JLeighBralick

AGH!!! Oh. Em. Gee. I'm kind of a little dizzy...I just read about 400 pages in something like 24 hours so...whoa. I've adored every single Eli book so far, but this one was just mind-blowing. And even better? Somehow it made all the earlier novels even more amazing, too, even though I didn't think that was possible. Everything just builds and builds and details that appeared early in the series suddenly made all the difference in the world. This is masterful storytelling.

And the ending. Oh... I'm not going to be able to wait for Spirit's End. I have to know what's going to happen...like...now!!!

And Mellinor!!! NOOOOO!!! Tell me it isn't so! And ELI!!!! NOOOOO!!!!!

I kind of really want to go back and read all of the Eli books straight through again. And maybe I'll write up something resembling an actual review sometime soon. Not just yet though. ;)

Wow. I grabbed this book at the library, remembering seeing it on GR or Shelfari or something but not really knowing anything about the book. I was not just pleasantly surprised, I was totally wowed. I don't know why, but this book just really impressed me. I was a little skeptical about the premise, but somehow Kincaid pulls it off.

The characters were fantastic, unique, flawed and charming and well-developed. We see so much growth in them, or just a deepening of Tom's understanding of them, throughout the book. Characters who started off completely obnoxious and despicable became characters we could grudgingly respect, and then even admire. Characters who seemed weak showed remarkable resilience. Tom as a character showed incredible growth, while not becoming Mr. Perfect by the end, either. He is flawed and admirable and fascinating in all the right ways. Not to mention the fantastic dialogue and witty banter and pranks and schemes and all of that ridiculously fun stuff that emerges in a competitive group of teens living in close quarters. I absolutely adored Wyatt and Yuri, Vik and Beamer, their interactions, their conflicts, their deepening friendships.

Not only were the characters superb, but the story itself was wonderful. I didn't really know what to expect. I know there is kind of a "boarding-school" sub-genre in YA, but this didn't have the shallow pettiness you so often see in those kinds of stories. The world Kincaid builds is fascinating and well-thought out, revealed sufficiently but not in a heavy-handed sort of way. There is a plausible reason for why teenagers are being used in this war, and -- unlike some YA dystopias -- this futuristic, sci-fi story actually has an interesting, reasonable, and suitably thought-provoking backstory. The politics of it all makes sense. Even if I can't picture it happening now, I can picture something like it happening.

There is a lot of wonderful subtlety here, too, like the Machiavellians being oh-so-Machiavellian. One little prank a couple of characters pulled just had me grinning because it was so sly and manipulative and....Machiavellian. And for once I found myself completely unsure of where the plot was heading or what twists the author would take to bring us here. There were parts I was biting my nails and flipping pages as fast as I could, because I couldn't figure out any way for the characters to escape their predicament.

I really, really hope we will see more of Tom & Co. in the future. I'm a huge fan.

This was a fun, enjoyable read, though perhaps not as satisfying as it could have been. I think the problem I have with a lot of YA dystopias out right now is that they don't feel plausible to me. This book falls victim to that fate, unfortunately. I couldn't buy the world and the shocking (but predictable) revelation. Is just didn't convince me.

Also, while I didn't dislike the characters, I found their perfection to be a little nauseating. Not only are they the smartest and most beautiful and the best at everything, but they also don't have any character flaws. That is always highly annoying to me. ALSO, not only are they both most perfect, beautiful, smart, loyal, heroic, talented, capable 15-year-olds of all time, they also sound exactly the same. Their narratives are indistinguishable. While I could excuse that in the Scorpio Races, where the narrative was also gorgeous and atmospheric, etc. etc., I just didn't feel it went so well in this one. The one distinction I seem to recall is June's penchant for relaying details in (parentheticals) in strange places. But that's not a big distinction.

Not to mention....did any of these adults in authority think for a second that it might be a bad idea to send lonely, beautiful, smart, talented 15-year-old Girl on a hunt for lonely, beautiful, smart, talented 15-year-old Boy? And trust that their respective senses of honor and duty would prevail in the face of raging teenage hormones? (At least, I'll give June credit for having at least some interest in Day besides his "angelic" face...being fascinated by his criminal history and all. But Day is pretty much locked in the "She's pretty! I love her!" trope so common these days).

Also slightly annoying was how, whenever anything exciting was about to happen for one character, we switch POVs and only see the aftermath of said excitement through the other character's eyes. Like when Day's execution time is moved up, and June isn't sure if she'll be able to coordinate the rescue attempt in time, we don't get to see any of her adjustments or frantic efforts to get everyone together in time. We just switch to Day, and miraculously (mysteriously), everything has more or less been pulled together. Well....HOW?!

