How do you solve a problem like having to write a review about the last book in a great YA series? It feels impossible. Thank god I wasn’t doing Cannonball Read when the 7th Harry Potter book came out. My review would have just been a string of “I don’t knows” and “oh my gods” and “I can’t evens.” I don’t want to summarize the book because spoilers, so maybe I’ll just talk around the plot. Stiefvater took on the Herculean task of wrapping up […]
Bad Priestess
Half Cannonball! Charmed Life is the story of Eric Chant (called Cat) and his sister Gwendolen, who are orphaned in the first few pages of the book and eventually wind up living with a mysterious, peculiar man called Chrestomanci, who takes charge of their schooling as well. Gwendolen is a promising young witch, but Cat doesn’t seem to have any magical talent. OR DOES HE? Of course, we’ve seen this before, with a luckless British orphan who doesn’t seem to be anybody special, who gets […]
This series is living up to its promise
3.5 stars. I try not to pay much attention to reviews of books I know I’m definitely going to read soon because I don’t want my opinion to be tainted by anyone else’s, but for some reason I had it in my head that this third book in The Raven Cycle series wasn’t as well received as the first two books. Luckily, that was not the case for me and I loved Blue Lily, Lily Blue just as much as The Raven Boys and The […]
Unfinished Symphony
This novel was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and praised by one of my favorite authors, Geraldine Brooks. It is a piece of dystopian fiction imagining an England where music is used to control a population that can no longer read and where memories have disappeared. All anyone needs to know is imparted through the carillon chimes each day. While the conceit is exceedingly clever, and the story often engaging, I found myself ultimately disappointed. This is a case where the reader can’t see […]
Does *anyone* who’s read this book think Richard is a hero?
I’m about to get all up in this book’s craw for some terrible choices on the part of the author, and the part of his characters, but I would like to state up front that I am not opposed to characters making choices that are morally questionable. If characters–especially “the good guys”–don’t mess up every now and again, we usually find them flat or boring. What I AM opposed to is characters making morally questionable choices without either the characters or the author bothering to […]
This book will chew you up and spit you out
What the fuck did I just read? I think I liked it? It definitely kept me guessing, that’s for sure. This book isn’t for the faint hearted. There’s lots of gore, violence, and even a little horror. I wouldn’t say it was a scary book per se, but a lot of crazy shit happens in The Library at Mount Char. The narrative flits back and forth between the main character, Carolyn, as an adult and as a child. As a child her parents were killed […]
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