What is a starred review? Seriously, aren't they all "starred"? I don't know a single book review site that allows you to give a book a 0 star rating. So by definition, all the reviews are starred. The back of this book though, Rick Yancey's The Infinite Sea, features three "starred reviews" that praise the first book in this seriously awesome series, The 5th Wave. "Amazing!" "Gripping!" "A Sure Thing!"
And okay, they do not lie. This is a damned good series so far. I don't have any free time (really, I don't), but I just sat down with this book and read it in about five hours. Should I have spent five hours reading? Probably not.
Definitely not.
Could I have stopped?
Not a chance.
The Infinite Sea is the second book in an absolutely must-read YA sci-fi series. You will not be disappointed. Aliens, mind games, twists, unforgettable characters - it's all there. And you know how second books in a series tend to feel a little disappointing? Like, it's good, but it's not as good as the first book . . . wrong! The Infinite Sea is just as good as The 5th Wave. It even answers some questions we've had since the beginning, some really important questions - which second books in series rarely do. Second books often feel like watered-down bridges that are just getting you to the third book, in which the real important stuff happens. Not The Infinite Sea. There's a considerable amount of progress, many questions get answered, many things are discovered - but don't worry! There's still plenty left over for the third book. Not everything adds up yet. You still need to know what happens next.
I still need to know what happens next.
Excellent work, Mr. Yancey.
Consider this a 5-starred review.
Showing posts with label Review. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Review. Show all posts
Saturday, October 3, 2015
Wednesday, July 22, 2015
Review of The Accident Season by Moira Fowley-Doyle
The Accident Season
by Moira Fowley-Doyle
Release date: August 18, 2015
Kathy Dawson Books, 304 pages
Source: Penguin's First to Read eGalley
The short of it:
Buried beneath a haze of magic and mystery lies a secret story that too many people know all too well. Spooky and sensual, The Accident Season is a must-read not just for lovers of the paranormal, but also for readers of contemporary YA fiction.
The long of it:
The Accident Season has something I don't see a lot in YA Lit: magical realism. While the novel was a pleasure to read as a supernatural mystery, what really bumped it an extra .5 stars for me was that underneath all the magic was the kernel of an ugly, all-too-real, truth. I won't say anything more, as slowly figuring out this truth was even more interesting to me as a reader than trying to figure out if the magic was real or if Cara was crazy.
The Accident Season is spooky and magical at every turn; somehow even the rhythm of the words is haunting, reminiscent of a chant. Main character Cara's life seems to exist outside everyone else's reality, replete with changelings, witches, Tarot cards, secrets collected by girls everyone forgets, red buttons in haunted houses, and of course, accidents that may not be accidents at all.
For US readers, the foreign Irish setting will lend a certain allure to the novel, and complement the feeling that magic is just at the edges of your vision, lurking in the shadows of the trees and the whispering of the river.
I think one of the things that really intrigued me about The Accident Season is that it didn't come out and say it's a paranormal mystery, but instead sort of danced around the subject, leaving so many possibilities open as to the origin of the accident season. I couldn't tell if "haunting" meant it was going to be a ghost story, because the accidents sounded like a fairy thing, and maybe there were witches too - and then I realized that it didn't matter to me what creature was responsible, because the story already appealed to me.
My rating? 4.5 out of 5 stars
by Moira Fowley-Doyle
Release date: August 18, 2015
Kathy Dawson Books, 304 pages
Source: Penguin's First to Read eGalley
"For fans of We Were Liars and How I Live Now comes a haunting, sexy, magically realistic debut
about a famiy caught between a violent history, a taboo romance, and the mysteries lurking in their own backyard.
Every October Cara and her family become inexplicably and unavoidably accident-prone. Some years it's bad, like the season when her father died, and some years it's just a lot of cuts and scrapes. This accident season--when Cara, her ex-stepbrother, Sam, and her best friend, Bea, are 17--is going to be a bad one. But not for the reasons they think.
