Friday 30 June 2017

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

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Book Title: Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe
Author: Benjamin Alire Sáenz
Date Started: June 23rd 2017
Date Completed: June 25th 2017
Genres: Contemporary, Romance
Quality Rating: Four Stars
Enjoyment Rating: Three Star
Final Rating: Three stars
Review:

This book is really sweet, but it wasn't for me. Contemporary books aren't my thing. I always feel guilty when I end up going back to that because it's what I say about 95% of the genre, but I keep looking to try and find that little margin that I do enjoy. Not to say that I hated reading this book; I didn't, it was lovely. But, as emotional as it is in theory, for me personally, the genre always makes it hard for me to buy into what's happening.

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe - despite what the title may suggest - an easy and accessible read. Both dialogue and narration are written with a flow and gentleness that makes it simple to dip in and out of and still keep up with the story. I read it in about three sittings without much bother, and even though I feel like a lot of the emotional impact washed over me, I was still motivated to keep reading even after an hour or two.

There's some really nice casual representation in this book and I suspect it's part of the reason why I think it's won so many awards. And rightly so. Alire Sáenz isn't just ticking boxes for the sake of it with his Mexican LGBT+ protagonists that go through some significant mental and physical health difficulties at times. These elements aren't just there for bragging rights of the aforementioned list, they're actually sustained parts of the story and aspects of his characters.

I don't think there's a single character in this book that isn't absolutely lovely. Flawed, of course, but Ari and Dante have some of the most supportive and friendly parents and friends you could have, even if it takes a little while to find that out. Part of why the story felt quite level to me was because everyone was so nice: I struggled to find the tension when there was so much kindness in response to every obstacle - internal or external - that the boys were facing. Having said that, I really liked the realistic portrayal of depression that hovered over Ari even when his problems were 'fixed' - of course, it's not as easy an obstacle being literally solved, the emotional blowback is still present. Alire Sáenz did a good job of getting that across, even when someone is surrounded by patient support.

If contemporary books are your thing, this is definitely one of the sweetest and more thoughtful ones that I've come across, so it might be worth a look. It's got the awards to prove it. Overall, it was a very touching story (though it does honestly have some very depressing points) but it washed over me.

Thursday 22 June 2017

Our Dark Duet

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Book Title: Our Dark Duet
Author: V.E. Schwab
Series: Monsters of Verity #2
Date Started: June 16th 2017
Date Completed: June 22nd 2017
Genres: Dystopian, Action, Fantasy
Quality Rating: Five Stars
Enjoyment Rating: Five Star
Final Rating: Five stars
Review:

I thoroughly enjoyed this book.; finished in about three sittings. Even more than This Savage Song, I couldn't put it down. I'm a bit gutted it's over, honestly.

Victoria has such well-written action in her books. It's probably one of the smallest praises I can put on her writing - she's talented in a great many ways - but action and physical movement is always something that a lot of writers miss out on. You'd be surprised how many 'epic end battles' I've read that can barely string together two moves in a realistic fashion. But Vic manages whole fight scenes that you can visualise as easy as the characters themselves. There are human touches to the actions and a wordless fist fight can tell you just as much about the people as a dialogue scene.

The triumph of this series is its concept; I think I said a similar thing in my review of This Savage Song. The idea that acts of violence literally create humanoid monsters in their wake is genius, and the relationship those 'sinners' then have with the creatures even more so. The idea wasn't as key to the story as it was in the previous instalment, but gave the book a very solid foundation to work from. Our Dark Duet is more about the characters learning how to deal these monstrous creations and keep their own humanity while they're at it.
Something that struck me personally last time was the parallels between the monsters and mental health, and I was very happy to see it continued in this book. More so through the strength of the protagonists in the face of it than the experiences themselves this time, but it gave me a hand to hold and was actually pretty damn empowering. I'll get onto specifics on characters in a minute, but the narrative of accepting something as part of your existence without letting it take over struck home for me.
I have to say, while I loved the story of Our Dark Duet, there were a few things that were left unanswered or lost; Kate and her connection to this new monster was never really revealed (I don't think? Perhaps I was too caught up in the climax to catch the explanation), and her relationship with the people in Prosperity was somewhat abandoned after the first half. While I don't think these were things that were just 'conveniently missing' to make things easier, I was really interested in their part in the story and so was a bit sad they weren't carried the whole way through.

