Book Review: The Crowns of Croswald (The Croswald Series #1)

Release Date: July 21, 2017
Author: D.E. Night
Publisher: Stories Untold
Length: 320 pages
Source: Review Copy from Author

In Croswald, the only thing more powerful than dark magic is one secret…

For sixteen years Ivy Lovely has been hidden behind an enchanted boundary that separates the mundane from the magical. When Ivy crosses the border, her powers awaken. Curiosity leads her crashing through a series of adventures at the Halls of Ivy, a school where students learn to master their magical blood and the power of Croswald’s mysterious gems.

When Ivy’s magic––and her life––is threatened by the Dark Queen, she scrambles to unearth her history and save Croswald before the truth is swept away forever

    

Review:

Protagonist: Ivy Lovely has lived a rather ordinary life as a servant in Castle Plum, due to the magic repelling plants around the property. However, she can't stay cooped up inside the castle grounds forever and when she steps beyond them her magic, and her past, come crashing in and the only place to find the information she seeks is in the Halls of Ivy, a school where children learn to master their magical talents. On the whole, I really liked Ivy as a character, she's spunky, impulsive, and adventurous, but she also has a few concerning Mary Sue traits. There are quite a few moments where Ivy is just able to do what she wants without any real consequences. Sure she makes mistakes, but nothing too terrible happens and she gets at least a small bit of what she wants. Don't get me wrong, she doesn't just float through this book having people practically falling at her feet with nearly no conflict, it's just that sometimes it feels like she's a walking Deus Ex Machina.

World Building: So, going into this book I was completely wrong about the world building. I thought this book would be kind of like Stardust by Neil Gaiman, and in a small way it is, I guess, with Castle Plum acting more like the town of Wall where nothing magical can exist on one side, while the other side is extremely magical. Instead, this story reads more like Harry Potter. In fact, there are moments in this book that are scarily close to Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, however, the overall world building and the magic system are so different that it's extremely difficult to even entertain the notion that this could be a Harry Potter rip-off, it's just that some moments are a bit too reminiscent of classic HP scenes.

Predictability: While I do love the world building I have to say that some times it could get a bit confusing, or shall I say it's easy to misunderstand how certain bits of world building fit together. This was most present when I was trying to decipher the truth about Ivy's past before it was revealed in the book and due to a misunderstanding with some of the foreshadowing, I was hopelessly confused until everything came together. I do have to say that even with the misunderstanding I don't think I would have completely figured it all out anyway, and it's a rather complex answer at that.

Ending: The ending to this book is very interesting. On the one hand, the final climax is anything but anticlimactic, although in all honesty, in the final climactic battle of this installment I never felt like Ivy used what she learned at the Halls of Ivy to tackle the battle with her foe, instead, she just sort of does what she needs to do, adding to that Mary Sue feeling I talked about earlier. The cooldown period is great because it makes sure the reader fully understands all of the twists and turns and acts a really great debrief before launching into a really interesting cliffhanger.

Rating:

I thought long and hard about this rating and while this story is fairly slow paced it does pick up and begin to snowball but with a protagonist with Mary Sue aspects and some easily misinterpreted world building/foreshadowing I didn't feel a higher (or lower) rating would fit. I'm still extremely pumped about the sequel though!

Book Review: Dark Tide (Waterfire Saga #3)

Release Date: October 13, 2015
Author: Jennifer Donnelly
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Length: 320 pages
Source: Library Book

Once a lost and confused princess, Serafina is now a confident leader of the Black Fin Resistance (BFR). While she works on sabotaging her enemy and enlisting allies for battle, her friends face challenges of their own.

Ling is in the hold of Rafe Mfeme's giant trawler, on her way to a prison camp. Becca meets up with Astrid and learns why the Ondalinian mermaid is always so angry: she is hiding a shameful secret. Ava can't return home, because death riders await her arrival. And it is getting more and more difficult for Mahdi, Serafina's betrothed, to keep up the ruse that he is in love with Lucia Volerno.

If Lucia's parents become suspicious, his life--and all of Sera's hopes--will be extinguished. Political intrigue, dangerous liaisons, and spine-tingling suspense swirl like a maelstrom in this penultimate book in the WaterFire saga

    

Review:

Protagonists: Unlike the previous installments in this series, this book has a much wider range of perspectives. Whereas the previous installments mainly focused on Serafina and Neela, this installment has a focus on Ling and Astrid with smaller storylines focusing on Becca, Sera, and Ava. I was so glad to learn more about these other characters. Astrid has a very strong arc as she's hiding a secret that she believes makes her a liability to the other merls, and because of that she pulls away. Astrid's character development was so great, it wasn't just a quick fix, it's something that takes nearly the entire book to be resolved and it just felt so powerful. Ling's storyline has less to do with her character development, though she does face some growth, and has more to do with escaping Rafe Mfeme aka Orfeo, and finding her ancestor's talisman while on the way making more shocking discoveries. There are smaller arcs such as Sera preparing her rebellion to take back Miromara, Becca helping Astrid come to terms with who she is and finding her own talisman, Lucia (believe it or not) swimming some dark depths to try and discover if Mahdi's love for her is true, and Ava finding out that you can't go home again. I know it sounds like a lot, but it all flows together in a fantastic and strongly spun story.

Romance: Since Sera isn't a main POV in this book I didn't expect very much romance since before now the only real romance has been between Sera and Mahdi. That being said, there is some romance between Sera and Mahdi, but it really only takes up about a chapter, and there are some chapters that show Lucia's twisted "love" for Mahdi. Now for the new romances, I won't say too much about them but I will say that there are two, once for Astrid and one for Becca. Now Astrid's romance I was surprisingly delighted by. It's something that even by the end of the book is still so innocent and new and I felt like it was handled in a fantastic way. Becca's romance on the other hand, while for a while I was totally engrossed by it, it didn't take too long for things to get serious fast. Now there's a wrinkle of complication to her romance and I can see why the author might want to speed it up, but romances that move too fast still really bother me.