Cara is about to learn that not all the scars left by the accident season are physical: There's a long-hidden family secret underneath the bumps and bruises. This is the year Cara will finally fall desperately in love, when she'll start discovering the painful truth about the adults in her life, and when she'll uncover the dark origins of the accident season--whether she’s ready or not."- from Goodreads.com
The short of it:
Buried beneath a haze of magic and mystery lies a secret story that too many people know all too well. Spooky and sensual, The Accident Season is a must-read not just for lovers of the paranormal, but also for readers of contemporary YA fiction.
The long of it:
The Accident Season has something I don't see a lot in YA Lit: magical realism. While the novel was a pleasure to read as a supernatural mystery, what really bumped it an extra .5 stars for me was that underneath all the magic was the kernel of an ugly, all-too-real, truth. I won't say anything more, as slowly figuring out this truth was even more interesting to me as a reader than trying to figure out if the magic was real or if Cara was crazy.
The Accident Season is spooky and magical at every turn; somehow even the rhythm of the words is haunting, reminiscent of a chant. Main character Cara's life seems to exist outside everyone else's reality, replete with changelings, witches, Tarot cards, secrets collected by girls everyone forgets, red buttons in haunted houses, and of course, accidents that may not be accidents at all.
For US readers, the foreign Irish setting will lend a certain allure to the novel, and complement the feeling that magic is just at the edges of your vision, lurking in the shadows of the trees and the whispering of the river.
I think one of the things that really intrigued me about The Accident Season is that it didn't come out and say it's a paranormal mystery, but instead sort of danced around the subject, leaving so many possibilities open as to the origin of the accident season. I couldn't tell if "haunting" meant it was going to be a ghost story, because the accidents sounded like a fairy thing, and maybe there were witches too - and then I realized that it didn't matter to me what creature was responsible, because the story already appealed to me.
My rating? 4.5 out of 5 stars
Sunday, May 3, 2015
Review of The Ruins of Ambrai by Melanie Rawn
The Ruins of Ambrai
by Melanie Rawn
Publication date: March 7th, 1997
Pan Books, 928 pages
Source: Borrowed from a friend
The short of it:
With the intricacy of R.R. Martin's popular series A Song of Ice and Fire, the spywork and cultural undertones of Tamora Pierce's Daughter of the Lioness series, and Melanie Rawn's own unique and very clever gender role reversal twist, The Ruins of Ambrai is a must-read, especially for lovers of strong female characters.
The long of it:
I did it! I finally finished this monster of a book. It took me a little longer than usual because my little one is teething and needs constant comfort and distraction...and, okay, I was stuck at the last 100 pages of resolution, to be honest. Once I knew how the climax, which had been building for about 700 pages, turned out, it was hard to find the motivation to keep going. But as soon as I finished it, I ran downstairs to go pick up the next book, because these books may be long, but so worth it. So let's get to the review, shall we?
The political plotting and covert operations, all set in the fantasy world of Lenfell, reminded me a lot of Tamora Pierce's Daughter of the Lioness series, which is one of my absolute favorites. However, The Ruins of Ambrai is definitely not a YA pageturner; in fact, the intricacy of the political and cultural webs rivals the now-popular A Song of Ice and Fire. That means that sometimes you have to get through chunks of world-building before getting to a bit of action, but, like in A Song of Ice and Fire, it's so, so worth it. And thankfully, Melanie Rawn is much more merciful with her characters than R.R. Martin.
Having compared this book to two other entire series, I'd like to go into what makes it totally unique from anything else I've ever read: it's set in a true matriarchal society. Sure, I've read books that called their societies matriarchal, but instead of women ruling like men have for centuries in the real world, these societies were just gender-equal, or attempted to be. It took reading Melanie Rawn's version to realize that they hadn't been very good imaginings of matriarchies. Here's what I mean: in The Ruins of Ambrai, men are constantly knitting. Knitting. And mending clothes. And decorating houses. And raising children. And arranging flowers. But it's not just that the men are doing all the "girly" things; Rawn even changes how people in the world of Lenfell perceive certain activities. Men are allowed to enjoy leisure activities like hawking and hunting, but these are considered the activities of the weaker sex. One of my favorite moments in the book is when a male character is being described as the perfect "modest male" for being covered in clothes from head to toe, including a hair-covering coif. It's just too funny.
