385bookreviews

[385bookreviews]

1.190.1 Parable of the Sower by Octavia E Butler

SPOILERS

Pages: 329

Time Read: 6 hours and 57 minutes

Overall Rating: 4★ Storyline: 4★ Dialogue: 3.5★ Characters: 3★

Genre: Adult Dystopian

TWs for the book: Violence, death, gun violence, murder, fire, r*pe, child death, death of a parent, slavery, blood, cannibalism, s*xual violence, animal death, grief, drug abuse/addiction, injury, gore, child abuse, racism, physical abuse, trafficking, classism, torture, police brutality, body horror, domestic abuse, adult/minor relationship, war, s*xual content, p*d*ph*l*a, abandonment, kidnapping, misogyny, incest, cursing, mental illness, pregnancy, hate crime, emotional abuse, su*c*de, mass shooting, religion (Baptist Christianity), religious bigotry, colonization, vomit, confinement, chronic illness, excrement, xenophobia, genocide, panic attacks, alcoholism, homophobia, ableism, parentification, mentions of infertility and abortion

POV: First Person

Time Period/Location: California, 2024-2027

First Line: Prodigy is, at its essence, adaptability and persistent, positive obsession.

July 20, 2024: Lauren Olamina has a dream. In her dream she is trying to teach herself how to levitate in her room, but a fire engulfs her. She is suddenly then transported to her yard when she was seven years old, taking down laundry from the clothesline with her stepmother. She tells Lauren that when she was young, you couldn't see nearly as many stars from all the light pollution, but now cities like that don't exist as much anymore. July 21, 2024: Today is Lauren's 15th birthday. She doesn't believe in God anymore, but her father is a preacher, so her and her brothers agree to be baptized. While he usually held church in the living room of their house for their small, walled in neighborhood, he arranged for them to go outside the walls to the only church left standing for the occasion. They ride bikes, armed with guns, passing tons of street poor people, starving, dirty, and drug addicted. It hurts Lauren to see injured people, as she has a delusional disorder called hyperempathy syndrome. This allows her to feel others' pain and pleasure just as much as they do. When they arrive at the church, built like a fortress, Lauren, her brothers, and some other kids from the neighborhood are baptized. July 30, 2024: An astronaut on Mars, part of a crew trying to create a colony there, dies. The price of water goes up again, costing more than gasoline. The last TV in the neighborhood at the Yannis house finally dies. August 3, 2024: Lauren and her father discuss space. She thinks it's worthwhile to try and find new life and travel to new planets, while her father views it as a waste. Lauren laments the fact that the astronauts last wish, to be buried on Mars, won't be honored. August 12, 2024: One of their neighbors, a very judgmental and religious woman, Mrs. Sims, shot herself. Thieves had come over the wall awhile before her death and had stolen all her valuable belongings and food, and also r*ped her. The community had rallied to take care of her, but not long after, her son, daughter-in-law, grandkids, brother, nieces, and nephews all died in a house fire. Lauren wonders how someone who had based her entire life off of a religion that claimed you would go to hell if you killed yourself could do such a thing. August 17, 2024: Lauren can't get over the deaths of Mrs. Sims or the astronaut. She tells about the religion she has created, with the core tenet of "God is Change". Rather than God being a conscious being imposing his will upon humanity, she believes that the only constant in the universe is Change, so that must be God, and all humans must shape God for themselves. November 6, 2024: A new president is to be elected. He plans to stop the government space program, allowing it to be sold off to private companies. He also plans to repeal minimum wage, environmental protections, and worker protections.

February 1, 2025: Three year old Amy Dunn started a fire in the Dunn's garage. Everyone came running to put it out, as no one can afford the fire department fees. Lauren feels bad for Amy. Her mother was impregnated by her uncle at 13, and her nor anyone else in the family pays any attention to her. Lauren tries her best to look after her since no one else will. Cory, Lauren's stepmother, teaches the neighborhood children as an alternative to school, and Lauren asks if she can start early, since Lauren is in charge of the kindergarten age children anyways. February 19, 2025: Mrs. Sims cousins, Wardell Parish and Rosalee Payne inherit her house. They aren't pleasant people and accuse people in the neighborhood of ransacking Mrs. Sims house after she died. Lauren's father explains that she was robbed not long before her death. February 22, 2025: Lauren's father and her best friend Joanne's father take some of the younger people in the neighborhood out to practice shooting in the hills nearby, including Lauren, Joanne, Joanne's cousin and boyfriend Harry, Lauren's boyfriend Curtis, Curtis' brother Michael, Aura Moss, and Peter Moss. The Moss children's father has three wives, and created his own religion, running a mini cult in his own house. After doing some shooting, they notice a dog watching them. Joanne is startled and aims her gun, and it runs away. Aura sees the same dog, but screams and panic fires her gun at it. When Lauren's father goes to investigate, he doesn't find a dog, but the corpses of a woman and her two children, partially eaten. As they begin the return journey home, Lauren's father shoots a dog that gets too close. It doesn't die, and Lauren is put in pain by seeing the injured dog, so she shoots it dead. March 2, 2025: It rains for the first time in six years. March 4, 2025: Amy Dunn dies. Lauren had just walked her home from school that day, sharing an orange with her in the rain. She went out wandering at night and was hit by a stray bullet through the neighborhood gate. March 5, 2025: Lauren and Joanne talk about Amy's death, and Lauren tries to tell Amy that she believes things will only get worse. She worries that a hoard of the street poor will eventually get fed up and overrun the neighborhood and they'll have to survive on the outside. She tries to encourage Joanne to be prepared, saying the neighborhood in general needs to be more prepared, and gives her a book about plant life. March 6, 2025: The rain stops. Lauren wonders how many more years it will be till they see rain again. March 8, 2025: Lauren gets in trouble with her father for scaring Joanne. Joanne told her mother, her mother told her father, and then her father told Lauren's. Joanne made it sound like Lauren was trying to convince her to run away, but Lauren explains to her dad everything she actually said. He tries to make her promise not to talk about any of that again, but she refuses, wanting to know why they shouldn't be prepared. He agrees that they should, but doesn't want her scaring people. He tells her to start teaching her kindergarteners about plants, go and learn martial arts from someone, and that he will bring up her idea about emergency packs at the next meeting, March 9, 2025: Joanne apologizes to Lauren after church, saying she didn't mean to get her in trouble. Lauren forgives her and they remain friends, but Lauren loses some trust in her. March 12, 2025: Thieves break into the neighborhood and steal food from their gardens. Lauren's dad sets up a neighborhood watch system to have people patrolling at night. Him and Cory argue over this, as she doesn't want him to get hurt out on patrols. March 29, 2025: The thieves returned to steal some of Richard Moss' rabbits, but they were scared off by two of the people out on patrol when they fired their guns. Cory and Lauren's dad argue again.

April 26, 2025: Lauren decides to call her religion Earthseed. June 7, 2025: Lauren assembles a survival pack for herself. Her father won't let her have a gun though. She asks him if he ever thinks about going north and he says no, since all of the states have armed and guarded borders, and tons of people everyday are also flooding north for the same opportunities. June 19, 2025: Tracy Dunn disappears. June 20, 2025: Lauren turns 16. She writes in her journal that "The Destiny of Earthseed is to take root among the stars". July 26, 2025: Tracy hasn't been found. Another girl in the neighborhood, Bianca, is pregnant. August 2, 2025: The group goes out for target practice again. They find a mangled corpse this time, and Aura Moss decides she's done going shooting. Lauren's 12 year old brother Keith had begged to go with them, but was denied because he wasn't 15. While they were out, Keith ran away from the neighborhood. He took Cory's key to the gate with him. Lauren's dad is about to go out and look for him when they find him bloody and beat on the kitchen floor, having been robbed and the key also stolen from him. August 3, 2025: Keith is forced to confess his wrongdoing to the congregation that Sunday. August 17, 2025: Their parents bought Keith a new BB gun for his birthday to try and appease him and keep him in the neighborhood. This fails, as he leaves again, taking the gun with him. August 28, 2025: After days of searching and Cory being distraught, Keith comes home. He has clean new clothes this time, and his BB gun but their father destroys it before beating Keith up. October 25, 2025: Keith leaves again, this time taking Cory's gun. November 3, 2025: Keith returns with a wad of cash for Cory and chocolate for Gregory and Bennett while their father is out of the house. Then he leaves again, saying he's making a ton of money.

June 25, 2026: Keith comes home again. He actually sits and talks with Lauren while she makes him dinner. He tells her that he has a room with some guys who have a lot of stolen technology, but because he can read and write and they can't, he helps them to use it or sell it. He also reveals that he killed and robbed a man early on when he set out. July 20, 2026: On her way home from Curtis' house, on her 17th birthday, Keith finds her and gives her a wad of cash as a birthday present. Lauren says she'll give it to Cory. August 26, 2026: Lauren's parents go downtown to identify Keith's body. August 29, 2026: Keith's skin was peeled off and his eyes were burned out of his, showing signs of having been tortured for days. Lauren doesn't cry for him at all, saying he was sociopathic and he probably would have gotten worse as he aged. October 17, 2026: Another robbery occurred, this time into someone's house, which resulted in the Quintanilla's grandmother being killed. This marks the 7th break in since Keith died. October 20, 2026: A company called KSF buys a town called Olivar and turns it into a company town with armed guards, where all of the citizens are employees, not paid much but given housing and food. Cory wants to move there, but Lauren's dad says it's just modern day slavery and refuses to consider it. October 24, 2026: Joanne's family applies to move to Olivar. Lauren realizes the big invasion of people she thought was going to destroy the community is actually gonna be a slow dismantling as people try to find better lives. October 31, 2026: Lauren decides to go north to find a better life once she turns 18. November 14, 2026: The Garfield family is accepted to move to Olivar. Joanne's boyfriend/cousin Harry won't go with her. November 17, 2026: Lauren's father doesn't return from his job at the college that morning. November 18, 2026: Lauren and a few others go into the canyons where they usually practice shooting to search for her dad, dead or alive. They find a dismembered arm that could belong to her dad, but they aren't sure. November 22, 2026: Lauren's father is still missing. The fingerprints they took from the arm weren't his. December 19, 2026: The neighborhood holds a funeral for Lauren's father, even though they still don't know what happened to him. December 22, 2026: The Garfield family moves away to Olivar. They are collected in an armored truck with armored guards, employed by KSF. Cory talks to the guards about what it's like to live there, seriously considering the move now that Lauren's father is gone. Lauren meets with Curtis afterwards to have s*x. He wants to marry her, and she hesitates because he doesn't know about her hyperempathy syndrome yet, or Earthseed. He wants to leave and go north, and Lauren tells him they will after her family is settled into not having their father around. December 24, 2026: The night before someone set fire to the Payne-Parrish house. Wardell Parrish was the only survivor, his twin sister and her five children burning to death with the house. They suspect it was someone who took the drug Pyro, a pill that makes you need to watch things burn. While the neighborhood rushed to help Wardell and try to put out the fire, several houses were robbed, including Lauren's. December 29, 2026: Cory takes over Lauren's father's job at the college to make ends meet. Lauren begins to run the school in her absence. December 30, 2026: Wardell Parrish goes to live with family.

July 31, 2027: Bald people covered in paint and addicted to Pyro crash through the gate of the neighborhood and burn the place down, indiscriminately killing, r*ping, and looting. Lauren manages to escape. Lauren loses track of Cory and her brothers. Thankfully she has a gun and her emergency pack, and spends the night in a broken down shed. Lauren goes back to the neighborhood once it's daylight. No police or firefighters have come. She picks through the remains of her burned down house and salvages what she can, including money that was buried in the backyard. Richard Moss was killed, along with Harry's grandfather and little cousin, who had also been r*ped. She sees Curtis' brother's body, but not Curtis, and a handful of other people she had known her whole life, dead. She leaves the neighborhood, and manages to run into Harry, Joanne's ex-boyfriend, and Zahra, Richard Moss' youngest wife. Her daughter had been killed, and she claims to have seen Cory and Lauren's brothers killed as well. Zahra had been caught and someone tried to r*pe her before Harry saved her, which resulted in a concussion for him. Lauren takes them back to her shed to let Harry rest and so they can eat and decide what to do. August 1, 2027: Harry is on the mend, and Zahra reveals she was one of the street poor until she was 15 and her mother sold her to Richard Moss. The three of them agree to go north together as a group. August 2, 2027: Harry and Zahra gather supplies, and then begin their trek on foot up the 118 freeway. Only the right lane is free to traffic, the rest of the inner lanes being taken up by vendors and travelers. They eventually go off the highway and set up camp in a hill away from everyone. Lauren has cut her hair and is travelling as a man, since she is tall enough. People tried to join them at their fire, but they shooed or scared them all away. Harry is upset about this, but Zahra and Lauren insist that they can't trust anyone. Lauren takes the first watch and begins writing in her journal, and Zahra asks her to teach her to read and write. After her watch, Harry wakes up to replace her. Lauren wakes up a bit later to Harry being attacked. One man was already dead. She smashes the attacker over the head with a rock, which in turn disables her for a moment. When she realizes that the guy is still alive, she grabs a knife and slits his throat. They strip the bodies of clothes and possessions and drag the bodies down to some trees. She decides to tell them about her hyperempathy syndrome and gives them the choice to leave or stick with her. They both decide to stay, although Harry is wary of her after she so easily killed a man. She also opens up and shares verses from Earthseed with them. August 3, 2027: A large forest fire starts, and the group stays aware of it as they travel, worrying that it will jump the freeway. They find a spot to rest, but then eventually move when Harry finds a better one. Zahra and Harry have s*x that night, which wakes Lauren, and she scolds them for not keeping watch. August 4, 2027: The group stops at a commercial water station to fill up. Someone steals water from a woman with a baby, and Lauren trips him. She gives the water back to the woman and her husband. The couple stays near them on the road and camps near them as well. August 5, 2027: They come near the ocean and decide to camp down by the beach so they can bathe in the water. Lauren invites the family to come camp with them, but they don't accept, suspicious of the offer. That night, dogs came and tried to steal the family's baby, and Lauren goes over and shoots the dog. August 6, 2027: After making camp that night, the family finally decides to join their group, father Travis, mother Natividad, and baby Dominic. Travis and Natividad used to be servants for a rich man and his wife. They are heading up to Seattle, and agree to travel with Harry, Lauren, and Zahra. Lauren shares some Earthseed verses with them.

August 8, 2027: The group continues their journey by travelling up the beach. Lauren gradually converts the group to Earthseed, starting with Travis, who is immensely curious about it. August 27, 2027: An earthquake hit during their walk on the highway. Someone starts a fire in a town, and all the walkers begin to flock towards it to scavenge and burn and loot. The group continues on, coming across an older man pushing a cart. He walks along with them, wanting to get ahead of the desperate people looting and burning the town. Him and Lauren immediately connect over their Yoruba last names. As they walk, they hear screaming, and see a run down old house collapsed in on itself during the earthquake. Two women are trapped beneath, and the group works together to get them out. As they walk back to the highway, they are attacked. Lauren stabs her attacker, and three others are killed by Harry. They strip the dead men and Lauren changes clothes, and they continue on. Allie and Jill are the two women who they saved. Allie is aggressive, asking if they're a cult, but ultimately they agree to travel with them. Bankole, the older man, also agrees to travel with them. They stop at a store in a town they come across, and Bankole convinces them to invest in a rifle for hunting and long range shooting. August 28, 2027: The group has to change course due to riots and unrest in San Francisco, so they decide to go on I-5. August 29, 2027: That night they are all awoken by a gun fight on I-5 near their campsite. They all stay down till the shooting stops, and Lauren goes to find Bankole, who has disappeared. She finds him on his way back to camp with an orphaned three year old boy named Justin. They get him to settle down, and they all try to go back to sleep, Lauren kissing Bankole before they laid back down. Justin becomes attached to Allie, and she eventually takes charge of him on the road. Jill tells Lauren that they were s*x slaves, pimped out by their own father. Allie used to have a baby, but their father killed him in a drunken rage. They ran away, and burned his house down on the way out. August 30, 2027: The group makes it to the San Luis Reservoir. A lot of people are camped there but they find a place that's out of the way. Lauren and Bankole go off to talk. They debate about Earthseed some, and he tells her his wife died from robbers beating her five years ago. She manages to guess that he is a doctor. They have s*x, and she tells him she's 18 afterwards and he's appalled given that he's 57, but he admits he doesn't want to let her go. September 9, 2027: The group has continued their journey along I-5. During their walks, they saw a dog wandering with a child's arm in its mouth, and a group of children, one of them a pregnant girl, roasting someone's leg over a fire. Bankole reveals that he was travelling to get to some land that he owns where his sister and her family live. He tries to convince Lauren to marry him and leave the group, but she refuses, saying she'll only come with him if he agrees to take the whole group in. He relents, and before she agrees to marry him, she also tells him about her hyperempathy syndrome. He is surprised she managed to conceal it, and says he still wants to marry her. September 10, 2027: Two people, a woman and her daughter, snuck into camp last night and laid down on the ground and slept near them. When Lauren awoke and confronted them, they immediately curled up on the ground and said they would leave. Lauren offered to feed them, and the group convened about whether they should stay. They ultimately decide to keep them and move on. Lauren scolds Jill for not paying enough attention on watch. The mother's name is Emery, and her daughter is Tori. They were essentially slaves to a company and they were on the run, having escaped after Emery's two sons were sold away.

September 12, 2027: Tori attracted another little girl, Doe, on the road, and Doe's father Grayson. He very obviously doesn't want to travel with them, but he also doesn't want to separate Doe from her new friend, and he seems to connect with Emery. Lauren guesses that him and Doe are also former slaves. September 17, 2027: Tori and Doe go off with Emery to go to the bathroom. The group suddenly hears screaming, and Lauren and some of the others run over to see a big bald man trying to snatch Tori away from Emery. Emery is fighting back, and when he finally manages to shake her off Lauren shoots him. They get in a gun fight with the rest of the man's gang. Grayson grabs Doe and runs off. Lauren is skimmed by a bullet, and Jill is shot and killed while trying to shield Tori. When Lauren comes to from her wound and the pain of dying with those around her, she realizes that Emery, Tori, Grayson, and Doe all have hyperempathy as well, sharers as Lauren calls them. They move on, and Grayson agrees to stay with and protect the group. Allie is distraught over her sister's death, and Lauren comforts her. The group is overwhelmed by the smoke from a massive forest fire, but they manage to outrun it without any injuries. September 26, 2027: The group finally arrives at Bankole's land, only to find that the house has been burned down with his sister and her family inside. October 1, 2027: Bankole goes to the police to try to find out what happened to his sister, but all they do is harass him and steal his money. There's a well with fresh water, and the group ultimately decides to stay and build an Earthseed community.

Lauren Olamina: Lauren is a little bit of flat character, not showing much emotion throughout the book. This doesn't detract from the story though and makes sense in the context that you're reading her diary entries. She definitely comes across older than she is, but also with the same "know it all" attitude of any teenager that age. She felt very real to me. I didn't understand why she had to end up in a relationship with a 39 year age gap though, that was uncomfortable to read about.

Storyline: Blake takes a very dark view of humanity in this book, with abundant r*pe, robbery, murder, torture, drug use, p*d*ph*l*a, and cannibalism. I definitely don't agree that humanity would devolve to this level, however, given the eerie parallels to nowadays, this book definitely makes you sit with the content and wonder if things will actually get that bad, and what we can do to prevent this bleak and horrific future.

Representation: Almost everyone in the story is either Asian, black, or Hispanic. Lauren, Grayson, Doe, Tori, and Emery suffer from hyperempathy syndrome, a disabling delusional disorder.

Summary: This book was a scary read, and (spoiler) Parable of the Talents is even scarier. The parallels of Octavia Blake's dystopian 2024-2027 to our current 2024-2025 is a little too close to home, and really forces you to consider where we are heading, not just as a country but as human beings. I really liked Lauren's religion, Earthseed, and the whole concept of God being Change. I definitely recommend everyone read this, but be mindful of the wanton violence and numerous mentions of adult and child r*pe.

Quotes: -"All that you touch, you Change. All that you Change, Changes you. The only lasting truth is Change. God is Change." (p.3) -"There are over 700 known dead so far. One hurricane… That's nature. Is it God? Most of the dead are the street poor who have nowhere to go… Is it a sin against God to be poor?" (p.15) -"God is Change, and in the end, God prevails. But God exists to be shaped. It isn't enough for us to just survive, limping along, playing business as usual while things get worse and worse. If that's the shape we give to God, then someday we must become too weak--too poor, too hungry, too sick--to defend ourselves. Then we'll be wiped out." (p.76) -"Embrace diversity. Unite--or be divided, robbed, ruled, killed by those who see you as prey. Embrace diversity or be destroyed." (p.196) -"'Your God doesn't care about you at all,' Travis said. 'All the more reason to care about myself and others...'" (p.221) -"The universe is God's self-portrait." (p.315)

[385bookreviews]

1.66.3 The Excalibur Curse by Kiersten White

SPOILERS

Pages: 345

Time Read: 5 hours and 37 minutes

Overall Rating: 3.5★ Storyline: 3.5★ Dialogue: 4★ Characters: 4★

Genre: YA Mythological Fantasy

TWs for the book: Violence, death, sexism/misogyny, multiple su*c*de attempts, colonization, war, su*c*dal thoughts, grief, toxic relationship, infidelity, xenophobia, self harm, blood, vomit, kidnapping, injury, gore, death of a parent, murder, gaslighting, abandonment, body horror, fire, animal death, s*xual harassment, child abuse

POV: Third person

Time Period/Location: The continent of England in the fictional city of Camelot

First Line: Once, not so long ago, Guinevere had ridden surrounded by armed soldiers and marveled at her power.

