Ok...let's see if my mushy brain can pull off a rambling today. I was gonna wait for when I was more coherant to write this post, but I actually think the inside out state of my head will actually help in writing about this dream of a book. Wait...I haven't told you what we are rambling about today? Whoops...sorry about that. The book is Chime by Franny Billingsley. The book had been recommended by one of my favorite book blogs and I was super excited to read it. I'm gonna tell you right now I was not disappointed. Let's get to it shall we? As always SPOILERS AHEAD!
Briony Larkin is guilty. Of what she is guilty of we are not 100% sure, but she is guilty. We know that she is guilty because she tells us she is. Briony is on trial for her life, and she just wants it all over all ready. Briony is evaluated by a being called the Chime Child, a person who was born at the minute between midnight. The Chime Child can see and talk with the Old Ones, but is a human so the feeling is they are best suited to judge whether a person is human or Old One. Here is Briony's confession. Briony Larkin, her twin sister Rose and their preacher father all live in the tiny town of Swampsea which borders a broad swamp somewhere in an alternate England. Briony has been hiding a secret for most of her life. Briony is a witch, she knows she is a witch because her beloved Stepmother told her she was. Stepmother however is not of a normal fairy tale variety and she helps Briony keep her powers a secret. Briony's witchcraft is first revealed when she and Rose were playing on the swings as very young girls and after a bout of jealousy produces a wind that knocks Rose off the swing, causing her to hit her head. Rose is forever strange from that point forward. Stepmother tells Briony that it was her witchcraft that did the deed and that she must learn to control it. Briony grows up torn between fearing her power and loving the things it allows her to see. In this world of Swampsea the swamp is full of what are known as the Old Ones. Old Ones are things like brownies, faries, and other familiar creatures, along with some specific ones such as Dark Muses which feed of male creativity until they are a husk, or the Dead Hand which clamps on your hand and pulls it off. Briony used to write stories about all of these creatures until one day her power got out of her control and a huge wave swamped her house, breaking Stepmothers back. Briony after an illness of her own stays home instead of going to school to care for her strange sister and broken Stepmother. Eventually Stepmother kills herself with arsenic rather then live broken. Briony has vague memories of this time but she knows two things, one that Stepmother was a kind and wonderful woman who would never kill herself and two she is a witch. One day, the son of a new arrival to Swampsea comes to live with the Larkin family. Eldric is a special guy who seems to be able to draw Briony out of her self hatred, allowing her to remember how free she was before her fear of her powers and guilt over her sister and Stepmother overwhelmed her need to talk with the Old Ones and run free in the swamp. A sickness known as the swamp cough has come to the village and is almost always fatal. Regardless of her attempts to stay away, Briony is contacted by the Old Ones and learns that the Boggy Man has sent the cough as retaliation for the planned draining of the swamp to allow the railroad to go through. Eldric continues to help Briony come out of her walled self and eventually she tells him the truth of what she is. Eldric is much more sympathetic then she thought he would be, and he insists that she is not evil and feels there is more to the story. Rose continues her cryptic ways and we are starting to feel like Eldric that there is much more to the story. Briony tries various ways to stop the draining of the swamp all while trying to deal with her feelings for Eldric, her duty to her sister and her guilt of previous events. It all comes to a head one night when Briony collects the ghosts of the children who have been killed by the swamp cough and convinces the town to stop draining the swamp. This of course reveals her to be a witch. We then go to the trial in which this book started. Rose finally is able to get through what she was trying to say through out the whole book. We finally find out that Briony is not a witch but a Chime Child and that Stepmother was a Dark Muse who fed off of their father. Once he realized what she was he stayed away hoping to starve her. The Dark Muse/Stepmother found a way to feed off of Briony's writings about the Old Ones. Briony finally realized what was going on and slipped arsenic into Stepmothers food, killing her to save her family. Briony is absolved of witchcraft as she is a Chime Child, and cleared of murder as a parasitic Old One is not a human. She, Rose and Eldric find a way to live happily with her father in Swampsea. Briony realizes that eventually the swamp will be drained so she starts writing her stories again to preserve the lives of the Old Ones.
World Building - The book is set in an alternate England village at the beginning of the Industrial Age. The world is expertly built with the atmosphere being it's own character. I felt like I could wander the village of Swampsea and feel the damp swamp air and roam the boggy marshes. It was phenomenal how completely immersed in this world I got, the author did an amazing job writing a complete world. I think what helped the most was how ingrained into the actual story the world was so that we were constantly learning about our little area, how it looked, felt, smelled, who lived in it, how they lived and all that great world building stuff with out a bunch of heavy exposition. Anytime I feel like I can actually enter a book world makes me super happy, a zillion points for world building.
