About stories of all kinds
Here's the problem with making a complex secondary character a main character in their own novel: they lose some of the mystical quality that makes them interesting to the reader to try and interpret. Also, quite often their "voice" as the perspective character loses some of what their established personality has been. They are no… Continue reading Reclaimed: Murtagh Review
It's basically forced proximity. In space. How's that for a paradox.
Good things come in threes--young adult book trilogies are evidence of the fact. Bad things, alas, also come in threes--as demonstrated by the love triangles plaguing this particular age bracket's fiction like a particularly unpleasant swarm of wormy insects. Despite this and other common tropes, young adult fiction has been a large part of my… Continue reading 8 YA Trilogies That Deserve More Hype
I decided to read Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo after being moderately impressed with Six of Crows, and being kind of dragged into the imagination of the Shadow and Bone Netflix series. Having vaguely known that Crooked Kingdom had something to do with the dreggy Crows managing to stage a market coup, I was sufficiently… Continue reading The Fourth Day of Christmas: Crooked Kingdom
Blurb for Return of the Thief by Megan Whelan Turner The thrilling, twenty-years-in-the-making, conclusion to the New York Times–bestselling Queen’s Thief series, by Megan Whalen Turner. This beloved and award-winning series began with the acclaimed novel The Thief. It and four more stand-alone volumes bring to life a world of epics, myths, and legends, and… Continue reading The Long-Awaited Return of the Thief: Book Review
I sat on this one for a while after I read it because I didn’t really know what I thought... what helped illuminate my thoughts about Six of Crows was watching the Shadow and Bone Netflix series.
It’s been a long, strange road with this series for me—well, that’s a bit melodramatic. It hasn’t been that long. It has been “wondrous strange” though.
As a book person, I have created various iterations of “my favourite books” lists over the years. A favourite book had to be somehow incredible: it had to make me actually cry, or laugh out loud consistently, or wow me with its whole tone and writing, in addition to being a good story with some… Continue reading Fallen Favourites: when a book you loved becomes a book that’s “meh”
There is probably no English author quite as well known by reputation as Shakespeare. The only others who could come close would probably be Chaucer, Dickens, and more recently, Agatha Christie. But for a playwright with such a firm position in the annals of English literature and a reputation as “serious literature for serious people,”… Continue reading A Tale of Sprites and Goblins: Books Inspired by Shakespeare
As a rule, I am impatient with the gaggle of quirky, silly sidekicks that populate many books and movies for the sole function of comic relief. Fantasy books are particularly egregious offenders in this regard because there is an abundance of lesser creatures that can be employed as throwaway comic characters with funny speech patterns… Continue reading Twilight: So Sparkling Bright
Fictitiously Yours 