Guinevere is in the clutches of Morgana, Mordred, and King Nechtan, who is being controlled by the Dark Queen. They are traveling north to bring her to the Dark Queen, as she has wanted her this entire time. They sleep during the day and travel at night. The first time they stop Mordred instructs her not to sleep, as the Dark Queen would be able to access her mind. As they ride that night however, Guinevere drifts off and meets Isolde in her dreamspace. She assures her that she is as safe as she can be, and gives her information about her location. Guinevere begins to get close with Fina, Nechtan's younger daughter and a warrior herself. They are attacked by another tribe, and Guinevere has a chance to escape, but Mordred and Fina are in danger, so she picks up a bow and arrow and defends them instead of running. In doing so, she realizes that she has the real Guinevere's muscle memory. Mordred warns Guinevere not to talk to Morgana, but Guinevere wants answers, so when they stop because of a storm, she goes to see her, Fina and Mordred following. Morgana tries to magically connect Guinevere to Merlin, first seeing where the emotion of passion leads her. Guinevere goes into Mordred's mind, where she feels his despair at having betrayed her and lost her trust. He tries to fight against Morgana to release Guinevere, but she restrains him with roots. When Guinevere comes back to herself, she insists they try again, and Morgana tries family. Guinevere splits off into three, first seeing Brangien scolding Ailith in the kitchen for being too concerned about the magic shield around the city. She sees where Guinevere left her crown on Arthur's bed and moves it before Arthur can return and see it. She then goes to Lily, who is visiting with the common people of Camelot with Isolde. The last person she sees for family is Dindrane. She is meeting with her stepson, Lionel, and she is instructing him to guard Princess Lily, hoping that she can make a match out of the two of them. Morgana is frustrated and argues with Fina and Mordred. Finally, she tries duty, but instead of taking her to Merlin, it takes her to Arthur. He is standing in the aftermath of a battle. He tried to come and get his son, but it was a trick and a lie that he was still alive, and him and his knights were ambushed instead. He suspects Guinevere to be in danger, but decides to prioritize Camelot, and take over the entire island, starting with the south.

The strength of the magic causes Guinevere to stop breathing, but Mordred revives her. Nechtan and Nectudad, his eldest daughter, are there, and Morgana is telling him Arthur's location and what he is doing. Fina takes Guinevere back to her tent and they get drunk, realizing too late the wine Fina stole from Morgana is actually the truth potion. They end up spilling all of their secrets, Guinevere sharing that she is a changeling and can do magic, and that she has feelings for both Mordred and Arthur, and Fina sharing she does not agree with her father listening to the Dark Queen and that she will help Guinevere escape. Mordred comes in, and Guinevere questions whether or not she can trust him, so he drinks some of the truth potion as well. He tells her that he was coming to Camelot to warn her, not take her, but he was tricked by Morgana. He realized after he raised her that the Dark Queen has been corrupted from being incorporeal for so long, and that's why he had been trying to save the wolves in the forest before Guinevere burned them. He tells her he plans to get her out and away from the Dark Queen. That night, when she dreams, Lancelot is there, but so is Mordred. They fight, and Guinevere is annoyed that they are paying her no mind. Mordred instructs Lancelot on how to beat him and discloses their location and information about Nechtan's forces. Guinevere wanders around the forest they are located in in her mind, and stumbles upon what looks to be herself but with brown eyes, floating dead in a pond. She runs back to Mordred and Lancelot, and he tells her not to explore her own mind like that as it can hurt her to force memories of her past. The next morning, without consulting Mordred, Fina retrieves Guinevere's pouch from Morgana's tent, and gives it to her along with clothes. She says she will leave her least favorite guard to watch her and then distract her father, sister, Morgana, and Mordred. Guinevere promises to get word to Arthur as soon as possible that she is safe so that way he does not come and attack Fina and her people. When she is gone, Guinevere changes and uses a knot to command the guard to take a horse and ride south, to trick them into thinking it is her. She then travels northwest on foot, planning on cutting down south to Camelot once she is far enough away. But not before she gets the answers she's looking for.

On her way, she comes across a group of people, adults and children, wounded. They tell her it was the Saxons, and she uses her cloak to bind wounds and her magic to burn away infections. They give her food and point her in the direction of a lake. She goes, and despite her fear, walks in. She slips and begins to drown, but Mordred saves her, bringing her to a cave and laying with her for warmth. She says she was trying to summon the Lady of the Lake, but Mordred tells her that was foolish because she is not an omnipresent being, and is usually just around Camelot. When they enter her dreams again, Lancelot is there ready to fight Mordred. Guinevere tells Lancelot to tell Arthur he doesn't need to march north. When Lancelot leaves to return to her post, Guinevere asks Mordred to kiss her. He refuses, since he doesn't want her to just kiss him in the dream and then ignore him in real life. They both wake, and she kisses him and they are together. In the morning, they talk about leaving Camelot and the Dark Queen behind, living just the two of them, free. Mordred takes them to a nearby forest and tells her he fell in love with her the second day of knowing her. Guinevere realizes she doesn't have a moment she fell in love with Mordred because she isn't in love with him. Morgana possesses Mordred, and does the connection magic to her again, this time using the word love. This connects her to Lancelot. She waits by a fire by the secret passage, and fans the flames as she sees Arthur off in the distance. He comes to meet her, and Lancelot explains everything that has happened, readying herself for Arthur to break the barrier and to go fetch Guinevere. Arthur refuses, still set on taking the north as well, and tells Lancelot she cannot leave Camelot because the magical barrier must remain. Lancelot is enraged, but complies. Guinevere wakes up back in her own body, Mordred asleep next to her. She realizes she needs to warn Lancelot that Morgana has just seen all of Arthur's plans, and goes to sleep so she can meet her and Mordred in her dream. They argue about what to do, Lancelot wanting to leave Camelot but also not wanting to break her vows to Arthur. Guinevere gets overwhelmed and walks through the forest alone. She comes upon the pond again, and this time, throws herself into it. Suddenly, she is experiencing the Lady of the Lake's memories again. She sees the Lady, Nimue, split herself in two, creating Nynaeve the one who trapped Merlin in the cave. She feels Nimue longing for a human life. Then she is experiencing the real Guinevere's memories, of her childhood, her father, her sister, and being sent to the convent. When the real Guinevere was at the convent, she would go out into the woods and shoot. When she went to follow an arrow, she discovered a lake. She cries at the lake, and the next night, her path is illuminated by lights. There is a boat there, and she gets in and rides it to the middle of the lake. She sees her reflection, once again having brown eyes. Then her reflection changes to a strong and confident version of herself, standing with Arthur, her eyes now an ever changing blue like the current Guinevere's. Merlin meets her on the shore, disguised as an old woman. He tells her that the man she saw is Arthur, and asks if she wants to become the person she needs to be to be his wife. She agrees, and for seven days, Merlin tasks her with things. She lays still on the forest floor to attract a doe to her before killing it, and lets Merlin trace knots into her skin with the blood. He then leads her into a cave, strips her, and submerges her into the water. She realizes too late she's been deceived, and Nimue drowns her, meaning to possess her. When the Guinevere comes to, Merlin is examining her, realizing that Nimue and the old Guinevere have both disappeared and yet also combined to create something new. Merlin alters and erases her memories, and tells her she will be queen of Camelot anyways like Nimue requested.

Guinevere comes back to her dream, no longer in a forest but floating in a void, despairing and distraught. Mordred and Lancelot try to comfort her, but she insists she is an abomination possessing the real Guinevere, that she is not real, and that she needs to get out of her body so the real Guinevere can have her life back. Lancelot says she is leaving despite Arthur's orders, and instructs Mordred to meet her at the coast. She comes out of the dream before Mordred does, and quickly throws a sleeping knot on him before he can wake. She steals his horse and rides back to Nechtan's camp, seeking Morgana. Mordred catches up with her right as she arrives, and makes it appear as though he had caught her and brought her back. Morgana knows this is a lie, but she covers it up anyways. Guinevere tells them that she has failed and Arthur is coming anyways, and Nectudad worries about Saxon invaders in the north. She takes most of their force and Mordred to fight the Saxons. Guinevere meets with Morgana alone, telling her what was done and begging her to bring the real Guinevere back. Morgana tells her only the Dark Queen can do that, so Guinevere agrees to go with them to the Dark Queen. They arrive at the Green Man's chapel to find a magical forest, teeming with life. The Dark Queen, merely an amalgamation of beetles and moths, sits on a tree throne, rotting the ground beneath her. Guinevere shows her memories to the Dark Queen, and she thanks her for showing her, and then says that she will expel Guinevere from her body, but only in order for her to possess the body, not for the real Guinevere to be free. Just in time, Arthur sweeps through the forest and kills Morgana with Excalibur. The Dark Queen runs away. When they leave the forest, Nechtan is dead, and a soldier is about to kill Fina when Guinevere stops them. She falls asleep, and upon waking, frees Fina from her bonds and brings her to her tent. Her and Arthur argue about several things, including her bringing the real Guinevere back, Mordred's loyalties, and whether or not he should fight Nectudad. Ultimately it is decided that Fina will come to Camelot to be one of Guinevere's knights, and Arthur will leave men under Sir Tristan's watch up there in the north. Brangien meets with Guinevere in a dream and tells her that Lancelot has been imprisoned for trying to leave the city, and they argue about this as well. Eventually Arthur uses Lancelot as a threat: either Guinevere stays as she is and Lancelot is pardoned when they return, or Guinevere tries to unmake herself and Lancelot is tried for treason. He also tells her that King Leodegrance, her and Lily's father, is dead.

They arrive back in Camelot, and Guinevere and Arthur hand in hand step through the barrier and free the city. On the ferry crossing of the lake, the boat is obliterated, and Nynaeve tries to drag Guinevere under. Arthur unsheathes Excalibur to send her away, and Fina saves a drowning Guinevere. They make it to shore and Arthur reassures his people, Brangien rushing to help Guinevere. Back in her rooms, she is surrounded by Lily, Dindrane, Isolde, Fina, and Brangien. Arthur comes to get her to speak with her privately, and she demands to know where Lancelot is. He says he freed her, but as punishment he sent her north to help Sir Tristan. Guinevere is enraged, but there is nothing she can do about it. Guinevere goes about trying to start a new fashion trend of covered wrists yet exposed arms in Camelot. Lily comes in and says that Arthur is having a meeting with Sir Bors and Lionel. Guinevere is once again angry, knowing what the meeting is about, and brings Dindrane and Lily with her to go interrupt it. She tells Arthur that he will be making big decisions like this with her, and with the women that the decisions affect. They then tell Lily that her father is dead, but she is not upset. She says that her brothers should not rule Cameliard, and Arthur agrees. Him and Guinevere say they want Lily to rule, but in order to be respected she will need to marry. They suggest Lionel, and Dindrane and Sir Bors can go with her to help. Everyone agrees. After the meeting, Guinevere tells Lily the truth about her identity. Lily isn't angry, and agrees to support her in whatever decision she makes about bringing the old Guinevere back. Guinevere convinces Arthur a council of women need to be in charge of certain things like divorce. She tells Arthur that Dindrane has been housing Blanchefleur because Sir Percival beats her and cheats on her.

After spending the day with her friends, Guinevere tries to use Excalibur to unmake herself. She fails, and spends the night with Arthur, as Brangien will no longer allow her to be alone. A messenger comes to Camelot from the north, bearing a letter from Sir Tristan and Nectudad both. They say the Dark Queen has begun to infect people, including Arthur's host, and they are coming south with the Dark Queen's army behind them. They ask Arthur to meet them at the forest without his men but with Excalibur. Mordred contacts Guinevere in her dreams. He tries to lie to her, saying everything he did was to manipulate her, but she sees right through it. He warns her that he is about to be possessed by the Dark Queen and begs her to stay with Arthur. Guinevere runs to tell Arthur, saying they need to save him, but he refuses to do anything to help Mordred. Guinevere wants to free Merlin, but Arthur refuses that as well, saying Merlin told him to allow him to stay imprisoned in the cave. That night, she tries to sneak out and leave the city but Brangien catches her, so she resolves just to go outside. She is startled by Lancelot, who has climbed up the castle wall. Fina and Isolde reveal themselves as well, and they formulate a plan to deceive Arthur and free Merlin. Guinevere also requests Lily's help. The next day, at the tournament where Fina and Lionel are to be knighted, Fina demands to fight Lancelot. Instead of following the rules, she knocks Lancelot out with a blow to the head. Fina and Sir Gawain carry Lancelot back to her rooms, and Lily begs Arthur to stay at the tournament so Lionel can be knighted and they can be married. When they arrive, Fina, Lancelot, and Guinevere prepare to leave, Brangien being sent away to get help, thinking Lancelot to be truly injured. Isolde steals Excalibur from Arthur's rooms, not having taken it with him so as not to make Guinevere sick. Lancelot, Fina, and Guinevere go to the alcove where she hid Lily once, and they jump down the hole and into the water below. Nynaeve immediately attacks them, but Guinevere is able to control the water and Nynaeve. She tells her Nimue isn't coming back even though she tried. Nynaeve ushers them on a current out to the shore, and begs Lancelot to unmake her with Excalibur. Guinevere tells her that if she keeps the Dark Queen out of Camelot, she will unmake her upon her return. Nynaeve agrees.

Sir Tristan, Nectudad, and ten soldiers, both from Camelot and from the north, come out of the woods. Arthur's soldiers begin to rush to meet them. Guinevere makes them all step in the lake to prove they're not infected, and they all do except one soldier. She is infected, and tries to infect Sir Tristan, but he dives under the water, and Nynaeve drowns the infected soldier. Sir Tristan stays with two men, one northern and one from Camelot, to greet Arthur's approaching forces, while Guinevere, Lancelot, Fina, Nectudad, and the rest of the soldiers go to free Merlin. Guinevere uses her own magic to age the stone, and then Lancelot uses Excalibur to break it open. Just then, a possessed Mordred comes out of the woods, with an army of possessed people behind him. They choose to fight instead of submit. Lancelot gives Guinevere Excalibur and tells her to go find Merlin. They then begin fighting, alongside Arthur who also appears. She runs into the cave, but is stopped by the Dark Queen. She tries to convince Guinevere to join her, but she uses a knot to trap her in place. Merlin comes around the corner, delighted that things are happening that he has not foreseen. He commands Guinevere to give him Excalibur. She pushes all her memories and sorrow and pain and guilt into Merlin to try to humanize him, but it doesn't work. He talks with her, putting her under his sway with his words, but when she touches Excalibur, it clears her mind, and she kills both the Dark Queen and Merlin. Excalibur begins to unmake Guinevere as well, but Lancelot and Arthur save her. She awakes to find all the possessed people free from the Dark Queen's influence, including Mordred. She also finds that her magic is gone. Arthur apologizes to Guinevere, realizing now that Merlin is dead that he was under his magic sway all along. Mordred apologizes to Arthur, and he forgives him, but tells him he can't stay. Mordred decides to go to Avalon, where Rhoslyn is. He gives Guinevere one last kiss and leaves. Nectudad and Arthur make an alliance. Some of the northerners stay in Camelot, including Fina, who really does want to be a knight, and Sir Tristan and some of the men from Camelot choose to go north. Arthur gives Nectudad his blessing to unite the tribes. Lionel and Fina are knighted, and Arthur, Guinevere, and Lancelot burn Merlin's body together.

Guinevere (Nimue): Guinevere overall had a lot of great character development throughout this series. I really enjoyed her as a main character. I wasn't expecting her origin to be both from the Lady of the Lake AND the original Guinevere, so that was an unexpected and kind of dark twist. The fact that Guinevere lost her magic in the end, however, absolutely enraged me, I hate that trope so much.

Arthur: This book really made me not like Arthur I'm going to be honest. He made up for it and obviously had the excuse he was under Merlin's control, but the fact that he just went full colonizer rubbed me the wrong way.

Mordred: I'm so glad Guinevere didn't end up with Mordred, they had some chemistry but it just wasn't right. He also started to get on my nerves with his melodramatics.

Lancelot: I'm so annoyed that Lancelot was mostly absent from this book. Her and Guinevere had such good chemistry in The Guinevere Deception, and then it faded in The Camelot Betrayal, and I really feel like it should have come back stronger in this book.

Morgana (Morgan le Fay): Another thing that bothered me was really not getting much more of Morgana. She was such an interesting character with a lot of potential, but I feel like all of that potential was given to Mordred.

Storyline: I really did enjoy this book the most out of the three. It was entertaining and fast paced, and didn't have any side quests or what felt like filler episodes like most of The Camelot Betrayal did. However, this book went from a 4.5★ to a 3.5★ with that ending. Lancelot was set up to be a love interest in book one, the tension was gone in book two as her and Guinevere argued most of the time, and then she was largely absent from book three, with her and Guinevere never truly speaking and resolving the hurt feelings between them. And then when I think they will be together at the end (because Guinevere is connected to her and her alone by love and because she expresses wanting to kiss her in one of their shared dreams), Guinevere thinks to herself that her and Arthur can one day be properly husband and wife?? That really pissed me off because then she proceeds to hold hands with both Arthur and Lancelot. Was White going for a poly situation, because I don't think so? The other thing that really set me off was Guinevere losing her powers at the end. Sarah J Maas does this to her female characters and it makes me so angry every time, why can't they keep their powers and their magic? Why do they have to conform now that their power has served its usefulness. I also wish Merlin and Morgana were expanded upon as characters.

Representation: Brangien and Isolde are lesbians and in a relationship. Guinevere and Fina are bisexual, and it is implied that Lancelot also has romantic feelings towards Guinevere. It is implied in the second book that Sir Tristan is aroace, although I don't know if his connection with Nectudad was supposed to be interpreted as romantic or not near the end. Brangien is implied to be Asian, and Sir Tristan is black. Sir Bors has a withered arm.

Summary: Although I wasn't happy with the ending, I did really enjoy this trilogy. I know some complaints said it was slow, and plot wise it can be, but I found the characters engaging enough that I didn't even notice. Guinevere is one of my new favorite FMCs. I just wish the ending had been a bit clearer and her Lancelot were canon.

[385bookreviews]

1.66.2 The Camelot Betrayal by Kiersten White

SPOILERS

Pages: 368

Time Read: 6 hours and 8 minutes

Overall Rating: 3.5★ Storyline: 3.5★ Dialogue: 4★ Characters: 4★

Genre: YA Mythological Fantasy

TWs for the book: Violence, death, blood, murder, kidnapping, misogyny/sexism, mentions of r*pe, fire, physical/domestic abuse, injury, deadnaming, gaslighting, abandonment, emotional abuse, su*c*dal thoughts, confinement, animal cruelty, alcohol, self harm

POV: Third person

Time Period/Location: The fictional city of Camelot

First Line: Guinevere's room was dark, night more a cloak than the bed curtains she never drew.

Guinevere experiences someone else's dream. She isn't supposed to be able to dream because she is sacrificing them so Brangien can see Isolde. Troubled, she goes to Arthur for comfort. Since it is harvest time, she has taken up the duty of ensuring things are prepared for winter. Her and Lancelot ride the perimeters of the land, not only to be thorough but also to check for the Dark Queen's magic encroaching on their land. She finds a wild forest growing where it shouldn't have been, and uses an iron knot of magic to infect the soil and stop it from being able to grow further and destroy their fields. Sir Tristan goes and retrieves Arthur, and they burn the forest down and send Guinevere and Lancelot home, which frustrates her, but she can't stay because being in the presence of Excalibur will hurt her. She goes home to meet with Sir Gawain to check the silos of grain, and then begins her walk home with Brangien. They discuss Dindrane's upcoming marriage to Sir Bors, and how they will have to travel to her father's manor for the wedding. She also tells Brangien she will have to take her dreams back so she can figure out what's going on. They go and meet with Dindrane for several hours to discuss wedding plans, and then go home, where Brangien prepares to have one final dream with Isolde before Guinevere takes her dreams back. Guinevere decides not to sleep, fearing the dreams to be from the Dark Queen, and goes outside, only to find Lancelot on guard. They sit together, and she uses magic to see that Arthur has beat back the forest, but she is sickened upon viewing Excalibur.