Not to mention we seriously need more world-building. The characters know about Union Pacific railway cars but don't know there used to be a United States At least, I think that's what Day's pendant was all about, that it was proof that the U.S.A. once existed?? The world has apparently advanced technology like fancy guns with location trackers on them, but still uses things like motorcycles and the Internet (accessible and hackable by personal computers)? When does this take place? There isn't even an attempt at giving a year to situate us.

But, like I said, it was fun and breezy enough, and I am ambivalent enough about the characters that I'll probably give the series a second chance when the next one comes out.

Not entirely sure what I thought about this one. I enjoyed it for the most part, though it was rather predictable, but the ending left me incredibly dissatisfied. The pseudo-Russianness was a bit annoying to me, because it was rather shallow and inaccurate (if this was their native language, why were certain words written out as if they were foreign??), not to mention the dialogue sounded like it belonged to modern American teenagers. It just kind of threw me for a loop any time one of the characters said "okay" or something along those lines. Characters need to feel like they grow organically from their culture and environment, and that unfortunately wasn't true here.

However, it was a fairly fun read, and I finished it in less than 24 hours, so that says something. The settings were described in a vivid enough way, but some other elements weren't described at all (or vaguely and far too late -- like what a kefta looks like). My one last complaint is that I wish...wish...WISH Bardugo had kept the one mildly complex character complex until the end. But no, after the predictable revelation, this character went flat as a pancake. *sigh*

My final complaint is that the ending of the book felt forced into being a non-ending simply for the sake of allowing a series. The non-resolution of the climax -- when there was no reason for the climax NOT to have been resolved at that point in time -- felt fake and cheap to me. I might read the next one, but like I said, the only character I found very interesting has been pancaked, so.

I really enjoyed this book! I figured out the secret before I'd hit page 50, but the story was so enjoyable I didn't mind going along for the ride anyway. Some of the characters were a bit thin (notably Adri and the stepsisters -- though they always were in the fairy tale, too), but Cinder and Kai were wonderful, and I especially loved Iko and Dr. Erland. I enjoyed the twist on the setting and the characters. The world building was solid, though there were things I had difficulty picturing early on (what Iko looked like, for instance).

There were elements that felt eerily familiar...but that's probably just my weird smattering of interests coming through. Like, the cyborg teenager that reminded me of Cameron in the Sarah Connor Chronicles, or the person who'd been in a terrible accident and got patched up with cybernetic protheses (or...augmentations?) without their knowledge/consent, like Adam Jensen in the Deus Ex: Human Revolution game. But that might be coincidental -- I don't know if Meyer had any familiarity with that game, and it was just released last year, so...probably just my mind making connections.

All said, this is the best book of the last several I've picked up, and I'm really looking forward to #2!

Update: Please don't let this be a DNF. I don't know when's the last time I didn't finish a book. Maybe I'm just not in the mood for this right now...but pages and pages covering Meghan's idiotic temper tantrum over Ash doing exactly what Ash TOLD HER he was going to do has me really, really annoyed... >:(

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It puts me in a bad mood when stories have consistency errors and grammatical errors right at the beginning. It sends me into editor/writer mode, where I'm analyzing the craft of the story instead of enjoying the story. That's all for now.

2.5 stars. If Katsa wasn't such a caricature of a bad feminist ideology, it might have ranked slightly higher. But I have zero use for heroines who think it's okay to use someone for their personal gratification knowing full well that it could cause the person unhappiness.

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Not entirely sure what I think of this one so far....

I'm halfway through and I've got a couple of major problems:

1. What is the plot and who is the antagonist? I kept expecting the Leinid grandfather to be a segue into the main plot...but now I'm starting to think it's actually the main problem of the story? It just seems kind of...I don't know, anticlimactic. Or maybe it's that I was expecting a fantasy plot and I feel like I'm getting a whodunnit mystery plot (since the crime already happened)....but until halfway through the book we don't really see and experience the main characters trying to solve the mystery. Instead we get a bunch of descriptions of training sessions and feasts and the main character's temper tantrums. ??? So far, it really has felt like a bunch of strung together episodes, which might reveal something about the world or the character, but really don't seem to play into a larger plot.

2. The writing feels extremely bland to me. I've read entire paragraphs that flow like: "He did x. He did y. He was z. He did x." And I'm not exaggerating the clipped, monotonous sentence structure either. LOTS of passive verbs. Lots of telling (like the info dump in Chap. 2 that almost lost me entirely).

