Book Review: City of Fallen Angels

Well it's a bit odd for me to review a book in the middle of a series without first covering the other books but stranger things have happened on this blog. Actually, this book's existence is odd, the author had already completed a triology (the first three books in this series) and was going to write a spin-off comic book about one of the side characters and when that didn't pan out she started writing it as a companion novel and realized that it was actually a three book story, not a one book one. So now she's writing two series at once which seem to still be fairly popular, if the waiting list for the books at my local library is any indication (think I requested this book in late April and got it mid-June, I was about 14th in line and the book had been out for a little while at that point). Because of all of that, I would not recommend starting with this book if you want to read the series (and honestly, who starts with the middle book in a series anyway?) but if you're already familiar with the first three and are wondering if this book is worth checking out then here's a review for you.

City of Fallen Angels by Cassandra Clare

Continuing with the same style as the past three books there isn't much to say about this one, except that Clary's obviously photoshopped green eyes (they're much more noticeable in person) are really creeping me out.

Summary: The cast from The Mortal Instruments returns and, after the chaotic events at the end of The City of Glass, some things are returning to normal and a new normal is being created for others. Clary begins to train as a shadowhunter, Jace has horrible nightmares that slowly begin to control him and Simon deals with having two girlfriends at once. Guess whose the main character in this story?

The Good: Having Simon as the narrator (well, most central character to this book, it's a third person narration) is actually a good thing since he’s snarky, a pretty nice guy, usually easier to sympathize with than the other characters and he’s outsider so he’s more in the loop than anyone else (as odd as it sounds, he hangs out with a wider variety of people than almost any other character). The book serves to further widen their world, even if almost no new characters are introduced, and it brings in one character from The Infernal Devices but does so in such a way that people who haven’t read The Clockwork Angel won’t be confused. People who are already fans of the series will love this book, it hardly feels like it's been two years since the last book came out, and people who like YA urban fantasy with plenty of romance will like this series as well, this book in particular isn't stronger than any of the other books but it isn't weaker than them either. 

The Bad: While trying to stay as spoiler free as possible I shall say this about the ending, I think they killed the wrong villain. It seems as if they killed off the much more interesting (and probably more powerful) villain so it's disgruntling that the characters will now (presumably) have to spend the next two books killing off the other villain (which also probably could have been avoided). Simon’s love triangle was also resolved awfully fast, incredibly conveniently as well, and yet the two girls (Isabella, shadowhunter who likes going out with downworlders who her parents would never approve of and Maria, a bi-racial werewolf in Luke’s pack who initially hated Simon for being a vampire) acted rather out of character for the whole thing*. In the end, it feels like this book wraps up neatly and everything is going fine and then oh hey guys, you forgot something, let’s watch it cause problems for two more books! At this point I'm just not sure how this is the start of a multi-book story, if the characters were smart this would have been a nice, one-off side adventure.

 

While I'm happy that my favorite side characters reappared after all (Mangus, Maria, I'm not that fond of the main cast) and I do think I liked this book more than Clockwork Angel I found myself yelling at the ending which isn't a good sign. I don't yell at stories when I don't want them to end or when it's a cliffhanger (I read manga/webcomics, I deal with cliffhangers on a daily basis), I yell when the characters do something dumb and I thought they were clever enough to think ahead. I will probably try the next book, just to see if my guess about the villain is correct, but I just don't find myself liking these books as much as when I first read them back in high school.   

*it’s true that I wanted the other pairing to happen but I do really think that Isabella contradicted herself, by saying it was okay for her to be non-exclusive but Simon couldn't (bit of a weird gender-flip take on that one actually, yes she does explain herself but it seems like a bit of a stupid excuse). And Maria was surprisingly mellow when an old flame of hers came back to town (in order to make this all really complicated) and this is despite the fact that she hasn’t gotten much more mellow since she was introduced, there hasn’t even been enough time for serious character development.

Book Review: Raised by Wolves

Right, since I apparently have a hard time sticking to an update time these days anyway, this blog should update Sunday-Wednesday, 5 to 9pm EST, which yes means that this update is going up late, sorry!
Anyway, I came across this book at my local library and the title seemed a little familiar, I thought I had heard some other authors talking about how much they liked the book (even though, yes, it's about werewolves) so I grabbed it and hoped that it was the book I was thinking of. Still haven't found that original recommendation but, considering that the book matched up pretty well with the summary I remembered and I saw another author on twitter celebrating that they had sequels being released on the same day, yeah I'm pretty sure this was a recommendation that I actually liked.