Story - The story was both straight forward and convoluted all at the same time...kind of like my brain right now. The story itself took a bit of back seat to the intense character of Briony and the overwhelmingly awesome atmosphere of the book. There was definitely a story and over all it was followable, but it was so entwined with every thing else that sometimes you had to try and remember where and when you were at in the story...but in a book like this I feel that may be part of the appeal. Some people will love it, some will hate it...I loved it.
Characters - This book is with out a doubt all about Briony. She is the sole narrator in a first person voice and everything is seen and heard through her foggy memories, self loathing and stubborn and tenacious nature. This is ok 'cause like I said...it's her book. That being said the characters were all fairly well done. I found Eldric to be a mix of awesome and a bit to good to be true with just a touch of over the top emo...but I also feel he had to be all that to match Briony's overwhelming personality stuff...so yeah. I think Rose was my favorite, with her crypcticness and odd, yet persice way of being. I'm not sure if she was supposed to be autistic, or just "touched" as they used to say, but I thought the character was well written.
Editing - So...hmmm...This book was a mix of writing styles that were both prose and lyrical...I will expound on that in a minute. Where this pertains to this category is if it is still readable. I felt that it was fairly well edited. The story flowed, everything was readable. If I had any real quibbles in this book it might be that we kept going back to the "incident's" with out adding any extra info or insight. I think we could have gone back a bit less and had a bit more of a streamlined book. That being said the editing was over all pretty good.
Writing Style - As I just mentioned, this book was a pretty unique mix of straight logical prose and very dream like lyrical. I have heard mixed reviews for this style, but for myself I felt that it worked. I think I liked it because it showed the state of Briony's head. Briony could be cold, logical and able to do what needed to be done. She could also be dreamy, muddled and spent a lot of time living in another world. The mix of the two styles were still consistent in that they both sounded like Briony, they both used her voice and that made for a well blended story. I found the transitions smooth and the combination of the two styles very quickly merged into a pattern that was perfect for the tone of this book.
The Old Ones - I love love love a good fairy tale, and this book was a great twist on that style. The Old Ones in this book were a mix of familiar and new ones specific for this story. The author used the Old Ones to both further the story and add to the world building and atmosphere. They were well explained and well integrated into this little village by the swamp and I loved it. Reading this book made me want to go look up all sorts of local legends and brush up on all the various fair folk hanging around the various areas...and that my friends is a sign of a good book. I also loved how well suited the Old Ones were for the environment that the author dreamed up. No float elf types here, they were all earthy, swampy types, some were dark, some were innocent, some were wise and some were bad. Loved it.
Mood Match - One of the reasons I may have enjoyed this book so much is that it was the perfect book for the mood I was in when I read it. I was in a weird transitional mood and this book is a weird atmospheric book. It does make me wonder if I would still feel the same about it if I read it during a different mind phase...but I don't really care. I love it when my mood and book pairings work out so well!
Overall Impression - I have a hard time articulating what I liked about this book. It was atmospheric, it was convoluted, it was dream like, it was a bit eye rolling, it was different, it was the perfect book for the mood I was in when I read it. I have read a lot of reviews on it and people seem divided between loving it for it's weirdness and well being weirded out by it. I loved it, I will probably read it again and I recommend it for anybody who likes fairy tales, atmosphere and a different style of book. I give it 8 out of 10 Mucky Faces.
Happy Reading Everybody!
I know a couple of people who would never put their hands in this jar no matter how badly they want the books...not me though, I'll stick my hand in anything to get a book.
I have heard a couple people talk about how a lot of the new re-tellings of the classic fairy tales are so much darker then the originals. I guess they must think that the Disney versions, or the little pretty picture books are the originals, because seriously, the original tales could almost all be part of a Halloween Horror Fest. For example
Cinderella - A tale of a girl who works hard and finally gets the prince and palace she deserves...or is it a tale of how even after getting her prince and crown, a flock of birds comes and pecks the step-sisters and step-mothers eyes out. This of course after the step-mother aids her girls in mutilating their own feet for a chance at the prince. That's happily ever after for you.
Sleeping Beauty - A lovely story of a princess woken up by true loves kiss...awwww. Wait, there is more. Yep the rest of the story is about how the princess Ogress of a mother attempts to eat Sleeping Beauty's children, and not being happy with that, tries to eat her too! Yay cannabalism.
