Review: A Court of Wings and Ruin

A Court of Wings and Ruin by Sarah J. Maas
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I don't even know where to begin. Only 5% of readers give three stars to this book and yet, here I am. And it's not even that I didn't like the book! I enjoyed it! A lot! The writing is absorbing and easy to read and process. And yet...

First of all, a lot of authors are susceptible to word-parasites, but Maas takes it to another level. She's so prone to them, they keep jumping out of pages. I lost count how many times someones eyes shuttered (what does it even mean, like physically?) and it's not the only example. Usually, there are one to three such words or phrases, but in this book there are at least eight that were repeated needlessly over and over.

My second problem with this book is the attempt at diversification. I heard that fans were complaining about the low diversity in the two previous books. Apparently, it was the reason why Maas tried to incorporate some... I'm not sure it made the book better though. The diversity per se is very important and I'm always thrilled to see it. But here it's more like an after-thought, tucked in because the fans pointed it out. In the first two books there is no mention about any other types of sexuality than good old heterosexual relationships (or no less heterosexual rapes). Here, we are introduced to several homo- and bi- characters, but 1) we don't know much about them; 2) their relationships are not shown at all; 3) it's more like "don't worry, there are gay couples in this world too". Not impressive.

The characters are still very naive, all of them, not only "young and reckless" Feyre, even though they are battered and hurt enough. So my third problem lies with real-life history starting to show up in the series. While it was a more or less imaginary world, it was easy to deal with naivety. But as soon as almost transparent references to recent (spanning a couple centuries) events appeared, along with author's naive interpretation and moralization, I started to feel... I don't even know... slightly offended? I believe that if an author wants to put a historical perspective and lessons into a fantasy book, their understanding of history, events, human behavior, and causality must go much deeper than this.

And that leads to my fourth (is it fourth?) big issue. I so didn't appreciate the jumble of folk tales from different cultures! Sometimes, those cultural references are perfect, because they touch something in our subconscious, tug slightly, and make the readers more open and raw. In this case, however, it didn't quite work. I'm already tired of everyone trying to incorporate Koschei into their stories. He became quite fashionable of late. And mostly misunderstood. Some other references to Slavic, Roman, and Greek mythologies were also not very skillful.

Which leads to my final issue! This book is a fine example of grave digging! So many ancient monsters were dug up and forced to act on the pages, it's amazing! And very cheap. Because let's face it, digging up ancient monsters to solve all the problems is too easy a solution to make a good plot. And then the authors kills them all off!!!! Apparently, in order to spare her favorite characters from paying their debts. I couldn't see any other good reason to first bring those monstrosities into the plot and then permanently get rid of half of them. The other half is stoked up for the next book, where they probably will continue to haul the plot.

That's about it! Only five major issues :) It's hard to believe after I wrote them all down, but I did enjoy the book . And I will be reading the next one.

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Review: Over and Under the Snow

Over and Under the Snow by Kate Messner
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

For all the fuss about the importance of rhythm and rhyme in children's books and how this particular book is a perfect example of it, the rhythm hete is limping on both legs. I like the idea though, so three stars.

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Review: The Return of the Witch

The Return of the Witch by Paula Brackston
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

And they lived happily ever after. Of course. My, it's been a long read.... I started it last year! I was promised an extraordinary tale about witches, but found something else entirely. This time around the characters at least have some understandable motives. Their actions in the first book though are left unexplained. Apparently, they were doing all that nonsense just because, for no particular reason. But as I said, here they have reasons. And there is also a plot, which is quite easy on the brain: you'll know how it ends before starting to read. And there is also a fashionable moralizing last chapter, full of cliches, where the author is trying to explain why this happy ending is so happy and why we all should aspire to something like this.

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Review: The Beast

The Beast by J.R. Ward
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

It's probably not always a great idea to just keep writing books in a series, they eventually get too boring. The Black Dagger Brotherhood is a good example. I keep reading it out of habit, but despite being a fun at the beginning, I can't say I enjoy the newest installments. I already skipped one of the previous books (and I didn't notice that I lost much in terms of story line). This one I was reading forever (a little bit over a year to be exact), which reflects my enthusiasm. I even managed to read the next one, before finishing The Beast. So yeah, maybe it's time for me to stop, no more Brothers...

By the way, if you pay attention, you can notice that Mrs. Ward picks up new words between writing books and then, in love with the new additions to her vocabulary, uses them excessively in her next book. This time the word is 'woodwork'.

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Review: Certain Dark Things

Certain Dark Things by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I read this book, because I was challenged to read a book by a Mexican author. This one certainly has a strong Mexican flavor, but other than that there is not much going for it. The story line is a trite young-adult story of love and sacrifice, that's boring (because "trite") and pathetic (because "young adult"). The world the story is set in is marginally interesting. It's yet another parallel world, where people discovered the existence of vampires and were forced to deal with it (though I must add, here it looks very realistic). What I really didn't like about the setting is the attempt to explain it "scientifically looking". The "science" doesn't make any sense, but apparently sounds respectable. I don't like those half-hearted attempts and think that authors should either stick to actual physical laws (like Peter Watts) or give up and stop making appearances.

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Review: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I was hoping for an illustrated edition ever since I started to read to my son! And it finally happened! And also my son is finally old enough to share this experience!
I very much liked the illustrations, even though at times they directly contradict both the book and the film, which is hard for a kid to understand. And I liked them even though they made the book so big and heavy, we had to read it on the floor :) In any case, this is a great edition to read out loud to kids that are not all that good in immersing themselves into words, but old enough to understand the story. It is also of course a good gift, even for people who don't need illustrations to imagine.

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Review: The Bear and the Nightingale

The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

With two false starts I forced myself to read beyond the third page. While I was anticipating the book, the author seemed like she did her homework and actually went to the trouble of understanding Russian history and folklore. But on the second page we see the "frost-demon, the winter-king Karachun." Maybe I'm missing something, but I never heard any pagan god referred to by that name. Karachun is the Winter Solstice! And no, bread and fermented cabbage were not the only things allowed/available during the fast.
There were lots of little and not so little mistakes like that in the book: pine-nuts in a forest somewhere two weeks from Moscow at the beginning of the 14th century; women wearing their long hair loose and uncovered; a maiden stripping in the forest and swimming in a lake naked; a funeral on the next day after death; or a place (still two weeks from Moscow), where the Sun doesn't set in summer, but apparently still rises in winter. And that thing with vampires? Who kills a vampire with a birch-tree stake? For several chapters I expected it to backfire, but it never did. The one really big thing that threw me off was an unmarried priest. He is one of the key characters and his wife, apparently, didn't fit into the plot. The problem is, in Orthodox church, a person cannot, under any circumstances, become a priest until he's married.
Having all that said, after I got through my first astonishment at the author's interpretation of folklore stories, I really liked this book. It is a well written, thrilling, and absorbing story. At some points it was like reading the Lord of the Flies set is a fairy tale. At others, it was really chilling and reminding me that the Winter is indeed older than Summer. Even with all the misconceptions, the author managed to recreate the darkness and wildness of the pagan gods, and that touches deeper than most books ever can.

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