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inkandplasma
3.5 stars in part 3 of my Alex Rider readathon: https://inkandplasma.wordpress.com/tag/alex-rider-reread/
Skeleton Key was super enjoyable, and I always have such a vivid memory of the pre-adventure set at Wimbledon. Again it shows Anthony Horowitz's ridiculous attention to detail when it comes to his research, where you not only have a really vivid image of the setting, but you learn things too. Despite the fact that I love the pre-adventures so much - it's something that makes Alex's stories so memorable, you get to see him work through loads of wild and wacky situations- I rated it 3.5 instead of 4 stars mostly for the pacing. It felt like I was two-thirds of the way through the book before the main section of the story started. There was a really interesting aspect to this story with the Alex/Dimitry which was under-explored because the ends of the book was coming around so quickly.
Conrad's character kind of irritated me. Why do we always get disfigured characters as the side-kick? It's a whole Igor thing gone crazy. This book came out in 2002, so I'm not necessarily expecting anything super-woke here, but that's twice now in two books that we've had the 'you can see this character is evil because he's disfigured' trope, and I hate it. Facial scarring and severe injuries don't make someone evil, and consistently describing them as hideous and evil is infuriating. What happened to him in the end was absolutely fucking disgusting too, but that was actually the good writing more than it was to do with the disfigured trope.
BUT, there were lots of things I loved in this book. Alex continues to not only be well-written, but he's not a Mary Sue. He repeatedly acknowledges that he's in fights with people who are better trained and more experienced, and he wins and loses appropriately - winning due to luck and smarts rather than plot armour and inexplicable strength. The quickest way to lose my interest in a teenage character is for them to somehow have the power of a thirty year old SAS expert tactician. He's a kid, and things go wrong because he thinks like a kid. I love it.
Anthony Horowitz's writing continues to floor me during action scenes. Conrad's ending was absolutely disgusting and there was a scene with a heartbeat monitor that is absolutely hardcore. I remember it from the last time I read it, and it still made me flinch to read it again. Powerful, powerful writing. That being said, why does Alex fake die every time? I'm not calling that a spoiler because this is part 3 in a 12 part series, and also because this is literally the second time in two books we've had this 'scare'. Do we have to do this? It loses impact.
And a very special mention for 'Centurion International Advertising', which made me laugh like an idiot. I don't care if it's true or not, as far as I'm concerned that's how the CIA hide all their bases. I hope the FBI do it too, 'Friendly Building Inspectors' is a totally normal name for a company, right?
Skeleton Key was super enjoyable, and I always have such a vivid memory of the pre-adventure set at Wimbledon. Again it shows Anthony Horowitz's ridiculous attention to detail when it comes to his research, where you not only have a really vivid image of the setting, but you learn things too. Despite the fact that I love the pre-adventures so much - it's something that makes Alex's stories so memorable, you get to see him work through loads of wild and wacky situations- I rated it 3.5 instead of 4 stars mostly for the pacing. It felt like I was two-thirds of the way through the book before the main section of the story started. There was a really interesting aspect to this story with the Alex/Dimitry which was under-explored because the ends of the book was coming around so quickly.
Conrad's character kind of irritated me. Why do we always get disfigured characters as the side-kick? It's a whole Igor thing gone crazy. This book came out in 2002, so I'm not necessarily expecting anything super-woke here, but that's twice now in two books that we've had the 'you can see this character is evil because he's disfigured' trope, and I hate it. Facial scarring and severe injuries don't make someone evil, and consistently describing them as hideous and evil is infuriating. What happened to him in the end was absolutely fucking disgusting too, but that was actually the good writing more than it was to do with the disfigured trope.
BUT, there were lots of things I loved in this book. Alex continues to not only be well-written, but he's not a Mary Sue. He repeatedly acknowledges that he's in fights with people who are better trained and more experienced, and he wins and loses appropriately - winning due to luck and smarts rather than plot armour and inexplicable strength. The quickest way to lose my interest in a teenage character is for them to somehow have the power of a thirty year old SAS expert tactician. He's a kid, and things go wrong because he thinks like a kid. I love it.
