Tag / reading

by booksoverlookedblog

Changing Directions

I began this blog a couple years ago when I was still living with my parents, in the house I had grown up in. While I’ve never been the neatest person, one of the things preventing me from ever having a truly clean room was the veritable library of books spread throughout the house. But I loved all of them so much, even the ones that I hadn’t read in years, or the ones I was likely never going to read. Choosing which ones to part with would be an impossible decision. This is, until I made a friend who had been going through all of her old childhood books, reading them again and deciding what to keep at what to get rid of. She talked about things she’d never noticed in her books before, some of which were my favorites when I was younger. But when she mentioned racism in Madelin L’Engle’s works, I was surprised. That was something I’d never picked up on when I was younger, and I wanted to see if it was something I’d missed as a kid.

I thought blogging about my re-reads would be fun to do, and I could see and share the ways that I had grown. I also thought that this project – and it would be a long project – could help me decide which books were worth keeping, and which should find new homes. I set out some ground rules for myself, and got to work.

Then things changed. I pared down, moved to another state. I pared down again, moved to a different state. I took some books from my large collection at home, still in my parents’ house, along with most of my favorites (the Harry Potter and Fables series were too heavy to bring with me).

But I’m winding down to the end of that pile. I’ve got one manga left, which will follow Tithe, and a couple more novels, though not many.

So, as Guns N’ Rose’s once asked, “where do we go now?”

I want to continue working on this blog, but I’m not sure in what capacity. Traditional book reviews is an obvious route I could take, rather than in-depth, chapter-by-chapter reviews. I’m considering doing more YA fiction (like An Ember in the Ashes and Last Call at the Nightshade Lounge), Newbery Medal winners, and #1000BlackGirlBooks.

I’m dedicated to finishing my long-form review of Tithe and the next manga in question, but I would need to get the jump on another project now to keep a steady stream of updates. So if there’s something that you would like to see from this blog or an idea that sounds intriguing, let me know!

by booksoverlookedblog

Tithe Prologue + Chap. 1: Me At 14

The newest book in the line-up is Tithe by Holly Black, and I’m approaching it with a little trepidation. Because I really liked Tithe, and I hope by the end of this read-through, I can continue liking it.

This is an important book for me, and that may partially be because the main character and I share the same name: Kaye. Even now, I get a small thrill from seeing my name printed in a book. But more than that, I consider Tithe my introduction to YA fiction. There’s magic, violence, romance, with an edgy teen girl taking the lead. This was my window into urban fantasy, and epigraphs, two things that I came to love. Tithe was easily one of the most influential books when it came to my own fiction writing in adolescence and young adulthood.

After I bought Tithe, I was so excited to get into it that I actually read the prologue. Before this, I’d always thought that a prologue was like an introduction to a book, written by some distinguished author about how great the book is. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that a prologue is actually part of the story, and I read prologues from there on out. So you could say Holly Black introduced me to prologues as well.

The book opens with our protagonist, Kaye Fierch, a sixteen-year-old who travels with her mother’s band. At the end of a show, one of the band members attempts to stab Kaye’s mom. Kaye stops him, and she and her mother decide to go to New Jersey, where our story kicks off.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get as sucked into the prologue as I did when I first read this. The intrigue isn’t there, and the near-stabbing was written very matter-of-factly, so it’s not terribly thrilling the second time around. I was worried that the first chapter – and the rest of the book – would be disappointing.

I was wrong on that count. At least, regarding the first chapter. It opens with Kaye and her friend Janet on a beach in New Jersey, and there’s some decent foreshadowing here. It’s mentioned how the city always smells like iron, and she always had the stinging taste of metal in her throat. The real meaning of this becomes apparent later in the book, when Kaye discovers her Otherworldly roots.

It also sent me back to a more innocent time, when I was fourteen and reading Tithe for the first time. At one point, Janet tells Kaye, “your hair’s fucked up.” I was a fairly voracious reader, but that was the first time I had ever read “fuck” in one of my books. I was so startled (and a bit giggly) that I had to show it to my mom, who scoffed. I think she had a couple second thoughts about me reading this.