Hansel and Gretel - Speaking of cannabalism, what is with fairy tales and child eating witches hmmm? Here we have two sweet innocent kids, who not only get abandonded, but then live through the terror of the witch's house, where one child has to sit by helplessly as her brother is fattened up to be eaten, Talks about your dread and horror.
Rapunzel - Rapunzel, Repunzel let down your golden hair...ooops another evil witch, and depending on the story several princes died, or in a "happier" version the poor princes gouges his eyes out on thorns. Of course we then have the requisite wandering in the desert wilds until they find each other, and hopefully a good phsyciatrist.
The Red Shoes - If you want a good old fashioned horror story, look no further then this moralistic beauty. The poor girl in this story is punished for her vanity by being forced to dance with no rest, and then to try and get some relief she chops her own feet off. She then in pennance allows her self to be viewed and humiliated as a lesson to the other until she dies. Happy Times.
These are just a few examples of stories that have every element of horror in them. Death, ghosts, witches, warlocks, evil parents, torture, pain, loss. Seriously I don't know why we don't get out the old Grimm's Fairy Tales as our traditional book of horror every Halloween. Happy Reading Everybody!
Hello all, sorry for the screwy posting schedule this week, but I have been having issues scheduling stuff...but I think I have it under control. Some times I wish I could just click me heels together and say "the blog post is done, the blog post is done", which brings me to today's rambling (did you like what I did there?). I was feeling nostalgic and wanted to read something that did not require a lot of effort and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank. Baum fit the bill perfectly. As always SPOILERS AHEAD!
Dorthy is transported from her home in gray Kansas to the wildly colored land of Oz. Dorthy, her little dog Toto, and her house all land on the Wicked Witch of the East who had been enslaving the blue loving Munchkins and in the process obtaining her magic silver shoes. They are all happy, but Dorthy just wants to return home, a kindly old woman who turns out to be the Good Witch of the North tells her that the only person powerful enough to do that is the Wizard of Oz who lives in the Emerald City. Off Dorthy and Toto go, following that famous yellow brick road. They meet up with the Scarecrow who wants brains, a tragic Tin Man who wants a heart, and a Cowardly Lion who wants Courage. The three stumble upon many adventures, and through their natural kindness make several friends who help them along their way. They finally arrive in Oz which is all green, so very green, thanks to the green spectacles that are locked on to every person who enters the gates. One by one the group finally meets the great wizard, each seeing
someone or something different, and each being tasked with killing the Wicked Witch of the West. Though none of the group want to actually kill anybody they go off to see what they can do about this pesky witch. The witch seeing them coming uses her magic to conjure up numerous things to try and stop the group to no avail. She finally uses her golden cap to summon the flying monkeys one last time (as you only can use it three times) to scatter the Scarecrow, lose the Tin Man and bring the Lion and Dorthy to her. The witch keeps the Lion in a cage and Dorthy as a servant, but is secretly afraid of her as she has the silver shoes. She tries to trick Dorthy into giving them to her, but Dorthy douses her in water, inadvertently melting her. Dorthy frees the Lion, and uses the golden cap to get the flying monkeys to help her find and reassemble her friends. They head back to Oz, whom they discover is a fraud. He finds a way to help them anyways and builds a balloon to take him and Dorthy back to Kansas. Unfortunately the balloon flies away before Dorthy an get on board, leaving her trapped. It is suggested that she go and visit the Good Witch of the South, Glinda, who can help her. Off the four friends go and after a few more adventures the arrive at the Good Witches castle. Glinda tells her that she had the power to send herself home all along, just by clicking her heels together and wanting to go home, she does this promptly, getting home, but losing the shoes in the process. The Scarecrow becomes the king of the Emerald City, the Tin Man goes to rule the Winkies liked they asked him to, and the now courageous Lion becomes the King of the Beasts. They all get what they wanted and live happily ever until the next book.
I have always loved this book for it's perfect simplicity and child like imagery. This is not to say this is a simple book in a bad way, it is just nice to read a book that is fairly straight forward. What strikes me the most about this book is how it feels like a story a little kid would make up...in a good way. Hmmm I'm trying to think how to best explain what I love about this book. Think of when you were little and you were making up games and the weirdly logical creatures and countries you would come up with and to me that is what reading this book feels like, playing a great game like I used to when I was little. I know most people associate the story of Dorthy with the famous and wonderful movie, which I also love, but it loses so much of the little stories of all the side characters. This is the other thing I love about this book, every single character mentioned in the book has a story and that gives an unexpected depth to the whole thing. I like how the
different countries are all represented by a different color. The Munchkins by blue, the Winkies by yellow, the Gillikans by purple, Quadling country by red and of course the Emerald city by Green. There are also interesting little places like China Country and the field of deadly sleepy poppies. Most of the places and people mentioned are used in the later books, eventually making a whole history and geography of this amazing and mythical land. This book has been reffered to as an American Fairytale, which is pretty cool, considering most of the older classic fairytales are European based. If there are any downsides to this book it would be that the good guys are good, and the bad guys are bad. It was first published in 1900 and is a bit of a morality tale for children, with the good and virtuous always winning over the bad and corrupt, not entirely surprising in a book written in this era, but still pretty black and white. I love reading this book and the others (though I have yet to finish the whole series, but that will soon be remedied) because it reminds me of the pure imagination one can have. Also the wonderful illustrations by William Wallace Denslow add the perfect touch. I give this book an 8 out of 10 silver slippers and recommend it to anybody who is need of a good imagination boost.
