I just finished reading Queen of Shadows, the fourth book in the Throne of Glass series. Although I loved it, I have to be honest — after several weeks of reading a ton of LONG books (this one is about 650 pages) I want to read something a little shorter for a change. The next book, Empire of Storms, is almost 700 pages, and I’m not ready to conquer it yet.
Because this is the fourth book in the series, this review may contain spoilers for the first three books.
Celaena (now mostly going by Aelin) returns to Rifthold in this book, and she’s ready to bring justice to the world. She has a few goals in mind as she comes back into town. For one thing, she wants to obtain the amulet that her parents gave to her when she was a child. Arobynn has it, and it also happens to have the third Wyrdkey in it. Speaking of Arobynn, she wants to have her revenge on him as well. Then she has a score to settle with the king. While she’s at it, maybe she’ll bring magic back into the kingdom.
It’s a tall order, but if anybody can do it, the Queen of Shadows can. This book is full of action and is not without a dull moment. There are many delicious scenes involving deceit and killing monsters and exacting revenge. It was a lot of fun.
Rowan comes back in the book, which also brought a lot of amusement to me with it. I loved how he bickered with Aelin’s cousin Aedion after he returned; the fae can sometimes behave like humanoid animals, and it was quite a bit of fun to watch.
When I read Heir of Fire, I wasn’t that excited about the chapters involving the witches. I actually enjoyed the chapters with the witches more in this book than in the last one. Manon shows character growth in Queen of Shadows, and I am beginning to like her some. I’m looking forward to see how the alliances shake up involving the witches in the next book.
I definitely recommend this book, along with the books before it in this series.
Today, we’re continuing our review of different books from Sarah J. Maas’s Throne of Glass Series. Heir of Fire is the third book, and although I liked it a lot, I’m not sure if I liked it as well as I liked the second book. Since this is the third book in the series, there may be spoilers from the first two books.
In Heir of Fire, Chaol has sent Celaena Sardothien away to her homeland. The king sends her there as an assassin, but she finds out that she can’t carry out her mission. Instead, she hopes to get some information from her aunt, the fae Queen Maeve.
Heir of Fire splits off into three storylines. In the first storyline, we see what happens to Celaena, now going by her fae name of Aelin, along with the fae prince, Rowan, who is supposed to oversee her training. The second storyline revolves around Prince Dorian, Chaol, and some rebels back at Rifthold. The third storyline revolves around the witches, who are gathering in a fragile alliance.
Since the first Throne of Glass book, we see a dramatic change in where the story is headed. Whereas there was fairly little magic in the first book, this book is overflowing with magic. There is magic everywhere, from the fae, to Rifthold, to the witches, and of course, there are magical creatures to fight.
I think that one of my favorite parts of this book was Celaena and Rowan’s growing relationship. It looks like they can’t stand each other at the beginning of the book, but even then, you can tell that there should be something going on between them. I like them together.
My least favorite part of the story was the storyline involving the witches. I didn’t dislike their story, it just wasn’t my favorite. I was always looking forward to seeing Celaena and Rowan together. I did like the character of Manon though.
I love how this world continues to get more complex and diversified as the books continue. I’m glad that the next book in the series is already waiting for me to read on my Kindle (even though I’m currently drowning in library books).
Back in May, I put the Throne of Glass series on hold at the library; it took until July for the books to start becoming available, but shortly after that book became available, Crown of Midnight was ready to read. I had to start reading it right away, and I think I liked it better than Throne of Glass. Since this is the second book in a series, this review may contain spoilers for the first book.
As we begin this novel, our heroine, Celaena Sardothien, is now the king’s champion. The king has been asking her to kill enemies of the realm for a while now. Not too far into the book, however, you realize that Celaena is keeping a secret about these assassinations…
Meanwhile, Celaena is getting closer to Chaol. At the end of the last book, Celaena decided to break things off with Prince Dorian, giving the excuse that she didn’t think it was appropriate for the king’s assassin to be dating the crown prince. While reading the first book, I didn’t get the impression that Celaena was that into Chaol, but in this book things dramatically shift.