It brought me back to just being fourteen, how much I loved to run when the wind was blowing hard, and getting so wound up and “high on life” just by a lively environment around me. I was the kid who danced in the rain during wild thunderstorms, who would have stuck my head out of car windows to feel the wind if my mom had let me. I loved to go fast, to feel wild and alive.

She was giddy with night air, burning like the white-hot moon. Everything smelled wet and feral like it did before a thunderstorm, and she wanted to run, swift and eager, beyond the edge of what she could see.

That, and Kaye and Janet aren’t really on the same page. They’re still friends, but Janet doesn’t really “get” Kaye. While Janet is worried about Kaye meeting boys, Kaye wants to swim naked in the ocean and look for incubi. They have completely different priorities, and the only reason they’re friends now is out of habit.

My best friend in high school didn’t really “get” me, either. We loved each other, but we would get wound up over things that the other wouldn’t care about in the slightest. The last time I saw her in person was years ago, and we realized that the only thing we had in common anymore was the past. So many people I grew up with were friends out of habit, and comfort. In college, I was stunned when I realized that my friends were my friends because they liked me, not just because we’d gone to school together for ten years.

Kaye and Janet leave the beach to meet Janet’s friends at an abandoned carousel on the boardwalk. This is a setting that I love. The carousel house is broken and disarrayed, a place that used to be bright and joyful now a place for teenagers to break into and drink. As Kaye explores it further, she discovers a beautiful carousel horse that had been left behind because its legs were shattered. It’s a place full of grit and hopelessness, but there’s a hidden beauty in it. It’s a good summary for the whole story: the blue-collar backdrop, the dangerous but enchanting realm of the faeries.

While exploring, Kaye thinks about her imaginary faerie friends she had when she was a kid, before moving to Philadlpheia with her mom.

But they never came when she was in Philadelphia. And now she was sixteen and felt like she had no imagination left.

That second sentence is…haunting. I’ve talked a bit about imagination and growing up in my read through of The Magician’s Nephew, but mainly in the context of keeping it alive once we’re no longer children. Here is something different: the loss of just that. Like the day you pick up your toys and find that the magic was gone, and the stories you told with them were meaningless. When you come to see that your toys were just plastic, there’s no secret world in your wardrobe or monsters under your bed. That you look at the world around you, and understand that there are no secrets left to uncover.

It’s something that I’ve been worrying about for a long time: if everything I write is just parroted from a better author, if I have no original ideas. If everything has been done before, what’s left for me to create? How do I repeat the same ideas and make them mine?

That feeling doesn’t go away when you mature. It only grows, and reminds you that you’re running out of time.

…That got grim.

As I mentioned, the carousel is where Kaye meets Janet’s friends, who have gathered to drink and smoke. I was a pretty straitlaced kid, and I grew up to be a pretty straitlaced adult. I used to think that Janet and her friends were just bad kids for drinking and smoking. And while I can’t say I approve of sixteen-year-olds drinking bourbon, there are so much worse things they could be doing. No, it’s not good, but it’s still better than doing harder drugs or crimes other than drinking underage. Even if it’s not a good trait to have, it’s normal for some teenagers to drink and smoke underage. Since I’ve gotten older, I have a new definition of “bad”, and underage drinking doesn’t even crack the top 10 of “worst things you can do”.

Kaye wanders away from Janet’s friends, and without knowing it, performs magic by making a broken carousel horse stand on its own. She is caught by Janet’s boyfriend, Kenny. He takes a chance to cop a feel, causing Kaye’s shirt to rip when she stumbles, shocked.

Janet spots this, and she immediately goes after Kenny. She doesn’t accuse Kaye of trying to steal her boyfriend, but rushes in to defend her friend against someone that she loves, someone she’s devoted to.