What book sums up childhood for you? What is your favorite Oz character/race? Where your childhood games as full of mixed up wonderful weirdness as mine were?
Just finished a book that I picked up on a whim. The cover was cool, the description sounded fun and the hardcover book would look great on my bookshelf so I decided to give it a go. The book is called The School for Good and Evil by Soman Chainani and my feelings on the final outcome are mixed. I'm gonna mix it up a bit and do less detailed synopsis so there will be less rambling to slog through, let me know if you like this better, or if you prefer a more in depth synopsis. As always SPOILERS AHEAD.
Sophie is everything a princess should be, in fact she has been preparing all of her young life for the rare opportunity to become one. Agatha is the complete opposite, dreary, dark, and not into princes at all. Both girls are spirited away to the either the School for Good or the School for Evil. To everybody's amazement Sophie gets put in Evil and Agatha into Good. This of course causes all kinds of problems as Sophie wants nothing more then to be pretty and be rescued by a prince, while Agatha just wants to go home. The girls find a way to talk to the mysterious School Master, who controls the school, and the magical pen that writes the children into the fairytales after they graduate from the school. They are given some obscure riddle,
giving Agatha hope she can return home with her friend Sophie. Through out the story Sophie tries to get Tedros, the most desired prince to fall in love with her to prove that she is Good, not Evil. Agatha thinking she is really Sophie's friend does her best to help her. Sophie however does nothing but prove over and over how selfish she is, while Agatha continually tries to help and protect whenever she can. Eventually Sophie's true inner Evil is revealed and all her beauty melts away to reveal her ugly Evil inner self, intent on destroying the school. Agatha meanwhile has learned to love her inner beauty and won the heart of the fickle Tedros. It is also discovered that most of the students do not become Royalty, but many of them become loyal companions, or steadfast animals, or even props (think the the beanstalk, the pumpkin carriage and the birds that come when Cinderella calls). It is also revealed that Evil never wins and all the Evil students have to look foward to is a hopefully glorious death. After a full on student against student fight it revealed that the School Master has set all of this up to find his pure Evil mate, and that person is Sophie. Sophie decides that she does not want this and in some sort of twist takes an arrow meant for Agatha, finally proving her friendship and Goodness. The story ends with the students...well something and then Agatha and Sophie dissolve into birds and fly away.
This book had a lot of promise, and in certain area's lived up to it, but over all I was left feeling a bit confused and meh. The good. I liked the idea of a fairy tale school, with various classes and rules. I liked the continual reference to various fairytales and the various students that ended up in them in various capacities. I also liked at the end the idea that it was rarely fair to label a person as Good or Evil as most people are both. The book has some pretty sweet illustrations. What didn't really do it for me was the over all mushiness of the plot, it was a bit hard to follow and took a long time to get anywhere. When we finally get were we are going it didn't make any sense. The ending was abrupt and just kind of happened, like the author had an idea in mind, but did not know how to make the transition from the story to the next idea. I had a hard time trying to decide if Sophie was truly Evil, or had just grown up on fairy tales telling her what a princess should be like and she was just doing what she thought she had to, to become one. Agatha's transformation was much more believable, but pretty predictable. I hated how much being Good or Evil was based on looks, especially Sophie, who became more and more physically unattractive as she got Eviler, unlike Agatha who was precieved as prettier the Gooder she got. I hate this because a) we have enough issues now a days without beauty and goodness being linked and b) some of the best villians out there are some of the best looking people out there. The middle 2/3 of the book seemed repetitive, going over the same ground over and over again without a clear point, which made it drag a bit. The world building could have been really cool, and the bit that was in there was done well, but I still feel like I know nothing about the world in this book. Overall the book had a willy-nilly, mushed up feel to it, there was a lot of action that did not go anywhere, a lot of supposedly important questions that got posed that either did not get answered, or were brushed aside, and an ending that was not only random but made no sense at all. There is a second book in this series and to be honest I am not sure if I'm gonna pick it up or not. I give this book 5 out of 10 magic glowing pinkies.
