Chasing After Sparks

So, I hate this book. I’m just going to come out and say it so that no one’s operating under any false pretenses. This review is just going to be me shit-talking this book, which I’m sure is why most of you come around anyways.

Just thinking about this book is giving me some deep, deep malaise...Ok, here we go. Spoilers, but, like...please don’t read this book. Just don’t.

Roar by Cora Carmack is the first book in a series that’s still being written, and I really wish that was just...not true. So, in this world that’s ravaged periodically by deadly storms, the people look to the royal Stormling families to protect them. Princess Aurora Pavan hides a deep secret: she cannot wield storm magic. To protect their kingdom and their positions of power, Aurora’s mother betroths her to another Stormling, Prince Cassius, but he is not as he seems. A chance meeting brings Aurora into contact with a band of storm hunters who promise to train her in the ways of storm magic. Under the guise of Roar, she heads out seeking adventure and power, but instead finds friends in the band of hunters, discovers love with the handsome hunter Locke, and uncovers a magic all her own.

This book started off in a really promising way. The premise of the setting was intriguing, we were off to a good start with characters, and the writing style for the first couple chapters was SUPERB. It only got better with the way Aurora and Cassius danced around each other. It was really shaping up to be an interesting political thriller, like those historical dramas about court life in Medieval Europe.

And then...it all fell apart when Aurora met Locke and left Pavan. I’m going to have to break this down into sections, because there’s just. So. Much.

Characters

Aurora: Started off well as a naive but curious, reserved but quick-tempered young woman. These traits helped her survive in the palace, but once Aurora leaves, she becomes annoying and insufferable. Considering that much of her development is tied to Locke since they spend an exorbitant amount of time together with the majority of their interactions ending with Aurora getting angry and frustrated, I got tired of her tantrums very quickly. Things get worse by the end of the novel when it’s revealed that she has some ultra rare power and is the only hope of humanity pretty much. She doesn’t really earn anything.

Cassius: One of the few characters I actually liked. Cassius has depth and complexity as a morally grey character. The author keeps you guessing as to what he’s really like and what his intentions are, but what we do get slowly begins to reveal a very nuanced character. You can tell he’s trying to balance a lot of things in his life (duty, survival, personal goals), but you don’t know what he’s going to choose. 

Locke: The most generic asshole imaginable. His entire characterization, his only purpose for existing, is based around Aurora. A “roguish type with a heart of gold”, Locke is tall and handsome, comes with a tragic backstory that Aurora can unpack and help him come to terms with, and is 100% willing to push aside all of his own dreams so that he can be with Aurora and help her achieve her goals. He’s constantly shifting between “don’t come near me, I’ll only hurt you” and “I need to be by your side 24/7 so I can protect you”. Literally every section that’s from his POV is just him thinking about and interacting with Aurora. He’s the worst and I hate him.

Literally everyone else: Underutilized. 95% of the minor characters in this book are more interesting than the main two. They also have actual personalities, so that helps. But do we ever see enough of them? Nope. They exist to further Aurora and Locke’s stories, and that’s pretty much it.

Setting

Very promising. Honestly, what first made me consider this book was the setting. The idea of a world under constant threat of magical, deadly storms is pretty unique, and could have lead to some really interesting cultures and peoples and explorations of these things. But we definitely didn’t see enough of these storms and the hunting of them specifically. And the reveal that the storms are composed of ghosts or spirits was just...odd. I was pretty content with this vs. Nature scenario and the mystery of the storms, a “villain” we didn’t need answers to. Whatever the fuck the storms are supposed to be just added a layer of confusion that didn’t need to be there.

Plot

Started off strong with political intrigue. Quickly degraded into a basic adventure story. WAY too much time is spent “training” Aurora, which is mostly in physical things like running, climbing, and swimming. Barely any time is spent teaching her about magic let alone showing her magic. The potentially dire situation in Pavan, one of the main character’s driving forces, is put on the back-burner for 90% of the novel so that Aurora can fall in “love”. And then, out of nowhere, some generic-ass powerful villain is introduced, and Aurora is probably the only person who can stand up against him because she’s Unique. This book doesn’t know if it wants to be a fantasy adventure or a romance. 

Writing Style

The first chapter practically had me in tears for how beautiful and entrancing the writing was. It had the perfect amount of detail to paint the scene, and flowed like a dream. The author also expertly weaved in comparisons to storms, but not so much that it became cheesy. But the writing began to lose its polish a few chapters in until the writing stopped being very remarkable at all.

The “Romance”

Aurora/Locke has got to be one of the most unintentionally unhealthy relationships I’ve read in a long time. 

He leaned down to nip at her swollen bottom lip. “I’m the first to touch this mouth? To taste it?” Her nails dug into his shoulders and her blue eyes flashed with heat. She nodded, her tongue darting out to soothe the skin he had tugged between his teeth. “That means it’s mine. My territory. And I’m prepared to protect it, every hour of the day if I must.”

Those lips that were now his tipped up in a smile. “That’s very dedicated of you.”

