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In the Forests of the Night – Amelia Atwater-Rhodes
::blinks:: Whoa. Excellent book, considering the author wrote it when she was thirteen!!! Why can’t I write like this? If my stories weren’t fanfiction, would they be published? ::dies:: Given the age of the author, this was amazing. It wasn’t very long, only 147 pages, and the ending was… a bit abrupt, but it worked for the story. It was a cool little book about vampires. O.o The main character was great, although I felt the story was lacking development between her and the other characters. Ah, well. Vampires are meant to be reclusive. Great book, though it makes me wonder what I’ve been doing with my life. Why ain’t I published? =_=
Huckleberry Finn – Mark Twain
This one I had to read for school, and it was actually pretty good, considering the stuff they normally cram down your throat. Would you believe I had to read five holocaust novels within three years? I mean, yeah, the topic is important, but you can only relay the message so many times! ::coughs:: Anyways, about Huck Finn… Though the language is sometimes a little hard to get around, and some of the stuff in there is just downright unbelievable, I still found it quite interesting and really pretty funny. The end was kind of annoying though, because the last five or ten chapters got rather boring and repetitive and drawn-out. I kept thinking, “No! The story’s been doing so well, don’t die now!” Yeah. It took me forever to read the last few chapters, ‘cause I just kept putting it off, since it bored me. Pity. It really was a great book up till then. ::sigh:: Now for that big test on it next week…
Demon in My View – Amelia Atwater-Rhodes
Whoa. Follow-up book (though could be stand-alone) to her first book, In the Forests of the Night, this time written at age fifteen (again, what the hell have I been doing with my life?! O.O). I liked this one even better than the first. The character development was deeper, and the ending was more complete. And I liked the whole concept of ‘what the author writes is true, she just doesn’t know it yet’. Heh, I wish. Aubrey was way cooler in this book. How can she make him a villain in the first and not have the reader still hate him in the second? Very impressive. Short read, finished it in a matter of hours (four, maximum; more like three). Well worth the time, however.
Dragons of Spring Dawning – Margaret Weis and Tracey Hickman
And… it’s over. ::blinks:: Whew. That was a wild ride. Last of the original Dragonlance trilogy. If you haven’t read these three books yet, DO SO NOW!!! What the bloody heck are you waiting for?! Where have you been?! Go read them!!! This is fantasy at its finest, and I’ll destroy anyone who says otherwise! ^_^ Okies, I’m chill now. But seriously, the Dragonlance Chronicles are excellent. I cannot stress that enough. You are sorely missing out if you don’t read these. If you look up ‘epic’ in the dictionary, this is the definition. This is fantasy like you’ve never seen it.
Eragon – Christopher Paolini
Again: what have I been doing with my life? The author of this one is seventeen, and it’s an awesome farkin’ fantasy epic! It’s got dragons and Shades and everything and is really, really good! A cliffhanger sort of ending, since it’s the first of the Inheritance trilogy; dude, I can’t wait for the next one to come out! You must read this- it’s absolutely amazing! It’s not even too predictable or cliché like some fantasy books are; an impressive feat for such a young author, and I speak from experience! The plot twists are subtle and give you just enough hints that you feel proud of yourself when you figure them out before they’re revealed. I’d bet all my money on this one particular concept, but the answer wasn’t revealed in Eragon! ::dies of anticipation:: At almost 500 pages, it’s not a quick read, but it was so good that I finished it within two days! I’m looking forward to the next books; if this keeps up, Inheritance might surpass the Artemis Fowl trilogy as my favorite series!
Sabriel – Garth Nix
Another fantasy novel, this one more to do with dead stuff and necromancers than the others, though. It wasn’t the best I’ve read- because, well, the best is Eragon and the Dragonlance Chronicles and Artemis Fowl- but it was certainly good. It started off a bit slow, but then it got much better, and I really enjoyed it. It’s worth checking out if you like fantasy. I’d read more by this author. I wonder if this is one of a series?