I didn’t think about this much when I first read Tithe. Because, obviously, my friends would be at my side in that unlikely scenario. But I’ve learned a lot more about the world since then. I’ve learned about victim blaming and women who tear other women down. I’ve had my own #MeToo story. Janet was never my favorite character, but she did exactly the right thing here.

by booksoverlookedblog

Eragon 44-45: The Road Trip

“Water From Stone” was another chapter I was looking forward to reading, mainly because it was one that I remembered from my youth. Sad to say, I remember this chapter better than some more exciting scenes. The first pages are nothing but exposition as Eragon, Murtagh, and Saphira try to figure where they need to go after escaping Gil’ead. Compounding their problems, Arya still hasn’t awoken, making travel more difficult.

The first half of the chapter isn’t all that bad, even if it is something of an information dump. It’s a back-and-forth exchange between Murtagh and Eragon, with Saphira chiming in occasionally. Earlier, Brom’s long lectures were important so the reader could understand the rules of the world, but they felt forced to me. This one here feels a lot more natural, and the chapter moves faster because there’s more than one person participating. Their conversation, just talking about the map and future destinations, moves the plot forward, while Brom’s lessons rarely felt necessary to the overall story.

They decide to attempt to cross the Hadarac Desert, if they can find a way to keep themselves hydrated without having to carry water with them. To do this, Eragon first attempts to transform some dirt to stone. The magic he casts demands so much power that it nearly kills him. It’s the first time we see Eragon overextend himself this way. We’ve seen him pass out from using magic before, sure, but he falls unconscious so often it’s basically lost all meaning. Instead, he loses a lot of energy and is afraid the magic might kill him. It obviously doesn’t, but we also finally see the consequences of using powerful magic.

Another thing I like about this chapter is that the characters finally encounter a problem that can’t be overcome by brute force.  Eragon isn’t strong enough to turn dirt into water, and it looks as though crossing the dessert will be impossible. However, he realizes that there is water under the earth, and all he has to do is lift it up to the surface.  Finally, he manages to solve a problem by creative thinking, not his sword.

As far as the next chapter goes, there’s just…not a lot. I actually found most of the chapter to be humorous, though I’m not sure that was the intention. Eragon, Murtagh, and Saphira debate over the best way to carry the still-unconscious Arya, without her being injured by Saphira’s scales or saddle sores. They finally decide to tie Arya to Saphira’s belly, so she can fly and still carry Arya.

This is also the same sort of solution my Dungeons and Dragons group would have come to, so I can respect that.

Again, I’m not sure if this is supposed to be funny, but I got a chuckle out of it. Largely because it’s so undignified. In truth, I never liked Arya too much. She was always too haughty for me, so it’s a little satisfying to see her tied to Saphira. Especially because we can’t go a full chapter without talking about how beautiful Arya is. There’s at least one mention of her “sculpted lips” that made me groan.

Other than that, there’s not a lot in this chapter worth mentioning. Once they figure out how to transport Arya, the only other obstacle they have to worry about is crossing a river. It’s solved pretty simply by Saphira flying Eragon, Murtagh, and the horses across. This chapter is more bland than anything else, and I’ll be happy we when can go a whole chapter without mentioning Arya’s beauty.

by booksoverlookedblog

Eragon 42-43

It’s been awhile since I griped about a single sentence in Eragon, but there’s one that’s just truly perplexing at the beginning of chapter 42, “Fighting Shadows”. During his captivity, Eragon is drugged, which renders him unable to use his magic. He figures out the drug is in his food, and abstains from eating or drinking until it wears off. When it does the following day,

It was dark in Eragon’s cells when he sat up with a start, electrified. The wrinkle had shifted! He had felt the magic at the edge of his consciousness for hours, but every time he tried to use it, nothing happened.

“The wrinkle had shifted”?