3. The names. Oh, Lord, the names. First there's the unfortunate similarity between Katsa and Katniss from the Hunger Games, and the way Katsa is portrayed, it's almost like she's being presented as a stronger, tougher, better and more talented version of Katniss. Now, I personally didn't like Katniss that much as a character, and Katsa just seems kind of...outré. Almost like a caricature and not a person. Then there's the even more unfortunate combination of "Po" and "Randa" in the same story. I'm sorry, but I can't help seeing "Po the Big Fat Panda." If she'd just made it Poe and Randal, that would have helped infinitely. Then there's the godawful country names. Middluns, Estill, Nander...(all arranged in a map that looks, quite honestly, too childish to take seriously).

On the positive side, the last couple of chapters have at least made me smile. I laughed out loud when Katsa shouted Po's name in the...special way...and when she tried to catch the goose with her hands. But...I'm still not sure where this is all going.

I remember reading this book as a teen. It was the first book with anything resembling "romance" that I read, and I just fell completely head-over-heels in love with Ben. I remember this being a very sweet romance between the wounded soldier and the healer...which is one of those themes that I've always loved, even when I was little and making up stories with my dolls. I loved how Rachel had to find her place in a rather foreign world, and how she found herself and her heart in the process. I really would love to find this book again (it's somewhere in my garage, I think) and reread it, because right now I'm feeling rather nostalgic for those old books I loved so much.

Okay, I was thinking this would probably be a four star book for me, but honestly, I just loved it. I mean, I really, really loved it. I loved it more than I expected to...I loved it more than I hoped I could. I was expecting to be disappointed because I've been disappointed by a lot of books lately, but this one was wild and beautiful and strange as the sea, and it was one of those books that had me wishing I'd written it. There were minor things that bothered me -- like how I couldn't tell any difference between Puck's narration and Sean's narration and really wished that they'd sounded just a little bit different, or how occasionally Stiefvater breaks the narrative rules of present tense....but the prose was so lush and gorgeous, and the imagery so...alive...that in the end none of that really mattered.

The thing I think that bothered me the most was that they never once explained the water horses. I mean, yes, it's mythical, but we're talking a 20th century town and American tourists who might not know the myth.....somewhere in there, surely someone could have explained where the water horses came from and how they can breathe and swim effortlessly underwater while still looking like horses. There were a couple of moments where an explanation was almost forthcoming.....and then not. Oh, I wanted more. But apart from a few minor details, even the horse-ness of the book was believable, and that's a (surprisingly) hard thing for writers to do right, I think. People who don't know horses seem to love to write about them, but even my hypercritical horse detector was mostly satisfied by this book. And it really made me miss the warmth and smell and movement of horses and the comfortable familiarity of horse barns and horse people.

But best of all...Sean and Puck. Oh, Sean Kendrick, you are exactly my flavor of awesome. And Puck was such a believable little spitfire, cross and stubborn and so devoted to her family and her horse and her island.... It's rare that I find myself equally enchanted by both parties in a YA romance, but this time I was. And thank you, thank you, Ms. Stiefvater, for no love triangles or insta-love, but just two fiercely independent, half-wild creatures, the island and the sea, who can't exist apart.

Torn between 2 and 3 stars for this one. It read easily enough, but it felt so boring and action-deprived (exactly what really happened in those 500 pages?) that I was inclined to give it 2, but there were certain flashes of interesting character development that raised it a bit in my estimation. Jem's reaction to Will's visit to the ifrit den for one, and the way the honor/love parabatai bond played into the romantic plot at the end for another. All in all, it boasted way too much angsting over who loved who and who couldn't love who, and literally every other page had some kind of reference to how beautiful Will was, or perfect Jem was, or how angelic and devastatingly stunning, or how silver/blue their eyes are, or how silky their hair is tumbling across their godlike brows...it about made me want to scream every time I saw the word "beautiful." And until the very end, that was pretty much the only way Tessa thought about Will, but she still had the ignorance to wonder if it was her truest true love? I wouldn't even call it a love-triangle...more like a physical infatuation triangle, except her affection for Jem was much more believable...

I found Tessa's behavior from night 1 to night 2 (yes, you know the events I'm talking about) to be just despicable. For someone who doesn't know if she cares about EITHER person in that way to treat them like that, at the risk of building up hopes and expectations she will have to crush for the one or the other, is totally selfish, cowardly, and inexcusable. I don't care what Tessa says about why she did what she did on the balcony...we all know she is capable of acting that way when she isn't demon-drugged, so why is it uncharacteristic in this situation? After all, she'd only spent the first flipping book and a half lusting after the guy's body (because, as she repeatedly tells us, she despises him as a person.) Wow, that's admirable.