Innocence – Jane Mendelsohn
O.o Holy… this is effin’ freaky! The main character is this teenaged girl with a rather vivid imagination who hasn’t had the greatest life. It’s told from the first person perspective, and it starts getting really weird, and it’s so subtle, yet at the same time so outrageous that you think she’s just going crazy and this is the breakdown of her mentality. But as the book progresses, you begin to realize… O.O I had fun with this one. Gave me the chills. XD And I’m not usually into horror. I recommend this, it’s a really… well, not a ‘fun’ read, per se, but it is a thriller, of sorts. It’s good, anyways. ^_^
Neuromancer – William Gibson
I liked this one! Very matrix-esque, except the main character is more of an antihero… I mean, he’s a good character, but he’s not necessarily a good person. It’s an interesting read, very action-packed. Full of drugs and violence and hacking. Hehehe. I love how it gets so technical and while nothing is explained in a boring way, you still manage to figure out what’s going on. The explanations are fitted perfectly into the story. It’s very well done, but I bet it’s one of those books that makes even more sense every time you read it. He had new names for familiar things, too, which is fun to decipher. I was a couple chapters in before I figured out that the Sprawl was slang for the BAMA, which, in turn, is the Boston-Atlanta Metropolitan Axis. The whole thing is practically one big city. O.O By putting ‘the Sprawl’ into context, I managed to figure out it was referring to the United States, or a part of it, but it didn’t become definitively clear until later. I love that in a book. Or game. Or whatever. ^_^
Shattered Mirror – Amelia Atwater-Rhodes
Yup, ‘nother one by the teen authoress. Dunno how old she was when she did this one, but it came after the first two. I liked it a lot, it was an excellent follow up to the first two (though the plots and characters are almost completely unrelated). The main character was a bit of a bitch at times, but it was pretty clear that that was because of the way she was raised. I thought that the conclusion was a bit abrupt, the way she comes to realize that the world is not all black and white just sort of happens at the end and seems kinda sudden. Anyways, the actual plot was really good, much deeper and harder to follow than the first two; something I look for in a book. The first one I had thought was especially streamlined in its plot development. Yeah, anyways, this one was worth the few hours of my time. A fun read.
Guilty Pleasures – Laurell K. Hamilton
The Anita Blake series is a classic in the world of vampire literature – or so I’m told. I have to admit, this one was very good; it’s the first in the series. If anyone’s wondering why I seem to be on a vampire spree, it’s because I found an article on FF.net that features book recommendations sent in by readers. The current issue’s theme is vampires. If it’d been something else, I’d be on a something-else spree. Fact is, all these books were recommended; I chose the ones that sounded the most interesting and ordered them from Amazon.
Anyways, back to the book at hand: I love the dry, sarcastic humor and irony in this one. It’s written in first person, and if I ever met this girl on the street, I’d think she was a total bitch – until I got to know her. Her thought process is just too much like mine. We both know that sarcasm is such fun. ^-^ The plot is very gripping, lotsa action – I warn you, though, this book is gruesome. Anita sometimes has to inspect murder scenes since she works with the police on occasion, and they are graphic. Don’t read if you’re squeamish. Otherwise, it’s an awesome book! The villain is incredibly good. I haven’t been so freaked out by a single character since Dilandau. ^_^
Companions of the Night – Vivian Vande Velde
I think the author needs to work on her pen name… Anyways, another quick vampire read. I didn’t really like this author’s take on vampires; it was too… cliché, I guess. Traditional. It followed most of the superstitions normally associated with vampires. I still like Amelia Atwater-Rhodes’s ‘definition’ best – she makes them seem the most real. This book I found rather pretentious in some areas, but it was still pretty good. The simple I’m-just-going-to-pick-up-my-brother’s-bear-from-the-laundromat-What-could-possibly-go-wrong? start to it was really good, but after that it kinda flailed a little. The main character was very believable at the beginning, but then she just became another idealized teenaged girl as a main character; why are they always the same? Arg! I dunno about the rest of the population, but I don’t act like that! And the ending of this book was so weird since it was very abrupt. It didn’t really make sense as a conclusion, and felt like the author was trying to reconcile for being rather cliché throughout most of the story. If you can borrow it from a friend or the library then I’d recommend it, but it’s not worth your money.
The Named – Marianne Curley
Taking a break from vampires, yay! I first picked this one up because it has a gorgeous cover. Then I read the back and thought, “It sounds just like Time Squad.” Hey, I love that show, but… it’s got pretty fragile plot that can only be used so many times. But hey, in the hands of a good author, even clichés can become interesting, and the bookstore was so small that this was the best thing I could find.
