Quick Takes: The Graveyard Book

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

Listen; Neil Gaiman could write a book discussing different  procedures used in making primitive ceramics and I would eat it all up. This man can do no wrong and I freakin love him for it. He’s the kind of author you can turn to when you want the assurance of a good read.

The Graveyard Book is no different. It is fun, creative, and engaging from start to finish. It even has some Romanian representation (holla) that doesn’t even involve vampires or gypsies! I’ll take it. Fun fact: Miss Lupescu’s nickname for Bod–Nimeni–is Romanian for Nobody. And her last name hints at wolf (Lupu).  Though her heritage was never specified, well, now you know.

The only reason I’m not giving it a higher rating is because at times I wished I was reading the same story at an adult-level complexity. There is room for growth in this tale, and I would have loved it more had it not been for the childhood flavor of some parts of the story. Still, a good read from a great author!

Quick Takes: Cruel Beauty

Cruel Beauty by Rosamund Hodge

Going into this, I thought I was going to end up with a completely different story than what I was left with at the final page. Cruel Beauty is about a young woman, Nyx, who trained her whole life to defeat the evil ruler of their kingdom. When she finally reaches the castle and meets the enemy, things  don’t go as planned. There’s more to Ignifex than meets the eye, and her mission must adapt.

I kept hearing how this is a retelling of Beauty and the Beast. Though I usually find those cringe-y, I actually think this book would’ve been better off if there were more similarities. I wish it were as simple as that summary, as Beauty and the Beast, as another YA novel with a love triangle and predictable twists and turns. Because my biggest problem with this book was that it was jam packed with all this mythology.

Beauty and the Beast is fine. Mythology is fine. But trying to do both, and so heavy handedly, is trying to do too much. Anytime authors lean too much on another culture/society or whatever, it just starts to feel lazy and gimmicky. The naming, the world-building, the constant myth-referencing, just…ugh. Come on. It was like reading an allegory–am I supposed to enjoy the story, or is this some sneaky way to brush up on my history? Greco/Roman Mythology is great, but you can pull from it without being so obvious about it. The plot would have been way less clunky/cluttered that way.

So this is one of the few instances I’m not complaining about the “meh” protagonist or the love triangle or insta-love. In fact if those would have been my only critiques, I probably would have enjoyed Cruel Beauty a whole lot more.

The End of an Era?

Why must you leave me so conflicted?

A review of Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo

If I read this maybe five years ago, I probably would have fallen in love with it. Now that I’m older (wiser?), novels like Shadow and Bone have me worried that my long-standing love affair with YA is beginning to falter. Cue the sad violin music.

Don’t get me wrong, I still think it was a fun book. I finished it in the span of two days in maybe three sittings. Bardugo writes well.  The premise was fun. But it seems like I’m losing the ability to turn my brain off and ignore the sorts of things that usually bother me about YA Lit. Let’s start with the characters.