But not all will remain rainbows and lollipops for the king’s assassin. There are forces at work in the kingdom that were hinted at in the first book, and we find out more about them here. Celaena’s most recent assassination assignment leads her to a group that may be trying to overthrow the kingdom… but are they on her side? Well, let’s just say that you don’t want to piss the king’s assassin off. In this book, you get to see quite a bit of Celaena’s badassery.
Even though magic was supposedly banned in the kingdom years ago, we learn in this book that plenty of magic remains. Crown of Midnight reveals more magical secrets, both of the world, and of some of our main characters. Because the king has banned magic, these secrets can be very dangerous.
This series is like an onion: the farther you get into the book, the more is revealed about the characters and the storyline that you need to find out answers to. Throughout this story, we find out more about Celaena’s past. The king’s assassin definitely has some secrets that she wouldn’t want to have exposed.
The book concludes with a nice set-up for the next story. There are no nail-biting cliffhangers, but you’ll want to find out what happens next to these characters. I’m looking forward to Heir of Fire becoming available at my local library!
I recently started reading Sarah J. Maas’s Throne of Glass series. Well, I’m waiting for the second book to become available at the library, but I got to read the first book. I thought it was excellent and can’t wait until the next one becomes available.
Celaena Sardothien has had a difficult life. After her parents died, she was trained to be an assassin, and was pretty good at it. Unfortunately, she was caught and was sent to be a slave in the mines. Although most people die in the mines fairly quickly, Celaena survived for over a year there. When the king needed a trained assassin to do his bidding, Celaena as picked as one of his potential “champions.” If she became picked as his champion, she would receive her freedom after several years of service. Otherwise… back to the salt mines she goes (literally).
When she gets to the castle where the competition is going to be held, she has to train hard and regain her strength. It takes her a while to get up to speed. All the while, other things are going on in the castle.
We find out that the king is corrupt, but the prince, Dorian… maybe not so much. There is something out there that is killing some of the competitors vying to be the king’s champion. Celaena makes a friend for the first time in probably eons, and maybe… there still is a little bit of magic in the world after all. This story is full of court intrigue and political maneuvering. Celaena also has a love interest in this story; I’ve seen other reviewers say that there’s a love triangle, but she really only seems to show interest in one person for most of the book, even though another person seems to be developing an interest in her as well.
There really is a lot going on in this story, and it doesn’t all get resolved by the end of the book. It’s a good thing that there are more books in this series, because there is so much happening that it will probably take a while to resolve everything.
I like the main character, Celaena. She might be a little bit too bad-ass to actually be believable in real life, but this is a story, so anything is possible. I like the fact that she actually has interests beyond killing — she is also a girl who is into fashion and reading books. There are also a few funny scenes in here that are pretty cute.
It seems like most people who read Throne of Glass either love it or hate it. Most people who hate it seem to dislike the main character. I happen to like her, and also happen to like the books.
I recently read The Wolf and the Rain by Tanya Lee. It is a book about a dystopian world set in the future. Although it was not my favorite book that I’ve read (even this month) it was fairly enjoyable. I received an advanced reader copy of this book free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
The Wolf and the Rain follows the story of Samarra, who also goes by Sam. She has a fairly good (although perhaps shady) job, in a place where good employment is scarce. The world is a fairly dangerous place, where most people don’t know how to read, and knowledge of things like basic sanitation is limited.
The story switches back and forth between the North (where Sam works at this shady job) and the South, where there is a completely different storyline going on. We know that Sam is from the South, and so it’s fairly simple to deduce that the storyline in the South is probably about her, but the whole switching back and forth between the two timelines can be hard to follow, at first.
In the South, life is completely different. They know about basic sanitation. People have work. Yet everything seems so… regimented. It almost feels as if the people in the South have no freedom or identity. This is a huge contrast to the North, where chaos reigns, but people have choices to go to parties and aren’t told what to do for most of the day.
From the beginning of the story, Sam seems obsessed with the disappearance of a girl that she’s never met (in the Northern storyline, at least). She spends her free time trying to track down the girl, even though it puts her into danger. For much of the story, I was wondering “why does she care so much?” This remains a mystery for most of the book.