If there's one thing Victoria knows how to do, it's characters (and action, and story, and magic, and politics etc.). It's always the first thing I latch onto in her books, and it enhances the world she's constructed around them until it feels real.
Praise be (I've been watching The Handmaid's Tale) for kickass girls, and Kate is right at the top of the pile. Seeing her development from the first book is great, and her ability to have humanity but make the cold decisions that need to be made this book interesting. Kate almost goes solo in this book: she's with August of course, but a lot of her actions are her own and isolated from the rest. It was nice to see a female protagonist make her choices solely in her own mind, even if they aren't always the best options. Kate knows what she wants, for better or worse. And she's terrified, but all the braver for it.
August was someone I sorely missed wanting to hug, but he's not kidding when he says he's changed. He's still loveable, but while This Savage Song felt like his story, Our Dark Duet favours Kate. There's a very, very gentle relationship between the two which I appreciated and enjoyed for various reasons, especially from August's darker perspective in this book. Neither have had sheltered lives, but August was thrown into the middle of the chaos at the end of the last book and it's taken its toll. Very well done, of course, but I felt Kate's distress at finding a different August than the one she left behind.

Despite being dubious about the sequel to start with, The Monsters of Verity series works very well as a duology. This Savage Song was great as a stand alone (which is what I was convinced it was when I read it), but I can't complain about getting to follow Kate and August's story just a little further. It didn't feel unnecessary, it felt like a continuation, and it's joined the long list of five stars book from Vic in my library.

Tuesday 13 June 2017

The Song Rising

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Book Title: The Song Rising
Author: Samantha Shannon
Series: The Bone Season #3
Date Started: June 1st 2017
Date Completed: June 11th 2017
Genres: Fantasy, Dystopian, Romance
Quality Rating: Four Stars
Enjoyment Rating: Five Star
Final Rating: Five stars
Review:

I really enjoyed The Song Rising. Way more than I expected, actually. It's been a while since I read The Mime Order back in early 2015, and the series had somewhat paled in my memory. The Bone Season held the top position on my favourites shelf for a long time, so I don't really know why, but I was quite apprehensive going into this third book in the series well aware that the wait between them is only likely to get longer, and the complexities of the story I have to remember even harder. But you know what, the wait was well worth it.

Shannon is a very good writer. We know this, but her work reestablishes it every time I open a page too. Her grasp on the balance between politics on a lower and upper-class level, relationships and rebellion make these books very engaging to read, not to mention enjoyable. Personally, I love her for the worlds she creates by twisting our own; Shannon uses culture so well to give herself a basis of customs that we're familiar with to build on further. I know we're heading across Europe later in the series, but even just the way she heightens English and Irish culture and locations with her fantastical elements is a joy to read.

Despite reading the last book more than two years ago, I actually remembered a lot of the world building and plot points. And The Bone Season series is a complicated world to say the least; it's magic system to start with has a ridiculous number of variations that I honestly don't know (but hey, doesn't take away from the story so it's all good). This basically means that the whole series much be pretty solid if I can remember where we were both for the government, the rebellion and the protagonist at the end of The Mime Order - not to mention a fair few smaller character roles too.
Something that I get worried with from longer series like this is the ability of each book to be a story within its own right, as well as moving the series plot line on. It's a problem you get a lot in trilogies - filler book syndrome, as I call it - where it only really exists to set the characters and story up for a later book. The Mime Order bordered a little too close to that from what I remember, so approaching The Song Rising I did have that looming in the back of my head. It was a nice surprise then, to find that this novel had a good plot in its own right, as well as in the series as a whole. The characters are given a goal at the beginning, and they work towards that throughout, but new problems have been brought to their attention by the time they have completed their mission.
I'm not really in this for the romance side of the story (though I'm sure some people are), but I'm not going to turn down a pairing that's actually realistic in their behaviour given the circumstances. The whole 'you're a distraction, we can't do this' trope was at least attempted by the characters before they realised it just wasn't going to fly like that - something I'm happy to see people actually realising and not stubbornly continuing anyway. And, I admit, Paige and Warden are enjoyable to read together. It's a nice diversion from the main story for a few pages every now and then.

Oh boy, there's a lot of characters in this series, it feels like Game of Thrones sometimes. Likewise, they're all believable and developed even if I can't keep track of every single one of them. Having said that, there's a lot of people that I was able to remember. Within a few chapters I could place the position of Paige's friends pretty well considering how long it's been.
Paige herself is an awesome protagonist. She's very doubtful and scared of her power and responsibility, but her bravery in the face of it is what makes her a hero. This was the first time we really got to see her in control of her own fate - which can sometimes be the downfall for poorly-written characters - but I felt like I was seeing her at her very best.

