Magician's Gambit

The third book in the Belgariad series is my favorite of the first three.

It picks up directly where Queen of Sorcery. Running out of the snake country, through Maragor, the Vale of Aldur, and Ulgo Land all to get to sneak into enemy borders to get the Orb of Aldur in on of the most well guarded and scary temples of Torak.

I enjoy this book so much because of the diversity of cultures that are presented as well as the background we get on Bargarath. Mara is so sad and my heart breaks for the God. Relg, the zealot of UL, can be annoying to some but he grew on me. He also gets better when he meets a certain woman who makes me laugh.

As always in this series, the map and culture explanation was very important to David Eddings. So there is a lot of traveling in here, but unlike those cultures we explore in Queen of Sorcery I think these people and cultures are so vastly different which makes the comparison more interesting. Ulgo Land and Maragor are one of the most intriguing.

We, again, have many of the same recurring characters who are up to their old tricks, so much so that Silk gets himself in major trouble and has a little PTSD from his experience all the while Barak makes fun of him for it. They are my favorite characters throughout most of the series. Comic relief, okay. I love them.

I recommend this whole series to anyone who is starting to get into fantasy, teens for sure.

Tell No One

Tell No One by Harlan Coben is a mystery novel I had recommended to me by a friend when I was in search of an audiobook. Steven Weber did a great job reading and getting different voices in. There was a large bunch of segments that gangers from the harder parts of New York and I believe he did them justice. They seemed the most visual and realistic of the characters, from listening to them.

This mystery starts out with a husband and wife off on their anniversary down by the lake where no one is around. But as Beck goes to a raft in the middle of the lake, Elizabeth, still on the beach, screams. Beck is knocked unconscious and when he comes to Elizabeth is gone. Her body is found a few days later dumped on the side of a road and the serial killer that has been rampant torturing and killing young girls is caught. Eight heartbreaking years pass and Dr. Beck, Pediatrician, is going through life though "life" is a big word for what he is living. Suddenly, he receives a strange email with odd clues that only Elizabeth would know. A hyperlink sends him to a website and there she is. Elizabeth. Could she really be alive!

Poor Dr. Beck. He goes through hell once he opens that email. More bodies are found near the lake where Elizabeth was kidnapped, he does in for questioning, people are tapping his computer and phone, suddenly he is on the run and the only people that can help him crack dealers from the wrong part of town. He is beaten up, dressed up, and wanted for murder. All on the same day. Yay! *sarcasm*

It was a very interesting novel, though probably not one of my favorites. If I, personally, was reading it I would have had a hard time, but listening to it I was able to get through it. Not that it is a bad book. Probably just not my cup of tea. It had a good premise and solid enough characters. But I found the ending to be rather predictable. The foreshadowing was good and let me make my predictions.

I do wish the other characters had been more developed. We had a very telling description of one character and but very little to describe the personality of the others. I get that Dr. Beck loved Elizabeth, but I felt no reason to love her, no longing for her to be alive. her father had more of a personality as being a gruff cop who was in the service for a long time. I even feel like Beck was just a cookie cutter person. He had no interests. He went to work and that was it. We get nothing really before Elizabeth's abduction of what he was like, nothing of what he stopped doing. Stopped going to games or playing poker or anything. I think it mentioned he drank when he was feeling really down. And I guess he had a dog for about two seconds in the book. But there was very little about him that actually made me like him or any of the other characters. Tyrese was the most likable but in the end he seemed like and means to an end.  :/ I want some good bad guys that I like and full, deep main characters. I don't feel like I got that here. Instead we got some cookie cutters.

Setting lacked a lot and we seemed to jump from one place to another rather quickly. There were parts where the scenery was very well described, but they weren't ever in the action. There would be long blocks of passive description. A few of my friends would probably skip them while reading because they were so blocky.

The big that it has going for it was the story. I really liked the plot and how things flowed. There were some parts though that didn't make sense. The ending was too easily wrapped up except for some loose threads that didn't make it into the bow. Like Coben had an idea and how he wanted it to end, but when the tell all at the end happened it didn't quite match the ending he had in mind. The rest of it though, the weaves and curves were pretty cool.

Would I suggest this book, not so much. Might I give Coben another chance? Maybe. Though not in the near future.

Carve the Mark

I was in desperate need of a new audio book to run too. I looked on the back of this one at the library and found that Austin Butler read for Akos. I recalled the name, and thought it was the same guy who voiced for Cassandra Clare's Infernal Devices Series. I was mistaken and when looking it up, the narrator is actually the main male character in the Shannara Chronicles. Pleasant surprise.

Even with my mistake I listened to and and wasn't too thrilled by it.

The story happens in a universe where a group of planets are in connection with each other. Space travel is a thing and there is a strange occurrence that happens across their universe that changes people as a type of puberty where they get different powers depending on the type of person and personality they have.

