Seraphina by Rachel Hartman

*This review may contain spoilers.*

This book is absolutely phenomenal, and if you're thinking about getting it, just buy it, you will love it! The book trailer did not do it justice, in my opinion, I found it a bit hokey, but the book was wonderful, and much better than the trailer led me to believe.

I hadn't heard of Rachel Hartman before, which is explained when the inside front cover states that this is her "fantasy debut." However, I am very happy that I am now aware of this author, because she is awesome!

First off, I got this book because I was intrigued by the amazing cover I saw in an email from Barnes and Noble; it's like an antique wood engraving or something! Then, if you look underneath the dust jacket, it's bound in this golden color with a black leather type thing on the spine...it's really, really beautiful. Also, it's a good size book, too, nice and big!

I had my father pick this up for me, and he handed it to me around noon and I finished it just now (around quarter 'til nine), so that should give you an indication of how engaging a read this was! Books that I can finish in one day really, really go up in points for me.

The world in this book was just great! I, personally, get a bit of a Medieval feel from the clothing and system of government, but it's set in a completely fantasy world. Our protagonist hails from Goredd, but there is an abundance of other places and peoples referenced; I always like to feel like the world is a world that I have the privilege of peeking in on through the page, not like the world was created to allow for the story to take place, and I absolutely get that feeling from Seraphina.

I really, really, really like Rachel Hartman's style of writing. It's a very melodious, almost like it has a cadence of some sort, which is quite fitting, due to Seraphina's musical abilities. I find I am unable to describe it accurately, but it's very lush and magical; I enjoyed it immensely. I am definitely keeping an eye out for this author's future novels.

I also found Seraphina to be a great heroine. I really enjoyed the way she grappled with truth and her identity and such, and it really touched me.

...And, of course, the romance with Prince Lucian Kiggs. Yay, romance! This book didn't have an overwhelming amount of romance, but what there was was very satisfying. I liked Kiggs a lot, though I didn't get all melt-y over him like I do with other heroes, it was  more of a pleasant, heartwarming kind of a thing. I may or may not have engaged in some good old-fashioned fangirl squeeing during their final scene in the tower.

The mystery and intrigue and the anger and violence and prejudice and death in this book...I don't want to say it was gritty, since that would be very discordant with the overall tone, but it was ... real. For a book marked as for people 12 - 17 on the Barnes and Noble website, it was surprisingly sincere and deep and ... epic.

That's a good word...this is not a young adult novel, this is an epic. Okay, maybe not with an invocation of the Muse or an in media res opening, but it's just a broad, sprawling narrative that encapsulates a young woman's quest for truth and love, the politics of two kingdoms soon to be at war with themselves and each other and very universal themes that make this book one of the best ones I've read in a long time.

Final Verdict: Infinity and beyond/10. It was completely perfect, and I highly recommend you pick it up! I'm completely genuine when I tell you that if you are a literate individual, then this book is for you! It's just magical, really. I'm going to make one of the most radical statements I have ever made in my entire eighteen years of life: I believe this book to be the best fantasy book I have ever read, possibly ever written. The world was expansive and rich and real and the characters were genuine and lovable and the plot was intriguing and everything was just perfect.

For more info, check out the author's website here, I'm going to go put this book on The Shelf.

Thanks for reading!

Perception by Kim Harrington

*This review contains spoilers.*

This book is the sequel to Clarity, about a teenage girl in Cape Cod who has psychic abilities and finds herself faced with a murder investigation as well as a love triangle.

My Thoughts:

1. I should mention that I loved the first book, so of course I picked this one up. 
2. I really, really enjoyed this book. It was so engaging that I can honestly say I read it in about two and a half hours. 
3. Just a random thing, the inside covers are done with this really natural looking green paper...it's like flecked with tree fibers or something. It's just a gorgeously bound book in general. 
4. Like the first book, I enjoyed the paranormal influence throughout...how normal it is to the Fern family, how embedded it is. 
5. Kim Harrington's style is just to die for! I love, love, love the way she writes. It's very accessible and fluid, but still very much poignant, in my opinion. 
6. The mystery in this book is just amazing! You really are kept guessing on all fronts. Twists and turns all over the place. 
7. I really did feel genuine prickles of fear on my spine. It's easy to get that through the visceral sense of cinematography and sound effects in a movie, but I rarely get that in a book. However, here, I was literally freaked out. Like, I read this from roughly 6:00 PM to 8:00PM and if it had been any later, I would've genuinely been frightened, Kim Harrington is that good. 
8. The love interests! Woooo! Can I just say I love Gabriel. His protection of Clare from Cody, his passion, his understanding, how he's willing to bank his future on her decision...just his general demeanor is very appealing. In the end, the love triangle was resolved in a very satisfactory manner. 
9. I loved the ending of this book. Clarity ended on kind of an ominous note, what with the creepy prediction from that other psychic in town, but Perception ended on a high note. 
10. I don't mean to be critical of the Young Adult genre (I am a young adult, after all), but I find that some of them are characterized by rather cheap thrills. That's fine, I mean, camp is a good, fun romp occasionally, but I really think that this book is better than that. I don't mean to say that I think it was necessarily an awakening of my soul or anything, but I did think a lot about relationships and popularity and people and my own life. You know, it kind of was soul-stirring, for me at least. 
11. I don't know what to tell you other than I thought this was a well-written, engaging, entertaining book that genuinely made me care for the characters and swoon a bit over Gabriel. (Not that it's hard to make me swoon.) This is pretty much what I want to get when I go to the store looking for a new book. 

Who Should Read It:

• Mystery fans! Seriously, I was guessing and having to re-evaluate and guessing again for a good two-hundred of the almost three-hundred pages of this book. 
• People who read the first one! This one is just as good, if not better, in my opinion. 
• Most people! I really like this as a book and highly recommend it. 

Final Score: 10/10 Pretty much perfect. Not in a way that I'd ever read it again, but in a reading it was a wonderful experience kind of way. 

I checked out Kim Harrington's website (here), and apparently her next book is called The Dead and Buried and will be available next year! Ah, I'm so excited! Definitely look that up (or click that link) because it sounds really good!

Thank you for reading!

Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott

Recently, I purchased a bunch of classic novels from Half-Price Books, and this was among them. I was very excited to read it, and it did not disappoint.

My Thoughts

1. I absolutely love Sir Walter Scott's style - it's amazing! His language is simply enthralling, and I highly recommend this book just for that. 
2. I will allow my nerdy flag to fly high: Medieval England is very near and dear to me, so I liked that a lot. 
3. I mean, come on, Robin Hood was in it! Woo!
4. I'm not going to lie, everything Wilfred went through to marry Lady Rowena and even for Rebecca was just so touching, and I thought the relationships were wonderfully portrayed. 
5. I really can honestly say I cried while Cedric was in the dungeon waxing poetic on the degradation of his race (the Saxons), Scott is that good. 
6. Brian de Bois-Guilbert. I was rooting for him, too, licentious though he was. Something about him get niggling my brain, and I finally realized what it was when he approached Rebecca in her cell before her execution and told her he'd dishonor himself as a Templar, as a knight and as a man and not turn up at the trial by combat if she only promised to love him in return. She refuses, and he's hurt that death is preferable to life with him. Think on that for a bit, it should come to you.....Sir Guy of Gisborne to Marian in BBC's Robin Hood! When the people who laid siege to Nottingham Castle told Guy he could only take his wife with him, and he proposed to Marian and she refused him! Then, later in Ivanhoe, when the trial by combat is about to commence, Brian de Bois-Guilbert asks Rebecca to climb astride his horse and is prepared to sacrifice everything, most likely have to fight for their survival and ride pell-mell out of England all together, and Rebecca still refuses him! I wanted her to love him back, even though he had his vices, I just think it's horribly sad when that level of devotion is rejected. Back to the Robin Hood analogy, it does not hold true in that respect: Robin/Marian is my OTP and I will go down with that ship. However, I, personally, am somewhat co-dependent and have a thing for damaged men (and, you know, the appreciation for Richard Armitage in leather pants that I am sure is universal to the female population). 

