Tag: Fantasy

August Summary

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Okay, August was the best! Well, for books anyways. The wildfires in BC are totally out of control and the air quality was atrocious, so I didn’t do quite as much outdoor stuff, which is one of the reasons it was a great month for books! But also, my August monthly challenge just totally re-vitalized me and got me out of my reading slump!

I was getting a bit hung up with my monthly challenges and the pressure to read specific books, so in August I just set myself the challenge to read pretty much whatever I wanted by trying to read as many of my existing books as possible. I have a lot of un-read books, so it left me with lots of selection to choose from and I finally read some books that I’ve been meaning to get to for a while. Here’s my summary:

Books read: 11
Pages read: 4,208
Main genres: Young Adult
Favourite book: Nevermoor and Women Talking!

I started off the month with Leah on the Offbeat, Becky Albertalli’s newest book. I’ve heard really great things about this one and I’ve been meaning to get to it for a while, but unfortunately I didn’t love it. I’m really hit or miss with Albertalli’s books and I’m finding myself counter to popular opinion on her books. I liked but didn’t love Simon vs. the Homosapiens Agenda (but I LOVED the movie) and I really liked The Upside of Unrequited, which I would say is her least popular book. But I didn’t like this one either. Leah kind of rubbed with the wrong way and while I still loved all the diversity in this book, I found parts of it problematic.

After that, I decided to participate in the 25infive readathon, which challenges people to read for 25 hours over the span of 5 days. I didn’t quite finish the challenge (I read 23 hours over 4 days), but I read 4.5 books, so I was super pleased with myself. I started with Nevermoor by Jessica Townsend and Radio Silence by Alice Oseman. I totally flew through both books and I am not slightly obsessed with Nevermoor. Nevermoor is totally Middle Grade fantasy at it’s best and I confirm that the comparison’s to Harry Potter are valid and that everyone should read this book because it is just so much fun! I also loved Radio Silence, which is about the struggles of senior year and the pressure to go to University, and I will definitely be reading more of Alice Oseman.

I followed up those with Ten by Gretchen McNeil and To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before by Jenny Han. I pretty much hated Ten and found it problematic and kind of offensive, but I thought To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before was really cute. I was only inspired to pick this one up because the new Netflix movie looked really cute (can now confirm – it is cute). Lara Jean seemed like the type of YA book that I gave up long ago, but I loved that this was more a story about sisters than it was about boys and I thought it was really cute. I also read the sequel this month though, P.S. I Still Love You, and unfortunately I thought it was no where near as strong as the first book and basically unnecessary.

While I did read P.S. I Still Love You in August, it wasn’t part of my 25infive reading challenge. The last book I tried to squeeze into the challenge was Uprooted (I got halfway through during the challenge). Uprooted was a challenge for me. It’s a well written, traditional fairytale type story, but I found it so slow moving that it was really hard for me to get into it.

I interspersed my reading of Uprooted with The Last Time I Lied, which was definitely the opposite in terms of pace. This was my first Riley Sager book and it wasn’t quite as scary as I was anticipating, but I really enjoyed it. It was a solid mystery thriller book about a girl name Emma whose 3 friends disappeared at summer camp when she was 13. She’s returned to the camp as an adult and 3 more girls disappear, forcing her into a race against time to figure out what really happened 15 years ago. I was convinced that I had the mystery figured out and I was thrilled to find out I got it totally wrong and didn’t see the twist coming at the end at all.

I had one book that I had to read in August, which was for my book club, was Circe by Madeline Miller, the new fantasy book that came out this year and has super good reviews. I had a bit of a love-hate relationship with this one, similar to Uprooted. I thought the story was really good, but it was a slow read for me and the reading experience overall wasn’t great, even though I did like the story.

I read Women Talking by Miriam Toews towards the end of this month and it was definitely one of the best books I read this year! It’s a fictional account of the true story of a community of Bolivian, Mennonite women who were attacked and raped in their sleep over the course of 4 years. After the crime is discovered, the women meet to discuss what to do about it and the whole book is basically a group of them talking about whether they should leave the community or stay and fight. The writing in this book is wonderful and the content is so thoughtful. I would recommend this book to absolutely anyone and everyone.

