Al
The Forgotten Garden was a great book. Surely the longest one I've read in a very long time, but totally worth it. The plot was well and intricately woven; the author's use of multiple story lines running along at the same time actually worked really well. One thing I really enjoyed was how the garden of the book's title was neatly tied to Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden...I mean, she actually became a character in this book, and even though her appearance was brief, it was an interesting idea to include her and make the Forgotten Garden of Blackhurst Estate the inspiration for Burnett's own children's book.
I'll just cover the whole series in one go: they're great. Adventure, adventure, adventure; a little futuristic face-changing, bubbliness, hoverboards, spag-bol, and rusties. Wonderful series.
I read this maybe five years ago, and I really enjoyed it....planning on reading it again soon!
edit Charlie's story is so endearing...sad but hopeful at the same time. Awesome book.
Hilarious, quick read. Loved every page. Reminded me of my own years working at HDL, and the anecdotes have great parallels to my current job at a help desk. Always something different/quirky/annoying/crazy going on.
Although a little difficult to get into at first, I really ended up enjoying this novel. It was interesting to hear the different points of view from the two main characters, one written in letter form and the other in simple bursts of thought. I liked how social expectations were reviewed and scrutinized by Abraham, and how he grew as a person as his time in Pegu passed. I also loved the overall historical setting, not something that is covered in many history classes.
Maybe I should have read this when I was younger, and I may have gotten more from it. For some reason, I could not focus on this book. The writing style was a little too formal for a children's book (IMO) and I found it to be kind of a drag. Sure, the themes of light overcoming darkness and love being all you need may have won it the Newbery, but I'd MUCH rather spend my time reading a Narnia book than this. Not sure if Madeleine L'Engle gets better the further into the series you go, but for now I'll move on to better things.
Sooo slooow. Seriously. Just skip to page 274 and save yourself some time.
Also, what a rushed, stupid ending. Could have been a little better if the author wasn't so focused on creating loose ends.
Waste of my time.
DNF at 61%. I felt like this had potential, but I was too distracted by all the run-on sentences and character jumping. I lost track of how many times I had to re-read a rambling sentence...phew.
Too slow to stomach another 300+ pages. Hated Boris and the whole Vegas scene. It just drags.
Only part I enjoyed was the beginning and the scene in the museum, post-bomb.
Dreams of Gods and Monsters was quite a bit longer than the previous two installments, and it sure felt like it took longer to read. 613 pages packed with lots of action, plot twists, and characters old and new. Instead of wasting breath on a full summary of the story, here's a synopsis in a nutshell: Jael, emperor of the Seraphim, has taken select troops through a portal to Earth to seek weapons. All the world watches the arrival of this “heavenly host” while at the same time, the bodies of monsters are found near the Sahara desert. Angels and demons? Yep. On the other side of the portal in Eretz, Karou and Akiva make a fragile peace between their two small armies, and prepare to bring the fight to Jael. Add in some personal character struggles, Storm Chasers, fallen worlds, Faerers, Stelians, and a huge bruise in the sky called the Cataclysm, and voila, you've got this book.
The Good
New characters. The addition of new characters in this book was refreshing and gave me a chance to be frustrated (a good thing). Eliza was an enigma; I couldn't wait to figure out just what her terrifying dream encompassed and who the heck she was. And once I found out just who she was....whoah. I definitely wasn't expecting that! In addition to revealing Eliza's true character, the book also reveals Razgut's past. The reader finally gets to find out why he is a “fallen” angel.
A realistic struggle between two armies who were trained to hate one another. Chimaera and Seraphim must make a fragile peace in order to bring down a common enemy: Jael. I enjoyed the difficulties both armies faced as they shifted their worldviews and came together to fight.
Karou and Akiva. Together. Finally!!
A not so happy ending. Yes, Karou and Akiva finally get together. He finally reveals his true, beautiful smile, they kiss, and they make a home together, in heart and in life. But....there is still another fight coming. A fight against the real monsters that lurk on the other side of the Cataclysm. I love that while the main characters get their bit of happy, not all is necessarily right with the world. There is more to come.
The Bad
Honestly, there was really nothing bad about this book, but...it did feel a bit messy at times with all the plots going on at once and the shifting back and forth between Earth and Eretz. Minor though, compared to the overall awesomeness.
Overall Rating
5 out of 5 - I would love to have this book in my collection, and I would definitely read again. Would recommend to any fan of non-traditional YA fantasy.
Quotes
“It was a new idea for him, that happiness wasn't a mystical place to be reached or won – some bright terrain beyond the boundary of misery, a paradise waiting for them to find it – but something to carry doggedly with you through everything, as humble and ordinary as your gear and supplies. Food, weapons, happiness.” Akiva p.445
“Warm with wonderment, a smile so beautiful it ached. It crinkled his eyes, and shaped his beauty into another kind of astonishing, a better kind, because it was the astonishment of happiness, and that reshapes everything. It makes hearts whole and lives worth living. Karou felt it fill her, dizzy and delirious, and she fell a little deeper in love.” p.543
This review and others can be found on my blog: electricYAWP
I picked this book up from off the shelf because of the colorful cover (yes, I judge that way) and because it was one of NPR's featured books in their “Chapter a Day” series.
