Kushiel's Scion

by Jacqueline Carey

I'm not sure how I feel about this one. We go from Phedre's head to Imriel's for the narration. I like Imriel and, although I missed Phedre, it was interesting to get to see her from a different perspective. But the story moved extremely slowly. I got half way through the book before anything really happened and, even when the action did finally get started, I think I was so resentful of the 350 pages of nothing I had read to get to that point that I didn't fully appreciate it. There was a promising moment right at the beginning when we learn that Melisande is missing but then they all decide to just let that go and that was extremely disappointing.

After that we spent four years watching Imriel grow up. While there was some important character development here and Carey actually did a pretty good job with the pacing, I was still left wondering if a plot was ever going to emerge. I'm still not sure that one did. Basically, Imriel grew up, he's still pretty angsty but learning to get over his issues from Darsanga, he makes some new friends, there's a battle, the good guys win, the end. Oh, and then it took him 50 pages to get back home.

I think, aside from the exorbitantly long exposition, I had a hard time investing in the battle because it wasn't Imriel's fight. He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time and trying to help out some friends. With Phedre's adventures, there was always so much at stake. I had to keep reading to find out what happened because, if she failed, her country would be invaded or her queen murdered/overthrown. She got sucked into these adventures because of the enormous historical events that were happening around her. With Imriel, I feel like he was really just a bored rich boy playing at being a poor scholar for a while and that made it a lot harder for me to root for him.

Code Name Verity

by Elizabeth Wein

Oh my God this book was awful. Not awful as in badly written. Awful as in it ripped my heart out and stomped on it. Multiple times.

This is another one of those YA books that has been getting a lot of attention lately. I saw a couple different mentions of it online which intrigued me. Everyone has been raving about it so, when the library got it in, I was all yoink!

As is typical with YA books, it was a fast read. Unlike most YA books, it did not shy away from the nitty gritty aspects of WWII. Absolutely nothing is sugar-coated here. The characters frequently make light of their work and joke about it but that's all a cover. They play down the dangerous aspect of their jobs in order to keep themselves going but the undercurrent of fear is always apparent to the reader.

I'm not sure how I feel about the way in which the book is written. The first two-thirds is written by one character while the rest is written by another. It gives us two different view-points and, as it turns out, the first view-point wasn't entirely honest. Okay, that part was awesome. As readers we tend to trust our narrator inherently but we learn pretty early on in this book that we can't do that here and that was a neat twist in Wein's writing.

In all seriousness, you should read this book. Yes, it will tear your heart into tiny little shreds, but you'll be better for it. Trust me.

Vacation Reads!

I went on vacation! It was awesome! So, of course, I needed a couple light and fluffy books downloaded onto my Kindle to get me through the plane rides and the long arduous hours spent on the beach. I actually downloaded several such books onto my Kindle but it was a pretty action-packed vacation and I'm a slow reader so I only got through two books.

Beautiful Creatures
by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl

I am so excited for this movie! You may have noticed a pattern with me by now. When a movie is coming out that I am interested in, I don't have to read the book first, but I do like to, especially if it sounds like a book I would have enjoyed anyway.

I did enjoy this book. It was kind of Twilight-esque without all the passive whining. Two teenagers fall in love and strive to stay together despite certain paranormal forces getting in their way. But there's also an element of mystery and, set in a small town in the South, there is a pervading feeling of The Old South that the main character spends the entire book fighting. I really enjoyed that part of it, being fascinated with the Civil War myself and humanity's general tendency to reject what is new and unknown.

In the end, it wasn't a great read, but it was fun and served its purpose for my vacation.

The Host
by Stephenie Meyer

I was really disappointed by this book. First off, let me just say that I genuinely enjoyed the Twilight books. They were light, fun reads that were also gripping and totally suspenseful. Few books have kept me up half the night reading but these did. They were the kind of books that I devoured, enjoyed, and then forgot about. Except then there was all the Twilight mania and I wasn't allowed to forget about them.

So I was expecting the same from this book. At first I was all in, the concept is fascinating and it pulled me in. But then there was a lot of wandering around in the desert and I got bored. Even when the main character met up with people it took a long time for me to regain interest in the book and I finally figured out why. The main character (i.e. the alien who took over the girl's body) makes Bella look pro-active. Yeah. Hence my total lack of interest until, like Bella, extreme circumstances force her to finally DO something! Then the book picked up its pace and I regained interest enough to finish the book.

The Twilight books had a problem I hadn't noticed until a friend pointed them out to me. She said she was never afraid that Bella was not going to get everything she wanted. And she's right. And the same applies here. At the end, the main character gets ready to make this huge sacrifice and I was ready for it but then, in typical Meyer fashion, her friends took over and came up with a magical solution (which I didn't quite buy the logic of) and all her wishes came true. Honestly, it would have been a much better book if she had just died at the end and left it at that.