Kay's Bookshelf

This is a book very hard to sum up in just a few words (there are many subplots, political satire, references to just about anything, and a cast of many bizarre characters). It is, nevertheless, pretty much as any reader of this series has come to expect: a wild ride through a world of strangeness.

As usual though, the details are too funny to be ignored. Such as the translating carbon paper named rossetionery (a reference to the Rosetta stone) and the fact that last year’s Booker speed-writing winner was stripped of his award when he tested positive for Cartlandromin (a reference to the very prolific romance author Barbara Cartland). Some of the politically correct names for various states are also funny, such as (the currently non-existent) Landen being referred to as having “an existence problem“, whereas the dead people are called “spiritually bereft“. My favorite example of such wooden language being the part where the president went missing, so his security people called Thursday and explained her that “We find ourselves in a head-of-state deficit condition” :)

Throughout the series Thursday is very much like Kinsey Milhone from the Alphabet series: resourceful, courageous, and smart. These days I can hardly think of one of them without being instantly reminded of the other. And yet there are parts (in this particular book most of all), when Thursday has another dimension: she is a loving wife and mother. While a bit hard to reconcile with her tough exterior, her new-found side doesn’t diminish her strengths, just makes her all the more interesting. I was a bit disappointed to see that my other female favorite character, Granny Next, was too old in this book to actually do something memorable, but it was nice to see her nevertheless. And Hamlet, well, he is worried about his being perceived by people as a ditherer, but he has trouble making up his mind even when faced with an easy decision like what kind of coffee he wants (“To espresso or to latte, that is the question“). He does nevertheless try to fix this, attending Conflict Resolution classes, but luckily for all of us he realized in the end that people enjoy his play precisely because of his moral issues, not despite them.

Another thing I likes was the light shed over some things mentioned long ago, in Book 1. For example, we finally get to know who the much-mentioned Millon De Floss is (we already knew he was Thursday’s biographer but he makes his first actual appearance in this book). Also in Book 1, Thursday is mentioned to have left a weapon hidden near her own self sometime in the future; in this book we get to witness that particular scene. And, my favorite, there is a reference of a young man seen at Thursday’s wedding (I had to go back and check, the young man is indeed there and he tells Thursday that “If you ever have a son who wants to be in the ChronoGuard, try and dissuade him.“, while both Thursday and Landen thought he looked a bit familiar) — and that young man is now revealed to be a grown-up Friday :)

A quote about BookWorld:

The chaotic nature of the real world that gave us soft undulating hills and random patterns of forest and hedges was replaced within fiction by a landscape that relied on ordered repetitions of the author’s initial description. In the make-believe world where I had made my home, a forest has only eight different trees, a beach five different pebbles, a sky twelve different clouds. A hedgerow repeated itself every eight feet, a mountain range every sixth peak.

Thoughts on the ending: show spoiler

What I liked most: show spoiler

What I liked least: show spoiler

Recommend it to? This book is the fourth in what I understand to be a series of eight (five books have currently been released, while a sixth is scheduled to be published in January 2011). As such, although I have found the book very enjoyable (my favorite in the series so far), I can only recommend it to people who have read the previous three.

This book is a sequel to:
The Eyre Affair
Lost in a Good Book
The Well of Lost Plots

Written by the same author:
Shades of Grey

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The book poses some interesting issues: Can one protect people by forbidding them things? Should one do that? If the answer to the last two questions is yes, how does one draw the line? Do all people want a simple, safe life anyway?

It was fun to notice the fact that all the castaways on the island had names inspired from other books. There’s a little girl names Friday, for example. Her mother is Mrs. Caliban. The facilitator of the island is Ishmael (“Call me Ish“). And many more, some of whose origins I did not identify (but Wikipedia did so there’s a list of them here :) )

There are also some religious allusions related to the island. Ishmael acts as their Messiah in a way (and even has a flock of sheep he lives in the same tent with), complete with wonders (predicting weather by “magic”). Keeping with his role of God, there’s also an apple tree whose fruits he forbids eating. And one of those is given to the Baudelaires by Ink the snake :)

The volume is dedicated to Beatrice (and alas, we finally get to know, without a doubt, who Beatrice is), in a couplet that shows off Lemony’s poetic side (or lack of it): “I cherished, you perished / The world’s been nightmarished.”