Anthony Horowitz's writing continues to floor me during action scenes. Conrad's ending was absolutely disgusting and there was a scene with a heartbeat monitor that is absolutely hardcore. I remember it from the last time I read it, and it still made me flinch to read it again. Powerful, powerful writing. That being said, why does Alex fake die every time? I'm not calling that a spoiler because this is part 3 in a 12 part series, and also because this is literally the second time in two books we've had this 'scare'. Do we have to do this? It loses impact.
And a very special mention for 'Centurion International Advertising', which made me laugh like an idiot. I don't care if it's true or not, as far as I'm concerned that's how the CIA hide all their bases. I hope the FBI do it too, 'Friendly Building Inspectors' is a totally normal name for a company, right?
Review available here: https://inkandplasma.wordpress.com/2020/02/06/eagle-strike-by-anthony-horowitz-alex-rider-reread-4/
4 stars!
Right away this book made me sad for Alex for the thousandth time. It’s been ONE month since Wimbledon, as of the start of this book. I read that twice, to make sure I wasn’t misunderstanding it. One month. That means it’s been a couple of weeks at absolute most (maybe less considering that it was Wimbledon-Miami-Cuba-Scotland-Russia) since Alex watched Sarov shoot himself in close quarters. Can someone (Anthony Horowitz, I’m looking at you) please give this boy a break. How does he get up in the morning, it takes me 6 to 8 weeks to get over a mild inconvenience.
The pre-adventure in Eagle Strike is less disconnected than they usually are. It’s very much tied into the plot of the story itself, especially seeing as we’re all of three seconds in when we get our first glimpse of my man. I’ll admit I laughed my ass off at Alex’s reaction to Yassen. I know that it’s his shock at seeing his nemesis, but every time he acts as though the world stops when he sees Yassen, I laugh. It reads like a YA insta-love scene every time, not a teenager and his middle-aged ‘nemesis’. Did nobody sense check these scenes, or is my crush on Yassen seriously throwing me off here? Anyway. The actual book. The pre-adventure also helped us see how Alex is developing as a spy. It also shows his increasing independence and mistrust in authority figures around him.
I am absolutely convinced that Damian Cray is supposed to resemble someone, but I don’t know enough about music to be able to tell you who he is. But he’s definitely, definitely someone, take my word for it. Hopefully he’s a bastardised version of that person, though, else we need to keep a closer eye on our millionaire musicians. Cray’s character is cool as shit. Absolutely bonkers and awful, but cool as shit. There’s a point where he kills one of his ex-henchman (not really a spoiler, it’s par for the course in an Alex Rider story) and the way that he kills them is so goddamn cool-gross. I remembered what happens about three sentences before it did, and all my notes say is “FUCKING HARDCORE”. I continue to love me a villain. Although, his stance is a little… wonky. Sure, drug addiction is bad but so is nuclear fallout, Cray. Apply common sense as needed.
I started to notice while writing up this review that the Alex Rider books, at least so far in the early series, are very formulaic. There are some things that are hit in every single book. Pre-adventure, adventure, Alex uses most of his gadgets in one go, bad guy kills a henchman, Alex whips out his last gadget and then we think for five minutes that Alex is dead, ultimately he saves the day. Having said that, the stories are distinct enough that I don’t hate the formulaic nature of the early books – particularly as the way things happen is so distinctive. Giant magnets, Portuguese Man-of-wars, horrifying coin murder. Everything is so vivid and different from previous entries that I don’t mind so much, and these are kid’s books after all. If they stop being so interesting I would be extremely critical of the formula but, well, it works.
YASSEN. I couldn’t get through this whole book without delving into my first ever villain crush. I was like pre-teen when I started reading the Alex Rider books for the first time and while I always loved Alex I was obssessed with Yassen Gregorovich. Then I went on to fall in love with every interesting villain to ever cross my path so it makes a LOT more sense in hindsight. He’s a side-character in Alex’s story, and his fate makes me SAD but I do love the role he plays in Eagle Strike, and how that triggers the events of Scorpia. I also love that Anthony Horowitz presents him as more complicated than the good or bad characters we see everywhere in kid-lit. We’ve got Yassen, a good-bad guy, but one who protects our protagonist and one with a strong moral compass. It’s skewed sure, but he maintains his principles fiercely. Compare that to Blunt, a bad-good-guy and you really get an illustration of morally grey characters. We’ve got a contract killer who refuses to hurt children and spymaster who’s willing to throw a child under bus to further his goals. This is absolutely why I’m fascinated by morally grey characters, by the way. I’m dreading getting to Russian Roulette because I’ve always refused to read it and it’s going to kill me.
