'lo everybody. I'm not quite dead yet! (Senior year is pushing me pretty close, though.)
I'm aiming to next review "The Night Circus" by Erin Morgenstern, which is a fabulous book that everyone should read. It's probably gonna get higher than a 4.
I, of course, am making no promises as to when this review will go up. In the meantime, please find attached a review of one of the most-anticipated fantasy books of our generation. :3
===============================================
A version of this review originally appeared in the November 2011 issue of the George C. Marshall high school newspaper Rank & File.
It took Christopher Paolini a full three years to finish Inheritance, a culminating novel that no one, least of all Paolini, originally planned for. I'm not sure if it was worth the wait.
Paolini’s ascendance into the spotlight of the high fantasy genre began at the age of 15 with the 2003 publication of Eragon, a tale of a boy named Eragon and his dragon Saphira.
Eldest followed Eragon two years later and Brisingr followed Eldest two years after that. Paolini’s immature writing in the first book left the archetypical framework upon which the series is based—the hero’s journey—exposed, drawing the ire of critics, who accused him of borrowing ideas from Star Wars and Lord of the Rings.
Regardless, the 509-page Eragon was an impressive feat for a high school freshman, and the writing and content of Eldest evinced a maturity and depth that belied Paolini’s youth. Unfortunately, Inheritance possesses neither of these merits.
Inheritance concludes Eragon’s journey and resolves most of the remaining questions of the series, yet the entire ordeal feels alternately rushed and bogged down. In the first two novels, Paolini had clarity of purpose in his writing: Eragon had a very specific goal he was trying to achieve, and the majority of what Paolini wrote consisted of Eragon either trying to achieve or failing to achieve his goal. In contrast, much of what Paolini writes in Inheritance describes how Eragon comes to be in a position to pursue the main conflict, rather than what he actually does about it.
This difference allows Paolini to introduce a great number of irrelevant scenes into the plot. Some of these are of genuinely interesting and entertaining interactions between the characters, but many are simply egregious.
Roran, Eragon’s cousin and the only major “normal” character in the series, has two significant chunks of the book devoted to him. Half of Roran’s sections could be cut or significantly trimmed without noticeably altering the book.
At the end of the book Paolini, instead of writing too much, rushed things. The chapters in the aftermath are all written in a detached and summarizing style. The ending is one of the most emotionally powerful moments in the book, yet this manner of writing, which populates a departure sequence that lasts for pages with the merest snippets of dialogue, robs it of much of its impact. It feels as though Paolini simply wanted to quickly wrap up all the loose ends in the plot.
Honestly, this sort of criticism is painful to write because Paolini’s writing has such potential. The man has powerful ideas and the writing style to express them. He just remains unaware of proper pacing and narrative structure, and the way a dearth or excess of certain scenes can destroy them.
3.25/5
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Monday, August 8, 2011
"Divergent", Veronica Roth
I think I'll cross-post all my reviews to goodreads. It's a very useful site. (And I hope everyone has learned not to trust my promises of prolific output.)
===============================================
Honestly, I went into Veronica Roth’s Divergent with high hopes.
That was probably a mistake. The way post-apocalyptic teen novels are now a dime a dozen after the success of The Hunger Games—the same way bookstores sprouted entire “supernatural romance” sections following the success of Twilight—should’ve tipped me off.
But that cover art is just so damn snazzy. Moreover, the premise of the book is a thing of beauty.
Society in decaying Chicago is divided into five factions: The selfless, the wise, the brave, the loving and the honest. Children choose which faction they will belong to at the age of 16, and the faction they choose shapes them physically and mentally for the rest of their life.
Our hero Tris is “Divergent,” meaning she does not fit cleanly into any one faction.
This is a fantastic concept. Everyone in the known world subscribing to one of five preset—and often conflicting—mindsets? One person who is non-conformist simply by virtue of their existence? Brilliant. The idea is ripe with the promise of rebellion against both society and the compartmentalization of humanity. There is an epic tale here that needs only an oppressive and antagonistic society to take flight.