While most of the planets are aligned as one people, there is one that is split by two peoples that have a volatile vendetta against each other. Akos is kidnapped with his brother, an Oracle and taken to the other side of the Divide. He is physically abused to "thicken his skin" and later given to Cyra, a girl who constantly is in pain and can give that pain to others often killing them, as a steward to help her with her pain. However Cyra isn't the "knife" that most people see her as. Only he can actually stop her pain and open her eyes the how things really are.

This story if full of plot and intrigue. The characters are very well developed and do grow as people. I really like how Cyra was developing and continued to do so throughout the novel. The plot was very good.

Much like her Divergent series though, it felt like she lacked in setting. Not nearly as bad as her first series, but there was still some. I don't know what the main city looked like besides old mixed with new. I don't know what their ships or guns look like. There was many things missing that it felt like there were holes in the world. This is very important, I think, to not miss especially when making a new universe, not only world. I feel like she did miss this.

In other books I have this feeling of "I need to know what happens next!" but for this one I didn't mind waiting until Monday when I was a the gym again. I didn't care for Akos. It might have had something to do with Austin Butler's reading of the Akos parts. Butler's reading wasn't the best. It actually seemed rather monotone and dull comparative to Emily Rankin who read for Cyra. His voice didn't change for the characters unless the girls were whining or screaming. It was very dull to listen to.

I do understand that reading it yourself is different than listening and you can come away with different experiences, so I would give it a good review for mid-teen readers. They would enjoy it. An older audience who doesn't care for setting would enjoy it too.

Juliet

Juliet by Anne Fortier takes Shakespeare's story of Romeo and Juliet and turns it on it's head. This novel jumps between present day and 1340 and flows well between the two times and stories that mingle with one another.

Julie Jacobs has been taught the story of Romeo and Juliet since she was in the cradle and has been strictly forbidden from going to Italy when she was in that cradle. But after her Great-aunt Rose dies, she is given instructions in the will to find a magnificent treasure in Italy that her mother (who has also passed away two decades previously) was on the cusp of finding. When she arrives in Sinea, she finds the box that her mother left for her alongside stockers in the night and long standing family feuds riddled with knives in the back. In her mother's treasure box she finds the true story of Romeo and Juliet and just how wrong Mr. Shakespeare was in his depiction as well as evidence showing that Julie Jacobs is actually the great-great + grand niece of the original Giulietta Tolomei. ie Romeo's Juliet.

With the mix of finding out the true story of Romeo and Juliet and modern day Capulet's and Montagues', there are twists and turns everywhere. Shadows hide in shadows and no one is what they seem to be, ever. Even Julie's, supposed Romeo has many skeletons in his own closet and climbing in and out of balconies is a thing he's not afraid of doing. That being said, there were many hypothesis that were dashed to pieces because of the unexpected.

I really enjoyed this book. I listened to as an audio book and the narrator (Cassandra Campbell) did a fantastic job between the different voices. I originally got it to listen to while I was running and it made me want to keep walking so I could listen more. I was sitting at my kitchen table, in my car, or walking around with my headphones in so I could finish it and know what happened next. All in all I couldn't put it down.

The setting, historical and present day, made me want to go and visit Siena. I am sure Anne Fortier spent much of her time researching there in Siena, trying to get into different places because the descriptions were vivid and full. I hope she went there and enjoyed herself. A lot of research went into this story and her hard work shows.

Characters, like the setting, were vivid and complemented each other. Past and present characters felt very much alive. My heart ached at some points and at others I physically fist bumped the air while at the gym that wasn't originally part of the exercise. Things they did, squabbles and bickerings, cute and quiet moments were well presented and made me really feel for them as betrayals, misunderstandings, and a plethora of other Romeo and Juliet moments happened.

It was well done and one I would recommend if looking for a romantic thriller.

I will warn the reader, because I don't like it, that Janice is rather crass at points. If it was a book I would have skimmed through the dialog and moved on. I was just glad I wasn't listening to those parts while preschooler was in the car.

Hero at the Fall

Hero at the Fall is the final installment of the A Rebel of the Sands novels and, boy, was it great.

After finally escaping the Sultan's harem while spying for the Rebel Prince, she finds herself trapped behind a magic wall inside the city with only half of rebellions leaders. The others have been captured and somehow taken out of the city to an unknown location. Amani, being a Djinni's daughter and also somehow injured, she's had trouble grasping onto sands she once controlled. After kidnapping the princess that betrayed them and finding how to get out, they start a long trip to find their Rebel Prince. They end up encountering more Djinni, Shadowalkers, invading armies, and old family, not to mention the golden killing machines that can vaporize people who are being commanded by the Sultan and power by her Djinni father and that's before they even get to Prince Ahmed and the others. She is steps up, feeling very much inadequate to lead the rebellion against the Sultan that always seems three steps ahead and always moving forward.

