Get Lost in Literature

  "The hairs stood on the back of my neck. All who were wise feared the god Apollo's wrath, silent as sunlight, deadly as plague." Circe is born to the sun god Helios and the nymph Perse. As far as goddesses go, she is unremarkable in every way; no beauty, no powers, and the insufferable voice of a mortal. She is the shame of her family and seems destined to remain so... Until the day comes when she realizes she can use herbs to bend life to her will. Circe isn't just a goddess, she's a witch and like most witches she must be punished for it and is sentenced to exile by Zeus and her own father. In college I had The Odyssey and The Iliad as required reading for a literature class that I had thought I'd enjoy taking at the time I enrolled in it... Spoiler alert, I finished neither the story nor the class. Thankfully Madeline Miller managed to write a Greek epic that was told in relative time lapse, meaning just because a story spans a thousand years doesn'...

The story of Tycho and Jax continues with their journey to Emberfall, during which there's a vicious attack by scravers. With scravers terrorizing the countryside, Tycho worries about the consequences of his promise to Nakiis. Prince Rhen orders Tycho away to warn the King and once again he finds himself riding away from Jax. Callyn's story opens with her chasing the princess through the palace, part of her new job as Sinna's lady in waiting. Soon it becomes her responsibility to figure out why the Queen was attacked, trapping her in a game of politics that may turn deadly. I'm going to start by saying, Jax and Tycho are sooooo sweet. They're sweet together and sweet to each other. If you are looking for a lighthearted romantasy that makes you feel warm and fuzzy on the inside, this book's opening salvo fits the bill. But as wonderful as it is it can't stay that way for long. Their relationship becomes strained by the necessity of finding balance between the...

"Fate has already drawn a path beyond this moment..." Brigid Kemmerer can always be trusted when your definition of "light reading" is a page turning fairytale that keeps you up all night long. Welcome back to the lands of Syhl Shallow and Emberfall, where Cursebreakers  trilogy took place. Years after the events of the Cursebreakers, the kingdom that Grey and Lia Mara hoped would unite is falling apart under the threat and fear of the magic that has returned to the land...But this is not their story. This is the story of Callyn, a baker, brave and bold as any soldier, whose distrust of magesmiths and all forms of magic leaves her equally distrustful of strangers. It's the story of Jax, a crippled blacksmith, convinced his fate lies in the forge, under his father's abusive care. And it's the story of Tycho, the King's Courier, who stops at the small town of Briarlock when his horse throws a shoe, in desperate need of a blacksmith. The first thing tha...

"For a long time there is only darkness and the sound of distant thunder and the hazy sensation of falling." And so we finally have it, the last book in Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children series, The Desolations of Devil's Acre . The war between good and evil has come to Peculiardom with Jacob and Noor at its center. The last couple of books in the series, I reviewed negatively. I mean, come on, you have to know where you're going to get there, and the books aimlessly waffled. In this book, Ransom Riggs knows exactly where he's going, and he showed me the way with the quirky characters I've come to love and expect. This was an action-packed, fast-paced finale, with stakes that have never been higher for the cast of peculiars. There's a moment near the end, where the characters are losing hope of victory and then - plot twist. The plot twist makes Jacob's seemingly useless relationship with Noor have a use, and makes me think Mr. Riggs knew what he...

  "We're Miss Peregrine's peculiar children," said Bronwyn. "You know what," said Enoch. "That doesn't sound quite right anymore." You've got that right, Enoch. When I reviewed Library of Souls , I opened with the words, "The final installment of Miss Peregrine's, was a surplus of ebb and flow..." I felt like book 3 was comparatively lacking the magic and intrigue of the first two books, and neither book 3 or 2 had the charm of the first novel. It was the final installment and a part of me was relieved to have an ending... Quite obviously, Ransom Riggs wasn't ready to let go because the story continues on. (I know, I know, no one is making me read it.) Book 4 came as a surprise to me, not just because it exists when it shouldn't, but because I almost wish the book had been marketed as a new series for the same characters. Jacob and the Peculiars' original story arc is complete and this is something new. Long at la...

“It had become one of the defining truths of my life that, no matter how I tried to keep them flattened, two-dimensional, jailed in paper and ink, there would always be stories that refused to stay bound inside books. It was never just a story. I would know: a story had swallowed my whole life.” The "final installment" of Miss Peregrine's was a surplus of ebb and flow. There were moments of high anxiety action and moments that dragged sleepily onward. The photographs were fewer and less quirky than in the previous two books, and when they appeared, the dialogue had to go out of its way to include the photos. This book probably could have been improved upon by removing the photos and all descriptions of them. Jacob and Emma are racing against time to save all their friends, the ymbrynes, and all of Peculiardom... But the story of Jacob and Emma, heroes of a children's book, seemed at odds with the story of Jacob and Emma the-mutant-teenage-couple. Ransom couldn't r...

“Four hundred billion suns spiraling through space together. Our solar system just one grain on that galactic carousel. The carousel itself a speck in the cosmos. And here I am in this small clearing, on the surface of the earth, as transient and unnoticed to the universe as the dry blades of grass that are poking into my shirt.”  This is the story of Sol. Who lives in a world where modern civilization has been divided into Night-dwellers (Smudges) and Day-dwellers (Rays). When I started this book, I admit I had something like Twilight in mind. I had a stressful week, and I wanted some light hearted, young adult nonsense, that oozed happiness from beginning to end. This did not ooze happiness, it oozed desperation. And I couldn't make myself stop reading it, because I was equally desperate to know what happened next.  Sol, a Smudge, is about to be left alone in the world. Her brother Ciel was reassigned to Day, she has no parents, and the grandfather who raised her is d...