While this is a dystopian book, there is also a puzzle to it. You’re left trying to piece together why Sam is so interested in the missing girl, what happened to the girl, and how do the timelines from the North and the South intersect? Sadly, you won’t get the answers to ANY of these questions as you read this book. Although the puzzle starts to come together, it doesn’t completely form into a whole picture by the end. There is supposed to be a sequel, and I guess the answers lie there.
The book started off slow. The multiple timelines were confusing at first, and at first, I didn’t really care about the outcome all that much. Towards the end of the book, after I got to know the characters and I started to figure out what was going on, it got interesting and I wanted to find out more.
I do plan on reading the sequel to The Wolf and the Rain at some point. While this isn’t one of my favorite books, it was interesting and I thought it was worth reading.
I recently finished reading Batman: Nightwalker by Marie Lu. When I first heard about the book, I wasn’t planning on reading it; I am so not a superhero person. My husband drug me to see a couple Spiderman movies a while back, and I’ve seen the Superman movies and some others… but it’s definitely not my genre. That being said, I loved Brad Meltzer’s Book of Lies, which has something to with Superman, that I read several years ago.
Anyway, I had started saying that Marie Lu could write about the alphabet and make it interesting. If I really believed that, then I should read her Batman book to see if it’s true. It actually was good, so that theory still holds. It’s probably my least favorite book that she’s done (but she set the bar really high with her other seven books), and it’s not going to make my top 10 books of 2018 list (which is okay because she might have two books on that list anyway), but I definitely enjoyed it.
The story follows Bruce Wayne right after he turns 18, about the time that he’s graduating from high school. He’s already fabulously wealthy, and is already realizing that there are some people that just care about him because of his influence. He’s ready to spend his last summer before college with his two best friends… until he happens to run across a crime scene.
He has a cool car that can chase down the bad guy, so he does — and gets in trouble with the police as a result. He is sentenced to community service at the local insane asylum. There, he discovers a little more about the string of crimes happening in the area, committed by a group called the Nightwalkers. He ends up bending the rules a little bit, but in the process ends up saving the day. Oh, and he also develops a thing for a criminal that may not be as bad as she initially seems to be.
One of the things that I love about this book (and pretty much all Marie Lu books in general, I’ve come to realize) is that it shows compassion for people that many would otherwise dismiss. People sometimes can be condemning of people because they happen to be the wrong race, or had to make difficult choices because they were poor, or did something stupid in their past. Our villain, Madeleine, might be a criminal, but there were forces that drove her there. I love how the book delves into the reasons why she chose the path that she did rather than just writing her off as a bad person. This book also deals briefly with sexual harassment, which is very timely in the #metoo era.
Batman: Nightwalker introduces us to Bruce Wayne discovering some of the cool Batman toys that he’ll later use as Batman. I thought it was also cool how the book goes a little bit into his interest with bats.
I thought that Batman: Nightwalker was a good story worth reading. My daughter is reading it now and also likes it; she enjoys superhero movies in general. Although this book isn’t in a genre that I routinely read, I did find it interesting.
It’s Tuesday again, and you know what that means… another Top Ten Tuesday post. Today’s Topic is supposed to be “Bingeworthy TV Shows/Movies”, but I’ll be doing a post on “Books That Were Made into Movies: Which Was Better?” Because I’m sure that you’re not interested in this:
Or this:
And since I usually only watch TV shows during my Russian meetup group, I think I’ll stick to books (the last one, Red Queen, has nothing to do with the Aveyard books). These are in no particular order.
How could I write a Top Ten Tuesday post about movies without including Divergent? Divergent was the movie that got me into reading YA. I actually saw the movie trailer before I read the book, and I read the book before I saw the movie. Despite the fact that I own all the movies in this series and have seen them several times (mostly in Spanish to practice my language skills), I actually don’t think the movie was all that great. I don’t think Shailene Woodley did an outstanding acting job here, and although Theo James is kinda hot, his acting was just okay as well. Plus, they get the stupidest details wrong in these movies (eye color, tattoos, location of the safe house in book 1…). I understand that they changed some of the details for artistic license, but these movies could have been a lot more faithful to the books. Maybe I’m bothered by it because of the hours and hours and hours of Divergent trivia that I’ve played on QuizUp.