4 stars!
Right away this book made me sad for Alex for the thousandth time. It’s been ONE month since Wimbledon, as of the start of this book. I read that twice, to make sure I wasn’t misunderstanding it. One month. That means it’s been a couple of weeks at absolute most (maybe less considering that it was Wimbledon-Miami-Cuba-Scotland-Russia) since Alex watched Sarov shoot himself in close quarters. Can someone (Anthony Horowitz, I’m looking at you) please give this boy a break. How does he get up in the morning, it takes me 6 to 8 weeks to get over a mild inconvenience.
The pre-adventure in Eagle Strike is less disconnected than they usually are. It’s very much tied into the plot of the story itself, especially seeing as we’re all of three seconds in when we get our first glimpse of my man. I’ll admit I laughed my ass off at Alex’s reaction to Yassen. I know that it’s his shock at seeing his nemesis, but every time he acts as though the world stops when he sees Yassen, I laugh. It reads like a YA insta-love scene every time, not a teenager and his middle-aged ‘nemesis’. Did nobody sense check these scenes, or is my crush on Yassen seriously throwing me off here? Anyway. The actual book. The pre-adventure also helped us see how Alex is developing as a spy. It also shows his increasing independence and mistrust in authority figures around him.
I am absolutely convinced that Damian Cray is supposed to resemble someone, but I don’t know enough about music to be able to tell you who he is. But he’s definitely, definitely someone, take my word for it. Hopefully he’s a bastardised version of that person, though, else we need to keep a closer eye on our millionaire musicians. Cray’s character is cool as shit. Absolutely bonkers and awful, but cool as shit. There’s a point where he kills one of his ex-henchman (not really a spoiler, it’s par for the course in an Alex Rider story) and the way that he kills them is so goddamn cool-gross. I remembered what happens about three sentences before it did, and all my notes say is “FUCKING HARDCORE”. I continue to love me a villain. Although, his stance is a little… wonky. Sure, drug addiction is bad but so is nuclear fallout, Cray. Apply common sense as needed.
I started to notice while writing up this review that the Alex Rider books, at least so far in the early series, are very formulaic. There are some things that are hit in every single book. Pre-adventure, adventure, Alex uses most of his gadgets in one go, bad guy kills a henchman, Alex whips out his last gadget and then we think for five minutes that Alex is dead, ultimately he saves the day. Having said that, the stories are distinct enough that I don’t hate the formulaic nature of the early books – particularly as the way things happen is so distinctive. Giant magnets, Portuguese Man-of-wars, horrifying coin murder. Everything is so vivid and different from previous entries that I don’t mind so much, and these are kid’s books after all. If they stop being so interesting I would be extremely critical of the formula but, well, it works.
YASSEN. I couldn’t get through this whole book without delving into my first ever villain crush. I was like pre-teen when I started reading the Alex Rider books for the first time and while I always loved Alex I was obssessed with Yassen Gregorovich. Then I went on to fall in love with every interesting villain to ever cross my path so it makes a LOT more sense in hindsight. He’s a side-character in Alex’s story, and his fate makes me SAD but I do love the role he plays in Eagle Strike, and how that triggers the events of Scorpia. I also love that Anthony Horowitz presents him as more complicated than the good or bad characters we see everywhere in kid-lit. We’ve got Yassen, a good-bad guy, but one who protects our protagonist and one with a strong moral compass. It’s skewed sure, but he maintains his principles fiercely. Compare that to Blunt, a bad-good-guy and you really get an illustration of morally grey characters. We’ve got a contract killer who refuses to hurt children and spymaster who’s willing to throw a child under bus to further his goals. This is absolutely why I’m fascinated by morally grey characters, by the way. I’m dreading getting to Russian Roulette because I’ve always refused to read it and it’s going to kill me.
