Bookish Thoughts

How do I talk about this book without talking about the ending? I'm not sure I can. I don't think the ending ruined the trilogy, or even this book. There's still a lot that I loved in it. But the ending overshadowed everything else. And being right at the end, it's the freshest in my mind. I can't decide if I think it was lazy or not. It reminded me a bit of Breaking Dawn , where the whole story builds up to a conclusion that just doesn't happen because Stephenie Meyer didn't want to write it. Erika Johansen seemed to chicken out from writing the hard ending that her book was heading towards. The part that really gets me is that it felt like such a bait and switch. Most of the chapters begin with epigraphs that seem to imply a very different ending than the one Johansen gives us. Recognizable characters, like Father Tyler and Glee, provide commentary on the events of this book as if writing about it with the benefit of hindsight. "Don't worry,...

This book went in a direction I didn't expect, and I loved it. While the first one hinted that it takes place in our own far future, rather than the distant past or on another world, I didn't really think much of it. It was fun to see nods to Tolkien, and it allowed the author a quick shorthand for some of her world-building. I wondered vaguely where this might be taking place. As far as I know there aren't any pristine, unsettled landmasses that a group of travelers can get to and completely escape the modern world. But it honestly seemed like such a big plot hole that I tried not to think about it too much lest it ruin my enjoyment of the story. In the second novel, Johansen embraces the setting, giving her protagonist visions of a woman who lived in her distant past, which happens to be our near-future. It's a fascinating combination of high fantasy and dystopian future that highlights some of the similarities between the two genres and asks whether anyone can real...

I liked this book so much more than I thought I would. I went in expecting a fairly standard young adult fantasy novel, with some magic and some romance and a girl who has to save the world. But this book definitely isn't young adult, and there's only the barest whiff of romance. Instead it's about a young woman inheriting a kingdom in distress. Her mother was a terrible ruler and her uncle was a worse regent. She grew up in isolation, preparing to take the throne but shielded from the worst mistakes of the generation before. And she quickly finds herself in over her head. The story reminded me a lot of Kristin Cashore's Bitterblue . The people of the Tear have been living with atrocities. Many of them found themselves committing atrocities in an attempt to survive. Kelsea wants to put an end to all that, but it's not nearly as simple as she hopes it is. It ends up being a more mature take on the same themes in Bitterblue  because the corruption in the government ...