Category Archives: Supernatural

Film Review: The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones

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I read the first book in Cassandra Clare’s Mortal Instruments series over a year ago, and while I liked it, it didn’t leave me chomping at the bit to read the rest of the series immediately. Really, I remember thinking after finishing the book, the format I wanted to experience this story in was cinema. Everything was so big and bold and visual. It’s funny, because I’ve read other books that I adored as books, and while I loved the film versions as well, the books held the magic for me. *coughHarryPottercough*. But for whatever reason, City of Bones just felt like a movie to me, even while reading.

So obviously, I was happy to hear it was being made into a movie. This is how I wanted to experience this story in the first place! I wasn’t a rabid fan like many out there, but the trailers looked good and I’m a big fan of on-screen magical demon slayage, however I can get it. Then I managed to snag a couple passes to an advance screening, which really made the decision to see it a no-brainer.

Overall, I was really pleased with the adaptation. I think it’s good that I only read the book once, and I read it a while ago, because while I was familiar with the story, I wasn’t so familiar that every deviation from the source material stood out like someone pointed a spotlight on them *coughHarryPottercough*. I could experience the story with eyes that may have not been fresh, but were at least wide open. I thought the casting was (mostly) spot-on, the acting was good, the writing was solid, and the effects and visuals were lovely.

The main characters of the book all made the transition from book to screen more or less intact. I still liked Simon more than Jace (I feel like, as in the book, Jace relies a lot on smolder, and Simon on wit, and for me, wit will always trump smolder). Also, Simon makes a Ghostbusters reference early on that pretty much cemented him as my Favorite Franchise Character Forever. But book-Jace fans will not be disappointed. There is plenty of smolder and snark, as well as heaps of demon-slaying goodness. I also enjoyed Alec and Isabelle, although if I had to pick one character who didn’t make the jump to screen as well as the others, I’d have to go with Alec. He was…fine? But I didn’t really feel anything toward him, whereas I liked Alec in the book.

The supporting players — Valentine, Jocelyn, Luke, Magnus — were all strong. I would be totally happy to see a movie solely about the adult cast. They all made excellent use of very little screen time, and I found myself wishing for more of all of them (although don’t get me wrong — I didn’t wish for less of the teen cast, either). Jonathan Rhys Meyers has made deliciously sinister into an art form, and it makes me want to go back and watch The Tudors again even though I had to quit that show (because seriously, guys, SO MANY NASTY EXECUTIONS). Lena Headey was strong and confident and I wish she was conscious more. Aidan Turner played a no-nonsense werewolf so well, I didn’t even remember that he’s a hobbit. And I know there are a truckload of Magnus Bane fans out there, but he’s not in the first book much, nor is he in the first movie much, so I don’t really get it yet. But I can say, Godfrey Gao totally rocked the guyliner.

As far as story goes, I think the writers walked the tightrope of cut-vs-keep masterfully. A very twisty-turny plot was, for the most part, streamlined into something a new audience could grasp without dumbing it down and alienating the original fans. Yes, there were some scenes in the book (even some action scenes, surprisingly) that didn’t make the cut. Yes, there were some lines added to the film version that didn’t really enhance the experience at all (one, in particular, I felt robbed the audience of an especially gasp-inducing moment). But for the most part, I thought all the variations from the book made sense, adapting the story into one that will please fans of the book as well as people who have never picked up the series before.

There’s lots of action, lots of intensity, and a crazy-creepy world where nothing is ever as it seems. As YA book-to-movie adaptations go, it’s definitely one of the better ones I’ve seen. I didn’t Hunger Games love it, but I absolutely enjoyed it. I think fans of the books will be pleased, and those new to the story will be drawn in. It even made me want to go read the second book in the series, which I was previously unmotivated to do. And for a film based on a book — especially the first film in a series — I think that’s one of the best reactions it could hope to inspire.

Writerly TV: Buffy the Vampire Slayer

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You may or may not be aware that we just passed the 10th anniversary of the final episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, a show that, despite its silly name, is often considered by both fans and critics to be one of the greatest shows of all time. I admit, I held out on this show for a while. I saw the original movie, and it was terrible. So although the show premiered while I was still in high school, and although I had friends who watched and loved it, I didn’t think it would be for me. I wasn’t really into teen shows, and I wasn’t into vampires.

