Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Sea of Monsters

Continuing this journey of reading books I should have read years ago, I'm working my way through Percy Jackson & the Olympians, by Rick Riordan. This is a series that my youngest sister has been telling me to read for a couple years now, much like the Artemis Fowl series. (I'm going to admit that I liked Artemis Fowl a lot more than I like these books, but I digress.)

I was obsessed with Greek mythology when I was a kid. Weird thing for a young girl to be obsessed with, I know, but I was homeschooled and hey, I enjoyed it. So reading ancient myths wasn't really like school for me. And quite frankly, I have always had a soft spot for mythology; Egyptian, Roman, Greek, Norse, Japanese (another favourite), etc. That's another post for another day, though.

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The Sea of Monsters is the second book in the Olympians series, following The Lightning Thief. At the start of this book we see Percy Jackson at the end of his seventh grade year of school. Surprisingly, nothing has happened all school year to get him kicked out, which he is amazed by because he's a half-blood, a son of Poseidon. And then gym class happens. And wouldn't you know it, there are Laistrygonian monsters after him. Not because they want to kill him for any higher power, but because they want lunch. Go figure.

Amazon.com

Percy and his big bumbling friend Tyson manage to get out of the mess only with the help of Percy's friend Annabeth, also a half-blood, a daughter of Athena. When they finally reach Camp Half-Blood on Long Island, they learn that Thalia's tree, which protects the camp, is dying. The only way to save it is to find the Golden Fleece (yes, that one). That's where Percy and Annabeth's satyr friend Grover comes in. Percy had already been having dreams about him being trapped somewhere by a Cyclops, presumably where the nature magic is plentiful, since Grover is on a search for the god Pan.

Oh hey, that island is where the Gold Fleece is hanging out! But of course, it's in the Sea of Monsters, which is a place not entirely related to the actual sea. In fact, just like Hades and Mt Olympus, the location of the Sea has moved around depending on where the height of Western Civilization is. So while Hades is under Los Angeles and Mt Olympus is above the Empire State Building, the Sea of Monsters is off the cost of Florida somewhere.

Getting into the Sea is kind of a problem, though. After all, one must pass by Scylla and Charybdis. And then there's the Sirens, somewhere in the Sea. And so on. And all this time, the kids have to be worrying about the fact that the Titan Lord Kronos is being awakened from deep in the pit of Tartarus. Like they didn't have enough on their plate already.

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I'm not going to tell you any more of the story for spoiler reasons, but I do have a few things I want to say about the book (and series, I guess) as a whole. Like I mentioned before the review section, I adore Greek mythology. And while I'm not sure how I feel about Rick Riordan's writing style (first person writing is just...well it's a preference thing I guess), he has such a wonderful grasp on mythology and I kept squealing with delight at things as they happened. Honestly, this is the kind of story I could have written, though probably not in the first person haha. So I will keep pushing through. I started the third book, The Titan's Curse, last night. I'm already almost halfway through, so there will be a review up by the weekend, I'm sure.

In conclusion, four stars for this book. So far, it's my favourite. Since I've only read two and a half, I don't know if that counts, but I was just really excited about the Golden Fleece and the Sea of Monsters.

The Forbidden Library

It's funny, because when I was a teenager, I found myself wanting to read the books in the adult fantasy and sci-fi section of the library. Now, I'm returning to the children's fantasy that I have always loved. I'm disillusioned with adult books because so many of them are just too inappropriate and weirdly amoral for my taste. That's not to say there aren't good ones, obviously, but I digress. The Forbidden Library by Django Wexler is a new kids fantasy book that I happened upon at the library a few weeks ago. It's relatively short; fairly large print and under 400 pages, so I ate it up in a day, three days ago. I have this bad habit of staying up way too late reading, but then at least I get lots of reading done! But on to the review.

