I finally took a bit of time to sit down and record Chapter 2! And it's just as bizarre as I remember it being. Remember this was written by an 8th grader who had limited access to the internet and had no idea how public school worked. Science? We don't know her. Middle school classes? Most of my middle school education was on the computer on these stupid CD-ROMs that I hated. Realistic children? Don't count on it. But it's all fun anyway! At least I think so. Just like last time, the text version of this chapter is below the video if you feel like reading along! Enjoy! (Or cringe and turn away in horror.) Chapter 2: James and Abby
The football went flying towards his head as James stopped to ponder a science question. I can’t tell you what it was about because I know nothing about science, with the exception of the rule: What goes up must come down. That is exactly what happened in this football practice. The coach threw the ball and it hit James square in the face, well, then again, footballs are oval, so it hit James oval in the face. We’ll just stick to square, because it sounds a lot better. Anyway, James got hit in the face and plummeted to the ground. That also portrayed my rule from above, what goes up must come down. James scuttled to his feet and looked down, yuck, a tooth had fallen out! James bent to pick it up and went to hear the Coach’s complaints. “What were you thinking Kingston?!” Coach barked, “You have to look up to catch the ball! This is the ninth time this WEEK that you haven’t been paying attention!” All the other boys chortled behind their hands. “Sorry Coach, I was thinking about a science question, problem forty-four, ‘is it possible to create worm holes or portals to other worlds.’” James explained, “I think it’s a matter of opinion, but you know scientists these days, always coming up with a new theory.” The Coach actually growled at this. “Kingston, we aren’t the science club! If you like science stuff SO much, go and join the scientists! You’ll have plenty of time for it; you are suspended from the team for four weeks!” James was shocked. How could he be suspended from the team? He was their best player! What would they do in the big Thanksgiving game without him? There was only one thing to do, find Rosie Stone and get his revenge. Abby Gail wasn’t having any better of a day; in fact it might have been worse! She couldn’t decide whether to fry her teacher or roast her, either way would be simply divine. The deliciousness of Ms. Rottencandy would soon be-- whoops, wrong story, again. As I said before nothing too bad happens to anyone. Anyway, Abby was having a horrible day because her advice column in the paper had totally been wrecked because Jeff had come in and seen who was running the column when it was supposed be secret! What if he told? No one would want to tell her their problems anymore! Her dreams of being like Oprah were dwindling! The horror! The horror! (Yes, I did just repeat myself, get over it.) Abby had to find Jeff and make him swear not to tell any person on this earth that she was the Abby of Dear Abby! She rushed down the halls of the school, looking to see if Jeff was still there. When you run fast, looking for something or someone you rarely notice anything or anyone. This is precisely what happened to Abby. She was running so fast that she didn’t see James running quickly at her. James went into the school to see if he could find Rosie because she had been interviewing him in science causing him to miss question forty-four! So now he had a bone to pick with her because she got him suspended from the football team! As he rushed through the school he didn’t notice Abby rushing towards him because as I explained before, you can’t see too well when you are rushing through the halls of your school. Since James couldn’t see Abby running at him and Abby couldn’t see James running towards her, the two applied the law of gravity that I explained earlier. Since those two were standing up, those two must be knocked down, it’s really quite simple, and I just can’t believe you can’t remember it! So James collided with Abby and Abby collided with James. Ouch. When the two arose they were even angrier than they had been--which might not be possible. “Why did you run into me?!” The two said at the same time, “I didn’t run into you! You ran into me!” Again they said it at the same time. “No!” same time again, “I,” same time, “Hey!” this was becoming comical. “Listen,” wow, same exact time, “Stop it!” Finally, James said it this time, “Stop saying the same thing as me at the same time! I’m looking for Rosie Stone; she works on the paper with you, right?” Abby nodded. “She does.” “I have a bone to pick with her,” The muscular child growled. “I’m busy looking for Jeff, that guy whose desk you sit on all the time, I need to find him before…” Abby paused. James looked quizzically at her. “Before what?” “Something bad happens.” “Well I saw Jeff hanging around Rosie; maybe they’re at one of their houses. We can go together and pick their bones at the same time.” James concluded sensibly. So the two enraged children stomped to Jeff’s house. Then upon finding the other two children not there the two left for Rosie’s apartment building. They found them there, watching the news. The two seething kids rejoiced at their find. After the rejoicing stopped they got all malicious and impolite to Jeff and Rosie. “How could you get me suspended from the football team and not know what I’m talking about?” James said mid-way into the conversation, although he was beginning to understand that Rosie had unintentionally got him suspended. But he couldn’t lighten up now that he was angry. “And you Jeffrey, if that IS your real name, how could you not have seen me reading people’s problems? It was right in front of you!” Jeff looked at Rosie and Rosie looked at Jeff, very suspicious if you ask me, but of course, they didn’t ask me, I am, after all, only the author. Later, after a whole lot of arguing you don’t want to hear, all four children had somehow ended up at James house. I believe they got there like this: Jeff started fighting with Abby and James with Rosie, but Mr. Stone got a head ache and told them to play outside. So they all went outside and started walking around. Then, suddenly, James suggested they go to his house because his mom had made apple pie. After that they all stopped arguing because Mrs. Kingston’s delicious pie was crammed in their mouths. The pie was so yummy it caused them to chat good naturedly with each other and become friends. (That must have been some good pie.) The quartet went outside and sat on the lush grass of the Kingston lawn. The neighbors (the next door lady in