Tagged: kate
The Wise Woman’s Tale by Phillipa Bowers
(Cover picture courtesy of Goodreads.)
Kate Barnes is 14 years old when she first experiences the strange gifts she has inherited from her grandmother’s side of the family. She has a vivid waking dream, a memory of an earlier life centuries before when she was murdered by an angry mob who believed her to be a witch. Her grandmother decides the time is right to reveal to Kate some family secrets, including the ancient cave that houses the family tomb. Just as Kate is learning to develop her second sight, her education with her grandmother is interrupted when her father insists she return home. He is determined that Kate forget her grandmother’s teachings and get a job in order to help support their growing family. But nothing will keep Kate from her destiny: to take her grandmother’s place as local wise woman and guardian of the mysterious cave.
If there’s one word I could use to describe this book it would have to be ‘confusing’ or ‘pointless’. Throughout the book I felt like Phillipa Bowers meant to impart some knowledge to the reader, to get to the point of the story but at the end I just felt confused. Basically, what was the point of writing this story? It wasn’t particularly entertaining, there were no great insights and the writing was mediocre at best.
Where do I start with the writing? Sometimes Phillipa Bowers tries to make the characters speak in a dialect characteristic of their social upbringing and the area they live in and other times it sounds like they’re almost speaking a more modern dialect. Her writing has absolutely no transitions whatsoever, which is in part why this story is so confusing. One minute Betty is a bratty four-year-old (as far as I can tell) and the next minute she’s darn near 13. How the heck did that happen? If there was a time jump she didn’t make it very obvious at all and if there was no time jump she should have done a better job making Betty’s age clear. It’s just plain confusing.
Since the writing was so confusing, the characters were bland at best. Kate is a stupid, naive young girl who doesn’t know how to say no to anyone. That seems typical for the times but she never really grows out of it. She never really realizes what is going to make her happy and her relationship with her younger sister Betty is just plain bizarre, even considering the circumstances. Part of the problem is that when a major change happens in the story, there’s no build-up to it. Suddenly her mum dies, her brother leaves, she moves out, her grandmother dies, etc. There’s just no transitioning.
I can’t call the plot fast-paced in all honesty because I struggled through this book. If the writing had been of a better quality this easily could have been a great read. However, since the writing was of such a poor quality the plot was all over the place and I had no idea what was happening half the time. This was just a really confusing story and I honestly couldn’t recommend it to anyone.
I give this book 1/5 stars.
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The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater
(Cover picture courtesy of Book Box Daily.)
It happens at the start of every November: the Scorpio Races. Riders attempt to keep hold of their water horses long enough to make it to the finish line. Some riders live. Others die.
At age nineteen, Sean Kendrick is the returning champion. He is a young man of few words, and if he has any fears, he keeps them buried deep, where no one else can see them.
Puck Connolly is different. She never meant to ride in the Scorpio Races. But fate hasn’t given her much of a chance. So she enters the competition — the first girl ever to do so. She is in no way prepared for what is going to happen.
Well I suppose that The Scorpio Races at least has good descriptions. That’s pretty much all the praise I can give this book.
This is the first book I’ve read by Maggie Stiefvater and it will very likely be the last. The Scorpio Races is a book that’s 404 pages long that tells a non-existent story. (Spoilers ahead.) Puck, or Kate as she’s properly called, is a young girl living on a mysterious island that has caipall uisce. Essentially they’re vicious, flesh-eating horses that live in the water. And the crazy people on the island (the ones that stay there anyway) race them on the first of every single November. Kate’s older brother is leaving for the mainland to make a better life for himself and his orphaned siblings but oh no, Kate can’t have that! She decides, on a whim, to enter the Scorpio Races in order to delay her brother’s departure…by one whole month. Yep, that’s her great plan. Maggie Stiefvater later inserts further drama about the house coming close to being foreclosed on but it just seems like a lame justification for Kate’s stupidity.
I should have liked Sean as a character but I couldn’t muster up the energy to give a crap about him. He works for an awful man because he wants to buy the horse he’s become attached to. That’s it. He often speaks with the mainland horse buyer George Holly, but Holly’s main purpose as a character is to offer exposition and generally pad the length of the novel. He serves no useful purpose, believe me. And it seems the only purpose Sean has in the end is to save Kate’s stupid butt when she decides to enter the Scorpio Races on a regular horse. Amongst flesh-eating caipall uisce. Does her stupidity have no end?
I nearly fell asleep by the time the races started. The races start on page 380 in a book that’s 404 pages long. The rest of the novel is meaningless ‘training’ sequences that always seem to end in forced, awkward ‘romance’ between Kate and Sean. It just seems like added drama rather than a genuine romance. I mean, if George Holly hadn’t said that Sean and Kate obviously had feelings for each other I really don’t think I would have noticed. There’s a fine line between subtle and non-existent.
Ugh, for a novel with a great premise, The Scorpio Races was a complete bomb. To be honest I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone.
I give this book 0.5/5 stars.