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from Amazon.com

Alice Creighton doesn't believe in doing things halfway. Even if she dislikes something (such as algebra), she will work as hard as she can to become skilled. One night she is working hard on her algebra homework assigned by her tutor, Miss Juniper, when she hears her father arrive home from work. She creeps down the servant stairs towards the kitchen, but stops short when she hears a voice and a low drone she does not recognize.

Turns out fairies are real, and this one is a real monster-looking thing. He's yellow and black and is threatening Alice's father. She eavesdrops, which she knows she shouldn't have. Not long after this late-night encounter, Mr. Creighton leaves on a journey by ship. News comes back that the ship has gone down. Alice is sent to live with her uncle on his creepy and eerily silent estate, The Library.

Geryon is an incredibly old man that Alice thinks cannot possibly be her uncle. He also tells her that the actual library on the property is off-limits unless she is with someone. This library happens to be an unattached building away from the main house; it recedes into the woods, so one cannot get a sense of how big it actually is.

One night Alice decides to investigate the library alone, after she has been taken into it by the oddly bland servant girl Emma. She meets a talking cat, Ashes, and suddenly discovers that things are not at all as they seem. Geryon is a Reader, a type of wizard who uses the power of books and words as his magic. And he is in the midst of a small war. And Alice finds she, too, has these magic powers, which she realizes will help her find the fairy again and discover what really happened to her father.

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As far as I can tell, The Forbidden Library is actually the first in a series, and I have to say I am quite excited. Django Wexler tells this story so well, and he also uses the word susurrus twice so I kind of have to like him. Anyway, I give this book five stars (yes, I liked it that much) and eagerly await the next installment.

Twitter-style book reviews no. 2

I had intended to just write book reviews on my personal blog, Alice in Faerieland, but then I realized I actually want to keep all my bookish writings separate. Occasionally I will cross post, but I'm too attached to this blog to quit entirely. That being said, I cannot write full reviews of all the books I have read recently (meaning in the last year or so), so here is another quick list.

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The Lightning Thief, by Rick Riordan

      Fairly good opening to an incredibly popular series. Percy Jackson is a likeable boy, as are his friends. And Riordan (despite the fact that I don't much like his writing style) has a fantastic grasp on Greek mythology, which I greatly appreciate because I was obsessed with it when I was a kid. (I feel bad putting this book in this list when I just finished the second one and am going to write a full review, but I read this last summer so the details are not as fresh in my mind....)

Cloud Atlas, by David Mitchell

     Where do I even begin with this one? It was a confusing and honestly hellish ride, but I absolutely loved it. Mitchell has a unique way of showing how we as humans are all connected in ways we may never know. I truly wish I had actually penned a review upon finishing the book, because there's no way I would get it right a year later. Sigh. It's definitely worth reading, though. The film...ugh. No.

Fruits Basket, Volumes 1-4, by Natsuki Takaya (link to volume one)

     Ah, manga, how I love thee. And I wish I had managed to keep up on reading Fruits Basket because I may need to reread these four volumes before moving on. The series is long, but manga is easily consumed. I find Fruits Basket to be an adorable tale, and that's really all I have to say at this point, haha. Must read the rest.

Translucent, Volume 1, by Kazuhiro Okamoto

     All I recall about this manga is that it was adorably romantic and the main character, Shizuka, has Translucent Syndrome, which causes parts of her body to basically go invisible over time. I don't know how many volumes there are of this and I intend to find them.

Pita-Ten, Volumes 1-3, by Koge-Donbo

     Yes, I was on a manga kick for awhile last summer. It happens. Often. And then I discover that my library only has a few volumes of a certain series and totally forget about it until I go back and look at what I read on GoodReads. Anyway, Pita-Ten is one of those that I feel like was written mainly for the cutesy factor. Misha, the main character, is an adorably hyperactive angel who is living on earth, and given her hyperactiveness, hilarity ensues. The translation is a little over the top, which I have noticed my fellow GoodReads people agree with, but oh well. Must find and read the rest of these. I truly dislike leaving a series unfinished, unless I hate it with a passion (I'm looking at you, A Song of Ice and Fire.)