Unfortunately, Roth takes the story in a far more awkward direction. She writes the central conflict of the narrative not as a battle against the system, but as a battle inside it. The conflict stems from the perversion of a functioning system, rather than from an inherent wrongness in the system.
This was a mistake. The reason so many dystopian novels focus on battles against society is that the society needs only minimal characterization and development to make it a menacing foe, leaving the author free to focus on other aspects of the story. Indeed, The Hunger Games was successful partly because it went above and beyond the societal development necessary for the plot without compromising any other facet of the story.
However, when the battle is within society, the reader needs a fuller and deeper understanding of the setting to drive home the impact of the conflict. Roth does not provide that understanding. Though she doesn’t necessarily fail at world-building, she most certainly does not provide enough.
Each of the factions—save the faction Tris enters—receives a rough sketch of a description, a facsimile based upon the most readily identifiable traits of each mindset. Given that the factions are the entire focus of the book, this is insufficient for the type of story Roth is trying to tell.
Additionally, glimpses the reader receives of life inside the different factions seem to indicate that characters do not lop off 4/5 of themselves when they choose a faction. They remain fairly well-rounded human beings, and as such, the concept of someone like Tris, who exists outside faction designations, falls entirely flat. The idea would be much more powerful if Divergence contradicted a force such as brainwashing or indoctrination, rather than a weak societal norm. Its inclusion in the plot feels almost pointless, save to facilitate the tacked-on ending.
That said, Tris is something not often seen in female teen protagonists: Cold and ruthless. She breaks both bones and the genre mold with delightful ease. While I can’t say much for Roth’s plotting, I would absolutely love to see more of Tris. Her character design is a diamond in the rough.
The force of her personality—the book is in first person—glues the events of the narrative together into an engaging package. Save for the ending. Nothing could help the clichéd, kill-half-the-cast-for-drama ending, though it did admirably set the scene for the sequel.
Anyway, as long you don’t read too deeply or think too hard, you’ll enjoy this book. The high adrenaline quotient makes it very readable, if not particularly well-plotted.
Rating: 2.85/5
===============================================
Honestly, I went into Veronica Roth’s Divergent with high hopes.
That was probably a mistake. The way post-apocalyptic teen novels are now a dime a dozen after the success of The Hunger Games—the same way bookstores sprouted entire “supernatural romance” sections following the success of Twilight—should’ve tipped me off.
But that cover art is just so damn snazzy. Moreover, the premise of the book is a thing of beauty.
Society in decaying Chicago is divided into five factions: The selfless, the wise, the brave, the loving and the honest. Children choose which faction they will belong to at the age of 16, and the faction they choose shapes them physically and mentally for the rest of their life.
Our hero Tris is “Divergent,” meaning she does not fit cleanly into any one faction.
This is a fantastic concept. Everyone in the known world subscribing to one of five preset—and often conflicting—mindsets? One person who is non-conformist simply by virtue of their existence? Brilliant. The idea is ripe with the promise of rebellion against both society and the compartmentalization of humanity. There is an epic tale here that needs only an oppressive and antagonistic society to take flight.
Unfortunately, Roth takes the story in a far more awkward direction. She writes the central conflict of the narrative not as a battle against the system, but as a battle inside it. The conflict stems from the perversion of a functioning system, rather than from an inherent wrongness in the system.
This was a mistake. The reason so many dystopian novels focus on battles against society is that the society needs only minimal characterization and development to make it a menacing foe, leaving the author free to focus on other aspects of the story. Indeed, The Hunger Games was successful partly because it went above and beyond the societal development necessary for the plot without compromising any other facet of the story.
However, when the battle is within society, the reader needs a fuller and deeper understanding of the setting to drive home the impact of the conflict. Roth does not provide that understanding. Though she doesn’t necessarily fail at world-building, she most certainly does not provide enough.
