Ballad: A Gathering of Faerie by Maggie Stiefvater

6 Nov

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(Books of a Faerie Two)

Rating: 3 out of 5 Stars

After reading Lament, I wasn’t necessarily running to the library to rent Ballad. But after reading Ballad, I wanted hightail my faerie-loving-ass to the book store to buy the third book in the series. (Which was going to do until I found out book three is not yet published -_-)

Anyways, I think Stiefvater had a nice warm up with Lament and hit her stride with Ballad. Dee annoyed me in Lament with her star-struck teenage love and I was worried that the story would continue down that road in book two. But alas! I was wrong. And I am very happy to be proven wrong.

Ballad: A Gathering of Faerie is written in James’s perspective. I find James much more realistic and down to earth than Dee. I want to be friends with James. I want to play music with James. And I think Nuala is a bad ass, despite her need to wring humans dry in order to survive. They both have feelings that we can relate to. It’s not the punch-drunk-shot-gun love that Dee and Luke have in Lament, it’s true feelings. And the best part is, we get to watch those develop! In a natural and uncreepy way. James is a good guy with a great talent, and his lust to be better doesn’t outweigh his sense of reality. I like that he actually learned from his experiences in Lament (i.e. faeries are evil and manipulative) and doesn’t bow down to Nuala automatically. I also like how Nuala changes. She goes from evil-doer to real-person compassionate. But it’s not a switch, it’s a process. Stiefvater takes the time to actually build a story and create a realistic situation this time and I couldn’t help but root for James and Nuala. Because I felt like this time (thank goodness), I got a chance to know and understand them. I could relate to them. It was awesome.

If you like fairies but thought Lament was shallow, trust me when I say book two is leaps and bounds better than book one. It’s definitely worth the read.

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Entwined by Heather Dixon

1 Nov

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Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars

I love me a fairy-tale retelling. Although the whole time I was reading this I couldn’t help but think about my little sister’s Barbie and the Twelve Princesses movie. And Azalea, no matter her description, looked like Barbie to me.

I really enjoyed this book. It was definitely a fluff read, but sometimes you just need a break from the heavy stuff and this was a great vacation. Simple, sweet, and clear. There was romance, drama and a good villain. What more could you ask for?! I loved the character dynamics in this books. The estranged father battling his grief over a lost love and his children warming his frozen heart. A sweet docile daughter finding her voice and saving her family and assisted by a handsome man. It’s like… a fairytale!

While this book has a bit of depth, it’s nothing life changing. Which can be good or bad depending on what your expectations are. I wanted a well written retelling and that’s exactly what I got. It’s a quick, lovely read in which I highly recommend to those who need a coming of age tale.

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Gilt by Katherine Longshore

31 Oct

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Rating: 2 out of 5 Stars

Oh Gilt. I had such high hopes for you. But unfortunately, you left my boiling need to read you with a lukewarm opinion.

I am obsessed with the Tudors. I am convinced that in a past life I lived in King Henry’s court. So when I found out about this book, I was hitching up my skirts and hoofing it to the library to get check it out. But my high expectations and need for court drama were just not met the way I wanted them to. Admittedly, I do know all about this story and it IS one of my favorites. But I don’t think my previous knowledge had anything to do with my criticisms of the book.

Here’s the thing. It gives me everything I want, dresses, drama and disloyalty. Everything that the Tudor court was known for. But Kitty drove me nuts. And having a poor opinion of the narrator, is just a recipe for disaster. I just cannot relate or understand her undying loyalty to Cat. I mean, come on, Cat is a superficial manipulative bitch. And it’s SO OBVIOUS! Why the hell does Kitty keep coming back to her? When a main character is weak like that, I just get annoyed and it takes away from everything else to book has to offer. Kitty has flashes of understanding and I keep thinking she will redeem herself and yet, she never does. This story is like Sisyphus. We almost get to the top, just to come rolling all the way back down. It drove me bonkers. In the end, Kitty does revive a bit. But it’s only because Cat’s not there to pull her strings anymore so it’s not like our heroine overcame any great mountain or had a great epiphany. Although she does turn down Edmund in the end, it’s to late to see her as anything but pathetic, and weak, and.. well… slapworthy.

If Longshore comes out with a sequel, I would read it. I would like to have my faith restored in Kitty. I just wish that Kitty would have had her “ah-ha” moment three quarters of the way through the book so we could have spent the last part of the book rooting Kitty on not wanting to punch her in her lady parts. But hey. At least she sees the light in the end right? Right.

 

And so it begins…

30 Oct

Hello my name is Sydney and I am a bookaholic.

Every child has a fantasy about what they will be when they grow up. It’s the sweet and romantic idea of the innocent mind; a firefighter, a ballerina, an actor. The most popular Halloween costumes when you are 4 are the most illogical careers when you are 23. But, being a romantic and fairytale lover, I still believe  at 23 you can become your 4-year-old ideal. Thus, this blog was created.

My fantasy was to be a writer. A grand creator of stories and worlds people could lose themselves in. A wonderful visionary that wove ideas, logic, dreams, fantasy, fiction and reality into a Narnia-like land that people wanted to crawl into and stay for a while when they needed vacations from their own thoughts. I wanted to create the vehicle that carried people to self-realization and worldy understanding. I wanted to be C.S. Lewis, J.K. Rowling, Mark Twain. I wanted to solve problems and give shy girls confidence. I wanted… I wanted…

I wanted the world like every child does. And as I grew up I started to write short stories and essays that were praised by my English teachers (although awfully marked up with red pen due to my unique lack of spelling ability) but I could never push myself farther. I was a dreamer, for sure, but I was afraid and lacked confidence and my self-diagnosed ADD was my crutch to which I blamed my unfinished stories on. And so veering from my author path, I went to college and became an Event Planner. (And I capitalize that because I feel like I should at least celebrate my runner-up career, because it’s still pret-tay awesome.) Now, one year out of school, I have just gotten a promotion and a raise and while I should be shouting from peaks of Success Mountain, I am still achingly yearning to be a writer.

So here I am at 23, attempting to follow my dreams of being a writer… by becoming a blogger. But not just any blogger, a book review blogger. Because I cannot write, I read. And so I shall read, review, and write about my journeys into other people’s books until someday when I will create my own. I hope you will read what I write, critique my critiques, comment and advise me on what I can do better so that when my grand story finally manifests itself in my mind, I can have plenty of readers to review my work.

I thank you for joining my journey to my dreams. I hope that you will read the books I review because while not all will get my 5 star rating, every character, every world, every story has something to teach and will influence us in different ways. I value diversity of opinions and friendly discussions about differences will only make my story shine a little brighter (when I actually write it).

“You could rattle the stars,” she whispered. “You could do anything, if only you dared. And deep down, you know it, too. That’s what scares you most.” – Sara J. Maas, Throne of Glass

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