Bookish Thoughts

Sometimes, when you're dealing with the imminent death of a loved one, the thing that helps most is reading about death. Granted, the deaths here are fantastical and involve vampires, mad scientists, sea gods, and the sort of intense rivalry reserved for blood relatives. It was just far enough removed from reality to make it easy to read and become immersed in while still helping me to process all the emotions I've been rapidly cycling through lately. This book marks the triumphant (sort of) return of Jack and Jill, who are such great characters that they have now improbably returned twice and once more just might make the series jump the shark. But for now it was great to see them and spend a little more time in the Moors. But now McGuire has suitably built up the rest of the cast, and I'm excited to learn more about some of the other characters.

This is my favorite of the Wayward Children books so far. In general, I prefer the even-numbered ones, which take place in the various worlds rather than the school. They're a little more focused, and there's an air of tragedy that hangs around them that makes them so bittersweet. This one follows Lundy, who died in the first book. Here we go back to her childhood, her encounter with the Goblin Market, and the actions that ultimately cursed her. The Goblin Market is all about rules, which appeals to Lundy (and honestly, to me, too. It's nice to know where you stand). One of those rules is that she has until her 18th birthday to choose to either stay in the Goblin Market or in her old life. Until then, she can travel back and forth as much as she wants. But then she has to choose one life and forsake the other. For a world that prides itself on fairness, this is a supremely unfair condition. Especially because it gets more and more difficult to make as Lundy approaches ...

While I enjoyed this book, it didn't quite grab me the way the first two books in the series did. This one is a fun adventure in which a group of students at Eleanor West's school travel through several worlds in an attempt to resurrect a student who died before her time. It's got a couple of new faces and a couple of old favorites and it delves deeper into the underlying logic (or lack thereof) of these worlds. I think that's the crux really. This story felt more like table-setting. McGuire is currently contract to write eight books in this series (of which five have been released), and there's every possibility that the series will extend beyond that. So she needed to spend some time establishing the rules and the map. It was interesting, and I'll certainly be grateful for it as the series progresses, but in the meantime it slowed this story down a bit. A lot of scenes boiled down to new-girl Cora asking questions and resident-expert Kade answering them with...

As I've begun to embrace my love of horror over the past several years, I've come to understand the key to horror stories. They're not about being scared, not really. They're about catharsis. They're about facing your fear or dealing with your trauma or even just acknowledging that sometimes life is terrible. And if you can say that and share it, it gets a little better. So it makes sense, in a weird, twisted, horror-novel-logic sort of way, that Jack and Jill would escape from their stifling household and too-strict, largely absent parents and find comfort and solace in the trappings of a classic horror story. Jack as the apprentice to a mad scientist, Jill as the protege to the vampire lord. Really, though, this story is pretty light on the horror. It's got the shape of a horror story, with the details fading into the background. In the foreground we have a story about family and sisterhood, about disappointment and loyalty. It's an excellent prequel t...

When I gave birth to my son, I packed a book in my hospital bag. It was more out of habit than anything else, though I was optimistic that I'd have some time to read in the hospital. That didn't end up happening, and it took me nearly six weeks to finish reading that book after Gavin was born. Despite this historical precedent, I once again packed a book in my hospital bag when I went to give birth to the twins. I can't just not have a book with me. And whether it was because this book was shorter or because it was one that I'd already read a few years previously, I actually read the whole thing before I was discharged from the hospital. I'm really glad I decided to re-read this book. I caught a lot of things I'd missed on my first read-through, and those details led to a richer experience. It made me appreciate the ending more, too. My first time through I felt like it left something to be desired, but this time it seemed like a perfect fit. McGuire has als...