Verdict: Books were better.
The Hunger Games is another book series that I loved that was made into movies. I think I watched the first movie before I read the books, but I read the rest of the books before I saw the movies. This was a series that I read in both English and in Spanish.
I think that they did a great job on the movies here. They seemed to stay fairly faithful to the books, and the acting was decent as well. I would have liked the movies even if I hadn’t read the books.
Verdict: Both the books and movies were good.
The Little House on the Prairie books are classic books. I don’t know how many times I read the set when I was a kid. The television show that ran in the 1980s was fairly popular as well. When my kids were younger, we’d watch the TV show with them, and it’s still pretty good.
However, even though the television show was pretty good, I still think that the books were better. The TV series had a feel-good message and moral lessons, but it wasn’t enough to beat the books.
Verdict: Books were better.
Anne of Green Gables is another series that I’ve read that they made into movies. I haven’t watched the Netflix series based on this show, but I did see some movies that they did of this show years ago. I wasn’t really that impressed (I think that I’ve seen two different versions of this book to screen adaptation). Even if the movies had been good, they didn’t cover the entire series, and Rilla of Ingleside is actually my favorite book of the entire series, I think.
Verdict: Books were better.
Forrest Gump is one of my all-time favorite movies. I just love the story, and the music is wonderful as well. I’ve seen this movie quite a few times.
The book, on the other hand (pictured here), is not quite as good. I don’t remember it all that well, but I do remember that it was just okay. I think I found it on sale, along with its sequel, Gump & Co. Forrest is not the same guy in the book as he is in the movie, and he’s not as likeable. Not by a long shot.
Verdict: Movie was better.
Like Divergent, I had never heard of The 5th Wave until I had seen the movie trailer. I went ahead and read the book before I saw the movie though. I thought the book was fantastic, and I flew right through it. This book made my top ten list of favorite books for the year that I read it in (the other books in the trilogy were not as good and didn’t make my favorite books list, however).
I thought the movie was pretty good, however, it really paled in comparison to the book.
Verdict: Book was better.
I was so excited when I heard that they were going to make Dragons of Autumn Twilight into a movie. After all, I named my kids after characters in these books! Alas, instead of making a really cool live-action film like The Lord of the Rings, they ended up making a really terrible cartoon instead. We were really disappointed.
I’m sure that you’ve heard to never judge a book by its movie, and that is doubly true for this book. The book series is fantastic! Unfortunately, I think that the movie that goes along with this book is the worst on the list.
Verdict: Book was WAY better.
The Lord of the Rings is a classic book series. I read it a long time ago, and I don’t remember much about it because I had aspartame poisoning at the time (it really killed my memory), but I remember liking the books.
Of course, I’ve seen all of the movies as well, and they were also great. They did a wonderful job making these movies, and I wish that they had done such an amazing job on Dragons of Autumn Twilight as they did on these movies. Before these movies came out, I was never really impressed by fantasy books that had been turned into movies. But these showed me that they could be done well.
Verdict: Both the books and movies were good.
Ender’s Game is another book that I was really excited to see turned into a movie. I read three of the books in this series in high school and I thought that they were really good, so I had to go see the movie when it came out.
While I thought the movie was good, I thought that there was a lot that was in the book that they ended up having to leave out for the movie. I know that they have to edit movies for time and all, but I think that all that ended up getting cut out made the movie inferior to the book.
Verdict: Book was better.
Unbroken was a great movie. It had a wonderful message, and it left me crying at the end. I think I saw the movie on Christmas day, and my dh gave me a copy of the book as a present on the same day, so I saw the movie first.
Even though I thought the movie was really good, there is only so much you can put in a movie. The guy spent a long time on a life raft, and then he went to a prisoner of war camp. Then when he went home he had to recover. It’s difficult to pack into a short movie
Verdict: Book was better.