It doesn’t help that there’s a character I actually enjoyed who I thought was going to turn out to be queer, but the author made sure you knew that the option being set up for her is a hetero ship.

What a perfect book to kick-off Pride Month! I’d heard that this book was pretty gay, and, mang, does it ever deliver. If this isn’t on everyone’s Must-Read Queer Novels, then what the fuck are you doing with your life? (Probably something way cooler than me, but still, read this book.)

The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue is a fun and romantic road trip adventure set in the 1700s. The plot follows aristocratic teens Monty and Percy, along with Monty’s tag-along sister, Felicity, as they travel across Europe, enjoying the last year they’ll ever have together before they must assume their respective adult responsibilities. But in an act of petty revenge, Monty inadvertently puts the group in danger. Running for their lives, the teens still get their Grand Tour, although it is nothing like what they’d imagine it would be.

This is the funniest and gayest shit I’ve read in a while, and I enjoyed every page of it. The characters feel real and endearing, making it easy to get invested in their personal struggles. The setting is just detailed enough for you to get a good mental grasp without bloating the work itself. The plot, though basic, does its job which is to push along the development of the characters while introducing some heart-stopping scenarios. The romance is sublime; a perfectly paced slow burn. This novel really has it all, and never loses focus.

I need to give huge props to Mackenzi Lee for the writing and pacing. It was clear and evocative, eliciting the desired emotions when it was meant to, but always keeping everything in balance.

It’s also remarkably diverse in its cast. The novel discusses issues of racism, ableism, classicism, homophobia, misogyny, and abuse, but does so in a way that seamlessly bridges the historical setting of the story with current states of these same issues. This care and attention to both the past and present is a testament to Lee’s excellent writing skills.

I started this review by misspelling “circus” as “cirucs”, so if that ain’t an omen of what’s to come, I don’t know what is.

Alright, so I just finished The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern! This is probably the first time in a long time that I’m actually writing a review after finishing a book rather than, say, three months later. Can I keep this streak of productivity going? Probably not, so let’s dive into the review.

The Night Circus is an enchanting tale about two rival magicians pitted against each other in a “game” that few people, themselves not included, know the rules to. As time goes on, Celia and Marco begin to see the fruits of their labour, the circus, as a collaboration more than a competition. Inevitably, they fall in love and begin to discover that the less they focus on the game the more the circus, and everyone in it, begins to unravel. In a game where there can only be one winner, Marco and Celia both find themselves in danger of losing everything they hold dear.

Reading this book is like stepping into a dream. Morgenstern expertly weaves the ethereal nature of the story and setting into every page. This is kind of a double-edged blade, though, since I feel the details of this story slipping away from me faster than most. The achronological chapter organization adds a layer of mystery and suspense, but also makes events more difficult to piece together into a coherent narrative. Nonetheless, details are rich, and characters feel real and complex. I think my biggest gripe is with the final chapter which seems a little tongue-in-cheek by the author with a conversation that loops back on itself constantly and characters that almost seem to be aware that they are characters in a book. If this was not the intent, the philosophical bits are out of place with the rest of the novel.

Guess who’s sick? It’s this bitch!

So, I’m already anticipating that this review is going to be a huge fucken mess. This one’s gonna be a two-fer since I read these books one after another, but I’m also going to talk a little bit about the series as a whole because I don’t feel like making a separate Firebrant. Considering it’s been a month and a half of dealing with mental shit since I finished this series, I’ve probably already forgotten about a few things from these last two books (and I didn’t make any notes because I’m a really organized and responsible book reviewer). So, let’s get this shit-show on the road!

Warning: Seriously, do I even need to mention that there will be spoilers? It’s the end of the gods damned series, of course there are spoilers.

Cress is the third book in the Lunar Chronicles series by Marissa Meyer. The book begins with Cinder and the team on their way to rescue Cress, the mysterious hacker helping them out, from her satellite. But things go horribly wrong when Head Thaumaturge Sybil Mira appears. Scarlet is captured, Cress and Thorne must traverse the desert seeking civilization, and the rest of the team plus newcomer Jacin find their way to the town Dr. Erland is hiding in. When Cress and Thorne finally reach the group, they come up with a plan to halt the royal wedding by kidnapping Emperor Kai. 

I feel like this is the book in the series that I have the least opinions of. It wasn’t great, but it wasn’t bad; it was acceptable. I recognize that the chapters involving Cress and Thorne traversing the desert were important to build up their characters as well as their (eventual) relationship, but they were a bit too long and boring with not really all that much happening. It didn’t help that not all that much was happening with Cinder and Wolf either, and I still don’t care about Scarlet, so yeah. Juxtaposed against this, it felt like the ending happened far too quickly, and Cinder’s successful battle against Sybil didn’t seem totally believable considering everything up until this point has let us know that Cinder is not very good with her Lunar gift. It was an anti-climatic end to a villain that should have been taken into the final book.

Cress gets the cinder rating.

