Review: Ruin and Rising

Title: Ruin and Rising
Author: Leigh Bardugo
Series: The Grisha Trilogy
Volume: 3
Genre: Fantasy, Romance, High Fantasy
Release Date: June 17, 2014
Goodreads

A Quick Introduction: (Spoilers for books one and two). Alina's fight with the Darkling almost killed her. Weakened, she is now in hiding, recovering in a network of caves deep underground, sheltering with the Apparat and those who have declared her a living Saint. But she cannot remain hidden forever. She is the only hope the world above has of destroying the Fold, and of being free of the Darkling's rule. To get the strength to do this Alina must unite Morozova's amplifiers, even as she uncovers long-hidden secrets- about the Darkling, about Morozova, and about the truth of her own power.

Out of Ten: 7/10

Review at a Glance: A good conclusion to a trilogy set in a fascinating and wonderfully built world.

Review:With the disclaimer that this will contain spoilers for the first two books in the trilogy, so if you haven't read those, and don't want to be spoiled, shoo. Overall, I really enjoyed this as an ending to the trilogy. There were still some flaws, but despite them I enjoyed the world, and much of the story.

One of the greatest strengths of this series is its cast of characters, especially the secondary characters. Something that can happen in first-person point of view stories is that the secondary characters take a back seat. Not so with this story. While this is very much Alina's story, the many of the other characters are vivid.

Alina herself is something of a difficult character. She isn't a typically "heroic" character in a lot of ways. She doesn't jump at the call to arms, and she considers how nice it would be to just leave the country to it's ruin. She's not naturally selfless, and she is power hungry. This makes her both a very human character, and one that sometimes made it a little challenging to be cheer on wholeheartedly. She is also continuously questioning if an Alina with all three amplifiers will be any better than the Darkling is. The Darkling makes a compelling antagonist (and to me, he has always been a villain, but he is a three dimensional one), with his own history and his own motives, and I think that is all I will say about that.

If I have a complaint about the plot, it was that it moves a little strangely. Breaking it down into events, not all that much happens in the main plot. A layer of the book is the plot, and another (often more overriding) layer is how Alina feels about what is happening, and Alina's personal journey. While generally they were reasonably well balanced, there were times that the action could have been more pronounced, with a little more emphasis on the physical story. There were some aspects of the story that might have benefited from some more foreshadowing. I also felt that the romance could have been minimized slightly or done differently. There was just something about some parts of it that didn't really work for me.

A strength of all of the books in this trilogy is the setting. Leigh Bardugo makes an enthralling world (compete with a map-I am a sucker for a map). It's a world that is complete with fantastical locations and dangerous creatures, and it was one of my favourite aspects of these stories. Leigh Bardugo paints an image with her writing. She writes in a way that appeals to the senses, and a I very rarely found myself jolted out of the story. Generally, it flowed well, and fit in well with the story itself, adding to the reading experience.

All in all, I enjoyed this book as a conclusion to the series. While there were still some flaws with the storytelling, especially toward the ending, I still found that it, for the most part, wrapped up this trilogy well. I'm looking forward to the next series, also set in the Grisha world.

How To Dislike a Book

This has been brewing for a while, and gets worse every time I take a look at review on Goodreads. Usually I'm pretty happy to be part of a community of readers. I don't know if it's just that I'm picky, or if everyone has this issue, but I'm going to put a little guide out there for everyone. So, here we go, here's how to dislike a book.

Let's face it, you're not going to love every book. You're not even going to like every book. This is fine, and you certainly don't have to enjoy every book you read. You're allowed to be upset, disappointed or even angry. Even when you do like a book, there will still be at least one thing that you find problematic. But before you go off on a long rage tangent about a novel, here is a guide:

1. If you do finish the book, close it. Sit back and take a breather. No, seriously. Go for a nice walk around the block. Take a shower. Fold origami. Make cookies (I recommend this, not only does it give you something else to do, but you also finish with cookies). Give yourself at least an hour away from reading. DO NOT go on the internet. This is important. No internet for you yet.

2. Are you calm? Heart rate back to a healthy pace? Face no longer flushed from rage? If yes, proceed to step 3. If no, repeat step 1, and then come back.