Finally, I finished the month with a re-read of The Assassin’s Blade by Sarah J Maas, which is the prequel to the Throne of Glass series. I am a bit obsessed with this series and with the final book coming out in October, I’ve decided to re-read the whole series! The Assassin’s Blade was just as good as I remembered and I can’t wait to jump into the rest of the books in September!

Circe

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Rating: ⭐⭐⭐.5
Author: Madeline Miller
Genres: Fantasy, Greek Mythology
Pub Date: Apr. 2018 (read Aug. 2018)

I just finished Naomi Novik’s Uprooted a few weeks before reading this and my experience reading Circe was a lot like my experience reading Uprooted. Not that the plot was similar, because it’s not at all, but in that I liked both books in theory, but they were just so damn slow to get through.

I’m not gonna debate that this wasn’t a good book. Miller packs all kinds of interesting and flawed characters into this 400 page book and I really liked Circe’s character development and how she changed and grew throughout the course of the novel. I almost felt immortal myself when reading this book in that a lot happened, but it simultaneously felt like very little happened. While I can’t comprehend that this story stretched over a millennia, I did feel like substantial time had passed between Circe’s years in Oceanos and her many many years as the witch of Aiaia. This book really helped me understand the concept of immortality and how the Gods become so stubborn, unyielding, and often cruel. In their immortality and divinity, they really have become like petulant little children – expecting the world to bow at their feet and then throwing a tantrum whenever things don’t go their way.

I loved that Circe was different. She had the voice of a mortal and she felt guilt, grief, and empathy in a way the rest of the Gods had long parted with. She had her moments of anger and rage, but she was also forgiving and reasonable. I loved when she got angry because the Gods had been so cruel to her and I loved seeing her fight back against her circumstances instead of just lying down and taking it like she had always done in the past. She was a powerful goddess and yet she was constantly underestimated because of her empathy. All the other Gods thought they could just roll right over her. For a long time she just took it, but I liked watching her start to make decisions for herself and embrace her own power and vulnerability.

Okay, so writing about what I liked for this review is actually helping in my general enjoyment of the book. It was a struggle for me to read this. I compare to Uprooted because I read them both in the same month and I never got sucked into either book. I think it took me about 2 weeks to read through Circe in it’s entirety and I mostly had to force myself to pick it up because I struggled to stay engaged in it for any substantial period of time. I think books can be slow moving and still totally engaging, but Circe just wasn’t for me. I’ve never been a great lover of greek mythology because I have always thought the Gods are just all giant ridiculous babies, which Circe pretty much confirms, but it’s just not my favourite genre.

I mostly loved the ending of this book. I totally forgot that the synopsis talks about Circe getting caught up between her love for the Gods and the mortals and that this was ultimately where the story was going. There was such a change in Circe between the beginning and end of the novel and I appreciated and respected the decisions she made.

So mostly my problem was just with the pacing of the book. Reflecting now I’m actually feeling a lot better about this book, but I can’t pretend it wasn’t a struggle for me to read. I’m not quite sure how this could necessarily be different, I think I may have just struggled with how nebulous the plot was. I never had any idea where it was going or what the point of the story was. I mean there could be a lesson there in that the monotony of immortality is what makes the gods the way they are, but I just wanted more. The only place I felt the plot could be going was with Circe eventually getting off the island, but she mostly seemed content with her lot and made what she could of her misfortunes, so I struggled to determine what was really driving the story. I think I will rate this as a 3.5 stars because I appreciated the themes and development, but it wasn’t really an enjoyable reading experience for me, and that matters to me too.

The Assassin’s Blade

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Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Author: Sarah J Maas
Genres: Fantasy, Young Adult
Pub date: Mar. 2014 (first read Sept. 2016)
Series: Throne of Glass #0.5

I first picked up the Throne of Glass series about two years ago and flew through the first 4 books during the summer, before picking up Empire of Storms when it was released in Sept. 2016. I used to read a lot of fantasy when I was really young, like elementary school, and then moved on to reading a lot of young adult books in high school. I didn’t read a whole lot throughout University, because I was so busy with school, but I got more into historical fiction and general fiction when I graduated and started reading a lot again.

