An Enchantment of Ravens » Book Review

 

An Enchantment of Ravens » Sierra's Thoughts

I must have been a faerie in my past life because this book made me feel nothing. It's a pity because it has such an interesting premise and I really thought I would enjoy it. Another reviewer compared the setting and atmosphere of the novel to Uprooted, which is one of my absolute favorite books of all time, so I was pumped.

While I do agree with that assessment, it wasn't enough to save the book for me.

WARNING: I may sound like a Love-Grinch, here...

In order to like this book, you have to be rooting for Isobel and Rook's love story. But... WHAT LOVE STORY?! How did it even happen?! Somehow, the process of them falling in love completely slipped by me.

When I started the book, I thought Isobel was a great character. She was not only an extremely talented artist but also a clever young woman...

Now, in the book, human crafts are traded for faerie enchantments. However, you have to be very careful about how you word these enchantments because the faeries enjoy tricking humans and finding ways to subvert those enchantments. Our heroine, Isobel, always thought these enchantments through and made sure that they benefited her whole family — her Aunt Emma and random goat-sisters. She was smart.

Alas, all good things come to an end because she meets a prince and feelings happen.



"This wasn't like me. So many years of being cautious, and in a matter of minutes I'd started slipping up."

DAMN YOU, ISOBEL. I refuse to believe that years of dedicated attention to detail can fall by the wayside as soon as she gets a crush. Shouldn't some kind of cognitive muscle-memory kick in?

Here's a quote where Isobel does some self-reflection on this matter:

"Now I have to tell you how foolish I am. Before that gray and lifeless time following Rook's departure, I'd always scoffed at stories in which maidens pine for their absent suitors, boys they've hardly known a week and have no business falling for. Didn't they realize their lives were worth more than the dubious affection of one silly young man? That there were things to do in a world that didn't revolve solely around their heartbreak? Then it happens to you and you understand you aren't any different from those girls after all. Oh, they still seem just as absurd - you've simply joined them, in quite a humbling way."



Here's the thing. I can actually buy into this. Ellen can tell you, I pine like no other. However, unlike the readers of this story, Ellen knows every searing detail behind the pining. (She may not want to, but she does.)

In An Enchantment of Ravens, we have no idea why the pining is happening. Isobel meets Rook; Rook saves Isobel; Isobel starts slipping up; Rook sits for portrait; Rook is vain, Rook pays Isobel in enchanted ravens; (*BAM*) Isobel is in love with Rook. And all this happens within the first four chapters...

As I read on, though, I realized that there is a redeeming quality in Isobel. She does eventually realize that infatuation is different from love and is able to discern that within herself.

But by that point, I had lost my investment in the characters. In the book, we never really figure out why or how Isobel and Rook fall in love. And because their love is the driving force behind the plot and action of the book, I wasn't very invested in those things, either.

Plot, Pacing, and the Rest

The plot of this book is predictable. If you are familiar with its genre, you will see the plot twists coming a mile away. Nothing surprised me. As for the pacing, it was a little all over the place, but it didn't detract from the overall story.

The main issue I had with this novel, is the way the author seemed to hide pieces of information from the reader for no apparent reason. Have you ever had a friend, in your childhood, who would start to give you something and then just snatch it away at the last second? That's what it felt like. (I'm not friends with that person anymore.)

For example, Isobel references the trauma of her parents' death a few times, even in a discussion with her aunt (who was also shaken up by what had happened), but nobody — not the author, not Isobel, not the aunt — ever goes into any details about what occurred. It was infuriating!

To Close...

Even though An Enchantment of Ravens is supposed to be a stand-alone novel, it could be expanded into a series. Maybe that's where we'll learn what happened to Isobel's parents. I don't think I will pick up a sequel. However, I do think I will give this author another try if she publishes an unrelated novel.

A Court of Mist and Fury » Book Review

If A Court of Thorns and Roses was a Beauty and the Beast retelling, then A Court of Mist and Fury is the story of Hades and Persephone. This book is darker, sexier, and more twisting than its predecessor and I LIKED THAT.

Here's the thing... Maas has the ability to write vastly entertaining books, ALBEIT with juvenile edges. She often resorts to B-movie theatrics and hair-pin turn-arounds, and that can annoy me.  So even though I can't respect her writing as that of a master, I can enjoy her stories immensely.

And I enjoyed A Court of Mist and Fury, moreso than I have any of Maas's other books.

Part of the charm was the romance.  [spoiler]In a move that is just SO Maas, the love interest of the previous book is demolished. Tamlin goes the way of Chaol from the Throne of Glass series and becomes an asshole...all to make way for a newer, fresher, more intense love story.[/spoiler] I'm not going to lie — I love a dark-edged love story and that's exactly what Maas delivers in A Court of Mist and Fury.

As for Feyre, our protagonist, we don't see her do anything as incredibly epic as the Wyrm Hunt of A Court of Thorns and Roses, but the character does come into her own in A Court of Mist and Fury.  At times, I thought she was losing her distinction as a character, but then Maas would tighten things up once more and Feyre emerge once again. She's a human-hearted girl who can hold her own in a crowd of powerful and ruthless fae.

