Get Lost in Literature

"Revenge on everybody . That would fill her time. That would keep her busy." This is not going to be the greatest review of all time, seeing as I had some personal problems that required me to put the book down for a month and I was too preoccupied to take notes. This is the second book I read this year that involves a criminal main character in a dark fantasy novel. It's also my third dark fantasy this year (I think I read them in a straight row) and I'm not sure what called me to them when I was at the bookstore at the start of the summer. The main character, Charlie Hall was deeply likeable even though she claims she isn't. She's a criminal and conflicted about it. She's trying to go straight, but if it were that easy there'd be no story. When a friend asks her for a favor and her past starts to catch up to her, she has nothing but her talents as a thief and con-artist to rely on. I like that the setting takes place in the 'real world'. You ...

"The Prophet showed me a hooded figure with a shadow," Morette Yew's voice called above the clamor, stern and sure. "The shadow remained even when the light faded." A mist has settled over Blunder, a curse by a vengeful deity, it confuses and consumes. Meet Elspeth Spindle: resident of Blunder and survivor of an infection that grants its sufferers magic abilities. In a world where magic is punishable by death, Elspeth counts herself lucky that she can pass for normal. That no one knows she's infected. That no one knows that a monster, The Nightmare, lives inside her head. For eleven years she's kept these secrets but one fateful night and one chance meeting changes everything. Suddenly she's thrown into a conspiracy against the King, to break the curse, and to free herself. I normally start with my positive observations first and then my negative, but for whatever reason I'm doing my review in reverse today. I noticed some problems in the beginni...

' "Just trust me, Nina." "I wouldn't trust you to tie my shoes without stealing the laces, Kaz." ' This gritty fantasy opens with the introduction of six quirky characters. Kaz Brekker, only seventeen years old, is a hardened career criminal in a street gang known as the Dreggs. Jesper is an ex-farmboy turned sharpshooter with a gambling addiction. Inej, aka The Wraith, is indentured to the Dreggs but finds she has a talent for criminality; she's dangerous, fearless. She's the thief of secrets. Wylan was born to privilege and ran from it; he went from being a wealthy merchant's son, to being a demolitions expert for Kaz's gang. Matthias, Kaz's opposite; run by what he considers to be a moral high ground, is a soldier trained to hunt down witches and was convicted on false charges. And then there's Nina, a witch, or Grisha, who put Matthias in prison and is desperate to correct that wrong. These six teenagers hardened by their own ...

  "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'...

  "This is how we sometimes lose people: not all at once, but little by little, like the wind blowing specks of pollen from a flower." The Land of Lost Things is the long-awaited sequel to The Book of Lost Things. The Book of Lost Things is one of my favorite books and is located on my Top Ten Books to Get Lost on a Deserted Island With list. Having never reviewed The Book of Lost Things , I feel compelled to tell you a little about it first. The Book of Lost Things is about a boy named David; his mother dies and his father remarries. Increasingly unhappy with his homelife, that now includes an infant half-brother, he falls deeper into the stories that bring him comfort... Until he accidentally opens the door to Elsewhere. In a world beyond his own, he finds fairytales and monsters reminiscent of The Brothers Grimm . I know certain adults have the compulsion for lumping all fantasy novels in with YA, but this book was not aimed at young adults. This book is a coming-of-age...

"Earthquakes couldn’t crush us, floods couldn’t drown us, fires were too slow to catch us. Sulfur and brimstone were irrelevant. We were the gods of our own alternate universe. Inside the mortal world but over it, never slaves to its laws, only our own." Few books have incited as much Love and Hate as The Twilight Saga . All I'm going to say, is if you loathed Twilight through Breaking Dawn , you aren't going to like this book much better. It's Twilight , from Edward's POV; it isn't really any darker than Bella's POV, after all it is a vampire novel intended to be palatable for 13-year-old girls. It was never intended to be use as horror or erotica. If you loved Twilight, just the way it was, this book is for you. I feel like Stephenie Meyer has come a long way. She maintains the same level of teenage angst, self-flagellation, desperately sickeningly sweet love affair that we came to know in the first book, but her actual writing technique has improv...

  "Hope is a fickle, dangerous thing. It steals your focus and aims it toward the possibilities instead of keeping it where it belongs—on the probabilities." Violet Sorrengail, frail and fragile, trained her whole life to be in Scribe Quadrant, wanting nothing more than to be surrounded by books, recording history. But her mother, the general, has other ideas. She's being sent to college to train in the Riders Quadrant to follow in the footsteps of her siblings to become a dragon rider. The problem? Besides being too weak to carry her own bag, she'll be in a school where every test she takes is graded by life or death and everyone wants her dead. I can absolutely see what the fuss is about, this was a little addicting for me. I was pulled in right away by the idea of Violet, this smart young woman with physical infirmities being forced into a war college where only the strongest survive. She's the heroine of the story, so you know she's going to survive, but s...

