Kay's Bookshelf

Genre: Young Adult Main characters: Meghan Chase Time and place: about 2010, mostly Nevernever (a land of magical faeries) First sentence: “Ten years ago, on my sixth birthday, my father disappeared.” Summary: On Meghan Chase’s 16th birthday she came home to find her little brother vastly changed, for the worse. “He is a changeling”, Robbie, her best friend told her, and from then on the world around her started to make sense less and less. Turned out her real brother was kidnapped by faeries, her real father was Oberon, the king of faeries himself, and Robbie’s name was actually Robin Goodfellow, the Puck mentioned in Shakespeare’s A Midnight Summer’s Dream.

General impression
It seems to me that now would be a good time for me to stop reading Young Adult books, because it seems like none of the hyped books of the genre appeals to me. This happened with Shiver (everyone loved it, I didn’t much like it), with Graceling (everyone loved it, I didn’t much like it), and now it’s almost happening with this book too (everyone loves it, I plodded through it). Bummer.

Characters
This is one of the reasons it took me quite a while to finish this book: most of the time I didn’t much care for Meghan. OK, she did care for her younger brother, I’ll give her that (and loyalty may well be her major flaw, as another character said of her). Other than that though she simply wasn’t that interesting to me, she didn’t stand out at all (sure, she does have quite a brave moment somewhere near the end, but most of the time everything interesting happens to the people around her, and she’s more being led from one place to another rather than actively doing things). Luckily the rest of the cast were a bit more interesting, starting with Puck, whom I found rather annoyingly and irresponsible at times (but who also had a very interesting strategy when it came to fighting — he could turn various bits of nature into copies of himself). My favorites were Grimalkin the cat sidhe, (mostly because he was a cat, but also because he knew what he was doing, without being annoying like Puck was) and, quite predictably, Ash, the Winter prince himself, because he was the only character with a hint of complexity. Not to mention he looked pretty cool too :)

Oh, and let’s not forget the little junk collecting creatures, the chittering gnomes collecting all sorts of stuff on their backs — I found them to be amusing and quite a nice touch.

Relationships
For the most part I think the relationships between the characters were believable and well described. The relationship between Oberon and Meghan seemed to be a particularly well drawn one, as she is initially upset to discover she has such an unusual dad (while the man that she called father was nothing to her), and he does care for her, but in a rather distant way (a natural way to act towards a daughter you know nothing about, I suppose). The love story was rather cute, especially as it was sort of a late arrival, happening only in the last third of the book (not that it wasn’t rather predictable, mind you; I liked it nevertheless, it’s one of my favorite parts of the book).

At the other end of the believability spectrum we have show spoiler

Plot
This is a plot-based novel, but if you asked me the plot didn’t amount to much: girl, looking for her brother, gets caught into various skirmishes, the end. A thing that could have had lots of potential to keep me on the edge of my seat, if only I cared about the main character. Since I didn’t, it all became boring rather quickly. “Oh, another fight, there goes the prince swinging his ice sword again, yawn”. Sure, to give credit where credit is due, the author has imagined various situations, various enemies, and various reasons to fight, but unfortunately my not caring who lived and who died ruined them all.

Setting
The setting, I would say, is the forte of the book. There are three parts of Nevernever, each with its own decor, and the author has done a great job imagining and describing them. I almost saw the colors of Summer, shivered in the Winter, and felt the desolation of Machina’s kingdom. The world came to life, and naturally enough, I liked it :)

A quote, one of my favorite descriptions in the book, about Queen Mab:

“She wasn’t tall, like Oberon, or willowy-thin, like Titania, but her presence drew every eye in the courtyard. Her hair was so black it appeared blue in places, and it spilled down her back like a waterfall of ink. Her eyes were of the void, of a night without stars, a sharp contrast to her marble skin and her pale mulberry lips. She wore a dress that writhed around her like shadow incarnate. And, like Oberon and Titania, she radiated power.”