Raised by Wolves by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

  Nice color scheme on the cover and I like the font used for the title but, is that the moon halfway down the right hand side? I'm a bit confused how the moon is somehow between the woods and the mountains but o-kay.

Summary: When Bryn was four she survived a werewolf attack that killed her family and was adopted into the pack by the werewolves who saved her. She's never been quite able to remember what happened that day and when she comes across a newcomer to the pack, another boy who survived she's desperate to talk to him and unravel secrets of her own past.

The Good: One of the major conflicts in the book was Bryn's struggled to maintain her sense of self/be separate from the pack-hive-mind and also having to accept the pack-hive-mind as a requirement to see Chase (the new werewolf). It's rather nice to see Bryn have to give in to other's athority at times yet still remain true to herself and it also helps that her foster mother serves as a counter-balance by being very unhappy at what Bryn is doing (well, it helps in that it shows the readers that yes, it is reasonable to be annoyed at Bryn at this point). Actually, the book has a good sized cast and, thanks to the length of the book, all the important supporting characters get fleshed out which is always a good thing.

The Bad: To be blunt, the way that the villain's plans actually work is, dumb. Can't say anything more due to end of series spoilers but, in a nutshell, villain is doing something that no one else should be able to do (and hasn't been done for all of werewolf history) and the reason why they can do it feels not very well planned out. The book also seems a bit too long at points (character development is good and all but the book could have worked perfectly well without all of it), things went a bit too easily for Bryn throughout the entire book and she's much to young to be as mature as she was. At first I believed she was 17 but in fact she was closer to 15 and she was acting years too mature for her age* which always drags me out of a story, when a book tries for realism but messed that part up it just really rubs me the wrong way.


In the end, I did like the book (although not enough to buy a copy of it, maybe an e-copy someday) yet I'm a little confused why a sequel was just released back on the 14th (titled Trial by Fire). The ending, while it could leave room for a sequel, did wrap up all the events of the book pretty nicely and honestly, unless the author introduces some game changing plot details that weren't in or even hinted at in this book I really don't see a need to read it right now.



*let me put it this way, I've always been mature for my age so if a character is way more mature than I was at that age then it's unrealistic, I wasn't nearly this mature and clear thinking at 15. Plus, there's no reason for her to be this young in the book so geeze, why NOT make her a few years older?

First Impressions: Winter 2011

No regular review tonight but, partially to help me build up a buffer again, I decided to post some quick first impressions on the new 2011 winter anime. It's not a bad season for anime actually, winter is usually the weakest season for me (I think last year I was just following Durarara! and Tegami Bachi) but this year I've I'm following six shows and four of them are new ones. So, synopsis taken from ANN/MAL (usually I write my own summaries but, since I've only seen one/two episodes I can't do that yet) and now in alphabetical order:

Fractale (noitaminA)

"The story takes place in an island, where a "Fractale System" is beginning to collapse. One day, Clain finds an injured girl called Phryne under a cliff. She disappears leaving a pendant. Crane sets out for a journey with the girl-shaped avatar Nessa to look for Phryne and discovers the secret of the Fractale System."
Only seen one episode of this so far but I can say that the island mentioned appears to be Ireland which is interesting (I honestly can't think of any other anime set in Ireland and several Irish anime fans have said that it's definetly the setting for sure). The plot of the anime didn't grab me to start with (and I have accidentally gotten into an argument with people on the internet whether it was weird or not that Phyrne strips in the first episode...) but the setting seems part Laputa with a bit of Summer Wars thrown in and that has me interested. I love a show where I don't know the plot and can speculate about it so, unless it turns out to be super crappy, I'm sticking with Fractale. For US/Canada viewers it's streaming at Funimation's site/youtube/hulu.

Gosick 

 "GOSICK takes place in 1924 in a small, made-up European country of Sauville. The story centers on Kazuya Kujo, the third son of a Japanese Imperial soldier, who is a transfer student to St. Marguerite Academy, where urban legends and horror stories are all the rage. There he meets Victorique, a mysterious yet beautiful and brilliant girl who never comes to class and spends her days reading the entire content of the library or solving mysteries that even detectives can't solve."
  So far this anime hasn't lived up to my expectations of it sadly. The mysteries in both episodes so far have been ridiculsy easy to solve (I figured out the solution before the situation was fully explained) and for a mystery series that's really bad (I'm told it gets better but at this point I'd really hate to see it get worse). None of the lovely 1920s fashion/architecture so far that I was hoping for (outside of the lovely looking opening song) and I wonder what's the point in even setting the series in the 20s if the characters are still acting like it's the Victorian era. It is streaming on crunchyroll (NA/SA, UK, Africa, part of Europe, ME, Malaysia and the Philippines) and I do have lower standards for what I'll watch legally streamed vs what I'll watch that's fansubbed, so for the moment I'm going to get the most out of my CR trial and keep watching.


