21 posts tagged “2009 book list”
Post number 51 is for J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit. It's a book that's been on my to-read list for the past three years, so it's nice to finally scratch that one off. I wish I'd read this one prior to The Lord of the Rings books, because it was easier to get through, and perhaps would have prepared me for Tolkien's wordiness. Of course, it also could be that this book was simpler because I'd read the LotR books, although I doubt it, as this one was originally written for kids.
Quick spoilers follow.
S
P
O
I
L
E
R
S
This book tells the story of Frodo's uncle, Bilbo, who's coerced into an adventure via Gandalf, who's informed a company of dwarfs that he's a burglar. He ends up going across Middle-earth with them, during which time he's involved in a great many adventures. He's nearly eaten by a group of trolls, captured by goblins (then, as the dwarfs and Gandalf are escaping, he's hit on the head and gets left behind, during which time he gets involved in the riddle exchange with Gollum and steals the One Ring), escapes a murderous group of spiders in Mirkwood, burgles the Elf-King's halls while rescuing the captured dwarfs, escapes down the river on a barrel, before finally getting where they were headed, where he meets Smaug the dragon and fights in the battle of the five armies. The story ends with his return to Hobbiton, where the town was in the process of auctioning off his belongings as he was "presumed dead". He ended up having to repurchase many of his own items with the gold and silver he got in exchange for his burglaring, although he never did recover all of his silver spoons. :))
I liked this book, as it was very full of adventure, and was rather non-stop. Bilbo was a wonderful narrator whose inner thoughts were oftentimes amusing. I liked the glimpse of Middle-earth prior to the happenings in The Lord of the Rings, and liked the glimpses of some of the characters that we meet later in the trilogy. It also got me even more interested in Tolkien's world, so much so that I just ordered another book off Amazon called The Unfinished Tales, some of which I've already read, like the "Disaster at Gladden Fields" (i.e. the recounting of the death of Isildur) and the history of the palantiri. My next Tolkien book to read will most likely be The Silmarillion, although that will have to wait for a while, as I have some library books and some more books off my to-read list to get through first. (One thing I love about The Unfinished Tales is that there's a glossary in the back with all the names/places/terms/etc. from Middle-earth, which is much more handy than getting online and searching Wikipedia, as much as I love Wikipedia. (It's one of my favorite sites, in fact.))
Anyway, if you've never read anything by Tolkien, this is the best book to start with. And if you had trouble with the Lord of the Rings books, don't let those deter you from reading The Hobbit. It's really a rather delightful story that I will no doubt reread several more times in the future.
(In my LotR kick, I also just purchased this Faramir figure (not at the listed price - I did it via the used function, although the one I'm receiving is actually still in its package), which I'm rather excited about. There are a few others that I'd like to eventually own as well. Not sure what I'm going to do with them, but at least I'll have them when I figure it out. :-P)
Post number forty-eight is for Neil
Gaiman's Neverwhere, which has been on my to-read
list for the past four years at least. I enjoyed the book quite a bit
and have put the BBC production of the TV show (which was created first)
into my Blockbuster queue to watch. You know, eventually.
Brief spoilers follow.
S
P
O
I
L
E
R
S
Neverwhere
is about a sort of dual world, London Above (i.e. the actual city of
London) and London Below, which is where the people who have "fallen
through the cracks" have gone. It's a sort of medieval world, with
baronies and fiefdoms. Richard is from London Above. He has a stable
life: a good job, a fiancée, etc. One day he stumbles upon Door, a
girl from London Below, who he finds lying bleeding on a sidewalk while
he's headed out to dinner with his fiancée. Against Jessica's wishes,
he takes Door to his apartment to care for her, and that's when his
adventure starts.
Door is being hunted by two
assassins, Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar. She's special because her family
has a Talent: they can open things. She can basically open doors that
aren't there and send herself wherever she wants to go. Richard gets
pulled into the adventure against his will because, by helping Door,
he becomes one of the people who falls through the cracks.