My favorite thing of this whole series is the voice. Even after a year waiting for this book to come out, I instantly felt at home back on the sands with Amani and Jin. There are some books that it takes a while to get back into the groove of a story. Not here. Alwyn Hamilton's voice that she presents is distinct and memorable  making it easy to step back into Amani's shoes and pick up right where we left off.

What makes this book great too is every moment there is something going on. We don't have a fall interest though the action tempers when people talk and discuss. We see the internal debate that is fighting insider her: the feeling of inadequacy because she's just seventeen and getting people killed, not intentionally of course, as wells as the "gifts" the Sin Maker that would help people live. Then, of course, there are the amazing moments when she sails over the Sea of Sands or faces the Destroyer of the World, and that is even before she reaches the Sultan. There is constantly something happening that kept me engaged and wanting more.

The books is mainly about Amani and there isn't much conversation between her and Jin or her and Shazad. There isn't much dialog in general comparatively to internal thought and storytelling. But that is okay here. It is set up as a storyteller would have told it and it fits well here.

The relationship between her and Jin is rocky here because of the stress Amani is under and does rely heavily on the previous stories. So if the reader comes to this book first, they would probably be disappointed in the building of this relationship because in Hero at the Fall is isn't really there. It is told of, but not given the opportunity to be shown here and, again, I'm okay with it.  There reaches a point toward the end when Jin and Amani become intimate. The moment is descriptive of her feelings more than physical touches. It was modestly done while still getting the point across. So, if that makes you uncomfortable, you can easily skim through and read the dialog or skip to the next chapter. If it doesn't bother you so much, I think it was done well.

I also have nothing bad to say about the characters. They didn't change/flip flop on themselves or do something uncharacteristically them. They grew as people do. They had their virtues and vices. We were given the internal dialog for Amani and her struggles that change throughout the book. I enjoyed getting to know them.

It was great fun and I'd like to read them again. The books before are A Rebel of the Sand and Traitor to the Throne.

Herding Cats

Herding Cats is a from the "Sarah's Scribbles" collection, a comic series online that I find very funny. Her other books Adulthood is a Myth and Big Mushy Happy Lump and their reviews can be found here. I enjoyed them very much.

Much like her other books, these are full of one page comics about life. Sarah Andersen, I would assume, is an introvert and draws comics about her life as a human being. To me, many of her comics are relatible, not wanting to go outside, introverted-ness, artsy/creative-ish, a love of animals, slightly afraid of other people's children, etc. They are humorous and shed light on topics that are every day for her/us that others might just not get. I find them very accurate.

The particular thing I like about her books though is the writing at the end. In this book, she talks about drawing on the internet and how the internet has changed since she first started her career. She gives advice for young artists, but not only those who use paints or pen tablets. All artists, writers, and creators of any sort who are trying their craft will probably go through the things she discussing, I know I have. Your old stuff is probably crap and that's okay, knowing when to take it to heart and when to throw it in the trash, remember your human and feel things while taking criticism can be hard, you can get away from the interwebs and go outside to hear yourself think instead of getting bombarded by others opinions (that is probably healthy for everyone), and as always "Never give up. Never surrender" (from Galaxy Quest, not Sarah's Scribbles. Check it out anyway; it's a great movie.) keep going, you are doing great and always getting better. Sarah Anderson says more things, but these, I feel, are important.

I just really like her comics and hope she continues drawing.

Stitches

Stitches: A Memoir is a graphic novel of David Small and his time growing up, his hardships growing up.

David Small is a Caldecott Award winner for his illustrations for The Gardener, one of my favorite picture books while I was growing up. Everyone should read and enjoy it. He has gotten many other awards for the work that he has done over his 73 years.

Stitches begins with his experiences in hospitals. His father was a radiologist and his mother always seemed to be cranky. He was often sick as a child and because his father worked in the radiology department, he was able to have x-rays done to see what the problem was. As the years went on, as he grew alongside his brother, he found he had a growth on his neck. It grew until his family was finally able to do the surgery. However when he woke up, he found he was unable to speak. The surgeons cut out his thyroid and half of his vocal cords. As, again, years passed he was able to gain a raspy whisper, but his voice, of course, was never the same. He found solace in drawing and later illustrating children's books.

There is far more to the story than simply his voice, though it is a major part. But there are trials when it comes to the crazies of families. Deciding whether or not to continue on in family traditions and conditions or not. His story makes me even more grateful for my own mother. The way he drew his mother and grandmother reminds me of one of my grandmothers, not the temperament but the style. The round glasses and uppy hair. But the way he drew her instantly made her instantly one of those scary old ladies that I was afraid of when I was little. So to have her as a mom, I'd be almost scared my whole life.

I very much enjoyed the book. Very well done.