Years later, after graduating college, I got a job working the graveyard shift at a hotel. It. Sucked. But one day, as I ate “lunch” at 4:00 p.m. while preparing for work, I turned on the TV. My options were limited. But eventually, my channel surfing paused on a show that looked interesting. The dialogue was snappy and smart. The characters seemed interesting. And holy whoa, suddenly there was kung-fu. While snarking.

After a few minutes, I was hooked. Buffy became my daily get-ready-for-work show, and even though I started watching mid-season 5 (A WEIRD TIME TO START THE SHOW, LEMME TELL YA), I eventually figured out most of the back story and mythology. Using powers of mind control I have still never been able to replicate, I convinced my fiance (now husband) that this show was not too girly for him, and he joined me in my addiction. We watched through the end of season 6, then started from the beginning as the reruns cycled back around. We caught up just in time to catch the final season as it aired. I remember watching the series finale in his parents’ basement, a month before our wedding. We had gone out for the evening on some sort of wedding-related activity, but demanded that we return in time for Buffy. IT WAS QUITE IMPORTANT. (BTW: DVRs are a good invention. I appreciate them quite a lot.)

So what’s the deal with Buffy? Maybe you heard it was awesome, and watched a few episodes of the first season, then gave up. I wouldn’t blame you. (Okay, I would, but not a lot.) The first season was working with a low budget and a big concept. The effects are awful. The season-long Big Bad is campy. And it followed a monster-of-the-week format featuring creatures that were often just plan weird.

I am fully aware that this is not from Season 1. And of who the monster is. But you have to admit, this gif still sums up the problems of Season 1 pretty well.

It. Gets. Better.

Buffy really starts to come into its own in Season 2, when it started to embrace serialization and season arcs a bit more. It also dared to go a bit darker, which helped immensely. And as the show matured, it grew bolder, took bigger risks, told broader stories. Not all the seasons are perfect — every one has a few stinker eps — but even Buffy at its weakest is better TV than many shows at their strongest.

The strength of Buffy is not in its kick-butt action sequences (although the karatepires are indeed awesome). It’s the characters, and how they evolve over whatever length of time we get to spend with them. Characters we meet as villains become heroes, and heroes become villains. Characters with superpowers fail, and characters with no powers triumph. They are constantly growing and changing, making mistakes and learning from them. More than anything, they feel real. While Buffy Summers is indisputably the main character, her friends, family, allies and nemeses all get fully fleshed out. They each have their own struggles and arcs and amazing development. If you want to know how to make an audience invest in side characters, or how to make each and every character the hero of their own story, this is the show to watch.

Additionally, Buffy remains one of the best shows for witty banter, ever. The writing is sharp and tight, somehow managing to perfectly blend humor and darkness, tragedy and levity. It’s a serious show that deals with serious issues, but it’s also hilarious and silly. Its emotions are real and raw, but it balances them with moments of unexpected lightness.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer is not just a show about a girl slaying vampires, or kids developing superpowers. It’s a show about growing up, finding yourself, making mistakes, facing challenges, and developing the relationships that help define who you are. Yes, there’s monsters and action and magic, but if that’s all it was, it would be no different than the dozens of other shows with that M.O. There’s a reason Buffy is the bar all the others aspire to. There’s a reason it’s considered great, and not just lumped in with all the other “vampire shows” or “teen shows.” It uses a supernatural setting and fantastic conflicts to tell stories we can all relate to. It takes character archetypes we think we know — the cheerleader, the homecoming queen, the book nerd, the bad boy, the comic relief — and turns them on their heads, exploring how these people are the archetypes, but are also so much more.

For writers, I think it’s a fabulous study not only in character development and banter and story arcs, but also in the unexpected. Buffy never shies away from going to the places we don’t anticipate. It takes the tropes and forms we’ve come to expect, acknowledges them, and then takes them in a new direction. It also is an excellent example of not letting setting take over story. Lots of times, especially in paranormal stories, it’s easy to make the main conflict “THERE ARE VAMPIRES/ZOMBIES/WEREWOLVES/ETC AND THEY MUST BE STOPPED.” And that’s it. But with Buffy, while there is often a Big Bad that must be dealt with, much of the conflict is internal, as the characters struggle to overcome personal obstacles and relationship struggles and existential crises.