The adventure includes a race
against the two assassins and includes a cast of colorful characters,
including rat-speakers, Hunter the bodyguard, and the marquis de Carabas.
Richard's only hope is that he can eventually return to London Above
and his real life. The angel, Islington, tells Richard that it can return
him to his previous life if he'll help Door get a key from the Black
Friars. There's a twist involved with this that the marquis finds out
about via Croup and Vandemar. Actually, there are a whole ton of twists
in this story that kept it quite entertaining and suspenseful and a
lot of fun to read. It took me longer than it should have to finish
the book because I've been balancing work and homework along with my
reading time, but is something that, if you could devote a few consecutive
hours to, you'd be able to finish quite quickly.
I've heard grand things about
Neil Gaiman and have now read four of his books, although one was a
collaboration. I like his writing and his worlds, and definitely liked
this book better than American Gods, which I felt
dragged in some places and was rather dense. This book is kind of graphic
in regards to Croup and Vandemar and some of the other characters, so
that's something you should keep in mind if you do read it. But it's
definitely a fun book. I look forward to seeing how the TV adaptation
of the plot plays out.
I have one more Gaiman book in my possession that I may finish prior to the end of this year, but have to admit that I'm not sure I agree with the idea that he's the best thing ever. He's good, but there have definitely been books that, imo, are better. (Although I will say that I loved Stardust.) *shrug* To each their own!
Post number forty-six is for the final book in the Percy Jackson & the Olympians series by Rick Riordan, entitled The Last Olympian. I am in serious love with this book series, so if you've not read them yet, please do yourself a favor and do so NOW. And also, don't read the rest of this post, because you don't want to spoil yourself.
Major spoilers follow!
S
P
O
I
L
E
R
S
This book picks up with Percy and Rachel enjoying some time alone. Percy is confused about his feelings regarding Rachel and Annabeth, because he's a boy and rather stupid, although everyone else seems to know who he's going to choose in the end. They're interrupted by Blackjack and Beckendorf, the latter of which tells Percy that it's time to go to war. They end up flying to the Princess Andromeda to set up a bomb on the boat in the hopes of destroying Kronos' army. They end up getting caught thanks to an as-yet-unnamed spy, and while Percy escapes, Beckendorf is killed in the blast. When he returns to camp, they hold a meeting of the cabin heads, where the Great Prophecy is finally revealed. There's also an issue brewing between the Apollo and Ares cabins over a chariot that they picked up as a war spoil. Clarisse, Ares' daughter, finally proclaims that the sons and daughters of Ares will not particpate in any upcoming battles until the chariot is returned, and storms out.
Meanwhile, tension between Annabeth and Percy continues to brew, Grover is missing, and Kronos' army wasn't anywhere near defeated by the bomb on the boat. Percy realizes that Olympus is completely unguarded because the other Gods minus Poseidon (who is trying to defend his undersea castle from Oceanus) are battling Typhon, who has escaped from the volcano and is wreaking havoc across the US. The "last Olympian" in the title refers to Hestia, who is the Goddess of the Hearth and therefore is responsible for "keeping the home fires burning" and, in her own words, "isn't one for fighting". She tells Percy about Luke's mother, which helps him realize why Luke turned to Kronos. He also has a run-in with Hermes, Luke's father, that doesn't go all that well, either. Nico is also present throughout the book, which was nice because I really like him.
Percy ends up taking on the "curse of Achilles" by bathing in the River Styx. He finds out that Luke did the same, which is why his body is able to house Kronos. Percy's "Achilles heel" is actually the small of his back, which is the place he focused on to hold his consciousness to him. He doesn't tell anyone where this spot is, although Annabeth seems to know instictively, because she actually gets stabbed while defending Percy from Ethan Nakamura.
There are several battles that pop up while the Demigods try to defend Olympus. Several people are killed, although they're not really characters that you know a lot about. Chiron actually brings the Party Ponies onboard to help, and they help out in the final two battles. Grover is found sleeping in the Park, and they realize what Kronos' plan is: to put the mortals of New York City to sleep with the help of Morpheus. Kronos accomplishes this, which results in a lot of time spent moving mortals out of the middle of the streets, moving cars out of the way, etc., which actually helps Kronos' army because it completely opens up the roads.