The usual warning to the reader:

“In this way, the story of the Baudelaire orphans is like an onion, and if you insist on reading each and every thin, papery layer in A Series of Unfortunate Events, your only reward will be 170 chapters of misery in your library and countless tears in your eyes. Even if you have read the first twelve volumes of the Baudelaires’ story, it is not too late to stop peeling away the layers, and to put this book back on the shelf to wither away while you read something less complicated and overwhelming.”

And with this, here I am, at the end of a series that took me a bit over one year to read through. Am I happy I read it? Yes, definitely, because I enjoyed most of the books and their quirky characters (not to mention Mr. Handler’s writing style plus the way he has chosen to insert an alter-ego of his in the story). Was the conclusion worth all the time spent waiting for it? Um…

Thoughts on the ending: While I loved reading this series all throughout, the ending was somewhat disappointing. show spoiler

Another thing I was less than enthusiastic about is the presence of a chapter fourteen. I remember reading somewhere that the series has thirteen books, each with thirteen chapters, and I thought that was cool. Until very recently when I discover the said chapter fourteen. I know it’s supposed to be the epilogue of the book, but I thought that the 13/13 thing was somewhat cooler.

What I liked most: The fact that the Baudelaires, after having all those guardians over the past few months, now end up being guardians themselves (and they do, of course, a much better job out of it than anyone else present in the series) was a nice touch.

Plus the Incredibly Deadly Viper, the one I was sorry to see go at the end of Book 2, is back :)
Not to mention the fact that the island log is named A Series of Unfortunate Events :)

What I liked least: Dare I say the ending?

Recommend it to? Anyone who has read the previous twelve books and is curious what happens next.

See also:
A Series of Unfortunate Events – the website

This book is a sequel to:
The Bad Beginning
The Reptile Room
The Wide Window
The Miserable Mill
The Austere Academy
The Ersatz Elevator
The Vile Village
The Hostile Hospital
The Carnivorous Carnival
The Slippery Slope
The Grim Grotto
The Penultimate Peril

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I added this book to my TBR after having read somewhere it’s “like Twilight with wolves” (I am one of the seemingly few bookish people who actually loved Twilight). I started reading with this comparison in my head and I couldn’t help noticing there were indeed a few similarities: like Bella, Grace is seventeen, enjoys doing homework and cooking, has parents mostly absent from her life, develops a rather unhealthy obsession for something non-human and even deep down wishes she’d become “one of them”; like Edward, Sam begrudges the change that has been inflicted upon him, writes music and plays an instrument, and, of course, is so head over heels in love with Grace it sometimes seems like she’s the only important thing in his life.

It seems so clear-cut, but I was surprised to discover that what worked for me in Twilight didn’t work as well here. The heroine-meets-hero part, for example. When reading Twilight I thought it very natural for a teenage girl to meet an intriguing boy in school; however I found it a lot harder to relate with a younger girl being dragged off her swing by wolves, bitten, and sort of falling in love with one of them. It is actually a bit amusing how I can suspend disbelief enough to believe in werewolves, but it seems I have a tough time believing a girl stolen and almost eaten by wolves wouldn’t remain pathologically afraid of them for life. And to think that instead of that Grace sleeps with a sweater smelling of wolf instead of a pillow!

Another such thing was that when Bella wanted to become a vampire, I didn’t have trouble at all comprehending that. She stood to gain eternal life, eternal youth and superhuman strength, what was there not to like :) However when Grace thinks the same about becoming a werewolf, I could only wonder “how stupid of her”: obsession with wolves or not, their life was anything but easy, with no visible perks — why would anyone actually want that? I get it that she was enamoured with the very idea of wolfishness (plus Sam), and yet… it just didn’t work for me.

Even the book structure is similar to Twilight’s: that is, the majority of the book is dedicated to the love story developing. A part which, I am sorry to say, I didn’t much enjoy, because, as the said love story did not seem at all believable to me, it felt like I had to plough through pages and pages of manifestations that looked exaggerated and lacking a motivation. Luckily for me, there was an extra element, and that made the action pick up in the last hundred pages of so. It was a complete switch for me, as I went from not caring about the characters to being both interested in their welfare and finding it hard to put the book down out because I just had to know what happened next.

Despite my take on the feelings between the characters, I have very much appreciated the new take on werewolves the author came up with: the fact that they change involuntarily, according to temperature was a completely new idea for me, and I liked it because of that. I also liked the science/magic debate, as I am a believer in the fact that a lot of what may be considered magic is actually explainable by science (only the said science may be not that advanced yet), so I very much enjoyed the fact that the characters considered this point of view too.

