Category: Book Review
Unspoken (Book 1 in The Lynburn Legacy) by Sarah Rees Brennan
Image Courtesy of Goodreads
Synopsis: Kami Glass has been friends with Jared her whole life. The catch is that he’s in her head. What if he turned out to be real? And what if he was a Lynburn?
Kami’s life becomes interesting as the mysterious Lynburns return to the sleepy town of Sorry-in-the-Vale. Owners of the dark Manor on the hill, the Lynburns seem to be hiding their own secrets; secrets Kami is determined to find out.
The return of the Lynburns have also marked the occurrence of some deeply disturbing events in the town. Who is disturbing the peace of the woods? What secrets are the residents of Sorry-in-the-Vale, including Kami’s own mother hiding?
As an investigative reporter and editor of the school Newspaper, Kami is not one to back down in the face of danger. Yet what is she going to do now that Jared is real? How will the two of them cope with this new reality ? Can they trust each other? Most of all can their friendship survive in the real world?
Characters
Have you ever wondered why your perfect plans are shattered? Why a seemingly perfect romance ended? Why good luck strikes at strange times? Why life seems like a bunch of meaningless chaos?
There is a very simple answer to all of these questions. We were created by an ancient race of aliens and are nothing but characters in their stories, created to alleviate their boredom.
As soon as they are old enough to write, they are given a computer software program and a manual with only the most basic rules of their writing universe. In order to create a new character, they must collaborate with other aliens to make sure two human parents give birth to a child. This child will be under their control from the moment it is born until the moment it dies.
You are always subject to the whims of your creator. Everything you say, everything you do is controlled by them. Usually, the aliens have jotted down things they want to happen during your lifetime. But some aliens detest this and make random decisions as to where your life will go. This is where chaos comes from.
Our world is relatively new, but the aliens have become bored with it. The best writers among them have declared that the Earth is a cliché, boring universe. They decided they want to write in a new, more exciting world, so they took a special vote. It was this vote that decided how our world will end.
“Why don’t we let a black hole swallow their planet?”
“Nah, we’ve done that already.”
“What if the Earth spontaneously combusts?”
“That’s way too cliché!”
“Okay, why don’t we knock their planet out of orbit and send it crashing into the sun?”
“That’s a stupid idea.”
“Fine. How about we give all their world leaders bad cases of paranoia and see what happens?”
“Sure. Why not?”
And so, our world will not end with a bang, but with slow decay. Our increasingly paranoid world leaders will declare war on each other and humanity will slowly die out. But, since the aliens lost all interest in us, we have gained something we never had before: free will. It is now up to us to decide our fates—and the fate of our planet.
***
Just as some background on the story, I want to say that it was inspired by David Eagleman’s Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives and was originally written to be read aloud. So if you’re wondering why the language is so simplistic, there’s your answer.
Well, what did you think? If you have criticism, feel free to say it. I’m a book reviewer, after all; I wouldn’t be dishing out what I can’t take. And if you have praise, that’s fine too I suppose.
Anyway, merry Christmas to those of you that celebrate it! Now why are you still on the internet? Go spend time with your families!
Delirium by Lauren Oliver
(Cover picture courtesy of Lauren Oliver’s website.)
They say that the cure for love will make me happy and safe forever. And I’ve always believed them. Until now.
Now everything has changed. Now, I’d rather be infected with love for the tiniest sliver of a second than live a hundred years smothered by a lie.
And now since opera usually says things best, here are some lines from Verdi’s La Traviata:
Love is a heartbeat throughout the universe,
mysterious, altering,
the torment and delight of my heart.
It sounds better in the original Italian, but you get the point. Love is important; it’s in our everyday lives and it is one of two main forces that motivate people’s actions. (The other is greed.) But what happens if you remove one of those forces from the entire adult population of a country? You get Delirium, that’s what.
The main character, Lena (short for Magdalena) lives in a world where love is called amor deliria nervosa and is the only recognized mental illness anymore. That’s why when people turn 18 they must get an operation to ‘cure’ them. After that, they are safe from love and all the nasty consequences that usually come around because of it. But they never get to feel the ecstasy it brings either.
You can probably guess where this is going, right? You’d be right if you said that Lena will fall in love with a mysterious boy who is originally from the rebel movement but snuck his way into the city. Yes, I totally saw that coming as I was reading Delirium, but there are a few plot twists and Lauren Oliver at least tells the story well.
She does rely on the forbidden love factor a little too much if you’re reading this as an adult, but teens will love it. Lena is going through her first love, which is both awkward and amazing at the same time. For a teen that just experienced love for the first time or has yet to experience love, this is the perfect description of what it is like. So although I rolled my eyes at some parts of Delirium, on the whole it’s a well written story. It’s well written enough that I’ll be reading the sequel, Pandemonium, at any rate.