Winter is technically the fifth book in the Lunar Chronicles series by Marissa Meyer, and a lot happens in this one. The crew comes up with a plan to start a rebellion on Luna, overthrow Levana, and instate Cinder as the new queen. While the palace is preparing for the wedding and coronation, Levana orders Jacin to kill the beautiful and popular Princess Winter who suffers from Lunar sickness, making her mentally unstable. The story after this is a sequence of events of the crew trying to build their rebellion while struggling against Levana’s attempts to stop them. In the end, Cinder’s ramshackle army storms the palace, her confrontation with Levana ends with Cinder having no choice but to kill the queen, and peace is established between Luna and Earth with Cinder as the new Queen of Luna. Happy endings abound as the main characters all get romantically paired off.

Not gonna lie, this book gave me some Feels™, but the more I think about it, the more it doesn’t make sense. A group of, like, nine people start a rebellion from nothing, absolutely nothing. They don’t meet up with pre-existing rebel groups on Luna, they have no access to any established forms of communication and information collection, they barely know anything about Luna’s history or its geography or its culture, and they don’t even consider the option of reinforcements from Earth (like Special Ops from literally any Earth government since they all want to see Levana deposed). It’s not just “oh, let’s make the politics simple so that teens can understand how revolutions work”, it’s downright lazy in assuming that an entire (successful) rebellion can come out of a fugitive teenaged girl claiming to be the rightful heir. The lower class population of Luna might want to see political and social change, but it’s not very believable that so many people would be willing to lay down their lives just because one person “inspired them”. 

Also, this book just further shows how unbelievably dumb and emotional Levana is. Throughout all four books that I’ve read, Levana seems to make almost every decision out of some emotional capacity regardless of the (obvious) consequences. This strongly contrasts with the reveal that Luna is the way it is largely because of Levana; that she took a monarchy and turned it into a totalitarian society, and managed to maintain it this entire time. But it’s just so unbelievable that someone like Levana, who makes such poor decisions, could have done all that. She really wasn’t an enjoyable villain.

In Winter, we also get Thaumaturge Aimery as a “villain” instead of Sybil. He’s made to be very easily unlikable just by being a weasel and a coward, but he’s not interesting like Sybil was. He wasn’t built-up enough in the previous books for the audience to get attached to him, he’s less powerful and so less threatening than a previous villain (Sybil), and his final “boss” appearance feels very contrived just to add struggle for the main characters. 

So, let’s talk a bit more about the ending and the main characters. I still love (most) of these characters; Jacin is a bit bland, Winter is endearing but annoying, and Scarlet is still...Scarlet. Honestly, I LOVE the happily ever after nature of the ending. I love that all these ships that were being built up actually get to happen, that the author recognized what the audience wanted, that Meyer didn’t bother to try and pull a twist ending for a story that really didn’t need it or kill off a major character only for shock value. I think a lot of authors lose sight of their vision but especially their audience’s wants when they pull that shit, and I’m glad that didn’t happen here.

That being said, I still think there was a lot of needless suffering by the main characters by the end, especially at the end. Winter goes temporarily insane after saving herself and her friends seemingly just because and not from the guilt of killing. Wolf is turned into a full wolf mutant, but it doesn’t have any real effect on anything or anyone but himself (and only until Scarlet reassures him). Thorne is mind-controlled to stab Cress, but it doesn’t leave any impact because it happens in the final confrontation and then everything is wrapped up with happy endings just afterwards, so it’s just one last panic for Thorne for no reason. I don’t think it helps that the main characters generally fare pretty well throughout the series until the end where most of them get messed up somehow. Just feels unnecessary. 

Winter, and the whole series, gets the cinder rating. It wasn’t perfect and sometimes there were some pretty noticeable flaws, but it was fun and still made me feel emotions, so overall good shit. And in case anyone was wondering, Thorne is the best character and I’m not going to apologize for that.

4. What magical world did you imagine going to as a child?

Literally anywhere with dragons. Every time little me found out about a new fictional or mythological world with dragons, it became my escape fantasy du jour. 

6. Have you ever used blood in any kind of ritual?

No, I am a weeny baby who can’t stand the sight of blood without passing out most of the time. However, I have considered it.

9. If you could have one psychic ability, what would it be?

To celebrate (almost) finishing my first book list, here’s a little ask for everyone! 

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1. Have you ever had a recurring dream? (Lair of Dreams by Libba Bray)

2. What is your favourite fairytale? (The Lunar Chronicles by Melissa Meyer)

3. What is your favourite heist movie? (Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo)

4. What magical world did you imagine going to as a child? (Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor)

5. Have you ever betrayed a friend for personal gain? (Vicious by V. E. Schwab)

6. Have you ever used blood in any kind of ritual? (Shades of Magic by V. E. Schwab)

7. What kind of animal would your animal companion be? (The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman)

8. Are you on good or bad terms with your family? (Son of a Trickster by Eden Robinson)

Bonus!

