Book Review: Brightly Woven by Alexandra Bracken

Title: Brightly Woven
Series/Sequel? No
Author: Alexandra Bracken
Genre(s): Fantasy, Adventure, Old-Fashioned Fiction
Age Level: YA (12-14)
Page Count: 354 (Hardcover)
POV: 1st Person (female)

Summary from back of book: Just as the rains come after ten long, dry years, a young wizard, Wayland North, appears, to whisk Sydelle Mirabil away from her desert village. North needs an assistant, and Sydelle is eager to see the country - and to join him on his quest to stop the war that surely will destroy her home. But North has secrets - about himself, about why he chose Sydelle, about his real reasons for the journey. What does he want from her? And why does North's sworn enemy seem fascinated by Sydelle himself? 

Review: So, I wasn't originally planning on reviewing this book. But I have to. Because it was just... perfect.

I'm not saying the plot was perfect, or the characters were perfect. It was more the AMOUNT of everything that was perfect. The AMOUNT of tension. The AMOUNT of romance. The AMOUNT of action. The AMOUNT of fantasy/magic. It all came together in such a way that... I didn't want the story to end. I didn't want to have to leave this world, or these characters.

The characters were awesome, by the way. All of them. They were so unique in their personalities and their mannerisms and... EVERYTHING that I felt like I knew them. North was hilarious, Sydelle was kind, yet kick-butt and brave, the Sorceress Imperial was mean... they were all just such wonderful characters!

I found the magic/fantasy part of this book fascinating as well. North's cloaks, and the different talismans were things I haven't really seen before in books, and it was interesting how they had an effect on the type of magic each wizard could do. The beliefs in the different goddesses and how that influenced the story and the characters were interesting as well. And to what Sydelle could do... well, I don't want to put in spoilers, but I never saw it coming!

Really, a lot of the twists that happened in this book, I didn't see coming. But in a good way.

If you liked the Inheritance Cycle (Eragon) but want something shorter and easier to read, I would suggest this for you. You won't regret it!

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Book Review: Fairest of All by Serena Valentino

Title: Fairest of All: A Tale of the Wicked Queen
Series/Sequel? No
Author: Serena Valentino
Genres: Fairytale retellings, old-fashioned fiction
Age Level: YA (12-18)
Page Count: 250 (Hardcover) 
Summary from inside flap of book: The tale of the young princess SNow White and her evil stepmother the Wicked Queen is widelt known. Despite a few variations from telling to telling,the story remains the same - the Queen was jealous of the girl's beauty, and this jealousy culminated in the Queen's attempt on the sweet, naive girl's life. 

Another tale far less often spojen of is the one that explains what caused the Queen to become so contemptuously vile. Still, some have attempted to guess at the reason. Perhaps the Queen's true nature was that of a wicked hag and her beautiful, regal appearance a disguise used to fool the King. Others claim that the Queen might have hated the girl for her resemblance to the Queen's first wife. Mostly, the Queen is painted as a morally abhorrent woman who never loved another being during the course of her miserable life. 

In fact, the theories about exactly what caused the Queen's obsessive vanity and jealous rage are too numerous to catalog. This book recounts a version of the story that has remained untold until now. It is a tragic tale of love and loss, and it contains a bit of magic. It is a tale of the Wicked Queen...
 
Review: When I saw this book at the bookstore, the thing that drew me in was the cover. Because look at it - is it not a gorgeous cover? When I picked up this book and read the inside flap, the thing that drew me in was how it was a retelling of Snow White, supposedly making the Wicked Queen... un-wicked. I've always been interested in that type of story, giving the villain a reason for being a villain.

It started slow. So slow, that, even a couple pages in, I was looking at the page numbers and thinking How much do I have left to read? But then I forced myself to ignore the page numbers and actually read the story, and I found out that it was a decent tale.

This is a fairytale retelling in a way I've never seen it done. The Wicked Queen - who doesn't seem to have a name, but just is called "the Queen" - is shown in a different light. Which, I guess, was kinda the point of the entire story. But it gives reasons for her being horrible and awful to everyone. It gives a different reason besides pure vanity that she looked in the Mirror every day and asked who was the fairest of them all. It gave reasons for everything that she did in the classic tale. For it wasn't so much vanity or just... horrible-ness... but grief. It was amazing all the back-story the author was able to create - and make it it sound plausible and reasonable.