Do you need to have some sort of perverse sense of feminist satisfaction to enjoy this book? Not at all! What I really enjoyed about this matriarchal world is the shock value of imagining this totally upside down society. I've always considered myself a woman-empowerer, but the fact that I was thrown off-balance every time a man sat down to knit in this book really opened my eyes to how deeply ingrained our patriarchal way of thinking is. So not only was the gender role reversal amusing, but it was also enlightening and thought-provoking.
Oh, and the magic and battling were super cool too.
My rating? 4.9 out of 5 stars.
by Melanie Rawn
Publication date: March 7th, 1997
Pan Books, 928 pages
Source: Borrowed from a friend
"A thousand years ago, Mageborns fled prejudice and persecution to colonize the planet Lenfell--a perfect refuge for those whose powers were perceived as a threat by people not gifted with magic. But the greater the magic, the greater the peril. Lenfell was soon devastated by a war between rival Mageborn factions that polluted the land with Wild Magic and unleashed hideous specters called Wraithenbeasts. Now, generations later, someone is planning another war on the still crippled planet that will tear three Mageborn sisters apart."
- Goodreads.com
The short of it:
With the intricacy of R.R. Martin's popular series A Song of Ice and Fire, the spywork and cultural undertones of Tamora Pierce's Daughter of the Lioness series, and Melanie Rawn's own unique and very clever gender role reversal twist, The Ruins of Ambrai is a must-read, especially for lovers of strong female characters.
The long of it:
I did it! I finally finished this monster of a book. It took me a little longer than usual because my little one is teething and needs constant comfort and distraction...and, okay, I was stuck at the last 100 pages of resolution, to be honest. Once I knew how the climax, which had been building for about 700 pages, turned out, it was hard to find the motivation to keep going. But as soon as I finished it, I ran downstairs to go pick up the next book, because these books may be long, but so worth it. So let's get to the review, shall we?
The political plotting and covert operations, all set in the fantasy world of Lenfell, reminded me a lot of Tamora Pierce's Daughter of the Lioness series, which is one of my absolute favorites. However, The Ruins of Ambrai is definitely not a YA pageturner; in fact, the intricacy of the political and cultural webs rivals the now-popular A Song of Ice and Fire. That means that sometimes you have to get through chunks of world-building before getting to a bit of action, but, like in A Song of Ice and Fire, it's so, so worth it. And thankfully, Melanie Rawn is much more merciful with her characters than R.R. Martin.
Having compared this book to two other entire series, I'd like to go into what makes it totally unique from anything else I've ever read: it's set in a true matriarchal society. Sure, I've read books that called their societies matriarchal, but instead of women ruling like men have for centuries in the real world, these societies were just gender-equal, or attempted to be. It took reading Melanie Rawn's version to realize that they hadn't been very good imaginings of matriarchies. Here's what I mean: in The Ruins of Ambrai, men are constantly knitting. Knitting. And mending clothes. And decorating houses. And raising children. And arranging flowers. But it's not just that the men are doing all the "girly" things; Rawn even changes how people in the world of Lenfell perceive certain activities. Men are allowed to enjoy leisure activities like hawking and hunting, but these are considered the activities of the weaker sex. One of my favorite moments in the book is when a male character is being described as the perfect "modest male" for being covered in clothes from head to toe, including a hair-covering coif. It's just too funny.
Do you need to have some sort of perverse sense of feminist satisfaction to enjoy this book? Not at all! What I really enjoyed about this matriarchal world is the shock value of imagining this totally upside down society. I've always considered myself a woman-empowerer, but the fact that I was thrown off-balance every time a man sat down to knit in this book really opened my eyes to how deeply ingrained our patriarchal way of thinking is. So not only was the gender role reversal amusing, but it was also enlightening and thought-provoking.
Oh, and the magic and battling were super cool too.