That’s such a weird line. I know it means that the drug has worn off, so Eragon isn’t foggy and able to do magic again, but…”wrinkle”? Is there a definition of “wrinkle” that I’ve never heard before? I know I’ve been pretty hard on Eragon, so I wanted to give it the benefit of the doubt. Maybe this was a phrase that people used and I’d never heard before, so I decided to Google it, just to be sure.

wrinkle-had-shifted

Congratulations, Paolini. You might be the first person to ever have the sentence “The wrinkle had shifted” in a published book.

Since a “wrinkle” was never mentioned before, I choose to believe that it refers to the folds in Eragon’s brain that allow him to use magic.

Not surprisingly, Eragon uses magic to break himself out of prison, at the same time Murtagh arrives in disguise to rescue him. But why wasn’t Murtagh also captured along with Eragon? Murtagh is wanted by the Empire, and it was his appearance in Gil’ead that led to Eragon’s capture. How did Murtagh get away? If it was due to Saphira’s intervention, why would she save Murtagh, and not her Rider?

What if Murtagh had been captured, and not Eragon? Eragon and Saphira could have some conflicts about risking themselves to save him, especially when he’s kept so much of his past a secret. There could have been a dilemma that wasn’t solved with swords or magic, something this book has been severely lacking.

But the plot marches ever-forward, and soon Eragon and Murtagh are rushing off to save Arya. When they find her, there’s another paragraph talking about how beautiful she is, and that she smells like pine needles. Wait, what? She’s been imprisoned and tortured for months. She shouldn’t smell nice. She should smell like iron and blood and…well, maybe elves’ sweat smells like pine needles. That’s the only thing that makes sense to me.

The most exciting part of this chapter is when Eragon duels the Shade, Durza, to try to cover Murtagh’s escape with Arya. We’ve seen Durza use magic in the prologue, but it didn’t have a lot of impact on the reader’s view of him, because we knew so little about what was going on. When Eragon and Durza engage in a sword fight, we know what’s at stake. We also have something to compare Durza to. We know that Eragon’s a gifted swordsman, but Durza is toying with him when they fight. There’s a huge gap between their skills, and so their fight is actually interesting to read, knowing Eragon is likely to lose.

The day is saved by Saphira, who ends up landing on the prison and destroying it. Normally I’m not a fan of the “Big Damn Heroes” trope, with the characters arriving right in the nick of time to save everyone. In this case I’ll forgive it, because Saphira is one of the few reasons I’ve managed to keep reading this book.

My first complaint about the next chapter, “A Warrior and a Healer”, was the abundant use of adverbs. The one that struck me as the laziest was Eragon “tiredly” healing one of Saphira’s wounds after their escape from Gil’ead.

Eragon also brings up that elves speak the Ancient Language, and most of them can use magic. This still brings me back to the question I had many chapters ago: how do elves have a conversation without casting spells and lighting everything on fire? This book goes into detail on so many things I don’t care about and have no impact on the story, but still has yet to answer that one question.

As Eragon, et. al. flee from Gil’ead, Murtagh tells him that the Urgals and Durza were working for Galby. No shit. Even as a kid, I knew that would be the case. The obvious bad guys are working for the bigger bad guy. This is just how the hierarchy of villainy works. I wasn’t shocked then, and I wasn’t shocked now.

I am, perhaps, a little more shocked and disappointed by Saphira’s explanation of all this.

A sick, angry feeling welled in his stomach. ‘The Urgals were under Galbatorix’s orders! Why would he commit such an atrocity on his own subjects?’

‘Because he is evil,’ stated Saphira flatly.

not good enough.gif

From Saphira’s perspective, this makes perfect sense. However, this is one of the big problems I have with the Inheritance series. Galby is evil because he’s crazy, and…well, that’s it. The antagonist who is evil for the sake of being evil is just a lousy villain. There’s no greater depth to them, no chance for them to be sympathetic or intriguing. If your only descriptor is “evil”, you’re not just a flat character. You’re boring and indistinguishable from the multitude of bland, oh-so-evil forgotten baddies.

