Llew's Reviews

February is my month for Science Fiction and Fantasy novels. Of course, I started this book MONTHS ago and just finished slogging my way through it. It wasn’t that it was bad – because I kind of enjoyed it. It made me appreciate his childrens book (UnLunDun) more since at least that story didn’t involve any brain eating moth monsters. However, it was just a very slow read for me. All that chaos theory and weird species and it was too much. I’ve already bought his other two so I’m going to try them as well – especially since I’ve heard the next one (Scar) is the best. But, to be honest, I’m not really excited about it. And books that don’t excite me – make me sad.

Obviously, I had to read these books before I saw the movie. To be honest, they’re kind of annoying. I realize they’re children books but each individual book is so insignificant it’s hardly worth it. The entire series counts for one book – even for a middle school reader. I mean seriously.

Of course, I read them so I could see the movie and now I’ve heard nothing but poor reviews for the film so I shall wait until it comes out on dvd. Alas, alack!

Well, if I’m going to be hauling my aging lazy bum to the bookstore to host a midnight party for a book I SUPPOSE I should have read the two prior ones in the series. So, I did. And now I’m wishing I would have waited to do so because now I have until September before Brisingr is released. Oh snap!

I confess that I really thought reading these were going to be a chore. I mean it was written by a 15 year old homeschooled boy. I don’t like talking to teenage boys – why would I want to read anything written by one? Plus, I saw the movie. That horrible terrible no good wretched movie – ugh. To my surprise, I quite liked the books. I might have liked them more than I would have otherwise because I was expecting them to be SO bad. But Eragon especially was quite fun to read.  With Eldest, Paolini seemed to lost momentum but hopefully the series may still be redeemed.

I still wish I hadn’t had to break my self imposed rule about not starting a series unless all the books in it are already out, but sometimes work is work.

After enjoying “Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac” so much I decided to look into Zevin’s first book, “Elsewhere” which is also a young adult title. The twist to this one is the main character is dead and has gone onto the afterlife which is known as Elsewhere. In Elsewhere, people age backwards from the age they died at until they become babies again. At that point, they’re reborn on Earth.

Although the storyline was a lot more unusual than Memoirs, it was just engaging. I really liked this one as well – maybe even moreso than Elsewhere. It’s light reading but at the same time not complete fluff.

Although this was Rash’s first novel, it’s the last of his novels that I’ve gotten around to reading which was stupid of me considering it is by far his best work. It’s like a vintage crime novel taking place in Jocasse (which is now a man made lake). In fact, it ends with the valley being flooded to make the lake, covering up the good and the bad. Beautiful story and I adored it.

It made me even more excited for his novel, Serena, coming out in September. Oh! And if you can ever make it out to one of his readings I highly suggest it. He’s quite entertaining and lyrical just in conversation.