CAWPILE'd May 2022:
Character - 7
Atmosphere - 7
Writing - 8
Plot - 7
Intrigue - 7
Logic - 7
Enjoyment - 8
Rating: 7.29 / 4 stars
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Blog post available here from 02.10.19
Rating: 4 stars
When seventeen year old Celine Rousseau flees to New Orleans, hiding from a secret that would ruin her life if she were ever to tell it, she finds refuge in New Orleans. It's 1872, and New Orleans is ruled by the dead, not that Celine knows that just yet. She's too busy being enamoured by the city's busy beauty, music and food and parties that she never got to attend herself back in Paris. And far too busy being enamoured by La Cour Des Lions enigmatic and trouble-making leader Sébastien, despite her better judgement. When one of the girls from the convent she's staying in shows up dead in the lion's den, Celine struggles to balance her attraction and her suspicion of him. She's not the first or the last victim, and as it becomes clear that New Orleans is being terrorised by a serial killer with his eyes set on Celine herself, she takes her life in her own hands to uncover the truth about the killer, the man who stole her heart, and the mysterious court that runs the city.
Celine is fierce, and takes-no-shit. She wants to do good, but also has to deal with her internalised feelings of shame around her heritage, her trauma and her belief that she is a 'murderess'. She feels a little stuck and is very aware of the way that women and POC are treated in 19th Century society. This can be a little jarringly modern. Celine's relationship with Sébastien is complicated. She spends most of the book conflicted between her attraction to him and her fear that he's involved in the unravelling murder mystery. He's nothing like anyone she knows either, rough around the edges and no kind of gentleman, and their interactions are engaging and satisfying for a YA romance sub-plot.
Odette is the character that draws Celine into La Cour Des Lions, and I loved her. She's queer and powerful, a woman in trousers in a world where women shouldn't even be showing their ankles. I liked her as a wild and feminist character. I would admit that she sometimes seemed a little too modern. Celine did that too sometimes, but this is a YA novel and I'm willing to overlook that because the experience of reading this was fun and engaging and I was still left wanting more.
I'm a sucker (ha!) for vampire novels, and I'll be the first person to admit that I was Twilight obsessed as a teenager (and okay I still love the books and the terrible movies). So when I saw this marketed as 19th Century New Orleans with vampires, I was pumped, but it's not quite as vampire heavy as I expected. The main characters aren't vampires, and while a lot of the Court are vampiric, the plot itself isn't vampire-forward. I probably would have pegged this more as 'Historical romance meets gothic fantasy meets murder mystery'. Not as snappy, but more accurate. I'm hoping that the sequel gives us a little more vampire action but overall I liked the book a lot.
Character - 7
Atmosphere - 7
Writing - 8
Plot - 7
Intrigue - 7
Logic - 7
Enjoyment - 8
Rating: 7.29 / 4 stars
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Blog post available here from 02.10.19
Rating: 4 stars
When seventeen year old Celine Rousseau flees to New Orleans, hiding from a secret that would ruin her life if she were ever to tell it, she finds refuge in New Orleans. It's 1872, and New Orleans is ruled by the dead, not that Celine knows that just yet. She's too busy being enamoured by the city's busy beauty, music and food and parties that she never got to attend herself back in Paris. And far too busy being enamoured by La Cour Des Lions enigmatic and trouble-making leader Sébastien, despite her better judgement. When one of the girls from the convent she's staying in shows up dead in the lion's den, Celine struggles to balance her attraction and her suspicion of him. She's not the first or the last victim, and as it becomes clear that New Orleans is being terrorised by a serial killer with his eyes set on Celine herself, she takes her life in her own hands to uncover the truth about the killer, the man who stole her heart, and the mysterious court that runs the city.
Celine is fierce, and takes-no-shit. She wants to do good, but also has to deal with her internalised feelings of shame around her heritage, her trauma and her belief that she is a 'murderess'. She feels a little stuck and is very aware of the way that women and POC are treated in 19th Century society. This can be a little jarringly modern. Celine's relationship with Sébastien is complicated. She spends most of the book conflicted between her attraction to him and her fear that he's involved in the unravelling murder mystery. He's nothing like anyone she knows either, rough around the edges and no kind of gentleman, and their interactions are engaging and satisfying for a YA romance sub-plot.