As for the characters, once again the fact that the premise of the story didn’t work for me shows, as the hero and heroine are mostly defined by their feelings to one another, so a great chunk of “them” was missing for me. I found Grace to be everything people said Bella was: a Mary Sue, with not that much of a personality outside her obsession for wolves (her personality is described as scientific and lacking people reading skills, but I have not found any actual reflection of these traits in her actions; then again, perhaps I just wasn’t looking hard enough, since I didn’t care that much about her). Sam on the other hand is a rather promising character, and I liked the way he analyzed the difference between human feelings and the ones he had in wolf form, and also his attachment to poetry; and yet there were some details that bothered me, not allowing me to fully like him. Some characters I did like were Beck (because he seemed always in control) and Isabel (because she turned out to be a lot more than the spoiled brat she seemed to be in the beginning) — both these were flawed, and yet likable, and I was happy to discover non-2D supporting characters :)

My happiness stops though when it comes to Grace’s parents: I found them to be a plot device rather hard to swallow, because they, both of them, acted more like careless teenagers than parents of a seventeen years old (including the mother once wondering what is that thing in the fridge — namely a pork loin that Grace planned to cook the next day; does a forty year old adult who doesn’t recognize a piece of meat when she sees it seems that believable to you?). While I could understand the fact that they may be busy with work, I find it hard to believe they never checked out on their child when they came back at night — Sam manages to live in Grace’s house for weeks before anyone noticed him. Why didn’t the author just say the parents have left on a trip or something? Speaking of non-working plot devices, another thing I had trouble believing was the fact that an 11-year old would die of overheating because she had been forgotten locked in the car. At 11 one should be able at least to open a car door, right?

Despite my (lots and lots of) complaints, the writing is very good, being able to evoke powerful images at times. A few quotes I liked (sort of random, because I liked so many of them):

“I was suddenly struck by how dissimilar we were. It occurred to me that if Grace and I were objects, she would be an elaborate digital clock, synced up with the World Clock in London with technical perfection, and I’d be a snow globe—shaken memories in a glass ball.”

“Some days seem to fit together like a stained glass window. A hundred little pieces of different color and mood that, when combined, create a complete picture.”

Thoughts on the ending: Wonderful :)
Sure, it was quite predictable, but nevertheless I loved the way it was written.

What I liked most: While I have already complained about most of the premises, there are nevertheless some details that I have liked.

The title for one. I think it is simply perfect for this book: a book of cold weather that our characters desperately try to avoid and yet keeps seeping in at the worst possible moments. The author’s descriptions of cold are at times so powerful that the reader him/herself can almost feel it. Plus a shiver is also a manifestation of shock — and the book contains quite a bit of these too.

The lyrics Sam kept writing, for another. There are many of them; my favorites were “You’re my change of skin / my summer-winter-fall / I spring to follow you“.

What I liked least: did Sam have to sound so happy when he mentioned eating bunnies? Why didn’t he at least say rabbits? I do know wolves too have to eat and so on, but I could have done without having the fact that they eat “bunnies” rubbed in repeatedly.

Recommend it to? This is probably going to seem like a contradiction after everything that I have written above, but I do recommend every young adult lover to at least give this a try. My reason? There is an incredible number of people who totally adore it, a clear sign you never know how someone might view a book until that someone gives it a try :)
Currently 4.10 average rating on Goodreads.

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This is the second book in the Wheel of Time series and I have enjoyed a very small bit less than the previous one, yet still a lot. First of all, I love the writing style, because it has what I call “cinematic quality” (every visual detail is so aptly described that it sometimes feels like watching a movie). This book needed less world-building than the one before, since the reader is now familiarised with the location; however there were still new concepts introduced, and new places, giving me the occasion to bask in visual details, just as I like.

The plot is also well written, and quite unpredictable too — I very rarely knew what to expect, if at all. This is another reason why I’m on the way to becoming a fan of the series: the fact that there’s always something happening, with never a moment of boredom. Many people say that will change once the series reach book six or seven, but until then I really really love this part.

