C.A. Gray's Blog, page 63

Review of Whisper Falls, by Elizabeth Langston

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I was surprised by how much I liked this one! I can’t remember how I got the book — I think it was a freebie. But I got sucked in pretty quickly. This is billed as a time travel romance, and it’s sort of that… I guess it fits that category better than any other I can think of. But it really feels more like an adventure novel to me.

Susanna is a 17-year old indentured servant in 1796. Mark is a 17-year old high school student and competitive biker in 2016. The only part that requires suspension of disbelief is how they communicate with one another: the water of Whisper Falls acts as a portal between their worlds, and they each stumble across it on accident. Over time, Mark learns that Susanna is brutally treated by her master, though she loves his children. Since he’s from her future, he learns her fate, the fate of her town and of those she loves–and armed with this information, he travels through time to save her.

The chapters alternate between Susanna and Mark, and both characters are equally believable and compelling, I thought. I really root for both of them. The romance is there, but minimal, and it therefore manages to avoid becoming cheesy. I was a bit surprised by the ending, even though the story setup didn’t really allow for any other possible end… I still somehow didn’t think it would happen that way. But I’m glad it did. Definitely a fun, different read!

My rating: *****

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Archenemies by Marissa Meyer

Today’s podcast comes from this blog post, Review of Archenemies by Marissa Meyer. 

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Review of Archenemies by Marissa Meyer

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I didn’t love this one for the same reasons why I didn’t much love “Renegades”– which still makes me sad, because I’ve been so impressed with everything else Marissa Meyer has written.

My biggest issue is with Nova’s conflict, which is pretty core to the story. Her parents and her baby sister were murdered by villains when she was a child, and she had grown up believing that the Renegade prodigies, particularly Captain Chromium and the Dread Warden, would always save the day. But they didn’t come, and her family died. So… she doesn’t blame the villains that actually performed the murders. She blames the prodigies for not being omnipresent and omnipotent?? I could buy this in terms of child logic, but by the time the series takes place, she’s a teenager, and a prodigy herself. So she of all people should know that prodigies are not all-powerful gods. Yet this is the entire basis for her siding with the Anarchists (who really do seem like a shady bunch) rather than with the Renegades, who to the best of their abilities are trying to make the world a better place and keep ordinary citizens safe. There are a few complicating factors in this book, such as the Renegades’ indiscriminate use of “Agent N,” which strips other prodigies of their powers without a trial. That’s bad, sure… but it’s certainly not reason enough for her to turn against her teammates and friends, and the boy she loves. Also, Nova adores Ace Anarchy, her uncle, because he raised her — I get that part. But he killed lots of people, and he wants to destroy society as they know it, no matter who gets hurt in the process. He also told Nova to get close to Adrian just so she can manipulate him for the Anarchists’ ends. He’s a bad guy… surely she’s noticed this. Yet we’re supposed to root for her? I just found the whole premise flimsy.

Adrian Everhart (aka The Sentinel), meanwhile, continues in his obsession with Nightmare, Nova’s alter-ego. He believes that Nightmare has information on his mother’s death, and/or was in league with the Anarchists who killed her, and he despises her for it. But if the reason for this belief was ever fully explained (I mean, why Nightmare, rather than any of the other Anarchists), then I missed it.

And also, why does Nova hate the Sentinel so much? He’s rogue too–she hates the Renegades for appointing themselves guardians of the free world without being elected to their positions. But the Sentinel breaks the rules, just like she does. Maybe it’s just because the Sentinel has it in for Nightmare, but I wasn’t super clear on this either.

So basically all the main conflicts of the story didn’t make a lot of sense to me. I still love Marissa Meyer’s writing style, her creativity, and her characters. I’m just not a huge fan of this series.

My rating: ***

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America’s First Daughter by Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie

Today’s podcast review comes from this blog post, Review of America’s First Daughter. 