particular) all looked skeptically at them through their windows because the children talked and laughed so much. The kids had a great time until James’ grandfather emerged from the old outhouse in the corner of the yard. The smell that emanated from the small structure could have killed an elephant! It stank so bad that the kids had to hold their noses in hopes that they wouldn’t lose their sense of smell all together. “Must have been those beans I had for lunch, I’ve been in that hut for about an hour.” Grandpa said, walking inside. The four children on the lawn groaned and ran to close the outhouse door. Whew! The outhouse would bother them no longer. The children started to giggle at the horrid smell, I don’t get what is so funny about almost losing your sense of smell but these kids are quite odd. “Wow! That is one putrid smell!” James said. “Ugh, I can barely breathe!” Jeff gasped. “Why does your grandfather even have an outhouse?” Abby moaned. “Because he thinks that indoor plumbing is too ‘new-fangled’ and ‘it was good enough for the people when I was a boy’.” James mocked while holding his nose, “I know it’s odd but Mom thinks that since it was his house to begin with he should get to do his, uh, ‘business’ where he pleases.” I’m going to stop writing about this rancid smell and skip to what happened next. The four kids started to play ball in James’ smelly backyard. It was so fun that they hardly noticed when the yard started to smell bad again. I have promised you I will not go into that, so the smell’s mention stops here. The long afternoon had the children worn out by the time they had to go home. That night their parents rejoiced, because the kids slept like rocks. In the morning James met Abby, Jeff, and Rosie before school. “Hey you guys want to come over to my house again after school?” James asked. “Yeah, sure.” Was the collective reply. “Cool, meet you there!” James said, leaving for his first class with Jeff trailing behind. In school James was caught off guard by his first class. His science teacher told his class that the biannual science fair was happening in two weeks. James hadn’t even begun to think of a project! What was he going to do? Then he got an idea, a brilliant idea. An idea that this whole story is modeled upon. The only questions he had for his teacher were these: “Can I with work with partners?” he inquired. “Yes James, as long as at least one of them does this class with you. You know, so someone else on your team knows what you’ve been studying as well. ” The teacher explained. “And also, Mr. Smellfoot, what is the correct answer to problem forty-four?” “From the practice we did yesterday?” James nodded. “Well, Mr. Kingston, I believe the answer to that problem is yes. I have always believed that travel to an alternate world is possible with the right equipment, the right people, and imagination.” “Thank you Mr. Smellfoot.” James grinned. Now you and I know that no real science teacher would ever tell a kid to “imagine” something, but Mr. Smellfoot was no ordinary science teacher. Mr. Smellfoot was a science teacher who had also been a substitute Creative Writing teacher, and so he learned that anything is possible with a little imagination. He learned this lesson as Chad, the Creative Writing bully, had stuffed a pencil up Mr. Smellfoot’s nose. James went home happy and started his science fair project. The frame of the thing was done, as were the blueprints. Now he just needed to have a little help from his friends. Until then he decided to hide the thing in the most unusual of places. Later, at James’ house, the four friends sat on the lawn, chatting. The girls were talking about something in the newspaper and Jeff tried to get James to talk about some story that he had read earlier. James didn’t really listen to any of it, mostly because he was trying to get his own two cents in. That means he was trying to tell them something himself, but the others were busy putting at least ten cents in. A loud rupture caused them all to stop talking and stare at the outhouse. “What was that?” Abby demanded. “I don’t know. Whatever it was it came from the outhouse.” James said with a mysterious smirk. The other three kids snuck over to the outhouse to see what had made the loud noise. James remained seated on the grass, snickering silently. You, “dear” reader may be expecting it was the Grandfather of James that caused the loud noise of the outhouse, but you, reader, are wrong. It was not a gas leak from the Grandpa that caused this “boom” in the outhouse, but a machine frame. The kids saw this as James pried the walls off the old privy. The kids gasped and asked about a million questions at once, mainly, “What is it, and how did it make that noise?” James “shushed” them with a wave of his hands. “Come on people! Not so many questions at once! This is what I like to call the M.T.M.” The rest of the kids looked just as confused as they had before, then James explained, “Magical (even though it isn’t magic) Transport Machine.” The kids appeared to be perplexed so James continued, “When it is finished it should be able to take us to a different world! And it probably just made that noise because I left it turned on.” As the gang grasped this information they all started to talk again. “You mean we can go to a different world?!” “How is that possible?” “When will it be finished?” Blah, blah, blah, they were really enthusiastic. James did his best to explain everything but the questions were too many. “Um, it will be finished sooner if you help me with it, and I really need you guys’ help.” The questions stopped for a second, but then everyone wanted to know how they could help. “Well, Jeff has two jobs, first he just needs to stay in science class with me so that I can have you guys’ help. Secondly, Jeff needs to not lose his memory of fairytales, we’ll need that. Abby needs to get us costumes. Your mom owns a medieval themed restaurant right?” Abby nodded, her mother owned the coolest restaurant ever, and it had waitresses dressed as damsels and waiters dressed as pages. NOT the paper kind. “Good, we’ll need you to get us some old costumes that your mom doesn’t need anymore. Rosie, you have one of the most important jobs. You have helped your dad fix his car wash before and I will need that mechanical help because I have no idea how to work tools.” James’ friends nodded and smiled, they got to help build one of the most amazing machines of all time! The kids could not wait. Before I told you that it wasn’t a story about kids who go on cutesy adventures. It still isn’t, don’t worry all you dark readers, it won’t get cute, just like I promised. BUT I didn’t promise I wouldn’t add more characters.