On the other hand, something I didn’t much like, quite the opposite, was the fact that the magic system was not clearly defined, a thing that really affected the believability of the world in my eyes. We are never told what faeries can or cannot do and, although many brag of power throughout the book, most of the time the matters are settled in the old fashioned, sword-in-hand way — something that seemed to me rather pointless, since using magic would have been a way more expedient way to finish off one’s enemies. The most annoying example of this is at a banquet where the most powerful faeries participated (including Titania who earlier has turned Meghan into a sort of deer, so she did have magic powers). A monster makes a surprise entrance and starts killing off whoever’s in his path — now, the logical thing to be done would have been for someone able to use magic to at least trap it somewhat, right? But no, everyone sends a small army to defeat the monster the ordinary way, and then they even complain that some of their people died in battle! So why didn’t they put a stop to it first? At least if there would have been an explanation, something like, I don’t know, faerie magic only works on faeries, anything, it might have made more sense, but the way things were handled it just didn’t.

Thoughts on the title
I like the title, particularly the sound and the strength of it. Although I would have liked it a lot better if the word iron would have been replaced with metal in the book; this way I wasted too much time trying to discover whether an iPod really has iron inside it or not — it sure has metal, of course, but iron? Most knives I don’t think have iron in them either. Are bullets made of iron?
… and so on and so forth. Everything would have been easier for me had the author just said metal, and leave it at that (though I agree that iron sounds a lot better, ha).

Thoughts on the ending
I think it made me discover a new pet peeve: I really really don’t like books that end with a forced cliffhanger. Various hints have been left throughout the book (some of them quite interesting, as what has really happened to Meghan’s father? I’m quite curious about that), and it was obvious that there was going to be a sequel, did it really need to close in that particular way? I really don’t like it when author do things like that, closing a book just as the reader is getting involved in a particular matter, as it seems to me a strategy that screams “I want to make money so bad I don’t care about your experiences as a reader, so I will frustrate you enough to buy my next book”. Blech.

What I liked most
The whole theory surrounding the existence of the Iron King, and the Iron Fey:

“[...] the fey were born from the dreams of mortals [...]. Well, what if these things [...] are born of different dreams? Dreams of technology, and progress? Dreams of science? What if the pursuit of ideas that once seemed impossible — flight, steam engines, the Worldwide Web — gave birth to a whole different species of faery?”

All the more so since it seems like new characters appeared with the technological advancements: at first the ruler was Ferrum, iron itself, and then, as technology progressed, others like Virus, Glitch, and the bugs were born. I so like the idea of an iron horse (it looks very cool the way I imagine it), as it probably has something to do with horsepower, and engines. An interesting idea if you ask me :)

But. Much as I love the idea behind the iron fey I sense somewhat of a plot hole here: show spoiler

What I liked least
Some of the names. Nevernever for one. Like Neverland but not quite it. I’m not fond of the idea, not only because of its lack of originality but also because I don’t see a reason why faeries would name their land like that, “never” being a misnomer since they do exist right there and then.

There’s also a twig-like creature named Twiggy (very distinguished, right?) and an iron horse named Ironhorse (a bummer, since he was majestic enough to be given any warrior-ish name).

On an unrelated note, why did one of Machina’s Knights look like a doppelganger of Ash’s?

Recommend it to?
Sigh. The book has a rating of 4.13 on Goodreads, which means I should encourage anyone who enjoys YA books and faerie stories to give it a try.

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Genre: Classic :) Main characters: Atticus Finch, Jeremy “Jem” Finch, Jean Louise “Scout” Finch Time and place: around 1935, the fictional town of Maycomb, Alabama First sentence: “When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow.” Summary: At nineteen, Mayella Ewell had a very hard life, surrounded by people who only expected her to work for their welfare. The only friendly face in the neighborhood was Tom, a black guy who used to pass by the house on his way home, and sometimes stopped to give Mayella a hand with her chores. This Tom was young too, and so it was only a matter of time until Mayella started to get interested in him more than she should have. Well, suffice it to say that it all ends with a trial, where Tom is judged for beating and raping young Mayella. It is thus that the paths of Tom and Atticus Finch meet, for an experience that neither Atticus nor his family will soon forget.

