One of the most interesting characters introduced in THE CLONE WARS series is Asajj Ventress, so when I found an entire novel Reviewed by: Rabid Reads
One of the most interesting characters introduced in THE CLONE WARS series is Asajj Ventress, so when I found an entire novel about her in the SW canon, I one-clicked.
Ventress was a Bad Guy, the “apprentice” of Count Dooku (who couldn’t really have an apprentice b/c Rule of Two), but when she was betrayed by him, she went rogue. She returned to the planet of her birth Dathomir, home to the Night Sisters, an order of assassin witches.
You: Assassin witches!?
Me: I know, right??
Stuff happens and Ventress starts over yet again, this time as a bounty hunter who occasionally tries (and fails) to kill Dooku.
You: What’s this got to do with the Jedi?
Me: Not much . . . Until the Jedi council decides to assassinate Dooku . . .
You: WUT!?
Me:I KNOW. Not very Jedi-like, is it?
That’s exactly what they do though, and they decide that Ventress is the most likely path to success.
BUT.
She can’t know their chosen assassin is a Jedi. She might not want to help a Jedi, you see, b/c leftover animosity from when she was Sith(-in-training?).
Enter Quinlan Voss, Jedi of a less civilized persuasion than is usual, essentially a con man, and like most con men, winsome in the extreme.
Does this scoundrel succeed in securing the cooperation of Dooku’s former apprentice? Does he manage to keep his affinity for the Force secret? Do their combined efforts finally bring an end to the indiscriminately murderous figurehead of the Separatists?
First of all, b/c I've already been asked numerous times, YES, this is an entirely new trilogy, unrelated to Lawrence's previoReviewed by: Rabid Reads
First of all, b/c I've already been asked numerous times, YES, this is an entirely new trilogy, unrelated to Lawrence's previous works. So if you tried to read PRINCE OF THORNS and DNFed it b/c you couldn't tolerate that little shit of an MC (I've been assured that he gets better around 40%, but I haven't personally made that determination for myself), now's your chance to give Lawrence another shot.
Second of all, even after reading through it again when I finished the book, I still found the prologue to be absolutely baffling. Oh, parts of it made more sense, like the description of the landscape, but without any foreknowledge, I was violently frustrated over seemingly conflicting information: how could the coast be glimpsed through a sea of 1024 columns? How could BOTH the northern and southern ice be visible from one place? Then there's everything that comes after, "Here's a moment," which is when things got really confusing.
Fortunately, it's only a few pages in length, so if you find yourself similarly baffled, power through it, b/c those three pages are the real only complaint I have about the whole thing.
Is it dark? Yes, gloriously so.
Is it violent? Enough to satisfy me at my bloodthirsty worst:
There is in every delicate thing, no matter how precious, nor how beautiful, a challenge. Break me.
And despite being mostly about warrior nuns, it's also exciting. It's not a secret that I avoid most fantasy with predominant religious orders, b/c I find men (it's usually men) who don't drink, curse, or chase tail (<------gender neutral) deathly dull. #sorrynotsorry
Instead we've got a hunska small girl, sold into slavery and about to hung for killing a literal giant of a man.
You: How'd she manage that?
Me: READ THE BOOK. *twirls mustache*
Then things get really exciting.
You learn about a world on the verge of collapse, a thin corridor of civilization dependent on a failing moon that somehow keeps the ice at bay. You learn of nuns who, if they have the blood for it, train as poisoners and spies and warriors. Plots within plots within plots reveal the scheming hearts of the various leadership, and at the center of it all is a convenient prophecy about the one who will save them all.
But there are also whispers of older gods, The Missing, whose cities lie abandoned under the ice . . .
Sounds worth checking out, does it not?
Now for my SPOILERY speculation (and my one other complaint that boils down to my being a kill-them-all-kill-them-now kind of girl, so more an issue of preference than a "real" complaint).
WHAT IF: (view spoiler)[1. Either we're still here in five billion years when the sun red dwarfs,
2. Or something happens to speed the process?
And WHAT IF:
The Earth wasn't consumed along with Mercury and Venus?
Would science have developed to the point of being able to create and implement a giant mirror (where the moon used to be) to reflect and amplify the sun's diminished light?
Would we genetically alter humans to give them a better chance of survival in the new catastrophic conditions? Would we create giants, hearty enough to withstand the bitter cold? Would we enhance others with the speed defend themselves from the predators better suited to their new environment?
I'm not sure how the alleged "magic" users fit in, but science always seems like magic to those who don't understand it.
And if this world is really some post-apocalyptic event Earth, then I don't get to be annoyed about the 1024 Corinthian columns in a world where Corinth never existed.
