A Monster Calls

A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness

Am I well aware that's the movie poster and not the book cover? Yes. Did I realize this after staring at the book cover, looking at the photo, staring at the book cover before I realized I read a copy of the book after it became a movie? ...maybe.

Am I also aware that I can't use the new blogger editing screen to make the book cover align with the text because I can't computer? YEP. Is all the formatting in this blog post going to be weird until I learn? Awww yaaaaaasssss. When I decided to blog, did I also decide to become a master of web pages? Aw hell nah.

An amazon summary, "The monster in Conor’s backyard is not the one he’s been expecting — the one from the nightmare he’s had every night since his mother started her treatments. This monster is ancient. And wild. And it wants something from Conor. Something terrible and dangerous. It wants the truth. From the final idea of award-winning author Siobhan Dowd — whose premature death from cancer prevented her from writing it herself — Patrick Ness has spun a haunting and darkly funny novel of mischief, loss, and monsters both real and imagined." AMAZON LINK OF JUSTICE

Most people have probably read or seen this story, so I'll be brief. This book is about grief. This book is about the grieving process and what really happens when you lose someone to a disease who you are so close to. It's also told from a child's perspective.

Did you want your heart broken? HERE YOU GO.

So, there's a yew tree in Conor's backyard who is also a monster. The monster claims to have been called by Conor and is willing to tell him three stories until Conor tells the monster his own story. The stories the monster tells all have different takeaways then when would expect as the monster tells them in such a way that a different perspective or one or two more details reveal the whole story. There is no right answer to any of the stories either.

The book also showcases what Conor's daily life looks like, and how he's treated differently wherever he goes.

The book is powerful, I haven't seen the movie, but I hope it captures the essence of the book. I cried, several times. It was very powerfully emotional.

Happy reading!

Scavenge the Stars

Scavenge the Stars by Tara Sim

Have you read the Count of Monte Cristo but want to keep re-reading the same basic elements but with slightly different twists? Have I got a book for you!

Sidenote: The formatting in this may be messed up since the editor appearances changed and I apparently lost the ability to computer.

An amazon summary, "When Amaya rescues a mysterious stranger from drowning, she fears her rash actions have earned her a longer sentence on the debtor ship where she's been held captive for years. Instead, the man she saved offers her unimaginable riches and a new identity, setting Amaya on a perilous course through the coastal city-state of Moray, where old-world opulence and desperate gamblers collide. Amaya wants one thing: revenge against the man who ruined her family and stole the life she once had. But the more entangled she becomes in this game of deception-and as her path intertwines with the son of the man she's plotting to bring down-the more she uncovers about the truth of her past. And the more she realizes she must trust no one?" AMAZON LINK OF JUSTICE

Amaya is called Silverfish on the boat of horrors as she has worked off her indentured servitude for the past ten or so years. Allegedly, her mother sold her off to the boat to work off their debt, but Amaya refuses to believe it and desperately wants to be reunited with her mother. One day, Boon is fished out of the ocean and brought aboard the ship. Amaya puts her life on the line when she speaks up for him, and when Boon makes an escape, he enables Amaya to do the same.

After years of living in secret and training with Boon, Amaya has returned home to seek revenge on the owners of the boat where she served. She wants to kill the miserable captain who was insanely awful to work under, and she wants the people who would even own such a boat to pay the price for their cruelty/ignorance. Boon wants to help her, but has her own agenda. Amaya returns in the disguise of a Countess and brings a crew along to help her on her conquest for revenge.

On the other hand, Cayo, son of the man who owns Amaya's ex-ship, has fallen onto his own hard times. Cayo has always been a gambler, but now their family's money has dried up, and Cayo needs to make friends with the new Countess to be a potential investor.

That's enough summary.

Look, it's the Count of Monte Cristo with some slightly different elements. Was it kind of fun to read from a woman's perspective? Yes. Were there some different elements? Yes. Was it basically the same story? Yes.

I'd recommend reading the original before branching off into any of these.... similar stories. I ended up skimming the last part of the book as it was literally just like reading the Count of Monte Cristo and everything was laughable predictable so why read every word when a few sentences every page sufficed? Which, I hate doing, but I also hate wasting time when I have so many other things to read.

Happy reading!

Ember Queen

Ember Queen by Laura Sebastian

This is the third and final book in a trilogy. The first book, Ash Princess, I reviewed HERE, and the second book, Lady Smoke, I reviewed HERE. If you don't want anything spoiled for the previous two books, then I strongly recommend not reading this review.

An amazon summary, "Princess Theodosia was a prisoner in her own country for a decade. Renamed the Ash Princess, she endured relentless abuse and ridicule from the Kaiser and his court. But though she wore a crown of ashes, there is fire in Theo's blood. As the rightful heir to the Astrean crown, it runs in her veins. And if she learned nothing else from her mother, she learned that a Queen never cowers.