General impression
There is a bit of a contradiction here: I liked this book a lot, and yet when I put it down I couldn’t help being disappointed. Everything is in the right place, and yet … I expected it to be a lot more intense. I couldn’t get drawn in, and I felt like I was watching Maycomb and its characters through a window, instead of feeling in their midst. I have no idea how that happened, except perhaps my expectations were way too high: having heard so many good things about it throughout the years, I was expecting something deep, profound, Earth-shattering, and I only got a few events’ worth of story instead.

It is of course obvious that I haven’t tapped in all its hidden wealth of themes and symbolism (themes such as that of hidden talents, such as Calpurnia’s knowing how to read, or Atticus being such a great shot; symbols as Atticus’ shooting the rabid dog, having only one shot to rescue his neighbors, while being blinded by the lack of glasses being a foreshadowing of his one shot at saving Tom, through the legal system who is said to be also blind — although we know it’s not, as their decision is not taken on objective reasons); but still I feel I would have liked something more intense to go by (I think that this is an effect of the age we live in, of the contemporary books and movies that we’re currently exposed to perpetually trying to shock out hearts out, so much so that we have grown jaded, and as such is rather hard for some of us, some of the younger generations at least, not to feel like there’s something missing in a nice & tame old-fashioned novel like TKAM is) (although, in my defense, I don’t remember feeling this kind of disappointment when reading Jane Austen, whom I love, or Jane Eyre for example, so my theory is definitely not set in stone — yet I am sure I would have loved this book a lot more had I read it say twenty years ago).

Characters
I loved the characters, how could I not. While there are some who call all of them stereotypical (Atticus = the white guy who could do no wrong; Calpurnia = the black maid who knows her place and takes care of the children; Scout = the precocious tomboy; Boo = the town eccentric; Bob Ewell = the illiterate redneck; and so on), I will also say that I enjoyed meeting most of them.

My favorite character was (oh how predictable) Atticus Finch, for all his maturity, his principles, the way he struggled to be a role model for his children, no matter how hard it was, or whether the battle he embarked upon had an already decided outcome or not (remember what he told his children on the night Mrs. Dubose died? “Courage is when you know you’re licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what“). However, most of all I liked him for the fact that he literally could do no wrong (or at least he does not do it within the pages of the book). Sure, that might sound boring and one dimensional, but to me it was a welcome break from the quotidian :)

The most complex character of them all I thought was Mayella, so she’s almost a second favorite of mine, because of the sorry life she was condemned to. Illiterate and lonely, at the hands of a violent father — I don’t think life could get much worse. Not to mention that the poor thing is not very bright, so the chances that one day she’ll be able to build a better existence for herself are virtually nil. This is why, although she is closer to being a negative character rather than a positive, I couldn’t help caring for her, rather than the opposite.

Other than that, the rest of the cast are also likable (of course, almost everybody in this book is), but nothing out of the ordinary. I liked the way Scout was shaping up her vision of the world, following her father’s example; the way Jem kept caring for his little sister; the manners Calpurnia taught; the fact that Atticus’ brother, Jack, had life principles very similar to Atticus’ own; Miss Maudie and her azaleas; and so on. All sorts of little warm and fuzzy moments, I like to call them :)

Plot
There is not much of a plot to speak of (and I imagine that some of my disappointment with the book stems from here), as everything revolves around Tom’s trial and its effects on the life of the small town where Tom and the rest lived.

Setting
This is where the genius of Ms. Lee shines through: when it comes to the setting. The author has been influenced heavily by her own childhood, spent in a small Southern town, when she created Maycomb, and it shows. You can feel the said setting living and breathing, and the interactions between people are very believable (even for someone such as myself, who’s never seen a small American town in her life). In a way, Maycomb is a character just like Atticus is, among other things because of the collective prejudice towards black people that almost everybody shared.

Maycomb is also shown to be a paradise for children, such as Scout and Jem, a place to spend the days in childish adventures of one sort or another — it even has its very own boogeyman, aptly nicknamed Boo, a source of wonder and fear for our small heros to fight and eventually overcome.