My rating? 4.9 out of 5 stars.
Saturday, April 4, 2015
Review of The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey
The 5th Wave
by Rick Yancey
Publication date: May 7th, 2013
G.P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers, 457 pages
Source: Purchased
The short of it:
I hope that if aliens ever do attack the Earth, they don't bother to read our literature first, because if they get their hands on this book we are so, so screwed.
The long of it:
It's no secret that the man-made dystopian future is all the rage in YA Lit these days. (Read: The Hunger Games, Divergent, The Giver, The Maze Runner, and The 100 all making it to the big screen last year.) Rick Yancey enters this intimidatingly successful "dystopian future" arena with a secret weapon: aliens. What a great way to remind us that there is something more terrible than making children battle to the death in entertainment arenas. After all, gladiators aren't new to the history of humanity. Humans have been doing terrible things to humans pretty much since the beginning of known history. The 5th Wave has plenty of that too, but with the terrifying addition of total loss of control under the boot of a superior being, an Other. The idea that the entire human race could be powerless - now that is a powerful, inevitable apocalypse.
Despite the fact that the main characters are struggling to survive on basically every page, this book isn't just action. There are some amazing deep thoughts in here, and the writing is often lyrical, with lines so beautiful I had to pause to really savor them. Seriously, fantastic writing. Let me give you an example (don't worry, it's not a spoiler):
I do have one teeny tiny complaint, something that nagged me throughout the whole book: the book switches from present tense to past tense a lot, and if there's a system to it, it wasn't instinctive enough for my taste. I found it confusing at times and had to re-read to figure out what was going on. I understand and appreciate that present-tense really complements The 5th Wave's action-packed story; I just wish it had stuck to it more.
Equal parts funny, lyrical, and gritty, I definitely recommend The 5th Wave to basically everyone who enjoys YA Lit, specifically sci-fi and fantasy, even more specifically apocalyptic or dystopian stories.
My rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
by Rick Yancey
Publication date: May 7th, 2013
G.P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers, 457 pages
Source: Purchased
"After the 1st wave, only darkness remains. After the 2nd, only the lucky escape. And after the 3rd, only the unlucky survive. After the 4th wave, only one rule applies: trust no one.
Now, it’s the dawn of the 5th wave, and on a lonely stretch of highway, Cassie runs from Them. The beings who only look human, who roam the countryside killing anyone they see. Who have scattered Earth’s last survivors. To stay alone is to stay alive, Cassie believes, until she meets Evan Walker.
Beguiling and mysterious, Evan Walker may be Cassie’s only hope for rescuing her brother—or even saving herself. But Cassie must choose: between trust and despair, between defiance and surrender, between life and death. To give up or to get up."
- Goodreads.com
The short of it:
I hope that if aliens ever do attack the Earth, they don't bother to read our literature first, because if they get their hands on this book we are so, so screwed.
The long of it:
It's no secret that the man-made dystopian future is all the rage in YA Lit these days. (Read: The Hunger Games, Divergent, The Giver, The Maze Runner, and The 100 all making it to the big screen last year.) Rick Yancey enters this intimidatingly successful "dystopian future" arena with a secret weapon: aliens. What a great way to remind us that there is something more terrible than making children battle to the death in entertainment arenas. After all, gladiators aren't new to the history of humanity. Humans have been doing terrible things to humans pretty much since the beginning of known history. The 5th Wave has plenty of that too, but with the terrifying addition of total loss of control under the boot of a superior being, an Other. The idea that the entire human race could be powerless - now that is a powerful, inevitable apocalypse.
Despite the fact that the main characters are struggling to survive on basically every page, this book isn't just action. There are some amazing deep thoughts in here, and the writing is often lyrical, with lines so beautiful I had to pause to really savor them. Seriously, fantastic writing. Let me give you an example (don't worry, it's not a spoiler):
"Sometimes in my tent, late at night, I think I can hear the stars scraping against the sky." -pg. 29 (Hardback)Anyone who has ever studied poetry can appreciate how carefully, beautifully crafted this sentence is. Anyone who hasn't studied poetry can appreciate that it's a kickass line.