Is there such thing as pure good or pure evil in humans? Do you think physical appearance is a good indicator of good and evil? What fairy tale object would you like to live your life as?
Who here has not wanted to hear those three little words "You're a wizard", I know ever since reading Harry Potter and the Philosopher (Sorcerers)Stone (now known as PS) that I am convinced that my letter got lost in the Owl Post somewhere. If that last sentence made any sense whatsoever then you are in the right place. That is right people today is the first post in my Harry Potter (HP) re-read! This will be a bit different from my usual ramblings because I am not gonna sum up the book, mostly because the few people who have not seen it, watched the movie, played the games, or visited the theme park can get the complete plot from one of the zillions of sites dedicated to the HP phenomenon. That being said as always SPOILERS AHEAD!
First off here is a list of things I did for the PS reread.
Read the book by J.K. Rowling (It is only called the Sorcerers Stone in the US)
Watched the movie
Played the Book 1 Level on Lego Harry Potter
Went through the first book on Pottermore
All of this combined with rehashing it with my siblings, parents, Hubbin and anybody who would listen to me made for a great experience. And now for some completely random thoughts on this book. This is the book that made me give up my snobbish "well I don't read books just because everybody else is reading them" attitude. I was house sitting and had run out of books (I know sounds like the start of a horror film) and picked up PS because it was there. I remember starting on the first pages, not really expecting a whole lot and finding myself looking up and hour later realizing that it was now dark. I promptly made myself a cup of coffee, canceled all non-essential plans and classes (this was during my college days) and tried to figure out if I could afford to call in sick to work. This book completely drew me in. This was my start to my great HP adventure that would grow to consume my whole family, and later my Hubbin. I think even though this is not my absolute favorite book in the series (that would be Goblet of Fire), but I loved how it introduced this whole entire world to us, through a person who knew even less then we did. The idea that we can exist along side all of this wonderful magic, and to watch Harry's joy and confusion (which let's be honest, we would all be feeling if we got taken to this world) really hit home with me. I loved how everything was introduced in a practical way, and that most magic seems to have some type of purpose. On the flip side I also love how certain wizards had a fascination with Muggle (best descriptive word ever) technology, even referring to it as magic of its own kind, reminding us that magic is all a mater of perception and while we may not be wizards, we all have our own brand of magic too. This is one of those books where you live in the world that was created, long after you have closed the covers on the pages. This to me is the ultimate test of a good book/story.
This gets me to the other thing I love about this book. We are not introduced to the top tier group as our guides to this madness. We have a boy who has been
neglected and downtrodden with little to no self-esteem who is more clueless then the reader is as our hero. Our sidekicks (though I would argue by the end of the book we end up with more hero's then sidekicks) consist of a lower middle class boy who has either perfect brothers, or class clown brothers to live up to, no easy going for our favorite red-headed best friend Ron. He is constantly trying to stand out as outstanding at something, yet finding it difficult to even maintain good enough. Hermione is every kids worst nightmare, the know it all, who is not only extremely proficient at magic, but being Muggle born knows the other world as well. Unfortunately socialization is not her strong suite, and she isn't even all that pretty (which is a smart girls saving grace in most books, ugh eyeroll). Add to this the clumsiest boy who may have ever survived his fifth birthday (aw I love my Neville) and our guides to the wizarding world are far from perfect. It is this humaness, these kids who react just like normal 12 year olds would react, regardless of them going to a school for magic, or a boarding school, or a public school. The magic aspect is just one more facet to these all too human kids.
Ok moving on to some other media. I love the movie. The casting was sublime (seriously Maggie Smith AND Alan Rickman my life is complete) and this is what made the movie for me. I had read the book at least twice before the first movie came out and I was very anxious because this world and especially the characters had become a major part of my life (if you were wondering just how geeky I am I think that last sentence probably summed it up nicely). There were a few castings that did not 100% what I had in my (Mr. Weasly and Professor Quirrell being two) but on the
whole I was astounded how closely the actors matched what I saw in my head. Of course after the first movie I had visuals in my head for all the books going forward, which usually irritates me, but since they matched so well, I could deal with it. The trio (Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, and Emma Watson) not only pulled of there characters wonderfully, but you could see the actual growing of a friendship that is the basis for the rest of the series. This movie very much set the tone as far as visuals and music went so very beautiful. I think you could tell that the author had a hand in the movie, because a lot of what made the book successful was also put into the film, you know the little things like tapping the brick, and Quirrell twitching and stammering, and even the owl that distracts Dumbledore. You can never replace the book, but I thought this is one of the best adaptions of a book I have ever seen. I think of all the HP movies this is my favorite, just because it is that first real glimpse of magic and awesomeness, and after it is more like returning home then it is so wondrous.