It’s awesome. It’s really, really good. It doesn’t beat Eragon, but it’s close. It’s the first in the Guardians of Time trilogy (does that not sound so cliché? Yet the book rocks!) and I’m dying to get the second. I don’t really know what to say about it, except that nearly everything in it should be a complete snore. Every new aspect that was introduced, I went, “Oh, please! No way can she pull that off! Talk about overused!” And yet it’s not. It’s so totally not. It’s very, very well done, and if I could manage to do such things with clichés… damn, that’d be cool. I’m extremely impressed. Full book report.
On a slight note, I bet none of you are taking these reviews seriously, since I seem to like just about every book I pick up. This is partially because I rarely finish books I don’t like, and therefore don’t review them. But there are some that I read, and then of course there’s the mandatory school novels, so if you wanna hear me diss something, hold on a little bit longer, okay? Or just ask me about my school. I could rant all day about that.
Ash – Holly Thompson
Freaky coinkidink here. The main character is a girl named Caitlin… an American… living in Japan. O.o They even spelled “Caitlin” right! Someone gave it to me because that was just plain weird. As a book, it’s good. It’s well written, it has a good plot, etc. But… it’s really not my kind of book. It took me forever to finish it because it just didn’t hold my interest. What can I say? I need magic and swords and action! It’s not that I don’t appreciate depth, it’s just… I dunno. I rarely appreciate novels that aren’t obviously fiction, that could be true in the real world. They just… bore me. ^^; It’s almost like there’s no cliffhangers in life, ya know? Hmm. There’s somethin’ wrong with that.
Angels & Demons – Dan Brown
Man… talk about gripping. You all have heard of The Da Vinci Code, I trust? Well, I haven’t read that yet, but this is the prequel, and it’s fantastic! It’s a real thriller; you just can’t put it down. Completely unpredictable, incredibly confusing, plenty of major plot twists, and lotsa murders! ^_^ ::does a body count:: I count ten deaths, plus one person who died prior to the book’s beginning. It’s soooo good! And part of what makes it so freaky to read is that you can’t tell what’s fact and what’s fiction, other than the actual actions taking place. There’s a lot of history tied in with this book, and I think it’s creepy that the Illuminati DID actually exist! O.o What I want to know is: just how much of this is actually true? Was there actual a Path of Illumination? Does it still exist? Etc, etc. Amazing book; it’s really, really worth checking out. (Sci-fi/historical-ish, btw- for once I read something that’s not fantasy! ::gasp::)
The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald
Oh, joy and rapture. It’s not bad as a book, I suppose (gags anyways), but the characters are so superficial! I understand that that’s the mind-frame of the times, but still! Even the narrator isn’t likeable! For the first three chapters he doesn’t even have a personality. >.< I can see why this is a classic and a typical analytical book for school (guess why I read it?), but I hate it anyways. I had more to say about it, some damn good derogatory comments if I may say so myself, but I seem to have forgotten them at the moment. =_=
The Light Fantastic – Terry Pratchett
… It’s Terry Pratchett. What more do I need to say? It’s damn funny. I love his humor; we’re on the same wavelength, I think. When I write ‘humor’, it’s pretty similar, although I’m a bit more sarcastic. Other than this one, I’ve only read Mort by him, but they’re both great books. They’ve both got Death (he rocks) and this one has the Luggage. Ya gotta love the Luggage. XD
The Thief Lord – Cornelia Funke
Cute kiddy book, I suppose. Kinda predictable. It irked me with the whole magic thing, though; where the hell’d that come from? Um… yeah…
Holes – Louis Sachar
Yeah, I know. I shoulda read this years ago. “Classic”, right? Well, it’s good, I’ll grant it that much. Hail the onions! You should all bow to onions, the most sacred vegetable in the Universe! ::waves a machete around menacingly:: Yeah, but the thing about this book is: it's so formulaic. I mean, I could swear I’ve read another half dozen books almost exactly like it, only with different characters and plot; it’s just the formula that’s the same. But none of them were so great that I still remember what they were. Ya see? …Hm. Probably not.
The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown
Personally, I preferred Angels & Demons. Yeah, The Da Vinci Code kicks major ass and rocks my socks, but A&D was even better. My mom and my brother think so too, so I’m wondering why it’s Da Vinci that got all the media hype. ::sigh:: The world may never know. Yeah. My impressions? There weren’t enough deaths in this one! Not enough blood and guts and gruesome murders! If you count the three who died before the book even starts, there was still only a body count of seven, I think, and only two of those were gruesomely described! S’why I gotta keep reading the Anita Blake novels… I hear they get really messy. XD This was still an awesome thriller, though, with majorly complicated codes and puzzles. And I solved some of ‘em before the characters did! I’m so smart! ::everyone else rolls their eyes:: Full book report.
