Keturah and Lord Death

Title: Keturah and Lord Death
Authors: Martine Leavitt
Pages: 216
Publisher: Front Street (2006)



Review:

"The right to choose is man’s great gift, but one thing is not his to choose – the time and means of death." (p. 162)

Last time I picked up Keturah and Lord Death, I finished it a few hours with a wildly beating heart and goosebumps. There has been no significant change the second time around – it’s quite determined to cause tachycardia, even three years later.

The book captures the feel of a traditional tale, complete with the morals and the hazy dream-like quality, never dropping it. Anyone who has ever attempted to write in this style will understand exactly how astonishing such a feat truly is, and love it all the more. Better still, the book shines with originality, since what makes it a beautiful tale also serves to make it an atypical novel, sparse and insightful. The strong characters will delight you, the writing will inspire you, and the plot will keep you on the edge of your seat.

There is no more to say, as any summary would take away from the story. Read this book with no preconceived notions, and merely let Keturah enchant you. To sum it up in one word: spellbinding.

The Hero and the Crown

Title: The Hero and the Crown
Authors: Robin McKinley
Pages: 256
Publisher: Greenwillow Books (1984)



Review:

Many years ago, my librarian placed The Blue Sword and The Hero and the Crown in front of me and told me to read them. Usually, this wouldn’t have been a chore, but for some reason, these two scared me with their covers – to start with, the dragon looked far too colorful, and worst of all: they both had Newbery stickers on them. In my experience, those stickers marked the boring books, and were a neon sign warning strangers away from tedium.

When I finally did get around to reading them, The Hero and the Crown became one of my favorite books – if not my absolute favorite. I’ve read this book dozens of times, including just The Best Parts whenever I needed some cheering up… Thus, I will accept that perhaps I’m not the best person to review this book, as I’m hardly impartial. Nonetheless, I do believe that McKinley deserves to become a millionaire just for writing it, so I’m spreading the word to younger generations.

Aerin-sol, daughter of the King of Damar, is possibly the most distinct and believable heroine in the genre, not only because of her flame-colored hair. She’s the original embodiment of awkward and clumsy, while her feelings of ineptitude resonate in anyone who has ever felt misplaced. And yet, even while the reader feels certain that she’ll someday find her destiny and fulfill her potential, the path proves arduous. And so, unlike in more modern fantasy novels, there is no snapping of fingers for the solution – or a definitive happy ever after – to arrive.

McKinley’s style, as usual, describes the world of Damar in a very detailed and painstaking way. It’s divided into two parts, recognizable because of style: in the first, Aerin fights her way to try and find a place for herself at court, while the second shows a more vague, dream-like portrayal of events that legends are made of. As if this weren’t enough, her prose is breathtaking, and this book uses flashbacks better than any other I can remember. It’s precisely this writing style that frightens some readers away, but it’s rewarding if you see it through.

In short, a memorable story that I simply cannot praise highly enough. And yet, here’s a word of advice: although you can read them in any order, I’d recommend tackling The Blue Sword before The Hero and the Crown, to keep the mystique around Lady Aerin alive. She is, after all, a legend…

Princess of the Midnight Ball

Title: Princess of the Midnight Ball
Authors: Jessica Day George
Pages: 288
Publisher: Bloomsbury



Review:

I like fairytales in most shapes and forms: from the gruesome and traditional Brothers Grimm versions to the sweet and sanitized Disney ones. Still, I play favorites with stories just as much as I do with books – my favorite fairytale has always been “Beauty and the Beast,” followed by “The Six Swans,” and finally “The Twelve Dancing Princesses.” Of all those, I was only missing an enjoyable novelized version of the last one.

Guess which fairytale the book I’m currently reviewing is based on. I’ll give you a hint: I just told you earlier.

Princess of the Midnight Ball is a refreshing new take on a story most people are familiar with. However, no matter how much you loved the story, the original is a couple of pages long, and thus the characters are mere caricatures. There is no distinction between all twelve princesses. The soldier who tries to save them from the ball is a much older man who, in true fairytale fashion, has the tools needed to solve the puzzle.

Obviously, in nearly three hundred pages, we get a noticeable amount of details that weren’t there in the older version. The princesses are quite charming and mostly distinct, while Galen (the male main character) completely steals the show with his personality full of kindness and fun. Furthermore, I enjoyed the importance of a traditional pastime in this new retelling – knitting! The book even comes with two knitting patterns as an epilogue of sorts.

This doesn’t mean that the book is perfect. The style is too simple for my taste, and we are still missing character depth, particularly in secondary characters. Still, it does capture the general feel of enchantment, curses, and mystery that makes the entire genre so curiously satisfying. It isn’t a book I’ll reread time after time, but it’s sweet enough that you probably won’t regret giving it a chance.

The Gathering Storm

Title: The Gathering Storm (Book 12 of The Wheel of Time)

Authors: Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson

Pages: 784

Publisher: Tor Books

Review:

I read the first book of this series, The Eye of the World, when I was thirteen years old. After I finished that tome, I proceeded to devour all the available sequels (for the record, up to Book 7, A Crown of Swords). The story was epic, of a scope I’d rarely seen before or since. I could barely wait for the story to continue, to see what exactly was going to happen to the characters I’d become so involved with.

That is precisely where the problems started. You can only write so many pages per year, and churning out 800 page monoliths describing such an ambitious and complicated story is hard work. Robert Jordan had to pursue minor characters and tie the whole story together, making it seem as if it dragged on and on with very little new information. I agreed with this at the time, but now I think the problem lies in the publication dates: the series is meant to be read as a whole, and to represent the ending of an Age, not the story of Rand al’Thor, main character extraordinaire. It’s impossible to grasp this if you’re getting trickles of information every two or three years.

The years have gone by. Robert Jordan passed away, and a different author, Brandon Sanderson, was chosen to finish the saga with the twelfth book, A Memory of Light. Said book proved to be so long that it was split into three. At the same time, for better or worse, I’m not the same teenager who read those first books so eagerly. As such, I wasn’t sure Sanderson was the right person for this job, since his style – if you’ve read any of his own books – is drastically different from Jordan’s.

My worries were unfounded. Sanderson hasn’t only pulled it off, he’s made the whole series regain the faster pacing it had in the beginning. The differences in style are barely noticeable, and then only if you are truly looking for them (I confess I was) and in certain parts of the story (Mat, mostly… but how much of that is due to him changing as a character and how much to the author is open to debate). You can’t even tell the original Book 12 was divided into three parts, as it has a very clear ending.

Plot-wise, the book points out where most characters are, although it focuses mostly on Egwene and Rand. One very major thread of the story concludes satisfactorily, and many more minor ones are resolved. Best of all, the end is finally in sight and there’re plenty of hints as to how that will play out. Hope, despair, triumph - the sheer joy of reading about those characters is back, and we’re heading towards what was promised so long ago. It’s going to be monumental.

This book, although easily one of my favorite three in the series, should never be picked up if you haven’t read the other eleven, as you’d be absolutely and irrevocably lost. However, if you did love The Wheel of Time and lost faith in it, fear not: this book will most likely make you regain the desire to see the story through to the end.