During all of this, Percy continues to learn more and more about Luke, and the time he, Thalia and Annabeth spent together prior to coming to Camp Halfblood. Thalia's hunters join the battle as well as the naiads/dryads and other nature creatures, which brings their numbers up slightly but still not enough to do much damage, especially since Clarisse refuses to let the Ares cabin fight.
Nico gets stuck down in the Underworld with Hades, Persephone and Demeter, and works on persuading Hades to come above to help the Demigods fight. Hades doesn't want to do this because of a grudge he holds against Zeus, although he does finally give in and help at the end. We also learn about Nico's mother, and the reason the Oracle is an old skeleton instead of a human being.
Rachel, whose been on a Caribbean vacation with her family, has been having visions of what's going on with Percy. She convinces her father to take them back to New York, and meets up with Percy and Annabeth, although she nearly gets killed when the helicopter pilot falls asleep due to Morpheus' spell. Annabeth ends up saving her, which is kind of awkward for Percy, who still can't figure them out. Rachel tells Percy that he's not the hero, which he doesn't really want to hear and also doesn't understand. Prometheus, meanwhile, has given Percy Pandora's Box, inside of which only remains hope. He tells Percy that if he opens it and frees hope, they'll take it to mean he's surrendered and that Kronos "will be lenient". Percy doesn't believe a word of this, however, and stashes Pandora's Box away, although it appears again at a moment of weakness.
Percy realizes that Poseidon is needed to help defeat Typhon, and he tries to get his dad to leave his underwater palace and come to New York to help the other Gods defeat him. (A funny thing happens when Percy tries to contact him; he sits on Poseidon's throne on Olympus, which nearly causes Poseidon to blast him. I really liked this scene simply because I like the dynamic between Percy and his father a lot.) Poseidon is reluctant to do so because this would ensure that his palace was completely destroyed. When Typhon finally arrives in New York, however, Poseidon keeps his word and comes above to help defeat him, which happens easily. Guess it just goes to show how powerful he really is.
Realizing that they need the Ares campers, Silena (a daughter of Aphrodite) goes back to camp to try to reason with Clarisse. She ends up taking Clarisse's armor and leading the Ares campers herself. She gets killed in the process but not before she reveals that she was the spy. Clarisse figures out what she'd done and gets there just as Silena is poisoned by the drakon. Clarisse goes livid and kills the drakon without any problem, and the Ares campers stay to fight.
Percy, Annabeth, Thalia and Grover go up to Olympus to head off Kronos, who's gone up the elevator ahead of them and has already destroyed nearly everything when they get there. A large statue of Hera topples off a gateway, nearly crushing Annabeth, but Thalia pushes her out of the way, getting her legs pinned underneath Hera instead. They finally face Kronos, who is starting to undergo his final change: he's starting to burn away Luke's body and take his Titian form, which would ensure the end of the Gods' reign. Kronos injures Annabeth, who calls out to Luke, as Percy told her that Luke was still conscious inside of Kronos and was occasionally fighting against him. Luke manages to submerge Kronos' consciousness and reveals that he knows Kronos' "Achilles heel" and that only he can kill him. Percy hands over Annabeth's knife (which was actually given to her by Luke) and Luke stabs himself. This basically kills him on the spot, although he's alive long enough to tell Annabeth that he's going to try for rebirth so that he can try for the Isles of the Blest. Annabeth tells him he always was an overachiever. Luke tells Percy to make the Gods promise that there won't be anymore unclaimed Demigods, and then he dies.