It's either that or ALIENS, I think.
As for the aforementioned issue of preference, I'm sorry, but Clera needs to die. I have no patience for letting that shiesty broad live. I get that Nona has her thing about friendship, but friendship isn't one-sided and Clera's #1 priority has always been Clera. And no, I don't feel sorry for her b/c she had a difficult upbringing. LOOK AT NONA.
Something about not the tragedies, but how you react to them making a person . . . (hide spoiler)]
Before anything else, it must be said that SAGA is the most beautiful and hideous, the most hopeful and fatalistic, the most gReviewed by: Rabid Reads
Before anything else, it must be said that SAGA is the most beautiful and hideous, the most hopeful and fatalistic, the most graphic, and the most adorable thing I have ever read or seen.
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It is ALL the things.
The very first page of the very first chapter sets the tone for the whole series (thus far):
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You're slapped in the face with the wonder and the ICK of childbirth. Some of you might think the bodily fluids, the wordless, guttural shouts that accompany the pushing, and the million other aspects of child labor are part of the miracle, and you're allowed . . .
In an abstract way, I'm not sure I disagree. But from an impartial bystander perspective . . . all of that is the opposite side of the bringing-a-new-life-that-you-helped-create-into-the-world coin.
It's gross, man.
And if that's a juxtaposition you don't think you can appreciate, then I'm going to go ahead and say goodbye until next time. There is nothing for you here.
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B/c that's what SAGA is: finding the beauty in the ugliness of life.
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It's overcoming a lifetime of ingrained prejudice only to discover your victory was merely the first hurdle in the journey. It's growing apart b/c life is life, then coming back together in the face of shared tragedy.
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It's the determination to remain bitter about past slights opening the door to a new path. It is pain and loss and healing and forgiveness, and it's continuing to put one foot in front of the other, b/c more than anything else, you have to keep moving.
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It's life. With all the accompanying brilliance and horror, and it is masterfully done. I flew through all six collected volumes in an afternoon, and I seriously doubt I'll have the willpower to wait for the next collection before reading the individually released chapters.
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That's a first in the graphic novel arena, by the way. But I see serial releases in my future, and I'm not even going to try to fight it.
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Marko and Alana are two soldiers on opposite sides of a war, who, against all odds, fall in love.
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SAGA is their story, and it's the story of the ripples their love makes in the pond of their universe. There were times I thought my heart would burst with happiness, and there were times that I felt physically ill.
The first was small, thin as whispers, cut in the shape of a cat. It had worn the see
I WANT TO KNOW ALL THE THINGS.
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Like what does this mean:
The first was small, thin as whispers, cut in the shape of a cat. It had worn the seeming for over seven years now. It could barely remember the thing it had been before. A fraction of a deeper darkness, with only enough awareness to crawl from the black beneath Godsgrave’s skin and seek another like itself.
And a million others.
I may have serious doubts about all of this wrapping in the single remaining installment . . .
Last year, NEVERNIGHT, the first book in Jay Kristoff's NEVERNIGHT CHRONICLE, was at the top of my Best Books of 2016 list. The writing was b3.5 stars
Last year, NEVERNIGHT, the first book in Jay Kristoff's NEVERNIGHT CHRONICLE, was at the top of my Best Books of 2016 list. The writing was brilliant, the story and characters compelling, the world-building was fantastic . . . I was smitten.
So I was understandably excited about its sequel GODSGRAVE. *sighs*
BUT.
The story was still compelling, just not as compelling, the writing was likewise not as brilliant, and the old characters manifested new flaws while several of the new characters were downright contemptible.
It took awhile for all of these slightly lesser versions to fully establish themselves, so initially I was more hopeful . . . Which only served to make the eventual disappointment that much worse.
For example, I love all things gladiatorial (b/c bloodthirsty). The obstacles, the arena atmosphere, the fighting to the death, be it man vs. man or man vs. beast, I don't care, I LOVE ALL OF IT. *laughs maniacally*
So when it became clear that Mia's endgame was dependent on her becoming enslaved and entering the arena, I did a happy dance in celebration . . . A celebration that turned out to be premature . . . B/c boring.
You: Shut up, nothing about arena fights-to-the-death is boring.
Me: One would think . . . And one would be mistaken.
You: *taps foot impatiently* Explain.
Me: Only one of the four fights resembled anything like traditional gladiator fighting (view spoiler)[and it was a 3:1 fight against a seven foot tall humanoid arachnid, and I don't like things with more than four legs (even when they're normal sized). It's a rule.
