Tuesday 26 April 2016

Ink and Bone

20643052

Book Title: Ink and Bone
Author: Rachel Caine
Series: The Great Library #1
Date Started: April 20th 2016
Date Completed: April 25th 2016
Genres: Fantasy, Adventure, Mystery, Romance
Quality Rating: Four Stars
Enjoyment Rating: Four Star
Final Rating: Four stars
Review:

◆ Thank you NetGalley for this eBook copy for review ◆

Honestly, I underestimated Ink and Bone when I started reading. The first half wasn't really encouraging me to think differently because of it's slow pace, but suddenly halfway through things really picked up and it became a really entertaining and quick read. By big downside to the book as a whole was that it felt a lot like a prologue to the sequel.

The world building was both a strength of this book, but also a weakness for me if I thought about it too much. Obviously, the way to solve this was to not think about it too much, and once I accepted that I was able to dive into the story a lot better. Caine's captured a nice blend of mythology and traditional adventure-mystery worlds, but I don't feel like the futuristic/alternate-history genre really came into it. When I started reading I imagined a 19th Century setting, only to find out it's more of a dystopian civilisation. For me that element didn't fit very well, and also didn't need to be there: because it's an alternate history where the Library of Alexandria never gets burnt down, I don't think we needed to know exactly when it was set - or if she was trying to show how this regressed our society I didn't feel like she looked at it enough. Overall, I wasn't sure what Caine was trying to do, but like I said: just don't think about it too much. But even with some of the inconsistencies at the back of my head, I honestly did find Ink and Bone enjoyable to read. I can't even pinpoint what made it so, but I'm really eager to get onto the next one.

Ink and Bone takes its time to establish what it's doing, but it definitely makes up for it in the end. I was getting dubious at the competition/school phase when I could predict exactly who was going to get through to being a Librarian (shocker: I was right), but then Caine twists things around and we're on a different path. This happens a couple of times, so if you aren't sure about this book to start with, keep going because it gets interesting pretty quickly.
A big part of what makes Ink and Bone enjoyable are the relationships, but I really liked how they weren't the main aspect of the story. The cute little pairings and friendships are really sweet and enjoyable to read about, but because they're placed in the background it lets them stay sweet as opposed to sickly. Caine could've quite easily dominated the text with romance or family relationships, but she let the story tell itself as a priority, and let us enjoy all the characters' interactions on the side.
I didn't feel like there was really a big climax past the cliffhanger, but I think the story (past the halfway mark) is consistent enough in its tension and excitement that it doesn't really matter. Climaxes tend to resolve problems set up in the narrative, and there aren't really any issues Caine can solve in this first book. Instead she communicates the transition into another part of the characters' story and leaves us wanting more.

I really liked the diversity of characters in this book, and I'm kind of conflicted because I really liked how they were just naturally diverse without it having to be their token trait in their personalities, but at the same time I really wish they could've been more at the forefront of the story. Our protagonists are very much the norm, with the range of diverse characters in secondary roles. I'm not complaining too much since the range of nationalities, sexualities, personalities and genders were really nice to see, I'm just... considering the unused potential they had.
Jess was a good protagonist, but as usual not extraordinary. I think his main strength was being able to see things from different perspectives and really adapt: he's not the same person at the start that you find after he's gotten to know what the Library is capable of. To be brutally honest, I'm not sure if this was exactly planned character development, or more what Caine twisting her protagonist to get everyone to the end of the book, but either way it still worked in terms of the story and didn't pull me out of narrative with its convenience.
I also really liked Morgan. Her introduction into the story is a little unconventional and I was confused at her exact involvement to start with, but she soon proves herself. Essentially how Caine sets things out at the start of this book don't make a whole lot of sense when you're reading it, but by the second half things slowly start to click into place. From a reader's perspective I'm not sure how well it was done since I did doubt lots of things to start with, but I can understand why Caine hides details and secrets from the reader.

Like I've mentioned, this book is very slow to start with - not necessarily boring since you've got some nice characters and an interesting world, but it did make me wonder where the story was going. Of course, once Caine lights the fuse it gets serious very, very fast. I flew through the second half in the way that actually, I didn't really want to put the book down.

I enjoyed Ink and Bone a lot more than I was expecting to, and I'm actually really eager to get onto the next book when it comes out later this year. If you like fantasy, a little bit of adventure and mystery along with some cute characters and books (oh, the books) then it's definitely worth putting it on your shelf.