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Review of America’s First Daughter

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This book was primarily upsetting, quite frankly. It was very well written and engaging, and I loved (in some ways) the fact that it was as historically accurate as a “novel” could be, drawn from Patsy Jefferson’s correspondences and those letters she curated of her father’s. But my big takeaway was that being a woman back then *sucked.* I mean, to some degree I knew that, but this really drove it home. Patsy’s husband Tom is an abusive insecure asshole who eventually goes mad from bitterness and anger–and she makes excuses for him, for most of her life. Her son-in-law is even worse, literally beating her very pregnant daughter to the point where she and the baby both die. But because of the world they live in, they’re taught to submit–the law is on their husbands’ side, no matter what he does. There’s no accountability at all. I’m having nightmares about it.

Also, everybody dies young, of what are now totally preventable causes! Childbirth killed Patsy’s mother, her sister, and then the daughter (who died of a combo of injuries from her abusive husband and from the birth). And creditors are after everybody–I didn’t realize that Thomas Jefferson died virtually penniless, mostly because he kept attempting to bail out his good-for-nothing sons-in-law. He was against slavery for the most part, but because the system was what it was, he couldn’t free them without jeopardizing his entire family. Before reading this, I blamed him for holding slaves, and especially for taking Sally, one of his slaves, as a mistress–so much worse when I learned that Sally was his late wife’s half-sister! But he truly loved her, and she him. They had children together, and for a variety of complicated political reasons he had to be covert about setting her and her children free.

And one more heartbreak: Patsy married the wrong man. She chose to stay with her father and follow his advice, rather than marry the man she loved: Jefferson had thought that William Short would never have enough money to support a family, because he was against slavery and refused to earn money as a plantation owner. He chose to be a diplomat instead, a heretofore unheard of career. But of all the ironies, William became wealthy, and Tom made terrible choices, ending not just in poverty but in outrageous debt. William comes back at multiple key moments in Patsy’s life, still single and still in love with her… but the world being what it was, she couldn’t just leave Tom and right the wrong. Tom even exacted a promise from her that she would never marry another if he died, so even after he was gone she couldn’t marry William. She was true to her word, which I respect–but it was a promise she never should have given in the first place. I know that’s the MO of an abuser: he’s kind just often enough to get the abused woman to soften to him. It was totally believable. But so upsetting.

There was some politics, too, but not as much as you might think. The story wasn’t a page-turner per se, but it was engaging. If you like happy stories, though, this probably isn’t for you.

My rating: ****

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Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

This podcast comes from this blog post review of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. 

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Review of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

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Ah! So very satisfying!!!

I’d forgotten quite a bit of this one, even though I’ve seen the films several times. I remembered all the major plot points, but there were a good many nuances and crucial explanations I got to rediscover, which made this read-through feel fresher to me than any of the preceding six. But I’ll first mention the things I didn’t care for so much.

For maybe the first third of the book, Harry, Ron and Hermione had no leads and were just going on random excursions and hoping they’d stumble upon horcruxes. I had to admit, I was with Harry when he wondered why Dumbledore didn’t give him more go on (especially since it turned out that he knew he’d die within the year.) This was never truly explained to my satisfaction–unless Dumbledore was actually God, pulling the strings from beyond the grave. He was a wise guy, but he left an awful lot to chance. It just happened to all work out exactly the way he wanted it to.

That said (***spoiler alert from basically here on out***), I used to think it was awfully convenient that Harry “dies” but comes back anyway at the end, just because Dumbledore happened to meet him on The Other Side and told him he could go on or go back if he wanted to. But I’d forgotten that there was an explanation for this: Lily Potter’s blood sacrifice protected Harry from death when he was a baby, and Voldemort took some of Harry’s blood into his body when he returned in Book 4. That meant Harry was still tied to life while Voldemort lived. It was a little convoluted, but in the logic of Rowling’s world, it’s consistent. I’m satisfied.

