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emotional
slow-paced
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
The prose in this was so purple it would make a plum blush.
I was looking forward to this quite a bit. It is dystopian and seemed to have a touch of paranormal and just the tagline seemed to suggest that we had a strong, take-charge heroine here. I even found the strikethrough on the cover to be charming.
I was about two pages in when I decided the strikethrough was super, super annoying. I can see it being something that appeals to some people, but for me, it drove me just a little bit nuts. There was, at one point, an entire page of it.
I almost put the book down at that point. But, eternal optimist that I am, I soldiered on (also, it read very very quickly. Possibly because there were pages of the same sentence over and over, but hey, when The Normandy says I have half an hour left at fifty percent, I have trouble putting it down.)
It wasn't worth the bother.
The ending was intriguing, certainly, and there were some interesting aspects introduced at that point that I kind of want to know more about, but it was too little, too late for me given how skimpy the world-building and character development had been up to that point.
The love story. Oh dear Lord, the love story. I don't even know where to begin except it combines the worst parts of insta-love with the worst parts of childhood crush on someone I never spoke to. People complain about love triangles, but my dislike for them (which is, to be brutally honest, minor at best) does not hold a candle to my passionate hatred for these two "love" tropes.
Juliette (who, I will note, is named after one of those characters from fiction that both gets way more love than she deserves and is also one of the only ones teenage "bookish" girls in bad YA novels recognize and I can tell this deserves its own post/rant, so I'm going to stop here before this sentence gets any more out of control) practically doesn't exist except for her self-loathing and her romance with Adam, which is pretty horrific since the story is told through her (alarmingly purple-prosed and overly metaphorical) point-of-view. Adam was just...I don't get it. I do not get it. I think I am supposed to like him maybe because he is nice to kids? Or something? I felt nothing for him, and his creepy stalker-ish behavior with Juliette would be even worse if she apparently didn't return his feelings for no good reason except they had true love by virtue of never talking to each other during their childhood but, you know, being kind of in the same general area a few times.
The villain, I must admit, was intriguing, and intriguing enough I may break down and read the next ones eventually. I could tell they were working the love triangle angle, and I must admit I don't trust pretty much anyone in this entire book to not have ulterior motives, so I would like to see what else he is up to.
I also liked Juliette's power. It was interesting, and the ramifications of how it worked were genuinely fascinating. I just wish it belonged to a character I liked more. She is not Katniss, or even Tris. She doesn't have a spine, really, and she never grows enough of one to satisfy me. Woe-is-me is annoying enough in characters without power and with character development; when she has the former and does not have the latter (and also has people tripping over themselves to help her just because), it all gets to be way too much.
I may eventually pick up the next book in this series, but it will be after I have waited a bit to see what else comes out that perhaps takes these ideas and does something with them I find more enjoyable. There are a lot of things in this world to read, after all.
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Everything Rick Riordan writes that I have read as of yet has left me desperately, ridiculously depressed that there is not more. This book is no exception.
Like all of his books, it is easy to suck it straight down in one fell swoop, then raise your head and realize in complete surprise that it was significantly longer than you expected. It never felt that long, but this is not a short book, which is all to the good as far as getting plenty of story packed in there.
All of his books do seem to be connected in some way, even when you would expect they are not (as in when they are focused on entirely different mythologies), so watching for the little (and a few not so little!) connections between this and Percy Jackson's stuff was a lot of fun.
It has some general similarities to the Percy Jackson series in that we are, again, looking at a boy who is not sure who is father is and discovers an entire new world in the process, as well as a place to belong.
Magnus is a very different hero, though. He's clever and quippy in a very different way than Percy. He's honestly quite smart, and, much as I love Percy, he is...kind of not. He's also perhaps a tad less violent, though come on, this story includes Valhalla, so we're not looking at a peaceful and quiet book here. However, his parentage is rather different, so we are looking at quite a few different powers and reactions to situations than Percy gave. It's absolutely just as much fun, however.
I liked the different characters from different walks of life. I was not expecting the Valkyries to work the way they did, and I also did not expect the way the 9 worlds were going to factor in and be handled. It opened things up quite a bit for all sorts of interesting things to happen, but everything was handled with empathy.
I'm desperately trying not to spoil anything, here, so I'm trying to phrase things in such a way as to be enticing and not give anything away. No clue how well I'm doing with that, but seriously, read this book. If you liked Percy Jackson, read it. If you like Norse mythology, read it. If you like Rick Riordan, read it. If you have a vague interest in any of these things, read it. Unless something completely mind-blowing comes along, it's going to be my favorite book of the month, no questions, and I'm rather desperately awaiting the arrival of the second in the series.
Which I may have already pre-ordered. I feel no guilt.
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I really do love this series.
And this may be my favorite book in it.
The trip through death was fascinating and kind of terrifying. It was cool to see the parts we never did get to see in Sabriel.