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Personal Rating: 4 Stars Goodreads rating at time of review: 3.96 Content Rating: Light PG-13 (some violence) What if you had one year to save everything you loved? ONE PRINCESS. Merida of DunBroch needs a change. She loves her family—jovial King Fergus, proper Queen Elinor, the mischievous triplets— and her peaceful kingdom. But she’s frustrated by its sluggishness; each day, the same. Merida longs for adventure, purpose, challenge – maybe even, someday, love. TWO GODS. But the fiery Princess never expects her disquiet to manifest by way of Feradach, an uncanny supernatural being tasked with rooting out rot and stagnation, who appears in DunBroch on Christmas Eve with the intent to demolish the realm – and everyone within. Only the intervention of the Cailleach, an ancient entity of creation, gives Merida a shred of hope: convince her family to change within the year – or suffer the eternal consequences. THREE VOYAGES. Under the watchful eyes of the gods, Merida leads a series of epic journeys to kingdoms near and far in an attempt to inspire revolution within her family. But in her efforts to save those she loves from ruin, has Merida lost sight of the Clan member grown most stagnant of all – herself? FOUR SEASONS TO SAVE DUNBROCH – OR SEE IT DESTROYED, FOREVER. (goodreads.com) Beware, I'm about to get kind of personal in this review. I just have a lot of feelings, okay? Full disclosure, Brave is one of my all time favorite movies. Not just Pixar, not just Disney—one of my favorite movies out of all the movies I’ve seen in my life. So I went into this book feeling rather nervous. I have read and watched sequels to movies before where all of the character development from the original movie is undone. Sometimes there are massive continuity errors or character deaths that are completely unnecessary. I was so worried that something like that would happen in this book and that I would hate it. And guess what… some of those things I mentioned did happen (to a much lesser extent than I was expecting, thankfully) but I absolutely loved the majority of this book. Without any further ado, let’s get right into this, shall we? I have many thoughts and I don’t want this review to turn into a full blown book in its own right. First off, the bad. (My least favorite part of this book I will create a spoiler section for. I have severely mixed feelings about it and need to rant to someone, but it is from the very end of the book and I don’t want to spoil things for anyone who doesn’t want to be spoiled. But if you don’t care or have read the book already, go right ahead and jump to that spoiler section.) One thing that is very minor, but irritated me about this book is how they treated Merida’s animal companion. She is technically a Disney Princess and in being such, obviously has an animal companion. Hers is Angus, a massive draft horse who is, for all intents and purposes, a good boy. He’s also not very old. I mean, they never say how old he is in the movie, but he doesn’t seem that old. My sister who works with horses regularly, also agrees that he doesn’t seem that old. However, in the book they keep referring to him as ancient and said that he had to come out of retirement for a road trip they were taking. They acted like he was fragile and decrepit. And this book, as far as I can tell, takes place about four or five years after the movie, but horses can live up to thirty years so he shouldn’t be ancient just yet. Angus is such a minor part of this story that it’s really not important, but it bothered me and I’m in charge of this blog so I get to talk about whatever I want. Another thing I didn’t like about this book was the relationship between Merida and her mother, Queen Elinor. Now, if you’ve seen the movie, you know that they have had a rocky relationship in the past and that the movie was about mending that relationship. And sure, not everything is going to be perfect after one magical adventure where the queen gets turned into a bear, but I feel like the lessons they learned when the queen gets turned into a bear would be pretty memorable and that they would keep trying to fix their relationship. And it is better in this book than it was at the start of the movie, but it also feels like Elinor isn’t actually trying to make it better, she’s just not arguing with Merida. It almost feels like she’s afraid of her daughter turning her into a bear again. Which was an accident (sort of) in the first place! By the end of the book I felt things were a bit better, but I still wasn’t satisfied with Merida and Elinor’s behavior toward one another. I will say that Elinor was in the book little enough that this relationship did not truly affect how I felt about the rest of the story. So, again, not a major problem, just a little irritation. One more nitpick-y thing and then I’ll get to the parts of the book that I enjoyed (which were most of them). Merida, you may recall, has three much younger brothers: Hubert, Hamish, and Harris. In the movie, they are indistinguishable from each other and they don’t speak. Mostly because they aren’t hugely important to the film apart from causing shenanigans and sometimes helping Merida. In this book, however, they play a much more important role, which is great. I will say that I was anxious about what their dialogue would be like, since they don’t talk in the movie and they don’t have distinct personalities either, but it was well done. It started off with them not speaking, or making gestures like in the movie, then they would all speak as one for a while, and slowly we are eased into the triplets being independent of one another and getting to know their personalities and how their personalities and Merida’s view of them evolve over the course of the story. That’s not the part I have complaints with. The part I have complaints with is, again, super minor and not hugely important, but irritated me. At one point, Merida questions whether her brothers know about the secret passages all throughout Castle DunBroch. And, thankfully, later, two of the three triplets assure her that they’ve already seen the passages. But it bothers me that Merida doesn’t know that because it is one of the triplet’s biggest roles in the movie. They are constantly crawling through secret tunnels and popping up at other ends of the castle. It’s a whole thing during a scene where they have to lead King Fergus on a wild goose bear hunt through the castle. And it’s ALL THREE OF THEM. Not just Hubert and Harris. Hamish knows the secret passages too! In the book he says the secret tunnels sound scary, like he’s never been there or something. And though Merida doesn’t really see the boys use the passages in the movie, I just feel like she would know that they do. Because it’s their whole thing. And maybe in the book, it’s supposed to show us that Merida doesn’t always think of others, or how she has a set view of the people around her that needs to be updated and changed, which fits with the themes of the book. But still. I’m just a bit salty about it. Okay, enough ranting about tiny details. Let’s get to what I actually liked. Maggie Stiefvater is a wizard with words and plots. She wrote The Raven Boys series (which I did review on this blog, but I can’t find where I put it so I can’t link it) which didn’t end up being a good series for me personally, but let me give you a quote about how I felt about the writing: “THE GOSH DARNED WRITING WAS JUST SO GOSH DARNED GOOD AND THE CHARACTERS WERE WELL WRITTEN AND WELL DEVELOPED AND THE PLOT WAS INSANE AND INCREDIBLE.” So even when I don’t like the themes of Maggie Stiefvater’s books, I still am shocked and astounded by her writing. It’s unbelievably phenomenal and I was pleased to find that this was also the case with Bravely. I mean, the first chapter starts with a lengthy description of bread. I freaking love bread. The descriptions of food in general were just the epitome of “chef’s kiss”, actually. It sort of reminded me of the Redwall series by Brian Jacques. Descriptions of everything were grand. The descriptions of the settings were vivid, the descriptions of people were spot on and helpful, and the descriptions of daily castle life were realistic without being too gross (because we all know medieval times were nasty and it’s nice to no have to focus on that). The prose of this book wrapped me in a big hug every time I picked it up.