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...

  "'You told me once," said Kell, "That you were either magic's master or its slave. So which are you now?" Kell, Lila, Alucard, and Rhy are setting out to save the world they love from unstoppable evil curse. Each chapter was thick with tension as the characters that we've grown to love, and the ones we've grown to hate, are hovering on the edge of life and death with each turn of the page. This book was fast-paced and full of action and I could not put it down. Osaron, an evil manifestation of magic, is taking over Red London, one body at a time, leaving the royal family and the competitors of the Essen Tasch trapped in the palace. The stakes are high as our main characters search for a way to save the world and I was glued to my seat to find out what was going to happen next. The characters are well established now. Kell who yearns for freedom, now bound by the magic keeping Rhy alive, their lives tied inexorably together. Lila, a young woman who ...

"And then in the silence, he heard a sound: not a sob, or a scream, but a laugh." In the first book, there are 4 Londons, located in four parallel universes. Kell who lives in Red London, is a powerful magician who can travel between realms. Lila Bard is a common thief in Grey London, a magicless London. There's Black London, the doomed London. And there's a White London, the London trapped between life and death. If book one was Kell's story, then consider this the Lila Bard show. She joins the crew of Captain Alucard Emery, privateer, and runs amok on Red London's high seas, finally fulfilling her dream of becoming a pirate. She's content to be the best thief, until she hears about a dangerous game being played in Red London, and Lila doesn't love anything more than she loves danger. Kell is now the one yearning for freedom, as he becomes trapped between the family he won't ever be a part of and his societal obligations. The setting is fabulous. ...

"Kell was not sure if it was a promise or a threat, but he had no choice regardless, and so he stepped forward into the serpent's nest." A Darker Shade of Magic by VE Schwab There are four worlds and in each exists a London. Red London, Gray London, White London, and Black London. Kell, one of the last magicians capable of traveling between worlds, has taken up the hobby of smuggling. Resident of Gray London, Lila, a cutthroat pickpocket spends her time dreaming of piracy on the high seas. When Kell accidentally smuggles a dangerous artifact the two meet and adventure ensues.  The first thing that stands out to me about this book is how the characters complement each other. Both characters are prone to breaking the rules, but where Kell wants somewhere to belong, Lila wants to stand out. Kell is a prince by adoption and is the royal family's messenger between worlds. Lila too is an orphan, but she led the other  orphan lifestyle, alone and fighting for survival. I lov...

I've been a longtime fan of The Wicked Years and, because of Wicked , I have picked up as many as Gregory Maguire's books as I could. After I applied for the ARC, I sat in front of the computer screen chanting, "They'll never approve me, my blog is too small, they'll never approve me, my blog is too small..." Then a week later I got approved. Needless to say, I was pretty excited. The story starts in Quadling country with Elphie as a toddler, her mother still alive and her father trying unsuccessfully to start a mission. Like the title says, it follows her childhood as she grows up. I really liked most  of this book. The tone is sarcastic, almost playful, and sometimes a bit jaded. Elphie is portrayed as morally ambiguous, the same as when she's an adult so the evolution of Elphie rings true. She has a vicious sibling rivalry with her sister and watches on as her brother raises havoc everywhere he goes. Her curiosity is insatiable, and it runs alongside a...

"... there would always be darkness. But as long as you kept a light burning, it would be okay." After the coup to steal Daevabad, Ali and Nahri find themselves powerless in Cairo and desperate to get home to save their loved ones. Banu Manizheh finds herself the tyrant ruling a broken world, with Dara trapped at her side.  Unlike the second book, the finale of The Daevabad Trilogy is an action-packed adventure, which is really good news considering the book is just shy of 800 pages. It's super fast-paced, with dramatic plot twists. Magic and murder, djinn and Gods, and pirates. That's right, this one's got pirates. Chakraborty's writing is richly descriptive creating settings and characters that are vivid and beautiful even at the most brutal of moments. And there are plenty of brutal moments because Manizheh's worse than Ghassan - I honestly don't know why she wouldn't marry him; they were perfect for each other. I think my favorite parts of thi...