Playing the Lego Harry Potter games makes me very very very happy. They are funny, interesting and add one more dimension to the HP universe. My favorite things about the Lego games is that they are geared for the younger crowd so some of the more scary elements are comiced up (that is a word I promise). For instance, when they go into the woods, instead of a dead unicorn, they find a sleeping unicorn in Hagrids hut and he is helping it. You play little episodes so it is less of a full blown story and more like vignettes. You also get to explore a lot of places. In the first book you see Diagon Alley, Hogwarts, The Forbidden Forest and the Quidditch Pitch. All in all a humorous non-frustrating way to get a little HP time.
Pottermore has improved greatly from when it first launched. It used to be kind of clunky and a wee bit confusing, but the new interface is very nice. It still has a few glitches, and we are still missing the last three books, but they have been steadily adding to the site. This is a great place to hang out with other HP fans and get your own Hogwarts experience. In the first book you get to go get your wand, school supplies and get sorted into your house (I'm a Slytherin). The artwork is gorgeous and there is a ton of extra tidbits the author has thrown in, background about certain characters, where she got some ideas, the books and myths she used in her stories. Totally worth checking out.
Whew, you sick of my undying HP love yet? In case you haven't figured it out. This first book in this magical series makes me so very very happy. The budding friendships, the first innocent look at magic before we are terrorized by the evil, the shiny newness of this world that is so different and yet so familiar. There is so much to love about this book, and I agree with the people who have declared it a classic, it sits next to my Narnia's and Lord of the Rings books on my favorites classic shelf at home. Ok I will quit gushing now so I can go start on the next book!
Here are a few other great Harry Potter obsession sites for you to check out while reading this series. Mark Reads Harry Potter- Follow along chapter by chapter as a guy reads HP for the first time, it is like reading it for the first time all over again, very cool and since he goes chapter by chapter you can follow along if you like. The Harry Potter Lexicon-Pretty much the wiki of HP, a great place to look up your favorite spells, or get a handle on all of the characters. Also great for those tricky British words for us 'Mercans. The Leaky Cauldron-Your place for EVERYTHING HP, books, movies, games, park, news, chit-chat, debates, even issues of the Quibbler.
What is your favorite part about this first book? How innocent do they all seem? What part of the wizarding world would most like to visit? How much convincing would it take for me to get my husband to buy me compete sets of every cover of these books? How geeky am I?
Had an amazing weekend with family and friends and am now ready to face the week head on! I am almost finished with my October/Halloween list and am starting to move on to my cold weather/preholiday list, but first lets finish out the week with some good old fashioned scares shall we.
Today I would like to talk about the short story collection Under my Hat: Tales from the Cauldron. This was a random find as I was walking through the bookstore and seemed like the perfect October short story collection for my desk side reading. After realizing that it was edited by Jonathan Strahan (who edited one of my absolute favorite collections The Starry Rift) I was sold. This is a collection for children and teens, spooky without being overly dark (for the most part). It is not ooey gooey by any means, and a couple of the tales are in the creep side, but nothing that I would consider over the top. Over all it was a great collection and with all short story anthologies there were some that really stuck with me.
A Handful of Ashes by Garth Nix-I think this is my favorite story in this collection. It is a complete story set in a complete world and I really want to read more stories about this place and these characters which is pretty hard to do in 20 or less pages. This story about servant/witches in a Jane Austin type society school is a pretty great story with just the right amount of humor.
The Education of a Witch by Ellen Klages- I have to admit the biggest appeal of this story is the little girls obsession with Maleficent from Disney's Sleeping Beauty, she has always been my absolute favorite witch ever! Also the fact that this story is about a little girl who is not so much into the fairy tale princesses, and finds a way to gain some control over her small world is pretty cool as well.
The Threefold World by Ellen Kushner and Anderson's Witch by Jane Yolen-Both of these stories touch on real people, Elias Lonnrot who put together a collection of Finnish history and lore called the Kalevala and Hans Christian Anderson who collected/wrote fairy tales. Both of these stories deal with how these men may have potentially been influenced by witch type figures, resulting in these historical works of literacy.