(On a side note, how could Tessa have possibly stayed conscious for more than a few minutes in a corset designed for someone half her size? Anyone who's actually worn a corset knows that the ones fitted to you are bad enough. Anything smaller would be cripplingly painful, not to mention actually dangerous to one's health.)

Another fantastic Eli Monpress novel. I devoured it in a day and was off hunting for The Spirit Eater the next day. I love the whole charming cast of characters, the energy and vibrancy of the writing, the wonderful dialogue, and the plot that always kept me engaged -- even when I think I know where it's going, it never fails to be one heck of a fun ride. And Aaron always manages to throw in those little surprises that blindside me in the best way possible. Props to her once again... and my heartfelt thanks, because I know I can always look to Eli when I need some literary cheering up. It's not often that I finish a book and immediately want to reread it, but I'm already itching to go back and read the Spirit Thief and the Spirit Rebellion again.

Finished. Finally. Maybe like a 2.5 on this one. I'll try to finish up a review soon.

Update:

I've read a tiny bit more. Considering that I've read five other books totally well over 1400 pages this last week alone, that says a lot. I just can't get into this book. I'm really struggling with the writing. Nothing flows logically. It's like... Random statement. Random statement. Random dialogue. Random statement that sounds like it ties everything together but has nothing to do with anything. Everything feels rather bland and emotionless.

I can't empathize with any of the characters so far, and I still don't know what exactly Finnikin and Topher do. I can't believe Topher would sit there and describe the brutality that happened to Finnikin's family in the kid's presence. How heartless.

And I get easily annoyed by apparently uber-kewl fantasy moves that don't make sense. Like, why the heck would Evanjalin grab Finnikin's sword just to hold it by the blade and swing it (against its natural balance) at some guy's groin? How about the good ol' fashioned boot? Even a knee is just as effective and less time-consuming. And then she steals one of Finnikin's knives, even though she just dropped a perfectly good sword a few paragraphs earlier. Huh? Just because it sounds like it would look cool? AGHH! That sort of thing really bothers me!

First impressions:

If I see ONE more book with that same guy's face on the cover, I will scream. Really and truly. It has to be the 4th book at least that I've seen with Blue Hoodie Man (not to mention individual books in a series that have variations of the same). Annoying!

Not terribly impressed so far. LOTS of passive, filter and bland (saw/look/walk/etc.) verbs and logical leaps with no explanations. For instance, near the very beginning, we get this sequence:

~~~
When they reached the base of the cliff, they passed the group of kneeling pilgrims. A hand snaked out to grab the cloth of the novice's cloak.

"Your feet," Finnikin said, noticing for the first time that she was barefoot. "We can't afford to be slowed down because you don't have shoes."
~~~

Huh???

I assume the grabbing the robe has something to do with her feet (because the hand isn't mentioned again and nothing happens as a result of it), but...why? There wasn't even any indication that she was going slowly, such that he'd complain about it. Things like that I find terribly bothersome — not to mention the clumsy narrative.

Also, it's kind of maddening because we are given, on the one hand, too much detail for us to make sense of at this point (lots of names and references to history and geography), but on the other hand not nearly enough. How old is Finnikin? What do he and Sir Topher do? They work to improve conditions...how? Are they builders? Healers? Community Organizers? They usually choose not to be found but somehow dukes are constantly requesting their help? What is a First Man, even?

*sigh* I'm already annoyed and bored and that's never a good sign...but I'm hoping it will pick up as I read. I've heard a lot of good things about it.

I'm not quite sure how to rate this one. I enjoyed it for the most part, but there were things about it that kind of grated on me. I had ambivalent feelings about many of the characters, but it was a fast, easy read. I may eventually pick up the next one but I'm not in a rush at the moment.

Also, I know a lot of people have compared it to Alice in Wonderland and Labyrinth. Frankly, the Labyrinth references were so blatant that I had to wonder if Kagawa was trying to do it on purpose. While that could work with a single element, doing it over and over again smacks of unoriginality. Also, the favorite-movie-from-my-childhood reference that I thought was also very strong was the Neverending Story. Think about it. Fantasia was the land created by the dreams and imagination of people. It was slowly being destroyed by the Nothing, because people were no longer dreaming and imagining stories. (Not to mention the disintegrating semi-useful Oracle) Yeah. I like allusions to things—stories, movies, art—that I love, but not constantly.

Anyway...there were flashes of description in Kagawa's prose where I had a little, "Oooh, that was nice!" moment, and other places where the tellingness just kind of bothered me.