 So this is the part where I normally drop a quote from the book, but due to restrictions on ARCs, I'm not allowed to do that. Birdie is a flighty, free spirited single mother who drinks too much and despite her love for her daughter, harbors a secret desire for freedom from responsibility. One morning she meets Arthur, a recluse who lives in the mountains. He's a bit odd, talking only in present tense and the townspeople mostly eschew his company with the exception of his father Warren, Birdie and her daughter, Emaleen. As their relationship deepens, Arthur invites Birdie and Emaleen to come live with him in his derelict cabin... But Arthur harbors a dark secret that he keeps from his new family. The setting of the book takes place in rural Alaska and the descriptions of the scenery, flora, and fauna are positively decadent. I've never been to Alaska (although I'd love to visit) but Eowyn Ivey's writing makes me feel right at home there. The characters are flawed i...

  “ Because a lost little girl from Cairo thought she was living in some sort of fairy tale. And because for all her supposed cleverness, she couldn’t see that the dashing hero who saved her was its monster.” ― S.A. Chakraborty, The Kingdom of Copper The Kingdom of Copper is book two in the Daevabad Trilogy and the characters we've come to know and love return to us. Nahri is now living a life married to a husband who despises her, trapped in the palace by the cruel King Ghassan. Homesick for the streets of Cairo, she must find happiness in her new home of Daevabad. Ali, exiled from his home by his father, finds comfort in a rural village but that changes when a stranger shows up with the intention of throwing Ali back into Daevabad's dangerous politics. Dara, resurrected by a vengeful djinn, is once again force to be The Scourge, the living weapon, in a vicious plot to bring the city of to its knees. This book didn't start out as gripping as the first. It was very slow t...

"It was only seconds, but the moment between seeing Dara thrown in the air and seeing him vanish seemed to last an eternity..." Nahri is a con-artist in Cairo, advertising herself as a faith healer then ripping off her patients. One night, while performing a ritual, she accidentally summons a djinn... and he's pretty angry about it. Dara aka The Scourge decides he can protect Nahri from the forces she mistakenly awakened by kidnapping her and taking her to his world. There she discovers she's the last living descendent of the Nahids, a race of djinn that specialized in healing, and she can either fulfill her destiny or write her own.  I loved the characters in this story. I liked Nahri from the first sentence. It was five little words written to be cocky as hell, and why not? She's a criminal and she's getting away with it. Dara enters the story like a wrecking ball, so it took me a little bit of time to warm up to his character, but I liked how he's not q...

"The English are never going to think I'm posh, but if I fit into their fantasy, then they'll at least think I'm royalty."   Robin Swift is a Cantonese boy rescued from cholera and spirited away to London by his new caretaker, Professor Lovell. Professor Lovell impresses upon Robin the importance of words and makes him spend every moment studying language. Robin works hard to impress the Professor and before long he's accepted into the college of Babel... A school designed to study language so it can be translated into magic. I really liked this book. To start with, the writing was absolutely impeccable, including very literal word play, and even though I'm no linguist, the translations seemed well-researched. The setting is designed to mirror our own world, making it easy to imagine the fantasy is real. Within the story, the author included footnotes that added to the story's intrigue rather than slowing it down. The plot had plenty of meat on its bon...

  "As I feel my way through the kitchen to the stairs... I realize there's one good thing about the dark. In the dark I can't see myself." Kasey LeBlanc, Flyboy Asher is a closeted trans boy who goes to sleep every night dreaming of a circus, where he is himself for the first time. By day, he lives his worst nightmare: Catholic School. Then one night, he's transported to his fantasy world, where dreams and reality begin to blend. I was skeptical during the prologue. I was promised a story that was similar to  The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern , but the prologue wasn't just comparable, it was downright derivative. The circus is even named, " The Midnight Circus. " Which, to be fair, it probably is hard to name a circus that comes only at night... But then the story morphs into its own. Asher lives with his mom, a nurse who is almost never home, and cared for by his ridiculously old-fashioned and super controlling grandparents. Grandparents who drag...

"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...

  "All the best plans are a bit risky..." Gulo the Savage, ruler of his homeland in the hard and cold North, is searching for a relic known as the Walking Stone, which has been stolen by his brother Askor. The titular character Rakkety Tam and his best friend Wild Doogy Plum are given the task of bringing the stolen royal banner home to the King and Queen in exchange for their freedom. Meanwhile in Redwall Abbey, Sister Armel has had a vision of long dead Martin the Warrior, who tells her to take his sword and deliver it to Tam, who in turn vows to protect the Abbey from those who would threaten it. When I was young, I thought the Novels of Redwall were some of the best advanced-reader children's novels on the market. They have all the hallmarks of a good children's novel. Always including poetry, songs and riddles, Brian Jacques was the master of rhyme. The characters are all talking animals, stereotypically cast again and again in predictable roles: we know mice, s...