William Shakespeare's Star Wars: Verily, A New Hope, by Ian Doescher

     I truly have no words for this utter masterpiece of a retelling of one of my favourite movies into the gorgeous prose of one of my favourite writers of all time. Ian Doescher has created a moment of perfection. This is worth reading aloud, by the way.

Between Shades of Gray, by Ruta Sepetys

     This is one of those YA novels that I found at the bookstore and brought home and left sit for months on my dresser. It is a historical novel, an account of a Lithuanian teenage girl and her family who are deported to Siberia during WWII. The writing is lyrical, Lina is a truly believable character, and the situations these people went through made me cry. I don't even want to tell you anything else, just read it.

Thirteen Reasons Why, by Jay Asher

     This was a gorgeous and sad book. Clay, a high school student, receives a set of tapes that turn out to be from Hannah Baker, a girl whom he had cared for who had committed suicide. The tapes reveal her reasons for killing herself. It is a chilling account of how lies and rumors can hurt a person...and it makes you never want to spread a terrible rumor ever again.

The Towers, by Jordan Jeffers

     First off, one of my best friends painted the cover of this book, so there's that. Second, this is epic fantasy in the tradition of Tolkien. And third, it was sort of difficult to read at times, but it was one of the most beautiful fantasy novels I have ever read, with true sacrifice being a central theme. This is one of those that I will read again, and will most likely write a more detailed review. I cannot do it justice right now.

Death Note, Volumes 1-12, by Tsugumi Ohba & Takeshi Obata

    Oh look, a manga series that I managed to finish! This series gripped me in a way that I haven't experienced recently with manga. It was fast paced, hilarious at times, and raised many interesting questions about the morality of killing. Light Yagami, the main character, is a high school student who discovers a notebook which turns out to be a Death Note of a shinigami, a Japanese god of death. He learns he can kill anyone whose name and face he knows, so he begins to rid the world of criminals. Soon the Japanese Police are on the trail for this killer, known only as Kira, with the help of a teenage (I assume) genius by the name of L, who happens to be my favourite character. This is a series that I would recommend to people who have never even read any manga, honestly.

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Okay, I'm caught up now, with the exception of a few that I most recently finished. I will be writing complete reviews of those, including A Series of Unfortunate Events, by Lemony Snicket. Not each book separately, though!

Artemis Fowl: The Arctic Incident

Mmkay, so I read this entire book yesterday.
It was just one of those days.

In Artemis Fowl: The Arctic Incident, we see the same cast of characters returning, though not for all the same reasons. This time it isn't Artemis attacking the fairies. Well, not attacking, exactly, but at any rate it isn't his fault. Captain Holly Short, with a score to settle, thinks the thirteen year old criminal mastermind is behind the goblin uprising (clearly someone is doing weapons trading), and Commander Root believes her. They kidnap Artemis and his bodyguard, Butler, and bring them belowground, where it is quickly discovered that the kid had nothing to do with the goblins. But he could probably help.

The result is that Root and Holly end up assisting Artemis to rescue his father, who is apparently alive (though not quite well) and being held captive in Murmansk, Russia. Fairies hate the cold, and they don't handle radiation well at all. So this is a big thing.

Naturally, both problems become entangled when the goblins stage a revolution in Haven, the fairy capital city, and attempt to assassinate Root and Holly in northern Russia. Yeah. It isn't pretty. And by the end of the story, everything is resolved (as usual). But this time Artemis and the fairies part on good terms After all, they did help save Artemis Fowl the First. It seems that perhaps Artemis isn't destined to be an enemy to the magic folk for all time....

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Again, short and slightly convoluted summary. Colfer's writing wasn't really any better in this book, either. And I think the editors for the edition I read were not doing their job. SO MANY SPELLING MISTAKES AND MISSING LETTERS. Erm. Yeah. It was really incredibly annoying. But it's cool to see the relationship between Artemis and Holly going somewhere. I don't mean romantically; I think they could genuinely have a friendship in the near future. They've seen the best and worst of each other already.