SPEAKING OF RULES, I have a new one: NO KILLING ONE HALF OF A PAIR OF TWINS (which should've been made a rule when I read HARRY POTTER, but I didn't have rules back then, and this is the first time it's happened since). *wails* (hide spoiler)]. Okay, two of them, but chariot races are the least fun part of arena fights.
I've never been much for going in circles--I don't like NASCAR either--and shooting arrows at targets and people while you do it doesn't make it any more entertaining. As for the other fights, (view spoiler)[one of them was a battle reenactment complete with siege engines and catapults, and the other was a full-out NAVAL BATTLE. (hide spoiler)]
It was more spectacle than fight, and yes, arena fights are spectacles, but that's not all they are. At least, that's not all they're supposed to be.
Kristoff didn't get that memo.
The lackluster arena action was made worse by one of the aforementioned newly developed character flaws: (view spoiler)[CHEATING.
I'm not talking about Mia using her darkinness. I don't consider using a natural ability to be cheating. But dosing the water supply with narcotics and using some kind of science voodoo to make your opponent's obsidian swords even more breakable?
That's the kind of cheap shit that's supposed to separate the Good Guys from the Bad Guys. (hide spoiler)]
Another issue I had with Mia was that she seemed to have regressed into a hormone-addled adolescent:
Peering in through the door, she saw Dona Leona emerging from a deep, steaming pool, water running in rivulets down her bare body. Her hair was damp, her face bereft of paint. It occurred to Mia that she was a beauty; full hips and fuller lips. Her eyes roamed Leona’s curves, wreathed in steam, and she wondered at the thrill of it. Why, downstairs in the barracks, seeing naked bodies meant nothing, but here, her skin was prickling. Heart beating faster. Thinking, perhaps, of another beauty on Aurelius’s bed, her taste on the young don’s mouth, her golden kisses sinking ever lower. She thought of Ashlinn, then. The kiss they’d shared when Mia left the Church. That kiss that lasted a moment too long. Maybe not long enough?
And this was not a one or even a threetime thing. It was an over-and-over-again thing.
BUT.
GODSGRAVE wasn't terrible. There were lots of new clues about darkins and gods and prophecies, and something we were all hoping for did indeed come to pass, but in a completely unexpected way. And Kristoff excels at giving you information without revealing an iota more than necessary, effectively keeping you on his hook. So not an even remotely bad read . . . Just not on the same level as the experience that was NEVERNIGHT, comparatively speaking.
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1/10/17:
We have a title, cha-cha-cha! We have a title, cha-cha-cha! *is lonely in conga line of one* But who cares? B/c GODSGRAVE.
It feels like you can't have an Armstrong book, at least you can't have an OTHERWORLD book, without some lowlife scum either raping someone or having It feels like you can't have an Armstrong book, at least you can't have an OTHERWORLD book, without some lowlife scum either raping someone or having some kind of unhealthy interest in children, and as gratifying as it is to see Elena or Clay (or whoever) kill the perpetrators (slowly and painfully), sometimes I wish we could forgo it altogether . . .
This is not that book. FYI.
After Elena lets Malcolm back into the Pack in a limited capacity (NOT a spoiler, it's in the blurb), she takes advantage of loopholes in Pack protocol to keep him out of the fold--scheduling Meets in tandem with mini vacations/traveling on holidays, etc.--but her actions are a short term solution, and she's reached the point where it's no longer a viable option . . .
So she invites him--with restrictions--to Stonehaven for the next Meet, which is just . . . so wrong . . . And they're barely into it when Davis Cain calls asking for help.
He got home from a night out only to discover both his uncle and cousin skinned and strung up on trees in their woods, you see . . .
o.O
You can't be surprised. With the aforementioned raping and child victims, what's a couple of wolves getting skinned alive between friends?
Par. For. The. Course.
Armstrong, you is gruesome.
I feel like I should be used to it by now . . . But I'm not . . .
Anyway, despite the plea for assistance coming from:
1. A mutt.
2. A mutt who trespassed at Stonehaven on a dare.
3. A mutt who trespassed at Stonehaven on a dare, AND dared speak to Logan (who was eight at the time, I think).
Elena decides to carefully investigate the situation--can't allow anyone to run around skinning werewolves, mutts or otherwise, can we?
If you want to know what goes down, why someone seems to be systematically hunting down the Cains, you'll have to read it yourself, but allow me to say that it is delightfully dark and twisty.