Level E

"Tsutsui Yukitaka is a freshman who has finally convinced his parents that he is ready to live on his own. When he arrives at his new apartment, he is surprised to find that someone has arrived before him; A young man who claims that he is an alien and that he is suffering from amnesia."
Despite predating Men in Black by a few years, that and Birdy the Mighty: Decode are the most similar titles I can think of except for the fact that this doesn't involve any alien fighting so far. It's a comedy dealing with the fact that there are dozens of alien species living on Earth and the only people who don't know are the humans. I'm loving the humor so far (which ends up being a two man routine between Yukitaka and Prince, with Prince being far stranger than any of the characters guess) so this is a keeper for me! It's streaming on crunchyroll in the Americas, Western Europe, South Africa, and Australia/New Zealand.

Puella Magi Madoka Magica/Mahou Shojo Madoka Magica

 "Beloved family, good friend, laughs and cries. Just an ordinary life that Kaname Madoka, a second grade student of Mitakihara City Middle School, has lived on. One day, a mysterious encounter has come to her. Was that encounter a chance, or inevitable? She still don't know. An encounter that cause her fate to change, that is a beginning of new magical girl story."
I do like a number of magical girl series and I do like the genre, just not this one. When the story was in dark-what-the-heck-is-going-on mode (complete with trippy imagery!) it was fun but the everyday life parts of the story were rather boring. The show certainly has potential to be really creepy and dark but I'm not that fond of shows by Shaft and since people are calling this the next Nanoha (which I didn't like, side note, never marathon that entire show in one day) for now it's a pass. But I will be keeping an eye on the reviews to see if it ends up being good after all.


Wandering Son (noitaminA)

"Shuicihi Nitori appears to be a shy and quiet preteen boy, when he transfers to a new school he quickly makes friends with the tomboyish Yoshino Takatsuki who sits next to him. It soon becomes apparent that both Shucihi and Yoshino are more than simply a sensitive boy and masculine girl, they both are transgendered. Together they decide to take the first steps toward becoming the people they want to be."
Dear Western YA, why can't you be this awesome? When I think of everything I've read/seen I'm hard pressed to think of more than ten transsexual characters and most of them have been side characters in anime*.  So when I heard this was being made into an anime (and the story is by the same manga-ka as Aoi Hana which I adored) I was pretty excited. The story is starting in medias res (having skipped the first 33 chapters actually) but from all the summaries I've read I haven't felt lost yet but don't feel connected yet either. Not worried about that however, usually it takes a few episodes for an anime to click with me and I can't wait for more! Streaming on crunchyroll in NA, UK, AU/NZ, Brazil, and parts of Europe.



Yumekui Merry

"Ten years ago Fujiwara noticed he had a power to see multicolored auras surrounding the person's body. Ever since then he's been having a weird dream about a war with cats. Then one day a mysterious girl falls on top of him..."I really wanted to like this anime, the premise sounds cool and Merry reminds me a lot of Alice from Pandora Hearts (which I love). However, between the first episode and the few chapters of the manga I read, it's just not as cool as I hoped for. Also, this show isn't being streamed and I try to watch fansubs only when the show is amazing and I'll buy it for sure once it's licensed. Like Madoka, I'll keep an eye on the review but ultimately, if it does turn out to be a good show I'm sure it'll be licensed and I'll check it out that way instead.




In addition to those four, I'm also still following Star Driver (still fabulous and I haven't had that much fun speculating about a show in a long time) and Letter Bee/Tegami Bachi Reverse (which has me a little worried now that we seem to be getting into anime original territory to set up an anime original ending, also realized that the scanlations fell behind and looked up the RAWS only to discover that what the manga is doing is way cooler). So expect to see reviews for all of those except Gosick sometime in April! Actually, speaking of end of the season anime reviews, my next anime review is the first end of the fall season anime review I have and I still have a ton more reviews to put up. At this rate I'm going to be putting up a review a day until Feburary so look forward to it!






*Let's see, to name them all, the protagonist's sibling in the book Luna, side character in Tamora Pierce's Bloodhound, a number of sides and one main in Satoshi Kon's Millennium Actress, a couple of side characters in the anime Shangri-La, two mains in the webcomic Khaos Komic, and that's it. Might be able to come up with one or two later but since it took three mediums for me to come up with that many I think my point is made.

