Book 41: City of Bones

This book has gotten a lot of hype and it's been on my list of books to read (which is quite extensive) for quite some time. After the Twilight incident I've been very cautious about books that get a lot of hype but this one deserves most of it.

Although this blog does not yet reflect it, I love to read books about angels, daemons and lore of any sorts and this book has no shortage of them. It started back when i read The Fallen by Thomas Sniegoski and that book and series really set the bar for books of such a nature (similarly to the Tortall books by Tamora Pierce). Because of this I believe I didn't enjoy the book as much as I might have and it has distorted my view on the book.

I've spent a great deal of time studying lore and when slight changes are made it gets under my skin really easily and for this reason I rate this book 5 runes out of ten. Not great but not terrible. It's a very fast paced book and an excellent weekend read.

Book 40: The Dead-Tossed Waves

It's hard to rate or describe this book in a suitable fashion. There was so much emotion in it that I really don't know quite where to begin.

The Dead-Tossed Waves is a sequel to The Forest of Hands and Teeth. When I looked at the cover I thought it was going to be another story about Mary but it wasn't. Mary was still in it but it wasn't the books primary focus. It was about the girl she adobted and how vastly different they were but yet at the same time very much the same.

As in any really good book there was a long adventure filled with danger and death and an ending that didn't answer any of your questions but that's how authors make money. Write a book get readers hooked write a sequel with an cliff hanger sell more books come out with the last book land a movie deal and be set for your next series.

I didn't like this book as much as The Forest of Hands and Teeth. It was so hard not to compare The Dead-Tossed Waves to it that it really affected the rating of the book. I'd say that it was six sonnets out of ten. Still a very decent rating but room for improvement. I did like the book a lot and if you've read the first one it's always good to follow up with the rest of the series. Books enjoy company just as much as we do.

Book 39: Phantom

As soon as I finished Chainfire I picked up Phantom. It has shocked me to the core and left me without words and an overwhelming desire to go out and buy Confessor with money that I don't have an contemplate buying The Omen Machine the day it comes out even though it would be in hard cover and ruin the visual appeal of my shelf.

Terry Goodkind weaved a story like I've never read before. It kept me up late thinking about my life and gave me a new Wizard's Rule to live by: "Willfully turning aside from the truth is treason to one's self" (page 134).

The last two books have read like a mystery. Slowly revealing clues and making you think one thing before in the next chapter revealing something else that makes all your previous thoughts untrue. The characters all get into situations that are so hopeless that you want to give up on it all but then someone prevail again all the evil that surrounds them. These books put a seed of doubt in your head and really make you think about what's good and what's evil. They are extremely thought provoking and really mean something.

The other day one of my friends was asking me about the television series Legend of the Seeker and what I thought of it. I adore that series. It even surpassed my love of Fringe before it was cancelled. I told him that if he really wanted to get the most out of it he would be well advised to read the first four books in the series because the show has a lot of holes and inaccuracies in it. He asked me about how many pages that would be and when I told him roughly 4000 he was completely turned off by the idea. I tried to explain how life changing the series really is and even though right now I'm so far in that I can't explain it anymore he should really at least give it a chance. Needless to say this started a debate on reading and books and I feel bad because I discredited him on many accounts but when you insult my favourite series by one of my favourite authors you can expect no less.

I rated Chainfire rather low because I found it disappointing but Phantom get eight night wisps out of ten. It was a phenomenal read and one of the fastest paced books I've read in a while. It kept you on the edge of your seat the whole time. I really enjoyed it. It will not let fans of the series down.

Book 38: Chainfire

I started reading Chainfire what seems like forever ago and the beginning is very foggy in my memory. I didn't enjoy it as much as any of the other books in the series. I didn't think it was possible for Richard to be more whiny than he was but alas it was possible indeed.

I really enjoyed Wizards Ninth Rule:

"A contraction cannot exist in reality. Not in part, nor in whole. To believe in a contradiction is to abdicate your belief in the existence of the world around you and the nature of the things in it, to instead embrace any random impulse that strikes your fancy - to imagine something is real simply because you wish it were. A thing is what it is, it is itself. There can be no contradictions. " (Page546)

As most of the Wizard's Rules are very applicable to our everyday lives. They aren't just for wizards.

Overall I didn't like the book all that much. I found that Richard was far too whiny. For this reason I give it five arrows out of ten. The story must go on.

Book 37: Debt of Bones

Before I left for Disney I read Debt of Bones by Terry Goodkind and forgot to post a review. Partly because I was too lazy too and partly because I was too busy. It's my stance on such matters that it's better late than never.

I really enjoyed Debt of Bones. It's about Zedd when he was younger. It wasn't a prequel in any sense of the word but a history of the place that anyone who has read any of the Richard and Kahlan novels have come to love. I hope that Mr. Goodkind writes more of these because it makes what goes on in the rest of the series makes more sense. The world that he has created is so filled with history.

I cannot remember what I would have rated this book but it was probably somewhere around a seven. It was a good fast read.

Book 36: The Forest of Hands and Teeth

I read this book way back in 2009 for the first time right after I discovered Scott Westerfeld. Then it captured my fascination and when I had a spare 20$ and couldn't decide what new book I wanted to buy I decided to go with an old book that I loved when I first read it. At the time I was listening to a lot of Cemeteries of London by Cold Play which after the second read I believe suits the book better than any other music that I can think of.

It is a book about a girl named Mary who lives in a highly secretive society that's fenced in from the rest of the world. There was a virus that consumed the world turning everyone into unconsecrated (zombies) which made everything outside their small village dangerous. As we all know good things don't last forever and neither did this utopia.

I find this book very depressing. It just keeps on getting worse and worse but the ending is very satisfying. I really love how strong of a character Mary is. She is very inspirational and earns her spot on my "courage heroins" shelf. I give this book 9 red vests out of 10. It is very good but you really need to be prepared for it.

This book has two covers. The new one isn't great but the old one has my heart. It was the one that drew me in and made me read it.
Old:

New:

Isn't the old one better?

Book 35: So Yesterday

This was my plan ride (twice), my 20 minutes before bed and my day at the beach (water parks are close enough) and as always Scott Westerfeld does not disappoint.

Similarly to his book Peeps (Not so much The Last Days that one was weird) every chapter started out with a story or definition. This is perhaps one of my favourite things that Westerfeld does in his writing. I love to learn new thing and picking up random interesting facts that I can spurt out in the middle of awkward conversations and Scott Westerfeld's books are one of my largest sources for this. I'm still raving about Toxoplasmosis and it's been 4 years since I read Peeps.

Anyways, So Yesterday is all about cool and consumerism. It reminded me a lot of The Tipping Point only in novel form with a mystery woven in. It breaks down society into it's elements and describes how they interact which is very fascinating.

One of the best points that the book brings up is how hard it is to be "cool", how ambiguous cool really is and how cool doesn't last or really matter. We all spend so much time in out lives worrying about what other people will think about us if we wear something or listen to a certain band that we aren't really ourselves anymore. We are all sheep and we all fall for stupid advertisements because we can't help it because of the way our brains are programmed. Everything's been done before and originality is dead. We just need to move on with our lives.

I give this book 8 pairs of shoes out of 10. It was really well written but it wasn't what I expected. I wanted more and it left me high and dry. It was still a fantastic read.