All of the main Demigods are given accolades by the Gods and Goddesses, and Percy is even offered a chance to become a God himself, although he turns it down. Instead he tells them he wants the promise that there won't be any more unclaimed children, that the minor Gods/Goddesses will get cabins at camp, and that the pact of the Big Three is ended, since it didn't work anyway. He also wants a cabin for Hades' children. Zeus and the other Gods are reluctant to grant this but in the end so. Hermes tells Percy that it won't last, that Gods are forgetful, and Percy tells him that he believes they can change, even after 3000 years, which makes Hermes smile.
There's also a subplot involving Luke's mom, the Oracle, and Rachel, but suffice it to say that there was a curse on the Oracle that was put there by Hades, which basically said there would never be another mortal Oracle. This curse is lifted, however, and Rachel becomes the new Oracle, which makes Annabeth happy because the Oracle "can't date". Percy manages to have a stumbling conversation with Annabeth, which makes her laugh, and she kisses him, telling him that she'll never make things easy on him.
And then they live happily ever after. <3
All in all, I really enjoyed this book. I liked how the author tied up the loose ends, and I liked how it ended. I'm glad Annabeth and Percy got together and am glad Luke died a hero. I also liked the glimpses we got to see of the Gods/Goddesses, even the minor ones and the Titans, and most of all I loved Percy. He's such a fabulous narrator: I really REALLY am going to miss his voice.
One interesting thing to note is that in the author's notes, it mentions that this is the last book in the first Camp Halfblood series. So perhaps we'll get to meet some new Demigods, perhaps ones who will be responsible for the Great Prophecy that Rachel gives at the end? Let's hope that it's not so far in the future that Percy, Annabeth and the others won't make an appearance, though. I'd really hate to not ever see them again.
Post number forty-one is for Libba Bray's A Great and Terrible Beauty, which is another of those books that's been on my to-read list for a few years. I don't know why I waited so long to read it, though, because I really enjoyed it and it has me intrigued and eager to read the second book (the third one is soon to be released), although I'm going to hold off on it for a while yet in order to get some other things read first.
Anyway, real quick spoilers follow, although I'm not going to go into major detail regarding the plot.
S
P
O
I
L
E
R
S
Gemma is a girl growing up in the early nineteen hundreds in India. Her mother is killed via unexplained circumstances, and Gemma is taken to England, where she's enrolled in a finishing school. However, she has the power to have visions, and it turns out that she's magical, if you will, and can enter the realms - the world between the world we live in and the world of death.
Gemma makes friends with three girls at the school: Ann, her roommate who is a scholarship student and therefore "lower class"; Felicity, whose father is an Admiral in the British Navy and whose mother is a courtesan in Paris (this isn't public knowledge, mind); and Pippa, who is the most beautiful girl anyone has ever seen, but is fated to marry a much older man by her family, as Pippa is epileptic and they don't want this knowledge to get out. The girls each want something: Pippa wants to find true love, Ann wants to be beautiful, Felicity wants strong will and Gemma wants to understand herself and what's going on with her visions.
There's also a little sidestory of a potential romance for Gemma with Kartik, who is a member of a strange secret society that doesn't want Gemma to use her magical gifts, but the main plot is that of Circe, who wants to kill Gemma and take her power for herself.
What I was mainly left feeling at the end of the book, though, were these two thoughts: I hope Felicity doesn't turn into another Circe, and that her friendship with Gemma and Ann remains true, and I also hope there's a way for Gemma to be with Kartik, which, as of right now is impossible because Gemma, too, is higher class and Kartik is decidedly not. :-P
So, anyway, it's a nice start to the series, in my opinion, and I will definitely be checking out the second book.
Post number thirty-four is for Lucette Matalon Lagnado and Sheila Cohn Dekel's Children of the Flames: Dr. Josef Mengele and the Untold Story of the Twins of Auschwitz. (I told you I liked reading books about WWII.)
I'm not cutting anything because this is a part of our history that I think is sadly overlooked and often forgotten, and I also won't go into too many gorey details, so no worries there. If this isn't your thing, feel free to make use of your back button at this point. :)
This book was interesting because it not only provided a biography of Josef Mengele, but also provided points of view from the twins and other favored kids he experimented on during his time as an Auschwitz doctor. The text about Mengele's childhood and life after the war was interspersed by a sort of "greek chorus" (a term the author herself uses) of the twins' stories, starting, like Mengele, with their childhoods - usually affluent Eastern European families - to their time at Auschwitz, to their attempt to pick their lives back up after the war (many of them immigrated to Palestine and then to Israel).