Also, the first time I read “Deathly Hallows”, I thought the explanation for Snape’s behavior throughout the series was pretty weak. He hated Harry, and he really had been a Death Eater once, yet Dumbledore trusted him for some rock-solid reason he never shared with anybody. Then he killed Dumbledore, which seemed to imply Dumbledore had been wrong about him. But he wasn’t wrong… it turned out his reason was because Snape had been in love with Lily, Harry’s mother, all his life. He hated Harry’s father out of jealousy, and of course Harry looks and acts just like James. But the part I’d forgotten, the part that makes this far more believable, is that Snape was also inadvertently responsible for their deaths, because he told Voldemort the prophecy that caused him to seek out and try to kill Harry. His remorse over being the cause of Lily’s death gives Dumbledore the opening to say he can make up for it by making sure she did not die in vain–and she died to save Harry. So Snape, too, must keep Harry alive, for Lily’s sake. This only works because of Snape’s guilt, I think: that is the all-important piece. But this time through, I thought that extra detail made all the difference.

Finally– geez, the body count was high in this one! I don’t consider it tragic only because the three main characters survive, and Voldemort gets it in the end. And *how* he gets it is just. So. Awesome. I love how everyone pulled together in the Battle of Hogwarts at the end. I love that Molly Weasley gets Bellatrix! And I love Harry’s last showdown with Voldemort. Voldemort attempts to taunt him, and Harry gets the last word, proving him wrong on every point. And then, Harry doesn’t even cast the killing curse: Voldemort’s own killing curse rebounds on him. It’s one of those final scenes that makes you cheer out loud.

Man, I wish there were more series out there like this one!

My rating: *****!!!!!

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Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Today’s episode comes from this blog post, Review of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

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Review of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

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This is in many ways just as fabulous as the last two, but I think I did like “Order of the Phoenix” a bit better. Mostly this is because 1) this one wasn’t nearly as funny, as the plot is decidedly dark and serious by this point, and 2) the ending is just devastating. Unavoidable, I get that — it had to happen. But devastating nonetheless.

It’s also not totally clear to me why the mental connection between Harry and Voldemort took a temporary hiatus for most of this book. Dumbledore steered clear of Harry for almost all of Book 5 because he didn’t want Voldemort to realize how close their relationship was and attempt to get at him through Harry. I think the implication was supposed to be that after Voldemort manipulated Harry to get him to the ministry by pretending he had Sirius, Voldemort would know that trick would no longer work and therefore wouldn’t bother to try to use the connection anymore. Dumbledore explained that Voldemort must have been using Occlumancy against Harry to keep him out after that, because he’d realize that letting Harry into his thoughts would be dangerous for him. Yet the connection between Harry and Voldemort is renewed in Book 7, for no apparent reason (and very much to Voldemort’s detriment). Still, I guess there was enough going on in Book 6 without that added complication. Dumbledore’s private lessons with Harry needed to center on learning as much as they could about Voldemort’s past, and the plot was complex enough as it was without having Harry see into Voldemort’s mind all the time. The Pensieve is a very clever way to incorporate back story necessary to the plot, without dry recitation… we get to see Voldemort as the child Tom Riddle, and the young Voldemort before he became the most feared wizard the world had ever known–before he had lost his powers trying to kill Harry.

I must say I don’t care that much for the way the romance is written between Ginny and Harry — or between Ron and Hermione, for that matter. Maybe that’s because it’s told from the perspective of a boy who isn’t in touch with his own feelings most of the time, but it almost feels like a drawing in crayon: hard lines, crude and abrupt emotions. The nuances of all other relationships seem far more believable. But this takes up so little of the book that it doesn’t matter all that much — it’s just a notable exception, I think.

And even with all the darkness going on in the wizarding world this far in, there’s still time for Quidditch matches, side obsessions, and amusing episodes. I hate stories that end sad, but I can still love this one because it’s not over yet. There is still redemption to come!

My rating: **** 1/2

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Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Today’s podcast comes from this blog review of “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.” 

Check out this episode!

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