Book Review: "Insurgent"

Insurgent

by Veronica Roth

 

Goodreads Summary: One choice can transform you—or it can destroy you. But every choice has consequences, and as unrest surges in the factions all around her, Tris Prior must continue trying to save those she loves—and herself—while grappling with haunting questions of grief and forgiveness, identity and loyalty, politics and love.

Tris's initiation day should have been marked by celebration and victory with her chosen faction; instead, the day ended with unspeakable horrors. War now looms as conflict between the factions and their ideologies grows. And in times of war, sides must be chosen, secrets will emerge, and choices will become even more irrevocable—and even more powerful. Transformed by her own decisions but also by haunting grief and guilt, radical new discoveries, and shifting relationships, Tris must fully embrace her Divergence, even if she does not know what she may lose by doing so.

 

Review:  Insurgent starts up almost exactly where the first novel of the series, Divergent, ends.  This was one of my most highly anticipated novels of the year and it didn't disappoint.  I was worried that it would suffer from the middle-book syndrome, but my worries were unfounded.  Instead, Roth once again does an amazing job at delving deeper into each of the main characters' personalities, especially Tris and Tobias, while maintaining a steady stream of action in every chapter.  Tris, in particular, is a very interesting character.  While she very obviously suffers from the trauma that happened to her in the first book, she still goes on to be an amazingly strong character.  She is by no means a delicate flower, and I love her strength.

I also love it when authors don't make a person or group the clear villain.  There are people in Insurgent that are clearly the antagonists, but when you throw in the motivations and find out that there is a reason behind their actions, things get blurry.  Not everything was entirely black and white in this book, and books like this that challenges me and makes me think are some of my favorite books.  

The only thing that I liked less about Insurgent than I did about the first book was the crazy fast paced action.  Roth does an amazing job at throwing twists and turns into the book that don't seem out of place.  However, it was very hectic, and I wished she had interjected more slower scenes like she did in Divergent to balance out the action.  This was definitely a book that needs to be read carefully instead of breezing through.  While I suspected what would happen at the end, it was still surprising and paves the way for the third book by answering some questions by opening a whole slew of more questions.

 

If you haven't read Divergent yet, and are a fan of The Hunger Games, I highly recommend that you do.  It was one of my favorite books last year, and Insurgent does a fantastic job of following up.  Both books make you question society, your role in society, and how society shapes you as a person.

 

Overall Rating: 4/5

And some of my not so favorite things

Yesterday, I talked about a few of my favorite things at my job.  Today, I'm going to talk about the not-so-favorite things.  Actually, the most hated and dreaded part of the job: dealing with angry customers.

Sometimes, there are people who come in who are just angry for no reason, and they like to take it out on people like me who work in a customer service oriented field.  Every now and then, the customers are angry for a justifiable reason, and a few of them are nice enough to recognize that even though they're angry, they shouldn't be yelling at us about it.  And often times, I'm able to diffuse the situation or offer an alternative that the customer will accept.  But there are also the customers who are so angry they won't see reason or logic, and nothing we do or say will placate them.

I had a customer like that today.  I'm not going to give any specific details, but she was so angry at what I did - which, I'd like to add, was perfectly legit - that nothing I did or say was good enough.  In fact, I don't even think she was listening to any of my solutions or suggestions; she just wanted me to do what she wanted.  Worse part was she yelled at me in front of her kids, so her kids also thought I was the bad guy, even though she was freaking out for no good reason.  It was not a good situation, and it ended with her demanding my name and informing me that she's going to file an official complaint against me.

Luckily, people like that are the minority, and most of the time, staff can see the humor in the situation afterwards and know that the staff member didn't do anything out of line.  Unfortunately, when you're being screamed at an irrational customer, it's hard to find anything funny about it in that moment. 

These are a few of my favorite things...

I just realized recently that I spend the majority of the time here on my blog reviewing books.  While I love doing that, it doesn't really give much insight into what I do as a librarian on a daily basis, and why I  enjoy my job so much.  So, here are five things that I love about my job, in no particular order:

1.  The people I meet - This includes all the babies, kids, teens, and adults that I have the pleasure of getting to know.  Some of them are an absolute joy (mostly the babies and kids), and some of them are...wacky, for a lack of a better word.  However, each and every one of them show me how different people can be, and how wonderful it is that we live in a world with such diversity.