Image Source - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20643052-ink-and-bone

Thursday 21 April 2016

Inkdeath


Book Title: Inkdeath
Author: Cornelia Funke
Series: Inkworld #3
Date Started: April 8th 2016
Date Completed: April 20th 2016
Genres: Fantasy, Adventure, Romance
Quality Rating: Five Stars
Enjoyment Rating: Five Star
Final Rating: Five stars
Review:

Inkdeath is a living, breathing fairytale on a larger scale. There are so many little reminiscent details, but it's all strung together by Funke's entirely original and stunning imagination. I've waited a long time to read this book - I read Inkheart when I was about seven or eight - but the second I opened the page I was entirely lost in the Inkworld again the whole way through. I didn't notice it was taking me a while to read or that it was so long, because I wasn't there to notice the page numbers, I was in Ombra, or Elinor's library, or in the Black Prince's cave, or in Violante's castle.

Funke's love of books and storytelling is so tangible in her writing that it makes it impossible not to fall in love with reading all over again. If anything, Inkheart and its sequels are a love letter to books and stories, for children and adults, girls and boys: 'books love anyone who opens them' and it really comes across.
The writing is very traditional in terms of the kinds of roles available for each character (e.g. women, children etc), but Funke acknowledges this and still finds little ways around it anyway. For example, there's always a little sign in the children's voices when they know that they can't be the heroes of the story, and that the Bluejay has to do that for them, but they can still fight and they do. Just little ways around things like that show that you can still use traditional conventions without marginalising people (which is I think something we still struggle with sometimes in storytelling).

The Inkworld series is based a lot around world building , so I was happy to see that Inkdeath both worked well with what had already been established, but also was able to take steps forward from the previous books. We get to discover more but still explore the storylines already in place.
You can see on every page just how much inspiration is taken from fairytales, but I also noticed how much Funke has taken from more modern books as well - the quotes at the start of each chapter name influences like Ted Hughes, Philip Pullman, Markus Zusak etc, but I could feel all the different influences in the writing too. Funke's own style is very much in centerstage, but its nice being able to pick out all the various other aspects you can recognise from all over literature. Not least because you're reading about people from our world that have found themselves lost between the pages of a book. And in the best way possible, Funke does this with sophistication: full of the magic and elegance of traditional fairytale, but with the magic and wit of a child's imagination. This isn't your average children's book.
The final climax of Inkdeath wasn't as dramatic as I had hoped, but the book had the most wonderful epilogue I've ever read. Inkdeath, for me, stays at a relatively similar level of tension and excitement throughout, so the finale didn't burst out of the pages as maybe I was expecting, but the fact that when I closed the book I felt so satisfied at how everything had drawn together was more than enough for me.

Inkdeath is the kind of book where every character is meticulously crafted and perfectly chosen, and who you can't help but love, even if they're not a good guy. On top of that you have all the layers of relationships they have with everyone around them, which are all heartwarming to say the least. Without going into spoilers, Dustfinger has 100% been the best character of the entire series and he will be one of my most beloved fictional characters forever.
I've always liked Mo, but I don't think I'd ever really connected with the main protagonist of these books as much as I did in this one. I think his confliction between being the bookbinder, and the Bluejay that Fenoglio had written him as was the game changer for me; as much as perfect Mo is great, seeing his dark side was really interesting.
Meggie is just as much as protagonist as her father of course. I don't feel like she had as much of a role as she had in Inkspell, but her presence was still a key part to the book, and a key part to showing us how beautiful the Inkworld is. You might have Mo running around for his - and everyone else's - life, but getting to see the Inkworld in all its glory again from a slightly (only slightly) less dramatic angle gave that good balance that kept my motivation to read up.

Pacing-wise Inkdeath was just right: it isn't the kind of book that is unputdownable because of the constant state of drama, but at the same time the sheer amount of different stories happening at the same time, all converging on one point means that every time you get to the end of a chapter and have a peek at the next one, you just want to keep going. I didn't get bored at any point, and I was completely lost in the story the whole time.

The Inkworld trilogy is one of those series that I can always go back to and feel comforted by. Even though it's over it's still like Hogwarts in the way that I can go right back to it whenever I need it. Although Inkdeath itself didn't overwhelm me with emotions I still loved it, and thought it was a wonderful end to the story. Part of the reason I wasn't overwhelmed by it was because of how comforted I am by it: doesn't matter if you're in a life-threatening situation, I feel a home in this world (which is ironically the same predicament as quite a few of the characters so it evens out in the end).