The next morning she goes to meet Arthur upon his return, and he jumps in the lake and swims with his knights, starting up a cheer for Guinevere for discovering the threat. She goes to view the knights in training at the arena later, mostly to help have a distraction for Brangien so she won't just be mourning the loss of her dreams with Isolde. She notices that Lancelot is apart from the other knights, and that one of the new aspirants won't listen to her because she is a woman. The other knights reject the newcomer for disrespecting Lancelot. On their way back to the castle, a pretty blonde girl with freckles like Guinevere runs up and hugs her, calling her sister. Guinevere is confused until she realizes that the real Guinevere, the one who died had a younger sister named Guinevach, and that this must be her. She feigns sickness and quickly excuses herself, as she knows nothing of the real Guinevere's past. When she gets to her rooms, she calls for Lancelot and Arthur, both who appear. She immediately thinks that the Dark Queen must be behind Guinevach's sudden appearance. Arthur is more of the mind that it really is the real Guinevere's sister, and that Merlin changed Guinevere's shape somehow to make her look identical to dead Guinevere. Guinevere and Lancelot set up more magical protections around Camelot, making sure to also cover the back of the mountain the castle is on so they won't be caught off guard from behind. Lancelot suggests to Guinevere that the dreams might be coming from the Lady of the Lake, and further, that she might not have sealed away Merlin because he took Excalibur, but because he took Guinevere from her. Guinevere then begins to wonder if she is the daughter of the Lady, and that Merlin made her so afraid of water so that she would never find her. Arthur goes to dinner and unsheathes Excalibur around Guinevach, but she has no reaction. This does nothing to assuage Guinevere's fears though, and after deciding to scout the southern lands and place more magic, Arthur and Guinevere make plans to leave early for the wedding and send Guinevach home.

Guinevere and Lancelot go to the southern border, and Guinevere sets up magic that will kill anyone with intents to harm her that try to cross into the land. Lancelot swims down the river to place the magic rock on an island in the middle of the river, but Guinevere begins to regret it and tries to go after her. She is stopped by wolves possessed by the Dark Queen. Guinevere begs them to leave her alone, but when they don't, she is forced to use fire magic and burn them to death. She begins to return back to where Lancelot had left her, and bumps into Mordred. He is sad the wolves have been killed, saying he was there to try and cure them of the Dark Queen's influence. She crosses the line of her magic, and tells him about it, as she doesn't want to see him killed. He steps forward anyways, saying he means her no harm, and nothing happens. She tells him to go away and he does and she returns to Lancelot. She meets with Arthur upon her return, and she tells him about the wolves and the magic but not Mordred. Upon returning back to the castle, Guinevach tries to see her again, but Guinevere rejects her, telling her she is too busy and that she needs to return to Cameliard. Guinevach is angry and distraught and runs off. They leave the next day for the wedding, planning on meeting up with the rest of the wedding party on the road. They camp in the woods, and Guinevere awakes in the middle of the night. She is talking with Lancelot when they sense someone in the woods. Guinevere and Lancelot subtly wake everyone and they jump up ready for a fight, but the man recognizes Lancelot and scurries off. While traveling the next day, Brangien, who was supposed to be with the rest of the wedding party, comes riding frantically on her horse to catch up with them. She tells them that King Mark won't be at Dindrane's wedding because he is putting his wife, Isolde, on trial for witchcraft. She is frantic, thinking Isolde probably tried to do magic to see Brangien in her dreams without Guinevere's help and was caught. Arthur is confused, because he thought Tristan was in love with Isolde. Tristan and Brangien explain that Brangien was Isolde's handmaid, and they were in love. Tristan was his uncle King Mark's knight, and he was tasked with finding King Mark a new wife. He found Isolde and arranged the marriage, but he also discovered Brangien's secret plan to make Tristan and Isolde fall in love and then pretend to be dead using a potion so that Isolde could move on and be happy. Tristan convinces her otherwise, but they are spied upon and King Mark tried to have them executed. Isolde begs mercy and they were banished, and fled to Camelot for safety. Guinevere begs Arthur to allow her, Lancelot, Tristan, and Brangien to go on a quest to save Isolde, and he agrees, as long as they are at Dindrane's father's manor in time for the wedding. They agree, and rush to the coast to catch a ship. They find a girl named Hild who speaks enough English to understand them and agrees to ferry them down to King Mark's castle. Guinevere gets on the ship but is overcome by panic, and Brangien puts her to sleep for the two day journey.

When they arrive, Guinevere notices that the dragon she saved from Sir Bors is nearby. They plan for Guinevere to go in pretending to be a servant, go to Isolde, give her a potion that will make her appear dead, and then they will hide down by where King Mark's former wives are interred in the cliff by the sea and steal her. Lancelot doesn't like this plan, but Brangien could be recognized, so she goes in alone. She gets lost immediately, and when a guard stops her, she begins wailing about it being her first day and being lost. He leads her back to the kitchens, and she subtly follows where he's going. He spits vehemently on the floor outside of a door, and she assumes that's where Isolde is and uses magic to get in. Isolde begins to panic upon seeing her, but Guinevere shows her a flower Brangien gave her as a sign that she is there to help. Guinevere gets the bars off the window and tells Isolde to jump into the tree, but before she can, King Mark barges in. Isolde jumps anyways, and King Mark begins to choke Guinevere to death. She uses her touch magic to force her way into King Mark's mind in a blind panic, and he releases her, but she erased his entire mind in the process. In order to cover her tracks she lights the castle on fire, and then drags King Mark out and begins wailing about Isolde being dead after lighting herself on fire and trying to kill King Mark. She manages to make it out of the castle and get Isolde from the tree, and they run to meet the others. Brangien and Isolde have an emotional reunion, but Lancelot is aghast at Guinevere's injuries and worried that Arthur will dismiss her for allowing Guinevere to get hurt. They go back to Hild, and she says that she will take them closer to where it is they need to be, but asks them to meet with her brother and his men to ask if they want to work for King Arthur. Brangien puts her to sleep for the journey on the ship, and when they arrive, Guinevere cuts the connection to the dragon, as she only kept it to lead him away from King Mark's burning castle so they wouldn't think that he had burned the castle and try to hunt him down. They go to meet with Hild's brothers and his men, but the ringleader, Ramm decides to hold Guinevere at ransom. Lancelot tries to fight, but they are outnumbered, so Guinevere tells them to go away and where to meet her, and they leave. Once alone in a shack, she uses the dragon tooth to summon the dragon again. Hild comes in and begs her forgiveness, saying she didn't know Ramm would be with them. Guinevere forgives her and tries to convince Hild to leave with her. Hild tentatively agrees, but when the dragon attacks, she runs to try and save her brother. Guinevere hops on the dragon's back, and they escape until the dragon's leg gives out from a spear. She uses her magic to communicate with the dragon, and he only came because he thought she would go to sleep with him that last winter. She gives him back the tooth and runs away, but succumbs to her injuries and passes out.

When she awakes, she thinks she is still dreaming when she finds Mordred fixing her dislocated shoulder and tending to her wounds. Since she thinks it is one of the dream she has about him, she begs him to kiss her, but he refuses, and tells her she is not like Merlin when she begins to lament about the dragon. He lights a signal fire for Lancelot and then leaves. Lancelot finds her, and when she comes to she realizes that Mordred wasn't a dream, but she once again doesn't say anything about him to Lancelot. They meet up with Arthur and his men again. He wants to make camp immediately to learn what has happened to Guinevere, but Guinevere insists they continue the hour to Dindrane's father's manor, as the wedding party has already arrived. Upon arrival, Dindrane is angry with Guinevere for leaving early and leaving her alone to deal with Blanchefleur. Guinevere is apologetic, and tells Dindrane that she can wear her jewels to the wedding and that she will sing her praises to her family to make them jealous. Dindrane drags off Brangien and Isolde, who is now posing as one of Guinevere's lady's maids. Alone in their rooms, Guinevere tells Arthur the truth of her adventure, minus Mordred. Arthur is angry with her for her actions, and points out that any time anything happens to a man in King Mark's kingdom, their women will be accused of witchcraft. He leaves to deal with something, but then when he comes to bed that night he is no longer angry and tries to comfort her. The next day, Guinevere spends time sewing with the women of Dindrane's family. They are very judgemental, so Guinevere spins a story about Mordred and Sir Bors battling for their chance at Dindrane's hand, and Mordred losing is what caused him to be banished from the kingdom.

That night, Guinevere dreams of Mordred again. When she wakes up next to Arthur, who is also still awake, she kisses him, but he doesn't kiss her back. She is mortified, and asks him why. He says that she is his best friend, and that he doesn't want to rush anything. He also is afraid of being like that with anyone because his mother died in childbirth, and his former love Elaine did as well, along with his son. He does kiss her finally, and Guinevere decides to be patient for his sake. Dindrane is married, and Arthur puts more effort into paying attention to Guinevere. When he inevitably does have to leave her to talk with the men, she dances with Dindrane and Brangien. Arthur says they will leave for home the next day. Arthur, however, ends up having to stay there with his knights to talk alliances with people, so he sends Guinevere home. When she arrives in Camelot, however, she is shocked to see that Guinevach is still there. She instructs Dindrane to spy on Guinevach and get as much information as she can from her, and to have Lancelot question her lady's maids and Sir Gawain to discover why she did not leave the city as instructed. Since Arthur is away, she rules in his place, holding meetings about the harvest festival and land and other mundane things. Guinevach interrupts the meeting, forcing Guinevere to announce her as her sister. Guinevach declares that everyone can call her Princess Lily, and seemingly tries to undermine Guinevere during the meeting. After the meeting, Lancelot and Guinevere go to try and search her rooms but are caught by her lady's maid, Anna. Anna is friendly, and Guinevere's touch magic doesn't reveal anything insidious. Guinevere has another dream that night of the Lady of the Lake, this time in embrace with the Dark Queen. When she wakes, Lancelot asks if she is alright. She says yes, and says she dreamed of the Lady again, back from when Camelot was new. Lancelot says that the Lady made Camelot, and Guinevere is shocked, as no one new where Camelot had came from or who built it. Lancelot then confesses that when she was an orphan, the Lady of the Lake saved her and gave her food, helping her get strong so she could kill Uther Pendragon. When she finally went to do it though, the Lady revealed that Arthur had already pulled Excalibur, and instructed Lancelot to return her kindness. Lancelot assumed this meant serving King Arthur, and then, when they met, Guinevere. Later, Brangien theorizes that since the Lady made Camelot, Guinevere's touch magic could be pulling the Lady's memories from the stone itself. Guinevach tries to see Guinevere but Brangien rejects her. Guinevere prepares to go and hold another meeting, but when she arrives, she finds Guinevach already has held the meeting and resolved everything to do with the harvest festival. Angry, she goes to sit beyond the lake and wait for Arthur to come home.

She goes to the combat arena to see Lancelot train, but when she arrives, Guinevach is also there, sitting in Brangien's spot. She tries to remind her of things their father used to say, criticizes how close Lancelot is to Guinevere, and tries to get her to shoot a bow and arrow with her, claiming Guinevere is very good at it and wanting her to teach her. Guinevere takes all of this as Guinevach trying to reveal her as an imposter, and she refuses to give her a lesson. Arthur appears and decides to humor Guinevach, and then escorts her to a play while Guinevere follows with Anna, angry. Arthur tries to convince Guinevere that Guinevach really might be just the real Guinevere's sister, acting like the fifteen year old she is, but Guinevere is still convinced something is amiss. She goes to sit outside, but Anna is in the alcove she usually went to with Mordred. Anna suggest Guinevere talk to someone older and wiser about her problems, so her and Lancelot go to see Rhoslyn the next day at her village. When they arrive, however, they find her and her girls frantically packing. They say they've been threatened by the men nearby. They have until nightfall to leave, but the men attack sooner. Guinevere helps shield the children while Lancelot and the others fight, but then Mordred appears to also help in the fight. Afterwards, Mordred tries to question her about their last encounter and about why she did not tell Arthur about encountering him, but she walks away. Ailith, a girl at the camp, asks Guinevere if she will allow her to come back to Camelot with her so she can be with her lover. Since she was banished for magic when she was a child, Guinevere just brings her back on the ferry, not bothering to disguise her in any way. She finally decides to confront Guinevach. She holds her hand to ensure she is telling the truth, and asks her why she is pretending to know her. Guinevach breaks down, revealing that she really is Guinevere's sister, and that she ran away from home to come to Camelot, and she is angry with Guinevere for not coming back for her like she promised and trying to send her back to their abusive father. She says she only undermined Guinevere to try and prove her usefulness and has been trying to marry one of the knights so that way she never has to leave. Guinevere is appalled with herself and apologizes profusely to Guinevach, who truly wants to be called Lily. She tells her that something happened while she was at the convent that erased most of her memory.

The harvest festival finally arrives, and Arthur teases Guinevere for her paranoia about Lily. Anna keeps her company as Arthur goes off to do the farming tournaments, starting a strange conversation, wondering what would happen if she left, and if she truly belongs there. Guinevere internalizes the sentiment and begins to wonder about such things herself. She goes back to the castle to change, and then her and Lily return to the festival and watch the knights compete in the games. Lily stays to watch Sir Gawain, and Anna brings Guinevere some spiced wine and leads her to a bench, Lancelot standing out of earshot to be respectful. Ailith comes up to them to say hello to Guinevere and show her a chicken she caught, and then addresses Anna as Morgana. Before Guinevere can process, the wine making her feel strange, Anna, who has actually been Morgan le Fay the whole time, presses a knife to her. The wine was a potion to make Guinevere tell the truth. She asks Guinevere what she is, and she tells her immediately that she is a changeling, that the real Guinevere died. Morgana tells her that she is the real Guinevere, because no magic to alter memory has touched Lily. Guinevere asks if she is there to kill Arthur because she tried to kill him when he was a baby, but Morgana tells her that is a lie and tells her the true story. Her and Arthur's mother Igraine discovered that Morgana was pregnant with the Green Knight's child, and she arranges to have Morgana sent up north and then come back years later a "widow" to explain the presence of the child. Morgana didn't go north though, she went into the woods and lived with the Dark Queen and the Green Knight. She gained magic while there, and when Mordred was old enough, she was about to leave to go back to her mother when the Dark Queen warned she was too late. She used her magic to see Uther and Merlin conspiring to change his shape so he could sleep with her without her knowing. Merlin prevented her from seeing the future of Arthur and everyone else, so she left to find Arthur to make sure he didn't end up in Merlin's clutches. But she was too late for that as well, and Arthur was lost to Sir Ector and Sir Kay. After she finished telling her story, Morgana tries to convince Guinevere to leave with her, but Arthur begins to walk up, so Morgana promises to tell Guinevere the truth if she finds her. After Morgana walks away, Guinevere is momentarily too stunned to speak, but finally manages to tell Arthur that Morgana was there. Him and his knights immediately go after them, and Lancelot escorts Guinevere and Lily back to the castle. When the sisters arrive at the hallway before Lily's rooms, however, they find a man standing there. He says he is Hild's brother, and that she is dead, so he says he has to kill Lily to make it even. Guinevere and Lily run, and Guinevere hides her in a secret chamber beyond a pillar on the outside of the castle. The man comes to try and kill her, but Lancelot kills him first. Guinevere pulls Lily out of the chamber before swinging in herself, staring down at the hole in the floor and hearing the rushing water beneath it. She contemplates throwing herself down the hole, like the Lady of the Lake did in her memories. Lancelot stops her.

Arthur and Guinevere fight over Mordred and Morgana's intentions, but come to know solid conclusion. Arthur returns to the harvest festival on Guinevere's instructions, and her and Lancelot remedy the awkwardness that has been between them. The next morning Arthur takes her to a secret herb garden at the top of the mountain for a picnic, and he tells her he's ready for them to make things work in an actual relationship, but leaves before she can answer him so that way she has time to think. At dinner later, she is about to give him an answer, when he receives a letter that the his and Elaine's son who he thought was dead is actually alive. He gathers his knights and leaves Camelot immediately. At first Guinevere is happy for him, but then when she thinks about it, she realizes that the only people that knew about Elaine's baby were her, Arthur, Malegeant, and Mordred. She realizes the letter must be a trick to make Arthur leave Camelot. She sends pages after him, and, in order to protect the granaries, leads Lancelot out of the secret tunnel in and out of the castle and uses both of their blood to make a shield protecting the city. Lancelot tries to usher her back inside, but Guinevere deceived her. Lancelot needs to stay inside the city, and Guinevere outside of it, or the barrier breaks. Lancelot begs her not to do this, but she does, turning to leave to go free Merlin and demand answers of him. Mordred rides up instead, and tells her that the note to Arthur about his son was not his doing, but rather Malegeant's men. He takes her to an approaching army of Picts, led by King Nechtan, who is clearly under the control of the Dark Queen. Morgana also meets up with them, and since they have Guinevere, which is what the Dark Queen wanted, they turn around and leave.

Guinevere: You really feel bad for Guinevere this whole book, as the weight of not knowing who she is really hits her, and everytime she tries to do something good, bad things happen as a result. Her conflicted feelings about Mordred and Arthur's conflicted feelings about her, on top of hurting both Lily and Lancelot's feelings, and her guilt over Hild and the dragon, really compound on each other to make her story a lot more tragic than you thought in the first book. The only thing that really aggravates me about her is her touch magic, she touches people like Morgana and Mordred, and yet things still get past her. I know there still needed to be surprises and betrayals and that's hard to do when you have a character with that kind of ability, but it was still frustrating.

Morgana (Morgan le Fay): I am so interested to see what her deal is and what her true intentions are, because she is definitely not what she was portrayed to be for almost two entire books.

Lancelot: I feel like Guinevere and Lancelot had a lot more romantic tension in the first book that I was expecting to increase in this one, but instead it kind of fizzled out and we were back to Mordred vs Arthur.

Storyline: This book lost a half star from the first one for me because most of this book felt like filler content for the actual plot. Don't get me wrong, I definitely still enjoyed it, and all of the events we experienced definitely helped to further develop Guinevere's character, along with everyone else (although Arthur still feels a bit flat). But you were definitely still left wondering the whole book what is actually going on, without getting any real, concrete answers about much of anything.

Representation: Brangien and Isolde are lesbians and in a relationship. I said in my post for the first book that based off fan art and my understanding of her appearance, Brangien is POC, and upon reading this book, if I'm reading correctly, I believe she is intended to be East or South Asian. Tristan is the only black character in the book, and it is implied that he is aroace. Sir Bors has a withered arm.

Summary: I am enjoying this book series so far, it definitely is very YA but that's not necessarily a bad thing. It's an easy read and I'm excited to finally get some answers in the last book as honestly I'm not sure what the deal is. I thought for sure that Guinevere must be the daughter of the Lady of the Lake, I had put that together after the scene in the first book when Merlin gets shut in the cave, but now Guinevere might have been the real Guinevere all along? Also, this might just be me so if anyone has any insight into this I would really appreciate it, but these books kind of take a strange pro-industrialization stance? Obviously they are not in any kind of industrial era during this time, but it seems to me the side of "good" and "humanity" is one without magic and nature, and "good" characters like Arthur don't seem to think there can be any kind of coexistence. There is definitely some nuance, but I'm hoping the third book will really round that out and the conclusion isn't just "magic is gone forever, the end". That will be very disappointing.

[385bookreviews]

1.66.1 The Guinevere Deception by Kiersten White

SPOILERS

Pages: 337

Time Read: 5 hours and 58 minutes

Overall Rating: 4★ Storyline: 4★ Dialogue: 4.5★ Characters: 4★

Genre: YA Fantasy Mythology

TWs for the book: Blood, kidnapping, violence, death, injury, sexism/misogyny, animal death, self harm, gore, murder, fire, abandonment, s*xual harassment, war, mentions of s*xual violence, vomit, religious bigotry, alcohol, gaslighting, infidelity, death of a parent, excrement

POV: Third person

Time Period/Location: The fictional city of Camelot

First Line: There was nothing in the world as magical and terrifying as a girl on the cusp of womanhood.

A girl is transported through the woods by armed guards and her handmaiden, Brangien. They are taking her to be wed to King Arthur of Camelot, because they believe that she is Princess Guinevere. But they don't know that the girl they have with her is a fake, because the real Guinevere died. She is really the daughter of Merlin, and she is tasked by him to protect Arthur from any magical threats. As they travel, they come across a forest that wasn't there before, and see that it has devoured an entire village and all of the people in it. They hurry along, but when they come to a stream to cross it, Guinevere is deathly afraid of the water. Mordred, Arthur's nephew, has to hold her as they cross. When they arrive to Camelot, Guinevere is distraught to see that the castle is built into a mountain with two waterfalls on either side, flowing down into a huge lake that must be crossed in order to get to the castle. She also arrives to a large festival being held in her honor, and she meets Arthur, who is handsome and very sweet to her. As they walk through the festival, they come across a puppet show describing Arthur's life and ascension to the throne, but Guinevere notes how they left any mention of magic out of the story. When it is time to go into Camelot, Arthur and Mordred take Guinevere through a secret tunnel around the lake so she doesn't have to get on a boat. On their walk, Arthur mentions Merlin, but Mordred reminds him not to talk about him since he banished Merlin and all magic from Camelot.