As for the characters, my, there’s plenty of them. I was happy to meet again most of those introduced in Book 1. Rand, desperately trying to adjust to who he is, trying to get rid of the yokel of prophecy but at the same time preparing himself for it, taking swordfighting lessons and learning to channel. Mat, sick, doing nothing but participating in the search for his dagger, now a bit more likable to me than before because he has less pages to complain in. Perrin, still communicating with wolves, also with less pages allotted. Loial, always with his nose in a book and one of my favorite characters. Surprisingly enough, Bayle Domon, the owner of the ship Rand crossed the river seemingly eons ago, makes an appearance in this book too, piquing my interest in his fate. There are also a few new characters, of which Huron, a “sniffer” (a man who can smell deeds done by others) seems the most promising one, and I am looking forward to meeting him again. A notable absence is Lan (yup, the one that I liked most of them all), who only appears a little in the beginning and a little at the end since Moiraine Sedai is kept busy elsewhere almost all throughout the book.

The female characters get to grow and develop, especially Egwene, whom I dismissed as childish before, but whom I have actually liked in this volume. Nynaeve is trying hard to learn to become the best Aes Sedai she can be, dreaming to punish Moiraine later on for everything Nynaeve thinks she has brought to “her people”. We meet Elayne again, and, although the Daughter-Heir, she is so very down-to-earth that it’s impossible not to like. Another old acquaintance is Min, who, while only met once in Book 1, already seemed like a promising character and I was happy to see her again. As secondary characters we also get to meet a few more Aes Sedai (including their leader, the Amyrlin Seat, an old friend of Moiraine’s), some more interesting than others, and about whom I am curious whether we’ll get to see them again or not, but none of them particularly captivating and/or likable for me.

Speaking of Aes Sedai, I was happy that the author chose to give at last a bit more details about the notion of Ajah. While I have already surmised that each Aes Sedai belonged to an Ajah, and the said Ajah’s color meant something related to the Sedai’s personality, I knew no more than that. In this book though I found out a bit more details, some even funny ones, such as the way the Green Ajah women treat men (the more the better, they even have more than one Warden each). Their opposite is the Red Ajah, who despise men altogether, and never choose Wardens for that reason. There’s also the Brown Ajah, whose members thirst for knowledge and as such are always studying one thing or another. I have no idea yet of the particularities of the other Ajahs (including the Blue, Moiraine’s colors), but I am looking forward to finding out in the next book or books :)

As a small detail, I was amused by the names of the fighting stances Rand had to learn. “Cat Crosses the Courtyard” is my favorite, but there’s also “Parting the Silk”, “Hummingbird Kisses the Honeyrose”, “Heron Wading in the Rushes”, “The Kingfisher Takes a Silverback”, “Bundling Straw”, “The Dove Takes Flight”, “The Falling Leaf”, “The Swallow Rides the Air”, “The Boar Rushes Down the Mountain”, “The River Undercuts the Bank”, “Stones Falling From the Cliff” and many more :)

Thoughts on the ending: Unsurprisingly, I absolutely loved the ending (more so than the one in the previous book). show spoiler

What I liked most: It’s a tie between two things:
1) the three tests that Nynaeve had to go through in order for her to become Accepted. While the idea of testing someone by making him (or her) confront his (or her) innermost fears is not new by far, I very much loved the buildup and the way each test was more intense than the one before. Plus the fact that we got another glimpse of Emond’s Field and of Lan. :)

and

2) the portal stones!!!
The very idea of there existing “worlds our world might have been if things had happened differently.“. Much like some people believe in parallel universes, people in the WoT world also believe that “The Pattern has infinite variation [...] and every variation that can be, will be.“. Well actually, that’s not just a belief of theirs, because those worlds of variation actually exist and can be visited too, using portal stones. So, so very cool (I seem to use this word a lot lately). Not to mention the moment when Rand focused on one portal stone and actually got to “live” some of these variations for himself.

What I liked least: I have no major complaints but
1) I could have done without the Children of the Light (they served no major purpose anyway)(or perhaps there is a purpose and it will be revealed later?)

and

2) I was a bit annoyed at the beginning by all the drama surrounding the fact that Aes Sedai might want to “gentle” Rand because of who he is. Now, I understand that the male Aes Sedai broke the world once; I also understand that the prophecies state that the Dragon Reborn “shall break the world again by his coming, tearing apart all ties that bind“. I understand that people might want to stop the world from breaking again and thus harm Rand to keep him from doing so. But the prophecies also state that “the Dark One shall once more lay his hand upon the world of man [...] yet shall the Dragon Reborn confront the Shadow at the Last Battle, and his blood shall give us the Light“. So, considering that somewhere in the near future the said Dragon Reborn will be the only thing keeping the world from being conquered by the Dark One, why would anyone do anything to the Dragon and interfere with his doing so?