Odette is the character that draws Celine into La Cour Des Lions, and I loved her. She's queer and powerful, a woman in trousers in a world where women shouldn't even be showing their ankles. I liked her as a wild and feminist character. I would admit that she sometimes seemed a little too modern. Celine did that too sometimes, but this is a YA novel and I'm willing to overlook that because the experience of reading this was fun and engaging and I was still left wanting more.
I'm a sucker (ha!) for vampire novels, and I'll be the first person to admit that I was Twilight obsessed as a teenager (and okay I still love the books and the terrible movies). So when I saw this marketed as 19th Century New Orleans with vampires, I was pumped, but it's not quite as vampire heavy as I expected. The main characters aren't vampires, and while a lot of the Court are vampiric, the plot itself isn't vampire-forward. I probably would have pegged this more as 'Historical romance meets gothic fantasy meets murder mystery'. Not as snappy, but more accurate. I'm hoping that the sequel gives us a little more vampire action but overall I liked the book a lot.
Character - 8
Atmosphere - 7
Writing - 6
Plot - 6
Intrigue - 5
Logic - 5
Enjoyment - 6
Rating: 6.14 / 3 stars
Atmosphere - 7
Writing - 6
Plot - 6
Intrigue - 5
Logic - 5
Enjoyment - 6
Rating: 6.14 / 3 stars
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Character - 7
Atmosphere - 6
Writing - 6
Plot - 6
Intrigue - 7
Logic - 6
Enjoyment - 6
Rating: 6.29 / 3 stars
Atmosphere - 6
Writing - 6
Plot - 6
Intrigue - 7
Logic - 6
Enjoyment - 6
Rating: 6.29 / 3 stars
Character - 8
Atmosphere - 6
Writing - 7
Plot - 7
Intrigue - 6
Logic - 7
Enjoyment - 8
Rating: 7.00 / 4 stars
Atmosphere - 6
Writing - 7
Plot - 7
Intrigue - 6
Logic - 7
Enjoyment - 8
Rating: 7.00 / 4 stars
Character - 9
Atmosphere - 10
Writing - 7
Plot - 7
Intrigue - 8
Logic - 7
Enjoyment - 9
Rating: 8.14 / 4 stars
Atmosphere - 10
Writing - 7
Plot - 7
Intrigue - 8
Logic - 7
Enjoyment - 9
Rating: 8.14 / 4 stars
https://inkandplasma.wordpress.com/2020/02/20/ark-angel-by-anthony-horowitz-alex-rider-reread-6/
We're disappointed but not surprised that we're still on the 'evil people have something physically wrong with them' train. I'm not going to spend ages talking about this, because if you've read all the reviews so far you'll be sick of me complaining about this - but disfigurement/unconventional appearances doesn't make people 'a freak' or 'hideous' and saying that just makes you a dick
We're disappointed but not surprised that we're still on the 'evil people have something physically wrong with them' train. I'm not going to spend ages talking about this, because if you've read all the reviews so far you'll be sick of me complaining about this - but disfigurement/unconventional appearances doesn't make people 'a freak' or 'hideous' and saying that just makes you a dick
Snakehead was really good. Like, really good and not just chaotic nonsense kind of good like Ark Angel was. The more I talk about it the more I think I should bump my rating up to 5 stars. (I got this far before scooting it up to 5 stars and I have no regrets.) As far as I’m aware, Snakehead took a little longer to write than the others, or at least longer to release, and it's longer than previous entries in the series. I think that made a huge difference, honestly. The mission was more complex and in depth, and it felt like I could really get my teeth into it. There was more going on, and the story developed gradually rather than hurrying into the climax.
Snakehead takes its name from the gangs that traffic information, supplies, contraband, organs and people across borders. They work with Scorpia and are involved with the same bad people and the same bad things as Scorpia have been. It feels like the Alex Rider series grew up in this book. The early parts of the series are fun and wacky, and they do seem childish. While there was threat there, Alex’s missions were all still about him being a child. In Snakehead, he’s not a child any more. Even though he’s still a fifteen year old kid still, the Australian Secret Service are treating him like an adult, and Snakehead sure as hell don’t care that he’s a kid. It was an intense book, and I was on the edge of my seat. If I didn’t know there were more parts of the series, I would have genuinely thought that Alex was going to die at several different points.