2.  Storytimes and programs - I know for some of you, babies, kids and teens aren't your favorite people in the world.  But for me, they're awesome, and I love being able to do fun programs with them and be silly.  Because, really, how many other jobs can you think of where you can go around dancing and singing fun songs without being stared at like you're crazy?

3. Being surrounded by books all day every day - For a bookworm like me, it's heaven.

4.  My coworkers - Because we can talk about dinosaur farts and butt books and know we're completely immature and silly, but be okay with it.

5.  Being an important pillar to the community - As a child, I always wanted to help the world, or change it in some significant manner, but I never really thought I would be able to.  Becoming a librarian was one of the best decisions I've ever made in my life.  Not only is it FUN, but I feel like I'm helping people too.  I teach parents literacy skills that they can pass onto their babies so they're ready for school, and I get kids excited about reading, and I'm there to listen to the teens when they're troubled or sad or just want to talk.  I help adults find what they're looking for, like books, or business information, or tax information, or information about genealogy.  And the best part of it all is that I actually enjoy doing all the above things.

Well, there's a little peek into my world of being a librarian.  It's wonderful and amazing and I'm always learning something new each day.  Whenever I tell someone I'm a librarian, most of the time the follow up question is, "What do you do?" For anyone who is interested in what I do, I'm going to try and write an entry every week or so about a different aspect of my job. 

Book Review: "Bitterblue"

Bitterblue

by Kristin Cashore

 

Goodreads Summary: Eight years after Graceling, Bitterblue is now queen of Monsea. But the influence of her father, a violent psychopath with mind-altering abilities, lives on. Her advisors, who have run things since Leck died, believe in a forward-thinking plan: Pardon all who committed terrible acts under Leck’s reign, and forget anything bad ever happened. But when Bitterblue begins sneaking outside the castle—disguised and alone—to walk the streets of her own city, she starts realizing that the kingdom has been under the thirty-five-year spell of a madman, and the only way to move forward is to revisit the past.

Two thieves, who only steal what has already been stolen, change her life forever. They hold a key to the truth of Leck’s reign. And one of them, with an extreme skill called a Grace that he hasn’t yet identified, holds a key to her heart.

Review: If I were to write a single sentence review of Bitterblue, it would be this: Bitterblue is gorgeously written with fantastic characters in an amazing world.  Is that gushy enough for you?

Let me start over.  I absolutely loved Graceling, and now I absolutely love Bitterblue, but for a completely different reason.  Graceling was fast paced and action packed, but Bitterblue, on the other hand, is a much slower paced book, and took its time unraveling its mysteries. It's a much more complex and intricate read than either Graceling or Fire, and during a good part of the beginning it felt like one giant puzzle with many interconnecting pieces that I knew connected, but couldn't figure out.  While it may have started out slow, it picked up towards the end, and the answers that are revealed are stunning.

Cashore packed Bitterblue with a plethora of returning and new characters.  I was overjoyed to see Katsa and Po come back, and loved reading about the intensity of their relationship once more.  Bitterblue herself was an absolute joy to read.  She was plucky, defiant, self-deprecating, and stubborn, yet at the same time regal as the Queen of Monsea, with an underlying core of strength and kindness.  She is easily one of more complicated characters to ever have existed, and I loved her for that.  There were more than a dozen recurring characters, and Cashore did an amazing job at making each and every one of them unique.  I was ecstatic to see Raffin and Bann in this book - they were two of the characters that I wished had more pages in Graceling.  Bitterblue's love interest, Saf, was also a fantastic character; he's reckless and wild, yet gentle and sweet, and although Bitterblue doesn't fully trust him, she loses her heart to him anyways. 

Bitterblue is a much darker book than either Graceling or Fire, which didn't surprise me since it deals with much of the aftermath that Leck left behind.  There were twists and turns that I didn't expect, and the overall tone was so sad and bittersweet that tears came to my eyes at certain parts of the book.  My heart broke with Bitterblue as she discovered truths and unraveled the mysteries of her kingdom.

Okay, so how many times did I say the word "love", or "wonderful", or "amazing"?  I cannot stop raving about this book.  However, a word of caution: if you were a fan of the previous books, I can't guarantee that you'll love this one as much as I did.  It is very different from Cashore's earlier books, and it shows her maturation as a writer, but I can see how not everyone would enjoy the direction her writing and books have gone.  Nonetheless, it takes a true genius to meld together a fantastical world with an exciting plot, and have many characters that are unique that the readers actually care about.