Thoughts on the title
The title represents the most obvious symbol/theme of the book (one that even I have managed to discern, ha!): the death of innocence. The wording is taken from something that Calpurnia once said, “Mockingbirds don’t do one thing except make music for us to enjoy. They don’t eat up people’s gardens, don’t nest in corn cribs, they don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.“. There are two such “mockingbirds” in the novel, Tom Robinson and Arthur Radley. Unfortunately one of them ends up being killed, and only a handful of characters realize how much of a sin that was — at least the other’s fate is set in fairer hands, and he is free to go.

Thoughts on the ending
Predictable.
show spoiler

What I liked most
Although Atticus discouraged them, I was enchanted by the children’s attempts to get Boo Radley to join them for an ice cream. To me it was the perfect manifestation of their innocence and kindness, the way they saw a lonely person (which they imagined to be miserable because of that) and tried their best to “cure” his loneliness the best way they knew how.

What I liked least
There’s nothing that I have actually disliked. It was a nice book overall :)

Recommend it to?
Everyone, since it’s one of the classics :)

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First of all, I have very much loved the very idea of having a monarch (a person whose life experience exceeds by far the average one, plus who has an absolutely unique outlook on life) discover reading. Especially as this way it sort of makes sense why the main character did not previously show an interest in books:

“She’d never taken much interest in reading. She read, of course, as one did, but liking books was something she left to other people. It was a hobby and it was in the nature of her job that she didn’t have hobbies. Jogging, growing roses, chess or rock climbing, cake decoration, model aeroplanes. No. Hobbies involved preferences and preferences had to be avoided; preferences excluded people. One had no preferences. Her job was to take an interest, not to be interested herself. And besides, reading wasn’t doing.”

And yet, I don’t know what to think of the fact that the book is written around a real, living character. This is usually very rarely done in books, perhaps with a good reason to (for the impressionable minds not to confuse the person with the character, and viceversa I think). Also, one must wonder what the queen herself must have thought to find herself the central character in a book — although to think of it I guess it largely depends on her stance on reading :)

From a reader’s point of view, it was interesting to notice the changes the reading has brought on the queen (some of them being things that I have discovered in me, previously, and attributed them to the large number of lives I have lived via all the books I read). The queen starts to notice details about people, starts to care more about their feelings, and even “reads” them better. She herself says about books, ‘At the risk of sounding like a piece of steak, [...] they tenderise one.‘). On the downside, she has stopped caring about appearances so much (even her famous punctuality ceasing to exist), as all she really wants is to spend some more time with her nose buried in a book.

These changes (and more like them) make me think of this book as a coming of age story. Because in a way it is just that, a novella where the main character grows, becoming better and wiser than before (despite the fact that the queen is around 80, and usually coming of age stories are centered on young people). Quite an original approach, in my opinion.

Thoughts on the title: Obviously a play on words, and I liked it. The fact that the word “reader” is in there somewhere has helped me discover this little book in the first place :)

Thoughts on the ending: show spoiler

What I liked most: At the very beginning, when the queen discovers the mobile library, she tries to decide what book to choose. I was somewhat amused by her criteria, and the way she related to the writers (a way most likely unique to herself, as who else has had the opportunity of meeting so many of them :) ). About Ivy Compton-Burnett she says “I remember that hair, a roll like a pie-crust that went right round her head.“, Cecil Beaton was “a bit of a tartar. Stand here, stand there. Snap, snap.” and so on. I found this quite natural — since the queen had no idea about the authors’ actual writing she had to find some way to differentiate them, right? — but been amused by it nevertheless.

Also, all the bookish quotes. I adored the bookish quotes :)
A random one:

“What she was finding also was how one book led to another, doors kept opening wherever she turned and the days weren’t long enough for the reading she wanted to do.”

I bet every passionate reader has felt like this now and then (I know I often do :) ).
And another, on the same note:

“Books are not about passing time. They’re about other lives. Other worlds. Far from wanting time to pass, one just wishes one had more of it.”

What I liked least: Not an actual problem per se (and admittedly I know too little about the real queen to actually have an opinion on it), but at times I was a bit bothered by the fact that the queen never talks about herself in the first person, and it can get a bit strange at times. Example:

‘Has Your Majesty ever considered writing?’
[...]
‘What should one write?’
‘Your Majesty has had an interesting life.’
Yes,’ said the Queen. ‘One has.’