Artemis Fowl

My youngest sister (she's almost 13) has been bugging me to read the Artemis Fowl series by Eoin Colfer for oh, at least two years now. I think. Being free of college at last (which was almost two years ago...), I have the freedom to read for leisure. But I kept forgetting about dear little Artemis. Sure, I read the first book about four or five years ago while I was working at the library. But that's as far as I got. So I have now taken it upon myself to read the entire series before winter is over. Not a huge problem, since the books aren't that long.

I reread the first book, to reacquaint myself with the characters. Artemis is likeable in a sad way; you feel sorry for him at the beginning -- a missing father (presumed dead) and a very sick mother because of that. Artemis' bodyguard, Butler, doesn't have too much of a personality in this book, but he's quite impressive. The fairies we meet in the first book are rather hilarious. I love Captain Holly Short for her spunk and willingness to disobey orders when they are dumb. Which, let's face it, many of the orders coming from Commander Julius Root are dumb. Root is absolutely hilarious, and I'm sure Colfer meant him to be. Always about to blow his top, it's a wonder that he's in charge at LEP at all! And there's Foaly, the paranoid centaur who controls all the techie stuff. Oh, and we can't forget Mulch Diggums, kleptomaniac extraordinaire. I'm not kidding. He's quite the convict.

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As far as the story goes, it's a decent one. Fairies have hidden underground from humans, which they call Mud Men, for many centuries now. They go aboveground for few things, one being to renew their magic. This is how Holly gets captured by Artemis, who has an uncanny knowledge of the fairies. Commander Root stages an attack on Fowl Manor, they discover that Artemis has a copy of the Book, the fairies' holy writ, as it were, and things don't go so hot after that.

That's a simple summary.

The problem I had with this book is that Eoin Colfer is good with weaving a plot but he's kind of a terrible writer. So much of his grammar was bad. Plus, he doesn't use POV and omniscient narrator very well. There were more than a few pages where I couldn't figure out who was saying and/or thinking what.

I gave the book 3 stars because though it's badly written, it's amusing and a clever story.

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children [minor spoilers]

Combining eerie vintage photographs from various sources to create a not-quite-horror story about children who are different, peculiar shall we say, is an intriguing premise. Personally, I have always loved imagining the stories behind old photographs, so this book was a must-read for me.

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children is Ransom Riggs' first novel, though according to the author blurb in the back of the book, he has been a writer for some time. As a first novel, it's somewhat obvious that he hasn't quite found his writing style "niche" but that doesn't stop this book from being fascinating, wondrous, and downright entertaining.

Jacob Portman has known about the peculiar children for most of his life. His grandfather, Abe Portman, has a collection of photographs that he would show his grandson and regale him with tales of the things they could do, the home/orphanage they lived in during the War, and their mysterious headmistress, Miss Peregrine. Jacob, as any sensible, no-nonsense child growing up in modern day Florida would do, doubts his grandfather's stories as he gets older.

When Jacob is sixteen, leading an ordinary life, things suddenly are turned upside down when his grandfather is attacked and killed by a strange and unnerving creature. Jacob thinks he is going crazy because no one else could see the creature. And Abe Portman's last words about finding the bird in the loop on September 3rd, 1940 don't make any sense. Eventually, Jacob and his father find their way to Cairnholm Island in Wales, where Jacob discovers the old mansion that had been the home his grandfather talked about. It is in ruins, having been hit by a bomb early in the War. Jacob is discourage, but he soon finds out that the children are still alive and well...living in a time loop.

I don't think I should tell you anymore, because, honestly, I've never really understood book reviews that basically regurgitate the entire story and critique each and every bit of it. I don't want to spoil a great plot with lots of mystery, even though this isn't technically a mystery book. :)

I give this book 4 stars, because Riggs has crafted an intriguing story with the timeless themes of love, loss, and trust amidst a truly fantastic tale of horrific creatures, peculiar talents, and time travel. He also uses the vintage photographs well, creating characters that fit well with each one.