Recommend it to? Anyone who read and liked the first book, of course. While I imagine it may work as standalone too, many of the events are based on what had happened before so the enjoyment of it would be considerably reduced. Or so I think :)

See also
Wheel of Time wiki :)
Moiraine’s Facebook page :)

This book is a sequel to:
The Eye of the World


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The mythology of the imaginary world the author has created is very detailed; so much so that at first I had a bit of trouble keeping the hang of who was what — however, I soon got to know everyone and things started making sense. Started being wonderful, actually. There are, at first, two clearly separated kinds of things: real, the ones everyone met with at times in their daily life (gleemen, the village Wisdom (a wise woman who is said to be able to heal people and to read the future in the wind), Winternight, the Bel Tine festival, etc.) and the ones everyone heard about in stories only (the Trollocs, the Aes Sedai, the Fades, and lots more). Some of the things in the latter category are even thought to be the product of someone’s too vivid imagination, that’s how rare they are.

And yet, all of the sudden, Rand’s world and the others’ is turned upside down, all things they barely believed in coming to life. Trollocs attacked, all of a sudden. A Fade/Myrddraal made itself known to boys of certain age. An Aes Sedai and a Warden turned out to have been in their midst. And I, I was fascinated by this sudden process of legends becoming tangible :)

There are a lot of concepts that were obviously inspired from real life, and it was interesting to see Jordan’s take on them. To name but a few, the Light is their good force (makes one think of God, especially when one sees the way it’s mentioned in daily life — “Light keep you!”, “Light, did you see that?”; they believe in a Creator too but the Light is the divinity they refer to in their every day life). The name of the evil one is Shai’tan. The Children of Light, an organisation with its own rules and ranking system, is the Andorian equivalent of Inquisition. Saidin and saidar, the male and female forces, make one think of Yin and Yang (especially as their symbol seems to be quite similar too). The Tinkers, the travelling people, are very much like the Gypsies of old: earn mend pots, travel in wagons, dress in vivid colors and are said to steal whatever they can get their hands on (what I liked most about them is that “They’re looking for a song. That’s what the Mahdi seeks. They say they lost it during the Breaking of the World, and if they can find it again, the paradise of the Age of Legends will return.“). And so on.

People often say that Jordan was heavily influenced by Tolkien, and that the plot is similar to the one in the Lord of the Rings. They are more or less right, as there are many elements in the book that make one think of Tolkien. However I would dare to say that the plot, albeit very interesting (with a few incredibly captivating moments now and then), is not necessarily the main attraction of Jordan’s work. Neither is the character development — I could say that it is actually the book’s weak point, because while the characters are believable and interesting, their emotions and dialogue aren’t always up to par. I for one felt quite meh about the relationship between Rand and Egwene, especially when the latter was being jealous — but I digress. As I was saying, the most interesting feature of the book, what makes it truly special, is the way Jordan has managed to create a living and breathing world around his characters. We are treated to detailed descriptions of villages, monuments, cities and people altogether, all forming in a colorful background behind our characters’ deeds. And it’s worth mentioning that, at least in this first volume, the author managed to present it all in such a manner that is never boring. I understand that this becomes a flaw later on, as the amount of detail tends to overcome the actual plot in some future books, but right now, after reading just this one, I am charmed.

When it comes of the characters, I very much liked the way Jordan chose to treat women. There are no damsel in distress in this book. The women are just as willing to go the needed lengths as men are; they are also, magic-wise, the more powerful, since they are the only ones able to touch the True Source. Quite a cool concept for a novel set in a medieval-like world.

Interestingly enough, my favorite character of them all was Lan. Even the author said about him that “Lan is simply the man I always wished I could be.“. My teenage self would have been head over heels fascinated with him. He is a very capable warrior, with a noble heart, always putting the interests of others ahead of his own. He is not talkative, but spends his time studying the surroundings, as any Warden on the run is supposed to be do. Yet he does notice things one would think he wouldn’t, and that shows most of all when it comes to who his love interest is (unfortunately I can’t spoil that but I was very excited about that part). Oh, and did I mention he is also of (very) noble blood?

