Book Review: The Girl of Fire and Thorns by Rae Carson

Once a century, one person is chosen for greatness.

Elisa has always felt powerless, useless. Now, on her sixteenth birthday, she has become the secret wife of a handsome and worldly king—a king who needs her to be the chosen one, not a failure of a princess. And he's not the only one who seeks her. Savage enemies, seething with dark magic, are hunting her. A daring, determined revolutionary thinks she could save his people. And he looks at her in a way no man has ever looked at her before. Elisa could be everything to those who need her most. If the prophecy is fulfilled. If she finds the power deep within herself. If she doesn't die young.

Most of the chosen do.

So, I got the opportunity to meet Rae Carson back in July 2013, however, I didn't get her book because, for some weiiiird reason, books cost money. I know, I know. Don't look at me like that, okay? Anywho, I finally got around to reading this book!

It's not much of a spoiler to know that the main character is fat. Trust me, Carson reminds the readers practically every other page. If it really isn't a problem that she's larger than a twig, than why tell us every page? I suppose it factors in as a self-conscious thing towards Elisa's character, but still, how could a person who kicked butt every minute go stand in front of a mirror another second and be vain? She should've been more accepting of herself. It's not like in any "skinny" book we hear about their diet every second. I liked how she changed it up by adding that, but it shouldn't have been that prevalent. That's just my opinion.

I hate it when bloggers write a review just to be nice. My mindset when blogging is that I can't really offend anyone-it's my opinion. I always try to look at other reviews before I begin mine to see where I want to go with it, but all of them aren't exactly "real" reviews. No book is perfect, so no review should be sparkling. I get irked when people write a nice review and then give it 2 stars. I'm nice on the grading scale, though. I realize that the author put a lot of work into it, so I start from the top and take points off from there.

Anyway, to continue with that paragraph, even though I liked this book, I still found things within it that personally made me scratch my head. However, I did like many aspects. The world was nicely crafted.

One thing that I was confused of was the need for three (fifteen million, pretty much) love interests. I would've been fine with just one. Also, she really wanted her king-friend, which was really awkward to read about...

So, here's the part where I give a nice rating. I feel like it's much easier to talk about the bad points than the good (I suppose because that's the part where my review differs from others, as it's my opinion), but I still think it was a good book. Not my favorite, but it was good.

Rating: 4.25 out of 5 stars

Over and out,
Nerdalicious

Book Review: The Dream Thieves by Maggie Stiefvater

So, if you've checked out my review of the first book, The Raven Boys, you'd know that I was a little iffy on that book. Don't get me wrong- it was good, I just couldn't get into it for some reason. However, after I picked up a copy of this book, I couldn't stop reading. If you are the same way, I definitely recommend checking it out anyway.

Now that the ley lines around Cabeswater have been woken, nothing for Ronan, Gansey, Blue, and Adam will be the same. Ronan, for one, is falling more and more deeply into his dreams, and his dreams are intruding more and more into waking life. Meanwhile, some very sinister people are looking for some of the same pieces of the Cabeswater puzzle that Gansey is after....

First things first, let's talk about those characters. I feel like this story is 70% characters 30% plot. The characters, though, are fantastic! Each and every one has their own motives, their own reason to be there at that exact moment. There is nothing that isn't thought through. 

The way the author writes really allowed me to not remember much about the first book, and still become deeply enraptured in this book. I felt like they were definitely two separate entities, the way it should be. It wasn't Book 1: We're looking for a dead king. Book 2: ...still looking...  It made everything important within the novel. 

I've heard many complaints about Maggie Stiefvater's writer style, however, having met her, I can say that her personality very much so reflects her writing style. Everything is paid attention to, which is how the characters so easily flow into one another and transition easily. Her personality is very sporadic and what I'd classify as a 'theatre kid' (AKA the ones in school who were the most bizarre and theatrical. Honestly, she didn't strike me as a writer when I met her, but reading her books really awes me at her talent. 

Another thing is that I read most of this book whilst not at home, so I would often get distracted and not really pay attention. One nice thing about her writing style is that you can drift off and come back a few pages later and not miss anything too important. There were a lot of snippets that I felt like they were just there, but I'm sure they had some purpose...

Anyway, I could blab on for ages, but basically, I really enjoyed this book. I definitely recommend sticking with it if it is a bit boring in the beginning. 

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

Over and out,
Nerdalicious

P.S. I'm pretty bad at taking pictures so I promise she looks better than this in real life, but this is her when I got to meet her!