Who Should Read It

• Fans of Medieval romances/epic quests/knights in shining armor/damsels in distress, that kind of thing. 
• Fans of literature. 

This was an amazing book that I really enjoyed reading and have placed on The Shelf...10/10 at least...really, really, really good. If you're contemplating reading it or just looking for a book, you will not be disappointed with Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe. 

The House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne

*This review contains spoilers.*

It's time for another book review! You should expect a lot of classics from me, since I recently purchased a fairly abundant stack from a place called Half-Price Books, which I absolutely love, because they have such old, careworn copies of things - the Great Expectations I purchased even has someone's handwritten notes in it! I just love stuff like that!Anyway, I'm not reviewing this book for it's literary merit or syntactical elegance, so if you're looking for some kind of SparkNote like thing, go there, not here, this is just what I thought of the book.

Surprise, surprise, it's set in New England and centers around the eponymous House of the Seven Gables and its resident Hepzibah and Clifford Pyncheon, the new addition of Pheobe Pyncheon and the daguerreotypist, Mr. Holgrave. Long story short, the first American Pyncheon accused Mathew Maule of witchcraft, resulting in his death and Pyncheon receiving the land, so Maule cursed the house and the whole Pyncheon family for eternity.

My Thoughts

1. Some people might be put off by the vocabulary of this book, but it's something I love. Once you read lots of older novels, it just comes naturally for you to read and even think (and occasionally speak, to the dismay of my friends) in language like this. I absolutely revel in additions to my vernacular, and I found two wonderful ones: obstreperous and eleemosynary, meaning noisy; difficult to control and relating to charity, respectively. Now, don't you just want to incorporate that into your quotidian conversations?
2. Also, I like the overall premise of the book; I'm very interested in mystical stuff, and the book's window into the mid-19th century perspective on "Mesmerism" was quite fascinating. And, I mean, who doesn't love a good family curse/haunted house?
3. I really felt for Clifford. I wouldn't have spent fifty pages describing his many idiosyncrasies, but this is Hawthorne after all, so I don't know what I expected. Wasted potential is something that always gets me, mainly because I hate how I'm eighteen years old and have no discernible way of achieving my purpose in life. 
4. I absolutely adored Phoebe. She's the kind of person I strive to be, you know? Pleasant, kind, cheerful, that sort of thing. She struck me as very genuine, I suppose. 
5. Clifford's speech to the random old gentleman during his and Hepzibah's train excursion was completely fascinating. He discussed how the entire course of human history was basically an upward spiral; we were nomadic before, so shall we be again. 
6. Phoebe/Holgrave. I loved them, truly. They're no Darcy and Elizabeth or Heathcliff and Cathy, but they're up there. I like that they complete each other: Phoebe soothes Holgrave's oddities, and he awakens Phoebe to a different world. I also swooned when Holgrave realized he had hypnotized Phoebe but chose not to irrevocably complete that action. Their declaration of love scene was precious. It was heartfelt and genuine, and the way that they did it as Judge Pyncheon's body sat in the parlor reminded me of Robin's proposal to Marian in the BBC version of Robin Hood (2006), which was my absolute favorite proposal scene in the history of literature, cinema and television. 

Who Should Read It: 

• Fans of supernatural/paranormal mysteries.
• Fans of mid-19th century American literature
• Fans of Hawthorne, or even if you're indifferent, I suggest you give this one a try. 
• Romance lovers!

Overall Rating: I give this an 8.5/10. At no point did I actually weep or feel my heart swell, and I'm generally fairly emotional while reading, but I certainly believe reading this book to be time well spent. 

The next book I will be reviewing is Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott. 

You may be wondering what kind of teenager spends the last summer before college in this manner. This kind is all I can say, though I say it with assurances that I do leave the house and visit friends occasionally. 

Thank you for reading. 

Feel free to comment. 

The Serpent's Shadow by Rick Riordan

The third and apparently final book in The Kane Chronicles. To be totally honest, as I only am with you, dear blog readers, I had no idea this came out until I saw it at the store and bought it. I loved it, like I do all Rick Riordan's books, and here's a little bit about why.