Recommend it to? Anyone who loves to read, as they’re bound to enjoy the queen’s musings on the topic of books :)

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The characters are all rather likeable, starting with Mibs, the thirteen years old girl who hopes that her savvy can heal her father. Lester, the not very bright pink Bible seller (but with a good heart). Lill, the waitress and big-footed angel who’s always late. Will Junior, who wants to be just like his father (and who just happens to be one of my favorite characters). Samson, the seven years old who rarely speaks, always hides, and can calm people down by touching them. Fish, who controls (or rather tries to learn how to control) the winds. Momma, who’s simply perfect (or rather everything she does is so, even her failures are perfect, as she puts it). Poppa, with no special ability but very much loved by all the members of his family (and this rubs on to the reader too, although he’s not actually a character, being in the coma for the most part of the book).

The writing was very nice, with metaphors and details that I have very much liked. Here are some quotes:

She told us how Poppa’s car had gotten crushed up bad, like a pop can under a cowboy boot, and how he’d gone and forgotten to get out before it happened, landing himself in a room and a bed at Salina Hope Hospital, where now he lay broken and asleep, not able to wake up.

He struck me as a fellow whose gears might turn a bit slower than those of other folks, a man whose thinking cap had gotten shrunk in the wash and now fit his brain a notch too tight.

When something like that comes along, whether it’s an accident or a savvy or a very first kiss, life takes a turn and you can’t step back. All you can do is keep moving forward and remember what you’ve learned.

Thoughts on the title: Intriguing :) Bound to make a reader wonder about it, and thus notice the book. Also, it is a good description for the character’s abilities, which, as Mibs points out, are actually their own sort of know-how, albeit “of a different flavor than most” :)

Thoughts on the ending: Cute. Predictable but I enjoyed reading it :)

What I liked most: The particular savvy that the author has entrusted Mibs. show spoiler

What I liked least: A little more attention to the details would have been nice. Such as the fact that normally only one of the grandfathers should have had a savvy, not both of them (what were the odds of two savvy-ed people meeting one another). Also, I would have preferred it if Grandpa’s savvy had been something less obvious (’cause making land appear out of nowhere would be bound to be noticed). The names of the children weren’t particularly inspired either (what kind of name is Fish? Or Rocket?).
show spoiler

Recommend it to? It’s a cute little book so I have no reservations in recommending it to Young Adult lovers out there.

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The interesting thing here, and the one that makes a book a little more complicated than it would seem at first sight, is that Sam and her friends have made a lot of mistakes over the years. They have treated a lot of people badly, simply because they could, and the effects of such behavior are very hard, impossible even, to erase in a single day.

And yet, as Sam gets to realize, she simply cannot fix everything. Some people have to take care of themselves. And some of them are desperately in need of hope, and this is what Sam can offer them: a moment of hope, a moment of solidarity, a moment of love. And luckily she manages to grow up fast enough to be aware of this, and able to do what must be done.

I think the characters are very well written, layer over layer of feelings they sometimes hide even from themselves. Of course that Sam is not very likeable at the beginning, since her cool kid status seems to have gone to her head ages before — and yet, after a while, we discover she’s not a bad girl per se, but a misguided one, and her sincere wish to fix things slowly endear her to the reader. There is also a male lead, and I liked him a lot, from his ever-present smile to his dream of someday being Sam’s hero. As for Sam’s three girlfriends, they too are multidimensional, and interesting to discover (some more than others) — and yet, as they were still under the spell of being cool kids, I didn’t particularly like them on the whole.

Interestingly enough (although perhaps unsurprising) the author has managed to make each version of that fateful day act out different. I only expected a few minor details to change, here and there (although of course they were to have huge effects, Groundhog Day -style), but, as Sam uncovers more and more layers of the story her actions vary (the version that I found most believable, although not one of my favorites, being the one when she acts all wild in school because she’s just realized there are practically no consequences to anything she does).

show spoiler

Thoughts on the title: I love it. Sam feels the place she ends up in after she dies to be an endless falling, so in the context “before I fall” becomes “before I die”, namely that day that she gets to live over and over again.