Which Witch by Patricia A. McKillip-I loved this punky, rockstar story of a literal band of young witches and there familiars. This is a case where the music and clothes are just as important as the spells and potions. The part where we get to switch over to the animal/familiar perspective is pretty cool too! I love a story that can mix up settings and give us a glimpse at the next generation of the supernatural.
The Carved Forest by Tim Pratt-This story about a witch who cares too much was wonderful and just a bit different. We are so used to witches being evil, or sparkly that we sometimes forget that it is possible that they are just people with a particular talent. This story shows us what happens when a witch who loses her family decides to adopt a town to replace them.
These are my absolute favorites in this collection, but there are many other wonderful stories in there as well. I would recommend it for some quick Halloween/October reading if you like witchy/magicy/different stories. I give it 7 out of 10 cauldrons of potion.
What is your favorite scary story collection? Do witches always have to be evil? What counts as a witch? Do I enjoy Halloween way to much?
I have this really weird OCD thing when I go into bookstores, I always have to buy three books, not sure why, but I cannot go into a bookstore without coming out with three new tomes to add to my bookshelf. Normally this is really no big deal, my book list is pretty long and I love buying books. Well one week my sweet Hubbin had a lot of studying to do so we ended up at the bookstore three times in a row! One of the problems with the bookstores now days is they have a much more limited selection. Many of the books on my list were not available at that particular store so off I went to find some different books to fill out my OCD three. This is were I got Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl. I had heard of it with the movie version coming out, but had mostly written it off as yet another YA paranormal romance, but I needed one more book, it had a pretty purple cover (no stupid movie cover for me) and it was surprisingly big so into the bag it went. I had finished another book and this one was the closest one to the bed, and being the lazy bum that I am I picked it up and started reading it. I enjoyed it more then I thought I would, and finished it fairly quickly. As always SPOILERS AHEAD!
Ethan Wate can't wait to leave the slow and unchanging Gatlin in South Carolina. His hometown is small, boring and stuck on following the most archaic of traditions. Ethan is a 16 year old high school student, with a spot on the basketball team, a dead mother and a reclusive father, he also has dreams, strange haunting dreams about a girl, and a song. Enter Lena Duchannes (rhymes with rains), the niece of the mysterious and never seen Macon Ravenwood. Lena starts school with a literal bang (exploding windows) and is immediately cast as the outsider. In a town like Gatlin anything different is not welcome and Lena is about as different as they come. Ethan notices this and oddly enough takes an intense liking to this dark haired, black wearing, poetry writing new girl. At first Lena is standoffish, not trusting that Ethan actually wants to be friends, she has had bad experiences before and while she desperately wants the typical teenage experience, isn't sure how to trust someone enough to get it. You see Lena as we discover quit quickly is not a typical teenager, she is Caster, a person who has powers. She is approaching her 16th birthday in which every
Caster must choose to go to the Light or the Dark (very Jedi, use the force vibe here). For Lena this not a choice, she comes from a family of Casters that does not get to choose to Claim the Light or the Dark, but rather the Light or Dark Claims her. This is all a bit confusing and never really gets fully explained, but more on that later. Ethan discovers her powers and her fear of being Claimed by the Dark on her sixteenthwho can get people to do what they want,
birthday, turning her into a heartless, soulless creature who uses her power only for her own pleasure. Her cousin Ridley (who used to be her best friend) was claimed by the dark on her 16th birthday and is now banished from the Light and Unclaimed side of the family (again the reasons never being fully explained) and this has Lena scared that she too will be claimed by the Dark. Ethan decides that he is going to help Lena find a way to have some sort of choice in the matter. Along the way they find a locket that shows them the past, and her we see what caused Lena's family to give up their right to choose Light or Dark. One of Lena's ancestors used The Book of Moons to attempt to bring her Mortal lover back to life, the cost being that all her descendants would loose the chance to Claim the Light or Dark and instead be Claimed by the Dark or Light. We learn that there are many different types of casters, Sirens, Palimpsests who can see a place through all layers of time and so forth. A Caster does not entirely know what type of power they have until they are Claimed, but with some you get an idea beforehand. In the family it is thought that Lena is most likely a Natural, a Caster with a massive amount of power and one that is rare. While attempting to help Lena (who he has fallen hopelessly in love with), Ethan discovers that his mother knew about the Casters and was in fact one of the Keepers of the Caster Library, a job that got passed down to her best friend after her death. Ethan's Amma (his nanny/housekeeper/surrogate mother) also is shown to have certain powers as a Seer (somebody who has the Sight and can call on her ancestors for certain types of help). Through out all of this discovery of magic, ancestors, and secrets Ethan and Lena attempt to have as normal a life as they can. They are hampered in this effort by the close minded attitude of the towns folk. They do everything in their power to get Lena to leave the school and the town. Ethan also gets shunned for his association with Lena. Finally the day of Lena's 16th birthday arrives and as one can guess chaos ensues. We discover that Lena's mother (who was previously thought dead) is actually on of the most powerful Dark casters in existence. She tells Lena that she has a choice, that she is a Natural Caster and that she is the second one born into the family. Her mother tells her that according to some random prophecy or spell or instruction or something that the first Natural born into the family will be claimed by the Dark and become the Cataclyst, (which is what Lena's mother has become), but the second Natural born into the family, Lena, can actually choose to go Light or Dark. The big secret everybody has been keeping is that if Lena chooses to Dark, every Light Caster will die, and if she chooses the Light, every Dark caster, including her beloved Uncle Macon will die. Her mother also ups the ante by telling Lena she has a way that her and Ethan, a Mortal can be together forever. A big confusing battle ensues and Lena finds a way out of Claiming either the Light or the Dark. Ethan is mortally wounded, but is saved when in a recreation of earlier events, Lena uses the Book of Moons to bring him back to life, inadvertently causing the death of her Uncle Macon in payment. The book ends with Lena being neither Dark or Light and an opening for all the sequels to follow.
