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Heir of Fire was Awesome

By Brookelorren on 2 Comments

Heir of Fire CoverToday, 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).

 

Crown of Midnight May Keep You Up Until Midnight!

By Brookelorren on 2 Comments

Crown of Midnight coverBack 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!

Throne of Glass Sparkles!

By Brookelorren on 2 Comments

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.

The Wolf and the Rain is Worth Reading

By Brookelorren on Leave a Comment

The Wolf and the Rain coverI 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.

Batman: Nightwalker Was Good

By Brookelorren on 8 Comments

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.

City of Glass was Magical

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City of Glass coverI 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.

City of Ashes was Outstanding

By Brookelorren on 4 Comments

City of Ashes CoverI 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.

Give the Dark My Love…

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Give the Dark My Love CoverI was recently given the opportunity to read Give the Dark My Love by Beth Revis.  I received it through Penguin’s First to Read program.  It was a good book, although I can’t say that it was my favorite.

Nedra is a 17 year old girl who grew up in a poor village.  She doesn’t have many prospects in life… until she gets a scholarship to a prestigious school, where she plans to train to become a medical alchemist.  While she doesn’t feel quite like she fits in, she develops a friendship with another student there, Grey, that seems to be developing into more than friendship.

There’s a plague crossing the land, and Nedra wants to stop it, or even try to find a cure.  As the story progresses, she ends up discovering that there may be necromancy involved.  Necromancy is illegal.  Grey is not too excited about this.  At the end, there are some twists and turns, and Nedra seems to be sliding into the dark side.  Will she be a villain in book 2?  I hope to find out.

The Good

There are a lot of good things about Give the Dark My Love.  I liked the characters and the family relationships that Nedra had.  There’s some political intrigue, and it speaks a little bit about class and privilege.  The magical system is well thought out (except in this world, it’s not magic, it’s science).  I liked the plot twist at the end of the story as well.

The Not as Good

Overall, I enjoyed the book.  I would have liked to have seen more of the relationship between Nedra and Grey, and there was a lot that went on between Nedra and her professor that wasn’t shown either.  The writing style didn’t draw me in as much as some of the other books that I’ve read recently have, but it was still quite good.

Conclusion

Give the Dark My Love has at least two books to it, and I would like to continue with the series (although I’ll probably try to obtain an ARC or check it out from the library).  For me, I don’t think that this book has endless rereadability, but it I did like it.

This book is expected to go on sale on September 25th, but you can pre-order it now.

Caraval Invites You to a Magical World

By Brookelorren on 6 Comments

Welcome to the exciting world of Caraval!  That is what my library could have told me when I found out it was available for download after a short time on the waiting list.  Caraval is a book full of magic, mystery, danger, and love (mostly between sisters).

Scarlett had always wanted to experience the magic that was Caraval.  From the age of ten, she wrote to Legend, the Master of Caraval, hoping to get tickets for her and her sister Donatella (Tella).  Her grandmother had told her stories and made it seem wonderful.  It seemed like a wonderful dream, while in her own life…

Her father was abusive, he wouldn’t let them leave the island that they lived on, and she decided to get married to someone that she had never met just to escape.  One day, she finally gets tickets to Caraval, after she had given up.  She no longer wants to go, thinking that her marriage will save her from her toxic life.

She ends up going anyway; you’ll just have to read the book to find out how.  After she gets there, she discovers that it’s not quite what she was expecting.  It seems to be a magical, more dangerous version of Las Vegas, where everything that happens in Caraval is supposed to stay there.  We find out that not everything stays there, however.  Scarlett’s sister is kidnapped, and she has to find her before it is too late.

She ends up partnering up with Julian, a brash sailor who is definitely not Scarlett’s type, although deep down inside, she finds him to be devastatingly handsome.  Over the course of the search, Scarlett grows as a person, and comes to the realization that maybe she’s putting her hopes into the wrong things.

In the end, we find out the truth about what went on in Caraval.  Maybe… Scarlett wasn’t actually saving Tella after all.  Perhaps Tella was saving her.  Maybe Julian isn’t actually a sailor.  Again, you’ll have to read to find out.

What I Liked

I enjoyed this book.  The characters were likeable, and they grew as people as they struggled through the book.  Scarlett is very practical (maybe a little too much so) and protective of her impulsive sister.  Tella is a little too impulsive.  The love between these sisters is what drives the story, which I found to be a really sweet underlying theme.


There was a lot of mystery to this book, and as I read, I couldn’t help but to wonder what was really going on.  In Caraval, nothing is exactly as it seems.  The book reveals much of its mysteries by the end of the book… but then we realize that there is one more mystery to be solved.  Now I can’t wait to read the next book, which I’m on the waiting list to read at the library.

Anything I Didn’t Like?

I can’t think of anything that I didn’t like about this book.  Maybe at the beginning of the book, Scarlett seems a little hopeless and clueless, but as she grows throughout the book, she becomes a strong person in her own right.

I enjoyed Caraval quite a lot and am looking forward to reading the next book, Legendary, as it becomes available.  If you haven’t read it yet and choose to check it out, I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Origin: Not as Good as I Originally Hoped

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Origin by Dan Brown coverThe other day I was at the library and I found Dan Brown’s book Origin on the shelf.  When it came out last year, I thought it sounded interesting, so I decided to pick it up.  I really enjoyed the puzzles in his book  The Lost Symbol, and I was hoping for a book that had a similar feel to it.  Sadly, I was disappointed in this book.

Our main protagonist, Robert Langdon, is a professor who was invited to an event by a former student and friend of his, Edmund Kirsch, who promises to unveil earth-shattering news that would destroy religion forever.  Unfortunately, the event ends with a horrific crime, before the earth-shattering news could be delivered.  Professor Langdon and the future queen of Spain, Ambra Vidal, need to find out a way to release this information to the world… before it is too late.

I didn’t feel the whole sense of puzzle-solving and excitement in this book that I thought I would.  There was some symbology and some poetry to decipher, but there wasn’t as much in this book as I would have hoped.  There were some drawings in this book, but the symbols printed weren’t really critical to solving the character’s problems.

The future queen, Ambra Vidal, didn’t really seem to be that interesting of a character, I thought.  I just didn’t connect with her.  When they finally are able to make the big reveal about the origin of life that was supposed to be so earth-shattering?  That was a little disappointing as well.  Rather than being an amazing discovery, it seemed to be something that futurists have been talking about for years… and as part of the presentation, the author made jabs at more conservative religious people, which I found to be unnecessary.

At the end, we find out who the criminal was that orchestrated the crime, and while it was surprising, it wasn’t incredibly shocking.

I did like some things about this novel.  Since the novel is set in Spain, I like the liberal use of Spanish throughout the novel.  It’s used in such a way that even if you don’t know Spanish, you can still figure out what is going on.  I enjoyed translating it.  If you’re an art lover, there is plenty of art talk.  I found the buildings, description of architecture, and some of the concepts in here that are real (like the inclusion of the Palmarian church, for example) to be interesting as well.  Even though the overall plot didn’t grab me, there were some elements that I found to be intriguing.

Although Origin wasn’t my favorite Dan Brown book, I think that there are people that will like it.  It just wasn’t my favorite.