This book made me feel so comfortable reading it, but it also made me uncomfortable--in a good way! This book is all about change, but not change for the sake of doing something different. It’s about avoiding stagnation. Breaking out of your bubble of safety. Learning more about the world and people around you. It does a great job of actually changing the characters too, because rather than taking the easy route and saying “let’s just make this character experience the opposite of what their normal personality is like and call that change” it introduced them to aspects of their life that they needed to improve and their development felt organic. Lately, in my own life, I have been feeling a bit afraid of change. I’ve gotten comfortable in my house, with my cat, reading, writing, watching videos in the embrace of my blankets and big changes are scary. Part of this is probably because it is winter and winter makes it so difficult to do anything. (You can’t just leave the house, you have to bundle up, check road conditions, be prepared for it to get dark early, and experience the biting cold when you actually do get outside. It’s hard to be moving when all the sensible creatures are hibernating.) But big changes are scary for me right now too because there are tangible momentous things upcoming in the near future. Career adjustments, friends getting married, siblings graduating college or heading out on their own, the possibility of going back to school myself--all big exciting and terrifying things that spook me into inactivity. So, with the whole plot of this book being that Merida needs to find a way to help her family, friends, and home get out of their stagnant state within a year, it made me dwell on some of the ways my own life is moving ever onward and how I’ve been resistant to that lately. And even though that’s not exactly comfortable or easy, it is important. I think I read this book at the exact right time and I am grateful for it. Good books always help me process the world. Okay, enough goopy sentimentality. Another thing I like about this book is that it can stand on its own even if you haven’t read the movie. In fact, I might have almost liked it better if it weren’t connected to Brave, but I can’t quite say that with complete honesty. I think, because I have always felt a bit of connection with Merida, it made me feel more at home and invested in the happenings of this story. If it had been some other princess that is new to me, I probably wouldn’t have cared about what was going on. However, I still think others who haven’t seen the movie would really enjoy this book. The stakes are high in this book, but the edge-of-your-seat-action is at a minimum (there is one really intense scene with a fire and another with some battle, but that’s about it), so it reads like a cozy fantasy (the multiple feasts help with that). There isn’t a ton of magic in it either, so if you like more historical fiction type stories, this nearly falls under that category too. As I said before, I have a least favorite part of this book that is very much a spoiler. So I have included a spoiler section down below if you would like to see the reason why I knocked off one star from what would have been a five star read for me otherwise. This part of the review, however, we shall leave on a happy note. I wish there were more to this book so that I could keep reading it. I love the theme of change and the way this book handled it with its characters. And, as I’ve said before, Maggie Stiefvater’s writing style is incredible and even though I wasn’t a fan of The Raven Boys, I seriously need to check out some of her other work. Thanks for reading, I’m off to turn my mom into a bear (jk, jk, I would never do that… on purpose). I’ll see you in the next review! Click on “Read More” in the bottom right corner to see the spoiler section! Welcome back to the thing no one asked for but I'm going to keep doing anyway! I have some more short graphic novel reviews for your reading pleasure. Let me know if you've read any of these or if you are interested in checking any of them out!
And there you have it, the most recent batch of graphic novels that I've read! I've found that, now that I'm a stuffy old grown up with lots of responsibilities, children's graphic novels really appeal to me. Especially because it is so easy to read them and generally they can be read much faster than a traditional book. However, as I've said before, they can be difficult to write full length reviews for. I don't know if anyone is interested in these short reviews, but, like all things with this blog, I'm having fun with it so I'm going to keep doing it.
Until next time! Personal Rating: 5 Stars Goodreads rating at time of review: 3.95 Stars Content rating: G Ivy's grandmother is a healer--to mostly four-legged patients of the forest. Although the woodland creatures love her, the residents of Broomsweep grumble about Grandmother's unkempt garden. When a kingdom-wide contest is announced to proclaim the tidiest town in the land, the people of Broomsweep are determined to win. That is, if they can get Ivy's grandmother to clean up her ways. Ivy is determined to lend a hand, but the task proves more challenging when a series of unexpected refugees descends on Grandmother's cottage. Before the week is over, an injured griffin, a dragon with a cold, and a tiny flock of temperamental pixies will cause a most untidy uproar in Broomsweep . . . and brighten Ivy's days in ways she never could have dreamed. (goodreads.com) One nice thing about working at a library (apart from all day access to books and wonderful coworkers) is that there are frequently tasks to work on that are rather monotonous. Such as painting clear plastic Christmas ornaments to be used as Pokémon terrariums. With such tasks, it is sometimes possible to listen to an audiobook while working. This book was one of the first juvenile audiobooks that popped up on Libby (check your local library, see if they also have Libby or something similar, it’s a free eBook/eAudio app through your library!) when I was looking for something to listen to while working on a craft for work. I saw the cover and then saw that it was a full-cast audio recording and immediately decided this was the book for me. A moment of appreciation for the cover: Look at the colors! Look at the fluffy dog (his name is Poof)! Look at how kind the grandma looks! Look at that beautiful cozy cottage and the fun garden! I just love it so much. FANTASTIC. And the inside is just as magical. This is such a cute, warm, fluffy fairytale of a story. It’s most definitely meant for younger readers (my guess is probably 3rd grade+), but, if you are in the mood for a short cozy read then this will hold up no matter your age. It is not very long, in fact the audio was only two hours, and the story doesn’t get much done. There’s a cottage, there’s a garden, there are grouchy townspeople, and there are magical creatures. The characters are not particularly deep or dynamic, but they are fun. It’s predictable if you’ve read any other fairytale, but sometimes that’s okay. So, this isn’t some great work of literature, but it is adorable. Regarding the audiobook: I’m not sure if I would recommend it or not. I usually love a full cast audio because it reminds me of the days when my brother and I used to listen to a radio show called Adventures in Odyssey. For the most part, I was fairly neutral about the recording for this book. There was some fun music which reminded me of old cartoons, and most of the voice actors were totally fine. The mayor’s wife, on the other hand… I’m not sure if she was voiced by the narrator or a different actress, either way, her character’s voice was so horrendously screechy that I had to turn down the volume every time she spoke. Apart from the mayor’s wife, however, it was a decent audio recording. I’ve also just found out that the physical book is illustrated, so if you like illustrations (and who doesn’t?) then it might be better to read the physical book or the eBook instead of the audio. Or do both! Listen and read at the same time! Who am I to tell you what to do? However you decide to read this book, I hope you do read it! It was a very fun, definitely childish book and it was perfectly cozy and cute. I plan on picking up the sequel immediately. Thanks for reading! I am off to GUARD THE POOF. Until next time! Image source: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30688026-ivy Normally, I don’t review graphic novels on this blog. Generally, I enjoy the graphic novels I read, which makes for boring reviews and I also don’t really know how to review them because they all differ so much from each other. The art is different depending on the artist, the dialogue used can be heavy or light, then there’s the actual story and characters to consider, but it’s much more difficult to get to know the characters in a graphic novel because we generally only see facial expressions and read the things they say. Basically, I’m too lazy to put the effort into a quality review for each graphic novel I read (and I read a lot of them). So, rather than review each one individually, I thought it would be fun to just clump them all together and do a mass graphic novel review of some of the ones I’ve read most recently. It will mostly be bullet point reviews to keep things short and sweet, but I may go off on a tangent now and then. You know I can’t resist a good tangent. I also figured I would include an age recommendation based on where they are shelved at the library and the content. But without further ado, let’s get to the books!