Two things we know for sure about Mengele:
1) Out of the 3000 twins that went through his laboratory, 2800 of them didn't survive, and those who did still to this day suffer illnesses and unexplained medical problems most likely relating to what he did to them.
2) He is the biggest name of the Nazi system to escape justice - he was never brought to trial or punished for his actions against the people who were deported to Auschwitz (many of which got the casual flick of his wrist towards the gas chambers).
The book says that he died in 1979, but to this day that is still disputed because the remains can't necessarily be confirmed as belonging to Josef Mengele. If he did really die in 1979, he did so by drowning: his grave is in a small town in Brazil, although his remains are not. As of the book's publishing in 1990, they were in England, although I have no idea where they are now. Might be time to do a google search. :D
Anyway, I found this book frankly fascinating, because it had so much information about Mengele - who I have a sort of perverse interest in simply because I have trouble believing someone as evil as he was actually existed - and information about him is sort of hard to come by. This book showed us what became of him after the war, and talked about his journals that he kept and an autobiographical novel he wrote, which I don't know was ever published but would kind of be interesting to look at if it were (Amazon has failed me on this, so I'm thinking it's not available). His family refuses to release his papers publically, so anyone who wants to read about them should probably get this book: the author was given exclusive access to them by a magazine editor who'd been given them for an article he wrote about Mengele sometime in the 80s.
Anyway, this book was, as I said above, absolutely fascinating, and while I had to read it in installments (there's a lot of sadness in these pages, all of which comes from the twins) I'm definitely glad I stumbled upon it while I was at work. I might not be able to read it again (much like my thoughts on Five Chimneys) but it's definitely something I'm glad I read the first time. If you've any interest at all in the Holocaust, definitely give it a read. It will stick with you, that much is for certain.
Post number thirty-two is for Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass, and what Alice found there, which is actually my thirty-fifth book of the year. This is an astronomical number for me at this point of the year, considering that I only read sixteen total last year.
Very very brief thoughts follow, as this book was so odd I didn't really take a whole lot away from it. At least it's another of those (3) books off my to-read list!
S
P
O
I
L
E
R
S
There was so much poetry in this book and some of it was so ridiculous. But I did like "The Walrus and the Carpenter", which I knew from the Disney version of Alice in Wonderland, and also the flowers. But other than that this book was just strange, from Alice's constant chatter to her cats to the strange chessboard game, to the duel between Tweedledum and Tweedledee, to the strange feast at the end where no one seemed to actually eat anything. Just ... weird. I liked the first book a lot more, although maybe if I'd read them back-to-back I would have liked the second one, too.
Whatever. There are a lot of people who truly love these books and I guess I am just not one of them. Which is fine: to each their own, after all. I'm not sorry I read it or anything, but I've definitely read other books that I've liked more.
Oh, well.
Next up will probably be The Diamond of Darkhold, the fourth Ember book, although I have three books from the library to read, too (including one that's an Interlibrary Loan item, which gives me a little extra time to finish it), and two that I'm still waiting on. I certainly can never say I don't have anything to read!
Post number thirty is for Tamora Pierce's Trickster's Queen, which is another of those books that's been on my to-read list for several years. This is the sequel to Trickster's Choice, and you definitely need to read that one first, although be forewarned that I had a hard time getting into - and finishing - that one. I'm not sure if it's the way Pierce writes (she does a lot of telling instead of showing, and her writing is therefore kind of, I dunno, dense? Whatever you call it, it's not easy to read at first) or something else, but, while the plot was interesting and I liked the characters, it just wasn't grabbing my attention. The sequel, however, *does* do that, for which I was glad. I was hoping it wouldn't be a struggle to finish it.