From the first page I enjoyed Maloy's style of writing, and I loved Sarah, the main character. It was refreshing to read a story that came from the point of view of a 70-something woman...one who was going through a major shift in her life. The love between Sarah & Charles, the larger family dynamics, and the beautiful and pensive writing on the surrounding Vermont landscape captivated me and kept the pages turning.
The book is divided into two parts, which I didn't at first realize. However, the division is a nice marker between who Sarah was, and who her character becomes. The first part is a switch-off between Sarah and Charles' histories, with snippets of reminiscences, and the present day - a very tense scene which ultimately leads to Charles' death.
The second part chronicles the changes that Sarah goes through after her husband's death. She expands her thinking and viewpoints, opens her home to family and strangers, and embraces her grief. All the while, Sarah remains a very human character; she is so easy to relate to. Even though I'm 50 years younger, I found myself wishing that I could talk to her in person...sometimes even hoping that I could have some aspects of her in me when I reach that age. She also reminded me of a teacher I had, which is perhaps why I liked her so much.
Every Last Cuckoo was a compelling, quick, and satisfying read, full of warm characters and beautiful scenery.
p.s. There are two instances that grabbed my attention more intensely than the rest of the book. Both have to do with Sarah being pensive and ruminating on photos or what-have-you....and the author wrote her as “representing multitudes.” Uncle Walt!! (I contain multitudes...) Even if she didn't mean to reference Whitman, these beautiful parts of the book earned brownie points with me :)
A bit difficult to read through, but worth it to experience Lucy and George's interactions and relationship.
I thought that Divergent, the first book in this series, was a relatively good read; Insurgent was, I felt, even better. Unlike the Twilight series, where the books went downhill as they were pumped out, this series seems to be getting better.
I have been looking for a fun series to read for a while, and this is hitting the spot. Insurgent was full of just enough action, suspense, a dash of romance...and the fact that it takes place in a cordoned-off, futuristic Chicago rocks my socks.
Everyone seems to frown on this series because it doesn't perfectly embody the dystopian novel. So what? I say the books have extremely interesting and strong characters, a storyline different from anything else I've read, and overall decent, if not excellent writing. Sure, there are a lot of unanswered questions. That's what (for me) made Insurgent “un-put-down-able.” It had two major plot climaxes and an awesome cliffhanger ending. I now have to wait until fall of 2013 before I can read the next installment. I haven't looked forward to a book release this much since Harry Potter.
Overall, Insurgent was, in my opinion, fantastic. Not perfect by any means, but definitely fun. It had me sitting on the edge of my seat, developing theories, and yelling out loud when characters got killed off.
Recommended.
Well, I finally finished the last installment in the Twilight saga. My review might include some spoilers, so read ahead at your own caution.
It seems to me that the quality and wow factor of this series has diminished incrementally from the first book. Twilight was by far my favorite; seriously, I loved it. New Moon was alright, Eclipse definitely lacked something, and this final book was a disappointment. I felt that Breaking Dawn was far too long for the material that it contained. Either the editor should have cut down on the number of pages, or Meyer should have developed the plot more intricately and fully.
At the beginning, I was hoping for a better wedding scene, and of course, a much more descript honeymoon. Bella was still being petulant about the marriage, and that ground on my nerves. Once that scene was finished, bam, they're at the island. I'm not a romance buff by any means, and I hate smutty writing, but Meyer could have given us readers just a bit more in terms of the whole honeymoon sex scene. Don't get me wrong, I just think that Bella and Edward's relationship on the island could have been even more solidified through Meyer writing about it just a tiny bit more in depth. Instead, it was like, wham, they have mysterious sex and suddenly Bella's pregnant, of course after the first time.
After she finds out she's pregnant, the novel DRAGS. Seriously, I'm sorry, but the whole middle section of this book was a bore. Finally the baby's born, given a ridiculous name (both her first and middle names annoy the heck out of me) and Bella becomes the vampire that we've all been waiting for her to become.
I'm also a bit disappointed in how easily Bella overcame the whole newborn thing. I know, she had a shielding gift, and I didn't want her to kill anybody, I just thought that there could have been a little more struggle to her vampire initiation.
The ending was also a letdown. The whole meeting fo the vampires was great and all, but if the Volturi are coming all the way there and all that animosity is going around, why was there not a battle scene? I thought it was far too easy that the Volturi just saw another half-vampire and were like, ok, let's go back home. This means that the Volturi are still around. I wanted them to be destroyed, or at least made to fight with the other vampires. It's the whole good vs. evil thing. When Edward mentioned something like, oh, the Volturi are really just bullies, but cowards underneath' I was like, WHAT? I mean, they were this huge threat, and there was supposed to be a huge confrontation, and suddenly they just walk away to go live in their castle?
It seemed like all the action was crammed into the last 200 pages of the book, and everything before it was far too drawn out and dullingly descriptive. I think Meyer could have done a better job, had she been given time to let her plots thicken and develop, and time to trim down on useless pages of nothing.
The book had so much potential; I just wish it could have been a better finish to the series.
Blech. According to my Kindle, I'm 75% through....but I just don't think I can go any further. Writing is okay, but man, has the plot become boring. Not believable enough for me and the author seems to be trying to develop a love triangle. A dystopian YA book with a love triangle. Not cliche at all...
LFL find...not sure if I should put it back, as I wouldn't want someone else to squander their time with this one.
The beginning was intriguing. The rest was a redundant, dark, and dull slog through the depressing lives of David, Norah, and Paul. Wish I hadn't wasted my time reading this one.