I could go on forever about Buffy and all the reasons it’s amazing, and about why it’s an excellent tool for writers — especially if you’re writing paranormal, but really, it can apply to anything. But I think I’ve made my point. If you’re still over there thinking, “I just don’t like vampire shows,” then you’re about where I was back in 1997. Maybe you need to wait six years, then stumble onto a rerun and watch them out of order. Maybe you need to be bored and in the mood for something action-y on Netflix. Maybe you just need to be told one more time that it’s awesome anyway.

Or maybe you’ll never watch it, and will never really understand what you’re missing, and will always kind of wonder why it keeps showing up on “Best of” lists. And you’ll always think those of us who feel so very passionately about it are a tad wrong in the head. Perhaps we are.

But if you come over to the dark side, we have cookies.

Also, if you have watched the series already — or if you are on the fence, and don’t mind a few spoilers — this tribute to the series is fantastic.

Review: The Eternity Cure by Julie Kagawa (@jkagawa @HarlequinTeen)

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Received an advance digital copy from NetGalley for review.

I was a huge fan of Julie Kagawa’s The Immortal Rules, even though I was a little hesitant at first. Vampire dystopian? Really? Haven’t both those genres been beaten to death with the redundancy stick, resurrected into genre zombies, and then been decapitated with a sword dipped in the blood of a dead horse?

But then I read it, and I loved it. Julie Kagawa’s fluid prose, her complete willingness to dive into the nitty gritty elements of her world, and her unique spin on both the vampire and dystopian genres won me over almost immediately. So when I saw the sequel, The Eternity Cure, was up for review on NetGalley, I requested the heck out of it.

Okay, so you can really only request one way, and there is no way to make an emphatic request, but if there was, I would have done it. I would have strenuously requested.

(NetGalley: “Oh, you strenuously request? Then we’ll take some time and reconsider.”)

I’m getting away from myself here. LET’S TALK ABOUT THE BOOK.

The Plot (from Goodreads):

Allison Sekemoto has vowed to rescue her creator, Kanin, who is being held hostage and tortured by the psychotic vampire Sarren. The call of blood leads her back to the beginning—New Covington and the Fringe, and a vampire prince who wants her dead yet may become her wary ally.

Even as Allie faces shocking revelations and heartbreak like she’s never known, a new strain of the Red Lung virus that decimated humanity is rising to threaten human and vampire alike.

My Thoughts:

The Eternity Cure picks up a few months after The Immortal Rules leaves off, after Allie has left behind her human friends – including Zeke, the human boy she had grown to love – at Eden, the last remaining vampire-free city. Now she’s using her sire bond – a psychic link with the vampire who created her – to track Kanin, and it leads her to her former home, where she encounters a new, deadly plague, as well as some faces from her past she thought were gone forever.

Just like in The Immortal Rules, Julie Kagawa does not shy away from the ugliness of her world. These vampires are not glamorous (even the glamorous ones have an ick-factor), and the world they rule is beyond grim. This is a series where I never feel complacent and I never assume that a character is safe simply because they’re important. She keeps the tension high and the action intense from the beginning through to the end, and just when I thought I might get a break — she’d raise the stakes again.

Some of the secondary characters in The Immortal Rules come front and center in The Eternity Cure, which was awesome. We get to spend a good chunk of time with Jackal, the vampire prince who we last saw staking Allie and throwing her out a window. He returns, dark and snarky as ever, and walks an impressively fine line between villain and reluctant hero. Like all the best villains, he is layered and complex, and is true to himself above all else.

Kanin is also back, and I love him just as much as I did in the first book. I am a sucker for the strong, noble, self-sacrificing type – provided they are not sappy and patronizing – and Kanin fills this role perfectly. He is unwavering in his morals and convictions, and they drive every action he makes, but he is also a man who has made many mistakes, and realizes they come with a price. I cannot say enough good things about his character. There should be more Kanins, both in books and in life.

Zeke and Allie both come into their own a bit in this book. In The Immortal Rules, so much of their relationship was hindered by secrecy. Now, they each know up front who the other is, and have to decide whether or not to come to terms with that. I enjoyed both of them, and appreciated their increased honesty, and the closeness that came from it. I also liked seeing Allie embrace her humanity a bit more, and seeing Zeke really examine his beliefs, instead of just accepting what his father believed. There was good growth from both of them.