3. Okay. Now you can go in the internet.  You can now write that review, but there’s a few things that you MUST remember as you do:

• You are telling people that you didn't like this book, but, more than that, you are telling people WHY you didn't like it. I’m far from a perfect reviewer, but it seems to me that part of the point of a review is to give others an impression of whether or not this was a book they might enjoy.
• All caps are great for expressing emotions, but get tired, and sounds confrontational, if your entire 200+ word negative review in entirely capitalized. Use the powers of capitalization, bold, and italics wisely and sparingly.
• Now, this is an important one. NO DEATH THREATS. No threats of violence of any sort. None. We are readers, not violent crazy people. I know you’re upset, but even threats with nothing behind them take your review from upset about at book to outright hostile toward another human being. Remember: attack the idea, not the person, just like in high school debates. Attacking an author, or anyone else, over the internet (or otherwise) is not cute.
• Please, please be coherent. There isn't any point to reviewing if it’s mostly you cursing, and nobody can follow the sentences.

I exercised my superior skill with Microsoft Paint to make you a checklist, possibly breaking my own rule about capital letters.

And always, always remember that the internet is not some empty void that you are shouting into. There are other people there. We are all examples for each other out here in the wilds of cyberspace. One person attacking another person and getting away with it gives other people the impression that it is okay to do that. It isn't. These things snowball, and suddenly we have a pitchfork bearing mob on our hands, and everyone else shaking their head and wondering why on Earth they bother reading reviews at all, and then nobody is happy.

Basically, remember to dislike a book in a reasonable way. Otherwise, you just come off as irrational, and I am going to have a hard time taking anything you say seriously. If you want to show me your point of view, tell me it with a cool head, and be ready to back yourself up. I'm far from perfect, and probably not the best person to be handing out advice, but reading books and talking about books (yes, even talking critically about books, even negatively reviewing books) should be something that you do because you love books, not out of hate.

Review: The Secrets of Lily Graves

Title: The Secrets of Lily Graves
Author: Sarah Strohmeyer
Genre: Mystery, Romance
Release Date: May 13, 2014
Goodreads

A Quick Introduction: Growing up with a family of female morticians, Lily Graves is used to the dead.  But when Erin Donahue, senior class president is found dead hours after attacking Lily in a jealous rage, Lily is pulled into a murder investigation- as one of the prime suspects, along with Erin's ex-boyfriend, Matt.

Out of Ten: 5/10

Review at a Glance: A fairly absorbing mystery, although aspects felt incomplete.

Review: This book felt more like an first draft that hadn't been fleshed out yet than a complete story. That said, once I started reading it, I didn't put it down until I finished it (in the early hours of the morning). It was a quick read, and took me about four hours to finish.

The characters and relationships were one aspect that made the story feel incomplete. The characters felt more like sketches than finished characters. Lily was raised living in a funeral home, and her family are morticians, so she's obviously quite comfortable around dead bodies and I would have liked to hear more about her home life, and participation in the family business. There were aspects of her character that I appreciated, though I would have liked more buildup. It would have been nice to see more about Matt's character, and his personality oustide of the whole romance. The romance could have done with more time to develop, or rather, more display that it had developed, since Lily and Matt knew each other before Erin's death. Though they weren't exactly seeing each other behind Erin's back, they weren't exactly not either, which I found dishonest, especially on Matt's part. Despite being told that they were interested in each other before, Lily and Matt didn't really seem to click from what was shown in the book. It was one of the aspects that could have been more built up.

Another aspect that would have benefited from more fleshing out was the plot itself. More time could have been taken between big reveals of new information, and it could have been interwoven with smaller pieces of information. As it was, the investigation seemed a bit too easy, and some pieces didn't weave together as well as they might have done if they had been plotted more carefully.

The writing was fairly simple. The story was told in first person, from Lily's perspective. This limited perspective worked well, since all information was revealed to the reader at the same time as it was revealed to Lily. As a matter of personal preference, I like when the information in a mystery is given to the reader at the same time as the character, rather than additional information being presented from time to time. I find it allows for a more interactive reading experience to solve the case along with the characters, so this worked for me. Despite the fact that the mystery wasn't terribly complicated or well planned out.

Overall, while this book could have done with more buildup in the areas of character, relationships and plot, it was still an alright mystery, and I didn't put it down until I finished.

Read-a-thon (again)

Click here for more information.

This one is a month long, I haven't done one this long before, but I missed out reading while I was travelling, just because things got so hectic between that and my course, and I would really like to get some more reading done this summer.

I don't really have a TBR (my TBR pile is more of a "oh look at all of the books I would like to read some day" pile than a "here are all of the books that I will be reading in the month of July, in order" pile. I think I will be pretty relaxed about the read-a-thon itself, maybe participating in some challenges or a readalong. I think that's about it.