Anyway, here are some light spoilers, so avoid if you feel it necessary.
S
P
O
I
L
E
R
S
This book picks up pretty much right after the first one. Aly, a former slave, who is actually a family member of some Very Important People from the rival land of Tortall, is the Trickster God's - Kyprioth - spokesperson, for lack of a better word. She is working for the Balitangs and the raka conspiracy to help bring down the Rittevon throne and place the oldest Balitang daughter - Sarai, who is "twice-royal" because she's royal on both the luarin and raka sides of her family - on the throne. However, lots of problems arise, notably Sarai's unexpected elopement with a man from the neighboring lands of Carthaki. So they turn their attention to putting Sarai's younger sister, Dove, on the throne instead.
There's lots of drama with the current King of the Copper Isles, Dunevon (who is four-years-old), and the Princess and Prince regents acting in his name, including a conspiracy to kill both him and Elsren, Sarai and Dove's younger brother, who also has royal blood thanks to his father, Mequen, who was a Duke and killed in the previous book. (And that was a really long sentence, so sorry about that.) The death of Dunevon turns his guard, Taybur Sibigat, to Aly's side, although this doesn't happen until the almost very end.
There's also some drama between Aly and Nawat, the man she's in love with who used to be a crow but turned himself human in order to be with her, and some other things I don't really want to mention in order to keep the spoilers down, but everything ends up working out in the end, although I didn't like some of the deaths, namely the ones that killed an entire family of the raka conspiracy who you really grow to love in the course of the two books. And yes, I know war is unpredictable and deaths happen, but I still don't have to like it. :-P Anyway, Dove ends up getting the throne, Aly becomes her spymaster (even though she's Tortallan and related to the Tortallan crown), and her and Nawat get married and Aly's pregnant at the end of the book.
Anyway, this book was MUCH better than the first one, even though it had been several years since I'd read the first one (I believe I finished Trickster's Choice in 2005). So if you can get yourself through the first book, give the second one a read, too, because I think you'll enjoy it much more. Aly is a great narrator, mostly because she seems very real to me: she's funny, determined, and fiery. All in all, a great character. :)
Post number twenty-seven is for Holly Black's Ironside: A Modern Faery's Tale, which is the sequel to Tithe, but also includes characters and plot points from Valiant, both of which need to be read (with Tithe first) before reading Ironside.
Brief spoilers follow, so please avoid if you've not yet read this book (or any of the previous ones) and don't want to be spoiled, in the chance that you may read this series at some point.
S
P
O
I
L
E
R
S
So, basically, Roiben has been crowned King of the Unseelie Court. Kaye, drunk on faerie wine and persuaded by two other folks in the coronation crowd, declares herself to Roiben to be his consort. Her quest is to find a faerie that can tell an untruth, which is an impossible quest, as faerie's cannot lie. What Kaye fails to realize is that Roiben has given her the quest because he loves her and wants her safe and away from the war between his Unseelie Court and Silarial's Seelie Court. She thinks he doesn't love her and is basically heartbroken, which makes it easy for Silarial to use her to try to get Roiben's crown (since Kaye knows Roiben's true name and can use it to make him do whatever she wants, including give his crown to Silarial).
However, Kaye later realizes that the duel that Roiben will have to fight in order to keep his crown - and possibly gain Silarial's as well - is going to be between him and his sister, Ethine. She also solves the quest by saying she's the faerie who can lie, and when Ruddles questions her, tells him that if she can't lie, than he obviously is, in which case one of them HAS to be lying. Ruddles can't find fault with the riddle and grants her access to Roiben, so that she's able to tell him what she realized about Silarial's duel.
In the end, Ethine herself kills Silarial in anger over how she was going to use Roiben, and Roiben becomes King of the Seelie and Unseelie Courts, splitting his time between the two like Persephone does in Greek Mythology (six months above ground and six months in the Underworld with Hades).