I do have one teeny tiny complaint, something that nagged me throughout the whole book: the book switches from present tense to past tense a lot, and if there's a system to it, it wasn't instinctive enough for my taste. I found it confusing at times and had to re-read to figure out what was going on. I understand and appreciate that present-tense really complements The 5th Wave's action-packed story; I just wish it had stuck to it more.
Equal parts funny, lyrical, and gritty, I definitely recommend The 5th Wave to basically everyone who enjoys YA Lit, specifically sci-fi and fantasy, even more specifically apocalyptic or dystopian stories.
My rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
Wednesday, March 25, 2015
Review of The Darkest Part of the Forest by Holly Black
By Holly Black
Publication date: January 13, 2015
Little, Brown, 328 pages
Source: Purchased
Source: Purchased
"Children can have a cruel, absolute sense of justice. Children can kill a monster and feel quite proud of themselves. A girl can look at her brother and believe they’re destined to be a knight and a bard who battle evil. She can believe she’s found the thing she’s been made for.
Hazel lives with her brother, Ben, in the strange town of Fairfold where humans and fae exist side by side. The faeries’ seemingly harmless magic attracts tourists, but Hazel knows how dangerous they can be, and she knows how to stop them. Or she did, once.
At the center of it all, there is a glass coffin in the woods. It rests right on the ground and in it sleeps a boy with horns on his head and ears as pointed as knives. Hazel and Ben were both in love with him as children. The boy has slept there for generations, never waking.
Until one day, he does…
As the world turns upside down, Hazel tries to remember her years pretending to be a knight. But swept up in new love, shifting loyalties, and the fresh sting of betrayal, will it be enough?"
- Goodreads.com description
The short of it:
Imaginative story with a crazy-awesome twist, but the romances are kind of "meh."
The long of it:
When I read my first Holly Black book in ninth grade, I was fascinated in that horror movie, "it's too terrifying to look away" sort of way. I had picked up Tithe because a) the title word looked cool and I didn't know what it meant, which was impressive considering my impressive vocabulary, and b) I had just read A Midsummer Night's Dream in school and was going crazy for fairy stories.
Tithe took me by storm. Shakespeare's fairies were no angels, but Black's faeries were just plain wicked. And there was this gripping, destructive chemistry between main characters Kaye and Roiben that kept you glued to the pages. Cuddled up in bed, hiding beneath the blankets, I read Tithe in one go.
Which is why when I saw The Darkest Part of the Forest on the shelf at Barnes & Noble, its jacket promising "new love," I had to have it. I even got the signed copy. Anything for another toxic, yet not sappy or annoying (shout-out to Twilight, I know we're all thinking it) romance.
I have to say that in that regard, and pretty much only that regard, I was a little disappointed. The Darkest Part of the Forest had Tithe's same horror-movie appeal, but the love stories (yes, plural) felt a little underdeveloped. They both just moved so fast as to seem shallow and insubstantial.
Bad stuff aside, Holly Black's writing is as lovely as ever, and the faeries as clever, wicked, and magical. TDPF's world was still just as dangerously beautiful and bizarre as Tithe's, and the story of the boy in the coffin was a nice twist to an old fairy tale. I don't think the jacket description does any justice to the main character's story. Hazel is stuck on the seriously cool bad side of a bargain with the fae. In fact, I wish more of the book was focused on that, instead of the sophomoric romances. The cool part was just too short! Hazel figured out her problem too quickly.
My rating: 3 out of 5 stars
Tuesday, March 10, 2015
Review of Clariel: The Lost Abhorsen by Garth Nix
Clariel: The Lost Abhorsen
By Garth Nix
Publication date: October 14, 2015
HarperCollins, 382 pages
Source: Purchased
The short of it:
Had one or two good moments for Old Kingdom trilogy fans, but wouldn't particularly recommend to newcomers to the series.