And there you have it! Those are some of the graphic novels I’ve read recently. Do you like this style of review where it’s a whole bunch of books clumped together? Should I do more graphic novel reviews this way? Leave your opinions below if you feel like it. I had fun doing things this way so I may review more graphic novels in the future. I am always reading them so it shouldn’t be a problem to come up with more.
Until then, I hope you will try out some of these or other graphic novels that look interesting to you! Thanks for reading! All images from goodreads.com Personal Rating: 5 Stars Goodreads Rating: 4.02 Content Rating: PG-13 Trigger Warnings: Depictions of war (WWII) and some violence. Joshua Pearl comes from a world that we no longer believe in — a world of fairy tale. He knows that his great love waits for him there, but he is stuck in an unfamiliar time and place — an old-world marshmallow shop in Paris on the eve of World War II. As his memories begin to fade, Joshua seeks out strange objects: tiny fragments of tales that have already been told, trinkets that might possibly help him prove his own story before his love is lost forever. (goodreads.com) This, like Raybearer, was a book for the book club I do with some of my coworkers. We are reading a book from a different country every month and for May we did France. This book was originally written in French and I was a little apprehensive to read it at first as some reviews said that they thought it didn’t make as much sense in English. However, though it was a bit confusing at first due to the alternating points of view and scrambled timeline, it didn’t take long for me to sort things out and get wrapped up in the story. I actually liked this story so much when I finished it that I shelved it next to Inkheart and The Thief Lord (if you know me then you know how high of an honor that is). The Book of Pearl is a wonderful mixture of fairy tale, historical fiction, and contemporary fantasy. There are three different stories going on in this book. The story of a fairy tale inspired land, the story of a young man in World War II, and the story of a different young man with a camera (in more modern times). It takes a little while to sort out who is who, especially if you go into the book fairly blind as I did, but I’d say by the end of Part One everything is pretty clear. If you are looking for a book that delves deep into the characters emotions, this is not that. It is told more like a fairytale than a novel, but I still feel like you get to know all of the important players in it, just not necessarily through their thoughts on the events. Because of the unique way that it is told, I feel that it would make for an excellent movie. For real. If anyone reading this is in the movie industry (ha) and the author agrees, can we, uh, can we get on that, please? I don’t know if it would make a lot of money or not, but I just want it. But not Disney. They’d ruin it (like they did with a certain other book-to-movie adaptation). Thanks. Good talk. If you are someone who likes beautiful writing, fairies, fiction set during World War II, a freaking marshmallow shop, or adventure, then I recommend you give this book a shot. I may or may not have stayed up until 1:30am to finish it because I was so enchanted by it. And I may have hugged it when I was done with it. You know, just normal stuff. Well, I’m off to eat a bag full of marshmallows and pretend they are as fancy as the ones in this book. Thanks for reading! I’ll see you next time! Image source: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34877733-the-book-of-pearl Personal Rating:5 Stars Goodreads Rating: 3.7 Stars Content Rating: PG Possible trigger warnings: mental health, domestic abuse It’s 1929, and twelve-year-old Martha has no choice but to work as a maid in the New York City mansion of the wealthy Sewell family. But, despite the Gatsby-like parties and trimmings of success, she suspects something might be deeply wrong in the household—specifically with Rose Sewell, the formerly vivacious lady of the house who now refuses to leave her room. The other servants say Rose is crazy, but scrappy, strong-willed Martha thinks there’s more to the story—and that the paintings in the Sewell’s gallery contain a hidden message detailing the truth. But in a house filled with secrets, nothing is quite what it seems, and no one is who they say. Can Martha follow the clues, decipher the code, and solve the mystery of what’s really going on with Rose Sewell . . . ? (goodreads.com) Now, I know I start many reviews this way, but LOOK AT THAT GOSH DARNED BEAUTIFUL COVER. Stunning. 10/10 cover art, and in person the gold bits are actually shiny so that’s pretty awesome. Okay, that out of the way, let’s get going with the real review for this book. I got this book for Christmas a couple of years ago and it has been sitting in a box for a while with a load of other books waiting to be read. Despite it’s beautiful cover, it was not a priority read for me and I wasn’t sure that I was ever going to get to reading it. But… then Medieval-a-thon 2021 came along and one of the prompts was for a book with a gilded cover. Since I’m trying to read more of my physical TBR now that I have the shelf space to display it all, I came across this book and decided to go for it. Though it took me a couple of chapters to get into it, I ended up not wanting to put this book down. I skipped breakfast one morning so I could stay in bed reading this and, though breakfast isn’t my favorite, I do hate to miss a meal. But it was worth it in this case! The main character, Martha, while a tad sacreligious at times, was fun to read about. She really balanced being a mischievous scamp with being a responsible older sibling well and I liked that she could cause trouble and have fun, but then turn around and be kind hearted to her mother and brothers. I also loved her resolve to solve the mystery of what was going on with Mrs. Sewell. She is the narrator of the story and when we first meet her she is one hundred years old and sitting down to type out the tale of what happened when she worked in the Sewell house, leading up to a shocking turn of events. (She tells you about this shocking turn of events right at the beginning, but it is still fun to fit the puzzle pieces together to see how the situation escalated to that point.) I found this to be an atmospheric read as well. It set the scene for the late 1920’s with prohibition, the Hoover-Smith election, mentions of 20’s film stars, and the early signs of the market crash. But apart from all of that, it also talked about day to day life of a working class family as well as the more glamorous upper class during this time period and it even had a Gatsby-esque party to really throw things into high gear. It made me want to walk around 1920’s New York City and dance to some swing music. As I’m sitting here writing this review, I’m trying to think of something to critique about the story, but nothing comes to mind that I didn’t enjoy about it. So, real quick, I’m going to change my rating from 4 stars to 5. And it’s not like this is the best book I’ve ever read or anything, but it was charming and sweet and exciting. I stayed up too late reading it and I can’t think of any reason why it shouldn’t get a glowing review. I’m sure, when I read it, there was something that I didn’t like, but it’s been a week since then and I can’t remember what it was so… 5 stars! Ha! You can’t stop me! Of course, a completely positive review does not