Book Review: The Golem and the Jinni

Wait this is a 2013 book? Shoot, I was totally going to add this to my "best books of 2014" list because it's easily one of the best books I've read this year. I know I said I was going to focus more on reviewing YA books on this blog, since clearly I like them better and I feel like I give them more interesting reviews, but I had seen it reviewed on some mostly-YA book blogs before and honestly thought it was one. And it's a good book, a great book even, so let me try and convince people who like YA and adult fiction alike to give it a shot!

The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker

Anime Review: The Pilot's Love Song

Management here again, a combination of work, a book that I didn't have much to say about, and a stubborn head cold made me realize that it would be best to push back this past week's book review to this Friday instead of putting out something subpar. And the only reason this review is going up is because I already had 95% of it pre-written which hopefully makes up for it! 



I'm not sure why but this title first started popping up on the summer 2013 anime charts and I was rather excited when I saw it, the cover art for the light novel looked rather pretty and the premise sounded like it was high fantasy with an adventure, action, and people hiding secrets, excellent! I learned a bit more about the series as the months went on and had a chance to see The Princess and the Pilot movie at Otakon which was based on a novel by the same author and set in the same world. It's not necessary to see it, there's technically only one crossover character who I hadn't even recognized since they were produced by different studios (another character is name-dropped and the story strongly hints that a third is involved but those references are much easier to pick up on) and this story takes place afterwards (and possibly before and during since P&P took place over three days and this one takes about two years). Regardless, that made me even more excited for the show, even when I realized it was by a different studio and wouldn't have the same budget because hey, I can put up with some less than stellar graphics for a good story.

The Pilot's Love Song (Toaru Hikuushi e no Koi Uta)

Book Review: The Dream Thieves

I feel rather topical, the cover and title for the next book in The Raven Cycle was just released, Blue Lily, Lily Blue which not only has me excited for the next book but also clears up one or two thoughts I had about this book and The Raven Boys which means that for once I'm glad this review is going up quite a bit after I read the book itself! I will note however that I had apparently forgotten a few key details of TRB (as in, we've already had one main character die and revive, this is in addition to the one who is a ghost and the one whose fated to die) but once I started reading this book I was feeling too greedy to put it down, do a reread and then return to it. I plan on doing a post on my favorite books from 2013 sometime in June, when I've actually been able to get around to reading all of them, and unless I'm surprised between now and then I can say that this book will be on that list for sure.

The Dream Thieves by Maggie Stiefvater

Book Review: The Crown of Embers

Back when I was reading The Girl of Fire and Thorns I was confused, was this part of a trilogy of a standalone story? Up to the last few pages it had felt like it was paced like a trilogy but between the way it ended and that there wasn't any mention of forthcoming books in any of the copy I figured I was just crazy. Turns out that my instincts were right and this was part of a trilogy (in case anyone's guessing why I guessed that instead of a duet, there are just really few duets out there so it didn't occur to me), let's see what exactly the plot of these last two books is about!

The Crown of Embers by Rae Carson

Book Review: Across the Great Barrier

Moving right along with this series (since the sooner I write a proper review of it the sooner I can write the next book, I've found if I don't I risk muddling the stories together and write overall less satisfying reviews) so there's not much to say to introduce it, it's magic, the Wild West, and not in the way you just thought when you heard those two phrases put together!

Across the Great Barrier by Patricia C Wrede

Comic Review: August Moon

For those who haven't seen the post below this, I'm going to start putting as on NI (provided that Google approves me, just hoping that I don't have to code them all in myself) so if anyone sees anything inappropriate, makes noise, etc, take a screenshot and let me know please!

I didn't realize it until I picked up the book from my pile to read but I looked at the cover and went "hmm, that animal looks like Totoro" was was relieved to see someone else (I believe on the back cover) mention Totoro as well. I felt like it was too big a visual similarity for anime/manga fans at least to not notice but still didn't want to be the first person to bring it up, as if I was accusing it of copying and truly this story has nothing in common with that film other than that one character design.

August Moon by Diana Thung

Summary: Fi and her dad live just outside the town of Calico and when they stay there for a bit while her father tries to identify a strange new creature found in the town she gets caught up in both the local legend of Soul Fires and a plot by an outside organization to bulldoze the town's beloved forest.

The Good: The story plays out at a good pace and despite a few scenes of violence and death I think it's more than fine to let the middle school crowd read (it's funny since even though it's listed as grades 9 and up I feel like it was written more to a 6-8th grade audience, especially since Fi at least is 11). And, well, there's certainly nothing terrible with it, I'm sure plenty of people will like it but I just didn't find anything about it amazing.

The Bad: I just didn't see anything special about this story, none of the character's grabbed me, the plot wasn't anything new or anything old done extraordinarily well, and I just didn't feel a sense of whimsy that I had expected when I read the synopsis and saw the cover. I didn't like Fi or Jaden as much as the story wanted me to (in retrospect, Jaden reminds me a lot of Hajime from the currently airing anime Gatchaman Crowds, an eccentric who really does know what's going on and what to do about it but is terrible at communicating, he's even worse than Hajime is) and since I didn't like any of those individual aspects of the story it's no wonder that the whole thing didn't gel for me.

The Art: It feels odd to say this about an English comic book instead of a manga but the character designs were just simple enough that I read a bit into the book, stopped, flipped back, and then realized there were two point of view characters instead of just one. I can't remember why now I initially got them confused, it could have been that I expected one POV character instead of two and that's how I started reading it, but I think that does mean that the designs should have been a tad more distinct. Or perhaps it just needed to use some shading, this is yet another comic that goes for the just black and white approach which I'm starting to dislike a bit, I just feel like it makes everything look a bit too simple and scenes which are supposed to look stunning to the character, and therefore create an emotional response in the reader, just don't accomplish that at all.