9. If you could have one psychic ability, what would it be? (Before the Devil Breaks You by Libba Bray)

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So, here I go again nitpicking children’s books like a cynical, adult asshole. There were, surprisingly, a lot of little things that just kind of pissed me off and drew me out of the world of The Golden Compass, like, more than usual I feel, because I managed to fill up a whole page of notes on this one (including quotes and page references, because I’m a sophisticated asshole). And so, without further ado, allow me to ruin your childhood for my own salty pleasure.

I already touched upon a couple of my complaints in my more-or-less spoiler-free review, but I’ll reiterate them again here, because I can. Every line of dialogue is written with an accent, and it’s one of the worst things in the world to read. I especially hate how it breaks up the flow of the writing, because you’ll get paragraphs of narration that are written in regular English and then, out of nowhere, dialogue is written in with terrible accents. Maybe it’s just me, a person who is not accustomed to British accents, heavy or not, but it ends up reading in an almost start-and-stop manner since trying to decipher the intentionally misspelt words makes me slow down and use more brainpower than should be necessary in a children’s book. And, going back to the weird use of heavily detailed sections followed by sparse sections, the book is a bit chunky. It feels like we spend way more time in some sections of the book than is necessary. For example, the Jordan College section goes on for way, way too long considering how quickly in-universe it is abandoned. By contrast, so little detail is given about London that I kind of forgot Lyra ended up there while I was reading the novel despite the fact that Lyra herself spends a good few weeks in the city.

Alright, so onto the new stuff. One of my biggest questions while reading this book was: when the fuck does this story take place? I get that it’s supposed to be an alternate universe Earth type situation, but seriously, I don’t think a proper date is ever given. I read somewhere online that it’s supposed to take place in the late-Victorian Era (so anywhere between 1880 and 1900ish), but there are such huge technological advancements that I would contest this and perhaps place it closer to 1910, or even 1920, given OUR world’s technological discoveries. The universe of The Golden Compass has zeppelins (page 74) and neon signs (page 179), the former of which were invented in 1895 but not commercially used until 1910 and the latter of which were invented in 1910 but didn’t gain popularity until the 1920s in our world. And yet women seem to still be largely considered second-class citizens. That’s not to say I was expecting social equality, however, the world feels devoid of the suffragette movement, which was HUGE for its time. I dunno, it just really bothered me that I couldn’t pin down a time period, either one that can be associated to our world or simply one that makes sense in the world of The Golden Compass.

And this is where we get into the shit that’s going to really make me look bad. Ok, so, first of all, I want to address the elephant in the room. I haven’t seen too much about this, but I feel like the use of the term “gyptians” to refer to a particular cultural group within The Golden Compass is kinda racist. It’s pretty clear that Pullman’s gyptians are based off of our world’s Romani, or at least a stereotypical version of their culture. The term “gyptians” appears to come from the disparaging term for Romani individuals, “g*psy”, and while it was uncomfortable just to see the word pop up here and there, it made me more uncomfortable to see the gyptian characters be totally complicit in its use. The gyptians themselves refer to themselves as such in the book (gyptians isn’t even capitalized like it should be for real-world ethnic groups). While I am not Romani myself and so cannot speak as to the exact appropriateness of the use of this term, I do think it was rather insensitive for Pullman to have named this cultural group as he did. It kind of speaks to a lack of research of actual Romani accounts, as well, so there’s that.

Next we’re going to get controversial with this statement: I don’t understand, from the first book alone, how His Dark Materials is meant to be feminist in nature. I understand that there are complex female characters and that the main character of a sci-fi adventure is a girl, but there’s this one section that really, really bothered me. So, when Lyra is staying with the gyptians, at one point a group of women approach the patriarch, John Faa, about joining the mission. They provide both emotional (it is their children who are missing just as much as they are the men’s) and logical (it may prove easier to employ women in certain situations requiring espionage) reasons, and yet, last minute, John Faa does not permit any of them to go. This issue is never brought up again. There are no consequences to none of the women going. John Faa, who is by and large treated like a hero and stand-up gentleman, is never made to explain his reasons for his decision. And the women seem to simply accept his ruling since none of them speak out or try to sneak aboard the ship anyways. This could have been a perfect opportunity for Pullman to show equality by having men and women fight side-by-side. It certainly would have stood out in contrast to the rest of British society, which had already been clearly shown to push women into the background whenever possible. It was incredibly frustrating to see this idea brought up only to be pushed aside later, and really made me question Pullman’s feminist message.

Lastly, I just want to point out that Lord Asriel is abusive to Lyra. I don’t think this is really a secret, but, like how the gyptians and gyptian women were written, Pullman’s writing makes it seem like we should just accept it and move on. In our first introduction to him, we see him painfully twist Lyra’s arm and threaten to break it just because she’s somewhere she’s not meant to be (and while Lyra is a bit of a troublesome child, her actions don’t warrant this kind of reaction from an adult). On page 14, Lord Asriel straight up says, “If I hear the slightest noise, I’ll make you wish you were dead.” Yet, Lyra spends most of the first book idealizing him, wanting to find him and work with him in his research. And while Lyra does eventually confess that she’s afraid of him, and even realises that he has never and will never love her like a father (page 368), she shouldn’t have been spending all that time in between seeing no fault in him. Children know when they are being mistreated. At the very least, Lyra should have had doubts about Lord Asriel from the beginning. 