As far as the plot, I think I’m becoming a bit immune to plot twists, because I watched everyone freak out about the twists in this book when it was released, and none of them really surprised me. BUT! That didn’t lessen my enjoyment of the book in the least – just because I suspect something is coming doesn’t mean I enjoy watching it unfold any less. So I can’t comment on how surprising or satisfying the twists are. What I can say is that the plotting is tight, the action is prevalent, and once you get to the twisty parts – she pulls no punches. NONE. AT ALL. I begin to wonder if she’s even heard of pulling punches.

The Eternity Cure is a solid follow-up to The Immortal Rules, filled with intense action, thoughtfully developed and varied characters, and break-neck pacing that will keep you turning pages well into the night. Just make sure to keep the light on, because here, there be monsters.

Review: The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater (@Scholastic)

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Read and reviewed as part of the Southern Book Bloggers ARC Tour

I’ll be honest. I had absolutely no idea what The Raven Boys was about when I requested to be part of the ARC tour. I just knew a bunch of other bloggers had been raving about how excited they were for it, and about what a great writer Maggie Stiefvater is, so I threw my hat in the ring. And then it arrived in the mail and it was thick, and I had just been in a mini-slump and thought “Oh no. I’ll never finish this in a week.”

And then I finished it in three days (which for some book bloggers is still slow, but with the way my life has been lately, let me assure you that three days is about as fast as it gets). If that tells you anything.

The Plot (from Goodreads)

“There are only two reasons a non-seer would see a spirit on St. Mark’s Eve,” Neeve said. “Either you’re his true love . . . or you killed him.”

It is freezing in the churchyard, even before the dead arrive.

Every year, Blue Sargent stands next to her clairvoyant mother as the soon-to-be dead walk past. Blue herself never sees them—not until this year, when a boy emerges from the dark and speaks directly to her.

His name is Gansey, and Blue soon discovers that he is a rich student at Aglionby, the local private school. Blue has a policy of staying away from Aglionby boys. Known as Raven Boys, they can only mean trouble.

But Blue is drawn to Gansey, in a way she can’t entirely explain. He has it all—family money, good looks, devoted friends—but he’s looking for much more than that. He is on a quest that has encompassed three other Raven Boys: Adam, the scholarship student who resents all the privilege around him; Ronan, the fierce soul who ranges from anger to despair; and Noah, the taciturn watcher of the four, who notices many things but says very little.

For as long as she can remember, Blue has been warned that she will cause her true love to die. She never thought this would be a problem. But now, as her life becomes caught up in the strange and sinister world of the Raven Boys, she’s not so sure anymore.

From Maggie Stiefvater, the bestselling and acclaimed author of the Shiver trilogy and The Scorpio Races, comes a spellbinding new series where the inevitability of death and the nature of love lead us to a place we’ve never been before.

My Thoughts

First of all, the synopsis is misleading. It implies that there is a romance in this book between Blue and Gansey, and there is not. There is a hint of romance between Blue and one of the other Raven Boys, but not Gansey. Now, I’m pretty sure that if all the foreshadowing is to be believed, the Blue-Gansey romance will come later in the series, but in this first book, there’s actually very little romance at all.

This book does really well on a few fronts. First, the story itself is really interesting. The complex relationships between the boys and Blue, the intricate supernatural element that they’re exploring, and the interwoven mysteries that play out all kept the narrative moving and my attention occupied.

I also really liked several of the characters, particularly Blue, Adam, and strangely enough, Ronan. I’m not even sure if I was supposed to like Ronan, but I did. Adam was definitely my favorite of the Raven Boys, and I thought the best developed. And Blue was feisty and quirky in a way that let me see how she would really fit in well with the odd group of friends.

Maggie Stiefvater’s prose is engaging and flows nicely. I can see why her books are so popular (and now I’m motivated to actually go read the Shiver trilogy, which has been sitting unread on my shelf for months).

One warning: This book asks some pretty big questions that are not answered in this book. One in particular that I thought for sure would be addressed before the end of the book, isn’t. It’s not a cliffhanger per se, just big questions that remain unresolved. Now I’m thinking that it will probably take the entire trilogy to get answers to some of these, but it took the entire book for me to realize the answers weren’t coming.  It didn’t really bother me, but I just want you to be aware.