The long of it:
It seems appropriate to begin my book review blog with the first book I absolutely would have loved buying on release date, but could never in a million years have managed, considering I was 41 weeks pregnant and gave birth the very next day. So I'm about five months late on this review, but I'm too much of an Abhorsen fan to care.
The only problem? This wasn't a very Abhorsen-y book.
Clariel is set "approximately six hundred years before the birth of Sabriel," the book announces before the prologue, and as an Old Kingdom fan, I got chills. I couldn't wait to see how this new Abhorsen tied into Sabriel's story. Maybe she was Touchstone's mom? Or was she the Abhorsen who created the Remembrancing tools Lirael found in the Library? Something about the name Clariel set off bells (ha ha), but it's been almost a year since I reread the Old Kingdom books and I couldn't quite put my finger on the reference, which in a way was even more exciting.
I turned page after page in anticipation of finding the connection. As the book progressed through pages and pages about clothing, I realized that this was pretty much the only thing keeping me interested. I knew from the previous Old Kingdom books that Garth Nix likes to take his time introducing the character, her situation, and her world. Sometimes hundreds of pages of time. But in Sabriel and Lirael, his world-building was so interesting that I didn't really mind. Who wouldn't want to read two hundred pages on the interplay between a steampunky regular world and the magical medieval world just a wall away, or four hundred pages of description of a crazy-awesome library in a mystical glacier of enigmatic all-seeing women?
But two hundred pages on how a girl wants to go back to a regular old forest got pretty old pretty fast. Sure, it's a "Great" forest, but in comparison the Old Kingdom/Ancelstierre and Clayr's Glacier worlds, not to mention the incredible Abhorsen's House, Clariel's "Great Forest" is just a little...blah. And Clariel just constantly drills it in: forest, forest, forest. Alone, alone, alone. That's all she single-mindedly thinks about, which makes her a very hard character to relate to. Not very many people want to be totally alone all the time. At least Lirael was a lone wolf because she felt different from everyone around her, which is a relatable problem, and not because she was completely antisocial like Clariel.
Don't get me wrong; I definitely found some things to love in Clariel: The Lost Abhorsen. I liked that she was a berserker, which was a little link to Touchstone from Sabriel, and made for a really interesting character trait. I liked that this book goes more into Free Magic sorcery than the others, too. I really enjoyed the moment when I realized who exactly Clariel was. But none of these things were new or original to Clariel's story. They were all throwbacks from the other books. And where were the terrifying Dead, the perilous forays into Death, the quests of epic proportions? Not to mention that Ancelstierre basically existed only to provide the annoying ritual of tea, and that the most interesting aspect of the entire Old Kingdom world, the good necromancers with the special magic bells every true fan has memorized the names and abilities of, was basically totally ruined, since Abhorsens were "out of fashion" and completely useless during Clariel's time.
I wanted to give this book a five star rating, I really did. I wanted to read this book and fall in love with the Old Kingdom all over again, but that's just not what happened. I rode the high from figuring out where I knew Clariel's name from all the way to the last page, but when I look back at the entire story, I'm disappointed all over again. The jacket calls Clariel a "prequel to the Old Kingdom Series," but if I had read this book before Sabriel, Lirael, and Abhorsen, I don't think I would have bothered reading the rest of the series. So, for those of you who like reading a series in chronological order, don't! If you simply must read Clariel, read the Old Kingdom trilogy first. Fall in love with Garth Nix's writing first. Then read this book because you just can't imagine leaving any Abhorsen lore unexplored.
My rating: 3 out of 5 stars
By Garth Nix
Publication date: October 14, 2015
HarperCollins, 382 pages
Source: Purchased
"Sixteen-year-old Clariel is not adjusting well to her new life in the city of Belisaere, the capital of the Old Kingdom. She misses roaming freely within the forests of Estwael, and she feels trapped within the stone city walls. And in Belisaere she is forced to follow the plans, plots and demands of everyone, from her parents to her maid, to the sinister Guildmaster Kilp. Clariel can see her freedom slipping away. It seems too that the city itself is descending into chaos, as the ancient rules binding Abhorsen, King and Clayr appear to be disintegrating.