Each of the factions—save the faction Tris enters—receives a rough sketch of a description, a facsimile based upon the most readily identifiable traits of each mindset. Given that the factions are the entire focus of the book, this is insufficient for the type of story Roth is trying to tell.
Additionally, glimpses the reader receives of life inside the different factions seem to indicate that characters do not lop off 4/5 of themselves when they choose a faction. They remain fairly well-rounded human beings, and as such, the concept of someone like Tris, who exists outside faction designations, falls entirely flat. The idea would be much more powerful if Divergence contradicted a force such as brainwashing or indoctrination, rather than a weak societal norm. Its inclusion in the plot feels almost pointless, save to facilitate the tacked-on ending.
That said, Tris is something not often seen in female teen protagonists: Cold and ruthless. She breaks both bones and the genre mold with delightful ease. While I can’t say much for Roth’s plotting, I would absolutely love to see more of Tris. Her character design is a diamond in the rough.
The force of her personality—the book is in first person—glues the events of the narrative together into an engaging package. Save for the ending. Nothing could help the clichéd, kill-half-the-cast-for-drama ending, though it did admirably set the scene for the sequel.
Anyway, as long you don’t read too deeply or think too hard, you’ll enjoy this book. The high adrenaline quotient makes it very readable, if not particularly well-plotted.
Rating: 2.85/5
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
"City of Fallen Angels", Cassandra Clare
Hello my pretties.
Guess what? School's out! Expect an increased volume of posts in the near future. In addition, I've started using my Goodreads account again. Goodreads is Facebook, but for books.
Though I don't write reviews on there, I do give every book I add to my shelves a rating. I can't imagine why anyone would be that devoted to my opinions, but if that tickles your fancy, you can find my account here.
It's faster to update than this blog, so I tend to fairly active. Feel free to verb me on there.
============================================
A version of this review originally appeared in the June 2011 issue of the George C. Marshall high school newspaper Rank & File.
On the scale of modern fantasy romance, Cassandra Clare’s The Mortal Instruments series falls somewhere between Holly Black’s Modern Tales of Faerie and Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight in terms of both grittiness and quality. (With Twilight as the low end of the spectrum, obviously.)
City of Fallen Angels, Clare’s fourth book in the series, isn’t bad per se, but it feels formulaic. After three preceding books about “Shadowhunters” Jace and Clary, the plot structure “romantic tension becomes tangled with demon-fighting and the two problems resolve simultaneously” seems pretty familiar.
The unfortunate similarity between this novel and Clare’s previous works probably stems from the fact that this novel was spontaneously conceived. The Mortal Instruments was a closed and perfectly acceptable trilogy until Clare, in a spate of greed or generosity, conceptualized an additional three novels.
Breaking open a series you had written to remain closed is no mean feat—regardless of the wisdom of such a decision—so it’s understandable if Clare’s effort went into providing engaging material rather than worrying about overall plot structure. That said, even the best plot concepts in the world lose some of its luster when shoehorned into overused formats.
And that’s a shame, because the content of the plot is one of the strongest elements of the book. It’s not every day you read a book where the antagonists kill babies en masse and then have the protagonists come to face-to-face with baby corpses. Though Clare’s writing minimizes the character’s contemplation of said babies, her willingness to introduce such dark material to the plot all—without attaching some anvilicious commentary—is impressive. The gravity of the main conflict is part of what saves City of Fallen Angels from being Twilight WITH DEMONS.
The recurrence of older plot threads is also alleviated by secondary main character and teen-turned-vampire Simon. He bumbles about full of vampiric angst, unintentionally involving himself in the demon fighting and general chicanery. Simon’s guilt over his vampirism, which is actually very relevant to the plot, is not excessive.
Here we have the rarest of creatures, an angsty vampire who is not too angsty. Kudos to Clare on that front. As an unlucky everyman, connecting with Simon is far easier than relating to Jace and Clary’s author-enforced idiocy.
