Thursday 25 October 2018

Mortal Coil

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Book Title: Mortal Coil
Author: Derek Landy
Series: Skulduggery Pleasant #5
Date Started: October 16th 2018
Date Completed: October 23rd 2018
Genres: Mystery, Fantasy, Action, Thriller, Horror
Quality Rating: Five Stars
Enjoyment Rating: Five Stars
Final Rating: Five stars
Review:

Sometimes, if I'm having a bad day or for no reason at all, I go to this book. I'm not really sure why this one - there are happier books. Some more heartwarming. But none quite get that balance of humour, fun, darkness and threat. And the moments when the characters you've been with for years crack a joke you've read a million times and it still makes you smile. Mortal Coil is definitely the most paged through from my collection, so I was a lot more familiar with it in my Skulduggery reread than the rest. I guess I didn't have those moments of rediscovering events I'd forgotten this time, because every time I open the book I find them again, and I will continue to do so.

So, how to begin a review where I've already sung the praises of this series in my previous reviews (go read those if you want coherent analysis). I'll start at the beginning: Skulduggery Pleasant was built on the mystery genre. I'm not convinced it's a genre you can really pin down, but the little quirks, the nods, the in-jokes are what began this series. So, five books in, when it dives into so many different genres - horror, action, political thriller, epic fantasy - it actually makes me really happy that our protagonists still get to solve mysteries. Sure, they end up kicking ass and saving the world as well, but they still get those little detective moments of epiphany and investigating a crime scene. It's fun. They need a little fun since they're thoroughly screwed from here on out.

Mortal Coil builds off the ripples of previous events, as all good books in a series should, while still having its own internal plot. Each book stands on its own, but really this absolutely massive story that Derek is telling can't be told in anyting but a series. The politics was established right at the beginning, and we watched it develop in trying times, and then be completely obliterated at the end of the last book. Now we see them picking up the pieces, and we can understand what a massive deal it is. The same for the characters. Speaking of...

You can always tell when a main character is going to get screwed over when they suddenly have more screen time that before. So, whenever I do go back and reread this book it hurts my heart when I notice Tanith getting all these extra little moments, because I definiely didn't see it coming the first time around. (Spoilers: Tanith gets screwed over. You may be able to tell from the spin off book that gives it away.) So, when I was younger, I didn't really appreciate Tanith. Blame it on internalised misogyny, female competition, or my obsession with wanting to be Valkyrie, but Tanith faded into the background. But as I got older, Tanith became someone who meant so damn much to me, who I started to understand more, and who shone out as one of the real heroes. So reading this book from start to finish again (even though I've read all her parts a million and one times) got to me a lot more than I expected it to. Sure, her life gets derailed big time (thanks Derek), but we also get the chance to really see her show off her whole potential both as a badass and as an emotionally driven character; we never see her cry before this, we never see her even waver really. In Mortal Coil we get to see these vulnerabilities and then see her kicking ass not that much later. She has that range that so few women get given in fiction (especially by male writers).

And really the whole series is full of more examples. Sure, Tanith is the one that resonates with me very personally, but this is really a show of intelligent, powerful adults that let themselves be immature every once in a while. It's strangely freeing, and very engaging. Because these adults have the ability to take things seriously as well, and slip between the two as naturally as actors, we can believe them when they act like children. Because everyone wants to be a little childish sometimes. Which, ironically, makes our protagonist all the more powerful. It still amazes me how little Val is in these early books - and it makes me so happy because I never (had to) notice now. When I was like a year younger than her when the books came out, it was never pointed out that she was a kid/teenager so I didn't feel patronised by it either. Ageism is something we don't really talk about a lot, but it's books like these that treat young people as, you know, people that make me want to make everyone else read it. Your child can be a child and still be powerful, independant, curious, and not feel patronised while they do it.

Pretty soon I'm going to catch up to my original reviews of these books. I started this reread because a) an excuse to reread the entire series and b) because I wanted to put into words what this series means to me. I'm not sure I've really achieved the second one since at this point everything is just me gushing over it. Though I guess if you're this far through the series you probably agree with me. We should set up a support group for the emotional enrichment - oh, and the trauma.