Thoughts on the ending: Predictably enough, there were only two ways the story could have ended: either Sam truly died, and there’s no returning from it, or she didn’t actually die, she was just in a coma or something similar. All throughout the book I’ve been curious to see which path will the author choose, although I realized that none of them was truly satisfying. One of them was indeed chosen, and I was indeed a bit disappointed.
show spoiler

What I liked most: The very idea of having yet another chance at living a certain day, a chance to fix any mistakes one might have made. I know it is not a novel one by far, but I still like it a lot :)

What I liked least: I only have a rather minor qualm. The fact that we are not clearly told whether all Sam’s efforts have been in vain or not — did each day replace the one before or were they all illusions, with only the original version actually happening. show spoiler

Recommend it to? Everyone. It’s a fast read, and captivating too.

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The characters are much more developed now, at the end of the series, than in the previous books. Gemma manages to come to terms with her magic, getting to know its abilities and limitations. More important, she gets to know herself better, discovering among other things that she is just as thirsty for freedom as Felicity is. There is a bit of a paradox here as, being part of an estranged family, Gemma also thirsts for affection — not necessarily romantic love, but someone to share her worries with and offer her advice.

I noticed that lots of reviewers have complained about the fact that Gemma chooses the wrong characters to trust, while she should have known better. I don’t know what to say about that, because for me part of the book’s appeal was the fact that Gemma never knows who is reliable or not — at times she is betrayed by those closest to her, at times she has visions without knowing who sent them or whether that someone is with or against her, and most important, almost every other person she meets tells her that nothing around her is to be trusted. In these circumstances I found it very hard to have a certainty one way or another (I had my guesses, but no actual reasons for them), and I considered untangling the threads part of the fun.

My feelings towards the rest of the girls are mixed — Mrs. Bray never created cardboard characters, I’ll give her that :) Let’s take Felicity for example — she has a good heart, and yet most of the time she acts commanding and as if she’s entitled to everything she desires to have. I spent more than half of this book disliking her, only to have some light shed on her behavior later on, as her relationship with Pippa is closer explained. Gemma’s other friend Ann at times inspired my compassion, because her station in life was indeed more difficult than the rest’s, but she also annyoed me at others because she completely refused to think for herself: whatever Felicity did, Ann closely followed (especially if it was something stupid that shouldn’t have been done).

As for the antagonist, I can only say she was one of the most interesting such characters discovered lately. While, like any self-respecting antagonist, she does want power for herself and is ready to sacrifice things and people for that, she nevertheless cares for Gemma in her own way, going as far as to help her at times. The feeling is mutual, as Gemma too respects her and cares for her somewhat. Sort of a melancholy thing, as one cannot help thinking that in other circumstances those two would have made the best of friends.

One thing I have very much liked in the series is the theme of dealing with choices. Ever since book 1 Miss Moore has taught the girls that there are no safe choices, there are only other choices, and this idea shows up all throughout the trilogy, as all characters have to make choices now and then and very few of those, if any, are easy ones. Miss Moore has also tried impressing on her charges’ mind the fact that after making a choice one can never go back, only forward. Quite a few characters are faced with this problem in the book — Pippa for example, wanting everything to be as it was before — but not all of them end up accepting it. Either way, this philosophy has struck a chord with me, as it reflects my own thoughts on the matter, and I was happy to see it in the books too.

Oh, and did I mention that H.G. Wells puts in a cameo appearance? :)

Some quotes I liked
Gemma about herself:

I’m like everyone else in this stupid, bloody, amazing world. I’m flawed. Impossibly so. But hopeful. I’m still me.

One of the best descriptions of The Statue of Liberty I have ever read:

There in the city’s steam-and-smoke-smudged harbor is the most extraordinary sight of all: a great copper-clad lady with a torch in one hand and a book in the other. It is not a statesman or a god or a war hero who welcomes us to this new world. It is but an ordinary woman lighting the way—a lady offering us the liberty to pursue our dreams if we’ve the courage to begin.