Book Review: Hex Hall

Another book recommendation from The Enchanted Inkpot but I liked this book less than some of their other recommendations. I liked the cover and the premise but I would've had second thoughts if I had seen this cover instead, which really isn't what the book is about at all, actually, both of the covers for this book confuse me.

Hex Hall by Rachel Hawkins

 One thing about this cover puzzles me, they went to a great deal of trouble to match up the girls and even flip the title text around in the water, so why throw in a cat? It was stated pretty early on that Sophie is allergic to cats and there weren't any cats in the book so why? And the darn thing is on the cover for the second book as well, seriously, does anyone know?

Summary: Sophie is a witch and after a love spell gone wrong, only the latest in a long line of failed spells apparently, she is sentenced to Hecate Hall, a school for fledgling witches, shifters and fae, for the next two years. The reason behind this is to make her safe to society (ie, not cause catastrophes every few months) but Hex Hall might be more dangerous for Sophie than the real world.

The Good: The boarding school of magic has been done to death by now and, even though this book reminded me a bit too much of the House of Night Series, it was done well enough. The characters were somewhat genre-savy and the plot ended up being a bit more complex than I expected (wasn't expecting there to be two sets of villains, that's a bit unusual) and it has plenty of material for a sequel.

The Bad: I did like the first part of the book but by the end there were too many cliches present for me to really enjoy it. Oh look, the bad-boy-our-protagonist-has-a-crush-on-really-has-a-heart-of-gold-after-all! And the libby becomes semi-likable! It just wasn't original enough for me in the end with either it's setting or characters, plot twists notwithstanding, and I don't really feel the urge to read the sequel.


Not much to say about it I know but this book just didn't really stand out to me. It did some stuff well but other things were just average. If I see some really good reviews for the sequel I'll check it out but otherwise I'll read something else (and never know why there's that silly cat on the cover).

Book Review: Shadowed Summer

I'm a little hesitant to read books "set in the South" since many of the attempts I've read don't make it sound like the (American) South. I've lived in NC for 8 years and the majority of the time it feels like, well, a normal city anywhere in the US. Sure it doesn't feel northern per say, but aside from the fact that some people consider Grits legitimate breakfast food* and we have more than one style to cook barbecue** everything feels rather average. So when people go one about the rednecks, the blatant various -isms, and the desire to just get out, yes that is in some parts of the South but every state has some parts like that. I've lived in a small city, a small town, and the Southern part of Maryland for most of my life so I know what doesn't feel quite right.
And this book gets it right! It's a small town but that's it, it's a small town with it's quirks yet it still feels Southern, and frankly I don't know why I haven't come across more ghost stories in the South since the ideas go hand in hand.
Shadowed Summer by Saundra Mitchell

 If I had just seen the cover I would've passed this one by, there's really nothing special or eye-catching to me about it.
Summary: While Iris has vowed to leave her small town behind once she turns 16 she's currently 14 and enjoying summer the best she can with her best friend Collette, both of which are caught between the age when they believed magic and spells were real and the current day where they go through the old motions for the heck of it. But a ghostly whisper in Iris's ear leads her to question if ghosts aren't real after all, specifically the ghost of a boy who went missing years ago and seems to want something from her and enjoy tormenting her all the while.

The Good: Like I said above, the setting works very well. I can't recall any specific examples but the setting felt like an actual Southern town and an actual small town as well, a lot of locations appeared many times and the characters were certainly limited in where they could go. The relationships also felt pretty close to what actual 14 year olds would be going through and I liked how the romance ended, think the author had a bit of guts to pull of that ending. As for the ghost related parts, which really make up the bulk of the story, I thought they worked really well and really used the Southern setting (small town where everyone knows what's going on? Small town where everyone has known you since you were a kid? Small town where people are all then convinced you're crazy? Triple check!) to emphasize just how creepy everything was. And again that was also due in part to Iris, she doesn't take much of a romantic view at all to being stalked by a ghost and comes off as a combination of scared, brash, annoyed, and then terrified because no one believes what's going on.

The Bad: There were a few characters (like Iris' uncle) who were introduced and had very small roles that I would've like to see again later in the book. The plot certainly doesn't call for it but it feels strange to meet a lot of people who don't have any real impact on the story (hmm, maybe that's called real life). All in all I didn't have any major problems in the book yet it wasn't the most amazing thing I had ever read. It just didn't have that spark that made it go from a good book to a must buy.

Can't think of any books like this one I'm afraid, probably because I only got into horror type stories in this past year (guess that's the difference between living in a house with three heavy sleepers and living in a several hundred person dorm). But if anyone has a Southern ghost story suggestion please tell me!


*Lies!
**Which just makes sense, there should be more than one way to cook everything.