There's also a side story involving Luis (from Valiant) and Corny, a deadly curse on Corny's hands, and the death of Luis' brother. In the end, Corny and Luis end up hooking up (for lack of a better term), so both they and Kaye and Roiben get their happily-ever-afters. <3
All in all, this was a nice ending to the series (Holly has said she'll not be writing any other books in this universe, although her characters can be seen in The Mortal Instruments Trilogy by Cassandra Clare). I'm glad Kaye and Roiben seem to have worked themselves out, even if they haven't completely decided how they're going to split their time between the two courts (because Kaye is now Roiben's consort since she fulfilled his quest) and the mortal/world of Faerie.
I checked out several books from the library yesterday, and have started reading Trickster's Queen by Tamora Pierce. I hope it reads faster than the first book in the series did, though, because Trickster's Choice was kind of slow and took me forever to finish. I also have the next two Spiderwick books, Through the Looking Glass, and a couple fictionalized books about the Holocaust to read, so am quite nicely stocked, at least for a little while. :)
Post number twenty-five is for Cassandra Clare's City of Glass, which is the third and final book in her Mortal Instruments trilogy. This was a book I was highly anticipating, as I wanted to see how she would wrap things up and wanted to finally see the answers to all my questions. This book did that nicely, so I definitely recommend it, although you definitely should not read this one until you read the first two.
Seeing as this was a fairly anticipated book, I'm a little leery of putting spoilers on here. However, I *am* warning you, so please make use of your back button OR scroll down really quickly. :-P
Remember, you had fair warning! :D
S
P
O
I
L
E
R
S
...
...
Ready? Okay....
Things I Really Liked:
*The ending. Happily ever after, with Simon in a bit of a love triangle between Maia and Isabelle, and Jace and Clary together forever. <333
*Alec and Magnus' conversation while they were battling the demons. "Tell you what. We live through this, and I promise I'll introduce you to my whole family." :))
*The fact that Luke and Clary's mom finally got together, seeing as they had been in love with each other for twenty years and were just being stupid about the whole thing.
*Alec choosing Magnus as his partner for the Alliance rune. And then kissing him in front of everyone. :D
*Isabelle taking Sebastian's hand off with her whip. She's so kickass I can't even stand it!
*The way Clary messed up Valentine's summoning of Raziel by putting her own name over his. LOVE IT! Talk about the perfect revenge; she is SO her mother's daughter. I especially liked the flare of writing "Mene Mene Tekel Upharsin" when he asked her what she'd done, and how quickly Raziel disposed of him.
I also really liked that we got to see some chapters from Jace's point of view. That's something I felt was lacking in the first two books. Jace is so fascinating that I love to see what he's thinking, and his reasons for what he's doing. Same with Simon - I was glad we got to see a couple things from his pov as well. I loved Isabelle and Alec in this book; Isabelle saying she liked Clary, but also hated her for what she did to Jace. What Isabelle couldn't see is that Clary was struggling with the same feelings as Jace, and they were tearing her apart just as steadily as they were him.
I would be very interested to see what the Mark of Cain will do to Simon in the long run. I hope it's nothing, but you can't help wondering, and I wonder if it's something Cassie (the author) has thought about and if we'll see it ourselves, maybe in the form of a short story or a post on her website or something. I also want to know what the Seelie Queen wanted from Clary - the way Jace tensed up when she told him, it probably wouldn't have been good.
I knew, just KNEW that Jace and Clary were not related. There were too many signs in the previous book, like when Valentine said, "I wasn't talking about Jace" when Clary said something about her brother, and the Inquisitor's reaction to Jace's scar and her stumbling words to him. (Not to mention my certainty that Cassie would separate two people who loved each other so much. Call it naive readership, or something. :-P) I liked that Amatis talked to Jace about his father, and that she gave him Stephen's things (which must have been precious to her). I liked the rune that showed everyone the person they loved the most and when Clary's mom told her that she just saw Clary, because I am kind of a sucker for that whole mother's love thing. Really, Clary's ability in and of itself was pretty spectacular, and the fact that she never thought to use it for her own gain.
