Llew's Reviews

I finished this series, and I STILL don’t have my own armored bear. CHEATED.

A good side to being behind the times and getting to this series so late is that I could read them all at one time. If I had to have waited for months or years in anticpation for the trifle that book #2 was I would have cut someone in front of their own daemon. “The Subtle Knife” was just a slapped together stepping stone in between two really good books. I was really happy with how the story ended, even though (or maybe because) it wasn’t your usually Fairy Tale/Happily Ever After conclusion.

Before I started, I had heard this series detailed as the “Anti Narnia” which is quite the apt description. At first, I thought I would get annoyed with all of the incredibly obvious parallels but it didn’t turn out to be TOO preachy. It was more than I like, but not insufferable. I still don’t quite understand how it turned into such a bestselling series. It’s OK but I can’t see myself highly recommending it to anyone over something else.

Icy!

What a lame-o ending to an otherwise good story and series.

In honor of Harry Potter coming out I’m focusing most of my reading on YA series. I finally got off my duff and started this trilogy which I should have been done with ages ago. So far, it’s really good!

It was a little slow to begin with, but by the end I was smacking myself that I hadn’t already bought the second book in the series so I could immediately hop into the next novel. Of course, that would be the only time in my life I wanted to plunge myself into a knife, subtle or not.

Pretty good … for a Mormon.

I knew I finally had to get off my duff to read this one when my teenage niece was talking about how she read it “way back in” like she was a Nam Vet. At least I got it in before I turned 30 – whew.

They should have entitled this one, “The Suck.”

And I was so looking forward to it as well. So excited that when I bought my copy I was jumping up and down while clapping. Plus, I was EXPECTING a bad ending. I just thought it would be bad as far as the poor orphans, not bad as in the writing and lack of the usual wit.

I don’t even have the heart to tell others as I sell it to them at the store. It is the end of the series and people are going to read it no matter what I say so I just try to keep from looking miserable.

Design = Oooooh.
Content = Meh

The boy has already made fun of me for reading this book so rest assure that has already been done.

Yes, this is a children’s middle school level horror book about bogarts and witches. Yes, the witches wear pointy shoes.
Yes, I’ve searched Style Hive for some pointy shoes for myself. Yes, I’m tired and first mistyped “wear” as “where.”
Yes, as soon as I publish this entry I am going to curl into the fetal position and cry out of shame.
And, yes, this is a really good scary book for that age level which I would highly recommend if anyone of that age group ever listened to an adult who wasn’t menacingly wielding a ruler or a sharp object.

When I saw Mrs. Meyer’s name on the SIBA’s front page as one of the many authors who would be in attendance at the South Eastern Booksellers Assosciation’s trade show in Florida in September, I was shaking with glee. I decided that if I was not weighed down by an army of tote bags filled with freebies I had swiped from publisher booths, I just might swan dive down the waiting line to land (gracefully) on the autograph table in front of her. I wondered if she’d sign my neck. It would only be fitting.

Then, she informed me that SIBA’s website was WRONG, and she would not be there this year. The SADNESS.

Thus, the only way I could alleviate the pain was to read her latest offering, New Moon, which is a sequel to her first novel, Twilight. Ben asked me what my book was about and when I mumbled, “Vampires” he started laughing at me. His laughter got louder as I corrected myself with, “Actually, it’s about Werewolves AND Vampires.” We all need to diversify ourselves a little bit, yes?

These are clean yet spicy with action young adult novels written by a woman who attended the same university I did who I kind of sort of know from a message board we both visit. I would highly recommend them to the age group they’re intended for, and have been a little sad that I haven’t been able to handsell more at my shop. (Although they have been doing pretty well – just not as well as I’d like.)

Even though there’s one more book out in this series, I think this might be the last one I read. The first one was so clever and hilarious! But now it’s just so getting tired, but I wanted to give it one last try. Le sigh.

This book was pretty good, a phrase here which means not as sharply witty as some of the others but with more substance of story to make up for it.

Plus, it’s orange. You know how I love orange.