With the discovery of a dangerous Free Magic creature loose in the city, Clariel is given the chance both to prove her worth and make her escape. But events spin rapidly out of control. Clariel finds herself more trapped than ever, until help comes from an unlikely source. But the help comes at a terrible cost. Clariel must question the motivations and secret hearts of everyone around her - and it is herself she must question most of all."
- Goodreads.com description
The short of it:
Had one or two good moments for Old Kingdom trilogy fans, but wouldn't particularly recommend to newcomers to the series.
The long of it:
It seems appropriate to begin my book review blog with the first book I absolutely would have loved buying on release date, but could never in a million years have managed, considering I was 41 weeks pregnant and gave birth the very next day. So I'm about five months late on this review, but I'm too much of an Abhorsen fan to care.
The only problem? This wasn't a very Abhorsen-y book.
Clariel is set "approximately six hundred years before the birth of Sabriel," the book announces before the prologue, and as an Old Kingdom fan, I got chills. I couldn't wait to see how this new Abhorsen tied into Sabriel's story. Maybe she was Touchstone's mom? Or was she the Abhorsen who created the Remembrancing tools Lirael found in the Library? Something about the name Clariel set off bells (ha ha), but it's been almost a year since I reread the Old Kingdom books and I couldn't quite put my finger on the reference, which in a way was even more exciting.
I turned page after page in anticipation of finding the connection. As the book progressed through pages and pages about clothing, I realized that this was pretty much the only thing keeping me interested. I knew from the previous Old Kingdom books that Garth Nix likes to take his time introducing the character, her situation, and her world. Sometimes hundreds of pages of time. But in Sabriel and Lirael, his world-building was so interesting that I didn't really mind. Who wouldn't want to read two hundred pages on the interplay between a steampunky regular world and the magical medieval world just a wall away, or four hundred pages of description of a crazy-awesome library in a mystical glacier of enigmatic all-seeing women?
But two hundred pages on how a girl wants to go back to a regular old forest got pretty old pretty fast. Sure, it's a "Great" forest, but in comparison the Old Kingdom/Ancelstierre and Clayr's Glacier worlds, not to mention the incredible Abhorsen's House, Clariel's "Great Forest" is just a little...blah. And Clariel just constantly drills it in: forest, forest, forest. Alone, alone, alone. That's all she single-mindedly thinks about, which makes her a very hard character to relate to. Not very many people want to be totally alone all the time. At least Lirael was a lone wolf because she felt different from everyone around her, which is a relatable problem, and not because she was completely antisocial like Clariel.
Don't get me wrong; I definitely found some things to love in Clariel: The Lost Abhorsen. I liked that she was a berserker, which was a little link to Touchstone from Sabriel, and made for a really interesting character trait. I liked that this book goes more into Free Magic sorcery than the others, too. I really enjoyed the moment when I realized who exactly Clariel was. But none of these things were new or original to Clariel's story. They were all throwbacks from the other books. And where were the terrifying Dead, the perilous forays into Death, the quests of epic proportions? Not to mention that Ancelstierre basically existed only to provide the annoying ritual of tea, and that the most interesting aspect of the entire Old Kingdom world, the good necromancers with the special magic bells every true fan has memorized the names and abilities of, was basically totally ruined, since Abhorsens were "out of fashion" and completely useless during Clariel's time.
I wanted to give this book a five star rating, I really did. I wanted to read this book and fall in love with the Old Kingdom all over again, but that's just not what happened. I rode the high from figuring out where I knew Clariel's name from all the way to the last page, but when I look back at the entire story, I'm disappointed all over again. The jacket calls Clariel a "prequel to the Old Kingdom Series," but if I had read this book before Sabriel, Lirael, and Abhorsen, I don't think I would have bothered reading the rest of the series. So, for those of you who like reading a series in chronological order, don't! If you simply must read Clariel, read the Old Kingdom trilogy first. Fall in love with Garth Nix's writing first. Then read this book because you just can't imagine leaving any Abhorsen lore unexplored.
My rating: 3 out of 5 stars
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