make for great blog content, so there is that, but I’m sure we’ll all survive. I’ll try to read something terrible soon, I promise. Then we can all laugh about it together. But, the book I’m reading currently is a good one (I’ll still review it though) and the book I’m reading after that is part of the Grishaverse series so I can’t imagine that will be bad, so it might be a minute before I write a good old fashioned negative review. So be patient. That’s all I have for today, but thank you for reading! I’m off to chaotically rearrange famous paintings in my personal art gallery (aka move around my own doodles on my refrigerator). Until next time! Image source: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32078140-the-gallery The moment every Fowler has been waiting for finally arrived. The Artemis Fowl movie was released after nearly twenty years of being in development. Waiting for this film has been excruciating. Even those who are newer to the fandom have most likely heard about how difficult it has been to get this movie made. Talks of the movie first started soon after the first book was released. Fans rejoiced (or despaired) when Disney bought the rights to this beloved eight book series, for surely now it would get a movie. But it took quite a while. After years of waiting, it was announced that the film would be released on August 9, 2019. Eagerly, we waited, delighted to have an actual date for the film. Then, in November of 2018, a teaser trailer was released and excitement was high. But… then the film had issues with the editing. And it was put off from its original release day, much to everyone’s horor. May 2020 was the new expected release time… until COVID19 hit. Since movie theaters were closed, there would be no chance of the film being released. Would it ever see the light of day at all? Turns out, yes. June 12, 2020, Artemis Fowl was released exclusively on Disney+, the Disney streaming service. And I watched it.
Now, keep in mind as I write this review that I am extremely biased toward the book. If you know me, you are aware that this is one of my favorite books. So, just keep in mind that from the moment I saw the trailer I knew things were going to be different and I was somewhat grouchy about it. I should also warn you that this review may run a touch long and is filled with many, many parentheses sentences (parenthesized sentences? Parenthetical?) , so get some snacks and buckle in. SPOILERS FOR THE FIRST THREE BOOKS AND THE MOVIE WILL BE DISCUSSED — YOU’VE BEEN WARNED. Let’s start with the things that I was not fond of in the movie to get the negative out of the way. First off, I hated the pacing of this film. Hated it. I suspect a good deal of the movie was cut, and the many deleted scenes that are available to watch attests to that. I did watch the deleted scenes (though they didn’t help much), but in this review I am only judging the completed film, not what it could have been. In the completed film, everything moved at a hyper pace. It jumped from one scene to the next so fast that I literally felt a bit dizzy with everything happening. It was almost as if they cut to all of the action parts. It sort of felt like a super dumbed down version of the book, where they took out all of the wit and memorable dialogue. They tried to stuff so much story into such a short time, but the introduction, which has Josh Gad as Mulch narrating (and definitely made me think of this scene in Frozen II) seemed fairly long. I think the movie runtime was much too short. Because it was so short and fast paced, there was no character development. Now, fans of the books will have gotten to know Artemis over the course of eight novels, which makes you think we’d have a headstart on getting to know his character in the movie and that I wouldn’t be complaining about no characterization, but movie Artemis is extremely different from book Artemis. He wears hoodies and jeans! He can surf! He plays with Legos! This kid is totally different from the no nonsense, suit wearing child genius we know from the books and I felt like we did not have time to get to know him at all. Or really any of the other characters. Like Butler, who I was severely disappointed in. We barely got to see Butler in action (though we did get a shocking amount of Artemis in action) and there was nothing about the bond between him and the boy in his care and how loyal he is meant to be. He was pretty much just a dude with shockingly blue eyes hanging out with a preteen kid. Along with Juliet (who they turned into his niece for some reason) who they made twelve years old for some reason, and who probably had less screen time than the troll. (Also, can we talk for a minute about how they called Butler by his first name?! Like, no. That is top secret information that you are not supposed to find out until book three. Not even Artemis knows until book three! Why the heck? What the heck?) I’ll probably say this a dozen more times, but this movie desperately needed more character development. I don’t think I would have minded how different the movie characters are from the book characters if they had just given me reason to get attached to them. But instead they threw these empty characters with no obvious emotional connection to each other all together and expected us to care about what happened to them. I felt like much of the dialogue was forced and poorly written. There was nothing in the way that Artemis spoke that made me think he was a criminal mastermind (he even used slang *gasp*). He seemed too much like a normal kid. A smart one, maybe (though the movie pulled a “tell don’t show” on his intelligence), but just a regular kid with money who happened to fall into this big conspiracy involving fairies. Something else that irritated me was that Artemis was too nice. When he wasn’t being nice he seemed childish. Now, there are definitely points in the book when Artemis, despite his big brain, can fall into childish behavior, but that’s usually when there is something going on that he can’t see. In the movie, I felt like any time he was actually being the calm, collected, cold mastermind he seemed like a bratty kid just stating his opinion. One of the examples of this was in a scene that showed one of his therapy sessions. This scene was very close to the opening scene from the second book, the dialogue was so close that it almost felt like the two actors were just reading the book and not actually acting. In it, Artemis and his therapist, Dr. Po, are discussing two things: respect and a chair. In the book, when the conversation does not go the way that Artemis wants, he does become uncomfortable because he isn’t used to anyone finding his weak spots. Dr. Po catches him off guard in saying that he doesn’t think Arty respects anyone he knows. However, the scene is ended when Butler calls Artemis about urgent business and he leaves. In the movie, Artemis gets upset and runs out of the room like, well, a kid who is frustrated. (I also want to mention that the room where they had this therapy session in the movie bothered me so, so much. I’ve never been to therapy, so maybe this is normal, but there was a huge window where all of the other kids waiting for their sessions could just stare at the doctor and Artemis. It was this big open window and I felt exposed just watching it. I liked the sets for this movie, but that just made me uncomfortable. But enough of this little tangent.) Let’s talk about Holly. In the books, one of her greatest motivators is that she is the first