The King of Attolia (The Queen's Thief #3) by Megan Whalen Turner: Book Review

This, the third book in The Thief series, is FANTASTIC. I laughed, I cried, I was shocked, I was moved, and I loved every minute of it. I cannot say too much about this book without giving too much away. It's just too good a book to ruin for anyone. Do yourself a favor and read this series from start to finish without reading the dust jackets, the synopses, or any longish reviews of the books. Go into it completely unaware and I promise you will not be disappointed.

Just like the previous book, The King of Attolia is filled with courtly intrigue, conspiracies, political maneuvering, lying, deceit, torture and pain, and unbelievable twists. And I felt it got started right from the first chapter. For me, there was no lag in the first half of the book as there was in the previous two installments of this series. I was hooked from the beginning.

Megan Whalen Turner is a master of character and plot development. Her writing is flawless. It's astonishing how perfectly these books are written. It's as if she deliberately chose every single word in every single sentence and willed it to be there and to be perfect. No words are wasted and not one is superfluous or out of place. My mind is blown.

I only hate that I can never go back and unread this book...just for the pleasure of reading it again for the first time. Truly a gem and one of the few five-star books I've read this year. I will definitely be adding this entire series to my personal collection.

Get your own copy of The King of Attolia on Amazon.com.
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The Queen of Attolia (The Queen's Thief #2) by Megan Whalen Turner: Book Review

An excellent sequel to The Thief, The Queen of Attolia is exciting and more fast-paced than the first book. It was still somewhat slow for me at the beginning, but the pace soon picked up and raced to the end. It is a darker book than the first one; there is a bit more violence, and at times it is unsettling. There is plenty of political maneuvering, intrigue, back-stabbing, spies, and conspiracy to keep it interesting, and I never knew which way things would go. After having experienced the twist in book one, I expected a similar event in book two, but was completely taken by surprise when it happened. I truly did not see it coming. Now I cannot wait to read book three because I have no earthly idea how it's going to go!

You must read this entire series and do not read any of the summaries, lengthy book reviews, or even the dust jackets of the books. It would be so easy to be spoiled. And trust me, you want to enjoy the surprise of these fantastic books! This one gets four stars for me, just short of five because I felt the beginning a little slow to start.

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Read more about the author, Megan Whalen Turner, on Goodreads.

Fallen by Lauren Kate: Book Review

This was my choice of a read for my book club's "Judge a Book by its Cover" challenge. I love the cover. It's Gothic and mysterious-looking. And I love the title; both the cover art and the title drew me in.

But the story wasn't great. It's the story of a girl, Luce, who is in some sort of maximum security juvenile detention school thing for teenagers who have apparently done Bad Things. I guess Luce killed a boy, or they think she did, and so they've locked her up. The place is depressing. Luce has zero self-esteem and she's a stalker. It's difficult to like her. But she's inexplicably attracted to Daniel, a cool dude who is mean to her. The first time they lock eyes, he flips her off. He rejects her at every turn, yet she continues to stalk him. Why? Because she's drawn to him...she LOVES him. Whaaa???

The book starts off with a scene way back in history, of a guy and a girl who are in love. The guy is sketching a portrait of the girl because he knows he's about to lose her. They kiss and it's over; she's gone. Fast-forward to present day. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that Luce and Daniel keep being reincarnated throughout the ages, and that Daniel is a fallen angel. I kind of went into the story knowing that in the back of my mind, and I'm sure you will too. But then, toward the end of the book, the author comes out and tells you this. Apparently she thinks you're not a very smart reader; surely you didn't see it coming. It's quite insulting, actually. I guess it was supposed to be a big revelation. But it ended up just annoying me because I was waiting for something big; I'd already known the revelation all along.

This is the second or third "fallen angel" YA story I've read. After all the vampire books that have saturated the market in the past decade, I was ready for something different, something with a little more light. But so far I've been sorely disappointed. I'm still looking for that really good fallen angel / guardian angel story that hooks me and draws me in.

I dislike reading books in which I feel the author has little respect for me as a reader, or my intelligence. I realize this was written for a YA audience and not an adult audience, but I assert the intended YA audience is more intelligent than what was assumed by Kate in writing this book.

All in all, 2.5 stars from me; I'm rounding up to be nice.