Indeed, beyond the homogeneity of the plot, the biggest issue with this book is that Jace and Clary—who displayed a fair amount of communication and intelligence in the previous books—suddenly cannot talk meaningfully to save their lives. The creation of romantic tension to drive the central conflict is dramatic at face value, but the drama is entirely undercut by the fact that the characters have suddenly become gibbering morons.
Thankfully, this only applies to Jace and Clary. The rest of the characters are as human as ever, particularly (ironically) Simon. The quality of his segments of the narrative and the way he interacts with the other characters is the second thing that saves this book from being Twilight WITH DEMONS.
All that said, the very existence of City of Fallen Angels feels unnecessary; especially when one considers the fact that the one thing that prompts the entire conflict is not explicitly or implicitly mentioned in any of the previous books.
Some things are better left untouched, and a conclusive trilogy is certainly one of them.
3.22/5 stars
Guess what? School's out! Expect an increased volume of posts in the near future. In addition, I've started using my Goodreads account again. Goodreads is Facebook, but for books.
Though I don't write reviews on there, I do give every book I add to my shelves a rating. I can't imagine why anyone would be that devoted to my opinions, but if that tickles your fancy, you can find my account here.
It's faster to update than this blog, so I tend to fairly active. Feel free to verb me on there.
============================================
A version of this review originally appeared in the June 2011 issue of the George C. Marshall high school newspaper Rank & File.
On the scale of modern fantasy romance, Cassandra Clare’s The Mortal Instruments series falls somewhere between Holly Black’s Modern Tales of Faerie and Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight in terms of both grittiness and quality. (With Twilight as the low end of the spectrum, obviously.)
City of Fallen Angels, Clare’s fourth book in the series, isn’t bad per se, but it feels formulaic. After three preceding books about “Shadowhunters” Jace and Clary, the plot structure “romantic tension becomes tangled with demon-fighting and the two problems resolve simultaneously” seems pretty familiar.
The unfortunate similarity between this novel and Clare’s previous works probably stems from the fact that this novel was spontaneously conceived. The Mortal Instruments was a closed and perfectly acceptable trilogy until Clare, in a spate of greed or generosity, conceptualized an additional three novels.
Breaking open a series you had written to remain closed is no mean feat—regardless of the wisdom of such a decision—so it’s understandable if Clare’s effort went into providing engaging material rather than worrying about overall plot structure. That said, even the best plot concepts in the world lose some of its luster when shoehorned into overused formats.
And that’s a shame, because the content of the plot is one of the strongest elements of the book. It’s not every day you read a book where the antagonists kill babies en masse and then have the protagonists come to face-to-face with baby corpses. Though Clare’s writing minimizes the character’s contemplation of said babies, her willingness to introduce such dark material to the plot all—without attaching some anvilicious commentary—is impressive. The gravity of the main conflict is part of what saves City of Fallen Angels from being Twilight WITH DEMONS.
The recurrence of older plot threads is also alleviated by secondary main character and teen-turned-vampire Simon. He bumbles about full of vampiric angst, unintentionally involving himself in the demon fighting and general chicanery. Simon’s guilt over his vampirism, which is actually very relevant to the plot, is not excessive.
Here we have the rarest of creatures, an angsty vampire who is not too angsty. Kudos to Clare on that front. As an unlucky everyman, connecting with Simon is far easier than relating to Jace and Clary’s author-enforced idiocy.
Indeed, beyond the homogeneity of the plot, the biggest issue with this book is that Jace and Clary—who displayed a fair amount of communication and intelligence in the previous books—suddenly cannot talk meaningfully to save their lives. The creation of romantic tension to drive the central conflict is dramatic at face value, but the drama is entirely undercut by the fact that the characters have suddenly become gibbering morons.
Thankfully, this only applies to Jace and Clary. The rest of the characters are as human as ever, particularly (ironically) Simon. The quality of his segments of the narrative and the way he interacts with the other characters is the second thing that saves this book from being Twilight WITH DEMONS.
All that said, the very existence of City of Fallen Angels feels unnecessary; especially when one considers the fact that the one thing that prompts the entire conflict is not explicitly or implicitly mentioned in any of the previous books.
