Book Review: Quests for Glory (The School for Good and Evil #4)

Release Date: September 19, 2017
Author: Soman Chainani
Publisher: HarperCollins
Length: 496 pages
Source: Purchased Book

With every end comes a new beginning in the fourth installment of Soman Chainani’s New York Times bestselling School for Good and Evil series, Quests for Glory. Join Sophie, Agatha, Tedros, and the other students as they begin a new era in the Endless Woods—The Camelot Years—where Evers and Nevers alike must move beyond the bounds of school and into the biggest, boldest adventures of their lives.

The students at the School for Good and Evil thought they had found their final Ever After when they vanquished the malevolent School Master. Now, on their required fourth-year quests, the students face obstacles both dangerous and unpredictable, and the stakes are high: success brings eternal adoration, and failure means obscurity forever.

For their quests, Agatha and Tedros are trying to return Camelot to its former splendor as queen and king. For her quest, Dean Sophie seeks to mold Evil in her own image. But soon they all feel themselves growing more isolated and alone. When their classmates’ quests plunge into chaos, however, someone must lead the charge to save them...

    

Review:

Protagonists: After defeating the wicked School Master, our heroes went on to what was supposed to be their last Ever After, a happy one this time, for all involved, but when one story closes another begins. While Agatha and Sophie do feature heavily in this story, as well as everyone's favorite Coven of witches, this is very much Tedros's story. As Tedros becomes King of Camelot, the head that wears the crown is heavy indeed as Camelot is far from its Golden Age and is practically in shambles. Being king isn't quite what Tedros expected and when a new evil surfaces and seems to be gunning for Tedros and his friends, things become even more complicated. I love these characters so much, even Sophie most of the time, and this book doesn't exactly treat them too kindly. However, I sort of wouldn't want it any other way, these characters have to go through challenges and trials otherwise their (presumed) victory at the end of the series wouldn't feel earned and neither would their character development. The first trilogy really only dealt with certain flaws that these characters have, usually one or two per person, but people don't usually only have one or two flaws and so more character development is necessary for this new trilogy, Tedros's impulsiveness and over protectiveness, Agatha's need to control things, and Sophie's hubris and jealousy, okay Sophie's flaws aren't that new, but they weren't really resolved in the last trilogy either.

Romance: Much like the previous books in this series there isn't a TON of romance in this book, at least not compared to most YA books, but the for the amount there is, it sure makes an impact. With the annoying and aggravating love triangle finally, once and for all, behind them Agatha and Tedros are engaged and planning their wedding, however, royal duties and a new evil sort of stall that for the time being. Agatha and Tedros's romance has really only existed in times of war and when they're at peace, there can be some bumps in the road. I will say never once in this story did I doubt their love or even entertain the notion that by the end of this series they won't be together, but there are still some rough patches that they have to overcome, both personally and together, and while it's hard to watch them not be happy 100% of the time, I'm sure that by the end of this series they'll be all the stronger for it.

World Building: Even though this was my MOST anticipated book for the year, I was a bit apprehensive toward it. In this age of reboots, revivals, and spin-offs, it's hard to know if a new or continued series in the same universe is what the author wants, what the publisher wants, what the readers want, or a combination of all three. I've read some series continuations that just feel like the author is dragging out the series for no good reason, luckily this isn't the case with this story. I wouldn't call it a continuation exactly, the original trilogy can stand by itself very easily, and this new trilogy has a very different vibe to the first one. It's darker and it goes places that the first trilogy didn't, that being said, while it feels more like a YA fantasy series, I do think it's still appropriate for the same age range as the first series, things are just more serious than they were before. We get to see more of the world, our characters have even greater responsibilities, and the villain they face is more cunning and manipulative than they've faced before.

Predictability: I didn't know that much about this book going in, I didn't know who the new evil was, what it was after, I didn't even know what to expect in regards to the heroes that we saw seemingly having their Happily Ever Afters at the end of the previous book, because of that this book was pretty jarring. Unlike some people that I had seen that was excited about this book, I held no illusions that this would be a fluff book full of sunshine and rainbows, and yet I was still shocked at how dark this book got and how bleak it seemed at times. While most of this book was fairly unpredictable, there was one twist that I had theories about and being the ever inquisitive person I am, I sort of read the ending to see if I was right, I was FYI, and since that moment, every bit of foreshadowing felt like another log added to the fire and while I can't comment on how predictable this twist is, I will warn you against reading ahead. NO GOOD COMES FROM READING AHEAD!

Ending: I'm not talking about the ending to this book. I can't, everytime I try to I ruin the ending, or at the very least I can see someone seeing through my vague words to the truth within. I'm just going to say this, the ending is intense, things happen, and I can't wait for book 5.

Rating:

This was my most anticipated book of the year, and it did not disappoint. Sure, it broke me, it chewed me up and spit me out and left me desperate for the next installment, but I can see why the author guided the story in the way that he did, on the one hand, I respect him for taking this story in such a bold direction, and on the other hand I'm cursing his name with every fiber of my being... no joke.