Throne of Glass was one of the first big fantasy series I picked up after graduating, but since reading this series, I have a read A LOT more fantasy series over the past two years. With the final book coming out in October, I decided I wanted to re-read this series again. Partly because I just really want to re-visit these characters, and partly because I’m curious if I will still like these books as much as I did on the first read through now that I’ve read so much other fantasy.

Interestingly enough, I didn’t get around to reading The Assassin’s Blade until after Empire of Storms, which is definitely not the ideal way to read the series as there are a ton of characters introduced in TAB that appear throughout the series. EoS definitely made a lot more sense once I finally read TAB.

So this time I decided to start with TAB since it is the prequel to the rest of the series. I was surprised I had rated this 4 stars originally because I was kind of remembering it as more of a 3-star read, but after re-reading it, I’m sticking with my 4 stars. The first 2 stories are probably 3 star reads, but the last 3 stories more than make up for it. (TAB is a compilation of 5 novellas set before ToG).

The Assassin and the Pirate Lord is a great introduction to the characters and the world of Erilea, but I do find Celaena pretty annoying in this novella. She has the biggest ego for someone who repeatedly makes mistakes and Sam picks up ALL of the slack for her in this story. I know most people don’t really like the Assassin and the Healer, but I think it’s actually a solid short story about two women bonding and looking out for each other. It doesn’t really add a lot to the book overall, but Yrene goes on to become pretty important to the story in Tower of Dawn, so it’s cool to see this little origin story for her here.

I think the Assassin and the Desert may actually be my favourite novella of the lot. I love Ansel’s character so much and I really loved watching Celaena make a female friend and how the silent assassins challenged her thoughts on how an assassin’s guild could operate. Arobynn has always led his assassins through fear, competition, and intimidation, so it was nice to see a group of people who (while they’re still killers) looked out for each other and created a real sense of community. I really enjoyed the arc of this story and I think that as a stand-alone novella, this is the strongest of the book.

That said, the Assassin and the Underworld and the Assassin and the Empire are the two stories that really dragged me into this world, set the stage for the rest of the series, and broke my freaking heart. I’ll say up front, I’m not a Sam groupie. I know a lot of people love Sam in this book, but I find him a little controlling. Arobynn is obviously all kinds of abusive and manipulative (like seriously, textbook abuser), and I know I’m supposed to love Sam because he threatens to kill Arobynn for hurting Celaena and made him promise not to hurt her again, but honestly Celaena can look out for herself and I didn’t like that Sam was emasculated by her money and wouldn’t let her help him on missions. He always wanted to be there for her, why couldn’t he let her be there for him too.

But I did really like the last two novellas because I thought they had some killer character development for Celaena and they provide SO MUCH context for later books. Not just for all the secondary characters, but for why she is able to be so ruthless and how much trauma she has been through. Knowing what I know from all the other books, there is just so much depth to her character. Celaena’s ego drives me nuts sometimes because in some of the later books it’s like she can do no wrong, but I would say in this book her cockiness is her character flaw and it’s what gets her into so much trouble, and ultimately destroys her.

The ending is brutal. If you read the books in the publication order, you know what’s coming at the end of this book, but it doesn’t make it any less heartbreaking. I’m not sure if I would recommend reading this book first if you were reading the series for the first time, but having already read the series once, I think reading TAB first is the only way to read this series. I can’t wait to jump into Throne of Glass and just immerse myself in this series over the next 2 months!

Uprooted

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Rating: ⭐⭐⭐.5
Author: Naomi Novik
Genres: Fantasy
Pub date: May 2015 (read Aug. 2018)

This was a hard book to read for me and also a hard book to review. I’ve been putting it off and I must admit I’m already starting to forget the story a little bit.

Novik’s writing is gorgeous in this book and she really knows how to create a sense of atmosphere. I really did feel the danger of the Wood lurking over me throughout the entire time I was reading this book. I thought the story was really original and well written, I just really struggled to get into it. I felt like the plot would finally get moving and then a chapter would change and the plot would get really slow again.