After Eragon learns the not-so-shocking truth about the Urgals and Durza, he sets about to healing Arya. Paolini spends two paragraphs describing her wounds: back covered with bruises, oozing cuts, marks from whips and hot brands. Credit where it’s due: the description of Arya’s wounds is pretty horrifying, especially when you add in the fact she’s probably been tortured daily for months. So, nice one, Paolini.

But we still can’t go one chapter without mentioning how beautiful the elf is, even after she’s been brutally tortured.

[H]e could not help but notice that underneath the disfiguring marks, her body was exceptionally beautiful.

Ugh.

 

by booksoverlookedblog

Eragon 38-39: The Un-Twist

This chapter is supposed to make me feel sad, but all it did was cement just how dumb Eragon actually is. As Brom is dying, he reveals that he, too, was a Dragon Rider. His dragon was named Saphira, and she was slain by Morzan. Because of course she was.

I wish I could remember my reaction to this news when I read this book for the first time years ago. I have a feeling that it was more, “I knew it!” than, “Whaaaat? Brom was a Rider?!” There’s so many hints that anyone who’s read a fantasy book before could have figured it out.

But here’s the big question: why did Brom hide this from Eragon? Let’s see what our wise old mentor has to say.

‘Why didn’t you tell me this before?’ asked Eragon softly.

Brom laughed. ‘Because…there was no need to.’

No. NO.

You do not get to have a dramatic reveal if the main reason for not doing it sooner was, essentially, “I didn’t feel like it.” If it was for his or Eragon’s protection, fine. That’s at least a reason. And Eragon probably would have liked knowing that he wasn’t the only non-evil Dragon Rider. But this…

bullshit

Anyway, Brom dies, Eragon is sad and buries him. I know I’m supposed to feel sad, and I think I was when I first read this book. But now I’m lamenting Brom’s death for another reason: he was a much better character than Eragon.

In the following chapter, Eragon learns more about Murtagh, and makes plans to continue his journey, even if he’s not sure where he should go next. Murtagh displays a surprising amount of information about Brom, the Riders, and Eragon’s sword, Zar’roc.

God, I hate typing all these unnecessary apostrophes.

When I began reading this book, one of my big problems was the way the dialogue jumped back and forth between flowery prose and more modern language. The prose finally seemed to even itself out, making it much less cringey. In this chapter, though, some of the dialogue seems to slip back into that awkward phrasing. The most obvious might be when Murtagh is asking Eragon about Brom.

Is your Brom the Brom? The one who hlped steal a dragon egg from the king, chased it across the Empire, and killed Morzan in a duel? I heard you say his name, and I read the inscription you put on his grave, but I must know for certain, Was that he?

It’s the “Was that he?” with the weird capital “W” that gets me.

Because Murtagh knows a suspicious amount about the Dragon Riders and Morzan, Eragon tries to probe into his mind to figure out who Murtagh actually is. Murtagh has strong mental defenses, though, and Eragon can’t get into his mind. Blocking someone from your mind is a difficult skill to learn, and Eragon hasn’t mastered it yet. Also, when Brom tried to communicate with Eragon through his mind, Eragon was able to feel the intrusion and attempt to fend it off. So, likely Murtagh knows that Eragon tried to get inside his head, and doesn’t do anything about it. Eragon also has every reason to leave Murtagh, but they just kind of…let it go.

I think it’s been well-established that Eragon can be pretty dumb, but why wouldn’t Murtagh react?

Saphira and Eragon discuss what their next plans should be. Apparently, Brom had told Saphira that he was a Rider, and gave her information to find a man that could help them get to the Varden. Saphira never told Eragon any of this, because Brom had asked her not to.

In other words, Brom trusted a dragon hatchling better than his own protégé.

According to Saphira, Brom also said that he thought Eragon was the best person to carry on the Riders’ legacy.

…really? Clearly, Brom saw something in Eragon that I don’t.

Of course, we make sure to get some good teen angst in.

