Category Archives: Fantasy

Feature & Follow (August 24) – Worst Cover on a Great Book

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Welcome to the Feature & Follow Hop, hosted by Parajunkee’s View and Alison Can Read!

If you’re here for the first time, I’d love if you could follow via email, RSS, LinkyFollowers or Networked Blogs. Just let me know your follow method of choice in the comments, and I’ll be happy to return the favor.

And if you’re not new, welcome back! Repeat visitors are better than a Snuggie on a cold night. (Come on. You know Snuggies are awesome.)

This week’s question:

Q: Worst cover? What is the worst cover of a book that you’ve read and loved?

Oh good, this one’s easy. I really, really loved this book. I hate the cover. So much that I will never buy a physical copy of this book, even though I am all about physical copies, because I don’t want it on my shelves. Digital only for me.

1. I understand that the tear of blood is actually very  relevant to the plot, but ewwwww.

2. WHY IS SHE WHITE? NO. Unacceptable. (If you haven’t read it, the main character is Asian.)

(Seriously though, it’s an awesome book).

 

Review: Defiance by C.J. Redwine (@cjredwine @harperteen)

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I’m so glad I finally get to share this book with you guys. I’ve been sitting on this review for months, itching for time to move faster so that I could gush about just how awesome it is. And the day is finally here! Defiance by C.J. Redwine comes out NEXT WEEK (8/28/12) and trust me, this is one you want to get your hands on as soon as possible.

(Go here if you’d like to read my interview with C.J.!)

The Plot (From Goodreads, because it’s too complex for me to summarize on my own)

“Within the walls of Baalboden, beneath the shadow of the city’s brutal leader, Rachel Adams has a secret. While other girls sew dresses, host dinner parties, and obey their male Protectors, Rachel knows how to survive in the wilderness and deftly wield a sword. When her father, Jared, fails to return from a courier mission and is declared dead, the Commander assigns Rachel a new Protector, her father’s apprentice, Logan—the same boy Rachel declared her love for two years ago, and the same boy who handed her heart right back to her. Left with nothing but fierce belief in her father’s survival, Rachel decides to escape and find him herself. But treason against the Commander carries a heavy price, and what awaits her in the Wasteland could destroy her.

At nineteen, Logan McEntire is many things. Orphan. Outcast. Inventor. As apprentice to the city’s top courier, Logan is focused on learning his trade so he can escape the tyranny of Baalboden. But his plan never included being responsible for his mentor’s impulsive daughter. Logan is determined to protect her, but when his escape plan goes wrong and Rachel pays the price, he realizes he has more at stake than disappointing Jared.

As Rachel and Logan battle their way through the Wasteland, stalked by a monster that can’t be killed and an army of assassins out for blood, they discover romance, heartbreak, and a truth that will incite a war decades in the making.”

My Thoughts

This book had literally everything I love in a story.

The action and adventure was incredible. There were scenes that literally left me gasping and curling into a ball, and that’s not something I typically do while reading. I’m normally a much more…stationary…reader. But the tension in some scenes was nearly palpable, and I couldn’t help myself. I was  invested.

It also was a mishmash of all my favorite genres. There were elements of sci-fi, post-apocalyptic, steampunk, romance, and of course, fantasy. And when I say “mishmash,” don’t misunderstand me. I mean it in the best possible way. This book may have a genre identity crisis, but that’s just because it defines its own new genre of pure awesome. So no, I’m not quite sure how to categorize it, and with some books, that would be a problem. Not here. Defiance blends genres seamlessly, and left me hungry for more fantasy-sci-fi-post-apocalyptic-steampunk-romances.

Too bad I don’t know of any.

The characters of Rachel and Logan were strong, personable, flawed, and passionate. They each had their own unique voice, and I loved how the narrative shifted between the two of them. The characters balanced and complemented each other well, and their relationship quickly skyrocketed to the top of my list of favorite YA pairings. I thought their alternating voices kept the story constantly fresh, and I was completely engaged from beginning to end.

The character of the Commander made for a deliciously evil antagonist. The kind you want to slap every time he enters a room, or maybe cower from underneath a table. Just when I thought he couldn’t be more despicable, he was. But he also wasn’t a caricature of a villain. He seemed frighteningly real and terrifying.

And as for the story itself, it was unique, exciting, and thrilling. I wasn’t really shocked by anything that happened, but I also didn’t find it at all formulaic.  There were no twists for the sake of twists, nor were there any payoffs that didn’t feel earned. The story simply unfolded the way it needed to.