Before I wrap this up, I just want to say that the foreshadowing is just really, really obvious. I know, I get it, it’s a children’s book, it’s not supposed to be difficult to figure out, but I have a couple things to say about that. First of all, stop treating children like idiots. Second of all, I don’t care if it’s for children, no one should read a sentence that literally spells out “this character has a great destiny ahead of them”. OF COURSE THEY ARE IMPORTANT AND HAVE A DESTINY TO FULFILL, THEY’RE THE MAIN CHARACTER. Either let the audience clue in on their own damn time, or don’t bother making it a mystery at all.

The Chariot: Thoughts on astrology?

So, like, astrology is pretty fucken broken. I did a surface-level research session on constellations and forms of telling time according to various cosmic objects, and these forms of measurement vary so widely over so many different cultures that it gets pretty ridiculous. This isn’t even including the multitudinous arrays of messages and meanings astrology can provide depending on so much context.

So, this is going up late. I’m pretty sure I published my Six of Crows duology review, like, a month or two ago (time has lost all meaning for me), but I know there are a couple of you out there who love metaphorical salt as much as I do, so here you go. 

1. Why does the crew experience a million setbacks in Crooked Kingdom? In Six of Crows, whenever the crew encountered a problem, the setback it created was rather minor and the group always managed to find a way out of or around it. This, coupled with the fact that the crew hadn’t yet proved themselves as a fully capable group working together to achieve mutual goals, made setbacks more excusable since they felt more like pauses than rewinds. In Crooked Kingdom, it happens a few times that the crew is sent back entirely to square one for a variety of reasons that start to appear more and more like plot conveniences made by the author to prolong the story.

2. Why bother having a main character you don’t like? Out of all of the main six characters, Matthias is the only one written to be unlikable throughout the majority of his own character arc. Not even Kaz, who, the audience is oft reminded, has a pretty poor reputation for being completely remorseless which is backed up by how he treats certain enemy grunts throughout the series, is written in to be so deplorable in his thoughts and actions. Like...we’re supposed to sympathize with an actual criminal gangster who tortures and kills innocent people who happen to get in the way of his path for personal vengeance, but a wrongfully imprisoned, indoctrinated child soldier is only redeemable and, thus, likable after he abandons his own misguided quest for personal vengeance? Sounds like a bit of a double-standard.

Not to mention that Matthias’s only true purpose in the story, besides his plot usefulness in book 1, is to provide Nina with character development. It’s painfully obvious at the end of Six of Crows that Matthias will eventually be killed off: the tone of the series is relatively dark, allowing for the expectation of major character death, Matthias’s character arc is complete after book 1, thus making his death the least consequential and likely to create plot issues, and he’s given barely anything to do in book 2, becoming incredibly passive as a character. What’s disappointing is that Bardugo doesn’t treat Matthias’s death as important development for Matthias; instead, his death impacts Nina the most. It didn’t matter if Matthias survived or not, his arc was over and the author was done with him, but he remained insofar that his death would provide suffering and, ARGUABLY, character development for Nina (and, let’s be honest, I don’t think a lot of readers were broken up over his death so the point isn’t for us to feel sad for him but rather to feel sad for Nina and her loss). And it’s this kind of stuff that really draws me out of a story; when I’m thinking about why the author made certain choices for their story over why the characters made certain choices in their story.

3. Are we actually supposed to believe that the main characters are all around seventeen years of age? Because I don’t. Much of the time, these teens do not think or act like teenagers. Now, I understand that they are supposed to be more mature because of the trauma they’ve had to endure to survive, but events experienced do not replace time lived. It takes a combination of both to create mature, adult characters which the main six characters do tend to feel like. Not to mention that other characters in this world, including adults, tend to treat them as if they are adults and not children. 

I think the books could have benefited greatly from the addition of little scenes of the characters just hanging out and being teens, laughing over stupid jokes or getting a bit over-emotional without the situation warranting it. They just feel a little too serious, a little too focused and methodical, especially for a bunch of kids who are not necessarily (or shouldn’t be considering their ages) professionals in their fields (and certainly not professionals at heisting which none of them have ever done before, or at least not anywhere near the scale of the Ice Court).

4. Why are the books organised in such a weird fashion? This is highly subjective and honestly not even a big deal, but I kind of didn’t like how Six of Crows explored some of the main characters’ backstories way more than others. It ended up feeling a bit awkward starting Crooked Kingdom knowing some of the characters very intimately and others barely. I would have preferred to see a more equal distribution of the character development across both books, which I also think would have provided a little more suspense in book 2. When you don’t know how a character is going to react to something because you don’t know exactly who they are, it really ramps up the tension in scenes where they have to make tough decisions. Bardugo’s decision not to focus on all characters equally throughout both books was just...weird.