I liked Jace and Clary's talk on the way to Wayland Manor to retrieve the book, and the fact that he always had unlimited faith in her (Simon, too), and how she really did help him be a better person. That's such a clichéd thing nowadays that someone's love can change you, but in the case of Jace I really think it did (and he said as much to her at the end, when he told her he could never - and would never - stop loving her. I really just wanted to draw hearts around Jace in this book, to be honest. <333). I also liked that she said yes when he asked to stay the night with her, because he was so afraid that she wouldn't, because it simply didn't cross his mind that she loved him as much as he loved her, whether it was right or wrong.
And I rather like the idea of him being Jace Lightwood, don't you? Seems fitting, seeing as it was the Lightwoods that showed him love and affection. And I liked what Luke told Jace, about how Valentine was trying to do right by him, which is why he sent them to the Lightwoods. As much as Valentine did wrong, he definitely did right in that one small way, which, in the end, didn't turn out all that small after all.
One little note: did anyone else notice the conversation at the end of the book between Jace and Clary about Jace not really having a name? He mentions that he started thinking of himself as Jonathan Christopher because of the journal he found in Valentine's library. But earlier in the book, when Jace and Clary were in the library, he said that he hadn't even known that his middle name was Christopher. So something slipped through the cracks there. :-P
Most of all I'm just glad that this book answered all my questions, and tied up the loose ends. I'm also glad that she didn't introduce anything utterly new in this volume, and that the story continued to flow. All in all, I thought it was a fabulous end to a fabulous series. I'm very much looking forward to the new series she's working on about the beginning of the Shadowhunters, but also wouldn't mind seeing something from Jace, Clary, and all the rest a little down the line. As long as it doesn't mess up the "happily ever after" aspect, of course. :D
(Btw, Cassie's done a Q&A session of sorts here, if you're interested!)
Post number twenty-three is for Neil Gaiman's American Gods. This book actually took me a while to read - nearly a whole week, which is odd, since I'm a very fast reader.
I haven't read too much of Gaiman's work. I've read Coraline and Good Omens (which he co-wrote with Terry Pratchett), but he's talked about so often among my friends that I figured I'd read another of his books just to see what all the fuss was about, especially since I was sort of underwhelmed by Good Omens.
What follows is fairly brief, as I am tired. :-P Spoilers do follow, so please avoid if you're inclined.
S
P
O
I
L
E
R
S
First off, this was a very interesting concept: that everything you believe takes root in your country, and once you - and anyone else - stops believing in something, they fade away and die. I really liked the look at the different Gods and Goddesses (I especially liked Mr. Nancy, most likely because we read Anansi stories to our kids at my job), and I liked the way Gaiman weaved the "supernatural" (if you will) with modern times. I'd like to eventually see the Center of the US (I'm assuming it does actually exist?), the House on the Rock, and Rock City. Maybe someday. :)
I liked Shadow a whole lot - he was a fabulous narrator - and I read online that it's mentioned that he himself is actually a Norse God as well, although that's not revealed until the novella that followed this book. Interesting how everyone we met was somehow involved in the God War, and how Shadow realized what was going on and managed to stop it, thereby making sure this reincarnation of Wednesday and Loki never returned. I also liked how Czernobog didn't harm him with his hammer after all, and that he seemed to be a much happier man after it was all said and done, and could finally be Bielebog. And the Zoryas were great, too.
My favorite bit was probably the time Shadow spent at the Funeral Home with Ibis and Jacquel (I think I may have spelled that wrong...), and I also liked how we got to meet the real Odin, because I was wondering if the same Gods could exist on multiple places. Of course, the more I think about it, the more I realize that that's kind of obvious, because as long as someone believes - or believed at a prior time - they'd stay on that continent for people to worship.
So, all in all, a good book. I can see why people enjoy Gaiman's writing. It's very unique and dark, and he's a fabulous storyteller. I have Neverwhere on my to-read list as well, so we'll see if my opinion remains the same after reading that one. Which I will ... eventually. :-P