And for those of you that forget what love is like to the young, go see what Mozart says about it in his classic opera Le Nozze di Figaro:
I give this book 4/5 stars.
“Reached” by Ally Condie
Cassia’s journey began with an error, a momentary glitch in the otherwise perfect façade of the Society. After crossing canyons to break free, she waits, silk and paper smuggled against her skin, ready for the final chapter.
The wait is over.
One young woman has raged against those who threaten to keep away what matters most—family, love, choice. Her quiet revolution is about to explode into full-scale rebellion.
With exquisite prose, the emotionally gripping conclusion to the international–bestselling Matched trilogy returns Cassia, Ky, and Xander to the Society to save the one thing they have been denied for so long, the power to choose.
Much earlier this year I wrote reviews for the first two books in this series, Matched and Crossed where I admitted to liking the books more than I originally thought I would. I had high hopes for the concluding installment, figuring that Ally Condie would wrap the story up with some great action, interesting twists, and solid character development.
Imagine my surprise when Reached turned out to be none of those things.
Yes, the story of Cassia, Ky, and Xander gets wrapped up in a pretty little package at the end where most of them get what they are searching for after helping the Rising complete its power grab, or if not exactly what they want, an acceptable alternative, but along the way to that end result the book is incredibly flat and lacking in excitement or drive in my opinion.
As characters, especially leading characters, Cassia and Ky fell completely by the wayside. Cassia never changed from the beginning of the book to the end, she just kept doing the same thing over and over, never really learning anything from what was going on around her. Ky was the same way. As a pilot for the Rising he did his duty as he was given assignments but we never got to see him grow in an appreciable manner. I felt that both of them were incredibly boring which made reading their respective viewpoint chapters a bit of a challenge.
Xander on the other hand, is the one shining piece of Reached as he works to help not only the Rising in his role as medical spy, but also to help the general public of the Society as well. I wound up liking Xander as a character far more than anyone else in the trilogy by the time I was finished reading Reached. He showed growth, compassion, a hint of jealousy, acceptance of his fate, etc. The other two just got what they wanted and didn’t even seem to realize it.
I had high hopes for this book, I wanted a stellar ending to the story, but after easily being able to pick sides in the first two books I found I had a hard time seeing either the Rising or the Society as the villains or heroes of the people. Both seemed to have decent intentions, but really messed up putting them into action. As a result, I wasn’t really sure if I should be happy or not when I was finished.
For fans of the first two books, you should probably read Reached just to make sure you get the complete story, and some of you may even enjoy it quite a bit more than I did, but in the end it isn’t nearly as good a book as Matched or Crossed were; it almost seems as if it were forced in some ways.
Grade: D
Length: 384 pages
The Lioness and Her Knight by Gerald Morris
(Cover picture courtesy of Rainbow Resource Center.)
Riding through the great courtyard ringed with the banners of the Round Table knights, Luneta felt very alone and uncharacteristically shy.
Luneta is tired of living in dull Orkney with her mother and father. She would much prefer the rich pageantry of court. And Luneta prides herself on always getting what she wants, so when the opportunity presents itself to stay at a family friend’s castle near Camelot, she jumps at the chance. her handsome cousin, Sir Ywain—a young knight seeking adventure—arrives just in time to escort her. Along the way they pick up Rhience, a young man living as a fool for a year.
Together, they are about to step into a web of love, betrayal, and more than a bit of magic.
It’s nice to finally have an idea how much time has passed since The Squire’s Tale and it’s also shocking to hear that it’s been twenty years since the first book. Remember Lady Lynet from the second book? Yes, Luneta is Lady Lynet’s child and she’s not even really a child, but in her teen years. How times flies!
The Lioness and Her Knight sounds like a typical girl empowerment book with Luneta kicking plenty of butt and being generally ahead of her time. That’s not exactly true and I’m glad it’s not. Luneta is ahead of her time because of her tendency not to mince words, but she never physically kicks any butt because her talent is getting people to do what she wants. She is a terrible manipulator when she thinks it’s for a good purpose, but throughout the book learns that maybe it’s better to leave people to their own devices. She’s a great main character and despite how my description of her sounds, Luneta is sympathetic.
As for Rhience, where do I start? He’s very witty, but also very subtle about it. Oh no, you actually have to think about his jokes! He has such an interesting backstory that you can’t help but at least feel sympathetic for him, but he’s also a great ‘fool’. Thank goodness he gets so much page time because he was my favourite character in the whole book! Rhience is certainly not just comedy relief, but also a good character in his own right.
Gerald Morris, unlike many authors, seems to have never encountered a writing slump in his series and he hasn’t struck out yet. I’ve loved every book in the series for its own unique qualities, something that is incredibly rare. The Lioness and Her Knight presents a very cynical view of people like The Ballad of Sir Dinadan does, but it’s also full of love and hope. You can’t really ask for more in an Arthurian legend, can you?
I give this book 5/5 stars.