5. Will Bardugo ever be able to write a convincing villain? Seriously, I can’t be the only person out there who finds both Jan Van Eck and the Darkling to be absolutely laughable villains. They are downright cartoonish in their portrayals and completely embody their respective clichés; the former a classic “rich, arrogant asshole” who gets Scooby-Doo’ed by the end of it (”And I would’ve gotten away with it, too, if it weren’t for you meddling kids!”) and the latter a distilled version of every woobie ever who goes power hungry Just Because (Seriously, he did more “good” for the grisha by simply raising them up to such an exulted level within the army and purposefully making them necessary to cross the Unsea than he did trying to take over an entire country in the name of his people which results in most non-grisha outright despising them. HE BROKE THE TENUOUS TRUCE HE HIMSELF HAD CREATED OVER THE COURSE OF SEVERAL CENTURIES WTF.). 

I’ll soon be coming up with a new book list, and for all two of you out there who will be wondering why I reviewed every book on the list except for The Star-Touched Queen by Roshani Chokshi (and Lair of Dreams, but that’s because I’m getting there), it’s because I didn’t read it. Like The Gryphon Project, I voluntarily put this novel down just a little ways into it, and here’s why.

I first heard about this book via a review on Youtube of the sequel, A Crown of Wishes (I think it was on A Clockwork Reader’s channel, but I’m too lazy to check and make sure), and I definitely found the Indian mythology/fantasy aspect to be intriguing. So, I picked up the first book from my library (coughpleasesupportyourlocallibrarycough), and my heart sunk immediately when I opened up to the first page and realised it was written in first-person.

I’m not the kind of person who can readily enjoy first-person. I find there to be too huge of a disconnect between reading about what a character is doing and seeing it described as what I’m doing. Rarely am I ever able to put myself in a character’s shoes, and, to be quite honest, rarely do I want to do so. I prefer to imagine my reading self as an invisible camera-person taking a peak into another world over trying to imagine myself actually being there.

Bear in mind, there exist some books written in first-person that I have been able to tolerate long enough to get through the story, but, unfortunately, The Star-Touched Queen just didn’t do it for me. I also found the tone and writing style to be for a bit more for a younger teen audience, and in the twenty or so pages I did manage to get through, the plot moved exceedingly fast and left characterization and world-building in the dust.

Alright, let’s slam the fuck straight into this one ‘cause I’m tired and want to go to bed. 

Warning: Spoilers

Strange the Dreamer is the first book in a duology by Laini Taylor. It tells the story of your average orphan, Lazlo Strange, whose only dream in life is to one day go to and find out what happened to a mythical city now known as Weep. One day, he gets that chance when a group of delegates claiming to be from the lost city arrive seeking outsiders to help them with a particular problem the city has. Lazlo becomes embroiled in the city’s past as he works to save its future, finding love and a little something of himself along the way.

Alright, so this book was...good. It did have my attention (most of the time), so that’s something. If you like purple prose, you’re gonna love this book. I don’t think there’s a single page that doesn’t get at least a little flowery, although there were only a couple times where I started to think it was a bit excessive. The plot is decent, the characters are well-written, and the settings are pretty interesting and thought out.

My biggest problems are with the intertwining issues of pacing and genre confusion. So, the copy I read was about 550 pages long. The first, let’s say, 50 or 60 pages are just one long intro for Lazlo. It does drag after a bit, there are long sections that kind of just repeat information we already know or can infer, but it does put the focus on the main character thus indicating that it’s going to be all about him: this is Lazlo’s story first and foremost is what I got from it. Then, there’s a brief part where you think it’s going to have a big travel montage, but that’s swept aside very quickly, so it’s not really an adventure tale. Ok, so they finally make it to Weep about a third into the book, and it sort of becomes...a thriller? The focus also shifts slightly away from Lazlo here as a new point of view character, Sarai, is introduced. A few other characters also become a bit more important-feeling here, too, which kind of makes the entire story feel like it’s more about Weep (a concept one could infer from the introduction) and less about Lazlo. 

And then the story, about two thirds in, shifts rather unexpectedly into a romance. And, perhaps this is just the cynical part of my brain talking, but the romance, one, completely absorbs the focus of the story leaving room for nothing else, and, two, is not very good. The romance is, literally, love at first sight, and involves one character who is at least 20 years of age and one character who is at most 16. And four years may not sound like a big gap, but it is when you’re that age (young people, please trust me on this). Not to mention that this romance (which the reader gets to experience something like three days of before book 1 ends) is composed of whole chapters dedicated to nothing but these two characters going on fantastical dreamscape dates and making out. They communicate and that’s fine, they even (sort of) do things together, and that’s fine, too, but the romance just feels so sudden and then it’s forced in your face for pages and pages on end...It could have been structured much more elegantly.

And then a whole bunch of actiony stuff all happens within some 30 pages, and the book just ends.