The Thief (The Queen's Thief #1) by Megan Whalen Turner: Book Review

I read The Thief based solely on the reviews of two of my favorite book-reading friends and was not disappointed. The story is about a thief, a king's advisor and his two apprentices, and a bodyguard on their journey/quest to find an ancient, mythical stone. As almost every reviewer has stated, the beginning is quite slow. I do not typically enjoy tedious journeys described in books. Thankfully, this particular journey was not as long or as difficult to follow as those in The Hobbit or The Fellowship of the Ring. And by about the half-way point, things start to pick up and get interesting. A good bit is revealed toward the end, and it is enough to satisfy you and make you want to read further. I had a feeling that something was up, though I couldn't quite figure it out before all was revealed. So though I was not surprised at the twists, they were still enjoyable.

It's difficult to pinpoint a specific time/age/country for this fantasy world. It has a Greek mythological feel to it, of course, but there are hints of other times and places as well. The characters travel by horse and by foot; there are archers and swordsmen, but they also have guns. The language has a more modern feel to it. So you're never quite sure of your bearings, but it works. And the author's writing is flawless. I'm giving it four stars only because of the slow tedium of the first half. Character development and plot are fantastic. I love the narration - first person from the thief's point of view.

Everyone says you've got to read this book in order to read the second one, The Queen of Attolia, and that the second is the best of the series, so I'm on to book #2....

Get a copy of The Thief from Amazon.

Read about the author, Megan Whalen Turner, on Goodreads.

Dream Dark (Caster Chronicles #2.5) by Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl: Book Review

I liked this story, mostly because I really like the character of Link. I was, however, quite disappointed that Dream Dark isn't told from Link's POV, but rather, from Ethan's. Don't get me wrong, I love Ethan too, but I felt it was not Ethan's tale to tell. It would have been far more entertaining coming from Link's brain. It actually took me a couple of screens (on Kindle) to figure out that it wasn't Link speaking.

Anyway, it's a nice addition to the story, but doesn't really add much to the overall tale. It still leaves one confused about what in the world Ridley was doing at the end of book two, and I wasn't quite sure what Macon's point was in sending Link on this errand. Did he mean for Link to die? Or did he know what was going to happen? This could have been fleshed out a bit more without giving away too much from book three, I feel.

If you read this on a Kindle, expect it to end around the 42% mark. The rest is just a sneak peak of book three. It ends abruptly and leaves you wishing it was longer. I would much rather have had 200 pages of this story than the first 200 pages of book two. Overall though, four stars.

Beautiful Darkness (Caster Chronicles #2) by Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl: Book Review

Boy did this book take a long time to get going. I honestly had a difficult time reading it (and caring about reading it) until exactly the half-way point. In a book that's 500 pages long, reading 250 pages before anything good happens is just too long in my opinion. Close to nothing happens in the first half, and then almost too much happens too fast in the last 250 pages. The end climax was especially frenetic and confusing. I'm not 100% sure I understand what exactly happened. People kept popping up where they shouldn't have been and everything was twisted and turned upside down. People who were dead really aren't dead, people who were dark really aren't dark, and no one is sure of anything. Least of all me.

Book #2 really suffered from lack of the Lena-Ethan story. In fact, I didn't like Lena at all in this book. She was whiny and mopey and boring, and I couldn't find it in me to care what happened to her. Thankfully the characters of Ethan and Link are more interesting; this book was more about Ethan's journey than Lena anyway. I really like Link, and I'm looking forward to reading the short story Dream Dark, which takes place between this book and book #3.

I think this book also suffers from the difficulty of having two authors. It's just hard for two people to write one story, and it showed in this one. I felt there were continuity issues throughout, little things that weren't consistent and that jarred me from the story.

I thought the characters of John Breed and Olivia (Liv) were kind of pointless distractions. What is their purpose? If Lena and Ethan's love is so strong and so real, why was there a distraction in Liv and John? The fact that both Lena and Ethan were so easily drawn away from each other and to the characters of John and Liv made it seem that their love really wasn't all that strong to begin with. So why have a story? And what happened to Liv in the end? Both characters just seemed unnecessary to me. The same action could have happened completely without them.

I loved Link, Ethan, Lucille Ball the cat, Macon, Marian, Lila, Ridley, and the sisters. They were the only things that saved this book from two stars for me. I will read Link's short story, but beyond that, I'm not sure I care to read on.

Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl (Caster Chronicles #1): Book Review

This story was better than I expected. I enjoyed the modern-day, sleepy Southern town setting. I definitely related to that. The characters were likable and believable. I liked the term Caster and enjoyed the witchy lore part of that. My favorite parts were the flashback scenes to the Civil War days. Incidentally, those are my favorite parts in The Vampire Diaries TV series.

A friend and I just rented the Beautiful Creatures movie and watched it this past weekend and I tell ya, I'm so thankful I didn't pay money to see it in the theaters. It was awful. And I'm positive that if I had not already read the book, I'd have absolutely no idea what was going on in the movie. So if you haven't watched it, don't bother. Just stick with the books.