Raven Cycle (re)Readathon

I'm participating in another readathon (well, this is more of a readalong, but lets not talk about that). I looked at this and thought to myself "Self, is there anything more productive than rereading the same book for, what, the sixth time?" to which I replied "No. No there is not." (I am, after all, a chronic rereader, and probably would have read this anyway.)

These are such fun books to think about, there's so much to them, and has some of the most interesting meta writers I have come across in book fandoms. There's just so much to them, and I'm looking forward to doing this reread. If you've read them, time to make if fresh in your mind. If you haven't, well, wouldn't it be nice to remedy that? (Look. There. You see that? That is the reason that I do not work in marketing.)

Anyway, for anyone who wants more information, or to sign up, click here.

Top Ten Classics I Want To Read

Top Ten Tuesdays are a weekly feature over at The Broke and The Bookish (that I am really terrible at doing consistently).

I often struggle with classics, but here's a list of classics that I hope to get to at some point. There are also so many that I want to read because I have (or will read) adaptations of the book, though there aren't any on the list. So, basically what I'm saying is that I have many classics I would like to read, and a lack of motivation to read them all.

The Silmarillion- I have tried to read it, but I need a solid amount of time to read this one. I have read The Lord of the Rings, and I feel like I should eventually finish it. It's  quite a dense read.

Dune- My mother actually told me about this a while ago, and I, for some reason, didn't read it.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy- I read a bit of it, but it was during a busy time in school, so I didn't end up finishing it before returning to the library.

Journey to the Center of the Earth- I would actually like to get around to reading several of Jules Verne's books.

The Giver- I seem to be the only person who didn't have to read this for elementary school English class, and I should get around to it at some point.

War of the Worlds- I can't not have some H.G. Wells on the list, since I haven't read his stuff yet, and I would like to.

Fahrenheit 451- Kind of dystopic. I've read a short story by Ray Bradbury, and really enjoyed it (it was a bit creepy... The Veldt).

The Chrysalids- Again, sounds dystopic and a bit dark , though I haven't heard too much about it.

Sabriel- I have yet to read this. I know there's a prequel coming out (or a companion), so maybe now is the time to read this book and the rest of the series.

Lord of the Flies- One day, when I am ready to be fundamentally disturbed, I will read this. Probably. One day. Maybe. I'm unsure about this one.

It was surprisingly difficult to limit myself to ten. I didn't realise I had that many classics that I have yet to read and would like to.

Three Weeks of Re-reads

Because I'm not sure if I'm going to have access to other books. Because I am traveling, and I will read things on my Kindle app, but I don't know what. Who knows.

This is basically why I don't know what will be posted in the next few weeks (and why I missed Top Ten Tuesdays... I was on a train).

Top Ten Books That Will Be In My Beach Bag This Summer

Top Ten Tuesdays are a weekly feature over at The Broke and The Bookish (that I am really terrible at doing consistently).

Well, probably not my beach bag. I'm not really a beach kind of person- I'm too fond of the quiet and beaches tend to be crowded. But light, fluffy (that's what people read when they go to beaches, right?) books I will be reading this summer if I can get my hands on them, I guess?

Mysteries, Spies and Secret Operations

I feel like this is a genre I should try to get back into. I like Nancy Drew as a child, so maybe it's time to try some 21st century girl detectives.

The Secrets of Lily Graves- this one seems mostly fun and light (besides, you know, the murder), and about as contemporary as it gets for me (maybe pushing it- I'm not exactly a contemporary fan).

Blonde Ops-it sounds like a fun mystery, and again, about as close to "contemporary" as I dare to tread (I've never had much interest in the genre). Though there seems to be a love triangle... so maybe not...

Spies and Prejudice-again mystery, fun, treading in contemporary.

A Touch of Magic

Because, really, what's a day without that?

The Colour of Magic-I've only read one Terry Pratchett book (Nation) and really enjoyed it... though I'm not sure if I'm ready for the massive undertaking that is Discworld... 

My Super Sweet Sixteenth Century- nonsensical time travel fluff, because why not?

Newt's Emerald- could be fun.

And I think that's it... because I'm somehow drawing a blank here, maybe if I wasn't such a procrastinator, I would have the time to come up with more. Part of the issue with me is that, unless it's part of a series I'm reading, I don't often plan when or where I read a book. I just bring home a giant pile from the library, and pick them up whenever. If I were to go to a beach, I would likely bring whatever it was that I picked up earlier, whatever I'm in the middle of at the time.