Arthur and Guinevere are married, and Guinevere has to navigate the rules of the court, as well as the wives of Arthur's knights, with the help of Brangien. At last, her and Arthur are finally alone, and they begin discussing what she needs in order to protect him magically, as he had known that that was her true purpose there. She wards his room, and as she leaves through a secret tunnel connecting their rooms, she erases her true name from her own memory. The next day, Brangien takes her out into Camelot, showing her the manors where the knights live, the aqueducts, and eventually the stadium where tournaments take place. They see the patchwork knight fight, and Brangien explains how eventually the patchwork knight will defeat enough aspirants to fight Arthur's knights. If they defeat more than three, then they become one of his knights, but if they defeat all of them, then they get to fight King Arthur himself. Guinevere is immediately suspicious of this, wondering with the skill and stillness of the patchwork knight if they are actually a fairy. They return to the castle, and Guinevere immediately sneaks out again wearing a disguise. She follows the patchwork knight, who meets with a woman outside of the arena before heading down a street. They remove their mask, but Guinevere is unable to see their face before they immediately begin scaling down the cliffside. When she returns, she meets with Arthur and presents her theory about the patchwork knight being a fairy. He dismisses it, however, telling her that the swords in the arena are all iron, and they would not be able to hold it if they were. They make plans to make permanent warding with iron knots. When she goes to bed that night, the Dark Queen, previously thought dead, uses a moth to try and see into Guinevere's dreams, but she pulls away afraid of her instead.

The next day they go to the market. Brangien and Mordred accompany her, and she meets Sir Ector and Sir Kay, the knights who raised Arthur. They also see the animals and she is kind to a peasant child. This causes Mordred to notice that Guinevere is probably not what she seems to be. They then meet back up with Arthur and she orders iron threads to be made by a smith, disguising her intentions by saying she is going to put them in her hair. That night, she spells them, which requires her blood and takes a lot out of her, but is much more permanent than the temporary thread, hair, and spit knots she had been weaving before, and is now able to ward the whole castle from any magical threats. After doing the magic, she slept for two days, causing rumors and gossip to spread around the castle. When she wakes, she also gets her period for the first time, and she thinks she's dying until Brangien explains things to her. She tells her she is going to sleep, but actually sneaks out to spy on the patchwork knight again. They meet with the same woman as before, and she tells the knight to give it to "the girls". Guinevere sees the knight's face, but they are completely human. On her way back, she bumps into the woman with the packages and is able to steal a rock off of her, one of the rocks she had been giving the patchwork knight. They are immediately back to the top of her suspect list when she realizes the rocks have magic.

Her and Mordred grow closer when she accidentally stumbles upon his secret spot the next day. She accompanies him down to the court he is presiding over in Arthur's absence, and there is a woman in a cage named Rhoslyn. She is the same woman with the magic stones, and she is accused of witchcraft. She admits it, saying she was just trying to heal her niece. Mordred is forced to banish her anyways, and Guinevere decides to follow her. Arthur's soldiers leave her in the forest over the border, laughing to themselves. Men from another country immediately appear and try to kill Rhoslyn, but the patchwork knight appears and takes them all down, and they ride away. Guinevere is disappointed and finds her way back to Camelot. The next day, Brangien tells her she needs to start visiting the ladies of the court and fulfilling her queenly duties. As she begins to advise her on who to visit first so as not to offend anyone, Guinevere decides to visit Dindrane, Sir Percival's sister, first. Dindrane is horrible and spiteful, and wanted King Arthur for herself, so Brangien protests. But Guinevere sees that she is treated horribly by Blanchefleur, Sir Percival's wife, and likes that Dindrane will speak her mind instead of being fake, so they call on her. She only has cramped quarters off to the side of the house that connect to Blanchefleur's room. She immediately tries to snidely insult Guinevere, but she just laughs and tells her she hopes they will be good friends, and then invites her to go to the chapel with her. This makes the other ladies jealous, but Guinevere is glad to have made a new friend, and she makes sure to visit Blanchefleur last of all the other ladies. After the events of the day, she uses her knotting magic to try and feel where magic is coming from in the city. She senses it the most from where Rhoslyn disappeared into the woods. She goes into the city, and manages to find more magic stones, but is unable to determine what they are for.

Arthur, up north for a meeting with the Picts, sends for her. Mordred and Brangien go with her, and on the ride there, she learns that the wizard who helped Uther Pendragon impregnate Igriane with Arthur by disguising himself as her husband was Merlin. She feels immediately betrayed, and wonders what else he is keeping from her, especially since some of her memories are gone. They spend the night in a camp, and the next day, Arthur, his knights, and Guinevere leave to meet with the Picts. While there, Malegeant, a treacherous former knight of Arthur's, shows up and leers at Guinevere and interrupts the entire meeting. He says that they are on his borders as he has purchased land from two feuding lords. The next day, Arthur sends the rest of his men away to guard Camelot against Malegeant, and Arthur, Guinevere, and his knights plan to go through the forest to get home. While there, they are attacked by wolves, and Sir Tristan, Brangien's close friend, is attacked saving Guinevere. He immediately gets an infection and begins to die, so while the other knights are busy fighting off the wolves and guarding the camp, she uses fire magic to heal him. Mordred sees her do so, but doesn't say anything. Arthur had instructed her not to do this, so as not to risk her position as queen, and he is angry with her when he realizes she did it anyways. They manage to make it out of the woods otherwise unharmed, and Arthur leaves while Guinevere goes back to Camelot. Before he goes he makes her promise not to pursue Rhoslyn until he gets back.

Every night after she returns to Camelot, she is forced into a deep sleep, and realizes someone is using magic on her. She wards herself, and sits up to find a handkerchief with knotting magic sewed into it, made by Brangien. She gets up to go to the sitting room where Brangien usually stays, and sees her embracing Sir Tristan and sobbing. She tells him she will try again, and goes to the bath and tries to scry. Guinevere interrupts, saying she is doing it wrong, and Brangien immediately begs for mercy, trying to say she bewitched Sir Tristan and that he really knew nothing about her magic. Guinevere reveals she has been doing her own magic, and says she won't say anything. When she came to Camelot, Brangien had told Guinevere that her and Sir Tristan had left their home country because Sir Tristan had been in love with his old uncle's young bride, Isolde. However, when Brangien admits they had been trying to scry to see Isolde, Guinevere realizes it is actually Brangien who is in love with her, not Tristan. They agree to keep each other's secrets, and Guinevere does knot magic so Brangien and Isolde can meet together in their dreams. This takes away Guinevere's own ability to dream, but she sacrifices it for her friend. The next day, as they walk through town, they hear that Sir Bors is hunting a dragon. Guinevere immediately leaves with Brangien and Sir Tristan to find the dragon before Sir Bors does, so Guinevere can see if the dragon is being controlled by an evil force. They ride after him, Guinevere using magic to eventually track down Sir Bors. He is about to kill the dragon when Guinevere uses Brangien's sleep handkerchief to put him to sleep. She uses her touch magic to talk to the dragon. He is not being controlled by anything, and is the last of his kind, dying anyways with the fading of magic. She lets him go, and alters Sir Bors' memory of the fight, making him think he killed the dragon but was also coated in guts and pissed and threw up on himself as a result so he won't want to revisit the memory.

Arthur returns, and Guinevere tries to convince him to get rid of her as queen so she is free to hunt down Rhoslyn. He begs her not to go, and she reluctantly agrees to stay. As they are talking, she accidentally brushes up against Excalibur and is immediately violently sick. The next day, they go on a hunt. They ride through the woods and arrive at the camp, and while the men, minus Mordred, go off, the ladies stay behind. Mordred begins to drop hints that he is in love with Guinevere, so she gets up with Brangien and takes a walk in the woods to look for magic supplies. While out there, they are found by a wild boar, that seems to want Guinevere dead specifically. She leads it away from Brangien, and thinks she is about to die when the patchwork knight saves her and kills the boar. Guinevere is shocked to discover the knight is actually a woman named Lancelot, and is about to help treat her wound when she is bit by a spider with the same venom as the wolf that bit Sir Tristan. She goes unconscious, and wakes to a group of women sucking the poison out of her wound, each taking a bit so none of them are affected. She heals Lancelot, and learns that Rhoslyn is taking care of a colony of women there, and that the patchwork knight has been helping them with supplies and keeping them safe. With this new revelation, and the presence of this poisonous magic, Guinevere decides it's time to see Merlin. Her and Lancelot race through the forest to try and get to him, but when they arrive at their old cabin, it is abandoned, and not at all how she remembers. She spells a bird to lead her to Merlin, but comes across a magical barrier before a cave. She undoes it, and rushes to see Merlin. He frantically tells her to get out of there, and that she can't be there. He implores Lancelot to take her away, and she does and they hide. The Lady of the Lake comes and finds Merlin due to Guinevere breaking the magic barriers, and she is angry because he stole something from her; Guinevere assumes it's Excalibur. The Lady of the Lake seals the cave shut with Merlin inside. After she leaves, Lancelot and Guinevere try to get to him but are unable, so Lancelot takes her back to the hunting party, where everyone had been frantically searching for her. Arthur says that Lancelot will have a tournament against the knights for her bravery, unknowing still that she is a woman. He then takes Guinevere aside and she tells him what happened to Merlin, and is desperate to get Arthur to help her free him. He refuses, and pulls out a letter from the old wizard. It admits they both lied about Guinevere being there to protect him, and that she is actually there to be protected by Arthur, as all of the magical attacks have been directed towards her, and Merlin knew that the Lady of the Lake was coming for him. She is heartbroken by this revelation, and begins to wonder what her purpose is, and who she really is.

Upon arriving back to Camelot, Guinevere goes through the motions of being queen, unsure of what else to do with herself. When she finally speaks with Arthur, she questions why he married her instead of having her come to Camelot as a servant or a relative. He admits it was selfish and he wanted to get the Picts and the other kingdoms off his back about marriage. He begs her to stay and be his queen, and she agrees, and he gives her the responsibility of arranging Lancelot's tournament. Mordred takes her and Brangien to a raunchy play in the city. The night before the tournament, Lancelot climbs the castle walls and knocks on Guinevere's window and they meet in secret, Lancelot talking about how nervous she is. Guinevere comforts her, and she departs. The day of the tournament arrives, and Guinevere is disappointed to see Mordred waiting to escort her instead of Arthur. She hoped that things would be different since their conversation, and Mordred pries at her about her unhappiness. Guinevere arrives at the tournament to find a distressed Dindrane. She is anxiously awaiting Sir Bors to step on the field, to see if he will wear her token and signify that they are courting. Arthur has asked Mordred to abstain from the fights, as Mordred always defeats the aspirant knights and Arthur actually wants to fight Lancelot. Lancelot easily defeats Sir Tristan, Sir George, and Sir Gawain, meaning she will officially be one of Arthur's knights. But she continues and defeats Sir Percival and Sir Bors, allowing her to fight Arthur. He unsheathes Excalibur as he goes before the crowd, and Guinevere becomes sick and faints at the sight of it. Recovering as he puts it away, the fight between Arthur and Lancelot begin. They are equally matched to each other, and the fight concludes when they both land a killing blow on each other at exactly the same time. The revels begin after the fight, and Guinevere and Brangien excuse themselves to her tent. Brangien leaves to get her food and drink, and Mordred comes in, saying Brangien has been waylaid by Dindrane. He confesses his love for her and they kiss, but Guinevere ultimately rejects him out of loyalty to Arthur. He leaves, and she plans to go find Arthur and kiss him, to see if she has the same spark with him she has with Mordred, but she is kidnapped by a man.

She awakes in a hovel to find Malegeant to be her kidnapper. He hits her, and asks her to answer honestly if Arthur loves her and will risk Camelot to come and save her. She says that he cares about her, but he will not risk Camelot for anything. He says that's unfortunate, and begins to pry her about the location of the secret tunnel into Camelot. She refuses to tell him, and he drags her out to reveal that they are over a river, and holds her over the water. He says when he comes back he will throw her in if she doesn't cooperate. She goes in and uses some of Merlin's beard hairs to contact him in her dreams. He tells her to go away as the Lady of the Lake will find her, and tells her she needs to fight like queen now, not a witch. She awakes disheartened, and resolves to throw herself into the water to stop Malegeant from learning what she knows. She tries to trick the guards into letting her out, and when one of them leaves, she throws a bowl of piss in his face and throws herself out the door and towards the river, but Lancelot is there and catches her. She then carries her across the river and they escape on horseback. Lancelot explains that Arthur forbid anyone to come after her once he knew it was Malegeant, but Brangien had used magic to find her, gone to Mordred, and Lancelot and Mordred had come to get her. Lancelot also says that she was discovered to be a woman right when Guinevere was noticed to be missing, so she had been dismissed with no conversation. Guinevere resolves to fix that once she gets home. They meet up with Mordred and realize they're being pursued by Malegeant. They resolve they need to kill him, but if any of them were to do so it would start a war. Mordred says Guinevere needs to wake the trees, because if the trees kill Malegeant, then no one can blame Camelot. He takes her to a fairy circle, and she uses her blood to wake the trees. She struggles to control them and they attack, killing Mordred's horse and injuring Guinevere. When Malegeant arrives tho, she gains control and kills him and his men. But the trees won't go back to sleep, and something is stirring beneath her feet. Mordred announces to her that the Dark Queen is rising thanks to her, and introduces her to Guinevere as his grandmother. She is shocked and betrayed, saying he can't be a fairy, but he explains that he is half fairy, mother being Morgan le Fay, Arthur's older sister, and father being the Green Knight. Lancelot tries to fight Mordred while Guinevere tries to put the trees back to sleep, but Lancelot is defeated and Guinevere begs for her life. That is when Arthur appears and kills the trees with Excalibur. Mordred holds Guinevere hostage, and tells Arthur if he wants to get past them and kill the Dark Queen he can, but in doing so, Excalibur's presence will unmake Guinevere. Arthur sheathes his sword, and Mordred kidnaps Guinevere, saying they can finally be together and that she doesn't have to suppress herself in Camelot anymore. Guinevere wants to be with him, and kisses him one last time, before burning him with fire and riding the horse back to Arthur. She agrees to stay his queen as long as Lancelot can be her knight, and they return to Camelot.

Guinevere: I really enjoyed Guinevere as a main character, and I liked a lot of her snippy one liners, and responses to people. One thing that bothered me about her though is that I wish she had been more curious. She has missing memories and unanswered questions, and I know we'll probably get answers to them later in the series, but if I was her I definitely would have been more concerned about the memory gaps than she was.

Mordred: I really liked Mordred and was honestly rooting for them to be together. At first I thought he would be evil, but White did a really good job convincing me that I was mistaken, but come to find out he was evil anyways. And honestly, he wasn't even really evil, but definitely working against Arthur. I enjoyed that Mordred adds a layer of nuance to the magic vs no magic debate, as he points out that magic is just nature, and men wouldn't be eradicated, they just wouldn't be able to progress.

Storyline: While I was skimming back through the book to write my review, I realized that there was a lot of filler dialogue and slower scenes than I originally took notice of. The pacing to me was really good because even during the slower scenes, it was still engaging because I was enjoying the characters so much.

Representation: Sir Tristan is the only person described as being POC, although with some fanart I've seen Brangien may also have been and I missed it. Brangien is in a long distance dream relationship with another woman, Isolde. Guinevere and Lancelot definitely have some romantic tension (I think they're end game, there's no way she gets with Arthur for real and Mordred is off the table now). Sir Bors has a withered arm, but still fights as one of Arthur's knights.

Summary: I really enjoyed this book, it was a great way to start off the year. There were some things that weren't perfect but didn't bother me too much, such as getting the POVs from the Dark Queen and the Lady of the Lake throughout the book, which kind of spoiled who the real villain was in the story. But overall I loved this book and will be reading The Camelot Betrayal next!

[385bookreviews]

2.27 The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

SPOILERS

Pages: 171

Time Read: 2 hours and 27 minutes

Overall Rating: 5★ Storyline: 5★ Dialogue: 5★ Characters: 5★

Genre: Philosophical Fiction

TWs for the book: Racial slur (G word used against Romani people), racism (against Romani and Arab people, brief), war, violence, islamophobia, sexism, alcohol, animal death, death, injury

POV: Third person

Time Period/Location: Spain and Africa, sometime during the 1700s.

First Line: The alchemist picked up a book that someone in the caravan had brought.

The story begins with a prologue about the alchemist reading an alternate version of the story of Narcissus.

Santiago is a shepherd, wandering the plains and fields of Spain with his sheep. He went to seminary as a child, being trained to be a priest, but he told his father he wanted to travel and his father gave him three gold coins to buy his sheep. Ever since, he spends the night wherever he can find shelter, and uses whatever book he has with him as a pillow. That night, he sleeps in an old, broken down church with a tree growing up through the center of the building. He has another of his recurring dreams, that a child comes to play with his sheep and then transports him to the pyramids of Egypt to find treasure. Santiago goes into a village the next day to get a thicker book and a haircut. While there, he consults a Romani woman (referred to throughout with the G word and Santiago is afraid of her due to negative stereotypes). She tells him that he needs to go to Egypt and find the treasure, and when he does, come back and give her one tenth of what he finds. Santiago is disappointed that there isn't a deeper meaning, and goes outside to read his new book, making plans to take his sheep to the town where he met a merchant girl the year before who had taken an interest in him. While he sat and tried to read, an old man sat with him and began saying strange things, claiming to be Melchizedek, the king of somewhere called Salem. Santiago was annoyed, but the old man told him the names of Santiago's parents, the girl he had a crush on, and other private details about him that no one but he should know. He decided to sit and listen and to tell the old man about his dream. The old man explains that everyone has a Personal Legend, and it is Santiago's Personal Legend to go to the pyramids of Egypt and find the treasure. He tells Santiago to bring him one tenth of his flock of sheep, and he will tell him about how to find the treasure at the pyramids of Egypt. Santiago considers this thoroughly, but ultimately decides to sell the rest of his sheep to his friend and take the old man six sheep the next day. In exchange, the old man, rather redundantly, tells Santiago to go to the pyramids of Egypt, and to watch for the omens. He gives him a black stone and a white stone, called Urim and Thummim, and tells him to use them to help him make decisions, but not to rely on them.

Santiago sails to Africa. He doesn't speak Arabic, and is confused and scared by the strange customs there. He tries to order wine but it is forbidden, so he gets some tea. Someone comes up to him who speaks Spanish, and offers to show him where to go to cross the Sahara desert. His new friend takes his money to count it, and begins to lead him through the market. Santiago stops to admire a sword, and when he turns, his new friend is gone, along with all of his money. He despairs immediately, but uses Urim and Thummim to see if the old king's blessing is still with him. He pulls the white stone meaning yes, but when he tries to ask if he will ever find his treasure, both stones fall to the ground out of a hole in his pouch. He sleeps in the empty market square, and is awoken in the morning by someone going to set up their tent. He wanders around, and then helps a candy seller to set up his tent. He gets a piece of candy as a thanks, and, as he wanders around afterwards, he realizes that him and the man didn't speak the same language, but had communicated anyways. He wanders up the hill and comes upon a crystal merchant, and offers to clean all of his crystal in the window for him if he gives him a meal. The man didn't answer him so Santiago cleaned the crystal anyways, and the man took him out to eat, saying he would have done so regardless because the Qur'an tells him to feed the hungry. He offers Santiago a job, but tells him that he won't make enough money to cross the Sahara in a day. He offers to give him enough money so he can go home, but Santiago decides to work for the man anyways.

After 11 months, Santiago had helped the crystal merchant to make the shop very successful. He had enough money to sail home and buy more sheep, and the crystal merchant had enough money to visit Mecca as he always dreamed of. He tells the crystal merchant it is time for him to go back to Spain, but the crystal merchant tells him he knows he isn't going to Spain, just as he knows the crystal merchant is never going to go to Mecca. Santiago decides just to see if he can join a caravan to go across the Sahara. When he arrives he finds an Englishman who sees Urim and Thummim and recognizes them immediately. He explains that he is an aspiring alchemist, and is going to an oasis in Al-Fayoum to try and find a master alchemist that has achieved turning metal into gold. They leave with the caravan and begin crossing the desert. The Englishman reads his books along the way, and Santiago watches the desert. They eventually challenge each other to do the opposite of each other, but neither of them learns very much. On their way, Bedouins appear to warn them about tribal warfare in the desert. The journey becomes tense, but after some time, they manage to arrive at the oasis, where they now must stay until the war is over. The Englishman immediately tasks Santiago with helping him find the Alchemist. Santiago firsts to talks to a woman, who says she doesn't know anyone by the Englishman's description, and warns Santiago that she is married, and not to talk to anymore women wearing black because it means they are married and it is improper. A second man claimed they were looking for a witch doctor and spoke the Qur'an at them before moving on. A third man said that there is someone very powerful living at the oasis, but advises that he won't see anyone unless it is under his own circumstances, and that they should leave the oasis once the war is over. Finally, an unmarried young woman named Fatima comes to the well, and Santiago falls in love instantly. She finally tells them that the Alchemist lives to the south, and the Englishman takes off to find him immediately. When Fatima comes back to the well the next day, Santiago tells her he loves her and he wants her to be his wife. This shocks her and she leaves, but they begin to speak and become closer every day when she comes to the well. Eventually, she reciprocates his feelings, but says that he must continue his journey to the pyramids to find his treasure. She explains that she is a desert woman, and desert women are accustomed to their men leaving for long periods.