I'm so happy that this series is back and kicking. The time in between books definitely made me forget how much I enjoyed the world of Scion London and Paige Mahoney - I mean, The Bone Season was my favourite book for quite a while. I missed it a lot more than I expected and I'm very excited about where the series is heading.

Thursday 1 June 2017

Resurrection

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Book Title: Resurrection
Author: Derek Landy
Series: Skulduggery Pleasant #10
Date Started: May 30th 2017
Date Completed: June 1st 2017
Genres: Fantasy, Adventure, Mystery, Action, Horror
Quality Rating: Four Stars
Enjoyment Rating: Five Star
Final Rating: Five stars
Review:

Of course, the release of Resurrection worried me immensely: what if my beloved series was getting pulled out too far, too thin, what if it wasn't quite the same anymore? But, even though Roarhaven and the magical community is very, very changed from what we left, even though there are new characters and altered favourites, even though the tone is a little different, the heart and soul of the Skulduggery Pleasant series is there. We weren't coming back for the same thing, and Derek knew that. Resurrection is an evolution of the series we know and love that was needed if the story was to carry on. And I'm very glad they did.

I've always been impressed with Derek's style of writing, and each time I read his new book I'm reminded how much he's developed and grown. To fuel his ego even more, we'll call it slick. I especially love how the end and beginning sentences of each chapter often reflect one another; it's like a film where the same word of a sentence has been edited between scenes. It's especially satisfying if you're marathoning the book like I was, so you catch the little jokes between pages.
The political satire is also on point. More than ever, Derek's humour is taking in contextual references which - while not always necessary for a joke to work - makes it all the funnier. It was toeing the boundaries of how far jokes can go at times, but nothing was too much. I just hope it doesn't lean over too far in the future.

The world of Skulduggery Pleasant is pretty broad now, and I think it's wonderful that you can casually teleport around the world and it doesn't feel like a big step. You can have these fantastically crazy magical abilities and people and it fits perfectly well with everything else. Derek is very good with tone and things rarely feel out of place, even if they seem pretty dramatic out of context. Speaking of which, the stakes are raised really high almost immediately in this book. I was smiling, so happy to be back in this world, and then suddenly woah, okay things are already going disastrously wrong. Good old Val and Skulduggery spreading friendly chaos everywhere.
And chaos it definitely it, but not the happy-go-lucky chaos that exists for as long as it's needed and then miraculously gets resolved in a few pages. It's been five years since we left the Ireland of The Dying of the Light, and things have changed because of what happened. Val has changed. We get a proper look at what it's like for an individual to continue after these heroic, but quite frankly terrible things happen, as well as how it makes other people react to them. More on that later. But it's not in the 'oh great everything's really sad now, where's the fun in it.' Don't worry Derek has plenty of wisecracks to keep you smiling.

Now when I heard that Resurrection was going to have a mostly new cast I became a little bit bitter. Little bit. But, I admit, with reluctance, that the new characters are pretty cool too. They're still not Tanith and the others (emphasis on Tanith), but I do admit it took about three/four books for me to warm up to her so I'm willing to give these guys a chance.
Seeing Val again was bizarre considering I grew up with her - like I always say, this series was my Harry Potter. Only my Fantastic Beasts actually features the original protagonist, only five years older and struggling with some dark stuff. Just the way I like it. As a representation of mental illness being featured in a story without it having to be the main plot point, this does pretty damn well. Derek tells the exciting action-adventure story, but he's always taken the effects violence has on people seriously. Val's depression and anxiety are definitely a driving force of some of this book, but they're things that try and test her character along the way, not purely a plot point.
Speaking of, Derek also twisted the 'Chosen One' story in a nice direction. If you've read The Rest of Us Just Live Here, you'll have an idea of what Omen's starting point is like; the painfully ordinary twin of the Chosen One. Ouch. But, of course, Omen becomes a lot more than that. I was really happy, first of all, with the fact that the whole deal of throwing kids into adult wars and fights has been realised to maybe not be the best idea. Not they're just being stubborn and going into it themselves, it seems. But secondly, as much as Omen changes, Derek didn't make it about becoming a hero like his brother. It was about Omen becoming whoever he wanted to be regardless of where he started, and that's just as valuable. You don't have to become the thing that you're not to be important.

All in all, I'm very glad to have some Skulduggery back in my life (not that I've been rereading the series on repeat or anything). It took a series that is very dear to my heart, and quite frankly awesome, and turned it into something a little bit new without losing the feel of the original series. My only criticism: where's my Tanith and when do I get her back?