The Catcher in the Rye – J. D. Salinger
Um… yay? Really good as far as schoolbooks go, but must all mandatory pieces of literature have such random endings? I mean… WTF? Would it kill you to conclude the damn thing?
Twelve – Nick McDonnell
This is the most disturbing book I have ever read. It’s not necessarily scary, it’s just… shocking. The ending completely freaked me out. I loved it. I really, really recommend this- provided you aren’t squeamish and you aren’t too easily disturbed. I thought I was pretty good with disturbing things but… this weirded me out. I should probably warn you that it’s about pretty much everything teenagers aren’t supposed to do: extreme drugs, alcohol, house parties, sex, guns, violence, etc. The main character is a drug dealer, but he’s never touched any of that stuff in his life. It’s really weird. Read it. It’s an eye-opener.
The Laughing Corpse – Laurell K. Hamilton
Damn, this series is addicting! Yup, the second ‘Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter’ novel. And this one was SO gory! Honestly, it’s the most gruesome thing I’ve ever read! Twelve was disturbing in concept, but this is just… yuck. Blood and guts all deliciously described. The murder scenes (after the fact, thank God; I don’t think I could handle the descriptions of what actually happened) are soooo detailed. It’s very sick. But they rock. Sometimes I just don’t understand Anita, though. She’s damn arrogant, and she’s kinda prejudiced if you ask me. She needs to cut the poor vampires some slack; they have feelings, yanno! ^.^ And I love Jean-Claude. He just plain rocks. XD
The Secret of Cranberry Beach – T.M. Murphy
I got so incredibly bored stilling around while the movers packed out our stuff, so I found this randomly in the bookcase and finished it in a matter of hours. It’s one of those teenage super-sleuth series things that all wanna sound like Nancy Drew. Hideously corny, but it kept me out of trouble. ^^;
I’m A Stranger Here Myself – Bill Bryson
Gotta love American travel writers. Bill and Dave Barry remain my favorites, I think. This one was great ‘cause it was all about moving back to the USA after twenty years in England, so I could totally relate to all the things he discovered. Like, wtf does a garbage disposal do… and just what can you fit down it? XD
Circus of the Damned
The Lunatic Café
Bloody Bones – Laurell K. Hamilton
I’m sure you already guessed, but these are the next three Anita Blake novels. There’s really nothing else to say. They rock, they rule, they kick ass up and down and spill blood all over the carpet.
Define "Normal" - Julie Anne Peters
Well... it was a hell of a lot easier to read than I'd expected. It was kind of disapointing in that regard. But it had a good storyline (if slightly loose) and Jazz was a very cool character.
Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
The Crow Road - Iain Banks
Perfume - Patrick Suskind
Curley, Marianne. The Named. London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2002.
ISBN#: 0-7475-5764-0
Summary: Ethan is Named. This means that he is one of the nine listed in an ancient prophecy who will participate in the final battle against Chaos. Chaos is the goddess of, well, chaos, and her goal is world domination. She means to accomplish it through the work of her armies, better known as the Order of Chaos. The Order’s tampering with the past causes the future to become unstable and chaotic, and so the Guard was formed to protect the world from Chaos. And that’s what Ethan is: a Guardian of Time. He has been training as such since the age of four, when his sister was murdered by one of the Order and Arkarian, Ethan’s mentor, took him in in an effort to preserve his sanity. Now that he’s sixteen, the struggle between the two armies is moving ever closer to its climax, and Ethan is having more and more difficulty keeping his second life a secret. Since most members of either side have to live normal lives as well as their time-travel ones, the real world is a myriad of allies and enemies living together and never truly knowing who their neighbors are. For Ethan, the biggest challenge comes when he is assigned an apprentice: Isabel, the younger sister of his former best friend, Matt. As more of the Named are revealed, the clock begins to run out, and when a traitorous monster who haunts Ethan’s past suddenly reappears, they realize that the end may be much closer than previously anticipated.