4.5 stars. Seriously...almost 5. Maybe 5. Okay, why not? It gets 5. I have such mad love for this book, I can't even say. I was a bit skeptical when I picked it up, I admit it. The cover seemed...a little strange when I first saw it (but now I adore it because the guy is SO Eli...), and I wasn't sure quite what to expect.

But. Oh. My. Gosh. I was starting to feel a little depressed, when a number of the books I've read recently (that were published recently) just kind of left me dissatisfied and irritated. I wasn't quite sure what I wanted, but I think I just found it. Eli Monpress is such a bundle of endearing contradictions I want to just hug him to pieces. Part angel, part imp, part rogue, part hero... Plus, can I just say that I absolutely LOVE a story where characters have various jaw-dropping powers but you'd never think it to look at them? When well-handled it can be so...delicious. And this book definitely delivers for me on that score.

I think another reviewer pointed out that one of the reasons this book stands out (meaning, getting strong reactions of both the positive and negative variety) is that, in a sea of gritty-for-the-sake-of-grittiness fantasy novels, packed full of obscenity and profanity and everything else just to prove how GRITTY the world is, this is a lighthearted, witty, fresh novel that totally sets its own standard and then happily rises above it.

And honestly, I'm a little sick of the dismal depressing milieu and characters in some of those books. So, I guess I really just love -- for lack of a better word -- the spirit of this novel. I adore the characters, from charming, roguish Eli to the mysterious and kind of creepifying Nico, to the deeper-than-he-looks swordsman Josef, to hot-headed and duty-bound Miranda. And the spirits. Oh my, I just loved the interactions between Eli and the spirits.

I will say as I got near the climax of this book, that I started having some anxiety issues...it felt like Miranda would be the one being the true and final hero in the end, and that would have made me rather disappointed and disenchanted. But then at just the right moment, the story shifts around in a way I'd never have expected, and it was more wonderful than I could have hoped. Excellent.

There were a few minor editing problems I noticed throughout, such as a character standing up when they'd just stood up on the previous page, or someone dropping something only to have it kicked out of their hand a few sentences later. But those things can be beastly hard to catch. And they certainly didn't detract from the loveliness of this story. I was delighted from beginning to end. Fast-paced, intense, charmingly narrated... I started this book a little before lunch and couldn't put it down until I finished. Brava, Ms. Aaron. This is hands down one of my favorite books I've read so far this year. The sneak peek at the next volume wasn't nearly enough... I'll be out hunting for Book 2 tomorrow.

Last note -- I notice some reviewers take a harsher view of this one because of characterization (or, in their view, lack of complex characterizations), or fluffy plot or whatever. That's fine. I think there's a lot more to these characters than face value...and yeah. An evil bad guy who isn't actually a misunderstood good guy at heart whose cruel upbringing has made him twisted and confused? I'm not complaining.

Some novels are crafted to draw attention to the complexities of human nature or a plot tangled and twined as seaweed. Some stories are meant to amuse, enchant, and entertain. A good yarn, the kind of stories the old skalds and scops would weave...the kind of larger-than-life story you tell your friends sitting around a campfire. Some of the best beloved movies are that variety too. Princess Bride, anyone? I think expectations might have a lot to do with how people receive a story like this. Look, you don't look at that guy's impish face on the cover, and read the light-hearted blurb on the back, and walk in expecting Dostoevsky. It's delightfully absurd and exaggerated and verging on parody...and I LOVE it.

I adore the Cadfael TV series with Derek Jacobi, but I'd never read any of the books. It was wonderful to read this one and see just how faithful the show is to the lovable (and sometimes despicable), larger-than-life characters in the book. As always the mystery had me scratching my head up until the final revelation, which is always thrilling. The style is a bit more archaic than I usually read, but it suited the story. Besides, it was actually quite lovely and Peters uses some stunning turns of phrase and metaphor. I can't wait to read the next one.

First Thoughts:

This book is proving yet again why I feel 1st person present POV has the tendency to make the story's action more *distant* rather than more immediate. Everything so far feels kind of robotic. I can't feel Rhine's fear and uncertainty...they're just not present for me. And Rhine doesn't notice the things that an ordinary 16 year-old-girl would notice. Okay, why is it she takes the time to describe Lady Rose in detail, but not the boy her own age? I haven't the foggiest mental picture of this kid. Hair color? Height? Build? Sound of his voice? You'd think she'd notice SOMETHING about him??? Urgh.

Final Thoughts:

Ugh. 1.5 to 2 stars. I'm sorry, but I really just wasn't fond of this book. I'm too tired now to go into all the details...maybe I'll write up a review tomorrow. I just knew things weren't going well when I started checking how many pages were left when I was barely halfway through...