Something less inspirational that has somewhat amused me:

It is said that Paris in springtime is a glory to behold, that it makes a man feel as if he shall never die. I should not know, for I have never been to Paris. But spring in London is a wholly different affair. The rain pitters and patters against the carriage’s roof. The streets are choked equally with traffic and gas fog.

Thoughts on the ending: Full of promise :) show spoiler

What I liked most: I hereby nominate the very intensity of the book. Mrs. Bray has created a world that at times felt so real I could almost see it, and things happened at times that made my breath catch. Can there be anything better when reading a book?

As a favorite detail, I loved seeing there were gargoyles involved. I find them so interesting and there are very few books featuring them — I was quite happy to see them in this one.

What I liked least: show spoiler

Recommend it to? This book is my favorite one in the trilogy but, as it can’t be savoured by itself, I recommend the whole series to anyone who likes to read about strong heroines. :)

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This book is a sequel to:
A Great and Terrible Beauty | Rebel Angels

Written by the same author:
Going Bovine

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While reading this I realized that my favorite character of them all is in fact Miss Moore, the art teacher that encourages reading and thinking out of the box, and I am very looking forward to see whether she will keep these characteristics in the next book. Gemma is still a brave girl, trying to do what’s right, although she doesn’t always make the right choices (but hey, she’s sixteen, what can anyone expect). I very much liked the romantic development(s), much better than in the previous book, where I wasn’t that smitten with the idea of romance between those two particular characters. While I liked Gemma to bits, I cannot say the same about her two girlfriends: Felicity strikes me as selfish most times, and Ann tries to be too much like Felicity for me to actually find her to my taste. I was quite sorry to discover that, because these characters were parts of the reason I enjoyed Book 1.

Now, if I have found some of the characters to be a wee bit lacking, I cannot say the same about the plot. Mysteries abound and clues are lacking, as Gemma has no idea who to trust and where to turn for help. More parts of the Realms are introduced, complete with fascinating inhabitants, more or less friendly (a group worth noting are the Untouchables, who paint their hands for protection and who reminded me very much of the Untouchables in India).

Another colorful backdrop was the Bethlem Royal Hospital (aka Bedlam) — “visiting” it was quite interesting to me because I’ve been hearing about it for ages, and only now I have realized I knew nothing whatsoever about it other than its nickname and purpose. While I am not sure its depiction is that accurate (all the nurses and personnel were very kind to the patients, while in real life quite the opposite is said about it), it was interesting to have some images to attach to the name nevertheless.

A quote I liked, from an interview with Libba Bray about this book:

“My hope is that each of the characters comes to a greater understanding of herself—or himself, in the case of Kartik. If you feel you have a voice, if you don’t feel powerless, you’re less likely to act out in frustration and rage and hopelessness. You’re likely to feel less threatened and more willing to listen to other people’s voices as well. And that, my friend, wouldn’t make the world a perfect place, but it’s a decent place to start.”

show spoiler

Thoughts on the ending: Everything was nicely wrapped up, while also hinting at some future conflicts. I was particularly surprised by show spoiler

What I liked most: The talk between Miss Moore and the girls when they visited a gallery. My favorite ideas were:

“What if evil doesn’t really exist? What if evil is something dreamed up by man, and there is nothing to struggle against except our own limitations? The constant battle between our will, our desires, and our choices?”

and, about Lucifer:

“Do you think they missed him terribly when he fell? Did God cry over his lost angel, I wonder?”

What I liked least: The dynamics of the relationship between Felicity and her parents is somewhat changed, and it is a bit too different for me to happily accept it. show spoiler

Recommend it to? Anyone who has read and liked the first book, of course. I do think it can work as a standalone too, as the author was very careful to always explain what happened previously in regards to a matter.

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This book is a sequel to:
A Great and Terrible Beauty

This book is followed by:
The Sweet Far Thing

Written by the same author:
Going Bovine

The links to amazon.com and bookdepository.co.uk are affiliate links. If you click one of them and buy something, I receive a small percentage of the purchase price. This being said, rest assured that the few cents I might thus make will never influence what I say or do not say about any book reviewed on the site.

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