The well sequence is one of those things that has continued to haunt me since the first time I read it, which was just after the book first came out, which was unfortunately awfully close to the release date of The Ring, which I saw in theatres. Between the two of them, I now harbor a life-long and completely unshakeable fear of wells and the terrifying ladies that live in them. (I didn't find the sequence quite as scary this time around, but I am saying this in the safety of full daylight, so it should probably be taken with a grain of salt.)
Touchstone and Sabriel's story was a bit more tightly written than I really wanted it to be. Since we know they are alive and get to see other parts of their journey, I would have liked to have seen a bit of them meeting up with the Clayr and Ellimere and hearing what was going on. Also, I was absolutely convinced they were dead on my first reading of the Prologue, and I was heartbroken.
I loved the epic ending with the bells and the binding. It just felt awesome to watch it all play out, and I teared up a bit in places. Like here:
"As I did then, so do I now," said the Disreputable Dog. "I am Kibeth, and I stand against you."
I remember being surprised about this revelation the first time I read this, which suggests I was kind of dumb, since it seemed pretty clearly telegraphed early on this read-through. Don't know if I was more trusting of Dog, less careful a reader, or if hindsight is really lending that much perspective.
Probably my favorite character from the entire series was Mogget. So the entire ending (even though even on my first read-through I definitely realized he had to be the eighth) felt amazing.
"Be free, Mogget!" shouted Sam, as he held a red collar high. "Choose well!"
"I am Yrael," it said, casting a hand out to throw a line of silver fire into the breaking spell-ring, its voice crackling with force. "I also stand against you."
Behind her, she heard Yrael speak, and Sabriel, and the brief chime of Belgaer, so strange after the massed song of all the bells, its single voice freeing Mogget from his millennia of servitude.
There was definite tearing through every portion of that. I am so happy to see him not only have a good ending, but to have it be one that was due to his own choices, and to watch him step up on several occasions and not be the coward he apparently was in the first battle.
I would have liked a more expansive (and less Nick-focused, although I adored seeing the Dog) Epilogue, but there is space for future stories there, and all in all I am very pleased with this one.
Magic horses, guys.
I really love the Valdemar books. They are a little bit fluffy and wish fullfillment-y, but they are a lot of fun and oddly progressive in a lot of ways. Valdemar is kind of the perfect fantasy kingdom in a lot of ways, with a monarchy, but a monarchy run by people who are guaranteed to be good people, at least, even if it doesn't always promise that they will be good rulers.
Talia is an easy heroine to like. She starts in an awful family situation that does not suit her at all and has no clue what is going on when she appears to be kidnapped by a horse. Her confusion is a great intro to the series as a whole, actually, because we readers learn what is going on as she does and it makes it easier to follow everything with a new universe. She also loves to read, which I love to see in a book heroine and don't feel I see enough.
There is some political wrangling going on, but as this is the first book in a trilogy the full explanation of what is actually happening is not solved. It does end in a solid place, though, and doesn't feel like a cliffhanger. There are mysteries still to be solved, but things end in a logical place for Talia herself.
Watching Talia learn how to make friends and come out of her shell and actually trust people is a large chunk of the book. It is a coming-of-age novel, for sure, although clearly set in a fantasy universe. She ends up in some danger and has to learn who to trust, but things end pretty well for her. Valdemar is not Westeros, and although some bad stuff happens, it is always offset by good.
The side characters don't do a whole lot of coming into their own in this novel, though they get further development later. Jadus and Skif probably get the most "screen time," though that is due to the fact that they end up being the most directly connected to the plots against Talia. They're good friends for her to have, and very different, though most of what I know about them actually comes out in other books.
The writing feels a bit rough in this one sometimes; there is a lot more telling than showing than there needs to be, though this is not as much of a problem in the rest of the trilogy. I think it was difficult to condense this much time and this many plotlines and this much new worldbuilding into a book of this size, and it suffers from that a bit. Admittedly, I have also always loved the Collegium and wished that more time got spent there watching the training of young Heralds.
It is awkward to write a review for a book you have not only read several times, but you have read the entire series to which it belongs. Separating your feelings for the characters and the writing becomes an exercise in futility. If you are interested in starting the Valdemar series, this is not a bad place to begin, and as long as you are content with a fun romp through a fantasy universe centered on magical horses and coming-of-age stories, you'll probably quite enjoy it.
I really love the Valdemar books. They are a little bit fluffy and wish fullfillment-y, but they are a lot of fun and oddly progressive in a lot of ways. Valdemar is kind of the perfect fantasy kingdom in a lot of ways, with a monarchy, but a monarchy run by people who are guaranteed to be good people, at least, even if it doesn't always promise that they will be good rulers.