A couple problems I had with it: The storytelling was very childish. Well, maybe not childish, but it was very "Once upon a time..." But that, considering the topic, was appropriate. It's written in third person, in that very fairytale kind of way. I also didn't like how it didn't give the Queen, the King, or the Prince (the one who awakens Snow with Love's First Kiss and all that) any names. They were called by their titles throughout the entire book. In books, one of the things I find most interesting about characters are their names. Do their names have anything to do with their personality? Is their foreshadowing in their names? I wish the the author had given them names. My third and last complaint: I feel as if the ending left a little something to be desired. It made sense where it ended, it's just... the words and the meaning of the words they used - not the actual definition, but what it means as a metaphor or whatever - were confusing the first time I read them. I had to read them again to really understand it and all it meant.

If you like fairytale retellings, I would suggest this for you!





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Book Review: The False Prince by Jennifer A. Nielsen

Title: The False Prince
Sequel? The first book in The Ascendance Trilogy, sequel yet-to-be-titled
Author: Jennifer A. Nielsen
Genres: (kind of) historical fiction*
Age Level: YA (12-18) (Though this is leaning more towards 12-14)
Page Count: 342
Summary: Sage is a fourteen year old orphan and thief. He has nothing, no one. He lives on a week-by-week basis, trying to survive. Then nobleman Conner comes for him. He pays the woman in charge of the orphanage, and takes Sage away with him, along with three other boys - all fourteen, all nobodies. But it's not to work as servants, as Sage expects.
All members of the royal family are dead. The king, queen, and crown prince Darius had been poisoned, though the general public doesn't know it yet. However, Prince Jaron, the second prince, was supposedly killed by pirates four years ago, though a body was never found. Conner's plan is to decide over the course of two weeks which boy can act for the rest of his life. Which orphan can become a prince.

Review: I liked this book more than I thought I would, truth be told. I got this from one of those Scholastic book fairs at my school for $6, and in the past I haven't really liked the books I've gotten at them. But this one was really good. 

I think the thing that first caught me was Sage's character. He is very sarcastic, very sharp-witted and clever-tongued, and I love that type of character. He was never afraid to say what he wanted, even when it landed him in a dungeon or near death. His character was very complex as well. He had a hard life, but also had many different talents and an interesting back story. I loved his strength, his resolve to do what he believed was right, and nothing could break him. I also liked that, upon accidentally killing a man, he freaked out. I hate it when characters (especially guys) kill something and keep moving on as if it's nothing. Hello, you just KILLED someone! Sage has humanity, and that was another thing I liked about him.

I also liked that it was told from his perspective. I feel as if books with male main characters, especially when told from their perspective, are a whole lot fresher than female protagonists. (I used an ELA vocab word. My teacher would be proud :D) I've only read one other book from a male's perspective (that I can think of off the top of my head, at least), so maybe that's not the best generalization, but I still think that it's true. Maybe it's because I'm a girl, but I feel as if reading from guys' perspectives are always better.

The thing that I found weird about this book was that, even though it was told from Sage's perspective, there were chapters when it would switch into third person. That caused for a little bit of confusion, but in general, it was surprisingly easy to follow what was happening. 

I have to tell you another thing I loved about this book: POLITICAL INTRIGUE!!!! That is my FAVORITE thing to read about. Next to hot guys, sword fights, and love triangles. The more layers of lies and deceit a book has, the more I love it, because it's fun for me as the reader to uncover those layers and try to figure out exactly what's happening. Nothing was really as it seemed, and I loved it. 

This is the first in a trilogy, and I'm excitedly waiting for the next one! Unfortunately, The False Prince was just published this year, so I guess I'll have to wait. Sigh....

*What I meant in the Genre slot by (kind of) historical fiction is this: it's old fashioned, but in the way... I guess the Inheritance Cycle (Eragon) was, but without the magic. They don't have modern technology, but it's in... a different world I guess, with different countries and landmarks and such. There is no Britain or France or Spain or Russia. So it's old-fashioned, I guess, but it's not historical fiction. If that's confusing you, leave a comment, and I'll try to explain more.

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