My Thoughts

1. I started this book today at about 6:00 PM and read it straight through in five hours. Like all of Riordan's books, it's a very engaging read. Some people think quick books indicate a low level of literature, but I strongly disagree: it's so good, you just plow right through three or four hundred pages, completely unaware of even turning them you're so absorbed. His writing is accessible or relatable or something...I don't know, but I highly recommend his works.
2. I am, of course, fascinated by mythology. I'm particularly partial to the Greco-Roman  pantheon, but I'm still quite interested in the Ancient Egyptian deities as well, so that was very interesting to me. 
3. As always, there's a fair bit of light humor, which never ceases to make me giggle. 
4. I'm not gonna lie: at the end, as Carter was waxing poetic (and I love poetry, so I use that phrase without a hint of sarcasm) about civilization before they took on Apophis, I teared up. I know, realistically, that in no book/film/TV show is the world ever really going to dissolve away into nothingness/chaos/hellfire - that just doesn't happen - but I still got emotional..and I love a book that can make me cry.  
5. I'm not going to lie about this either: I have totally had a thing for Anubis in these books. Their relationship, and the Walt element, a Sadie's mother's line about them being awkward in the mortal world just made my heart melt. You have to admit, it's probably the world's only unique ending to a love triangle. Ever. In the history of love triangles. 
6. I love everyone's premonitions about the "other gods" at the end of the book. :)

Final Score: 10/10

It's a fun read, with great characters and engaging plot and adorable romance...I recommend this, as well as all of Rick Riordan's other books like it, i.e. the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series, The Heroes of Olympus series, and of course, the first two books in this series. 

City of Lost Souls by Cassandra Clare

*This review contains spoilers*

Of course, this book was absolutely phenomenal because it's from the Mortal Instruments, other reviews of which you can check out in the archives, so I won't show you my synonym finding skills by telling you that again.

My Thoughts:

1. I absolutely adored Jordan and Maia. The scenes that they spend together in Jordan's bedroom and the just the way they act is adorable. It's like they're getting to know each other all over again, but with the undercurrent of an eternal passion, as they've previously been together. That, and I just loved Jordan's mix of cockiness and vulnerability. 
2. Likewise, I find Isabelle and Simon to be an amazing couple as well. They're cute, but they've got an edge. They're too imperfect people who have found themselves fitting together perfectly, and it makes my heart ache, genuinely. 
3. The scene with Simon and his sister, Becky, aka the first fictional Becky who is not a freak or a loser, is just the most endearing, adorable wonderful scene for Simon. 
4. The verbal sparring in this book between Sebastian, Jace and Clary is just deliciously funny. 
5. I'm going to lay all bare and tell you that, in the middle of the novel, when Sebastian was telling Clary he just wanted to abolish the Clave and he wanted Clary by his side and he'd only tried to kill Jocelyn because he was hurt and lonely and such...I was so gone; he had me hook, line and sinker. ...Then, of course, we find his real designs are destroying humanity/hooking up with his sister....yeah, I'm a poor judge of character, okay? Though, to be fair, in fiction the bad guy really does just need someone to love him to make it all better...Props to Cassandra Clare for going a different way. 
6. This book has all the awesome of the previous books by Cassandra Clare, i.e. epic writing, engaging characters, amazing plot twists, heart-wrenching romance, but there's also new things like The Iron Sisters and a more in depth interaction with Raziel. 
7. Jace's scene with Clary when Magdalena cut Lilith's mark,....I'm not gonna lie, that was hot :)
8. This, and the rest of the Mortal Instruments/Infernal Devices books by Cassandra Clare, is what a book should be. It's why I read, and I would recommend it to anyone!
9. I have a prediction, since Clockwork Princess hasn't been released yet: William Herondale and Brother Zachariah are one and the same. Okay, bear with me. We saw Tessa in City of Glass, and the last time we saw her in Infernal Devices, she'd agreed to marry Jem. So, Will, distraught and unable to reconcile his love for Jem with his love for Tessa runs away. Eventually, Jem dies. Tessa is immortal, but Will will die...unless he becomes a Silent Brother. On page 517, Brother Zachariah tells Clary he would have died for two people....Jem and Tessa! Okay, that's far-fetched and a little ridiculous, I know, but it just struck me. 

