timekeeper”

More Happy than Not Tag

In the spirits of #FBCYA book of the month, More Happy than Not by Adam Silvera, I’m doing the More Happy than Not tag. Thank you to my fellow #FBCYA bloggers, Bianca @ Ultimate Fangirl and Trisha @ The Bookgasm for tagging me.
By the way, if you haven’t read this book, YOU TOTALLY SHOULD! It was beautiful and heart-wrenching and even though I didn’t cry, I had a lot of feelings about this book.

Let’s get to the tag.

more happy than not tag

I am more happy than not:

after I finish my 30-minute interval training because I DID IT

when I get home from exhausting day at work to find my mom has prepared my favorite food

when I accidentally purchase a book from Kindle store…

when I have to wait hours for my bus, but have my favorite podcast to listen to

when I have to work on the weekends, but knowing I will get properly compensated

when I manage to make that piece of code works after days of mind-numbing debugging

when I spend the next day walking around in zombie mode having spent the night before finishing a great book

whenever I have that perfect blend of coffee no matter the situation I’m in

when I see that new release I’ve been wanting to read, even though the price tag makes me cringe

everytime I buy new stationery even if I will never use it

I TAG

Sara @ Freadom Library
Emma @ Emma the Book Lover
Luna @ LuniReads
Jorelene @ Page Chronicles

and

everyone who has read this book, but yet to do the tag.

Please don’t feel obligated to do the tag if you don’t want to/have done it before.


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Diverse Books Recommendation #FBCYA

Last month, I read and chat about Harry Potter for the Fanboy Book Club, this awesome book club dedicated to read books with male leads. This month, our book of the month is More Happy than Not by Adam Silvera, a book I’ve been wanting to read for some time. MC @ Blame It On The Books will be hosting this month, and as per her announcement post, we get to recommend diverse books for this month. By the way, you should totally check out her post for other bloggers’ recommendation and in case you want to join the book club.

Onwards!

I think that I haven’t read that many diverse books, but here are some I want to share with you. In the spirit of FBCYA, the first two are with male with leads, number three to five has male leads although there are multiple narrators. However, the last one has female lead.

For urban fantasy focusing on family:

THE DEMON’S LEXICON (Sarah Rees Brennan)

tdl Diversity pitch:

  • Disabled male protagonist (not the narrator)
  • LGBT characters, people of color

Other high points:

  • Focus on relationships between siblings and family
  • Witty banters all day all the time
  • Only one of my favorite book ever (forgive me for recommending it every single time)

 

For heartwarming LGBT contemporary:

SIMON VS THE HOMO SAPIENS AGENDA (Becky Albertalli)

 sim Diversity pitch:

  • Characters: LGBT, people of colors
  • Tackling many issues: family and friend support, homophobic issue, social media

Other high points:

  • Heartwarming without ignoring important issues
  • Can i just say this is my favorite YA contemporary ever? :))

 

For a blend of romance and fantasy:

CARRY ON (Rainbow Rowell)

carry_on Diversity pitch:

  • two boy wizards fell in love in the midst of good vs evil battle.
  • interspecies (?) relationships
  • multiracial leads, including the best friend

Other high points:

  • Rowell wields parentheses like a boss (some readers seem to be annoyed by this, but I love it)
  • Unique spellcasting influenced by pop culture

 

For eclectics cast with disabled protagonist:

SIX OF CROWS (Leigh Bardugo)

 soc Diversity pitch:

  • MC with physical disability (crippled)
  • The melting pot that is Ketterdam, offering us a bunch of very diverse characters with distinct personalities

Other high points:

  • The interaction between the characters are what made Six of Crows so great. There’s something for everyone here
  • Heist!

 

For historical ghost stories filled with characters with diverse backgrounds: 

THE DIVINERS series (Libba Bray)

book cover Diversity pitch:

  • Diverse characters with distinct backgrounds: LGBT, people of color, immigrants, chorus girl with mysterious past. You named it.
  • Disabled key character in book 2

Other high points:

  • The atmosphere of this series is really fantastic

 

For a murder mystery highly influenced by Māori mythology:

 GUARDIAN OF THE DEAD (Karen Healey)

 book cover Diversity pitch:

  • Deeply rooted in Māori culture and their mythology. If you like mythology, but want to try something other than Greek/Rome, you might want give this one a try
  • Asexual character
  • Body image issue
  • Multispecies, multiracial

Other high points:

  • Page-turner mystery

 

That’s all for now! There are many books I didn’t get to mention here and even many more that I need to read. Please leave me your recommendations for diverse books.


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Fanboy Book Club: Kick-off #FBCYA

Hello everyone,

I’m so excited to announce that I am now a member of a book club. It’s called the Fanboy Book Club and it was created by Bianca @ Ultimate Fangirl. FBC is a book club dedicated to read, discuss, and review books with male leads. If you’d like to know more about this book club, check out Bianca’s post here and her intro post here. The official goodreads page could be found here. I never joined a book club before, so it’s going to be fun!
Our February read is a book called Harry Potter and The Philosopher’s Stone. You might have heard of it :p It’s going to be a re-read for me, but it’s been a while since I re-read HP so I cannot wait!

But first of all, a kick-off post!

Card_edit

Tell us a little bit about yourself

Hey guys *waves* I’m Windie, currently resides in my hometown in Jakarta, Indonesia.

Anyway, I love books (obviously), procrastinating, coffee, (learning to) write codes, and I suck at graphic-making. I’m also an avid F1 fan, but never mind that. :p

How did you come up with your blog name?

My blog is called Geek Apprentice because it wasn’t meant to be a book blog. I used to blog about techy-stuff I was learning about (hence the name), but then last October I decided to switch to book blogging.

You could totally see that I’m awful at planning.

Who is your favorite male character?

The first name that came to my mind is Nico DiAngelo (from the infamous Percy Jackson series by Rick Riordan). And after that Alan Ryves (from The Demon’s Lexicon series by Sarah Rees Brennan). Please let me have two. I don’t wanna choose between my faves.

I’m giving you the freedom here. Who are your book husbands/book boyfriends?

I know this is supposed to give me freedom, but I tend to ship character with other character so I don’t really have a book boyfriend. lol. I’m just going to go with my fave here: Alan Ryves. Because he loves books, he’s a good cook, and he’s great with parents and children (I suck at both). He’s also a compulsive liar, but I think I could handle that.

Book with a male lead that really stuck to your heart?

The Demon’s – okay fine I’ll go with another book. It’s also one I’ve been mentioning a lot: Unwind by Neal Shusterman. It actually has multi-POV but I always think the first Unwind book as Connor’s story. Unwind is a book that’s really close to my heart because the theme (organ donation vs unwinding) struck me as realistic and it’s one of a very few books that really blew my mind.

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