Since I don’t want to write a 100% gushy review (much as I may want to), I’ll mention the couple tiny criticisms I had with the book, so you don’t think that C.J. fed me some crazy-making Kool Aid. First, I wasn’t completely in love with the ending. It’s good and exciting, but I like my endings to have more resolution, even if they are part of a trilogy (which this is. Yay!) Would it keep me from recommending the book? Heck no. But I do wish a little more was wrapped up by the end.

And the only other thing — which is so small as to be inconsequential, except that I’m noticing it in a lot of YA fantasy books lately — is the overuse of the word “crimson” in regards to blood. As in, “her hands were stained with crimson.”* This is not unique to Defiance. As I said, I’ve noticed this a lot lately in YA fantasy. A couple times, it works. But after a while, I just kind of want authors to use the word “blood.” Or even “red.”

But as I said, that is a tiny, tiny gripe. Mostly because I feel like I need to gripe about something to keep it real.

Overall, Defiance was a fantastic, exciting read that kept me riveted. It’s unique and special and splendid. One of my absolute favorite books of 2012. If you love a good adventure with magical elements and strong characters, this one is for you.

Content Guide: Contains fantasy violence

*No, that is not an actual quote from the book. It’s just an example of how the word could be used.

Review: Thirteenth Child by Patricia Wrede

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I was pretty excited for this book. I mean, it’s a frontier wild west story, but with magic. Cowboys + magic = good, right? It’s certainly original. Plus, I’d heard nothing but good things about Patricia Wrede’s writing, so when I picked this one up from the library, I was anxious to get started.

The Plot (Goodreads synopsis)

Eff was born a thirteenth child. Her twin brother, Lan, is the seventh son of a seventh son. This means he’s supposed to possess amazing talent — and she’s supposed to bring only bad things to her family and her town. Undeterred, her family moves to the frontier, where her father will be a professor of magic at a school perilously close to the magical divide that separates settlers from the beasts of the wild.

My Thoughts

“Wow, that’s an awfully short synopsis,” you’re probably thinking.

Yes, yes it is. And you know why?

…Well, I’ll tell you in a minute. I have such mixed feelings about this book, I’m going to have to break it up into pieces.

World Building:

Absolutely stellar world building. As far as the setting goes, this book is Oregon Trail meets Harry Potter. The magic was well thought out and intricate, the frontier setting was vivid, and the spells and magical creatures (steam dragons and mammoths guys!) were seamlessly woven into the story.

Also, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin were magicians. YES. That happened.

After I finished the book, it was brought to my attention that Patricia Wrede made the decision to write Native Americans out of her narrative, because she didn’t like any of the stereotypical ways to portray Native Americans in westerns. And a lot of people are bothered by this, and I can see why.

BUT, I think it says something for the world building that I honestly didn’t notice that glaring omission until it was pointed out to me. Even though I am well aware that there were Native Americans present in the wild west, and now that I realize they were missing from the book, it seems like it should have been obvious. But her world actually made so much sense that I didn’t realize it didn’t make sense until the book was over.

Characters:

There were a lot of characters in this book. A. Lot. I mean, from the title and synopsis, right away you know that there’s at least 13 kids in Eff’s family running around. And then of course there’s her parents, and teachers, and friends, and her parents’ friends, and her friends’ friends, and also some assorted townspeople.

Ahem. There are many characters.

Some of them — including most of Eff’s siblings — flicker in and out of the book so fast, I forgot they ever existed or what their purpose was. Others stick around for a while, and I still was not sure what their purpose was. (Like William. What purpose did William serve, exactly?) Really, the only characters that get developed are Eff, Lan, their parents, and a couple of their teachers.

But even then, I’m not sure if they actually get developed, or if I just thought they did through prolonged exposure, because I read about them so often.I think the characters I came closest to really liking were Eff’s parents, but still, I couldn’t tell you much about them as people.

Now would be the time to point out that this book is told in the first person, from Eff’s perspective, and spans about 14 years of her life. It starts when she is 4 or 5 and ends when she is 18. I do not actually have a problem with books that span a long time frame — several of my favorite books and series do this — but in this book, it didn’t work for me. Partially because of the lack of plot, which I’ll get into in a minute. But as far as characters go, it didn’t work because no matter how old Eff was, she talked like she was 11. Which worked for the one chapter where she was 11, and not so much for…all the other ones.

It’s sad, because Eff really is an interesting character. Or she has the potential to be interesting, at any rate. She is born into a magical family. She’s a twin. Her brother is viewed by everyone as super-special, while she is viewed as unlucky. She undergoes some pretty appalling psychological abuse at the hands of her uncle when she is young. These are the makings of a fascinating character. But she just kind of stays the same. Pity.