So that was this week’s Top Ten Tuesday Topic. Come back next week where I talk about Hidden Gems: books that were really great, but not everybody knows about yet.
I recently read City of Glass by Cassandra Clare. This story was great. I bought this book used off of Amazon.com when I realized that I was #5 on the waiting list at the library, and all the books after this on the waiting list were going to become available sooner. So I spent a few dollars for my own copy rather than waiting for this one to become available, and then waiting several more months for this story to conclude.
While this review doesn’t contain spoilers for City of Glass, it may contain spoilers for the first two books.
My experience was probably different than someone reading it in 2009, when this book first came out, because I had the benefit of being able to look up online what was going to happen between Clary and Jace. I won’t say here what happens because I don’t want to include spoilers, but the whole incest issue between the two of them does resolve itself. In this book. So if you’re thinking “eeew” as you read this book, don’t worry about it. It will get fixed. In about 400 pages.
When we last left these characters, Clary had discovered that there was a way to cure her mother, but it required her to travel to Idris. Jace doesn’t want her to go, however, thinking it’s too dangerous. Fortunately, Clary has a mind of her own and isn’t about to let her brother tell her what to do.
Due to a few things that happen, both Luke and Simon end up in Idris as well, and they’re not supposed to be there.
There are bigger things to worry about than that, however. Valentine still has the Mortal Cup and Mortal Sword, and he still wants to use them to root out what he sees as corruption in the Clave. At least, that’s how he puts it. Part of him just wants to take over the world.
By the time you get to the end of this book, secrets will be revealed and people will die. We also meet new characters. Even though I did look up spoilers to find out what was up with the whole Jace/Clary thing, reading the books up to this point clarified quite a few things.
One of the things that I appreciate about these books, that I haven’t mentioned before, is that there is a lot of Bible and historical literature in these books. For example, Clary wrote Mene Mene Tekel Upharsin at one point, without realizing what that meant. I recognized it as what “the handwriting on the wall” was in the book of Daniel. We also see lines from Milton and some Latin. These certainly aren’t theological books, but I find the references to be clever.
I also love it when books have themes to them. The Mortal Instruments books seem to speak about corruption. How people use power wrongly. How people take advantage of laws to benefit themselves, even if by doing so they are acting immorally. Through the character of Valentine, we even see how evil can package itself in an attractive manner. These details make me enjoy the books more.
I absolutely could not put this book down, and read it in two days, despite having to work and do other things. If you haven’t read City of Glass yet, you should continue with this story.
Amazon.com has some amazing deals. Their deals are so good that I often talk about them while I’m at work (at Walmart). Here is how a typical conversation at work might go:
Me: Did you find everything that you were looking for today?
Customer: Yes, and then some.
Me: That happens all the time around here. For me, that happens at Amazon.com. I can’t pass up their $1.99 books!
And today is no exception. Amazon.com has some amazing deals this weekend. Not only do they have a Labor Day sale going on, but they also have changed out some of their monthly deals. I have tried to separate them out to figure out which is which, but here are some sales you might want to take advantage of:
Labor Day Weekend Deals:
Veronica Roth’s Carve the Mark is on sale for $1.99! This book took the #2 spot on my favorite books I read in 2017 list. I’ve read this book three times this year (once in Spanish). You can read my review of this fantastic book; it was one of the first books I ever reviewed on this blog. If you don’t have it yet, now’s your chance.
The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue is another one of those books that you keep hearing about. I haven’t read it yet, but it seems like everybody that read it seems to think that it’s great. It’s not on Kindle’s Monthly Deals list, so I’m assuming that you can only get this book on sale for $1.99 through this weekend.
Amanda Foody’s Ace of Shades is on sale this weekend for $1.99 as well. This book was on sale a few months ago and I picked it up then; I thought it was a great book. You can read my Ace of Shades review from July. I really liked the book, and for $1.99, you shouldn’t pass it up!
Let’s Talk About Love is another book that everybody seems to talk about. This book is on sale for $2.99 this weekend. I haven’t read this book yet, but if this has been on your TBR for a while and you’ve been waiting to pick it up, now is as good of a time as any to get it.