I will probably read on in this series. It's entertaining and easy to read, with good pacing, an interesting plot and good character development.

The Tell-Tale Start by Gordon McAlpine: Book Review

Written for older elementary to middle school kids, this is a clever book about identical twins named Edgar and Allan Poe. These boys, the great-great-great-great-grandnephews of the great Edgar Allan Poe, are not just identical but also interchangeable. Somehow, they share thoughts. Edgar and Allan have lived with their aunt and uncle since an unfortunate space accident claimed the lives of both their parents. The boys are good-natured but a handful; they really are too smart for their own good, and because there are two of them sharing one mind, they're even more of a handful! Their beloved cat, Roderick Usher, is cat-nabbed, and the family embarks on a cross-country road trip to get him back. When they finally arrive, they stumble upon a nefarious plot by a mad scientist - a plot that includes killing one of them - and they must use their intelligence and quick wit to catch the bad guy and foil his plans.

Everything about this book is great. I thoroughly enjoyed all the literary references and witty banter. I loved that the boys were so smart and could always cause trouble, but it was always in good humor (or to teach someone a lesson). No one ever got hurt. I think my favorite scenes were those of Edgar Allan Poe himself in the spirit world, dealing with his annoying boss. Just wait until you find out who he is!

I think any kids aged 8-12 would love this (especially boys), and their literary-loving parents would too.

Get the book on Amazon.com ($5.98 for Kindle at the time of this review).

Crow Boy by Philip Caveney: Book Review

Crow Boy is a YA Historical Fiction novel about a teenaged boy named Tom who is suddenly taken away from his home in Manchester, England to Edinburgh, Scotland by his own mother and her new boyfriend. Tom finds himself in a new school where he knows no one, and he is immediately targeted by the school bullies. Tom just wants to disappear. His class takes a field trip to Mary King's Close, a place steeped in history beneath the streets of the capital city of Edinburgh. It's a creepy place, and the sights and stories of their tour guide really set the tone for ghosts. Of course Tom sees a ghost, and he follows her into a restricted area of the close. He falls through the floor, is knocked unconscious, and wakes up in the year 1645.

Thankfully Tom had recently completed a project on the late-medieval plague, and he had actually been paying attention to the Mary King's Close tour guide. So when he finds himself somehow transported right into the middle of the terrible Edinburgh plague, he is able to think quickly. Luckily, he has time-traveled with his mobile phone, a 5-pound British note, and a partially used pack of antibiotics left over from an ear infection. Of course these items all figure prominently in the story. Soon Tom finds himself apprenticed - against his will - to the infamous Doctor Rae. Doctor Rae, Edinburgh's plague doctor, wears a thick leather cape, heavy boots, and a mask in the shape of a crow's beak. The beak is stuffed with herbs and other things that are meant to protect the wearer from the miasma, the vapors that are thought to be the source of the terrible disease. The effect of the doctor's costume is striking; the sight of him is terrifying to the sick and able-bodied alike. The story unfolds quickly from there, and the end comes before you know it...or want it to.

Speaking of the ending, it is disappointingly cliché, and the only reason I didn't give this gem of a book five stars. The whole story had been so interesting and unique that I truly was surprised that it ended so flatly. Right before I got there, I thought to myself, "No way. He's not really going to do that to me, is he?" But the journey there is so fun and deliciously creepy that it wasn't a deal-breaker.

I realize that some of my enthusiasm for this book may be due to the fact that I just returned home from my first-ever vacation out of the United States; we just spent nearly two weeks sightseeing in Scotland. On our very first day, we toured Mary King's Close in Edinburgh, and I was creeped out by the wax statue of Doctor Rae and the stories of deaths and ghosts in the cramped living quarters that make up the close. As we exited the tour through the gift shop, I just happened to see this book and thought I'd give it a shot. I love it when a chance purchase turns out to be so good. And bonus, the copy is signed by the author. But despite my bias, I still think it's a well-written and exciting story. Perfect for the almost-Halloween season. I would definitely read more by this author. Four-and-a-half stars from this girl!

At the time of this review, Crow Boy was available for Kindle on Amazon.com for $4.79. There are paperback copies available from third-party sellers on Amazon too. Click here to get your own copy. Read about the author, Philip Caveney, on Goodreads.