Plot:

Okay, as I mentioned above about the short synopsis, the reason for that is: This book had no plot.

Say what? It’s a magical western with no plot? Well, pretty much. I mean, it had characters, and they were faced with kinda sorta a conflict that they more or less solved…so I guess in that sense it had a plot. It just wasn’t what I expected.

But honestly, if a book spans over a decade in time, and is a western, with magic and dragons and mammoths, you’d think a plot wouldn’t be too hard to come by, right? But you would be wrong, at least in the case of this book. It’s like Patricia Wrede got so caught up in her fantastic world building that she forgot to introduce conflict to the story (even Eff’s “thirteenth child” stigma is pretty quickly solved by moving to a place where no one knows how many siblings she has. Easy peasy).

Until the last few chapters, where all of a sudden there is a conflict, and that conflict is lame. There’s not any real sense of urgency or investment, and then it is solved, and the book is done. And I’m all like, “Huh. Nothing really happened in that book.”

So. Would I recommend this book? Um, maybe. If you just want to read about a really interesting world that’s described incredibly well, then you definitely want to pick this one up. If you like westerns and stories that follow a family over many years, then you may also want to check this one out. If you want action and magical shenanigans and tension and conflict, you’re going to want to look elsewhere.

 

Review: Fire by Kristin Cashore (@kristincashore)

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Fire is the companion novel to Graceling by Kristin Cashore. You may be wondering what the difference is between a companion and a sequel. I haven’t read many series that take this approach, but in my understanding, a sequel picks up after the conclusion of the events in the first book and follows the same characters. A companion merely takes place in the same world, but doesn’t need to follow the same characters (although there may be some overlap) or the same timeline as the first novel. Fire actually takes place many years before the events of Graceling, in a different part of the same world, and the only overlapping character is the villainous Leck. So fans of Katsa and Po, be warned — they haven’t even been born when the events of this novel come to pass.

The Plot

Fire is a monster girl, the only one of her kind. Monsters in Fire’s world are not as we think of them; they are simply creatures with fantastic coloring and certain special abilities. So a brown cat is a cat. A purple cat is a monster cat. Fire’s monster beauty causes all creatures, but especially men and other monsters, to be unnaturally drawn to her — men to her beauty, and monsters to her blood. She has learned to diminish the attention by covering her flame-red hair and dressing drably, but she still draws the eyes of every man that crosses her path. She also possesses the ability to enter other beings’ thoughts to communicate or even alter their thinking according to her will, but she doesn’t like to use her powers to control others and tries to allow men to keep their thoughts their own.

Fire has grown up living with her lifelong friend, Archer, and his father, former commander of the king’s army, Lord Brocker. She and Archer have enjoyed a friends-with-benefits relationship for many years, as he can’t help but be in love with her monstrous beauty, but at the same time, he knows her for who she truly is. Fire loves her friend in return, but has decided she must never marry or have children, for she wouldn’t wish the life of a monster on any of her offspring.

But soon, Fire’s comfortable life with Archer and Brocker is upset. Her presence is requested by King Nash, and his brother and current commander of the army, Brigan. They need her to use her special abilities to help them determine who is sending spies with mysteriously clouded minds into the kingdom, and what their enemies are planning. Although Fire is reluctant to go, she realizes that her powers may be the only way to prevent the kingdom from falling to evil in what seems to be an inevitable war.

My Thoughts

Fire was a very different type of story from Graceling. Whereas Graceling was more of an adventure story with just a handful of important characters, Fire is much more political and character-driven. There is a host of varied and intriguing characters, and while there is some action, most of the story revolves around unraveling the mysterious political motives and actions of nations on the brink of war.

Right off the bat, I liked Fire more than Katsa. My biggest problem with Graceling was that I couldn’t connect to Katsa very well, and therefore had a hard time becoming truly invested in the story. With Fire, although her monster beauty and her semi-telepathic abilities make her even less human than Katsa, I found her spirit and inner struggles much easier to identify with. She definitely had some thoughts and attitudes I disagreed with, but they all fit with her character and you could see why she was the way she was.

This book has a large supporting cast, and it took some concentration to keep them all straight. My favorites were Brigan, Brocker and Archer, even though none of them was infallible (it may be weird that I picked Archer, given his cornucopia of character flaws, but seeing him through Fire’s eyes allowed me to like him in spite of them), but I also really enjoyed the female members of Fire’s personal guard, who were a constant presence for most of the book, and the king’s other siblings, Clara and Garan. It was a lot of personalities to keep track of, and Kristin Cashore did a fantastic job of giving each of her characters, supporting or not, their own distinct personality and voice.