Book Review: Camelot Burning (Metal and Lace #1)

Release Date: May 8, 2014
Author: Kathryn Rose
Publisher: Flux
Length: 408 pages
Source: eGalley from NetGalley

By day, Vivienne is Guinevere's lady-in-waiting. By night, she's Merlin's secret apprentice, indulging in the new mechanical arts and science of alchemy. It's a preferred distraction from Camelot’s gossipy nobility, roguish knights, and Lancelot’s athletic new squire, Marcus, who will follow in all knights’ footsteps by taking a rather inconvenient vow of chastity.

More than anything, Vivienne longs to escape Camelot for a future that wouldn't include needlework or marriage to a boorish lord or dandy. But when King Arthur's sorceress sister, Morgan le Fay, threatens Camelot, Vivienne must stay to help Merlin build a steam-powered weapon to defeat the dark magic machine Morgan will set upon the castle. Because if Camelot falls, Morgan would be that much closer to finding the elusive Holy Grail. Time is running out and Morgan draws near, and if Vivienne doesn't have Merlin's weapon ready soon, lives would pay the price, including that of Marcus, the only one fast enough to activate it on the battlefield.

    

Review:

Protagonist: Vivienne is the queen's lady-in-waiting by day, but by night she secretly studies the mechanical arts and alchemy from Merlin himself. As a woman in Camelot, it's not appropriate for a woman to be learning anything other than maintaining a household and how to catch the attention of a suitable husband, but Vivienne dreams of more than a life at court and a loveless marriage to some noble or dandy. She wants to learn new things and build mechanical feats of brilliance. While I did enjoy the character of Vivienne, I also found her to be a bit too much of a cookie cutter "strong and inquisitive heroine." most of the time she has a fairly logical mindset, but when her emotions come into play she can be impulsive and charge headfirst into danger. She is a great character, but I feel she lacks something to set her apart from the archetype she embodies.

Romance: This book did get off to a great start in terms of the romance. Vivienne is intrigued by Marcus, Lancelot's new squire, and that curiosity eventually blooms into attraction, though she knows nothing could come of that attraction since knights are required to be celibate, a requirement that it seems everyone knows isn't actually kept, but any sort of marriage with Marcus is still off the table. However, while this romance starts off at a slower, but very enjoyable pace, at a certain moment I feel as though there's a skip in the romantic development, and before I could fully get on board with these two characters' romance they suddenly were sharing their intensely strong feelings toward one another. Now, I'm not opposed to these characters being together, in fact, I think they work really well together, but the abrupt jump in their devotion to one another is extremely jarring. My hope is that in the next installment we'll see more chemistry between these two characters so that I don't feel as though I missed a bunch of romantic development between these two characters.

World Building: A Steampunk Camelot? Sign me up! I was really excited to read this book on the Arthurian Legend aspect alone, but a steampunk element really amped up my excitement to read this story. (Although it did take me nearly three years to get around to, please don't judge me!) One of the elements to this story I found the most compelling was that the author didn' romanticize the famous characters from Arthurian legend. They all have flaws, some more than others, and it helped to bring a nice element of realism to this magical and mechanical world. Now as for the settings that we get to see, I was a bit bummed that Camelot felt sort of generic, much like our heroine, in that while we hear about Camelot as this wonderful utopia-esque place, there's nothing that really separates it from other kingdoms and since we don't get to see much of the world outside of Camelot, there wasn't all that much to this world, at least from a setting standpoint that stood out to me. As for the steampunk and alchemical elements to this story, I sort of felt underwhelmed by them, I mean there were definitely a few really cool steampunk scenes, but I felt as though the alchemy wasn't explained the best it could be and while I'm sure we'll get a greater understanding of it in later installments, I wish it was explained better in this book.

Predictability: As far as predictability goes, I was also similarly underwhelmed. I mean, there were quite a few surprising twists in this book. There were things I had no way I could see coming just pop right up, but in most of these cases, I never got the shock factor that I usually get when a surprising twist is revealed. One of the twists, I'm not going to go into specifics because I don't want to spoil anything, but one of the twists was actually a trope I've seen a lot of times before, but since there was no real foreshadowing for it, there was no way I could have seen it coming, and yet when it happened I sort of just brushed it off. Now, that's not to say that I was never shocked, nor was there never a time that I was able to predict something and get super excited that I got it right, but they were very few and far between.

Ending: Honestly, as this story started to wrap up I had a lot of theories about what was going to happen next, but I was surprised and even shocked, to learn where all of the characters end up by the time this story is over. The ending of this book actually had the majority of shocking moments for me in this book, and most of them happened during an epic final climax. There's a lot of tension as this book ramps up toward the ending and there are a few "blink and you'll miss it" moments. As the story winds down we get to see where the story will be going and how Vivienne and those she cares about factor into it.

Rating:

I do sort of feel like I've trashed this book more than I meant to because it is a really enjoyable book, but there were a lot of things that just felt underwhelming or didn't pop in the way I wanted them to. I will be continuing this series, but probably not for a little while.