ALSO, for fans of Armstrong's DARKEST POWERS Young Adult series, there's finally a bit of crossover. It's not much, but it felt like laying the foundation for a future story. *wishes and hopes*
Overall, another excellent addition to the OTHERWORLD canon that I highly recommend....more
2/2/20: taking bets now as to whether or not this reread ends with me reading DARK DAWN. #idontreadlastbooks #issues
There seems to be some confusion o2/2/20: taking bets now as to whether or not this reread ends with me reading DARK DAWN. #idontreadlastbooks #issues
There seems to be some confusion on the YA/not YA nature of this book, so let the record show, in response to the question, "Are your books YA or not?" on his website FAQ, Kristoff replied:
THE NEVERNIGHT CHRONICLE is a different beast. The protagonist is a sixteen year old girl. Does that automatically make it YA? My editors say “Definitely not, and who the hell let you out of your cage? Get back to work”.
These books are about an assassin. They are, as you may expect, somewhat violent as a result. They also have sex scenes (and now I have to contemplate the fact that my mother is going to read them *shudders*). I’d rate them MA (or NA if you prefer) and describe them as “crossover books”. But they’ll be found in the adult Fantasy section of your bookstore.
Sometimes you stumble across a book, and, for whatever reason, your expectations are low. Could be the harlequin mask on the cover, could be a previous series by the same author that you were wholly uninterested in, could be a billion different things that are individually insignificant, but cumulatively . . . You turn up you nose.
O, gentlefriends . . . Do not do unto yourselves the same disservice I almost did unto mine . . . self . . . o.O
NEVERNIGHT by Jay Kristoff is . . . exquisite.
I almost didn't read it. Indeed, the release date sneaked up on me, tapped me on the shoulder, and waved hello on Monday afternoon, and I joked to a friend that I should at least update my status on Goodreads and pretend to be reading it . . . Six hours later, it was ten pm, and I was 40% in.
The first chapter was baffling. Told from two seemingly different perspectives, it chronicles two very different firsts, but uses almost the exact same words. I was internally shouting, "WTF is this?!" but I was curious enough see where it led, and the further I got, the closer the two scenarios spun toward completion, and then it was over, and I saw what he'd done . . .
In Jabberwocky, Lewis Carroll turned the English language on its head. He used nonsense words that were decipherable because of his expert manipulation of sentence structure and other, real words that made the meanings of his imaginary words obvious.
For the first time since I really understood and appreciated what Carroll had wrought, I felt the same kind of glee as I read about a girl losing her virginity and a girl taking her first life. One experience held the potential for the creation of a new life, the other bringing an irrevocable end to a life, and yet . . . He used . . . The same words.
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Riddikulus writing skills aside, the story was also fantastic.
What's my #1 complaint about assassins in YA fiction?
You: You may have mentioned something about reluctant assassins a time or three.
Me: Damn right.
You: Not a problem here?
Me: *laughs maniacally*
People often shit themselves when they die. Their muscles slack and their souls flutter free and everything else just…slips out. For all their audience’s love of death, the playwrights seldom mention it. When the hero breathes his last in the heroine’s arms, they call no attention to the stain leaking across his tights, or how the stink makes her eyes water as she leans in for her farewell kiss. I mention this by way of warning, O, my gentlefriends, that your narrator shares no such restraint.
Duly noted, Mr. Narrator, sir.
And lest you be scared off by visions of graphic and violent death . . . I won't lie, that is part of this story. But only part:
She’s dead herself, now—words both the wicked and the just would give an eyeteeth smile to hear. A republic in ashes behind her. A city of bridges and bones laid at the bottom of the sea by her hand. And yet I’m sure she’d still find a way to kill me if she knew I put these words to paper. Open me up and leave me for the hungry Dark. But I think someone should at least try to separate her from the lies told about her. Through her. By her. Someone who knew her true. A girl some called Pale Daughter. Or Kingmaker. Or Crow. But most often, nothing at all. A killer of killers, whose tally of endings only the goddess and I truly know. And was she famous or infamous for it at the end? All this death? I confess I could never see the difference. But then, I’ve never seen things the way you have. Never truly lived in the world you call your own. Nor did she, really. I think that’s why I loved her.
*goosebumps*
Mia Covere's tale reminded me a bit of Arya Stark's: a girl whose family is destroyed by politics and hands grasping at power, stumbles into a follower of a most murderous god(dess), and becomes his apprentice. But Mia is more than just a girl . . . She's a girl with a shadow dark enough for two.
You: WTF does that mean?
Me: READ THE BOOK.
And how many Guardians of the Galaxy fans do we have? B/c the coolest part of that movie was the black market space station that was the HEAD OF A CELESTIAL BEING, am I right?
