Review: Bitterblue

Bitterblue by Kristin Cashore

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



This was a brilliant addition to the Graceling Realm series. I don't want to say too much about it, as I'd rather have people read it for themselves. What I can say is this: the book is a long meditation on what it means to heal and move forward.

I've always been drawn to fantasy for the characters. It seems to me that a fantasy must have psychologically real characters at its base in order to allow for the suspension of disbelief for the world in which the story is set. If the characters and the world have nothing real in them, then the book adds very little to the world. For all that the Graceling Realm is quite odd, the characters themselves are quite human. I love that Cashore recognized that Monsea and Bitterblue would need to fight in order to heal. Overall, I found this book to be excellent, and I recommend it highly.



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Review: A Monster Calls

A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



You've been warned. If you're reading this review, that means you clicked the spoiler button and are willing to know about what happens in this book. If you don't want to know, stop reading. If you don't want to read about my incredibly personal reaction to this book, stop reading.

Ok, then.

I loved this book. It made me cry, and it made me miss my mom.

My mom died on July 28th, 1990. She was 42. I was 14. It was a heart attack, a very sudden death. She had a chronic illness, but we never expected her to pass without warning the way that she did. I never got to say goodbye. I had a migraine that day when we were visiting my grandparents. I went into the guest room to sleep it off, and my grandfather and sister didn't bother to wake me when they took mom to the doctor's office. She passed away en route.

Reading this book, I remembered the impotent rage, the feeling of separation from peers, the fear about the future. It was all so real and true that I felt like breaking something, too.

I hope this book finds its way into the hands of those children and teens and adults that need it. We need it not only when we lose someone but also just to understand our own nature and the importance of what we do.

I loved this book.



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Review: Fair Game

Fair Game by Patricia Briggs

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



After the "hero takes on monster and wins, despite intense physical and/or emotional pain" format of the last few Mercy or Anna books, it was nice to read this one. Not only was it formatted as more of a mystery than the other books have been lately, but it also advanced the plot within the shared Mercy & Anna world. Finally. Things are changing, and no one can continue to ignore that fact.

This book might have been five stars, if not for the sexual violence. Rape and/or threats of rape have popped up too often in Briggs' most recent books, and I'm not comfortable with that at all. While Briggs does write about it well, and the attacks do have lasting psychological effects on the survivors, I'm still not pleased to see it being used so often as a plot device. Not everything is about rape, and I don't want all of Briggs' books to be about it, either.



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Review: Mind's Eye

Mind's Eye by Håkan Nesser

My rating: 2 of 5 stars



I've been trying to broaden my horizons by reading more fiction by non-American writers, but this book wasn't the best choice. It just fell flat for me.

I didn't like the detective and thought he was far too much of a stereotype of a detective. His one unique trait was his love for playing badminton against his junior colleague, but we never actually read a match. They always take place when the narrator is with someone else . . . so we never really get to see how he uses that game.

Speaking of the narrator, I found it really obnoxious that the book shifted viewpoint from the accused killer (which, as the cover copy tells us is also an eventual victim), to the detective, to his junior colleague, to another victim . . . I prefer my mysteries to be tightly focused from the point of view of one or two characters alone. We were never with one character for very long, and this was too short a book to really accommodate all of the swapping.

Next, the language. I understand this is a translation, but I still wasn't pleased with the word choice. Using the word "pussy" once was acceptable, as the character that said it was trying to be shocking and offensive. When that same word pops up in another character's free indirect discourse, ug.

Finally, I saw the solution a mile away. I'm not going to give it away, but I will say that I do think it was heavily foreshadowed.

I don't care all that much if the next books are better. I won't be continuing with this series. Life is too short to spend reading books that are merely OK when there are so many great ones out there.



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Review: Dark Mirror

Dark Mirror by M.J. Putney

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



As the book opened, I wasn't certain that I'd enjoy it. As an adult reader of YA books, I tend to like my books to have a certain level of sophistication in writing. Roughly, I tend to like books aimed at older teens. This book was clearly set for younger audience than I'm used to.

However, once the plot got moving, I got sucked into the story. It's a fairly straightforward plot--a young noblewoman is identified as a magic user. Magework is socially unacceptable, so her father sends her away to a very expensive school that can teach her to control and eventually bind away her magic. However, upon arrival, Tory learns that not everyone agrees with the mission of the school and begins to question why magework is so unacceptable.

Add in a cranky roommate, a love interest at the neighboring boy's school, and some time travel, and you've got this book.

There's nothing wrong with that. Nothing at all.

I do wish that Putney had written for a slightly older audience, though. There are hints throughout the book at the way in which social control is used to condemn magic, and there are hints of deeper relationships at work. I would have liked to see those hints developed further. As it stands, this is an enjoyable three star book for me. I'd rather have given it four, but I'm just a little too old.



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