World Building: With our new POVs comes a wonder of world building. The most interesting I believe is seeing Ondalina and learning about their culture and how deeply it contrasts with that of Miromara. Ondalina is a very militant place where being different could be perceived as weakness. While I'm not saying I'd move to Ondalina I did find it a very interesting place. While we're there we learn more about Merfolk, such as the and the political situation between the various governing bodies. We do learn about other cultures such as Ava's people and their deep reverence for the Mer gods. There's still so much revealed and unfolded in this story that lends to the deep and fantastic world building that this series has.

Predictability: As much as this series can shock you at times, I have to say that this specific installment does seem to have a problem keeping things secret. There were a couple of things that I didn't quite predict, but for the most part, it was easy to see where this story was going to go for the most part once you have enough breadcrumbs. I think the most shocking thing that this book revealed was something that took me until maybe a page or two before to predict. That being said though the twists aren't annoyingly predictable, I was just missing some of the insane twists we've seen in the past installments.

Ending: This ending was a weird mix of ending too soon and ending too late. It's funny there was one chapter that was like second or third to last that I felt would have been the perfect end to this book, a bit of a cliffhanger with that sort of powerful sentence to leave off before the final installment. However it does go a bit further, it doesn't really start anything new but it just felt a bit... postmature? Is that even a word? That being said, as the story wraps up there are some fantastic scenes that really begin to set up how the final installment in this phenomenal series will unfold. Though I do have to say there are a lot of plot threads that I'll be very impressed if this author can tie them all up in a concise, but not too rushed way, by the end of the next and final installment.

Rating:

So I know it probably seems totally unfair that I'm knocking half a star off because a small romantic subplot went too fast, but it's a serious pet peeve of mine and all the chemistry in the world couldn't change it. That being said everything else in this book is just whar I wanted out of the previous isntallment. It felt like a complete story and that no one was really missing in action.

Book Review: An Author's Odyssey (The Land of Stories #5)

Release Date: July 12, 2016
Author: Chris Colfer
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Length: 438 pages
Source: Purchased Audio Book

The fifth book in Chris Colfer's #1 New York Times bestselling series The Land of Stories!

In the highly anticipated continuation of the Land of Stories series, Conner learns that the only place to fight the Masked Man's literary army is inside his own short stories!

When the twins and their friends enter worlds crafted from Conner's imagination, finding allies no one else could have ever dreamed of, the race begins to put an end to the Masked Man's reign of terror.

Can the twins finally restore peace in the fairy tale world?

    

Review:

Protagonists: Alex and Conner Bailey once again face a great challenge. After their Uncle Lloyd, also known as the Masked Man, unleashes an army of literary villains and takes over the Land of Stories, the only and best chance the twins have to save the land is to recruit characters from Conner's stories that he wrote based around his adventures, but as they explore these stories to help take back the Fairy Tale Land they love, something far more sinister is going on back in the fairytale world and who knows if they'll be back in time to save everyone. One of the things that I loved about this book is how much is revealed about these characters, specifically Conner, as the twins traverse his stories. At first, the stories have a very shallow, although exciting premise, but as they continue their travels more about who Conner is, his experiences and feelings about his life reveal themselves in elements of his stories. There are many third-person perspectives in this story, each with great development and character building, but, as the title suggests, if this book belongs to one POV it's Conner Bailey.

World Building: I was a bit apprehensive going into this book. The charm and hook of the previous installments of this book relied on two characters traversing classic stories and interacting with this author's versions of the classic characters that inhabit them. However, this book, on a whole, deals with new characters that were created in the mind of Conner Bailey, one of the main characters of this book. Keeping that in mind I was anxious to see how I would like traversing into unknown territory in a series as connected to classic characters as this one is. It turns out... I LOVED IT! Don't get me wrong, there were some trippy moments in the stories, but that had more to do with the fact that many of the characters in these stories are based on the fairy tale characters we already know, such as Goldilocks, Jack, Queen Red, and more. There are also moments with other characters, continuing Bree's storyline from the previous book, seeing (Not-Yet-King) Arthur again, and even learning what the royals and rebels have been up to since the hostile takeover.

Predictability: Normally these books have a good balance of the predictable and the unpredictable. However, I was almost pleased to see that this book had far more twists than I was expecting and many of them were very unpredictable. I love how this author mixes foreshadowing and cliches and still manages to have so many things be as unpredictable as they are. There are many times when I knew that something was meant to always be a surprise, and others when once the twist had come that you could almost follow a trail of breadcrumbs back to where it was first foreshadowed. I loved every twisty moment of this book but there were predictable moments that I know weren't meant to be a surprise that found a way to impact me in a similar, though not the same, way as even the most shocking twist.

Ending: As this story got closer and closer to the end it became perfectly apparent that while this book was at one point meant to be the finale of this series, it isn't so anymore. Granted I'm sure there was probably a tweet or blog post that announced that this was not the end, but I never saw it, so I have a very mixed feel on this ending. On the one hand I'm a bit upset that I thought going into this book that it was going to be the end, however, I'm overjoyed that we're going to get more books in this fantastic series. The final climax of this book was awesome and provided some much-needed information and closure for one character in particular and then we have an ending that if you hadn't gotten the memo by then surely told you that this isn't the final book due to the tremendous cliffhanger at the end.

Rating:

It's funny looking back how similar this book is with the previous installment, however, that book felt almost like filler whereas this book definitely had the feeling of getting ready for one last battle that will decide the fate of all realms.