Tuesday 16 October 2018

To All the Boys I've Loved Before

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Book Title: To All the Boys I've Loved Before
Author: Jenny Han
Series: To All the Boys I've Loved Before #1
Date Started: October 5th 2018
Date Completed: October 16th 2018
Genres: Romance, Contemporary
Quality Rating: Two Stars
Enjoyment Rating: Three Stars
Final Rating: Two stars
Review:

To sum up: this book is sickly sweet. That should decide it for most people as to whether they want to read it or not. Having watched and (to my surprise) loved the film, I was up for reading the novel even though it's not a genre I usually enjoy. I'm glad that I gave it a chance, but it's proved to me yet again that fluffy romance just isn't for me.

I felt like there was so much weighing the story down; from unnecessary exposition or one-liners to massive distractions - am I the only person that feels like the whole situation works so much better without knowing what's inside the love letters? I have to admit that the book probably suffers from me watching the film first, and for that I'm kind of sorry. But I can't help but think how the structure is a lot more flimsy and concerned with useless pieces of information just to be cute.

I also found that I didn't get on with the characters as well as I had in the adaptation. Of course I didn't read this book in its entirety, but nearly 100 pages in and everyone's basically a caricature of themselves. Where the film felt like it was pushing to break so many stereotypes, the book just kind of fell into some of them. No one was evil like we've come to expect from American high school dramas, but no one was really fully there for me.

Basically, I feel like it lacks the quirks and sense of realness that allowed me to get on so well with its movie counterpart. I put a clear disclaimer that I'm not a massive fan of the genre; if cute YA contemporaries are your thing then I'm sure you'll enjoy it, but they're not mine and even the rom-com triumph of the film didn't make me want to see this one through to the end.

Saturday 6 October 2018

Time's Convert

Time's Convert

Book Title: Time's Convert
Author: Deborarh Harkness
Series: All Souls Trilogy
Date Started: September 18th 2018
Date Completed: October 5th 2018
Genres: Fantasy, Romance, Historical
Quality Rating: Three Stars
Enjoyment Rating: Four Stars
Final Rating: Three stars
Review:

I enjoyed Time's Convert, but largely because I was already in love with the characters. It's definitely not one to dive into if you haven't read the previous book in the All Souls Triology. And, for a book about Marcus and Phoebe, there's precious little of Marcus and Phoebe actually together. It still felt a lot like the Diana show; she has the most progressive story, the most active obstacles and the first person narration. Maybe it's a slight of the marketing, but I can't help feeling let down from my expectations.

Again, this book is very sexy. I've called the series an academic-adult twilight, but this is more so than the main books. I guess it's because the characters are younger? While not necessarily being a bad thing, there felt like less of a focus on the history and other interesting aspects that we had in the original series. Like with Diana again, it feels like the real positions of power are being kept for the older characters (predominantly women, which is fantastic) but I would have liked the 'kids' to have had a little bit of that agency as well.

The structure of these books is always a little unfamiliar. While it's pretty carefully plotted and fascinating history-wise, it's not as thrilling as it builds itself up to be. I remember at the end of the trilogy feeling like there should've been this big climax that never came. The endings are always rushed: having taken pages and pages to get through a single event, we then have entire months being skipped over in a sentence. It's a bit of a let down when we have such long sections of exposition and character-building, but no real resolution to a story.

And there were a few instances in which we started to go down some aisles. There was what felt like an ancient Greek twist towards the beginning but it ended up disappearing. While I liked the various time periods we dipped out toes into - and it made sense in the context - having experienced how interesting it was to be completely immersed in Elizabethan England in the second novel, it paled a little in comparison when Harkness wasn't able to look so deeply into the historical period her characters were in.

I'm still pretty conflicted about my rating - it flips between three and four stars in my head because I absolutely enjoyed it, but it also left a lot of gaps for what I wanted from a sequel to the All Souls Trilogy. Bordering on self-indulgence and companion-style fun, it's worth the read if you enjoyed the main books, but properly won't give you a whole lot if you're unfamiliar with the characters you'll be continuing with.