Opposed to him, the three main characters (Mat, Rand, and Perrin) are nothing but boys. I liked Rand a lot because his emotions are very believable, and his heart is good. Perrin is the strong one, who thinks slowly but always thinks things through. As for Mat, he is the claimant of the “my least favorite male character” honor. He is supposed to be a mischievous lad, but not a bad one. However he doesn’t know when to keep his mouth shut (annoying!!) and is too preoccupied with finding treasure for my taste (this happens to also be his doom, at least in his book, haha).

Mat’s female equivalent, “my least favorite female character”, is Egwene (pronounced eh-GWAIN). She is very young and she’s also Rand’s love interest, so I suppose she is meant to be likable rather than not. Well, she does have her qualities — strong willed, courageous, loves being part of an adventure even if it’s scary at times — but she is also a bit of a bully, and also a bit annoying towards the end. I probably named her as my least favorite not because I disliked her but because I fully liked the others. Moiraine (pronounced mwah-RAIN), the Aes Sedai (EYEZ seh-DEYE), powerful and with lots of knowledge. Nynaeve, the young Wisdom, very capable and taking her responsibilities very seriously. Quite annoyed with men, but a good tracker herself. Both (Moiraine and Nynaeve) are promising characters and I am quite curious to see how they’ll develop in the future books.

Two tiny quotes I liked:
At one time, this is said about one of the Travelling People: “he moved as if he were about to begin dancing with his next step“. A bit of nice imagery. :)

The folks in the Two Rivers are said to be pretty stubborn, and I liked their way of thinking: “[...]the Light will take care of us all. And if the Light doesn’t, well, we’ll just take care of ourselves. Remember, we’re Two Rivers folk.”

Thoughts on the ending: There are people who call it rushed, but I have actually liked it. show spoiler

What I liked most: Interestingly enough, although in real life I’m not fond of the idea of predestination, I was quite captivated by the idea of a Pattern comprising all lives.

“The Wheel of Time weaves the Pattern of the Ages, and lives are the threads it weaves. No one can tell how the thread of his own life will be woven into the Pattern, or how the thread of a people will be woven.”

It seemed to me that somehow being a part of a bigger pattern gave everyone’s lives meaning, and I liked that. Not to mention I enjoyed trying to imagine how the said pattern might actually look (yeah, I know it’s not a literal pattern, but I love imagining it nevertheless). As such, I was also bound to like the notion of Ta’veren:

“You see, the Wheel of Time weaves the Pattern of the Ages, and the threads it uses are lives. It is not fixed, the Pattern, not always. If a man tries to change the direction of his life and the Pattern has room for it, the Wheel just weaves on and takes it in. There is always room for small changes, but sometimes the Pattern simply won’t accept a big change, no matter how hard you try. [...] But sometimes the change chooses you, or the Wheel chooses it for you. And sometimes the Wheel bends a life-thread, or several threads, in such a way that all the surrounding threads are forced to swirl around it, and those force other threads, and those still others, and on and on.”

I love the imagery of that :)

What I liked least: Can I say the Prologue? It started out so sudden I was finding it all very confusing, so much so that I almost put the book down (of course I didn’t consider it seriously, as I knew the book must be quite good to have sparkled such interest, but for a moment I did consider it nevertheless).

Recommend it to? Anyone who enjoys epic fantasies? Actually, I fell in love with it while reading so I heartily encourage anyone to at least give it a try :)

See also
Schema of the places where the characters travelled in this book
A background of the history of the world in the Wheel of Time series

This book is followed by:
The Great Hunt

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The novel is, for lack of a better word, dark. There are a lot of moments of violence, as the author intended to present the lives of the black slaves back then with the utmost sincerity, without masking anything. Dana herself is being taken by surprise at how violent those times were, and how much real violence differed from the imagined one, or the one on TV. The usual punishment of the time was a savage whipping, degrading and inflicting a lot of pain to the punished one. Dana herself, although a visitor from another time and the main character of the book, is not spared any suffering. While this book has been a less heartbreaking read for me than Uncle Tom’s Cabin (ages ago), it wasn’t an easy one either, and I repeatedly wondered at the

For me (as a white person) it was a bit sad to notice there are no actually good white people all throughout the book, other than Dana’s husband, who comes from a different time than the rest. I am not sure how I feel about this. First of all, it is obvious that all the white people of the 19th century that we get to meet in the book have had a certain kind of upbringing, one that insisted that slaves are nothing more than animals. It is also obvious that a person acting by that time’s standards cannot be considered good by the standards of today. And yet I was a bit sorry to see whites presented in such a cookie cutter manner, unlike the black people who had actual personalities, ranging from the always unpredictable Alice to the subdued Sarah who was always aware what the “masters” can do and as such she was always wary of them.