This combination of poor pacing and genre confusion ends up compounding to make the story read like it’s happening in chunks or sections rather than a single, flowing narrative. To be honest, however, I think that the only real fix to this would be to entirely overhaul the plot and remix events/details, so for what it is, Taylor probably structured it the only way it could be.

Still, it had some unique ideas and there are a couple of mysteries I wouldn’t mind seeing solved. I’ll give it the cinder rating, although I’m on the fence about whether I’m going to read the second book when it comes out.

Good day or good evening, today we’re taking a look at Philip Pullman’s beloved children’s novel, The Golden Compass (published as Northern Lights outside of North America). Unlike most people my age or younger, I did not have the opportunity to read this novel when I was a child. Thus, I’m not approaching this review with any nostalgia. I do want to state, however, that I recognize that my current age group is not the intended audience for this story, and so I would prompt anyone reading this review to take what I have to say about it with a grain of salt.

The Golden Compass tells the story of Lyra, an eleven-year-old orphan girl raised in a college. The story takes place in a world very much like our world except that in Lyra’s world all humans are born with a daemon, spirits that are part of the very being of humans but who take on animal forms. Children start going missing all over the country, and Lyra is thrust into the mystery of the stolen kids after her friend Roger is captured. With the help of an alethiometer, a golden device shaped like a compass that reveals truths, Lyra sets out for adventure in the north to find the missing kids and learn about a substance everyone is after called Dust.

First and foremost, I found this novel to be a bit boring. It is by no means bankrupt of imagination, but some quality about the writing (possibly the inexplicable lack of detail in some areas when others are fully fleshed out) simply didn’t capture my attention. Lyra was a very well-written eleven-year-old, a convincing child character, and many of the other characters felt like real people as well, although I found several adult characters did not always act like adults. There was a lot of adventure despite the fact that the plot didn’t always seem very logical (or else solutions to problems came about too easily). I think one of my biggest gripes is with the dialogue as nearly every character’s accent is written out, making conversations a bit of a slog to get through. 

I do have some nitpicks with this book, but I will save them for a rant where I can include spoilers.

Overall, I give The Golden Compass (Northern Lights) the tinder rating for adults, but the cinder rating for kids. This is definitely a book that is best read by children.

So, I love Bloodborne. I love the Soulsborne games in general, but Bloodborne just really hits me in the aesthetics department; the visuals, the theming, the subtle horror. The game play is, likewise, fantastic, but today we’re going to focus on those aesthetics, because, while I do genuinely love this game, I have some problems with a couple choices that were made during development.

I find it incredibly difficult to pick a single “level” or area that I enjoy the most since there are just so many good ones. On the other hand, if someone were to ask me what my least favourite area is, I’d know how to respond immediately. The Nightmare Frontier sucks; it’s tedious to get through, it’s not very visually appealing (something about the colour scheme just puts me to sleep), if you go through that area online, you’re going to get ganked constantly, it has a poison swamp which slows you down even more, and Amygdala tends to use some cheap tactics, at least for me. The Frontier is just boring to me, and its one redeeming feature is that it’s completely optional. 

But there’s one more thing about it that I despise and it’s how you get there. The Nightmare Frontier is only accessible via teleportation, but it’s not the sole area that does this. The Frontier, the Nightmare of Mensis, the Lecture Building, Castle Cainhurst, the Hunter’s Dream, and the DLC are all only accessible via teleportation. You can’t walk to any of these places, and it sucks...for most of them. 

Before I go on, I want to explain why I dislike From Software’s use of teleportation in the Soulsborne games. The Soulsborne games are lauded for their settings. Demon’s Souls began the trend of environmental story-telling and Dark Souls introduced the concept of an interconnected world, and while large parts of Bloodborne’s world are interconnected, the few places that aren’t bring up a lot of questions that ruin immersion. To be clear, it’s not an issue that teleportation is used to expedite travel; Bloodborne is, first and foremost, a game, and the game would not be very fun if you had to walk EVERYWHERE, like from one side of the map to the next. Once you arrive in a location and find the lantern, lantern-to-lantern travel works perfectly fine. What’s not fine is being introduced to new locations via teleportation.

It is so much more satisfying when you stumble into a new area, whether you had an idea of where you were going or not. Exploration in the Soulsborne games is highly encouraged and often rewarded by the game itself; the developers want you to explore their world, and this is, in my opinion, part of their core philosophy. But when you’re teleported straight to where you need to go, you don’t get to explore, and you don’t get to feel like you’re really there, like it could all be a real place. You are reminded that this is a game and you’ve got places to be so you can finish it. 

