Review: The Fairy Godmother

The Fairy Godmother by Mercedes Lackey

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



Short and simple:

The beginning of the book was a little hard to get into; the entirety of Elena's apprenticeship, while quite interesting, seemed to drag a lot if only because I feel like I'm reading a textbook version of "The Fae World of the Five Hundred Kingdoms" rather than experiencing this strange new world through the protagonist's eyes. Possibly, since Elena is such a book worm and logical thinker, everything that we see through her eyes are described just as technically as she perceives it. Unfortunately, while Elena is a witty and creative individual making use of her logic and knowledge, her technicalities end up causing the narration to be a little more boring that it could have been.

I've never read anything else by Mercedes Lackey, but I know she's a bit of a name in the fantasy genre, which shows in her prose and style. It just seems that nothing quite exciting really ends up happening in the story that makes it so that you "just can't wait" to pick the book back up and keep reading. (For instance: I fell asleep at least twice while reading certain parts near the beginning. I fell asleep once near the end, but that was more on my own exhaustion than due to the book's pacing since I direly wanted to finish those last two chapters just to see the conclusion of the last conflict and the entire Godmother Elena story.)

One thing I DID enjoy about this book was the world's set up as well as the magic system. Very rarely do we see any standard, unique magic systems in a lot of fantasy books anymore (although I really shouldn't make that assumption since I haven't even chipped the block of fantasy novels on my bookshelf, but whatever). I liked the entire deal with The Tradition, even if it really just feels like a fancy, more fairy tale fun way of talking about Fate with it's own twisted logic and predictable paths. I liked that Elena was a competent Godmother from day one as the apprentice, and I truly started becoming more interested in the book when Elena was finally named Godmother after her apprenticeship ended. If I had to pin point it, I'd say that that entire first half of the book detailing the Godmother apprenticeship was "just story board set up material" which would make it an extremely long way to set up the rest of the world and the story. Because for the most part, nothing really effected Elena much until after she finally became the Godmother following Madame Bella's "reign" (if that's what we can call it since Godmother's essentially are like "gods" lording over other people's lives, even IF their meddling helps to propel The Tradition that could lead to happy endings).

I will continue on with the next book in The Five Hundred Kingdoms series, if only because I've grown fond of the world that was established all too well in this first book. The fact that each book seems to begin a new story for a new protagonist is also something I look forward to experiencing. This book wasn't entirely the best, but I would point out that it isn't at all disappointing once you get into it.



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Review: Insurgent

Insurgent by Veronica Roth

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



This particular review will be short and sweet since I don't have much to say about it outside of the fact that I'm really impressed. To backtrack, when I first finished reading Divergent (book 1), I did not anticipate the following book as much as others might have. Divergent had a good story line, a good premise, great characters, good set-up, and some nice intensity to set up its dystopian grandeur to rival the Hunger Games world. But the execution of the story line was a little stifled and unbalanced. Divergent started off with a slight drag as it spent a lot of time building up the Dauntless initiation phase as well as Tris's growth from abandoning her previous faction and finding a place in her new faction. While it was all fun and enjoyable, it wasn't as emotionally rewarding as the Hunger Games fast-paced telling had been. But then we get into the latter half of Divergent and everything suddenly picks up speed and we feel rushed to find a good resolution to the first story arc. And so while I DID enjoy reading Divergent, it wasn't very impressive of a start.

HOWEVER, I didn't realize how much I was really anticipating the second book until I actually started reading it. What the first book lacked in depth, emotion, relatability, twists and the like... well, this second book made up for more than enough of what I hadn't been satisfied about before. It was like the author knew exactly what was left hanging from the first book (that I personally felt cheated on) and included all of it in wonderfully with Insurgent's creation.

The first book ended on such a fast-paced closing that there wasn't time to see into Tris's mind; but in the second book, we immediately delve into that exact psyche of hers to see how the aftermath of all that has happened is now affecting her. And so we get a chance to follow a more emotionally unstable heroine as she struggles with herself as well as with the world around her to find some sort of inner peace, and yet she never feels like she can get there. I especially enjoyed following through Tris's eyes as all of this happens to her, though there are moments where she gets quite mopey and you start to wonder where that spunky, stubborn, violent Tris Prior disappeared. While I DID appreciate that Tris's instability didn't always deter her perceptiveness and her determination, there were moments where I wondered whether she had been given too much credit by the author in trusting her own instincts and always being right about certain happenings.

The second book even gives us more interaction between friends, foes, family, and people of factions who have never interacted before. I like that we get to see more of the rest of the factions and live through the culture shock through Tris's eyes. There was more development in friendships that could have potentially shattered, and family ties that were supposedly strong, and even factions that were initially united. And then finally, we get to see what I'd been wondering about this strange dystopian society in the first place; a twist for the ending that tells us about the outside world which was never once mentioned in the first book. Here we get a small taste of what's to come in the next installment, a possibly more thorough explanation of why the society was built the way it has been for so long. The conspiracy of this entire, strange division among factions as well as the appearance of Divergent. And just as well, a new twist involving a family history lessen, maybe, about the Priors. While a lot of it felt rather predictable as the ending neared, I still found it pretty well executed and a very smooth transition into the next book.

And so, unlike with my feelings after Divergent, I look forward to seeing what will come about in the next book (maybe a conclusion to the series?). Kudos to Veronica Roth -- even though I didn't quite take to the first book, this second book, Insurgent, was presented much more thrillingly and much more satisfactorily than the first one. It is nice that the books become progressively better rather than worse, but it was also great that the first book didn't entirely deflect the series from my radar anyway.



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Review: Storybound

Storybound by Marissa Burt

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



It was the premise of the story plot that got me interested in the first place, and I have to admit that the build up was doing a pretty good job setting up the world and the conflict. However, halfway into the story, it just felt like a chore to read when the conflict continued to be "discussed" rather than progressed on. I admire that there is a strong female heroine in this story, but I feel like Una Fairchild fit into the world too easily after being transported from the world of Readers. She almost instantly began to behave the same way that all the "characters" of Story behaved and you couldn't even really tell that she wasn't part of Story. Nothing seemed entirely strange to her and she readily accepted each and every new strange occurrence. Maybe it was the fact that she was still young and open-minded, or maybe it has to do with the ultimate reason why she had been Written In to Story, but never had this issue been brought up about how easily she fit into Story.

The characters ran a bit flat and I found that aside from that mysterious conflict going on from Story's history, I didn't really care what happened to the main characters at all. Peter Merriweather was an admirable main male lead as well, except for a young kid who's afraid of failing his practical exams and who came from a good, wholesome family, he seemed to have no problems bending rules, skipping classes, and getting into trouble. It seemed as if each character was just "playing a role" rather than coming to life as their own character.

I plan on reading the next book, but I'm not really anticipating it too much. It's one of those, "I'll read it when I see it next, or whenever I have time" types of things.



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