female officer of the L.E.P. Recon (she’s also a captain in the books and they only ever called her “Officer Short” in the movie). She has to work twice as hard as anyone because everyone is expecting her to fail. In the movie, there were plenty of other female L.E.P. officers, including Commander Root (who was not as bad as I was thinking she would be, but felt like an entirely different character than the one in the book). Taking away that motivating factor from Holly, they decided that the reason she was not to be trusted by the rest of the fairies was because her father was a traitor. Now, I think I could have gotten over this change… if they had spent some time showing us how Holly felt about it or fleshing out that storyline. I was unhappy with how they treated Holly’s character throughout the movie. She seemed fresh out of the academy, without any experience of the world at all (again, that would have been fine if they’d given reason for it). I also felt like she didn’t really do much in the movie. We didn’t see any of her mid-action ingenuity and adaptiveness that we get in the books. Holly Short is supposed to be able to find ways to defeat trolls and save lives in the nick of time. However, in the movie, in the many action scenes, it seemed like she was just there. Not adding anything apart from her name. I could spend forever unpacking the things that I disliked about this movie, but let’s take some time to look at what I enjoyed. Because it’s always nice to look on the bright side of things (unless you’re a book-accurate troll and bright lights are one of your greatest weaknesses). Mulch Diggums. Yes, Mulch. My favorite character from the books and possibly the best part of the movie. Sure, I had my reservations about Josh Gad playing him *flashes back to the post I made when they released the trailer*, but he really came through. I didn’t think I would like hearing Olaf’s voice saying Mulch’s lines, but Gad added enough gruffness that it sounded just right. In my opinion, if you added a little bit of an Irish accent then that would be the perfect voice for Mulch. The character was not perfect, but I enjoyed him. I don’t know why they decided to make him a “giant dwarf” because I’m fairly certain that he wasn’t in the book (but now I’ve got the whole Mandela effect thing going on in my brain) and I felt that it would have been better if they’d used a bit of CGI to make him shorter (I know you can do it, Disney, I saw you make Chris Evans tiny for the first Captain America movie). Then they wouldn’t have had the oddly placed dialogue throughout about how he wasn’t short. Apart from that and how I am now scarred by his terrifying CGI mouth, I really liked his character. I liked that they kept his dwarf talents and still made him a kleptomaniac. I liked Mulch and he made me smile through the mess of clunky dialogue and horrible pacing. Even if he provided way too much exposition. I also loved the sets. Haven City looked incredible! Not exactly how I pictured it, but fantastic all the same. It was bright and colorful and I loved the diversity of creatures who lived there (they did a great job on the goblins, I thought, even if they weren’t as reptilian as I was expecting). I think I would have preferred it if Fowl Manor were more gothic and dark, but considering they built a whole freaking manor for this movie I can’t complain. I also think that the personality of the house fits better with the personality of the new Artemis… or it would have if they had given him a bit more character. It was light and full of wonder. The interior space was gorgeous (I may have drooled a bit when I saw the library, ngl) and imaginative. The soundtrack was magical. Patrick Doyle (Thor, Brave, Cinderella, Murder on the Orient Express, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire) composed it, so it was pretty much impossible that it wouldn’t be magical. The tracks that I thought went best with the movie were “Talented Tunneller” (this one fits the book really well too, I felt), “Time to Believe”, and “That’s My Ride”. Gorgeous, beautiful, stunning soundtrack. I loved it. Costuming for Artemis may have been a bit of a flop (and poor Ferdia Shaw had to wear a three piece suit that was actually a one piece suit made out of rubber) but I loved the L.E.P. uniforms and wings. The green reminded me of chlorophyll on plants, which was cool. I thought Mulch’s outfit was a little bit too close to Hagrid from the Harry Potter series, but I did like his goggles and fingerless gloves. I do not like that they gave Butler glowing blue eyes without any explanation, but at least he wore a suit the whole time. I briefly want to touch on the major differences, without too much criticism, between the book in the movie, just for anyone who is curious. I will try my hardest to keep my opinions on these changes in check, but no promises:
This review/comparison has become ridiculously long, but I have a lot of feelings about it, okay? To sum up these feelings: though I did enjoy watching the movie, I don’t think it was very good. It certainly wasn’t a good adaptation. I was pleasantly surprised by some parts of it, but mostly I was disappointed. After waiting so long, I truly would have loved to see the story from the book played out on screen. It was such a perfect book for a movie and yet they changed so much. I wish I knew why. I still want there to be a sequel to this movie, though I’m fairly certain there won’t be one. I’d like to see where they take it and how they portray Opal Koboi beyond a shadowy figure. I want them to take the time to make me like these new versions of the characters. I am not satisfied with the Artemis Fowl movie and I still dearly want to know what the book would be like as a movie because I feel like Disney has yet to give us that. Image sources: Book cover: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/249747.Artemis_Fowl?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=l1trOUTzzL&rank=1 Movie poster: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3089630/mediaviewer/rm4248155137 Personal Rating: 4 Stars
Goodreads Rating: 4.12 Stars Content Rating: PG One week after their eleventh birthday, the Fowl twins--scientist Myles, and Beckett, the force of nature--are left in the care of house security (NANNI) for a single night. In that time they befriend a troll who has clawed his way through the earth's crust to the surface. Unfortunately for the troll, he is being chased by a nefarious nobleman and an interrogating nun, who both need the magical creature for their own gain, as well as a fairy-in-training who has been assigned to protect him. The boys and their new troll best friend escape and go on the run. Along the way they get shot at, kidnapped, buried, arrested, threatened, killed (temporarily), and discover that the strongest bond in the world is not the one forged by covalent electrons in adjacent atoms, but the one that exists between a pair of twins. (goodreads.com) Can you imagine, for a moment, the intense excitement I felt last year when I found out that Eoin Colfer was writing a spin off series about Artemis Fowl’s younger brothers? If you are having trouble imagining, maybe you need to go back and re-read some of my other posts about the Artemis Fowl series. Now, can you imagine how over the moon I was? My favorite childhood series, which ended in 2012, getting a new book?! Are you kidding me? That’s AMAZING! Was it written just to hype up the Artemis Fowl movie (about which I have mixed feelings) that’s