Some things are better left untouched, and a conclusive trilogy is certainly one of them.
3.22/5 stars
Thursday, April 21, 2011
"Sing You Home", Jodi Picoult--Full review
Hey everybody. I know I've been gone a while, and I'm sorry. I really have no excuse beyond my personal laziness and the difficulty of my schooling, and neither of those are shining beacons of get-off-the-hook.
As such, please acccept my apologies. I will try to make one post a month my absolute minimum from now on.
Also, I don't really enjoy standing on a soapbox to share my opinions, so I'm probably going to eliminate the "Thoughts" posts. If I think of something truly brilliant, I'll probably ramble on beneath the "official" review. We'll see how that plays out.
And now--books!
===============
A version of this review originally appeared in the March 2011 issue of the George C. Marshall high school newspaper Rank & File.
Politics and sentimentality: two great tastes that most assuredly do not taste great together. In Sing You Home, Jodi Picoult delves into the nature of gay and embryonic rights as she narrates a lesbian love story from three different perspectives: that of Zoe, the main character, that of Zoe’s ex-husband, Max, and that of Vanessa, Zoe’s newfound love. Toward the beginning of the book, Max divorces Zoe after she intends to place herself at medical risk to have a baby despite having miscarried three times.
Heartbroken, Zoe meets Vanessa, and over the course of roughly four months their fast friendship blossoms into love. Max, meanwhile, has joined a church to support him in his endeavor to defeat his alcoholism. When Zoe and Vanessa wish to have a baby using frozen embryos previously fertilized by Max, he sues for custody of the embryos with the force of his church behind him.
The overriding problem with Sing You Home is that it tries to be both a heartfelt fictional narrative and a political commentary. Even the best-written books of history have trouble juggling these two goals; and Picoult poured so much research and emotion into her writing that an even balance between the two is impossible.
It plays out like this: In order to craft a compelling narrative, Picoult must paint both sides—Zoe/Vanessa and Max/the Church—in a sympathetic light in order to create emotional tension. However, in order to construct relevant political commentary, Picoult needs to paint the church as the “bad guys.” Clearly, these two aims cannot coexist.
In fact, the rift between these two portrayals is one of the main detractors from the book’s quality. One moment Max’s church is caring and sympathetic, the next they’ve all lined up behind bible-thumper and main antagonist Wade Preston—whose name is almost certainly a jab at the church by Picoult vis a vis Roe v. Wade. By the same token, Zoe is perfectly content with her sexual identity one minute, and then has a flashback to justify it to herself and the reader the next.
Regardless of how Picoult needlessly tinkers with the nature of her characters, they begin the book excessively well characterized. This book makes effective use of a first-person point of view in a way that few others can match. Max’s struggle with alcoholism, narrated from inside his head, is particularly devastating.
Unfortunately, the “twist” ending comes as a direct result of mid-story character shifts, making it both predictable and not much of a proper ending. Such a thing is irksome, to say the least.
While Picoult’s writing is traditionally seeped in what might be termed by the unkind as “sappiness,” her prose reads so quickly that the majority of the overly dramatic portions are only visible in hindsight. While this tends to discourage re-reading the book to a degree, going into the story cold for the first time is a wonderfully visceral experience.
Additionally, many of the most egregiously emotional moments are not constructs of the author, but direct adaptations of events she witnessed or heard of while researching the book. This removes a certain amount of sappy stigma, though there is still plenty to go around. The book comes with its own CD, ostensibly written by Zoe, who is a music therapist. Though the stated goal of the music is to give the reader a look inside Zoe’s head, it feels rather pointless, albeit poignant to listen to. Seeing as one-third of the book is narrated from inside the head of the main character, songs written in the voice of self-same main character fall rather flat as supplementary materials. Also, they don’t sound that great.