Santiago is sad cause he wants to stay with her, and goes into the desert to clear his mind. He sees two hawks fighting, and has a vision of tribesmen attacking the oasis, even though it is forbidden. He goes to see the camel driver from the caravan, and he advises him to take his vision to the tribal chieftains. When he is finally permitted to see them, he tells of his vision and advises that everyone in the oasis carry weapons, which is also forbidden. After some bickering, the leader finally tells him that he will be payed a gold piece for every man they kill, but any weapons that go unused and therefore become damaged by being out in the sand all day will be used on him. When Santiago leaves the tent, a horse rides up and the man on it, with a falcon on his shoulder and a sword in his hand, angrily demands who read the omens to foretell this event. Santiago says it was him who reads the omens, and explains how he did so. The man on the horse explains that he had to test Santiago's courage, and tells him if he lives to tomorrow, then to come and find him. Santiago then realizes as the man rides south that that was the Alchemist. The next day, everyone carries weapons, and tribesman attack but are immediately thwarted. Santiago is awarded his gold and becomes the counselor of the oasis. He goes to see the Alchemist, and they eat and drink together. The Alchemist tells him to sell his camel and buy a horse. The next day he does so, and then goes to see the Alchemist again. They ride out into the desert together, and the Alchemist instructs Santiago to find life in the desert. He does so by allowing his horse to lead him to a place where there are holes in the rocks. The Alchemist pulls out a poisonous snake from one of the holes, but entraps it in a circle in the sand. He then tells Santiago that he will take him to the pyramids. Santiago refuses, wanting to stay with Fatima, but the Alchemist tells him that he will lose his gift for speaking the Language of the World if he does so, and he will eventually lose his position as counselor and Fatima will always wonder if he hates her. They return to the oasis, and Santiago says goodbye to Fatima.

They travel for a long time, and are eventually captured by one of the warring tribes. The Alchemist gives the chieftain all of Santiago's gold, and says that Santiago is an alchemist who can turn himself into the wind and blow away their camp. The chieftain says that he has three days to do so or they will be killed. Santiago is distraught as he most certainly doesn't know how to turn himself into the wind, but he spends the three days contemplating how. The day of, the chieftain and his commanders gather around to see him turn himself into the wind. Santiago converses with the desert, then the wind, then the sun, and then finally God himself, and manages to turn himself into a wind and cause a windstorm. They are released, and make it to a monastery three hours from the pyramid. They go in, and the alchemist turns lead into gold. He gives a quarter of it to the monk, keeps a quarter, gives a quarter to Santiago, and gives the last quarter to the monk to give to Santiago in case he loses the first quarter. Then Santiago sets off alone to go to the pyramids. He comes to the exact spot he saw in his dream and begins to dig. Some men come along and beat him, thinking he is hiding something. They take his gold piece, and then one of them tells him that years ago he had a dream of buried treasure in the abandoned church in Spain Santiago first had his dream at. Santiago goes back to the monastery to get his other piece of gold and sails home to Spain.

He goes back to the church and digs up a chest of Spanish treasure from an old war. He remembers that he must give one tenth of it to the Romani woman, and smiles as he plans to go back to Fatima.

Summary: My summary doesn't at all do this book justice. There is a lot of wonderful, meaningful dialogue and I highly encourage you to read this book, as I believe a lot of people could find meaning in it.

Quotes: "I couldn't have found God in the seminary, he thought, as he looked at the sunrise." (p.13) "People say strange things, the boy thought. Sometimes it's better to be with the sheep, who don't say anything. And better still to be alone with one's books." (p.22) "...whoever you are, or whatever it is that you do, when you really want something, it's because that desire originated in the soul of the universe. It's your mission on earth." (p.24) "If you can concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man. You'll see that there is life in the desert, that there are stars in the heavens, and that tribesmen fight because they are part of the human race. Life will be a party for you, a grand festival, because life is the moment we're living right now." (p.87) "When a person really desires something, all the universe conspires to help that person to realize his dream." (p.118) "It's not what enters men's mouths that's evil... It's what comes out of their mouths that is." (p.119) "You must understand that love never keeps a man from pursuing his Personal Legend. If he abandons that pursuit, it's because it wasn't true love... The love that speaks the Language of the World." (p.124) "One is loved because one is loved. No reason is needed for loving." (p.126) "Listen to your heart. It knows all things, because it came from the Soul of the World, and it will one day return there." (p.132) "The boy reached through to the Soul of the World, and saw that it was a part of the Soul of God. And he saw that the Soul of God was his own soul. And that he, a boy, could perform miracles." (p.157)

[385bookreviews]

2.29 Darkness on the Edge of Town by Adam Christopher

SPOILERS

Pages: 413

Time Read: 6 hours and 7 minutes

Overall Rating: 2.5★ Storyline: 2.5★ Dialogue: 3★ Characters: 2★

Genre: YA Thriller

TWs for the book: Death, gun violence, gang violence and culture, mental illness, PTSD, blood, kidnapping, murder, alcohol, serial killer, injury, war, government experimentation, drug use, car accident, ritualistic murder, mind control, fire, police brutality, NYPD glazing, classism, racism, cult, su*c*de/attempted su*c*de, psychosis, abandonment, smoking, sexism

POV: Third person

Time Period/Location: May 17, 1977-December 25, 1977 New York; December 26, 1984-December 27, 1984 Hawkins, Indiana; Set between Season 2 and 3 of Stranger Things.

First Line: Jim Hopper tried to kill the smile he felt spreading across his face as he stood by the sink, arms immersed in hot, soapy water, watching through the kitchen window as the snow fell outside in huge, fist-sized clumps.

Hopper and Eleven get snow in post-Christmas day 1984. With her friends not responding and the TV not working, Eleven goes snooping and finds a box with case files from Hopper's time as an NYPD homicide detective. She manages to get Hopper to agree to tell her the story, saying he knows about her life but she doesn't know a ton about his.

July 4, 1977, Hopper and his wife Diane have taken their daughter Sara to her friend's birthday party. The rich family hired a magician as entertainment for the parents, another parent named Lisa. She reads Diane's fortune and claims she sees darkness engulfing the city. Hopper is angry at her for trying to scare his wife but Diane says it's ok and they leave with Sara as the party ends. When they arrive home, Hopper's partner detective, Rosario Delgado, calls and says there's been another murder. Eleven makes Hopper go back to May 17, 1977 and explain how Delgado came to be his partner. He tells her about how Delgado was the first woman on the force, and that he had been promoted quickly, causing some of the other detectives to dislike him, so they made a good pair. Back on July 4, 1977, Hopper leaves his wife and daughter to go and view the newest crime scene. A man is found in a cluttered apartment, lying dead on the bed, with five stab wounds and carvings in his chest making a star. This is the third murder they've encountered like this, and realize they're dealing with a serial killer. Each time a victim is killed, they are found with a white card with a black symbol inked onto it. The first two were a cross and a circle, but the third is 3 wavy lines stacked on top of each other. The next day, Hopper and Delgado pour over the cards and pictures of the crime scene, but Hopper is interupted when Captain LaVorgna calls him into his office to tell them they're off the case. Hopper is angry, and even more so when a man in a suit, Special Agent Gallup from a mysterious government organization comes in to take the case from them and show paperwork proving that the latest victim, Jacob Hoeler, was an undercover special agent, giving them jurisdiction over the case. Hopper goes and meets with Delgado while the feds clear out their desks of all relevant casework. They make a plan for Hopper to cause a scene and Delgado to steal the paperwork that had Jacob Hoeler's addresses on them.

They meet again afterwards, and Hopper agrees to go to the second location, and Delgado goes to reinvestigate the scene of the crime. Hopper finds an empty apartment with nothing but a cot and a ton of classified file boxes. When he goes to look into them, he hears someone enter the apartment. He catches them by surprise, but it isn't an agent like he was expecting, and the intruder escapes even after Hopper chases them. By the time he returned to the apartment, the classified files are gone, and the only thing left for him to get clues from are an empty notebook with the indentations of the previous page pressed into the paper. Delgado has better luck at the crime scene, where she runs into the super of the building. He says how three boys in army jackets came knocking on Hoeler's door the week before the murder, and Delgado finds receipts and notes with addresses to community centers where AA meetings are held.

The next morning, before Hopper and Delgado get the chance to talk, Captain LaVorgna calls Hopper into his office and says he is needed downstairs to interview an informant wanting protection. Him and Delgado exchange information and then he goes downstairs to conduct the interview. The boy is barely an adult, and looks to be strung out on some sort of drug, barely cooperating to answer any questions. Hopper is about to leave when the boy, Leroy Washington, waves around a white card with black ink on it, another in the murder set. This time the symbol is a five pointed star like the ones carved on the victims. He begins talking about darkness enveloping the city and Satan coming to sit on his throne in New York, and that "the Saint" was going to make bad things happen. Hopper leaves him in a cell to sober up and goes back upstairs. Him and Delgado converse again, and she says she filled in Hoeler's notebook page with pencil, revealing that he had written the word "Vipers", and underneath it were the names of a bunch of gangs that no longer exist. They end up deducing that Jacob Hoeler and Special Agent Gallup are part of a gang busting task force, and that it ultimately was for the best that they took over the case so other peoples' covers weren't blown. They agree to tell LaVorgna tomorrow about what they found, Leroy Washington, and the new card, but Delgado tells Hopper to take the day since he looks exhausted.

Hopper takes Diane out to see Star Wars and they get egg cream afterwards. They joke and talk and Diane mentions that Hopper looks more relaxed, and he admits he's a little relieved that he feels like he can let go of the case now. When taking off his jacket, he drops the five pointed star card, and Diane says she recognizes it as a Zener card, something Lisa had in her magic act at the birthday party. When they get home, Diane calls Lisa and puts Hopper on the phone so he can ask his questions. Lisa was busy, but they agree to meet the next day. Hopper comes into work the next day and calls downstairs to see if Leroy has sobered up. They let him know that someone has released him on accident. Hopper is enraged, but Leroy calls him not long after, saying they need to meet up because he's in danger. Hopper leaves a note for Delgado to go meet with Lisa about the cards instead of him, and goes to get Leroy. When he arrives at the address, Leroy is no where to be found. Hopper waits, buying a new pack of cigarettes in the meantime. As he goes to poke around the phone booth, a mail truck comes up and five men hop out and kidnap him. He is knocked out, tied up, blindfolded, and dumped in a mailroom, and not long after, so is Leroy. Delgado goes to meet with Lisa, who is actually a decorated criminal psychologist. She explains her backstory, and her work at the Rookwood Institute where she attempted to rehabilitate prisoners for release into the real world. She left due to lack of funding and now works as a part time magician and does similar rehabilitation classes for people at community centers for a charity. She says that the Zener cards were made to try and test for telepathy and clairvoyance, and that there is one more symbol they haven't seen yet, which is the square. Delgado gives Lisa a ride to a community center, which was one on Jacob Hoeler's list of addresses. Special Agent Gallup reveals himself as Hopper and Leroy's kidnapper. He threatens them, saying that they must go undercover in the Saint's group, the Vipers, or he will have Hopper jailed and his family ruined. Hopper and Leroy agree. They plan for Hopper to be implicated in a double homicide that he will later be cleared of when the operation is done, and to then have Leroy take him into the Vipers as a disgraced cop looking for a place to belong. Before he disappears entirely, he goes home and naps, changes clothes, and then meets with Delgado to let her know that he did not commit the crime he's about to be accused of and that he has to go undercover. He also asks her to look out for Diane and Sara. Delgado, of course, agrees.

Leroy takes Hopper in a beat up old station wagon to the Bronx. On their way, they are stopped by three boys and a girl standing in the road. The girl, Martha, is Leroy's sister. They smoke weed in the car and Martha has them stop at a tech store that they plan to rob. Before they go in, Martha gives Hopper a pill that he spits out later, but not before some of it dissolved. They rob the store, and Hopper, high off the weed and the pill, attacks the store owner. They leave and head to a huge warehouse complex in the Bronx, and Hopper is introduced to the gang, and then after that, Saint John. Saint John believes that him and Hopper share a special connection due to them both having been in Vietnam, and welcomes him into the ranks, assigning him to Leroy and Lincoln's crew.

Delgado is in the office when the news about Hopper's supposed crime breaks. She goes to interview Diane, but when they interrupted by LaVorgna, Delgado slips her an address. LaVorgna then makes Delgado take a week of paid leave because she is too close to the situation. She takes this time to meet with Diane and tell her as much as she knows. After that, Delgado visits all of the community centers on Hoeler's list. She discovers that the first two victims were leaders of military support groups, and that Hoeler had been visiting them. She goes again to see Lisa at her support group meeting, but she didn't recognize the names of the first two victims, or the picture of Hoeler. Without knowing it, Delgado brushes by Saint John as he enters Lisa's meeting. She goes home and calls Special Agent Gallup to begin reporting her findings to him. At the end of her meeting, Saint John starts offering to help stack chairs, and Lisa agrees until she notices the Vipers jacket. She tells him to leave but he offers her a job, giving her the address of the warehouse in the Bronx if she is interested. Whenever she arrives home, she gets a call that she has been let go from the charity for financial reasons, and she impulsively decides to go the warehouse. She is surrounded by two men and a bunch of people on the roofs, but just when they're about to grab her, Saint John walks out and welcomes her to the Viper warehouse.

Saint John orders Hopper, Leroy, and Lincoln to go to a veteran's support group, and Hopper gets a lot off his chest. He does finally get agitated with Leroy though, and loses his cool, demanding more information. Lincoln begins to grow suspicious of Hopper, and they return to the warehouse. Hopper tries to open one of the crates they are moving, but Lincoln grabs Hopper's gun and aims it at him. Martha intervenes, telling Lincoln to go see Saint John, and squares up to Hopper with a crowbar. Saint John gives Lisa the tour of the warehouse, and, to demonstrate his abilities, orders a gang member to kill himself with a screwdriver. Lisa stops him, and wants to leave but continues to follow Saint John up to his office. She sits down at a table and finds herself unable to move, and Saint John reveals himself to be one of her former patients at Rookwood. Lincoln interrupts to tell him that Martha and Hopper are about to fight. He goes down and halts the impending fight, bringing Hopper back up to the office, but he is enraged to discover that Lisa has escaped. Hopper offers to search with Leroy and Lincoln's crews. He manages to find Lisa first, and she explains why she's there. He says he'll send Leroy to sneak her out, and that she has to go see Delgado. He sends Leroy, and then sneaks around Saint John's office, stealing plans, and finding the classified files that were in Hoeler's apartment. He then goes to the roof after hearing commotion up there. Gang members stand gathered around Saint John, all robed in white while he was robed in black. He does some prayers to Satan, and then Leroy drags Lisa forward. He uses his mind tricks on her, and she jumps off the roof of the building to her death. Hopper yells, and Martha grabs him and they both run, escaping the warehouse as the entire city is plunged into complete and total darkness from a blackout. They take Leroy's old station wagon and drive through the Bronx, where several buildings are on fire, some people are having a street party, and they have a few close encounters with a couple other gangs, causing them to eventually abandon the car and go on foot. They are hunted down eventually by seven Vipers, and they chase them through the park on motorbikes. Hopper manages to steal one from them, and him and Martha escape. They make it to where there are finally some police officers, but they are immediately arrested due to Hopper supposedly being a wanted criminal. The van they are loaded into, however, takes them straight to Special Agent Gallup in Times Square. Hopper hands over Martha and the paperwork he stole, and takes a motorcycle straight home to see his wife and kid. When he arrives, Delgado, who had been there guarding them, had left to go to the Rookwood Institute to find Hopper, since their neighbor Eric had seen the Vipers and all their guns marching on it. He contacts Special Agent Gallup over the radio, and tells him he is going to Rookwood to save Delgado and Leroy. He sneaks in, and finds Delgado unconscious on a pentagram, with Saint John standing over her with a knife. Leroy and another gang member, Rueben, restrain him, and he is drugged and knocked out. When he wakes, he is unable to move despite not being physically restrained, and Saint John explains that when he was a soldier in Vietnam, the CIA did experiments on him and he helped to do experiments on others to make them super soldiers. He believes wholeheartedly it was during this time that Satan was calling for him, and that call was reignited when he met Lisa. He tries to mind control Hopper into killing Delgado and then himself, but Hopper manages to break free and fight off Rueben, Leroy, and then Saint John, stabbing him in the shoulder. Leroy tries to fight off the drugs, but ends up shooting Hopper in the shoulder. Delgado is alright, and Saint John dies, and they wait for the cops to find them. Martha and Leroy reunite, and Hopper goes home to his family.

Delgado and Hopper are welcomed back to the precinct with open arms and cheers. In 1984, Eleven is satisfied with Hopper's story and it's conclusion. The last chapter describes Hopper's Christmas in 1977 with Diane and Sara.

Jim Hopper: Hopper was frustrating to read about at times with all of his blustering and the tough guy act he tries to pull with Special Agent Gallup. All of the scenes with him and Eleven felt dull and repetitive, especially with his repeated thoughts about "not wanting to talk about Vietnam cause he isn't ready" and worrying that Eleven is too young or not mature enough to keep hearing the story the entire book.

Rosario Delgado: Delgado comes across like a badass only to be used as the damsel in distress for Hopper to rescue and that was incredibly infuriating to me.

Lisa Saregeson: This entire character was incredibly frustrating as we are introduced to her officially with a lot of exposition of her backstory that was completely unprompted. She was essential to Saint John and his background and the story, and yet we never find out what he wanted from her, or what occurred while he was her patient, or what she knew about him. She felt like she just ended up being there to move the plot along and be a dramatic death in a climactic moment.

Storyline: At it's core, this book is just plot for the sake of plot. All of the characters felt hollow and like they were only there to move the plot forward. Information is glossed over for what feels like the sake of page numbers, and there are a lot of conversations and inner dialogue that feel repetitive and redundant. It also took me a bit to get into the story itself because I simply had a hard time caring, most likely because this was just a filler book for Stranger Things; I thought I would enjoy it but I didn't.

Representation: Rosario Delgado is Cuban American, and Martha and Leroy are black. Members of the Vipers are described as being of all races. I personally can't speak at all to how things like race or gang culture were handled in this book, but I feel like there were some things lacking. Also, Hopper and Saint John have PTSD from Vietnam, but the way it is shown that Hopper is strong and put together and got over it while Saint John became "delusional" also didn't feel like the best way to represent that as well.

Summary: While it kept me entertained enough to get through it, this book really wasn't for me. It was like reading fanfiction to be honest, and not good fanfiction either. I think the fact that I knew what happened with Hopper and his family was also unincentivizing. The murders that started the entire story ultimately fell by the wayside, and the exact source of Saint John's abilities were chalked up to an MKUltra experiment and some drugs, which not only did I see coming from a mile away, but was also never expanded upon. The entire dismissal of Lisa as a character was incredibly frustrating, and Delgado doing all that work just to end up being bait was also a let down.

[385bookreviews]

1.45.3 Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

SPOILERS

Pages: 390

Time Read: 5 hours and 44 minutes

Overall Rating: 4.5★ Storyline: 4.5★ Dialogue: 4★ Characters: 4.5★

Genre: YA Dystopian

TWs for the book: Death, war, violence, child death, blood, murder, grief, torture, injury, su*c*dal thoughts/attempted su*c*de, fire and burns, gun violence, mental illness, panic attacks, gore, alcoholism, medical content/trauma, addiction and drug use, body horror, police brutality, genocide, confinement, classism, physical abuse, emotional abuse, self harm, kidnapping, forced institutionalization, child abuse, death of a parent, death of a sibling, vomit, slavery, mass shooting, psychosis, gaslighting, animal death, abandonment, toxic relationship, chronic illness, disordered eating, fake miscarriage, pregnancy, brief mentions of forced underage prostitution

POV: First Person

Time Period/Location: Set one month after the events of Catching Fire in District 13, District 12, District 8, District 2, and the Capitol.

First Line: I stare down at my shoes, watching as a fine layer of ash settles on the worn leather.

Katniss visits the remains of District 12 alone. Most of the people didn't make it out and the street is littered with bodies. Her mental state isn't good, and District 13 only agreed to let her make this trip so that way she would be the Mockingjay publicly for them and be a symbol of the rebellion. Her old house was destroyed, but the Victor's Village remains. She goes to get some of her things, and also grabs Buttercup, her sister's ornery cat. When she goes up to her room, President Snow has left a genetically enhanced rose in a vase. This frightens her, and she leaves and goes back to 13 in a hoverplane. 13 is run strictly, the entire population basically a functioning military. Katniss chafes against the schedules and trainings and uses her mental disorientation as an excuse/reason for her absences. When her and Gale arrive back, they go to Command and see that Peeta, who was captured by the Capitol, is doing an interview with Caesar Flickerman. He says he had no knowledge of the rebel plot, and calls for a ceasefire between the districts and the Capitol. Everyone in the Command room immediately begins calling him a traitor. Katniss runs away. After talking with Gale and Prim, she decides that she will be their Mockingjay, but with conditions.