I did have a few problems with the book that kept me from completely loving it. The first is the shifting POVs. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good multiple-POV book, when it’s done right. And for the most part, this book did it right, with one exception. The villain (of sorts) gets a voice, and while part of me loves the idea of a villain getting to tell his side of the story, I don’t think it worked in this book. It all comes back to my whole hangup with “is this voice necessary?” and his POV was used so infrequently, I didn’t think it was necessary. Interesting? Kinda. Necessary? Probably not. Yes, he lets us in on a few pieces of information we wouldn’t have had otherwise, but I don’t think the story would have suffered without them, or if we had learned them through another method.

Then there’s the fact that I just didn’t really feel connected to Noah or Gansey, and I’m not sure why, but this story really needed me to have a connection with both of those characters to fully succeed. This just might be a problem with my brain, because I haven’t heard of anyone else having this problem. But bottom line, I felt like I really should care about these characters, and I didn’t. Not too much. I didn’t dislike them; I was just sort of apathetic towards them.

Now, will that apathy keep me from picking up the sequel? Definitely not. As I mentioned before, I loved some of the other characters, and the story is fascinating. So while I may not have thought the book was perfect, I still thoroughly enjoyed it. I will be eager to pick up the next one when it comes out to see what happens next with Blue and the Raven Boys.

Content Guide: Contains profanity and some violence

Review: Perception by Kim Harrington (@Scholastic)

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Received from Scholastic for the purpose of review

Perception, by Kim Harrington, is the sequel to Clarity, which I reviewed (and enjoyed) here. Clarity was a quick, fun read, and I jumped right into Perception the moment I put it down, anxious to hear about more of Clare’s psychic mystery-solving shenanigans.

The Plot

Clarity “Clare” Fern, teen psychic, is adjusting to her newfound social acceptance after using her powers to help solve the murder of a teenage tourist over the summer. Her ex-boyfriend, Justin, has made it clear he’d like to start over, and she’s also being pursued by the dark and smoldering new detective’s son, Gabriel. In addition, the girls who previously shunned her at school are now clamoring to be her friends, with the glaring exception of arch-nemesis mean girl, Tiffany.

But as the school year starts, the air is abuzz with gossip about the recent disappearance of a girl no one really knew. Did she run away? Or was she taken?

Meanwhile, Clare starts receiving notes from a secret admirer, and Justin and Gabriel swear it’s neither of them.

Clare decides to dust off her detective skills again: to discover not only what’s happened to the missing girl, but to unveil the identity of her mysterious suitor.

My Thoughts

Much like Clarity, Perception is an exciting, fast-paced teen mystery channeling the essence of Veronica Mars, but with psychic powers. (P.S. If you’ve never watched Veronica Mars, you really, really should).

The love triangle between Clare, Justin, and Gabriel is still a huge part of the story, even moreso than in Clarity, since the secret admirer plot line obviously places a lot of attention on Clare’s love life. I still see why she’s torn between the two of them and why the choice isn’t obvious, but I am happy to report that she does make a decision by the end of the book, and that it makes sense.

Clare was still smart and sassy, although occasionally painfully oblivious. She suffers from severe tunnel vision in some instances and misses some pretty big clues, but overall she was still an enjoyable character. And after all, she’s not really a trained detective, so it actually makes sense that she wasn’t picking up on everything.

Justin and Gabriel didn’t grow a whole lot from the first book. I still liked them both, but didn’t gain a lot of new insight into either of them. Yes, we learn a couple new things, but my opinion on both of them remained pretty much unchanged. It would have been nice to peel back a few more layers. But since I liked them in Clarity, I still liked them here.

The character who changes the most is Clare’s brother, Perry. The events of Clarity hit him the hardest, and it’s sad to see what has become of his character. While on the one hand, he is no longer the flippant womanizer of the first book (which is a bonus, in my eyes), his new personality isn’t much of an improvement. I still like him, in spite of his flaws, but he wasn’t a “fun” character in this book (and he wasn’t supposed to be). I actually really appreciated that the huge developments in Clarity didn’t just roll off his back, and that he needs to take time to process and overcome them.

As for the mysteries, I was a little less satisfied in this book than in the prior one. I felt like the clues were more obvious, and I’d figured out who the bad guy was really early in the story, despite a red herring that practically jumped up and down and screamed, “LOOK AT ME! I’M A RED HERRING!” It was still engaging and entertaining to solve the mystery alongside Clare, but didn’t have the same impact that the first book did, in my opinion.

Overall, I really enjoyed this follow-up to Clarity, and would be interested to continue reading about the mysteries that Clare solves.

Content guide: Contains violence, profanity.