Although to be completely honest no character is as complex in the whole book as Rufus is. My feelings towards him were just as everyone else’ around him, just as Dana’s: I cared for him, as he had some good moments, but there were also moments when I was horrified by what he could do (to Dana or other people). You know, this alone would be a reason for me to consider Ms. Butler a great writer: the fact that she has created such a conflicting yet very believable character. In a way, Rufus reminded me of Bruno, the German boy in The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, because, although older, he was just as oblivious about people’s feelings as nine year old Bruno was. Yet he also had a sort of innocence (or should I call it overconfidence), firmly believing that his choices in matters are the only possible choices (not out of being evil but because that’s the way he was taught), making me care about him even though I didn’t much agree with the way he acted.

I think that this book was, at least partially, the result of the author’s imagining herself in such a strange situation. After all, she was bound to have an interest in slavery, given that she herself has had first hand contact with the mindset of the 1950s (Ms. Butler about the way her mother was treated at work: “I used to see her going in back doors, being talked about while she was standing right there and basically being treated like a non-person, something beneath notice.“). It is obvious that the inspiration for Dana was Ms. Butler’s own life: they both come from a devout Baptist family, Dana also tries to become a writer, taking as many writing classes as possible, they are both from Pasadena, and their ages were similar too (Ms. Butler was 29 in 1976). For some reasons I am always a bit fonder of characters that seem inspired from their author rather than not.

An interesting quote, Dana’s thoughts about Kevin’s (possible) life in the 18th century:

A place like this would endanger him in a way I didn’t want to talk to him about. If he was stranded here for years, some part of this place would rub off on him. No large part, I knew. But if he survived here, it would be because he managed to tolerate the life here. He wouldn’t have to take part in it, but he would have to keep quiet about it. Free speech and press hadn’t done too well in the ante bellum South. Kevin wouldn’t do too well either. The place, the time would either kill him outright or mark him somehow. I didn’t like either possibility.

Thoughts on the ending: Due to the prologue I knew right from the start approximatively how the book will end (it is obvious from the first sentence actually). While I wasn’t surprised when I reached the actual ending, I was happy to discover there is a part of a chapter where Dana and Kevin try to find out the whereabouts of the black people at the Weylin’s farm after Dana left for good. I’m always a fan of these types of endings (when “what happened to them next” is revealed) and of course I liked this one too :)

As a tiny aside, the book is for some reason classified by many as Science Fiction. I really don’t see how that’s the case as no science is ever mentioned, and I think it belongs way better in the Fantasy genre (because of the time travel, of course).

What I liked most: The differences in perception between Dana, the black female, and Kevin, the white male. It is obvious that they both filter whatever they go through according to their knowledge and previous experience, but also according to some very basic elements such as race. Dana feels a lot more powerfully the plights of everyone around her in the 18th century, going so far as becoming a part of them, identifying herself with that group of black people she ended up among, despite the fact that they didn’t have that many things in common other than the skin color. Kevin tends to be more the observer kind, watching the events around him unfold with a detached eye, and it is only natural it should be so because, among other things, he is never in that close contact with the black people as Dana is, he is never “one of them” but “one of the others”. I found these considerations interesting, all the more so because I am not sure I would have thought of them on my own, had the author not had pointed them out.

What I liked least: Once again I am back to the first sentence. I hated hated hated the fact that Dana lost her arm like that — she was so courageous and tried to help everyone around her and to see such a thing happening to her was quite sad. My copy of the book had a commentary on this event, among other things, and whoever wrote it saw this as a strike of genius because it has lots of symbolic meanings (among other things Ruth Salvaggio seems to have said about it that the lost arm is the emblem of Dana’s disfigured heritage). While I do get (parts of) the symbolism the critics are talking about, I still can’t help feeling very sad for Dana’s irreparable loss.

Recommend it to? Anyone. I read this book in just one day, that’s how fascinated I was with it. Be warned though that there are some violent scenes inside.