The next morning she goes to Alma Coin, the President of District 13, and lays out her demands. She wants to be able to go above ground and hunt with Gale, Prim gets to keep her cat, Peeta and the other victors are automatically granted immunity for all of their actions before they are rescued, even if they harm the war effort, and she gets to kill President Snow. She also demands that Coin publicly announce this to all of her people. After deliberation, she agrees. Plutarch and his assistant, Fulvia, both Capitol defectors, give her a sketchbook of Cinna's, where he designed the Mockingjay suit for her. They tell her they have the actual thing, and lead her downstairs for a surprise. The surprise, however, ends up shocking everyone. Plutarch had Katniss' prep team rescued, but they were being kept in dungeons in 13, shackled, starved, and beaten, for stealing a bit of extra food. Plutarch orders them freed, and Katniss takes them to the hospital to see her mother. After her and Gale hunt in the woods, Coin makes her announcement to District 13 about Katniss' demand to pardon the victors. She also threatens though, that if Katniss doesn't follow directions, the deal is off the table.

The next day, Katniss' prep team remakes her. She goes to see Beetee, and he has designed new bows for her and Gale. She puts on her suit and goes into a studio where they try to film a scene for one of their "propos". It is a massive flop and Haymitch, now sober, reappears to tell her so, and then calls a meeting with a lot of people from District 12. Everyone gives examples of moments when Katniss inspired them, and Haymitch uses that to make his point that she can't be fed lines, that she has to be on the ground, in the action in order to get spontaneous material. Everyone agrees on this and they fly her to District 8, where bombing from the Capitol has just ended. Katniss goes in and meets with the wounded, talking with them and encouraging them. Just as they are about to leave, the Capitol begins bombing again. They try to hurry Katniss into a bunker, but her and Gale abscond to the roof and begin shooting down Capitol planes. When they come back to the ground, the hospital has been bombed and everyone in it killed. Katniss, at the prompting of Cressida, a film director from the Capitol, gives an impassioned speech letting the districts know that she is alive, and that the Capitol must fall. Then she collapses and is taken back to District 13.

The propos are a hit, and while Katniss rests in the hospital, kept company by Finnick, another interview of Peeta plays. Even though it had only been five days, Peeta has deteriorated significantly. In the interview, Peeta urges Katniss to stop the war. Finnick tells Katniss not to tell anyone that they've seen it, and to her shock, no one informs her about it, not even Gale, which causes them to fight the next day. The propo team has Gale and Katniss go back to District 12 to talk about the bombing and their lives there. Back in the Victor's Village, Katniss kisses Gale, but he tells her she only notices him when he's in pain and stalks off. When they return to 13, Peeta is on TV again, urging the districts to stop fighting. Suddenly, Beetee breaks through the airwaves in the Capitol and puts Katniss and the propos up on TV. This rattles Peeta, who is in an ever worse condition, and he manages to warn the people of District 13 that they'll be "dead by morning". This results in him getting beaten. President Coin decides to heed his warning and evacuates the population into the bomb bunkers. This gives them 10 minutes of extra evacuation time, which saves Prim and Gale's lives as they went back for Buttercup. The Capitol bombs them for three days, but no one dies and the damage is minimal.

Katniss realizes that Snow is using Peeta to break her down. Coin and Plutarch want her and Finnick above ground immediately to film a propo letting the country know that they are safe and alive. When she gets up there though, the ground is littered with Snow's artificial roses, and both her and Finnick have a breakdown and end up back in the hospital. When they wake up, a team has been sent to rescue Peeta, Johanna, and Annie. Gale has also gone on the mission. Katniss is desperate to do something to help, so Haymitch instructs her and Finnick to go and get footage above ground and tell a story or something so Beetee can use it to distract the Capitol. Katniss tells the story of how she met Peeta for the first time, but Finnick begins a long tale of how he was forced into prostitution at 16 by President Snow, and all of the horrible, nasty secrets he knows about the wealthy Capitol citizens. Lastly, he talks about the secrets he knows of President Snow's, revealing that he uses the roses to cover up the scent of blood that comes from sores in his mouth he got from drinking poison. He poisoned all of his political enemies in order to stay in power, and drank from the same glass to avoid suspicion, but the antidotes weren't always perfect.

They all return from the mission alive. Johanna is tortured, and Annie is overjoyed to see Finnick. Katniss runs to see Peeta, but he immediately tries to choke her to death, bruising her throat badly. They later inform her that Peeta's memories of her have been altered using tracker jacker venom. That he thinks she's a mutt made by the Capitol and that he has to kill her. They try to eventually use Delly, a friend of Peeta's from 12, to get him to calm down and open up, but Peeta reacts negatively when he hears that his family is dead and he blames Katniss for all of it. Katniss can't handle being in 13 anymore, and they send her to District 2. She spends awhile moving around 2, hunting with Gale, and listening in on meetings as they try to figure out how to get into and take control of the Capitol's mine, the Nut, which is all buried inside of a mountain. Gale finally proposes the plan that instead of capturing it, they bury the people inside except for one entrance, and then capture whoever escapes. Katniss is appalled by the idea but President Coin approves it anyways. They station Katniss in the square to announce the defeat of the Nut and apprehend any survivors that manage to escape. Just when they think no one is coming, and Katniss is about to give her speech, armed and wounded survivors come pouring out of the train station. Katniss runs towards one wounded man but he aims a gun at her. She talks him down, but is then shot by someone else in the field. She wakes up in a hospital back in 13, missing a spleen and with some bruised ribs from the bullet impacting her suit.

Finnick and Annie get married. Katniss wants to be sent to the Capitol to fight but they refuse to let her until she does three weeks of training. Her and Johanna both do this, rooming and training together, but only Katniss passes the final challenge and is able to go to the Capitol with a sharp shooting squad, including Gale and Finnick, Boggs commanding them. Before they leave though, Coin informs them that they will be the "Star Squad" and only be doing the minimum required to shoot propos, not seeing any actual combat. Katniss is ok with this because she plans to sneak off and kill Snow and then herself. When one of the twin Leeg soldiers is accidentally killed during a propo, Coin sends Peeta to be her replacement. He is immediately put under heavy guard, and Boggs and Katniss speculate that Coin sent him there to kill Katniss. The next day, they go to film a propo but it goes wrong, with the Capitol directly setting off traps in order to kill them. Boggs' legs are blown off, and Peeta tries to kill Katniss, resulting in Mitchell's death. They are chased into a building to escape a toxic, oily black wave that threatens to smother them. Boggs transfers clearance of the Holo, the map showing where all of the Capitol's pods are, to Katniss. After he dies, Jackson, Boggs' second in command, demands she give her control. Katniss refuses, saying she's on a special mission from President Coin to assassinate President Snow. Jackson doesn't believe this, but Cressida backs her up, and they continue on, eventually ending up in the underground of the Capitol, being guided by Pollux. They quickly realize they are being hunted by mutts that are tracking Katniss specifically. While trying to escape, Messalla is melted by an orange ray of light, and Jackson and Leeg stay behind to try and slow down the mutts. Finnick, Homes, and Castor are killed by the mutts, and Katniss blows up the Holo to kill the rest of them and prevent them from following. With only five of them left, Katniss, Peeta, Gale, Cressida, and Pollux, they make their way to an underwear shop owned by a woman named Tigris, a friend of Plutarch's. Katniss is disturbed by the woman's appearance, surgically modified to look like a tiger. Tigris hides them in her basement, and they eat, regroup, and plan their next steps.

As the rebels begin encroaching closer on the center of the Capitol, more refugees begin filing in, and the Peacekeepers begin to assign people to other's houses. When it's announced that President Snow is going to be allowing refugees into his mansion, they make a plan. Cressida and Pollux leave, Gale and Katniss leave, and then Peeta leaves alone to be there to cause a diversion if necessary. On their way there, rebels attack, and the Capitol begins setting off pods and shooting into the crowd, disregarding their own citizens' safety. Gale is captured and tells Katniss to shoot him, but she hesitates and he is dragged away. Just as she makes it to the mansion, she notices children all grouped in front of the mansion in a pen. A Capitol hoverplane drops parachutes, and the children reach up to grab them thinking they are gifts, but they're bombs. Half of them detonate, and then rebel medics from 13 rush in to help. Katniss sees Prim and yells her name, but the rest of the bombs go off. Prim is killed and Katniss is caught on fire. She wakes up in a hospital again, suffering major burn wounds and having to receive skin grafts. Coin has taken over as President, and the rebels have won. Katniss is sent to temporarily live in the mansion, with Haymitch to look after her since her mother is busy working and grieving. She has lost her ability to talk, and becomes addicted to the morphling they give her, until one day, she goes to the greenhouse. Guards try to stop her, but Commander Paylor tells them to let her in. She goes to find a white rose to pin to Snow's lapel before she executes him, when she finds him sitting right there. He tells her that Coin bombed the children and the rebel doctors, and she realizes that it was one of Gale's traps that he designed. She is disgusted with him, and after a cold goodbye, they don't see each other again. The day she is supposed to execute Snow, her prep team comes to dress her, and Effie Trinket, still alive, comes to escort her. First though, their is a meeting with Coin of all the remaining victors. She proposes there be a final Hunger Games held with Capitol children. Peeta, Annie, and Beetee vote no, but Enobaria, Haymitch, Katniss, and Johanna vote yes.

Katniss aims her bow at President Snow, ready to take him out, but she shoots and kills Coin instead. She tries to take her nightlock pill as the crowd converges on her and Snow, but Peeta stops her. The soldiers take her and lock her in her old room in the training center. Over the course of weeks, she attempts to starve herself to death, but before that can happen, Haymitch comes to get her and says they're going back to District 12. Plutarch tells her on the plane ride that Snow was either killed by the mob or choked to death on his own blood. Paylor was made President, and Plutarch is now in charge of the airwaves. They had a trial for Katniss and determined that she was just mentally disturbed and traumatized, so she is given leave to go back to 12 as long as she talks to her psychologist on the phone. When she arrives home, Greasy Sae comes over with her granddaughter every day to make her eat two meals. But Katniss doesn't move from in front of the fire. After awaking one morning to the sound of shovel, she runs outside and sees Peeta planting primrose bushes in her front yard. This finally prompts her to pull herself together. She goes into town, where some people are beginning to cart away the dead and try to rebuild. She learns that Madge and her whole family are dead. She goes into the woods, but feels sick and goes back home. When she comes back, Buttercup has returned, all the way from District 13. Him and Katniss grow closer as Katniss finally allows herself to mourn Prim's death. Annie gives birth to her and Finnick's baby, and Katniss and Peeta get closer again by making a memory book of all the people they have lost.

Years later, Peeta and Katniss have children, and, while still struggling with nightmares, are happy together in 12.

[385bookreviews]

1.45.2 Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

SPOILERS

Pages: 391

Time Read: 5 hours and 54 minutes

Overall Rating: 4.5★ Storyline: 5★ Dialogue: 4.5★ Characters: 4.5★

Genre: YA Dystopian

TWs for the book: Death, violence, blood, murder, graphic injury, grief, child death, gore, alcoholism, police brutality, torture, war, animal death, classism, panic attacks, mental illness, su*c*dal thoughts, drug addiction, medical content, body horror, physical abuse, gun violence, child abuse, confinement, fire, emotional abuse, medical trauma, vomit, fake pregnancy, death of a parent, slavery, genocide, gaslighting, kidnapping, self harm, eating disorder, bullying, mass shooting, disability, ableism, PTSD, allusions to p*d*ph*l*a

POV: First Person

Time Period/Location: Set 6 months after the events of The Hunger Games. District 12, District 11, the Capitol, and the 75th Hunger Games arena.

First Line: I clasp the flask between my hands even though the warmth from the tea has long since leached into the frozen air.

Katniss visits the woods the first day of the Victory Tour her and Peeta must take all around Panem. Gale isn't with her, as he is now an adult that is working in the mines, and his only free day is Sunday. She stops by and gives Gale's mother food, and visits their old house, abandoned since they moved into the Victor's Village. She stops by Haymitch's house, where he is passed out drunk on the table. She dumps water on him to wake him, and when she encounters Peeta, they're cold to each other. Upon going back home, she finds a Capitol official in her house that leads her to the study, where President Snow is waiting to speak with her. He explains that last year's Gamemaker, Seneca Crane, is dead for allowing her and Peeta to live, and that her actions were seen as rebellious. He threatens her, saying she must convince the nation that she isn't a rebel, just a silly girl in love, or her family, and Gale and his family will pay the price. Snow tells Katniss he knows about Gale kissing her awhile back.

Her prep team arrives shortly later, and they dress her, and she films a small interview with Peeta where they continue to pretend to be in love. They leave on a train, heading first to District 11. On the Victory Tour, they are to visit all the districts, and then meet in the Capitol, and then end the tour in their home district. On the train, she warns Haymitch of what Snow told her. She stresses about it throughout the trip, and ends up snapping at Effie and leaving the train. Peeta comes to comfort her, and they end up deciding to be friends, both apologizing for how they've been acting. Peeta shows Katniss his paintings, which are graphic images from their Games.

They arrive in District 11, and give a speech to the district and to Rue and Thresh's families. Peeta promises one month of their winnings to the families every year, and Katniss gives a speech about Rue and Thresh. An old man in the crowd does the mockingjay whistle and raises his three fingers to her, and the rest of the crowd does the same. This prompts the Peacekeepers to drag the old man out of the crowd and shoot him in the head, along with several others. Haymitch, Peeta, and Katniss go in to the attic of the Justice Building where Katniss tells Peeta everything about President Snow's threat. Peeta is enraged that her and Haymitch kept this from him.

They continue on with their tour, but notice that some of the crowds in the districts push back against the Peacekeepers. Worried about what else they can do, and realizing this is never going to really end, Peeta and Katniss decide to get engaged on live television. When President Snow comes to congratulate them, he shakes his head at Katniss, signaling that they failed in their mission. This at least gives Katniss a sure answer. At the party later that night, Plutarch Heavensbee, the new Gamemaker, asks for a dance with Katniss. He shows her his watch, which has a secret mockingjay symbol on it. At the end of the tour, back in District 12, Katniss goes to see her friend Madge, the mayor's daughter. When she stops by the mayor's office to say hi, the TV is on, showing rebellion in District 8. She is shaken, and decides that they have to leave.

The next day she goes into the woods, all the way to the lake and the abandoned shack her and her father used to spend time at. Gale follows her there, and she explains about the president's threat and that they need to get their families and leave. Gale is elated and tells her he loves her, but she doesn't reciprocate, and he withdraws, becoming even more irate when she says she's bringing Peeta and Haymitch. When she finally lets slip that there's an uprising in District 8, he says that they need to stay and fight. She begs him to run, but he just leaves without her. She goes back to the Victor's Village to get Peeta, and they begin walking to town. He agrees to leave with her, but he doesn't think she'll actually do it. Then they hear someone being whipped in the square. They now have a new Head Peacekeeper, Romulus Thread, and when Gale went to his house looking to sell a turkey he shot to Cray, the former Head Peacekeeper, he was apprehended and whipped. Darius, a Peacekeeper they were all friendly with, tried to intervene but was knocked out. Gale is unconscious, having been whipped over 40 times. Katniss runs in front of his next hit and gets whipped across the face. Haymitch, Peeta, and Purina, another Peacekeeper, step in and stop the whipping and any punishment from coming to Katniss. They carry Gale to see Katniss' mother, where she treats his wounds and Katniss'. While Gale is unconscious, Katniss kisses him, causing him to wake up. She tells him that she isn't going to leave now.

A blizzard hits and the mines shut down for two weeks, causing the district to go into starvation. They try to help who they can with her mother's healing skills and by giving food away. The Hob has been burnt down by the new Peacekeepers. Katniss avoids the woods for awhile, even though the electric fence hasn't been turned on, but she gets restless and goes out by herself. She takes a bag of food so her mother and Prim think that she is handing out food. She goes back to the lake, and encounters a woman and a girl dressed as Peacekeepers. The woman, Twill, holds out a cracker with a mockingjay on it. They sit down together and explain that they're runaways from District 8 where an uprising is in full swing. Twill was a teacher and Bonnie was her student. They also worked in the textile factories together. They had made a plan of escape to coincide with the start of the uprising, which was successful at first, but the Capitol bombed the buildings that had been taken over, including the factory, killing Twill's husband. They ran, and they were on their way to District 13 when they had to stop because Bonnie twisted her foot. They say the people of District 13 survived underground, and the Capitol leaves them alone because they had nuclear weapons, not graphite mines like Katniss had learned in school. She thinks this is ridiculous, but gives them all of her food and shows them how to hunt. She parts ways with them and heads home, but the fence has been electrified. She climbs a tree and uses a branch to go over the fence, but the 25 foot fall causes her to break her foot and injure her tailbone. She barely makes it home, stopping on the way for some candy and bandages to make it look like she was running errands. When she enters, two Peacekeepers are waiting for her, and have been for hours. They ask where she's been and she gets into a fake banter with Prim, Peeta, Haymitch, and her mom about where she's been for the day. The Peacekeepers are irate, clearly having expected her to get trapped in the woods, and they leave, but not without telling her the fence will be on 24/7 now, and they instruct her to inform Gale. After they leave, her mother puts her on bedrest for her broken foot. During her rest, she watches TV, and they show news footage of a supposedly smoldering and radioactive District 13. But in every clip, there's a mockinjay's wing in the corner, and Katniss discovers that they've been reusing the same footage over and over and aren't actually going to District 13.

Katniss does her photoshoot for her wedding, trying on six different dresses. When they gather around the TV that night for mandatory viewing, she discovers that the Capitol people have been voting on which dress she'll wear. After that broadcast, however, President Snow appears to read the card stating what the twist to the Games will be this year since it's a Quarter Quell. For the 25th Hunger Games, the districts had to vote which children had to go. For the 50th Hunger Games, Haymitch's Game, double the amount of tributes had to go. The President reads off the card, stating that as a reminder that even the strongest in the districts can't overcome the Capitol, the tributes in the 75th Hunger Games will be chosen from the Victors. Katniss being the only female victor in District 12 guaranteed her a spot in the Games. She flees the house in panic and tries to run into the woods, only to be stopped by the fence. Awhile later she ends up in an empty victor's house. After she pulls herself together, she goes to see Haymitch to get him to promise her that he'll help Peeta win. They get drunk together, and Katniss stumbles home. She's hungover the next day, and when she goes to Haymitch's house, Peeta informs the both of them that they will be completely sober from now on, and that they're going to train for the Games like the Careers do.

The Reaping comes around, and Haymitch is chosen, but Peeta volunteers to take his place. Thread doesn't allow them to say goodbye to their families, and they are put on a train to the Capitol. On the way there, Peeta and Katniss watch the 50th Hunger Games and see how Haymitch won, and inspect their competition. When they arrive, Cinna dresses Katniss for the opening ceremony, where her and Peeta going to wear flames again. Finnick Odair, the District 4 tribute, lightly taunts and flirts with Katniss. After the ceremony, Haymitch introduces them to the District 11 tributes, Seeder and Chaff. Chaff kisses her straight on the mouth, but Seeder hugs her and tells her that Rue and Thresh's families are safe. When they get in the elevator, District 7's Johanna Mason strips naked in the elevator. Katniss is irate by the time they get to their room, feeling like she's being mocked, which Peeta informs her that she kind of is. When they arrive in their rooms, she discovers not only the redheaded Avox girl she had last Games, the girl she had seen get captured in the woods outside of District 12, but she also has a new Avox: Darius.

Haymitch tells them they need to make allies ahead of time, so in training her and Peeta split up and size up their options. Katniss only ends up connecting with the old woman from District 4, Mags, and Beetee and Wiress, two absentminded nerds from District 3. She gains the respect of all the tributes finally after they see her shoot. When it comes time for their private sessions, neither her nor Peeta know what to do. She goes after Peeta, and sees a rug covering the floor and smells cleaner. She decides she doesn't really care anymore, and upon seeing Plutarch, she ties a noose around a training dummy and hangs it, painting "Seneca Crane" on the front of it. Later on, Peeta tells her that he painted a picture of Rue on the floor, covered in flowers, and that's why they tried so hard to cover it up. They both receive training scores of 12 to make the other tributes wary of them.

The next day, Katniss and Peeta spend the day on the roof having a picnic and relaxing. That night, Cinna comes to get Katniss ready for the interviews. President Snow insisted that Katniss wear her wedding dress onstage. Cinna is angry with this, but he made alterations, and tells her she needs to spin. All of the tributes are angry during their interviews, speculating, crying, and calling for a change to the Games. When it's Katniss' turn, she can barely even say anything over the audience. When she spins, her dress goes up in smoke and turns her into a mockingjay, complete with wings. During Peeta's interview, he drops a false bombshell: that Katniss is supposedly pregnant. The audience goes wild and they immediately try to shut down the show as the audience calls for the Games to be cancelled. Before they shut out the lights, Peeta and Katniss get all of the tributes to hold hands together. Back in their rooms, they say their goodbyes to Effie and Haymitch.

Cinna and Portia get them up the next day, and they fly to the arena. Cinna helps Katniss get dressed, and she says goodbye and gets in the tube to take her up into the arena. Her plate doesn't move though, and Peacekeepers rush in and beat Cinna bloody and drag him out. Katniss is then put in the arena, where they're all standing on their platforms in a circular lake of salt water. The gong rings and Katniss swims for the Cornucopia. She gets their first and grabs her bow and arrows when Finnick appears, she almost shoots him but he's wearing Haymitch's gold bracelet and says he's her ally. They go and get Peeta, who can't swim. They also get Mags and then run into the jungle.