Talia is an easy heroine to like. She starts in an awful family situation that does not suit her at all and has no clue what is going on when she appears to be kidnapped by a horse. Her confusion is a great intro to the series as a whole, actually, because we readers learn what is going on as she does and it makes it easier to follow everything with a new universe. She also loves to read, which I love to see in a book heroine and don't feel I see enough.
There is some political wrangling going on, but as this is the first book in a trilogy the full explanation of what is actually happening is not solved. It does end in a solid place, though, and doesn't feel like a cliffhanger. There are mysteries still to be solved, but things end in a logical place for Talia herself.
Watching Talia learn how to make friends and come out of her shell and actually trust people is a large chunk of the book. It is a coming-of-age novel, for sure, although clearly set in a fantasy universe. She ends up in some danger and has to learn who to trust, but things end pretty well for her. Valdemar is not Westeros, and although some bad stuff happens, it is always offset by good.
The side characters don't do a whole lot of coming into their own in this novel, though they get further development later. Jadus and Skif probably get the most "screen time," though that is due to the fact that they end up being the most directly connected to the plots against Talia. They're good friends for her to have, and very different, though most of what I know about them actually comes out in other books.
The writing feels a bit rough in this one sometimes; there is a lot more telling than showing than there needs to be, though this is not as much of a problem in the rest of the trilogy. I think it was difficult to condense this much time and this many plotlines and this much new worldbuilding into a book of this size, and it suffers from that a bit. Admittedly, I have also always loved the Collegium and wished that more time got spent there watching the training of young Heralds.
It is awkward to write a review for a book you have not only read several times, but you have read the entire series to which it belongs. Separating your feelings for the characters and the writing becomes an exercise in futility. If you are interested in starting the Valdemar series, this is not a bad place to begin, and as long as you are content with a fun romp through a fantasy universe centered on magical horses and coming-of-age stories, you'll probably quite enjoy it.
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For all that Lirael in the library is some of my favorite stuff in the series, overall I feel like this is the weakest book of the trilogy, in large part because it is intended as a transition between the more straight-forward adventure story that was Sabriel and the more epic battle of Abhorsen. It does, however, do a good job of setting up the characters and giving hints at what is yet to come.
The Disreputable Dog and Mogget are probably my favorite characters in the series. They manage to be clearly magical creatures that fit into this world and can talk, and yet also very clearly act like a dog and a cat, respectively. Since I am re-reading it, I love all the hints about their pasts that I didn't understand the first time through.
Lirael and the library of the Clayr is one of the most fun ideas I've ever seen. The idea of 'librarian' being one of the more dangerous jobs in a community--and quite rightly!--tickles my fancy to no small degree. I resent her leaving the library at least as much as she does. I also feel for her throughout quite a bit; having the Clayr blindfold her to lead her to and from the Observatory was heartbreaking.
I found Sam's story to be a bit more questionable. His hopeless naivete throughout is a little harder to deal with on a re-read than it was the first time through (or perhaps it is the fact that I am no longer an angsty teen myself), and he doesn't have as clear an ending arc as Lirael does. Much of my sympathy for him is due to the fact that were I forced into a position where I was supposed to spend my life waltzing through Death, I would also probably act like a huge, whiny, terrified baby.
The arc of this particular book is very much a personal one for Sam and Lirael, which is part of why it feels out of place. There is no epic evil fought and defeated, no war won, no happy ending: it is about the two of them finding out who they are, both personally and in the grand scheme of things.
The Disreputable Dog and Mogget are probably my favorite characters in the series. They manage to be clearly magical creatures that fit into this world and can talk, and yet also very clearly act like a dog and a cat, respectively. Since I am re-reading it, I love all the hints about their pasts that I didn't understand the first time through.
It was not uncommon for librarians to lay down their lives for the benefit of the Clayr as a whole, either in dangerous research, simple overwork, or action against previously unknown dangers discovered in the Library's collection.
Lirael and the library of the Clayr is one of the most fun ideas I've ever seen. The idea of 'librarian' being one of the more dangerous jobs in a community--and quite rightly!--tickles my fancy to no small degree. I resent her leaving the library at least as much as she does. I also feel for her throughout quite a bit; having the Clayr blindfold her to lead her to and from the Observatory was heartbreaking.
I found Sam's story to be a bit more questionable. His hopeless naivete throughout is a little harder to deal with on a re-read than it was the first time through (or perhaps it is the fact that I am no longer an angsty teen myself), and he doesn't have as clear an ending arc as Lirael does. Much of my sympathy for him is due to the fact that were I forced into a position where I was supposed to spend my life waltzing through Death, I would also probably act like a huge, whiny, terrified baby.
The arc of this particular book is very much a personal one for Sam and Lirael, which is part of why it feels out of place. There is no epic evil fought and defeated, no war won, no happy ending: it is about the two of them finding out who they are, both personally and in the grand scheme of things.