Reaction: Although I first picked it off the shelf simply because I liked the cover picture, I really wasn’t expecting anything outstanding when I bought this book. The store was small and I wasn’t seeing anything that looked better, but the blurb on the back still had me thinking that this wasn’t going to be anything I hadn’t seen before. It reminded me forcibly of the Time Squad motto: “Enforcing the past to protect our future,” I think it was. Sure, I love that cartoon, but it’s got a plot that can only be used so many times, and I was under the impression that it had exceeded its quota long ago. Apparently, I was wrong. The Named is one of the most engaging and original stories I’ve read in quite a while, and I’m still stumped as to how the author managed to make it such. Every time a new aspect of the book was introduced, I found myself thinking, “Oh, please. No way can she pull this off! That’s so cliché!” She hit just about every stereotype ever created in a novel – prophesies, time-travel, telekinesis, soul-mates, alter-egos, final battles, immortals – and she managed to pull every one of them off perfectly. Perhaps it wasn’t as great as it might have been had it been more original, but I still thought it was a great story and surprisingly unpredictable. Anyone who can accomplish that with so many clichés is a truly talented writer.
Recommendation: The Named is a rather difficult book to classify. I wouldn’t call it historical fiction, although it does have that touch to it with the time traveling. It’s probably best to say that it’s a fantasy novel, even though it’s set in this world and in the present day. One of its most interesting aspects is that it is written in the first person, but from the point of view of two different people. The chapters alternate between the perspectives of Ethan and Isabel. Because of this, it would probably be a good read for both boys and girls; I can only vouch for one gender, but I certainly enjoyed it. For all that I said it’s cliché, I’m having trouble coming up with similar books. I’d recommend this to fans of Garth Nix, perhaps (though I’ve only read Sabriel, myself), or maybe those who like Eion Colfer, who wrote the Artemis Fowl series. In all honestly, I recommend it to everyone, particularly fans of fantasy or adventure novels. This book is a lot of fun to read, and I can’t wait to get my hands on the next book in the trilogy.
Brown, Dan. The Da Vinci Code. New York: Random House, Inc., 2003.
ISBN#: 0-385-50420-9
Summary: As one of the most complex thrillers I have ever read in my life, The Da Vinci Code is extremely difficult to summarize without completely destroying the suspense and mystery that Dan Brown has so masterfully created. The book starts with impressive plot hook, depicting the murder of the curator of the Louvre museum in Paris. The main character, Robert Langdon, is brought in to examine the body, and the strange message beside it – the final words of the dying man – thrusts him into a hectic quest more dangerous and complicated than he had thought possible. Coupled with the victim’s granddaughter, Sophie Neveu – who also happens to be a cryptologist – Langdon finds himself on the run from the French Judicial Police and at the same time on a complex trail of riddles that should ultimately lead to the long lost Holy Grail. And as if that weren’t enough, it soon becomes clear that this entire chain of events was put into motion by someone determined to reach the Grail at any cost – Langdon and Neveu are mere pawns on a much greater chessboard.
Reaction: One of the most striking aspects of this book is the conviction with which Brown presents his material. In the notes at the beginning of the book, he explains that the two prominent groups in the novel – the secret society know as the Priory of Sion, and the Catholic sect called Opus Dei – do in fact exist, and that knowledge alone puts much more kick behind the plot. It’s almost frightening to think that such cults actually exist; I remember feeling the same way when I found out that the Illuminati brotherhood from his previous novel, Angels and Demons, was also real. It is clear that Dan Brown is deeply devoted to his subjects as he has obviously done a lot of research into even the minutest details of his topics. I have to admit that I was (and still am) a bit skeptical on some of his theories, such as Walt Disney infusing hidden messages about the Grail myth and other subjects into his art, although Brown does provide convincing evidence for all his claims. If anything, reading this book has made me want to go out and research more on these topics myself. Dan Brown’s writing has the rather unnerving gift of making everything look like a conspiracy.
Recommendation: It’s easy to see why this book has been a bestseller in the United States for so long. Perhaps my only problem with this novel was the fact that, after having read Angels and Demons, Dan Brown’s formula made The Da Vinci Code slightly predictable and lacking in the suspense that had been so fantastic in the first book. However, it’s still a great read, and would probably be even better to someone who has never read Dan Brown before. Personally, I still prefer Angels and Demons more. This book has fantastic historical ties as well as science fiction elements, so I might recommend this book to anyone who liked William Gibson’s Neuromancer, or perhaps fans of the Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter novels by Laurell K. Hamilton, as the gruesome descriptions of the murder victims are similar (Angels and Demons was gorier than Da Vinci, however). This book would be a good read for anyone who enjoys thrillers or historical/sci-fi novels, or just anyone who likes an unpredictable book with plenty of plot twists.