‘What does your heart say?’ asked Saphira.

‘My heart died a while back,’ Eragon said with a hint of black humor.

When I read Eragon’s response, I had to put the book down for a few minutes just to laugh at it.

by booksoverlookedblog

Adults Reading Children’s Books

I visited a friend a few weeks ago, and told her that the only Tamora Pierce books I’d read were in the Circle universe. I’d tried reading the Immortals series when I started high school, but older students on the bus, including my sister’s best friend, started making fun of me for it. I put the book down and never picked it up again.

My friend, Liz, was surprised that I’d never read Tamora Pierce’s The Song of the Lioness series. She told me I’d love it and practically shoved the first book, Alanna, in my hands. I had my doubts. I knew the basic story: girl wants to be  knight, so she disguises herself as a boy to become one. It didn’t seem that original to me. I wasn’t expecting to be blown away by the prose, either; this was a book for kids, after all. Even the first chapter seemed very rushed. On the second page, with the reader having no prior knowledge of these characters, Alanna and her twin brother decide to switch places. Boom! Suddenly the plot’s rolling. A little too fast for my taste.

So, no, I did not come into this book with high expectations.

I ended up loving it: the main character, her friends, and all the adventures she went on. Maybe my favorite part was when Alanna beat the crap out of the bully that’d been beating her for months. For someone who was also bullied at Alanna’s age, I think it was cathartic for me.

A few years ago, I might not have even considered reading Alanna or similar books. I was familiar with young adult fiction, and so much of it seemed the same: girl in dystopian world starts a revolution and falls in love along the way. I wasn’t very interested in children’s literature, either. I thought that it wouldn’t be able to challenge more or entertain me. Fortunately, my attitude changed with a little help of a friend, and Lemony Snicket.

I’d tried to read the Series of Unfortunate Events books when they were “age-appropriate” for me, but I really didn’t enjoy them. I managed to get through one book, and gave up. A few years ago, one of my friends bought the first two books. Remembering how much I enjoyed the Series of Unfortunate Events movie, I picked up the first book as well.

At the time I was working as an educator at a small museum, which hosted overnight programs for scouting groups. I like to read before I go to bed, but I was also tired and had to be up early the next morning to cook breakfast for the scouts. I couldn’t read anything that was too long, or anything that would make me stay up late thinking. So I started reading The Bad Beginning. I quickly found that the writing was clever and humorous in ways that I couldn’t appreciate when I was younger. Even if the characters are simple and straight-forward, the stories twist and turn and are endlessly entertaining. The Unfortunate Events series also grapples with moral ambiguity and doesn’t give clear-cut answers to all its mysteries. These are things that would have frustrated me endlessly as a child. As an adult, however, the give what seems to be a simple story a deeper meaning and complexity, full of questions whose answers could be mulled over for hours.

This blog is as much about growing up as it is about books. When I read those old books that I grew up with, time and time again, I can see the ways that I have changed. Moreover, I derive different meanings from the same stories as I grew up. This is probably the most obvious in The Magician’s Nephew reviews. Certainly, I could draw parallels between Diggory’s life and my own when I was ten, but for the most part it was a wonderful adventure I could get lost in. As an adult, I had a much better understand of the story as a whole, especially as a Christian allegory. I was also a lot more intrigued by the characters of Uncle Andrew and Jadis. As a child, I’d written them off as villains, and were therefore to be disliked, no matter what.

The experiences I had reading these books are worth revisiting, and I’m happy that I have a space to share them. But thanks to Lemony Snicket and Tamora Pierce, I’ve learned that I can still draw deep meaning and enjoyment from books that are supposedly not for adults.

I got several new books for Christmas this year that I’m still working my way through, including In the Hand of the Goddess by Tamora Pierce, and All The Wrong Questions by Lemony Snicket. Right now I’m reading through the dark and complicated world A Storm of Swords, but I can’t wait to finish this book, crack open my new Tamora Pierce, and see how Alanna is doing.