Tag Archives: magic

The Dream Thieves

Book Review of The Dream Thieves (The Raven Cycle #2), by Maggie Stiefvater

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I borrowed a copy of Maggie Stiefvater’s The Dream Thieves from my local library. I reviewed the first,The Raven Boys, here.

Description from Goodreads:
Now that the ley lines around Cabeswater have been woken, nothing for Ronan, Gansey, Blue, and Adam will be the same. Ronan, for one, is falling more and more deeply into his dreams, and his dreams are intruding more and more into waking life. Meanwhile, some very sinister people are looking for some of the same pieces of the Cabeswater puzzle that Gansey is after…

Review:
I enjoyed book one of this series. I liked the beginning of this book and really liked the end, but the middle seemed to drag. I just got so tired of everyone being so miserable and no one saying the things that so desperately needed to be said. Further, while Stiefvater’s writing is beautiful there were times I wanted to shake the book and scream, “Stop being so bloody poetic and just say what you mean.” The prose got in the way of the story sometimes. Lastly, it was a little to convenient that the villain offed himself in the end.

However, the plot still kept me interested enough to want the next book and the witty zingers continued to fly. There really is quite a lot of subtle humor in the story and I loved that. All in all, maybe not as good as the first book, but still really good.

Book Review of Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things (Dead Things #1), by Martina McAtee

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I’m embarrassed to say that I’m not sure where I got my copy of Martina McAtee‘s Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things. I don’t think I bought it, so I either picked up as an Instafreebie or won it somewhere. If I won it from you or your blog, thank you.

Description from Goodreads:
17 year old Ember Denning has made an art of isolating herself. She prefers the dead. She spends her days skipping school in old cemeteries and her nights hiding from her alcoholic father at the funeral home where she works. When her own father dies, Ember learns her whole life is a lie. Standing in the cemetery that’s been her sanctuary, she’s threatened by the most beautiful boy she’s ever seen and rescued by two people who claim to be her family. They say she’s special, that she has a supernatural gift like them…they just don’t know exactly what it is.

They take her to a small Florida town, where Ember’s life takes a turn for the weird. She’s living with her reaper cousins, an orphaned werewolf pack, a faery and a human genius. Ember’s powers are growing stronger, morphing into something bigger than anything anybody anticipated. Ember has questions but nobody has answers. Nobody knows what she is. They only know her mysterious magical gift is trying to kill them and that beautiful dangerous boy from the cemetery may be the only thing standing between her and death.

As Ember’s talents are revealed so are the secrets her father hid and those in power who would seek to destroy her. What’s worse, saving Ember has put her cousins in danger and turned her friend’s lives upside down. Ember must learn to embrace her magic or risk losing the family she’s pieced together.

Review: 
I have a really odd relationship with YA books. 9 times out of 10, I read them and dislike the book. But there’s that 10th one, the one I read that makes me wonder why I say I dislike the genre. (Then I read the next one, which I dislike, and the whole cycle starts again.) But that occasional YA book that I so enjoy is what keeps me coming back hoping the next one will be the good one, even if it’s usually not.

Well, Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things is the unicorn, the random and rare YA book that I truly enjoy. It was witty and funny and diverse. Not all the characters are white and there are both het and gay romances (even a poly among some side characters). It’s suspenseful and irreverent, playing with and making fun of YA characters and tropes, even as it used some of them.

The book could use a tad more copy editing (though it’s not too distracting, just the occasional double comma and such), it’s a little too long and ends on a bit of a cliffhanger, or at least doesn’t wrap up most of the threads. But it’s definitely one I’d recommend picking up and I look forward to more.

Three Parts Dead title

Book Review of Three Parts Dead (Craft Sequence #1), by Max Gladstone

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I bought a copy of Three Parts Dead, by Max Gladstone.

Description from Goodreads:
A god has died, and it’s up to Tara, first-year associate in the international necromantic firm of Kelethres, Albrecht, and Ao, to bring Him back to life before His city falls apart.

Her client is Kos, recently deceased fire god of the city of Alt Coulumb. Without Him, the metropolis’s steam generators will shut down, its trains will cease running, and its four million citizens will riot.

Tara’s job: resurrect Kos before chaos sets in. Her only help: Abelard, a chain-smoking priest of the dead god, who’s having an understandable crisis of faith.

When Tara and Abelard discover that Kos was murdered, they have to make a case in Alt Coulumb’s courts–and their quest for the truth endangers their partnership, their lives, and Alt Coulumb’s slim hope of survival.

Review:
I enjoyed this, but didn’t love it. I adored Tara and Abelard. I thought quite a few of the quips were funny and the whole idea of wizard lawyers was interesting. I even liked a lot of the writing. But those parts of the writing I didn’t like almost ruined the book for me. Too often the prose becomes abstract and purple in an attempt to describe something happening on a magical plain or in some’s head or just magically in general and some of it is almost indecipherable. Similarly, things seemed to happen at breakneck speed with very little explanation, especially at the beginning.

All in all, this was a middle of the road read. But it was enough to tempt me to read more of Gladstone’s work.