Another great character — Rhysand.  He was the complicated villain character in the previous book, and he comes back with a vengeance in A Court of Mist and Fury.  He is Tamlin's foil, and he has a whole other agenda when it comes to Feyre and ideas about how she should be spending her new immortality.  Rhysand is the High Lord of Night, Dreams, and Nightmares, and, in the words of Feyre, is as faceted as the night sky.  The prose lit up whenever he was present on the page.

Speaking of characters, one of my big complaints about A Court of Thorns and Roses, was how few major characters there were.  The cast seemed very, very small — Feyre, Tamlin, and Lucien.  Fortunately, Maas broadens her story in the sequel.  We got to meet more than several new cast members, mostly friends and allies of Rhysand.  My favorite by far was Cassian, a brute of a soldier with passionate appetites.  I hope we see more of him going forward. Mor was also great — a lovely high-fae woman with a brutal past.

We get to learn far more about how the fae-realms work in A Court of Mist and Fury, partly because the book is quite long (a good thing!) and partly because Feyre has the means to find out more.  One sub-storyline I liked immensely was that of the Illyrians — a low-fae race with bat-wings and talons.  They're a warrior race with a rich culture, but they treat women like shit.  It was so interesting to see fae-feminism come into play in this book.  It's a subject that usually isn't touched on in the flood of fae-centered fantasies on the market. It was a really nice sub-plot.

This review has been quite rambling, but meh, whatever.  So was the book, really — meandering, long, and self-indulgent. But I really, truly liked all of these qualities.  Most especially, the darker, more adult turn this sequel took.  Is A Court of Mist and Fury really being sold in the YA section? Whew! It most definitely has NA themes about it.

So, if you were hesitant about picking up the sequel to A Court of Thorns and Roses, I say give it a shot.  I liked it far better than book one, which I thought was deeply flawed, yet entertaining.  A Court of Mist and Fury is most definitely imperfect, but nevertheless shines in its own, weird light.

 

The Falconer | Review

Let me start this review with a small rant about steampunk.

Steampunk, or mechanical fantasy as I call it, is a genre of fiction featuring a historical setting with advanced, often whimsical, technology.  It is often set in the Victorian period, although there are exceptions.  Dirigibles, automatons, spider-like vehicles, and weapons masquerading as ladies' accessories are popular pieces of steampunk machinery.

I DO NOT LIKE IT!

I dislike how steampunk machinery makes no scientific sense whatsoever.  I also dislike how steampunk books are often choked with genre cliches and tropes.

That being said, I can tolerate it in small doses.  My favorite series of all time, Lindsay Buroker's The Emperor's Edge, has steampunk elements to it.  However, for the most part, the technology in Buroker's series make sense, and the characters are often slaving over hot boilers or wrangling awkward machinery gone awry.  I like that Buroker's machines are bulky and malfunctioning and hinder the heroes as often as they help them.

On the other hand, Elizabeth May's The Falconer has the kind of steampunk technology that I'm not overly fond of — mechanical hands that shoot out to pour tea and fold bustles.  There are implausible helicopters ornithopters and and little ornate devices that hold tremendous power.  Um, what kind of power and how does the device harness it?  Nevermind that! Tremendous power!!

I connect the star and the remaining knife. Power flows from the objects as they melt together to form the larger star. The metal is smooth in my palm again.

See what I mean?  It's nonsense, I tell you!

As for the rest of the book, it's good.  It's a fun read, with kick-ass heroine and lots of action and antics.  The Falconer follows a young Victorian lady of Edinburgh, Aileana Kameron, whose mother was brutally murdered by a faery.  In the days after her mother's death, Aileana learned that her country has a bit of a faery infestation and humans are being slaughtered because of it.  Shortly after, she met her... unique... tutor, Kiaran McKay, who instructs her in all things murderous and violent.  With his help she goes on a supernatural killing spree.  Her life of wreaking revenge is upended, however, when she learns that the faeries below ground,  imprisoned in their kingdom, are very close to breaking out.

My favorite part of the book, funnily enough, was a character called Derrick.  He plays the comical sidekick, which is usually a part that I care little for.  But Derrick was truly hilarious.  He's a pixie, a male Tinkerbell, and lives in Aileana's closet, mending her gowns for honey, which intoxicates him.  His scenes caused me to laugh quite often.  More than that, he also served to make the fae folk more accessible.  Athough Derrick doesn't kill humans like his larger kinfolk, he is still an uncanny creature.  I liked how May made the villains slightly more sympathetic by giving them a spectrum of behavior that we got to witness.

However, there were issues with the book besides the steampunk.  I found myself arguing with Aileana's logic and the behavior of other characters quite a bit.  The writing also seemed to be... manipulative, unkind, coy?  I felt strung along, as a reader, having things withheld that didn't have to be.  Did the romance really have to unfold that way?  It was strung out for so long that when something did happen it felt too little too late.  And the cliffhanger.  By god.  What a disservice to readers.

All in all, I give The Falconer three stars.  It had good elements and frustrations in equal measure.  However, I will surely be picking up the sequel, which comes out this November.