Overall Rating: 5/5

Book Review: "The Pledge"

The Pledge 

by Kimberly Derting 

Goodreads Summary: In the violent country of Ludania, the classes are strictly divided by the language they speak. The smallest transgression, like looking a member of a higher class in the eye while they are speaking their native tongue, results in immediate execution. Seventeen-year-old Charlaina has always been able to understand the languages of all classes, and she's spent her life trying to hide her secret. The only place she can really be free is the drug-fueled underground clubs where people go to shake off the oppressive rules of the world they live in. It's there that she meets a beautiful and mysterious boy named Max who speaks a language she's never heard before . . . and her secret is almost exposed.

Charlie is intensely attracted to Max, even though she can't be sure where his real loyalties lie. As the emergency drills give way to real crisis and the violence escalates, it becomes clear that Charlie is the key to something much bigger: her country's only chance for freedom from the terrible power of a deadly regime.

Review: The book is marketed as a dystopian, but I believe that it fits best as a fantasy.  The world of this book bears some resemblance to Earth, but not enough for it be a future world (unless the structure of the world drastically changes to having queens with magic as the ruling power of all the countries). 

With that being said, I thought the world that Derting constructed was very intriguing.  Can you imagine a world with a class system that is based on language?  It's an interesting concept and it was well constructed in this fantasy world.  The character of Charlie wasn't as dynamic as I would have liked, and I didn't really feel the connection between her and Max.  However, this is one book where the plot and story took precedence over the main characters.  The class system and social structure were very interesting ideas, and I loved that magic was prevalent in the world.  I do wish that Derting took more time to really develop all the characters, but I was pretty satisfied with how the characters shaped up.  This could have worked as a standalone book, but it is part of a trilogy.  The sequel will be out next year.  I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys fantasy novels similar to Graceling by Kristin Cashore.


Overall Rating: 4/5

Home Again, Home Again, Jiggety Jig

I'm taking a break from blogging about book reviews to blog a little bit about my first time being a homeowner.  Expect to see more entries about the joys and trials of homeownership now and again on my blog (I figured it would break up the monotony of only reading book reviews).

Book Review: Scarlet

Scarlet

by A.C. Gaughen

Goodreads Summary: Posing as one of Robin Hood’s thieves to avoid the wrath of the evil Thief Taker Lord Gisbourne, Scarlet has kept her identity secret from all of Nottinghamshire. Only the Hood and his band know the truth: the agile thief posing as a whip of a boy is actually a fearless young woman with a secret past. Helping the people of Nottingham outwit the corrupt Sheriff of Nottingham could cost Scarlet her life as Gisbourne closes in.

It’s only her fierce loyalty to Robin—whose quick smiles and sharp temper have the rare power to unsettle her—that keeps Scarlet going and makes this fight worth dying for

Review: I have a confession to make before I start my actual review: for most of my childhood - thanks to Disney - I thought Robin Hood was a fox.  As a result, I was not very interested and therefore not very familiar with the Robin Hood legend.  I know the basics, but none of the details, including who Will Scarlet is or was supposed to be.  In a way, it was good because I was able to read the book without many preconceptions.

First off, I really enjoyed the premise of the book.  I love the idea that one of Robin Hood's Merry Men was actually a feisty girl thief in disguise.  I wasn't very surprised at Scarlet's true identity, but nonetheless loved the idea of it.  However, there were a few things that stopped me from really enjoying the book.

I liked that Gaughen kept the writing and speech in style with that time period and consistent throughout; however, personally, I had a very hard time reading it.  It took quite a bit of work for me to decipher what Scarlet actually meant at times.  If I could have changed one thing about the book, it would have been for Scarlet to speak that style, but narrate normally.  Perhaps that would have changed my overall opinion about the book.

The other big thing about the book that I didn't enjoy very much was how Gaughen portrayed Robin Hood.  In most adaptations, Robin is dashing and charming with a fairly jovial, but still responsible, nature.  With this adaptation, Robin - or Rob as he was called - was portrayed as a brooding, tragic hero.  Basically, I felt like the author turned Robin Hood into an emo teenager, which was not how I pictured him at all.  While I like the depth Gaughen gave him, with his past, responsibilities, and burdens weighing him down, it seemed like that became the predominant trait of this version's Robin Hood.

Unfortunately, while I liked the idea of the book, I didn't enjoy the execution of it very much.  However, if you're a fan of Robin Hood, you might still enjoy this interesting spin on a classic tale.  (Call me shallow, but I did love the cover of this book!)

Overall Rating: 2.5/5