Final Score: Infinity and beyond/10 Amazing book, as are the rest. Read them all!

Delirium by Lauren Oliver

Oh, my God! This book has been setting in my "to read" stack for at least three weeks - maybe even a month - and I can't believe I waited this long to read it! It should have been pulsing with awesome or something! My God, this was it! The perfect book! It's set in a dystopian future where love has been declared a disease and everyone is given a "cure" at age eighteen (basically like a lobotomy). The story centers on Lena, who meets a man, Alex, who is from the Wilds, i.e. the unregulated lands.

My Thoughts

1. This book is to die for! I don't even want to dissect it, but here we go!
2. This book was so enthralling and engaging and heartwrenching and ravaging and ravishing and raw and real and wonderful and amazing and beautiful!
3. The world of this book is so meticulously created to parallel our own - Romeo and Juliet is still read in freshman English classes - and I really, really love that. The way that the author uses quotes and such from official government publications at the beginning is really phenomenal in terms of world creation. 
4. Lena! Oh, wow! I loved Lena! She thinks of herself as no one special, then she lets herself fall in love and feel and think and be and, my God, is she a wonderful character!
5. Alex!!!!! Oh, he is perfection! I cannot get enough of the way the author describes his hair as a crown of fire/thorns/glory etc. It is just phenomenal. He is just phenomenal. He opens Lena's eyes to the world, but he is also such a real guy. I also LOVE that he shares Shakespearean sonnets and Elizabeth Barrett Browning poems with her. That's how you know you've got a good guy. I cannot gush about him enough!
6. As someone who has never been in love, I found the idea of experiencing love through the perspective of one who has never even considered "love" as an option to be beyond magnificent. It was amazing! Honestly, the entire time I was reading this book, I was getting that feeling that you get, when you feel like your heart is too full and you can't talk and you think your heart might just burst through your chest? That might just be me, but you get the idea. 
7. One of my favorite scenes was in Alex's home in the Wilds, when Lena asks him what poetry is, and he reads some. Even though I'm no stranger to poetry, it's also a really rapturous experience to see something like that through the eyes of a person like Lena. It's like, you read a poem, you go "that's a good poem" and you think, well, of course it's good, it's poetry that's endured forever. But, Lena's reaction just made me appreciate it all the more, things like poetry and beauty and stuff. Like, I genuinely stopped to muse on how grateful I am to own several books of poetry and how beautiful things can be. 
8. Speaking of beautiful things, the imagery in this book and the author's writing style was beyond magnificence, into full-fledged glory. A recurring theme is Lena's emergence from the fog of her previous life, into the awe of the world around her (the real world)  and her appreciation for passion and love and that is something that really appeals to me. Just, the metaphors - particularly the fire ones - and the raw, seething, teeming emotion was just incomparable. And, that last image of Alex, oh, God is was art. 
9. This book was my book. Lena, a girl who is, by her own reckoning nothing special, is shown the way by Alex, the most magnificent guy, and follows her passions and awakens to the beauty of the world and poetry and sonnets and love. Okay, that last bit hasn't happened. I'm still technically a random nondescript girl, but, still, Lena reminded me that I want to throw myself on the mercy of some great passion, have one of those epic romances, take the romance with the tragedy, appreciate, wonder, awe, live, love - I could go on. This book spoke to me so deeply, you don't even know how much this affected me. 
10. As I was reading this, all I could think was "My God, this is literature - this is love!" This is what it's supposed to be. What everything was supposed to be. This made me cry and laugh and sigh and love and hope and dream and wonder and gush and long and yearn and desire and need and all sorts of other things. This book reminded me of goals I've had that had really been lost as impossible or immature. Apart from the Harry Potter series, I can't think of another book that influenced me as much as a person. 

Who Should Read It: 

• Everyone! This is a book for all time. 

Final Score: All that is great and good and wonderful in this world/10 

Read this! You won't be disappointed! I cannot tell you how much I loved this book, but you need to read it!

Next I'll be reading Pandemonium, the sequel! Woooooo!