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At last another book in the series that I can actually like! I started it with a “meh” attitude but I was soon won over by how fast paced everything around Percy was. Now, I do realize that all of the books in the series are just as fast paced as this one, but for some reason (Percy being less annoying?) this one I do like quite a bit. So much so that it is a serious contender for the “favorite book in the series” spot, and that’s saying something because I have really loved book one :)

The recurring characters are just the same as in the previous books. Percy is still Percy (and lucky me, he didn’t have to read many things so I didn’t have to hear about his dyslexia that many times), and I actually spent the whole book liking him (though I wouldn’t have expected it after the previous one). He seems to have matured a bit, and his choices are always the good ones (not necessarily correct, but good, as he is indeed the loyal person one would expect him to be after the previous book), so I ended up liking him just as much as I did at the beginning of the series. Speaking of which, my feelings for Annabeth seem to have reverted to those I had in the very first book too, namely most of the time I cannot stand her. She is clearly the smart girl of the series (Hermione, look out), and I would have expected her to be likable because of that, but she is way too careless with others’ feelings for that.

Nico di Angelo, the brother of Bianca is also back with a vengeance. I imagine him to be about twelve (I may be wrong), but I find him to be quite cool, what with his being always dressed in black and able to summon skeletons and such. A true son of Hades, more so than Percy is Poseidon’s son to me (well, Percy can do interesting things too, summon water out of nowhere, keep himself dry in the middle of a storm and so on, but what Nico can do is way way cooler). Also, there is a new character introduced, a young “mortal” girl named Rachel Elizabeth Dare, who just happens to be my favorite character in this book (her and Calypso). I do wonder what will become of her later on, as I am certain she’s been introduced in the book only as a possible love interest for Percy, because Annabeth is still pining for her traitorous Luke — but we’ll see :)

It probably shows that I had a lot of feelings invested in (almost) all of the characters, right? I did like and did root for most of them indeed, but that doesn’t mean that the characters are all that’s interesting in the book. On the contrary, the author seems to be really good at describing visuals (a thing that for some reason I don’t remember noticing until now), plus his imagination (places, events) leaves nothing to be desired. Oh, and the battle of the Labyrinth is great!

A quote I liked, a thing Poseidon tells Percy, when asked what he thinks about Antaeus sacrificing all sorts of creatures to him:

“Percy, lesser beings do many horrible things in the name of the gods. That does not mean we gods approve. The way our sons and daughters act in our names… well, it usually says more about them than it does about us.”

Thoughts on the ending: It’s a good prelude to book five, I would say. So here Percy is on the roof, when Nico appears all of the sudden and tells him, “Wait, I know how to beat Kronos, and this is the only way you’d stand a chance!”. So Percy invites him in and… ta-daaa! the book ends :)

What I liked most: I very much loved the visuals this book made me imagine: the cherry-colored cattle, the labyrinth, with its various everchanging rooms, the scene with the skeletons who fall apart when they are no longer needed, Kampe, who was half woman and half dragon and “around her waist, where the woman part met the dragon part, her skin bubbled and morphed, occasionally producing the heads of animals—a vicious wolf, a bear, a lion, as if she were wearing a belt of ever-changing creatures“, Briares, who had no less than one hundred arms and “his chest sprouted more arms than I could count, in rows, all around his body. The arms looked like normal arms, but there were so many of them, all tangled together, that his chest looked kind of like a forkful of spaghetti somebody had twirled together” and more. Speaking of Briares, try to imagine this particular scene for example:

“Briares wiped his nose with five or six hands. Several others were fidgeting with little pieces of metal and wood from a broken bed, the way Tyson always played with spare parts. It was amazing to watch. The hands seemed to have a mind of their own. They built a toy boat out of wood, then disassembled it just as fast. Other hands were scratching at the cement floor for no apparent reason. Others were playing rock, paper, scissors. A few others were making ducky and doggie shadow puppets against the wall.”

Isn’t it really cool?

What I liked least: First of all there’s my usual qualm about people substituting “hell” with “Hades” in day-to-day expressions (“all Hades broke loose”, “Hades if I know”) that are so automated I find it hard to believe whoever says them actually thinks of what they mean (so I have trouble imagining Percy thinking something along the lines of “and then, all hell broke loose — oh wait, there’s no hell, just Hades — and then, all Hades broke loose”). Also, I hated the way Annabeth kept calling Miss Dare “mortal”, with disdain, at every chance she got. As far as I noticed half-bloods can very well die too, so they are by no mean immortal and I hated Annabeth feeling so superior over what was actually nothing (yeah, and more than once too).

Recommend it to? I am not sure it shows in the review but I have really loved this book! As such, I dearly recommend it to everyone who has managed to read the previous three books :)

This book is a sequel to:
The Lightning Thief
The Sea of Monsters
The Titan’s Curse


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