They struggle to find a fresh water source, and during their search, Peeta hits a force field and his heart stops. Finnick revives him, and they eventually stop and rest. A sponsor sends them a spile to tap into the trees and get fresh water, and they go to sleep. During Katniss' watch, a poisonous fog rolls in, and they run. It causes their skin to blister and their nerves and muscles to not work. Finnick carries Peeta and Katniss carries Mags but eventually her legs give out. Finnick can't carry Peeta and Mags, so Mags walks off into the fog and instantly dies. The three of them manage to make it down to the water, which helps heal their blisters. When they go back into the jungle to get water from a tree, they are attacked by a horde of monkeys. One is about to jump out and kill Peeta, but the girl from District 6 jumps in front of Peeta and saves him, which results in her own death. Down on the beach, after getting some rest, they spot Johanna, Beetee, and Wiress stumbling out of the jungle covered in blood. Finnick immediately runs to Johanna, and she explains how they got caught in a blood rain, and the man from District 7 hit the force field and died. Wiress is in a catatonic state, wandering around repeating "tick tock" over and over. Johanna gets angry and shoves her over, and when Katniss tells her to leave her alone, Johanna slaps Katniss and goes into a rage about how she only got Beetee and Wiress for her. They help patch up Beetee, and Katniss cleans Wiress off. Later, when everyone is sleeping, lightning strikes a tree twelve times. Between that and Wiress repeating "tick tock" over and over, she figures out that the arena functions like a clock, with some new horror in each new wedge every hour. They leave and go to the Cornucopia to get more weapons. They send Wiress to wash off a coil of wire that Beetee had been carrying around, and try to plan their next moves. Wiress is killed by Gloss, the District 1 male tribute. Katniss shoots him and Johanna kills Cashmere, the District 1 female tribute. Brutus from District 2 throws a spear at Peeta, but Finnick blocks it and takes a knife to the leg from Enobaria, also District 2. The island with the cornucopia suddenly starts to spin, and the District 2 tributes escape. Katniss has to swim out to get the wire from Wiress' body before the hovercraft comes for her, and Finnick swims out to get Beetee, now disoriented and not knowing which wedge they should go in, they make their best guess and head back to the main beach. Finnick and Katniss go into the jungle to get water, and Katniss hears what sounds like Prim screaming. She runs into the woods only to find a jabberjay and shoot it. Finnick runs up and hears Annie, his girlfriend, and runs off. Katniss finds that jabberjay and shoots it as well. Katniss tries to reassure Finnick that it's just a trick, but he tells her that jabberjays copy, meaning they must be torturing Prim and Annie. Another jabberjay begins to sound like Gale, and they run back towards the beach, but are trapped by an invisible wall. After an hour, they are free to go back to Peeta, Beetee, and Johanna. They reassure Finnick and Katniss that they're in the final 8, and that's when the Capitol does interviews, so they probably just distorted audio from the interviews.

Beetee makes a plan. At 10, a wave rushes down from the segment and soaks the entire beach. His theory is if he takes his wire and wraps it around the lightning tree, then at midnight when the lightning strikes, if the wire is run down to water, it'll fry the Careers, who will hopefully be out on the beach once they're gone. They agree to do this and put their plan in motion. At 11, they go and wrap wire around the tree. Finnick and Peeta stay to guard Beetee, while Katniss and Johanna run the wire down to the water. On their way, the wire is cut, and Johanna knocks Katniss in the head and cuts out the tracker in her arm. She then runs away, leading Brutus and Enobaria after her. They see Katniss wounded and bloody and leave her for dead. Katniss makes her way back up to the tree. Beetee is laying injured and unconscious on the ground, and has a second bit of wire wrapped around a knife near the force field. Katniss decides to blow the arena up and kill them all, and wraps the wire around her arrow. The dome around the arena explodes when the lightning strikes the tree and she looses the arrow. A hovercraft comes in and grabs her body. She wakes up in a hospital bed across from Beetee, who is hooked up to a ton of machines. She rips out her IV but is then knocked out again. She wakes up again restrained and then knocks herself out again. The third time she wakes up she grabs a syringe and goes down the hall. In a meeting room, Plutarch, Finnick, and Haymitch are conversing. Katniss bursts in, and they disarm her and explain that there's been a rebel plot all along, and everyone was in on the plan except for Districts 1, 2, 5, 9 , 10, Peeta, and Katniss. Katniss is the symbol of the rebellion and Beetee had been trying to break the arena and get them out before Brutus and Enobaria attacked. They then explain that Annie, Peeta, Johanna, and Enobaria have been taken captive by the Capitol. Katniss attacks Haymitch, and she's sedated again. Finnick tries to apologize to her but she won't hear it. The last time she comes to she's with Gale, who is injured in the arm and burned in the face. He tells her that Prim and her mother are safe, but the Capitol firebombed District 12 into nothing.

[385bookreviews]

1.45.1 The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

SPOILERS

Pages: 374

Time Read: 5 hours and 58 minutes

Overall Rating: 4★ Storyline: 5★ Dialogue: 4☆ Characters: 5★

Genre: YA Dystopian

TWs for the book: Death of a parent, child death, murder, violence, gore, animal death, blood, injury, fire, burns, grief, classism, alcoholism, physical and emotional child abuse, discussions of war, torture, medical content, amputation, confinement, su*c*de attempt, vomit, police brutality, mental illness, su*c*dal thoughts, panic attacks, slavery, discussions of cannibalism, body shaming, starvation, hallucination, body horror

POV: First Person

Time Period/Location: A future version of North America known as Panem; District 12, the Capitol, and the 74th Hunger Games arena.

First Line: When I wake up, the other side of the bed is cold.

In the future version of North America, Panem, Katniss wakes up on the morning of the Reaping. Every year, the Capitol requires a boy and girl tribute from each of the twelve districts to be randomly selected to fight in the Hunger Games. This keeps the districts obedient and in line to prevent another uprising, like the one that resulted in District 13 being destroyed. Living in the poor Seam of District 12, Katniss and her friend Gale have taught themselves to go beyond the fences and hunt and forage for food. While on their hunt that morning, Gale suggests to Katniss that they should run away from the districts and the Capitol, as he is angry about the Reaping, and worried that one of their names will be drawn. In order to get more rations for the year, Katniss and Gale each have their names in the running more than once. Katniss is appalled by Gale thinking they should run away, as they both have families to support. He lets it go.

Katniss makes her way home to get ready for the Reaping. It's her 12 year old sister Prim's first Reaping, and she tries to reassure her that since her name is only entered once, she has the least possibility of being chosen. They dress up in their nicest clothes and go to the town square. Prim's name is drawn by the Capitol woman meant to escort the District 12 tributes every year, Effie Trinket. Katniss immediately volunteers to take her sister's place, a shocking and unheard of thing to do in District 12. The people remain silent when Effie tries to get them to applaud, lifting three fingers in salute to her for her sacrifice. The only other living District 12 tribute, Haymitch, is drunk out of his mind and takes a nose dive off the stage, and Effie moves things along by selecting the boy tribute, Peeta. After her father died in a mining accident and her mother slipped into depression, Katniss and her family were slowly starving to death. She found herself behind Peeta's family's bakery. After attempting to dig through their trash bins and being shooed away by Peeta's mother, Peeta burned some bread intentionally, took the beating from his mother, and tossed it to Katniss. This gave her the motivation to begin hunting and keep going, which kept them from starving or going to an orphanage due to their mother's neglect. Katniss is uncomfortable with Peeta being her fellow tribute as she feels like she owes him.

They are taken back into the building and people come to say goodbye to Katniss. First Prim and her mother come, and she promises Prim she will try her best to win and forcefully tells her mother to not let Prim starve. Shockingly, her next visitor is Peeta's father. He's a quiet man and doesn't say much, but gives her cookies, sits with her, and promises Katniss that Prim won't go hungry. Madge, the mayor's daughter who she sells strawberries to, comes in. She gives Katniss her gold mockingjay pin to be her token in the arena. Gale is her last visitor and they embrace, saying that they should have run away when they had the chance. After that, Peeta and Katniss are put on a train with Effie and Haymitch and begin their journey to the Capitol. They are given tons of lavish foods that they've never had before, and their rooms are full of clothes. On the journey there, Peeta and Katniss struggle to try and get Haymitch to mentor them, as is his job, but he is surly and drunk. They finally agree to do as he says, as long as he stays sober enough to instruct them.

When they arrive at the Capitol, Katniss is given a makeover by her prep team, all three tittering and oblivious Capitol citizens, and then she meets her stylist Cinna. He is level-headed and calm, and a lot unlike Effie and the prep team, so Katniss likes him almost immediately. Cinna and Portia, Peeta's stylist, collaborated to make sure that they made an impression with their outfits for the opening parade. Their costumes are stunning, made even better by the fake fire used to illuminate them like burning coal. This gains them a lot of approval from the crowd, and the other tributes are immediately jealous. Over the next three days, Katniss and Peeta train with the other tributes, being sure not to reveal their actual skills: archery and strength. When it's time to go and show their skills to the Gamemakers to receive a scoring out of 12, Katniss is the last tribute. The Gamemakers are bored, and when she misses her first shot with the bow and arrow, they rapidly lose what little interest they had left. Enraged, Katniss fires an arrow into an apple in the pig's mouth the Gamemakers had gathered around. Surprisingly, this causes her to receive a high score of 11.

During the televised interviews, Peeta confesses his crush on Katniss. Between this and him asking to train separately after their scores, Katniss is angry and attacks him. She apologizes, but later, when they talk on the roof, they argue again. The next morning, she is seen into the arena by Cinna, who gives her back her mockingjay pin. When the gong goes off, she is going to run to the Cornucopia against Haymitch's advice, but Peeta distracts her so she misses her chance. She wrestles someone for a backpack and escapes with it and a knife thrown at her by a Career.

Katniss spends the rest of the day getting as far away as possible and trying (yet failing) to find water. At night, she ties herself up in a tree to sleep, but someone nearby starts a fire. The Careers come to kill the person by the fire, two boys and three girls from Districts 1, 2, and 4. Shockingly, Peeta is also with them, supposedly leading them to Katniss. When Katniss finally finds water the next day, the Gamemakers throw a surprise wall of fire at her, chasing her away from her new water source and closer to other tributes. She gets burned on her leg trying to escape, but also manages to find another water source. After some rest, the Careers manage to find her and chase her up into a tree. They try to go after her but can't climb as high as her, so they sleep at the bottom of the tree to wait her out. Katniss spots Rue, one of the District 11 tributes, in a tree nearby. Rue points out a tracker jacker nest above Katniss' head. She contemplates what to do, either ignore it or cut it down on the Careers and Peeta. Thankfully, she gets a gift from a sponsor in the form of burn cream that helps her leg. She warns Rue she's going to cut down the tracker jackers, and then makes her way up. She is stung several times but succeeds. The Careers run for the lake but Glimmer doesn't make it. This allows Katniss to steal her bow and arrows. The venom begins to take over, and she's not sure if she hallucinates Peeta telling her to run. She runs, and then passes out from her hallucinations and the venom.

Once she comes around and treats her wounds, Katniss encounters Rue. They form an alliance, and make a plan to destroy the Careers' food supply. Rue will set fires to distract them from their stash, and Katniss will destroy it. They part ways and Katniss finds that they have stashed all of the food and supplies from the Cornucopia in a big mound. Only one boy from District 3 guards it, so Katniss wonders what has been done to protect it. She sees Foxface, another tribute, use a complicated foot path to reach the supplies and steal some. Katniss realizes that the mound is surrounded by landmines, and shoots an arrow to break open an apple bag and set off the mines. The explosion causes her to lose hearing in one ear. She runs to find Rue but she's not at their meeting place or responding to the Mockingjay whistles. Katniss eventually hunts her down, right as the boy from District 1 stabs her. She kills the boy, and sings Rue to sleep as she dies. In a moment of tenderness and sadness, Katniss surrounds Rue's body in flowers. That night, the Gamemakers announce that two tributes from the same district can both win the games.

Once day comes, she immediately tracks down Peeta, wounded and dying, painted in camouflage by the creek. She gets him cleaned up as best she can, but his wound is infected. They find a cave to shelter in, and Katniss decides to play into the star crossed lovers act for sponsors, which works, and they get some soup. Peeta quickly begins to deteriorate due to his infection. The Gamemakers announce a feast at the Cornucopia, as the remaining tributes, Cato, Clove, Foxface, Thresh, Katniss, and Peeta, all desperately need something to keep surviving. Peeta and Katniss argue about her going. Haymitch sends her some sleeping medicine to knock Peeta out, and she goes to the Cornucopia. Foxface grabs her bag and runs. Katniss goes for it, but is attacked by Clove. She taunts her and tries to kill her, but after she makes a comment about Rue, Thresh comes out of no where and kills her. He asks Katniss about Rue, and Katniss begs him to make it quick, but he lets her go and steals Cato and Clove's backpack. Katniss makes it back to Peeta, and the bag contained medicine to keep him alive. They are trapped in the cave for several days while it rains heavily, and they enjoy food from Haymitch in the meantime. When the weather clears up, they go out to hunt, but split up because Peeta is too loud. Katniss runs back to find Peeta when he doesn't respond to her whistle. She finds him and is angry he left, but he says he was just collecting berries. They notice some food missing, and as Katniss inspects the berries, they hear a cannon and see Foxface's body being lifted away. They quickly make a fire to cook their food before Cato comes and then make their way to the lake. After waiting awhile, Cato comes running by in a full suit of armor, being chased by mutts that look like the dead tributes. The three of them end up on top of the Cornucopia. Cato takes Peeta hostage, who is bleeding out from a mutt bite to his leg. Katniss shoots Cato in the hand and he falls to the mutts, who drag him into the Cornucopia. They stay on top of the Cornucopia all night as the mutts rip up Cato, but he doesn't die because of his body armor. Katniss finally shoots him to put him out of his misery and to save Peeta. The mutts leave and they go down to the lake to accept their victory, but the Gamemakers announce that the rule change has been rescinded and only one of them can win. Peeta rips his tourniquet off and tries to die, but Katniss suggests they both die by eating the poison berries that killed Foxface. Before they can do it they are both announced to be the winners. On the hovercraft that takes them, the doctors fight to save Peeta's life. Katniss is knocked out and wakes up in her room in the Capitol awhile later. Haymitch tells her that she is now a target to President Snow and the Capitol because she embarrassed them. Her and Peeta reunite on television where they rewatch the games, and Katniss learns that Peeta has had his leg amputated. They are able to go home, but on the train ride back, Katniss reveals she only was playing to be in love with him for sponsorships. Peeta is heartbroken.

[385bookreviews]

2.113 It Was Just Another Day in America by Ryan David Ginsberg

SPOILERS

Pages: 162

Time Read: 2 hours and 10 minutes

Overall Rating: 2.5★ Storyline: 4★ Dialogue: 2★ Characters: 3★

Genre: Short Stories and Poems

TWs for the book: A Million Times Over Again: Death of a grandparent Amber's Son: Child death, war, violence, military A Baby is Born: Pregnancy, birth, medical content, abandonment, debt, classism, ableism Tommy Longhorn, Planet Explorer: Death, blood, child death, mass shooting, death of a parent The Termination Bureau: Graphic abortion, baby death, gun violence, mentions of CSA and incest, pregnancy, abandonment, police brutality, ableism Dinner and a Show: Cannibilism, elitism, classism, war, death, bombs It Was Just Another Day in America: School shooting, child death, police and military, guns, blood, bullying A Portrait of the Artist in 2022: N/A Poems: Su*c*de, existentialism, depression, anxiety, Tr*mp, politics, school/mass shootings

POV: Various

Time Period/Location: America in different alternate dystopian timelines

First Line: For ten years I have walked circles around this village, looking in on villagers who have never once looked out at me.

The book opens with a poem entitled Mr. Gatekeeper, a metaphor for the author being allowed to share his stories and poems with others.

This is followed by two different introduction notes where the author introduces himself before the short stories segment of his book.

A Million Times Over Again is about girl named Hannah recounting how as a child she used to ask everyone where they thought we came from. Everyone had varying answers, until she asked her Nana. While she knits, Nana recounts the tale of how the Universe and Souls came to be, how Souls had Soul-mates, and then how they were torn apart by an evil force that invaded the Universe. She goes on to tell how the Souls would take over humans in order to search for their Soul-mates, over and over again for forever. At the end, Nana tells her that they are each others Soul-mates, and years later, when she dies, Hannah knows that she will find her again.

Amber's Son is set in an America where children of any age can go to war. The characters in this story have no names, and are only referred to as the son or daughter of their mother. Amber's son signs up for the military at 12 years old, fed lies about glory and fun and whiskey and patriotism. His mother has no choice but to sign off on it, and six days later he is sent to a far off desert to fight in a squad of other children, the youngest being only 8, and the oldest only 17. They invade a village of other young children and Amber's son kills eight of them before being shot and killed himself. This story changes your view from soldiers being sent off to war, to someone's son or daughter being sent to kill someone else's son or daughter in a meaningless conflict demanded by an uncaring government.

A Baby is Born paints a picture of the ultimate capitalist hellscape where corporations literally own you. Maybelline is at the hospital alone, without her husband as he can't take time off of work to be there for the birth of their baby. She is consistently harassed by "Recruiters" who try to get her to sign away her and her baby's lives to various corporations in order to fund her birth. She had to sign herself to three additional companies in order to cover just the cost of seeing a doctor, which is $25,000. Before she is allowed to see the doctor, while she is in active labor, she has to sit through hours of pitches from Recruiters and even the doctor before she is seen or treated. She has no choice but to have her baby born in one of these birthing centers, or her baby will not be considered an American citizen. Additionally, her and the baby have to be signed away to enough corporations to cover the cost of the birth itself, which is $2 million. Amber has already lost two babies by not having enough money, because if you can’t pay, your baby is taken and sold. After signing up her baby to 48 corporations, she is finally allowed to give birth, but she isn't allowed to hold her baby until examinations are done to determine that the child will even be a functioning member of society. When they finally give her the child back, they inform her that their name will be chosen by the company that purchased the right to do so.

Tommy Longhorn, Planet Explorer tells the story of an alien who travels the universes and lives among whatever newly discovered species has been found to determine whether or not they can join the Confederation of the Cosmos. He comes to Earth, leaving his wife and four children behind, and lives disguised among the humans for a decade. The day he is supposed to leave, he goes to the mall to get souvenirs and Christmas presents for his wife and children, but is gunned down by a mass shooter.

The Termination Bureau takes the crown for the most uncomfortable and disturbing story in this collection. In the state of Florida in a dystopian America, people are allowed to either sell their babies to the state before they're born for whichever reason they wish. If the babies have intelligence potential, they are sent to special academies. If they have strength potential, they are sent to become laborers. If they have loyalty potential, they are sold to corporations. Babies that don't have any of those things are put on podiums in an all white room, and shot in the head by a police officer. A 13 year old girl, impregnated by her father, comes in to request to sell her unborn child to the state. She is denied, as she doesn't have her father's permission to sell it. The Moral Advisor reads her the law which states that children are a man's property, and women are only incubators who have no right to sell a man's property, regardless or r*pe or incest. She has to give birth to the baby, keep it, and raise it for the next 18 years, or she must spend her life in prison. The girl leaves, and proceeds to go into the alley around back and perform a coat-hanger abortion on herself. The Moral Advisor calls the police, and they brutally handcuff her and throw her into the back of a police car.

Dinner and a Show is set in another alternate reality, with nine of the richest, most elite men in the world, having dinner in Malibu where they praise the virtues of capitalism while every country in the world is at war with each other. Tom Edison, the first ever trillionaire, eats the dismembered arm of one of his factory workers who died of heat stroke. Jean Dirt, the most famous and charismatic actor, eats roasted eyeballs. George Adams, an influential and dangerous investor, eats some of the most expensive food you could think of. Yukio Sing, the spoiled nepo baby inheritor of the Kingdom of Diamonds, eats lion meat and human bone broth mixed with blood. Norm Wolff, the number one news anchor in the country who does nothing but lie for money, eats nothing but fried foods covered in sugar. Ashley Morrison, former CEO of the biggest oil company, eats the meat and eggs of endangered animals. Tomas Marquez, a real estate investor, eats food with ingredients taken from all over the world. Scott Anderson, the former President of the United States that started the Great War to End All Wars, eats food made to look like an American flag. Finally, our narrator, prolific author Theodore Doerr III, eats a human brain. They finally go out on a balcony that overviews a battlefield while they mindlessly discuss the ever changing political affiliations of the countries fighting in the war. Two armies go out on the battlefield to meet each other, one side American and the other side either Tanzanian or Japanese, the men no longer know who they're even fighting. A massive bomb is dropped on the battlefield and when the smoke clears, both armies are completely dead. The men cheer regardless.