Now free, with a misfit army of rebels to back her, Theo must liberate her enslaved people and face a terrifying new enemy: the new Kaiserin. Imbued with a magic no one understands, the Kaiserin is determined to burn down anyone and everything in her way.
The Kaiserin's strange power is growing stronger, and with Prinz Søren as her hostage, there is more at stake than ever. Theo must learn to embrace her own power if she has any hope of standing against the girl she once called her heart's sister." AMAZON LINK OF JUSTICE

This book is the third and final book, and as such, was just kind of full of a lot of emotional conflict being resolved and a lot of action. I don't think I'm going to do a summary as I have some thoughts. I also get pretty upset about themes of self sacrifice. Like, 'For the good of the (insert world, country, certain character, etc) I must die.' Or the classic, 'I'm going to die anyways, may as well be for a cause I believe in.' It just, makes me very mad when people lose the will to find anything good about their life. HOWEVER, there is the alternate self sacrifice, of say Spock in Star Trek, where he literally chooses to sacrifice himself before anyone else can make that choice. I'm more okay with that because anyone could have done what Spock did, he was just the first one to it.

Anyways.

I also feel like a lot of the magical elements of the book went largely unexplained, or explained with a one sentence throwaway line where everyone just accepted the rationale behind it. The story ultimately didn't really express anything new, just common themes from what we've seen in other books (love triangle, final battles, triumph and loss, etc). I did kind of enjoy reading the books, but I also felt like I was waiting for something more the entire time. The pacing was incredibly slow.

The final resolution also felt kind of forced and pre-concluded? Like, of course this is how the book would end, why wouldn't it have the kind of fairy tale ending where everything just kind of sorts itself out and Theo has finally managed to have some sort of confidence to take on the throne.

I know this isn't a typical review, but these are atypical times, and this is what I've got. After reading the third book, the overall series deadpans at "meh" status. The first book was interesting because of the whole Ash Princess aspect, but also because REBELLION, fighting for the people, YAH! Then book two was like..... alright..... still rebelling! Magic! And book three felt like, yep, we are definitely rebelling. It's just working out a little differently than expected! By the way, MAGIC.

[Slight spoiler] There was also an element of Theo and Cressida existing in each other's psyche? But... they didn't really do anything interesting with that either. There was no reconciling between the characters or trying to understand their motivations. It's like everyone was determined to march in their parent's footsteps rather than build something they could invest in. Cressida kind of did? But.... not really.

Happy reading!

The Absence of Sparrows

The Absence of Sparrows by Kurt Kirchmeier

This book took me forever to get through. I came down with a cold halfway through and I hate reading when I'm sick. But, this book didn't help that at all.

It's like, this crazy unexplainable thing happens, everyone freaks out... and everyone kind of just keeps freaking out. Oh, and pepper in poorly managed mental health issues.

Here's an amazon summary, "In the small town of Griever's Mill, eleven-year-old Ben Cameron is expecting to finish off his summer of relaxing and bird-watching without a hitch. But everything goes wrong when dark clouds roll in.

Old Man Crandall is the first to change--human one minute and a glass statue the next. Soon it's happening across the world. Dark clouds fill the sky and, at random, people are turned into frozen versions of themselves. There's nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, and no one knows how to stop it.
With his mom on the verge of a breakdown, and his brother intent on following the dubious plans put forth by a nameless voice on the radio, Ben must hold out hope that his town's missing sparrows will return with everyone's souls before the glass plague takes them away forever." AMAZON LINK OF JUSTICE

There is a worldwide epidemic of people turning into black glass. Dark clouds cover the sky and a couple people turn into black glass. Ben and his mother are avid bird watchers. His brother becomes obsessed with learning what's going on in the rest of the world, and his Dad is checking on Ben's uncle (his brother).

There's just a lot going on. You still have the regular life stuff with the family, the brother's relationship, the mom having mental health issues, the dad trying to kind of keep it together to try to protect his family from this threat no one understands, and the uncle kind of comes across as bonus family member.

I'm just kind of mad at this book. So whatever, let's just go into spoiler land. 

There's not really a proper explanation of anything that happens in the supernatural sense, and there really isn't anything resolved between the characters either. It's kind of this weird book that people "died" in because they turned to glass, but like some people also shattered, and some people came back but had lost their mind. There's an implication that they were called away to fight in some kind of holy war. There's also an implication that the sparrows could have brought people back to life.... maybe???

Whatever book. Keep your secrets. I'm no longer interested nor am I entertained. The pacing of the book was also disjointed and confusing. Sometimes food was SUPER important to be worried about, but then a vague mention of weeks passing and suddenly we don't care about food at all during that stretch? huh.

.....yeah. 

So happy reading. I guess. Boo.