This book comes in at a whopping 563 pages so the above synopsis is about as bare bones as you can get. The funny this is I actually liked the in between parts of this book the most, the ones that are not necessarily essential to the overall EPIC plot. I liked the moments where the characters just lived their lives, the times when no matter what else was happening, life still carried on. It was these moments that made this book so enjoyable. Considering that this is written in first person narrative, but two female writers writing from a male perspective I surprisingly enjoyed most of the tone and pacing of the book. Overall the Caster/Claimed/Light vs Dark plot had a weird vibe of overdone, yet incoherent at the same time. There were things that I never got, like what actually happened when you went Dark or Light? Why were you banished when you went Dark? Why did Lena get to choose and not anybody else? Why if the manor was so thoroughly protected against Dark Casters was Larkin able to hang out there for so many years? Does Ethan have power, if so what is it and where did it come from? What makes a person more susceptible to be Claimed by the Dark or Light? And so many more questions that just did not seem to add up. That part was frustrating, on the other hand they did a decent job showing the different types of powers you could have, not everybody was the same strength or had the same talents, and the various ways one could learn to use such talents was pretty cool. Most of the characters were pretty much one dimensional stock characters. You had your pretty, popular girls and her followers, the goofy best friend, the spiritual wise woman, the pinched faced ultra-conservative groups, so on so forth. The only characters that had any real depth to them were Ethan and Lena, and of these two Lena seemed to have the most range. The authors did a great job showing a teenage girl in the middle of this horrible and strange perdiciment, who's biggest desire was to just be normal. I liked how at times Lena could find her inner strength and kick ass, and other times it was all to overwhelming and she melted into an emotional puddle that just needed somebody to hold her. This seems to be a fairly accurate representation of what it is like to be a sixteen year old girl, not all kick-ass, not all helpless, not all powerful, not all kind and sweet and not all bitchy, but a mix of all these, as most people are. Ethan was a little bland, most of his personality came from being around different people. However I loved it when the authors explored his life after his mother was killed, how the town treated him differently, how his father withdrew completely, how he is living this surreal life of fragile normalcy, again a fairly accurate portrayal of attempting to move on from a massive loss. Overall I enjoyed the book, I got through it in a couple days, and I only found myself rolling my eyes on occasion. It is not a work of epic astoundingness, there is a lot of things that feel like they were taken from previous works (seriously there is a scene that is almost exactly like the prom scene from Carrie), but the pacing was good and it kept my interest for most of the book. The ending was a bit chaotic and confusing for my taste, but other then that I would recommend it to anybody who likes YA paranormal romances and isn't offended by a bit of witch craft. I give it 7 out of 10 Civil War Re-enactments.
What do you think of the double author debut novel? Does it feel like they threw in everything and the kitchen sink, or do they have a plan for the future novels? What is your readers OCD?
Writing Style - As I just mentioned, this book was a pretty unique mix of straight logical prose and very dream like lyrical. I have heard mixed reviews for this style, but for myself I felt that it worked. I think I liked it because it showed the state of Briony's head. Briony could be cold, logical and able to do what needed to be done. She could also be dreamy, muddled and spent a lot of time living in another world. The mix of the two styles were still consistent in that they both sounded like Briony, they both used her voice and that made for a well blended story. I found the transitions smooth and the combination of the two styles very quickly merged into a pattern that was perfect for the tone of this book.
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