January Book: Terra

Workout

Workouts this week have been hit and miss.

Tuesday morning I was able to do almost the entire CUCB core workout in about 35 minutes in my gym.  That night I did 30 minutes of pool running thanks to Victoria.  Now that I know where the pool is, where I’m supposed to sign in, how to find the locker rooms, and how to not look like a complete idiot while attempting pool running, I’m going to try to go at least once each week.  Being in the water actually felt really good, despite feeling like I am not bubbling over with pool running talent.  The night before we went, Victoria sent me a link to Cris‘ list of pool running links, which were a big help!

After walking the mile or so home from the pool, I did all of my PT exercises before going to bed.

Wednesday morning I woke up and went down to my gym for a 30 min ride on the upright bike.  It was crazy boring while I attempted to find something interesting on TV to watch – I settled on an episode of I Love Lucy – and I covered 7.03 miles.  I decided to take the night off of my PT exercises to give my body a chance to recover…especially since I’d done a bunch of my exercises with my therapist earlier in the afternoon.

Thursday morning I headed to the gym to get an interval ride in, but someone had JUST gotten on the only upright bike!  So I headed back to bed, planning to give Friday morning a try.  (I also took Thursday night off from PT.)  But when I went back down Friday morning, the Michael Steele look-alike in my building was already on the bike!  So I headed back up to my apartment and spent about 45 minutes going through my PT stretches and exercises before getting ready for work…and I didn’t even finish all of them!

Which brings me to yesterday.  After sitting around doing nothing for quite awhile after work, I finally convinced myself to go to the gym.  I decided to do intervals to mimic Matt’s track workout from Thursday night with the Cherry Blossom training group.  I did a 10 minute warm up followed by the following 75% effort sprints:

2 min – sprint
2 min – recovery
4 min – sprint
2 min – recovery
6 min – sprint
2 min – recovery
4 min – sprint
2 min – recovery
2 min – sprint

I wrapped up the ride with 9 minutes of a cool down to cover 10.62 miles in 45 minutes.  I had planned to do all of my PT exercises after, but my back started to really hurt so after Matt spent a good amount of time working out the knots for me, I finally got most of the stretching and a little bit of strength in before going to bed.  It’s feeling so much better this morning!

Terra

Last year I made the goal of reading at least one book each month.  I love to read and I spend some time every day reading…but it’s usually a magazine.  In 2012, reading one book each month started out pretty well, until I got backlogged on magazines and it took me A LONG time to get caught back up.  But this year, without Newsweek to read (since it went all digital and I refuse to take my laptop to bed with me since I don’t have a Kindle or Tablet – I’m a paper and ink kind of gal, which is ironic given that I’m also a blogger), I am returning to my goal.  And with that in mind, I picked up a copy of Gretchen‘s book, Terra, to kick of 2013.

(BTW, I just laughed about preferring paper and ink while being a blogger, mentioned it to Matt, and he suggested that maybe I should write pamphlets and distribute those to my friends, instead.  Also, maybe that’s why I’m so bad about replying to emails??)

I ordered Terra before Christmas and had it shipped to my mom’s house with some other orders from Amazon.  She brought it to Florida with her (read it on the plane and fell in love with it – Gretchen, she’s requested that you write #2 faster ), and I started up work on my goal for the year poolside, margarita in hand.

I knew Terra was a dystopian novel, along the lines of The Hunger Games (a personal favorite) and 1984, both of which I had read last year.  I was excited to see where Gretchen’s story would take me, and after reading book #1, all I can say is I CANNOT WAIT to see how the story will continue!

Terra is set in a time when the planet is dying and the rich citizens living in skycities rely on the terrestrials below to scavenge for precious materials on Earth to keep the skycities functioning.  Terra, one of the few female scavs in her settlement, Genesis X-16, works to find pieces of metal and other discarded items from the skycities to provide for herself and her younger brother, Mica.  On one particularly fateful trip, Terra finds herself in the midst of a discovery that will change her life forever.

There are several moments in the book that I found myself comparing the novel’s structure and tone to The Hunger Games, which given my love for that series was not a bad thing at all!  The writing is very strong, creating scenes that are clearly visible in the mind’s eye, and as Terra’s adventures sped up and slowed down, I found my heart racing and slowing with the pacing of the novel.  A lot of action, a lot of focus on the family unit, and a little love story (I’m a hopeless romantic that wishes every novel had a love story of some kind) combined to truly make a wonderful young adult dystopian novel.  In fact, I often found myself in awe throughout the book as I remembered that Terra is Gretchen’s first novel.

Although I know Gretchen, I wanted to approach reading this book as if I didn’t.  I continued to ask myself, “If you didn’t know the author, would you still be reading this?” throughout the book, and the answer is a resounding yes!  I would get so wrapped up in the story and characters that I would often forget my attempt at remaining unbiased (until I saw her adorable logo for Hopewell Media, her publishing company), but then Terra would speak a line that I could almost hear Gretchen saying…and it made me feel as if I knew the character even better.

If you don’t believe me that it’s easy to get addicted to Terra, Gretchen has two sample chapters on her website you can read, so go check it out if you haven’t read it!

Your Turn:  Are you a fan of YA dystopian novels?  Have you heard of or read Terra?  What good books have you been reading lately?