Having said this, some of the locations listed above do not break immersion, for various different reasons. Or they do, but not in egregious ways. The Frontier, Castle Cainhurst, and the DLC are all entirely optional; you don’t need to go to any of these places to complete the base game, the primary experience. If you were to skip these, you’d never experience their moments of teleportation, and the world would be, potentially, entirely interconnected. The use of teleportation keeps these challenge areas extra hidden and their discovery even more rewarding having solved the enigmatic series of hints given to you in-game (at least for Cainhurst and the DLC, although the DLC is far more direct). I also find the Hunter’s Dream excusable not only because it acts as your hub area where you are meant to feel safe away from the grim, violent waking world of Yharnam, but because of theming. I see a lot of people question why From decided to put two hubs, the Dream for leveling and Oedon Chapel for character side quests, but I think it was a wise decision in order to maintain the theme of questioning reality. The Dream is your introduction to questioning what is real and what isn’t, and it being so far removed that it exists as its own island in metaphysical space/time only furthers this theme. It is mandatory, therefore, that the Dream only be accessible via teleportation. 

But the Lecture Building and Nightmare of Mensis are not optional areas, nor is it mandatory that they be accessible only via teleportation in order to maintain theming. To get to the end game, you need to get to Mensis, and to get to Mensis, you need to get to the Lecture Building, and you get to the Lecture Building by being teleported...via a mummified corpse. While it is spooky and mysterious, I feel like there was not enough lore build-up or pay-off to justify this imagery (the School of Mensis does not receive nearly enough attention). Given in-game clues, you can never guess that touching a seemingly random mummified corpse is going to send you to another plane of reality. It doesn’t even allow you to explore and find it as a “secret”, something the School of Mensis was trying to protect and keep hidden, since you are railroaded towards it as soon as you enter the building. 

This brings up quite a few questions, but for me, none of them are about the mysterious mummified corpse, or how or why my character was brought to the Lecture Hall. Why didn’t they find a way to organically connect this part to the rest of the world? Is the game so big or the hardware so limited that loading screens are required for these areas? Were these areas created earlier in development only for From to turn around and realise they weren’t strictly necessary or in-line with the rest of the game’s aesthetic anymore, but they wanted to keep them anyways? Did From run into budgeting or time constraints? And while I understand that From Software employs people and not robots, and I shouldn’t be expecting perfection, these aren’t the questions I should be thinking of while playing a game so otherwise interconnected as Bloodborne. Frankly, it feels kind of lazy.

So, that’s the end of the analytical section of this post. Now, the game is done and over with, and at this point I’m complaining for no reason, but that hasn’t stopped me from thinking about possible ways that the Lecture Building and Nightmare of Mensis, at least, could have been better integrated...

Imagine defeating the One Reborn, and walking into the building and up to the mummified corpse. You inspect it for an item, something about the School of Mensis, something about nightmares (perhaps, in keeping with Lovecraft and themes of dreams and nightmares, a silver key), and head back out the way you came when an exit does not present itself. The arena seems untouched, but a little exploration reveals that one of the spiral staircases now extends down as well as up. As the only new path available to you, you descend the stairwell.

It goes down a bit further than you think it would or should, but you emerge on the other side into another section of Yahar’gul. The further you get into this new area, however, the more things start to get...weird. Groups of enemies start appearing that are mixes of Yahar’gul, the Cathedral Ward, Old Yharnam, and even the Forbidden Woods and Hemwick Charnel Lane. The setting does the same with ramshackle wooden houses sandwiched between the Victorian stone buildings, patches of twisted trees popping up from cobblestone roads littered with broken-down carriages. The area isn’t huge, but it doesn’t need to be. Your destination is a clearly academic building that resembles Byrgenwerth, at least in spirit. 

The Lecture Building location becomes available, and it’s a bit bigger on the inside than as it is depicted now; a couple extra rooms, a couple extra hallways. The set of doors that would lead to the Frontier no longer open, but you reach the other set, open them, and are greeted with a passageway of strange rock. You continue through the short tunnel into the Nightmare of Mensis proper. It is very clear that it should not physically be possible for this area to be attached in any way to the Lecture Building and the rest of Yharnam. The area leading up to and including the Lecture Building were just the threshold, the first layer, and now you’ve stepped fully into the nightmare. Welcome to Mensis.

This concept not only maintains the philosophy of an interconnected world, but also transitions into the theme of dreams and nightmares present in the game. You walk into the nightmare, but do you really? When does the nightmare truly begin? When you step through from the Lecture Building? When you enter the Lecture Building itself? When you descend the spiral staircase? When you pick up the item? When you defeat Rom? When you first wake up in the clinic? It begs the question of whether or not you’ve been in a nightmare this whole time, an idea that, I believe, is brought up throughout the game and is especially present in the sunrise ending. 

As for the Frontier, it could have been accessible via the currently unopenable hatch in Byrgenwerth, but only once the silver key has been obtained. Like with Mensis, a ladder could have brought you into a Lecture Building-esque area, perhaps even THE Lecture Building area, but now the Nightmare door doesn’t open and only the Frontier one does. The door opens onto a tunnel of strange rock and out into the Frontier proper. Perhaps, this is how Willem discovered the secret of “eyes on the inside”, from conversations with or at least studies of Amygdala? What inspired him to create Rom? It certainly opens up a few possibilities lore-wise.