coming out in May 2020 (yeah, it was supposed to be in August 2019, I know, it’s a whole thing, we’ll discuss it some other time)? Was it just because an appropriate time in real life has passed for the Fowl Twins, who were four in the last Artemis book, to be old enough for their own adventure? I don’t know the answer to either of these questions, but I do know I had a heck of a lot of fun reading this thing. The first thing you need to know about this book is that it was totally written for people who have already read Artemis Fowl. And I mean all eight of them, pal. No sliding into this book without knowing all of the crazy shenanigans that happened to Artemis and company. While this book is entertaining on its own, it doesn’t make a ton of sense without having read the original series. Especially since you don’t even meet Artemis’ brothers until The Time Paradox (the sixth book). So do yourself a favor and read the original series before you go and complain that this one doesn’t make any sense. The Fowl Twins will try to convince you that it can work as a stand alone, seeing as there are hardly any of the original characters beyond reference in this, but there are far too many references to jokes throughout the series and far too much already complete world building for you to go into this thing blind. Just take my word for it. So moving on, I’m going to assume you have done the right thing and read all eight books of my favorite childhood series, got it? Good. (I won’t give any major spoilers, but there will be a few, so be aware of that.) As someone who has read the Artemis Fowl series countless times, obsessed over it, and even written terrible fanfiction for it (no, I’m not sharing), I went out and purchased this book the first day it was available. Sure, I could have preordered, but then I would have had to wait for it to ship. I mean, I didn’t read it until a month after it came out because I was working on NaNoWriMo anyway, but I at least had it in my hands. When I got home from Barnes and Noble I literally skipped from my car to my front door. Did this book live up to my expectations? Well, sort of. Like I said, you need to have read the original series (and probably loved it) to enjoy this book. If I hadn’t done that then I probably wouldn’t have cared about this book at all or I would have disliked it. Loving the first series as much as I do, I had so much fun with The Fowl Twins. It was a bit of a slow start, I will admit, and it seemed rather repetitive throughout. They ended up in several inescapable situations that they just kept on escaping from. Pretty much the plot of this book was “Myles and Beckett Fowl get captured and escape and get captured and escape and get captured again and escape again”. With considerable flare each time, but still. So, the plot wasn’t as focused as each plot in the books of the first series. Artemis always had a goal. He was always up to something, causing trouble, or saving the world and then his plans would get derailed by fairies and he would have to fix things. Myles and Beckett were just along for the ride, they weren’t actively up to anything besides, well, escaping bad guys. But that didn't mean that it wasn't a heck of a lot of fun watching them escape. Let’s talk characters. Myles and Beckett you should already know. Artemis Fowl’s younger brothers. Myles is following in big bro’s footsteps by being an obnoxious know-it-all child prodigy and Beckett is a more hands on fellow, who acts more like an actual child than either of his brothers ever did. I was worried Myles would be just another Artemis, who can think his way out of everything and is smarter than everyone else in the room and knows it. And he was very similar to his brother, but still different. Whereas Artemis starts out as a devious little punk with no regard for anyone except maybe his mother, father, and Butler, and he eventually learns about the truly important things, Myles starts off knowing about the important stuff in life. Sure, he’s condescending and rude and not always very nice, but we get to see there’s more to him than just a mastermind with big plans. I liked having Beckett in the picture so that we could see that Myles has someone he respects as his equal (maybe not mentally, but as a person) right off the bat. And though I have some concerns for his future, he seems to be much more of a Ravenclaw, seeking knowledge first, than a cunning, ambitious Slytherin. Then there’s Beckett. He is not like his brothers. Where Artemis and Myles wear suits and talk equations, Becket runs around in shorts and a T-shirt and a necktie named Gloop and talks about, well, anything and everything. Now, it has been a while since I was eleven, but if you ask me, Beckett is much more like the eleven year olds I know than either of the other Fowl boys. He loves doing exciting things and running around blowing stuff up. He’s always up for the next adventure, though he doesn’t always considered the possible ramifications of going on that adventure. I think he’s a great addition to the Fowl story line and he balances out Myles nicely. I do worry that Eoin Colfer will only use Beckett as a balance, based off of how much less “screen time” he got than his twin. I think the next book should be more Beckett focused, since this one was more focused on Myles. I don’t want this to turn into the adventures of mini-Artemis with a fun loving guy hanging around. So, Mr. Colfer, more Beckett please. And, of course, there are fairy characters in this as well. Not as many as we are used to, perhaps, but there were still fairies. The main one being Lazuli Heitz, who serves as not only our fairy character, but also the girl character (Eoin, I'd love more girl characters in your books, thanks). She didn’t have as much “screen time” as I would have liked either and as a result, we didn’t get to know her all that well. One of the remarkable things about the first Artemis Fowl books is that Holly and Artemis are playing on opposite sides, but we’re still cheering for both of them. That conflict helped flesh out their characters and helped the readers get to know them. With Lazuli, we just see a fairy who is trying to do her job and comes across a strange set of circumstances. I’m hoping that we will get to know her more in the next book. I won’t say much about the baddies, because spoilers, but I found them both highly entertaining. I was a little confused about one of their motives. One of them had a clear objective, but the other was cloaked in mystery and I wasn’t sure what their plan was really. Like, I kinda got it, but not really. I’m not sure if either of these villains will return (though for one of them it is highly likely), but if they do I’d like the one with the foggy motives to explain themselves a bit more. I have so much more that I could talk about for this book, but I don’t want to ruin it for anyone who will read it and I don’t want to analyse it too much. Regardless of my nitpicking, I really did love this book and delving back into the world of the Fowls and the fairies. It was nostalgic and exciting and I can hardly wait until next year when the sequel comes out. But don’t worry, you won’t have to wait a year for more of Colfer’s craziness. When the movie comes out, we’ll talk Fowl once again. Image sources: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/39816061-the-fowl-twins https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/44286889-the-fowl-twins OH MY GOSH. |
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