Alex, for a teenage protagonist, is really mature. His wise-cracks are a part of his personality, but even they are toned down in this book and we get to see him thinking before he speaks - and thinking before he antagonises Winston Yu. He still shows a little child-like naivety and a weakness for authority figures when his family are name dropped, but I appreciate that in him. If he didn’t have those child-like flaws, Alex would be an adult protagonist (and not a well developed one either) in a child’s body, and that wouldn’t be half as interesting. Alex should absolutely have trust issues. He should have trust issues for days. Literally nobody in his life is trustworthy (I’ll give Jack 90% but I still haven’t forgiven her for implying that if Alex is too difficult she won’t look after him any more) and yet still… he believes in the good in people? I’ve been through like 0.5% of the trauma in my whole life that Alex has been through in the last six months and I don’t trust people like he does. I spent half of this book screaming at Alex to use some common sense because certain people were being ridiculously shady. I wish Alex wouldn’t throw his lot in with everyone who might know something about his parents. Sing an Elsa style self-discovery song and stop trusting dangerous people! Please!
We actually made it all the way to chapter 9 before we got our disfigured = evil comparison, and it was so brief that I’m actually optimistic we might be done with that part of our lives? Our big bad guy was chronically ill, but so were some good guy characters and the way that the chronic pain was represented was well-done so I’m actually, for once, going to let it go. Here’s hoping we get zero disfigured/disabled ‘~evil~’ characters in Crocodile Tears and I can stop yelling about it. The refugee sub-plot was handled well too, and I really felt for the people Alex encountered as he followed the smuggler's route to Australia.
I also immediately noted when Alex got a matching scar to Yassen in one scene. I could write an entire thesis on the parallels between Yassen Gregorovich and Alex Rider, red-string conspiracy theory and all.
Snakehead takes its name from the gangs that traffic information, supplies, contraband, organs and people across borders. They work with Scorpia and are involved with the same bad people and the same bad things as Scorpia have been. It feels like the Alex Rider series grew up in this book. The early parts of the series are fun and wacky, and they do seem childish. While there was threat there, Alex’s missions were all still about him being a child. In Snakehead, he’s not a child any more. Even though he’s still a fifteen year old kid still, the Australian Secret Service are treating him like an adult, and Snakehead sure as hell don’t care that he’s a kid. It was an intense book, and I was on the edge of my seat. If I didn’t know there were more parts of the series, I would have genuinely thought that Alex was going to die at several different points.
Alex, for a teenage protagonist, is really mature. His wise-cracks are a part of his personality, but even they are toned down in this book and we get to see him thinking before he speaks - and thinking before he antagonises Winston Yu. He still shows a little child-like naivety and a weakness for authority figures when his family are name dropped, but I appreciate that in him. If he didn’t have those child-like flaws, Alex would be an adult protagonist (and not a well developed one either) in a child’s body, and that wouldn’t be half as interesting. Alex should absolutely have trust issues. He should have trust issues for days. Literally nobody in his life is trustworthy (I’ll give Jack 90% but I still haven’t forgiven her for implying that if Alex is too difficult she won’t look after him any more) and yet still… he believes in the good in people? I’ve been through like 0.5% of the trauma in my whole life that Alex has been through in the last six months and I don’t trust people like he does. I spent half of this book screaming at Alex to use some common sense because certain people were being ridiculously shady. I wish Alex wouldn’t throw his lot in with everyone who might know something about his parents. Sing an Elsa style self-discovery song and stop trusting dangerous people! Please!
We actually made it all the way to chapter 9 before we got our disfigured = evil comparison, and it was so brief that I’m actually optimistic we might be done with that part of our lives? Our big bad guy was chronically ill, but so were some good guy characters and the way that the chronic pain was represented was well-done so I’m actually, for once, going to let it go. Here’s hoping we get zero disfigured/disabled ‘~evil~’ characters in Crocodile Tears and I can stop yelling about it. The refugee sub-plot was handled well too, and I really felt for the people Alex encountered as he followed the smuggler's route to Australia.
I also immediately noted when Alex got a matching scar to Yassen in one scene. I could write an entire thesis on the parallels between Yassen Gregorovich and Alex Rider, red-string conspiracy theory and all.