Uprooted has the feel of a traditional fairytale. It starts off with our main character Agnieszka, who grew up in the valley, in the shadow of the ever ominous Wood. Their valley is protected from the Wood by the Dragon (not a literal dragon, but a wizard named the Dragon), who in exchange for his protection, takes one girl to come live in his tower for 10 years, after which the girls is released, but never returns to her village. Everyone expects the dragon to take Kasia, but instead he sets his sights on clumsy Agnieszka. Once she moves to the tower, she discovers she is a witch in her own right and joins forces with the Dragon in trying to fight back to corruption of the Wood.

First off, I loved that the villain of this story is a wood. How brilliant. Not an evil wizard or neighbouring kingdom, but an evil woods, whose trees and creatures literally corrupt those who wander in, forcing them to do evil things. How futile it seems to be fighting against something as deep and dark as the woods, yet the Dragon and Agnieszka are unrelenting in the fight to drive the Wood back. But the Wood’s corruption has spread into the King’s castle as well and they must fight the corruption on two fronts.

I also thought that the character development was good. Agnieszka grows a lot over the course of the novel. At first she is afraid of the Dragon, but as she learns magic and grows to understand her power, she becomes more and more confident. She is driven by her love for the Valley and because she has grown up of the valley, she understands the Wood in a way that the Dragon, who holes himself up in his tower away from the Wood, cannot. She fights for what she believes is right and she isn’t afraid to disagree with the Dragon, or even the Prince.

Overall, the story was clever and it was really well writing, so I did like the book, it just wasn’t a quick read for me. I would still really like to read Spinning Silver, which is Novik’s new book, a retelling of Rumpelstiltskin. Spinning Silver was actually the reason I was inspired to pick up Uprooted, I’ll just need to make sure I’m in the right mindset before I pick it up.

Nevermoor: The Trials of Morrigan Crow

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Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Author: Jessica Townsend
Genres: Fantasy, Middle Grade
Pub date: Oct. 2017 (read Aug. 2018)

I’ve been seeing Nevermoor pop up on Booktube and for some reason decided I didn’t have an interest in it. But I recently heard it labelled as the “next Harry Potter” and that there were a lot of comparisons that could be made between the two, so of course I finally had to pick up a copy. Best decision ever because this book was so much fun from start to finish!

Morrigan Crow is eleven years old and has the unfortunate bad luck of being born on Eventide. As a result, she’s considered a cursed child in the Wintersea Republic and is blamed for every bad thing that happens in her village. But her real bad luck is that cursed children always die on the eve of the next Eventide, which happens to be the day after Morrigan’s eleventh birthday.

Morrigan just wants to be remembered, but when the next Eventide is announced, it’s obvious her family is already preparing to move on and forget about her. However, before death can catch her, Morrigan is whisked away to Nevermoor, the free state, by the enigmatic Jupiter North, who selects Morrigan to be his first ever candidate for the Wundrous Society. But in order to be admitted to the Society, Morrigan must complete her trials and be selected by the judges.

What made this book fantastic was that it had so many layers. It’s been a long time since I read a book like this and it made me realize how much I miss clever fantasy stories with a strong mystery element. This has obvious parallels to Harry Potter with the 11 year old being whisked away to another world, the magical elements, her wise mentor figure, the foreboding unnamed villain, and the humourous moments woven throughout the story. But it’s the larger mystery of this story and the complex world building that made this such a good book and worthy of being compared to Harry Potter.

This was a 450 page book and I feel like I’ve only scratched the surface of this world. It was a brilliant debut with just the right balance of world-building, character development, and whimsy. Townsend doesn’t give up all her secrets and I know there’s so many more surprises and quirks to be developed in this series. I don’t really know where the author plans to take the plot, but I get the feeling that it will have a lot more depth than what we’ve been introduced to in the first book.

I really wouldn’t change anything about this book. I have so many questions, yet I was still satisfied by the ending. I can’t wait to find out more about the Wundrous Society and what mischief Morrigan and Hawthorne will get up to in the next book. There were so many intriguing characters in this book and I can’t wait to learn more about Jupiter, Jack, Fen, Cadence, Noelle, and of course, the Wundersmith.

Book 2 can’t come soon enough! Everyone should read this!