So, two out of five stars here for being a bit bland and unimaginative, even though I say that a middle schooler could read it I don't think I'll be recommending it anytime soon.

Book Review: Plain Kate

This is the a book that wasn't formally on my to-read list (ie, my word doc that I use sometimes to get ideas when I run low on books) but it's one that I heard about and was keeping an eye out for at my local library. Sadly it took me a few years to actually find it and remember that I wanted to read it but better late than never! Heck, after reading Shadow and Bones (which I apparently forgot to review, shall need to correct that at some point) I started reading one of the author's reference books on Russia which actually turned out to be a nice compliment to the setting, although strangely for once the setting wasn't my favorite part about this book. 


Plain Kate by Erin Bow

Summary: When Kate's father dies she loses her already precarious status in the world and the prejudices people already had against her with her two color eyes and almost supernatural carving abilities are magnified. So when she's presented with an offer, her shadow for her greatest desire and the supplies to leave her town behind she accepts, not knowing what kind of powerful magic can be worked with a person's shadow or how much time she'll have to spend righting that accidental wrong.

The Good: It appears that this book was a nominee for the ALA awards and I can see why, it goes just a bit deeper and a little darker than a lot of light-fantasy YA books I read* and for that hard to describe reason it felt like a better written book than many undeniably good books I've read. What I love most about it is how Kate reacts to this whole situation she finds herself in, she doesn't blame herself over and over for doing something that had consequences beyond anything she could have understood yet because of her character she still tries to right these wrongs. She doesn't have a hero complex but rather a sense of right and wrong that I think is a little less common these days, she doesn't try to save people from this plot because she needs to save people to feel better but because she understands how wrong it is to involve the innocent to punish the guilty and I liked that, it made her a bit more of a complex character and one that was easier to relate to, someone whose whole character and personality aren't changed by just a few events but rather are built upon a life of experience and guidance. And as a side note, I've seen a lot of talking animals in fiction, it's just something that pops up, and I feel that Taggle is the closest to what I feel like a talking (therefore anthropomorphized) cat would be like and even he changes throughout the story which I feel like was a good call.

The Bad: I don't have much to say here actually, I had very few problems with it. I felt like Drina's characterization was a little wobbly but since she's a younger character (the story is a bit vague but no more than 13 I think) so that's understandable. The pacing was also a bit odd in the first third but overall this was a well-written and interesting book.


So, giving this book four out of five stars and would like to buy it someday. I'm looking at Bow's next book and I'm interested by the premise (less by the cover, it looks kinda like people dressed in "generic native american garb", must less nice and polished looking than this lovely cover) and hopefully I'll get to it much sooner than I did here!




*and I'm not saying that darker=better story buuuut I do feel like a lot of people hold that view, knowingly or not

Book Review: Chime

Checked this out from the library since I had heard some good things about it a couple of years back, although I could've sworn this was a book about vampires since I had previously come across it at one of my libraries and remembered it being about vampires. Normally when this happens it means I've confused one book for another, really trying to figure out what book I confused with this one, anyone know of any books with similar covers that do involve vampires?


Chime by Franny Billingsley

  
I haven't talked about book covers in a while, mainly because a lot of times I just don't have anything to say, but I really don't like this one because of what Briony is wearing. I already had a hard time pinning down which century this story took place in (I believe it's early 20th but it could've been early 19th) and having her in 21st century-esque clothes just didn't work for me, wish they had put more thought into the model's costume.

Summary: Briony has felt lost and, even though she won't admit it, ever since her step-mother died, ever since her father distanced himself from her and her twin sister Rose, ever since she accidentally hurt Rose as a child. But then things begin to change around her, from the arrival of the new boy Eldric in her swamp town to her beginning to reach out to the magical world around her in a way that she hasn't done in years.

The Good: There was some interesting magic in the background of the story which seemed a bit different from what you normally find in low-fantasy these days and I would have liked it to have been expanded upon more (I felt like I was reading the companion novel to another book where all the world-building had already been done) but I can understand why the book didn't do so. Rose also ended up being a much more fleshed out character than I initially expected her to be and something like that always makes me happy.

The Bad: Briony is a character who doesn't think very highly of herself and that's okay, what's not okay for me is just how often she falls into this martyr-like, self-sacrifice way of thinking since it takes her about 90% of the book, maybe 95% of the book to grow out of it. I found it annoying, others may find it less so, but the fact that takes her so long to start changing should, well, tell you how long it takes her to change in the book. One, you really can't have your character grow and change only that close to the end, she does change some throughout the rest of the book but not a lot. Two, her change comes as the result of some events related to the plot which are supposed to be a great surprise but, well, not only does the title of the book give away one of them but I had guessed the second twist just because I've done a lot of reading and know when I'm supposed to be suspicious of certain characters and events. This goes back to what I've said in other reviews, plot twists are fine, just don't drag them out way past when the reader has figured them out or they become annoying instead. As I mentioned earlier, I also had a very hard time figuring out when this story was set (which is a bad sign since that never happens to me), found the romance a bit hard to follow (although that's rather normal for me), and just overall wasn't very interested in the story.


So, two out of five stars from me, for anyone whose curious for a book (or anything really) to get below stars means that there are problems with that actual presentation itself, like grammatical errors or horrible plot inconsistencies. Chime didn't have that so it gets a two but I can't see myself ever rereading this, recommending it, or really trying out Billingsley's other works unless they get glowing reviews (which weirdly enough it appears this book did, very strange).