Reached (Matched #3) by Ally Condie: Book Review

This is the third and final installment of the Matched series of dystopian YA novels by Ally Condie. The three main characters, Cassia, Xander, and Ky, have all left the Society to join the Rising, but at high costs. Cassia is stationed as an undercover sorter working in Central. Ky is a Rising pilot, flying airships here and there and everywhere to aid their cause. And Xander is an undercover medic working in Camas. A major outbreak of a strange illness catapults the entire world into chaos, and the three friends have to rely on each other to survive and to save others.

I enjoyed this enough, but the ending just didn't satisfy me. I felt like the love between Cassia and Ky wasn't believable, probably because they were so rarely together. I couldn't understand why they were so completely devoted to each other when the last time they had any true quality time together was on the hill...in the first book. And the fact that all three of them - Cassia, Ky, and Xander - were so altruistic and completely selfless in their total devotion to one another was unbelievable to me. They are still teenagers, right? Their selflessness and sacrifice to each other (well, at least the boys' to Cassia and to each other) was just not believable. Maybe living in conditions such as those (in the Society), and seeing all the death and destruction that they saw caused them to grow up really fast, but I still feel that there would have been some hint of jealousy or selfish notions on someone's part.

There was too much external conflict in these books, and not enough of an internal conflict to make it compelling. I kind of started to feel like the Plague parts were dragging. I'd had enough of that story line by the end. My feelings toward Cassia were consistent throughout - she's my lest favorite character in this story. I like Xander and Ky more, by far. I wonder if that was the author's intent. All in all, an interesting premise for a dystopian story, and pretty well executed. I'm glad I read this one, but I believe the first book was the strongest of the three. Three stars from me.

Buy Reached on Amazon.com. 
Read about the author, Ally Condie, on Goodreads.com.

Matched (Matched #1): Book Review

Matched is a pretty formulaic dystopian novel that smacks of The Hunger Games and older, Orwellian speculative fiction. But it's well-written and pretty quickly paced, so it sucked me in and held my attention the entire book. You have to suspend belief for a good portion of it, but if you just read it for entertainment and enjoyment's sake, you shouldn't be disappointed. It's easy to feel depressed reading about the world of Matched; I had a particularly difficult time reading about Cassia's grandfather and his Final Banquet. The whole world seems bleak and hopeless, the characters all just robots. But then there is a spark of hope, and that spark ignites something in a couple of characters that makes them yearn to be different, to make their own choices. And it's good enough to make you want to root for them, and ultimately read to the end.

I want to know how these people can read and type and use computers, but they don't know how to write. That makes absolutely NO sense to me. Also, everyone is matched and their future spouses chosen for them (and all at the age of 17? Is there no possibility that someone's perfect match might be older or younger than themselves? Ridiculous.), but it's apparently okay for them to have flings with others on the side. What? Okay, and what exactly IS a sorting job? Cassia spends all her time "working" and preparing for her final job placement and she sorts. Sorts what? Into what categories and for what purpose? What exactly does sorting DO again? None of that is explained. I guess you just have to gloss over it. Another thing that bothered me is the "war" in the Outer Provinces. Who is warring against whom? And why? And why doesn't anyone seem concerned about it? Why doesn't anyone in this "Society" try to break or even bend the rules a little? Has human nature been perfectly Match-bred out of them? That seems unlikely. So yeah, there is a lot in the book that you just have to not question or look at too closely. But even with that, it's a pretty well-written, interesting story appropriate for the audience for which it's written.

I'm definitely game for reading the next books in the series. I give it 3.5 stars. 

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Crossed (Matched #2): Book Review

I enjoyed this (3.5 stars); I am enjoying the series as a whole. I hated all the running in this one though. I wish we had spent more time in one place, like at the end - I wish we'd gotten to see more of the Rising. I liked Ky in the first book and like him even more now. I feel like what we learned of Xander doesn't really fit with the character that he was in the first book. Can he have changed so much? I find it interesting that I do not like Cassia as much as I feel I should, though I cannot exactly put my finger on why. One issue in this part of the story that I felt was unbelievable was how Cassia risked everything to chase after Ky, and then almost as soon as they were reunited, it was so easy for her to decide to be separated from him. Likewise, he, who apparently had nothing but her (and whose thoughts of her were all that kept him alive in the beginning), said mid-way through that he would NOT join the Rising for her. Not even for her. And then two seconds later, he's all, "Yeah, okay. I'll join too!" But then he's totally okay being away from her. Huh? This middle installment opens up many new questions that aren't answered, but I felt it wrapped up others from the first book sufficiently enough that it didn't leave me unsatisfied. I'm still trying to figure out though...how many different groups are there again? The Farmers, The Society (are they humans or robots or aliens?), The Rising, and The Enemy? Or are some of these one and the same?

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Learn more about the author, Ally Condie, on Goodreads.