Evan Burl and the Falling (Vol. 1-4) by Justin Blaney “Not all who dream are asleep.” Evan Burl lives at Daemanhur Castle under the supervision of his evil Uncle Mazol. Evan finds a magical book belonging to Mazol and steals it; he believes Mazol has been using this book to communicate with the man he believes to be his father…His father sends a letter through the book insisting that Evan will grow to be the most powerful and evil Sapient (wizard) that the world has ever seen; that Evan should be destroyed before he can suffer a Falling and change the world for the worse. Determined to prove the letter wrong, Evan dedicates himself to two things: 1. refusing to use Sapience and 2. protecting the Roslings. The Roslings are 12 little girls who are sent to Daemanhur through the sky inside of caskets -- who aren’t allowed to eat, who can’t get sick, and who can’t die -- and are forced into slavery. When the seemingly impervious Roslings start to fall ill and die, Evan is forc...

Monsters of Men (Chaos Walking #3)  by Patrick Ness "He is worse than the others, I show. He is worst of all of them. Because-- The rest are worth as much as their pack animals, I show, but worst is the one who knows better and does nothing." Spoiler Alert. Patrick Ness is a bastard. Just so you know ahead of time, there will be no mercy. Book 3 began exactly where Book 2 left off: The army of New Prentisstown is at war with the army of The Answer and Mayor President Prentiss is talking his way out of being overthrown by Todd. The Spackle forces are attacking and Viola's racing to intercept her incoming scout ship before Mistress Coyle can get there. The story once again expands by adding yet another point of view, that of 1017. 1017 is essentially the one that got away... and proceeds to plot vengeance. He was a Spackle slave in New Haven, who watched his one in particular,  die to keep him safe. Forced to work under Prentiss's command and brand...

The Ask and the Answer (Chaos Walking #2)  by Patrick Ness ***Spoiler Alert*** If you haven't read Book 1 and hate spoilers, do not read this review!  There is absolutely no way to review Book 2 without mentioning the events and characters in Book 1. If you really want to know: Read on. ---------- “We are the choices we make. And have to make. We aren’t anything else.”  The Ask and the Answer is a little bit different than The Knife of Never Letting Go...The story pretty much starts where The Knife's cliffy lets us hanging... Viola's life hanging in the balance and Todd facing down evil Mayor Prentiss with no hope in sight. But in part 2 of Chaos Walking, Viola and Todd become separated, and so the story is told from two perspectives. His and hers. Through Todd we learn Haven surrendered to Mayor Prentiss, who then changed Haven's name to New Prentisstown and declared himself President of the New World. Mayor Prentiss is a sick tw...

The Knife of Never Letting Go (Chaos Walking #1)  by Patrick Ness  "That's the thing I'm learning about being thrown out on your own. Nobody does nothing for you. If you don't change it, it don't get changed." Todd Hewwit knows a lot of things: he knows a group of settlers left the Old World for the New World, to live a simpler existence away from the evils of society. He knows there was a war between the native people, The Spackles, and the humans. He knows The Spackles used Germ Warfare; releasing bugs that turned the internal monologues of men into never ending Noise, while killing off all the women, and giving animals the power to speak. He knows The Spackles were eventually defeated, leaving Prentisstown the only surviving settlement. Todd, the youngest member of Prentisstown, is eagerly awaiting the arrival of his thirteenth birthday, where he will officially be considered a man. But when Todd and his dog Manchee discover a hole in the Nois...

Smart Mouth Waitress (Life in Saltwater City #2) by Dalya Moon Peridot is an 18 year old smart mouthed waitress. Her mom took off to LA to record an album leaving Perry in charge of her moody dad and her stoner brother. Despite being in charge of her household, Perry's given herself a mission: find a boyfriend. This is great light reading, the story flows with wit that borders somewhere between sarcastic and socially awkward... Grammatically, the comma placement needs a little work, but the sentence structure was hardly the most distracting thing. The characters: eh. They had their high points and low points.  Perry, the main character, comes off as a strong leading lady in some scenes, an image helped by her smart mouth... But her desire to change who she is, simply to impress men and get laid is a bit ridiculous. I know she's 18, but c'mon; she's taking care of her family, working, driving-- one would think she's responsible enough to know better...

Four teenage boys--a ladies man, a lover, a dork, and an oddball--are looking for one last hurrah together, partying it up and trying to get laid, before they have to grow up and go off to college.  Does the plot seem familiar? Tragically, it's the same plot given to us by Adam Herz, in American Pie . David H. Steinberg, who is credited with writing the storylines for American Pie 2  and  American Pie: Book of Love,  should, and probably does, know this. As a fan of the American Pie movies, I entered into this book with slightly more than an open mind; I was pretty damn excited! And even though the first few chapters did make me laugh, the more I read the more I found myself waiting for the story to pick up. I eventually came to a realization: This is all there is . Here's the problem and there is no way of getting around it: This story is like evidence that Steinberg peaked with AP2 . This story reads like a retelling of AP1 , with a slightly less f...