Book Thursdays: How I Discovered Ilyon

Happy Thursday and Resistance Anniversary Celebration, everyone!

If you have no idea what I’m talking about, don’t worry. I’ll start from the very beginning. Which happens to be a very good place to start.

Two weeks ago, I posted my first Book Thursdays blog post here as a review of The King’s Scrolls by Jaye L. Knight. Y’all know how much I loved Resistance and The King’s Scrolls, which are the first two books of the Ilyon Chronicles. But you may be wondering, how exactly did Amanda discover Ilyon? Okay, maybe you’re not wondering, but as a part of the Resistance 1-year anniversary celebration (*squeals*), I signed up to tell you all how I discovered Ilyon, and my story all started last November.

In the midst of an insanely stress-filled and painful school year, I sat in my kitchen doing homework when my iPod buzzed. It was an email, alerting me that a new Christian Dystopian Young Adult book had come out. That book was Counted Worthy by Leah E. Good. (ALL NEW review of this book to come soon!) I read the first two chapters on Amazon, and boy, was I hooked! Needless to say, I bought it. I’ve loved to read since I was two and three years old and (though I was over my head in schoolwork) I finished it in four days. Let’s just say that I let school slide a bit that week and that was a great decision.

My love for reading was reawakened. I was greatly inspired to read and write (WAY more than I was doing, and this blog came about partially because of that). My faith was ignited even more and I was inspired to live out my faith. So what did I do when a fantastic novel so immensely changed me? I started reading the author’s blog and I emailed her, of course!

Leah was very gracious toward me, Amanda the extremely enthusiastic fangirl. (That’s a pretty conservative way to describe me, you should know.) And we started getting to know each other (me still being a floating-on-clouds squealy fangirl).

One day, on her blog, I saw an interview with Jaye L. Knight, the author of the Ilyon Chronicles. The interview was amusing and splendid, and The King’s Scrolls piqued my interest. (Not a lot of new books do, so this was special.) But I put it at the back of my mind, noting the fact that it was aimed at readers 18-25+ and I thought I’d probably find it cliché, boring, or “not my kind of book.” Haha yeah right. I was naïve. That was a mistake.

A little while later, Leah sent me a recommendation of The King’s Scrolls because it was very similar to Counted Worthy and she thought I’d enjoy it. I hesitated a little bit; I figured I’d never get a chance to read it, and frankly, I didn’t want to put down money for a book that I wasn’t sure about loving. And that was mistake #2.

However, she let me borrow Resistance (Ilyon #1) and I finished that book in four days. 524 pages in four days, my friend. That’s how you know that a book is good. Like, really good. I’m glad to say that I didn’t have too much schoolwork that week.

A mini-screenplay from that week:

 

Mom: Amanda, what are you doing?

Amanda: I’m reading.

Mom: What book?

Amanda: *glowing* I’m reading Resistance. *sighs*

Mom: Okay. Have fun. *smiles*

This question of “what are you doing” was asked many times over the next few days.

Mom: Amanda, aren’t you supposed to be doing anatomy?

Amanda: It’s okay, I’ll do it on the weekend. Maybe I’ll study for a little while later on (aka for 15 minutes, so I can get back to my real book).

Mom: Do you want to hold your one-day-old cousin?

Amanda: Yeah!

Mom: Okay, put down the book.

That week was a very fun week.

Yeah, the little schoolwork I did have to do suffered. But like the week that I read Counted Worthy, it was so worth it.

I repeat.

It was so worth it.

Now I’ve read The King’s Scrolls and I’m awaiting Half-Blood (Ilyon #0.5) (A PREQUEL NOVELLA! YAY!) and Samara’s Peril (Ilyon #3). And the last three books. Yes darling, they are that good.

Please read them. #NoRegrets here. At all, whatsoever.

If you’d like to see a list of the Resistance Anniversary Celebration events and blog posts coming up, they are here.

Thank you all for visiting my blog, and please come back! You can also subscribe. That’s awesome too.

*aj