Well, Mia grew up in Godsgrave, which just might be where the rest of the body fell . . . Okay, it's probably a different being entirely, but the concept is the same, and it's friggin' awesome:
To the north, the Ribs rose hundreds of feet into the ruddy heavens, tiny windows staring out from apartments carved within the ancient bone. Canals ran out from the hollow Spine . . .
My only words of caution are that, if you haven't already cottoned on, there is SEX in this YA novel, which isn't as uncommon as it used to be, but isn't yet unremarkable. And I'm not talking fade-to-black acknowledgment of sexual congress, I'm talking burn-your-ears, think-interesting thoughts-about-the-hands-that-penned-them sex scenes.
FYI.
Kristoff calls Mia an assassin who is to death what a maestro is to a symphony, but I felt the same way about Kristoff's manipulation of words and language. Whether Mia slipped into a room like a knife between the ribs or we met a man whose face was more scar than face, this reader felt like she was being spun and tossed by a master. In NEVERNIGHT, Solis might be the Shahiid of Songs, but it was Jay Kristoff who made me dance to the music of his story in ways I've rarely been moved. O so ridiculously highly recommended.
Raye Larsen is a twenty-seven year old kindergarten teacher. She lives in the same small town she grew up in, the same small tReviewed by: Rabid Reads
Raye Larsen is a twenty-seven year old kindergarten teacher. She lives in the same small town she grew up in, the same small town where she has never fit in (b/c typical small town nonsense).
Raye is adopted, you see, and in addition to having dark hair and eyes in a town of blonde-haired, blue-eyed Scandinavians . . . she can also see ghosts.
BUT.
When she was four---yes, four---she overheard her adoptive parents discussing her oddity, and when Dad suggests they "take her back," she modified her behavior to never again betray her awareness of things normal people can't see.
I've got all kinds of problems with that.
My personal perspective on adoption is that once you've made a commitment, you don't get to "take them back" anymore than you'd get to take back a child you share DNA with.
But as sympathetic as I was to the instability and emotional distress hearing that would cause a child, I had a hard time respecting an adult who hasn't come to terms with that childhood distress, preferring to avoid her gifts in favor of trying to fit in (especially when this group of people is so ridiculously small-minded):
Despite having seen spirits all of my life, I’d spent most of my time avoiding them, or trying to ignore them, rather than understand them. Wouldn’t you?
No. I wouldn't.
So I thought Raye was chicken and an idiot, which is never good, but I also thought she was . . . I don't know, a dork, maybe? (Not in a geektastic way.)
At first I thought it was a forty-something trying to write a twenty-something, and that may be it, but I've got a twenty-five year old sister, and I'm pretty sure she'd get all the random references Raye was making . . . She just wouldn't ever make them herself . . . b/c dumb.
Like who says a guy flexes "like Arnold"?
1. Arnold's not flexing much these days. 2. Gross, man.
Or how about while flirting with the new guy in town:
“Maybe I should take you to the doctor.” “I’d rather we played doctor.” I clapped my hand over my mouth. Had I said that?
Unfortunately, YES, you did. *is vaguely uncomfortable b/c vicariously embarrassed*
Then there's Bobby.
Bobby sounds hot---dark skin, dark hair, blue eyes, Creole---but Bobby is named Bobby (yuck), and I'm not going to say that he thinks and says things that no man would ever think or say, b/c absolutes are inherently flawed . . . However, I will say that I've never met a man who says and thinks things like Bobby, and if I ever did, I would not be attracted to him:
She put her hand in his and stepped beneath the water, lifting her face to the stream, arching her long, slim, white neck like a doe worshipping the moon . . . She resembled a nymph beneath a waterfall, a mermaid in the surf.
B/c when a guy sees a pretty girl in the shower he's thinking about her neck . . . Riiiiiiiiight.
There's also a guy who gives him "the creepies." *frowns and squints*
SO. I had a lot of issues with the characters, but I feel like they were mainly personality conflicts, so there's a good chance you won't be similarly bothered.
And aside from my character issues, the story is really cool. It involves witches and witch hunters and secret societies, and the history may even be legit. I didn't take the time to look all of it up, but I know that parts of it are true, and the rest of it is believable, so even if it isn't, the melding of fact and fiction is my favorite part, and I felt like it was incredibly well done.
Overall, IN THE AIR TONIGHT by Lori Handeland was a decent first installment in her new SISTERS OF THE CRAFT trilogy. The majority of what I disliked about the book were issues of personal preference, and even with the character clashes, the story was interesting enough to ensure that I read the second book (like right after I finish this review). I'll let you know how it goes. *crosses fingers*
Jessica ❁ ➳ Silverbow ➳ ❁
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