In sum, Sing You Home works against itself. The political and emotional halves prevent each other from reaching fruition. That said the ridiculous amount of feeling and research Picoult put into the novel is evident. Even if neither aspect of the story is as amazing as it deserves to be, they are both certainly above average. If you don’t mind lesbians, righteous religious fervor and overflowing emotions, this is a book worth checking out.
3.1/5
As such, please acccept my apologies. I will try to make one post a month my absolute minimum from now on.
Also, I don't really enjoy standing on a soapbox to share my opinions, so I'm probably going to eliminate the "Thoughts" posts. If I think of something truly brilliant, I'll probably ramble on beneath the "official" review. We'll see how that plays out.
And now--books!
===============
A version of this review originally appeared in the March 2011 issue of the George C. Marshall high school newspaper Rank & File.
Politics and sentimentality: two great tastes that most assuredly do not taste great together. In Sing You Home, Jodi Picoult delves into the nature of gay and embryonic rights as she narrates a lesbian love story from three different perspectives: that of Zoe, the main character, that of Zoe’s ex-husband, Max, and that of Vanessa, Zoe’s newfound love. Toward the beginning of the book, Max divorces Zoe after she intends to place herself at medical risk to have a baby despite having miscarried three times.
Heartbroken, Zoe meets Vanessa, and over the course of roughly four months their fast friendship blossoms into love. Max, meanwhile, has joined a church to support him in his endeavor to defeat his alcoholism. When Zoe and Vanessa wish to have a baby using frozen embryos previously fertilized by Max, he sues for custody of the embryos with the force of his church behind him.
The overriding problem with Sing You Home is that it tries to be both a heartfelt fictional narrative and a political commentary. Even the best-written books of history have trouble juggling these two goals; and Picoult poured so much research and emotion into her writing that an even balance between the two is impossible.
It plays out like this: In order to craft a compelling narrative, Picoult must paint both sides—Zoe/Vanessa and Max/the Church—in a sympathetic light in order to create emotional tension. However, in order to construct relevant political commentary, Picoult needs to paint the church as the “bad guys.” Clearly, these two aims cannot coexist.
In fact, the rift between these two portrayals is one of the main detractors from the book’s quality. One moment Max’s church is caring and sympathetic, the next they’ve all lined up behind bible-thumper and main antagonist Wade Preston—whose name is almost certainly a jab at the church by Picoult vis a vis Roe v. Wade. By the same token, Zoe is perfectly content with her sexual identity one minute, and then has a flashback to justify it to herself and the reader the next.
Regardless of how Picoult needlessly tinkers with the nature of her characters, they begin the book excessively well characterized. This book makes effective use of a first-person point of view in a way that few others can match. Max’s struggle with alcoholism, narrated from inside his head, is particularly devastating.
Unfortunately, the “twist” ending comes as a direct result of mid-story character shifts, making it both predictable and not much of a proper ending. Such a thing is irksome, to say the least.
While Picoult’s writing is traditionally seeped in what might be termed by the unkind as “sappiness,” her prose reads so quickly that the majority of the overly dramatic portions are only visible in hindsight. While this tends to discourage re-reading the book to a degree, going into the story cold for the first time is a wonderfully visceral experience.
Additionally, many of the most egregiously emotional moments are not constructs of the author, but direct adaptations of events she witnessed or heard of while researching the book. This removes a certain amount of sappy stigma, though there is still plenty to go around. The book comes with its own CD, ostensibly written by Zoe, who is a music therapist. Though the stated goal of the music is to give the reader a look inside Zoe’s head, it feels rather pointless, albeit poignant to listen to. Seeing as one-third of the book is narrated from inside the head of the main character, songs written in the voice of self-same main character fall rather flat as supplementary materials. Also, they don’t sound that great.
In sum, Sing You Home works against itself. The political and emotional halves prevent each other from reaching fruition. That said the ridiculous amount of feeling and research Picoult put into the novel is evident. Even if neither aspect of the story is as amazing as it deserves to be, they are both certainly above average. If you don’t mind lesbians, righteous religious fervor and overflowing emotions, this is a book worth checking out.
3.1/5
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