Image Source https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDQcCA-OqQnHbnt2no_obJ0Udo2bXlphbzsEIgEiLj7E0jL6NDFB-Ty_s_hbJ5gPQM5AE4_hM4RWdlyjF78Pkgtw8y38UyQcEBgSCJyRwfT8tjE1tlpVoIU87deOELesc65IAbUUf0AhzA/s1600/2325825.jpeg

Friday 8 April 2016

Red Rising

18046624

Book Title: Red Rising
Author: Pierce Brown
Series: Red Rising #1
Date Started: March 28th 2016
Date Completed: April 8th 2016
Genres: Dystopian, Action
Quality Rating: Four Stars
Enjoyment Rating: Three Star
Final Rating: Four stars
Review:

Red Rising wasn't nearly as original as I was expecting, but at the same time I'm still conflicted because it was a good book. At one point I thought it was that the world and story were brilliantly established but the characters werent puling through, but I'm not so sure anymore. Overall, I was interested, but I didn't care what happened.

I'm still not sure where I stand with Brown's writing: the action felt a bit condensed and heavy without saying much, but was definitely exciting; there isn't much dialogue thinking back on it, but what was there felt reasonably natural; the narration takes up most of the book but that in itself isn't too boring and actually gives relevant information to the story as opposed to rambling about something that only has meaning for the author. But the fact that most of the written skill was around explaining the military manoeuvres and the gory ways each leader was rising to the top but without any real meaning, it felt a little bit of a big boys game version of Lord of the Flies without much consideration on the other elements making up the book to back it up. It wasn't bad - Brown surprised me with his fluency - but I think it focused on some strange areas given the overarching story it was going to tell.

Red Rising is arguably built on its politics and social ideas. I generally love these kinds of books, and after pushing the unavoidable comparisons to every other Young Adult dystopian out there from my head (primarily The Hunger Games, Divergent, Uglies etc), I found a few new things in the wold building. Having said that, I don't quite understand the reasoning of quite a few methods used by this government - and the class/race system especially confused me. The Golds WERE different to the other class/races below them; it takes multiple surgeries to become one of them, so what was the moral point? I feel like there should be a social context we can relate to in all this, but I can't find the right angle for it. You can't say that all the races are the same, because they're practically different species here, but I can't see how it's implied that Reds are just as valuable as Golds: it's almost like Brown was confirming the Gold hierarchy beliefs.
This book also relies quite a bit on little revelations scattered throughout the whole thing - partially to show how clever Darrow is, but also to show how corrupt the system is. But I felt like some of these were just for the author, and there was no way the reader would've seen them coming or worked them out. Maybe I was really detached so didn't pick up the hints, but either way feeling like I wasn't really going to be given a chance to think ahead of the characters pushed me even further from the story because it felt like I was just an observers, as opposed to being able to problem-solve some stuff myself.
After all my issues with Red Rising, I still got completely immersed in the ending. You definitely get caught up in it and forget what's really going on behind all the scheming and games, so the resolution of the story on its own is almost a surprise - even more so when you remember what Darrow is building up to in the trilogy as a whole. Regardless of how hard I found it to get into, I really want to know where it goes from here.

The characters in Red Rising don't seem as strong or consistent as anything else (especially female roles - I was really disappointed by those actually). There just doesn't seem to be much substance under anyone, and even if there was Brown isn't one to keep people around the main plot line for long. I understand that people fall in and out of power (it was a good element of the story), but it felt like it was there partly to cover them randomly disappearing in the writing because the timing of a lot of them just didn't make sense given the circumstances. Really, I'm just frustrated because there was a lot of potential in some of those characters, but everything was sacrificed for Darrow.
Darrow himself was a mediocre hero at best unfortunately. He's a great leader, and incredibly important, but as a main protagonist he's a bit bland - he's very sure of himself a lot of the time, and rightly so. And while it's nice to have a protagonist who knows what they're doing, it makes for a bit of a slow story. The big thing with Red Rising is also the fact that Darrow is literally the only character who's consistently around, because we have to be inside his head. But no one else is around beside him consistently, and while this keeps things changing, I honestly wanted to see some more development from people who weren't as confident or skilled as Darrow. Darrow nailed the whole thing - now I want to see people mess up and how they deal with it.

Honestly, I didn't enjoy the first part of this book at all, but it's really important to set everything up. While I don't think books that sacrifice their openings to world build are skilfully written, I admit that when things kicked off it was much better knowing all the foundations to really understand what was happening and why it mattered. Having said that, there was something missing from keeping me glued to the story. All the way through I found myself falling in and out of interest and I'm still not sure why - I just know it definitely made it harder for me to feel engaged in the story.

I'm eager to see what happens next to Darrow; it feels like one of those stories that almost goes into a whole different world in each book, but I'm wary of all the hype surrounding the rest of the series. Red Rising wasn't what I was hoping for, but once I'd accepted that the little inconsistencies and strange orderings of the world I was able to find some good entertainment for the last hundred pages that was eventually enough to make me want more.

Image Source https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18046624-red-rising