Those are just some of the deals that I could find that are going on right now that are NOT on the Kindle Monthly book deals list. If you want any of these, you’ll want to act on them right away.
Kindle Monthly Book Deals:
I almost always look at the Kindle Monthly Book Deals towards the beginning of the month, sometimes I might pick up a book or two, and then for the rest of the month I debate about whether to get some of the other books that I’ve been thinking about, but am unsure of. Then I end up logging into Amazon.com on the 30th of the month and end up buying another book before the deal goes off sale.
These books will be on sale for the rest of September but if you want them, then you’ll want to either get them now, or be like me and log in on September 30th and buy them, LOL.
The City of Brass is one of the monthly deals that I’m hoping to take advantage of. It’s got fantasy in a Middle Eastern medieval type setting, which sounds pretty exciting. I’ve seen this book in a few places and it looks pretty interesting. Right now it’s on sale for $1.99.
Fawkes is one of those stories that I keep hearing mixed reviews about. Some of the bloggers that I’ve seen write reviews on this book have absolutely loved it; others have said that this book was just “meh”. For a while, I’ve been debating on whether to read this book or not. I’ve decided on the side of reading this book. I’m a big history person (as you might have noticed if you read my Top Ten Tuesday list of nonfiction books) and I’m familiar with the original story of Guy Fawkes, so I think that this book will probably be something that I’ll like. I’ll definitely be getting this for $1.99 this month, even if I end up logging in on September 29th in a panic because I haven’t bought this one yet.
I don’t know too much about Poison Study, but I’ve seen a couple people mention this on their Top Ten Tuesday lists of books that they really like. This book will be on sale for $1.99 for the rest of September. If this has been on your TBR, now would be the time to pick it up.
These are just some of the books that are on sale on Amazon.com right now. If you want to see more, here is a list of books that are on sale RIGHT NOW and books that will continue to be on sale through the month of September. There’s probably something there for everyone.
I recently finished reading Cassandra Clare’s second book in the Mortal Instruments series, City of Ashes. I thought it was great. You may recall that I read City of Bones a few months ago and I said that it was just good, but I expected better from books after that, since that was an early book of hers.
As this review is the second book in a series, it may contain spoilers for City of Bones.
I was correct in thinking that, because I thought that this was a great book. My problems with City of Bones was that there were a few occasions of infodumping, and I found the reaction of the characters to some of the situations they were facing to be unrealistic. I didn’t see those problems here. I did see one paragraph that seemed like a little infodump, but it didn’t affect my thoughts of the book at all.
As City of Ashes begins, the character’s lives have been upended. Clary and Jace seem to have feelings for each other but are evidently siblings, their mom is in a coma in the hospital, and their father, Valentine, is causing trouble.
Jace’s adoptive mother is having trouble believing all that happened in the first book, and calls upon the Inquisitor to find out the truth. The Clave can use the Mortal Sword to force him to tell the truth. But… dun dun dun! Valentine seems to have stolen it. Will he cause even more problems?
The Inquisitor seems to have a thing against Jace from the moment she sees him, and tries to make things difficult for him. Unfortunately, Jace and his friends are also the only people that see what’s going on, and they have to overcome both Valentine’s forces and the Clave’s representative in order to put things right, or at least as right as they can be.
Meanwhile, Jace and Clary still obviously have non-brotherly/sisterly feelings for each other. Clary reacts to this by forming a love relationship with Simon. I personally didn’t like them together. They didn’t seem to have more than friends chemistry.
I love the characters and the world in this book, and although I can’t keep all the different types of demons and blades straight, I doubt that there will be a quiz on it later. I definitely think that City of Ashes was a great second installment to the Mortal Instruments series, and I’m looking forward to reading the next book.
I just finished reading Queen of Shadows, the fourth book in the Throne of Glass series. Although I loved it, I have to be honest — after several weeks of reading a ton of LONG books (this one is about 650 pages) I want to read something a little shorter for a change. The next book, Empire of Storms, is almost 700 pages, and I’m not ready to conquer it yet.
Amanda Foody’s 