The plot was complex and at times hard to follow, simply because of the nature of books about political intrigue. I normally tend to speed through books, but I had to pull back and pace myself with this one so as not to miss any of the intricate twists and turns. The pacing was a bit on the slow side, but it worked for me because it allowed the characters to develop more naturally. I felt the ending was a bit more drawn-out than seemed strictly necessary, but it was still largely satisfying, tying up many loose ends. There’s definitely room for more stories set in Fire’s world of monsters and monarchs, but even if this book was a standalone and not a companion, it would be fulfilling.

The writing, as in Graceling, is beautiful. Settling into Kristin Cashore’s prose is like curling up by the fire with a cup of hot cocoa. It’s just comfortable and soothing for my brain, and I could actually feel my thoughts relaxing as I sank into the world of Fire. I love the way Kristin Cashore tells a story, and I’ll read anything she writes, simply to experience her lovely storytelling.

Fire is a beautiful and fascinating tale, set in a unique fantasy world full of colorful characters that I wanted to immerse myself in completely. Even if you haven’t read Graceling, you could read and enjoy Fire with no trouble, although Graceling would probably enhance the reading experience. I loved it, and look forward to more stories set in this world.

Content Guide: Contains violence, threats of sexual violence, and several mentions of casual sex.

My review of Graceling

Throwback Thursday (July 26) – Ship of Magic by Robin Hobb

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Welcome to Throwback Thursday, a weekly meme hosted by The Housework Can Wait and Never Too Fond of Books!

It’s the nature of book blogging to focus mainly on new releases, but there are thousands of great books out there that haven’t seen the “New Releases” shelf in years. We hope to be able to bring attention to some older titles that may not be at the top of the current bestseller list, but still deserve a spot in your To-Be-Read pile.

You don’t have to be a book blogger to participate! You can put up a Throwback Thursday post on your non-bookish blog; or if you don’t have a blog at all, just use the comments to tell us about a book you remember fondly.

Here’s how it works:
1. Pick any book released more than 5 years ago. Adult, YA, Children’s; doesn’t matter. Any great book will do.
2. Write up a short summary of the book (include the title, author, and cover art) and an explanation of why you love it. Make sure to link back to The Housework Can Wait and Never Too Fond of Books in your post.
3. Link up your post at The Housework Can Wait or Never Too Fond of Books.
4. Visit as many blogs as you can, reminisce about books you loved, and discover some “new” books for your TBR list!

Feel free to grab the Throwback Thursday button code from the sidebar to use in your posts.

Thanks for participating, and we look forward to seeing which books you choose to remember!

My Throwback this week is…

Ship of Magic by Robin Hobb

A few weeks ago I featured Assassin’s Apprentice, which introduces us to the Farseer world. However, Ship of Magic, while still set in the same world, kicks off an entirely new trilogy complete with (almost) entirely new characters. Therefore, while I still would recommend you read the Farseer books first, it’s absolutely not necessary to really enjoy this book.

Ship of Magic follows the Vestrit family. Althea Vestrit is the daughter of a Bingtown Trader and rightful heir to her family’s Liveship, Vivacia. However, when her father dies, the ship is passed to her hateful brother-in-law, Kyle, instead of to her.

Kyle forces his son Wintrow to accompany him to sea, in spite of the fact that Wintrow was training to become a priest. Wintrow struggles aboard Vivacia, trying to cling to his beliefs in spite of his father’s constant cruelty.

Meanwhile, Althea enlists the help of her father’s former first mate, Brashen, in a risky endeavor to reclaim the ship. At the same time, the ruthless pirate Kennit seeks a way to seize power and make himself King of the Pirate Isles.

Yes, that is a very complex plot, and I haven’t even begun to touch on all its twists and turns. One thing I love — love — about this series is that it alternates perspective between a ton of characters, and it works. Althea, Wintrow, Brashen, and Kennit are all narrators, and it doesn’t stop there. It’s the best example of alternating perspective I think I’ve ever read, and it helped me become completely and utterly absorbed in the world.

And as for the story, it’s one of the most vivid fantasy books I’ve read. Everything from the descriptions of life on board the ships to the somewhat stifling life lived by families in Bingtown is completely engrossing and fantastic. You really feel like you’re there with the characters, experiencing their (often frustrating and infuriating) lives. Oh, and speaking of infuriating, this book is also a fabulous example of a story where I started out passionately hating certain characters, and by the end of the series, I loved them. And that is no small task.

If you are a fan of fantasy, pirates, adventure, magic, and — oh yeah — dragons, this is a must-read.

This is a blog hop! Link up your Throwback Thursday post below!