It Was Just Another Day in America shows little Jasper going off to school in his bulletproof vest. He is bullied by the other kids relentlessly, and has only one friend, Bryan. The pair are sat away from the rest of the class as the teacher has no other way to stop the bullying. The children have their things and themselves scanned and searched before they can enter the school, and when they go out to play, they are surrounded by police, military, helicopters, and guard towers, all holding guns. In the middle of class, an alarm goes off, and the children run to get into their individual bunkers, the teacher wielding a gun and not allowed to go into her own bunker until all the students are in theirs. Several students forget their passwords, but the teacher isn't allowed to know the codes because some other teacher used them to slaughter her entire class. Jasper gets into his bunker. When he is let out two hours later, the bodies are gone but the blood is still there. His teacher and several of his classmates were killed, including Bryan. Class continues for the day with a substitute teacher.

A Portrait of the Artist in 2022 tells a simple and short story of an Unknown Writer who goes to Hollywood Boulevard to try and become famous for his book. At stall 43,222 he does dramatic readings of his story. Everyone passes him by and no one takes copies of his book. He packs up his things, and prepares to do it all again the next day.

Ginsberg's Poems explore themes in his own life, such as existentialism, depression, anxiety, su*c*de, and his relationship with his wife; as well as political topics he covered in his short stories.

Stories: I really enjoyed Ginsberg's stories, even though some of them were deeply unsettling. The metaphors and dystopias he uses to convey his political points and thoughts on the current state of our country are a bit on the nose, but they definitely put things into perspective. It Was Just Another Day in America, The Termination Bureau, A Baby is Born, and Dinner and a Show seem extreme, but it also makes you wonder, if things continue as they are, will it get to that eventually? I really would like to see some of these short stories expanded upon more, as they gave off a Ray Bradbury vibe.

Poems: I did not care for Ginsberg's poems nearly as much as I enjoyed his stories. I enjoyed I Keep Slipping, Our Youth, Sacrilegious, and Mr. America, but the rest felt a little bit like unstable ramblings, especially with the author openly contemplating su*c*de in several of them. He refers to his wife with varying degrees of unhealthy reverence and sees her as too good for him. His political poems are a simpler rehashing of the concepts he wrote about in his stories. This ultimately dropped the book down to 2.5 stars for me.

Summary: This was a quick and easy read that I definitely don't regret, but I did have a little bit of higher hopes for. While I can understand the concept as an author to be seen and recognized for your work, the constant rehashing of feeling miserable with life and his writing going no where (not just in his poems but also in A Portrait of the Artist in 2022) felt repetitive, hopeless, and almost whiny. I don't feel as though I was the target audience here, as I'm sure a cishet man might relate better to the concepts and emotions he was trying to convey. I did greatly enjoy the stories however, and if he fleshed one of those out into a novel, I would definitely read it. This book also had a few typos. While most books seem to nowadays, between that, overall structure, and the content of his poetry, I feel as though an editor would have greatly benefit him.

[385bookreviews]

2.279 Compound Fracture by Andrew Joseph White

SPOILERS

Pages: 368

Time Read: 4 hours and 43 minutes

Overall Rating: 5★ Storyline: 5★ Dialogue: 5★ Characters: 5★

Genre: YA Thriller

TWs for the book: Violence, gun violence, gore, injury IN DETAIL, murder, blood, transphobia, outing, deadnaming, F slur, police brutality, death, fire/fire injury, animal death, animal cruelty, body horror, classism, hate crimes, medical content, addiction, drug withdrawal, child death, grief, vomit, car accident, death of a parent, bullying, homophobia, torture, physical abuse, cursing, toxic relationship, toxic friendships, alcohol, mental illness, ableism, panic attacks, dysphoria, child abuse, emotional abuse, gaslighting and manipulation, s*xual harassment, chronic illness, misogyny, body shaming, kidnapping, p*d*philia

POV: First Person

Time Period/Location: Twist Creek County, West Virginia in 2017.

First Line: When the sheriff of Twist Creek County--and all those other sons of bitches, the Baldwin-Felts agents and bloodthirsty strikebreakers--finally caught my great-great-grandfather and dragged his ass up from the mine to make a spectacle of his execution, they killed him by hammering a railroad spike through his mouth.

Transgender socialist Miles Abernathy lives in Twist Creek County, West Virginia. His great-great-grandfather, Saint Abernathy, led a strike against the coal mine companies and tortured the sheriff's son for leverage. When he was caught, the sheriff executed him by driving a railroad spike through his mouth. This started a blood feud between the Davies family and the Abernathy family. Having just completed his junior year of high school, Miles sneaks out to go to the graduating party in the woods. But he hates social events, and he isn't going to celebrate. He meets up with his childhood friend Cooper O'Brien. Miles stole pictures that his dad took the night of the accident that killed Mrs. O'Brien that incriminate Sheriff Davies as being the one that ran them off the road. Cooper takes them and agrees to show his dad to maybe finally bring the Sheriff to justice. While they are talking, Noah Davies, the sheriff's son, and his two friends Eddie and Paul come to interrogate them about what they're doing. They lie, and Miles starts to walk home through the woods. Noah, Eddie, and Paul catch up with him though, and take a video of them beating and torturing Miles almost to death. Cooper finds Miles and brings him to the hospital. When he wakes up in the hospital, he sees the ghost of a coal miner shaking him awake. He has extensive injuries and experienced massive internal bleeding that caused him to need surgery.

Before he had departed for the party, Miles had sent an email to both of his parents coming out as trans. He brings it up to his mom, but she doesn't take it very well and doesn't want to discuss it. Sheriff Davies comes in while Miles' mom is out of the room, and threatens Miles into staying quiet about Noah and his friends beating him up. Miles tells him that with his head injury, he doesn't remember what happened. Miles eventually goes home and begins his recovery, periodically still seeing the mute ghost of the coal miner. Cooper checks up on him and their friendship begins to return, Miles even coming out to him as trans. Miles does get stir crazy and refuses to let the attack haunt him, so he goes to pick up his check from the restaurant where he works as a dishwasher. His boss tells him that he has the whole summer off and gives him extra money, saying she has temporarily hired someone to take his place, but just for the summer. Miles walks out the back door, and contemplates going back in to return the extra money, when Eddie walks out the door and reveals himself to be Miles' replacement for the summer. They get in an altercation, Miles breaking Eddie's nose and trying to threaten him to delete the video of his attack. Eddie is afraid at first, but realizes he has the upper hand with his connection to Noah and Sheriff Davies. This angers Miles further, and he tries to reach for Eddie to hit him, but Eddie backs away, slips on the gravel, and hits his head, which kills him instantly. Miles is mortified, but knows what Sheriff Davies will do to him and his family if the accident is discovered, so he drags Eddie's bodies behind the dumpsters and calls Cooper. Cooper comes immediately and helps Miles clean up the scene and they take the body. They dump Eddie's body down the old mineshaft where no one will ever go looking because of the structural instability. They then go back to Cooper's house where Miles takes a shower and Cooper helps him shave his head so his hair is more even after the head wound stitches. Cooper and Miles share a somewhat tender moment, and when Cooper leans in to kiss him, he reciprocates, logically deducing he must have a crush on Cooper because that's what he's supposed to do. After they kiss, Cooper says, "We've already killed one of them. What's a few more?" Miles is disgusted and angered by this notion and they fight before Miles leaves and goes home.

Soon after, Miles realizes that he has become reliant upon the opioids he was prescribed in the hospital, just like Mr. O'Brien is and like his father used to be. He quits cold turkey and spends time going through withdrawals. During which he finally is able to go out and see the ghost without him disappearing. After looking through old pictures he realizes that the ghost is Saint Abernathy, and he can't speak because of the railroad spike down his throat. Saint reveals to Miles that he was also trans, and leads him and his dog Lady to the burned down movie theatre where he was executed, and hands Miles a railroad spike. Miles then takes this as a sign to fight for his family and get his revenge, and texts Cooper that he's willing to move forward with the murders. He goes home, but his dad is awake. His dad begins to make an effort to use his new name and pronouns, and Miles is forced to confess his opioid withdrawal. The next morning, his mother is enraged that Miles didn't say anything about the drugs, and demands he has to start going to therapy. Miles refuses, and they argue until Sheriff Davies shows up to inquire about Eddie. They tell him they know nothing, and then Sheriff Davies asks where Miles is going to go to therapy once he sees the brochures. Miles chooses one at random, and once the sheriff leaves, his mom tells him that he is going.

The next day, his mom drops him off at a church for group therapy. He leaves halfway through out of anxiety and goes into the alley next door. A person comes out of the door to a restaurant, and Miles doesn't recognize them, but the person, Dallas, does. Dallas is their old friend from before the accident. When Mr. and Mrs. O'Brien, Miles' father, and Dallas were run off the road by Sheriff Davies, Dallas sustained a lot of burns and injuries, and Dallas' parents blamed Miles' father and family. They moved away and had no contact, but Dallas is back, living with their brother and his wife Amber, who is autistic. Dallas' brother and Amber have their own restaurant/bar that is entirely socialist and run by the workers, right under Sheriff Davies nose. Miles is glad to see his friend again, and also talk to another trans person, but is scared to be seen in the bar. Dallas says that on the Fourth of July, the biggest holiday in town, they would be throwing a "Fuck the Fourth" party to counteract it and call out Sheriff Davies. Miles rejects the invitation, but him and Dallas swap phone numbers, and he gives them Cooper's number.

Miles and Cooper meet up to plan the murders, deciding to use Miles' father's gun to shoot Paul on the Fourth of July when his parents are out of town. While they are talking in Cooper's convenience store, Paul and Noah turn up to harass them, further settling their decision. Miles spends the night with Cooper and they get drunk and make out. Miles then decides to also make a difference in another way, and goes back to the bar to speak with Amber. Amber tells him they are going to be handing out pamphlets with evidence of Sheriff Davies' and the police departments' corruption. Miles gives them copies of the pictures he gave to Cooper.

The night before the Fourth of July party that the Davies plan and throw every year, Cooper and Miles took the gun and drove up to Paul's house. The plan is for Cooper to shoot him, and then they would clean up and dump his body in the mineshaft like they did with Eddie. They arrive, and find Paul in his father's processing plant in the garage, skinning a dear. He says he knew that they had killed Eddie the whole time but that Noah didn't believe him, and he tells them to get it over with. Cooper chickens out and lowers the gun. Miles and Paul talk, and Paul talks about how he really doesn't have it any better than the Abernathy's. Sheriff Davies bought out his parents' land and makes them pay rent to him, and takes most of their wages, and Noah had threatened to kill Paul because Paul said he wanted to leave town. Miles feels for Paul, and agrees to spare his life and just make it look like they killed him if Paul leaves town that night. Paul agrees, looking relieved, and asks to grab some stuff, when Cooper regains his nerve and shoots Paul in the jaw, removing the entire lower half of his face. Miles is appalled, and Cooper insists that they leave Paul to bleed out on the floor. They run, but on the drive back Miles makes Cooper pull over so he can throw up. They fight about Cooper shooting Paul like that, and Miles trying to let Paul leave. Cooper becomes more and more deranged, shaking Miles and deadnaming him. Miles tells him to leave him there as he was going to have Dallas pick him up. Cooper leaves and Dallas and Amber race to come pick him up, not knowing what's wrong. Miles goes nonverbal and begins having a meltdown. When he gets to their house, he wants to shower but dreads the prospect of the sensory experience. Amber gives him some things to help and tells him he might be autistic like her. He spends the night in Dallas' bed with them, but Cooper keeps blowing up his phone, demanding to speak with him and leave Dallas' house so he can come get him, worried that Miles will snitch.

In the morning, Amber and Dallas take Miles home, and he returns the gun to the safe. Later in the day his family comes to the house to prepare to go to the Fourth of July party together. Cooper comes in, saying he is Miles' boyfriend, and quietly threatens Miles to keep his mouth shut. They walk to the party, where Dallas and Amber are handing out pamphlets with evidence of Sheriff Davies' crimes and advertising the Fuck the Fourth gathering. Cooper sees the pictures on the pamphlet and is enraged, and Miles' dog Lady has to come between them. He leaves, and Noah and Sheriff Davies get up on stage and announce Paul's death. Then they announce that they'll be giving out a citizen award to Miles, since he bravely recovered from a hate crime and for being a pillar to the transgender community. This outs Miles to the entire town and also to his grandparents, aunt, and uncle. They all quickly leave the party after telling Dallas to go home now. Once they arrive back home, their aunt and uncle are enraged and leave. Miles' grandparents, however, accept him and are enraged on his behalf. They discuss what they should do, and they decide that it's time to fight back, and go to the Fuck the Fourth gathering. They do the next day, and while his mother and father discuss what to do with Amber and her husband, Dallas and Miles enjoy the punk band performing, talk about trans issues and about Miles potentially being autistic and aromantic, and marvel at the fact that so many of the towns people showed up. A girl who's father was imprisoned by Sheriff Davies and a mother who's son was killed by him share their stories, and Miles decides to be brave and stand up on stage, showing off his still disfigured face and head and tells everyone finally that Noah Davies and his friends did this to him and that the sheriff threatened him and his family in order to cover it up. At that exact moment, Sheriff Davies walks in and starts demanding that people leave. Amber refuses and demands he leave, and Miles' mother and father start ushering him and Dallas towards the back door. Finally, Amber throws water in his face, and he pulls out his gun and shoots her. The crowd turns into a riot, and Miles' mother shoves him and Dallas into the kitchen and locks the door. They contemplate what happened to Amber and how to get back in, but then Noah enters, covered in blood, and lights a Molotov cocktail, setting the place ablaze. Miles and Dallas run outside, where people have finally started to come out, including his mother and father, Amber's husband, and Amber, who was shot in the shoulder. They drive back to their house separately. When Dallas, Miles, and his father arrive back at their house, they find Cooper's body, cracked open and gutted on their porch. The rest of them arrive, they call Miles' grandparents, and Mr. O'Brien to see the body of his son. Miles' mom takes care of Amber's shoulder, and Miles fesses up to him and Cooper killing Eddie and Paul. No one is really surprised, as the Davies and Abernathy's had been killing each other for years. They decide that enough is enough, and when Noah texts Miles to end this permanently by meeting him alone, they decide for them to meet in the abandoned mineshaft. They plan for Miles to trap Noah, and then use him as a negotiation tool to convince Sheriff Davies to leave town.

Miles goes down into the mineshaft with the gun. Noah meets him there and taunts him, saying that they'll leave his family alone forever if he agrees to go with him and his dad. He also tells Miles about how he tortured Cooper, gutted him like a deer while he was still alive, and Cooper confessed everything. Miles lets off a warning shot, and Noah attacks him. They fight, and Noah gets the gun, but Miles pulls a knife out and kills him with a stab to the neck. He leaves the mineshaft and tries desperately to call his family, but is then shot in the head by Sheriff Davies, taking out his eye. The Sheriff kidnaps him, and takes him to the abandoned movie theatre to hammer a railroad spike into his mouth, just like his ancestor did to Saint. Saint manifests in front of Sheriff Davies to distract him, just as Miles' family shows up, and Lady attacks the sheriff, ripping chunks out of him. By the time they recall Lady, the sheriff is dying, so Miles' grandpa shoots him in the head. The rest of the town witnesses it, but they all grab shovels and tarps to help them bury the body and hide the evidence.

Time skips forwards a bit to the town holding a meeting to decide what to do to ensure the corruption of the town ends. Miles is missing an eye now, and him and Dallas are in a queer platonic relationship. A state trooper shows up, but everyone at the meeting clams up and refuses to give any answers about Sheriff Davies.

Miles Abernathy (Sadie Abernathy): I love Andrew Joseph White's protagonists because they always feel so real. I, of course, connected with Miles due to his autism, but also due to his humanness in general. He's no where near perfect, making mistakes and even plotting murder, but he's also just a kid, doing his best in a near impossible situation. I also appreciate him showing different presentations of autism with his characters, between Nick in Hell Followed With Us, Silas and the gardener in The Spirit Bares Its Teeth, and Miles and Amber in Compound Fracture, you get different perspectives of people that live with the same thing, and for me as an autistic person, I am able to see different aspects of myself represented in each character. This also applies with Benji from Hell Followed With Us, Silas and Daphne from The Spirit Bares Its Teeth, and Miles and Dallas from Compound Fracture in how they all view their trans-ness differently and have different journeys with it.

Cooper O'Brien: I really wasn't expecting at first for Cooper's character to become so twisted, but you watched him spiral into a sort of madness in real time with Miles. He became wildly unpredictable, and anticipating his actions was a source of anxiety while reading (in a good, thriller kind of way). You almost became just as scared of Cooper as you did of Noah and the sheriff by the end.

Storyline: I finished this book in one sitting, staying up WAY past my bedtime because I just needed to know what happened. The plot kept you on your toes the entire time, even in the calm moments, because you had no clue when some kind of chaos or calamity was about to descend. The plot twists were genuinely brutal, especially with the vivid descriptions of the gore these teenagers were inflicting upon each other. The sheriff was written to be especially enraging and evil, a well done villain. You feel the characters' rage alongside them as the story progresses.

Representation: Miles is autistic, aromantic, and transgender (FtM), and ends up in a queer platonic relationship with Dallas at the end. He is also left disfigured in the face and head after the attack, and later on completely blinded in one eye when he is shot by the sheriff. Dallas is a burn survivor, and is disfigured because of it. They also are plus sized, have ADHD, and are queer and nonbinary. It is undetermined if Cooper is queer, or if he just sees Miles as a girl despite him coming out. Amber has autism. Miles' boss is described as visibly queer, but nothing is specified or confirmed. Miles' great-great-grandfather Saint Abernathy is trans and gay. Miles describes there being several queer people at his school, including a he/they lesbian, a queer girl, and a gay boy. One of the musicians in the punk band is a trans woman. Miles, his father, and Mr. O'Brien all struggle with opioid addiction.

Summary: Once again, Andrew Joseph White has written a masterpiece. His books have the incredible ability to suck you right into the story, making you feel like you're there and experiencing these events with the characters, and, for fellow trans and autistic people, at times it can even feel like you're the protagonist yourself. No characters are overlooked, and it feels like everyone in the story grows and develops, not just the protagonist.

Quotes: "...parents seem obsessed with performing their grief about a child's transition."-Miles Abernathy (p.66) "We've already killed one of them. What's a few more?"-Cooper O'Brien (p.102) "It's like everyone knows there's something off about me, and they don't like it, and they don't quite know what to do about it."-Miles Abernathy (p.149) "I wish Cooper had gotten to know the version of me that's going to exist one day."-Miles Abernathy (p.333)

[385bookreviews]

1.36.3 Children of Dune by Frank Herbert

SPOILERS

Pages: 477

Time Read: 11 hours and 16 minutes

Overall Rating: 4.5★ Storyline: 4★ Dialogue: 4.5★ Characters: 4★

Genre: Adult Science Fiction

TWs for the book: Violence, murder, death, addiction, incest, body horror, mental illness, war, su*c*de, drug use, possession, psychosis, colonization, self harm, sexism, drug abuse, torture, kidnapping, grief, religion/religious bigotry, adult/minor relationship

POV: Third person

Time Period/Location: Nine years after the events of Dune Messiah; On Arrakis and Salusa Secundus.

First Line: A spot of light appeared on the deep red rug which covered the raw rock of the cave floor.

Nine years after Paul Muad'Dib walked off into the desert, Stilgar guards Leto II and Ghanima, Paul's young twins. He contemplates how things in the Imperium got to this point, and if he should kill Leto and Ghanima to put an end to House Atreides and the pre-born. He ultimately decides against it.

Leto and Ghanima prepare to meet their grandmother, Lady Jessica for the first time. Alia, the current Regent of the Imperium, says she will meet her and Arrakeen and bring her back to Sietch Tabr to meet the twins. Leto and Ghanima discuss amongst themselves that Alia has become an Abomination, possessed by one of her past lives. Alia flies to Arrakeen and muses over why her mother has come to see her, suspecting ulterior motives. Jessica returns, and in a grand entrance to the people of the city, has her men, Gurney Halleck, and Stilgar capture people in the crowd to interrogate them. Alia is enraged she acted without her permission, but Jessica ignores her and talks to two of Alia's priests. One of them, a man named Javid, gives her pause. She notes that he hates the Atreides, and that Alia is involved with him, despite being married to Duncan Idaho. Jessica desires to go to Sietch Tabr immediately to meet her grandchildren, but is delayed by the pomp and ceremony of Alia's priests.

On Salusa Secundus, Irulan's sister, Wensicia of House Corrino, plots to have two Laza tigers kill the Atreides twins by gifting them specific robes the tigers will track. Her Bashar, Tyekanik, is opposed to the idea, but she commands him to obey, and to convert to the religion of Muad'Dib in order to persuade her son Farad'n to willingly become Emperor when her schemes fall into place.

Leto struggles with prescient dreams about an abandoned sietch called Jacurutu, and him and Ghanima both intensely fear becoming Abomination like Alia.

A mysterious blind figure known as the Preacher begins to appear in the city, preaching heresy against Alia and the Golden Elixir. Everyone begins to speculate that this man is actually Paul Muad'Dib, and that he didn't die when he wandered into the desert nine years before.

Alia recalls her possession. She cut off her ancestors' memories and pushed them down and away, not communicating with them or viewing them like the twins did. This left her susceptible to all of them overpowering her. To prevent this from happening, she allowed the Baron Vladimir Harkonnen to have partial possession of her. He commanded her to use the Bene Gesserit ways to stay eternally young, something highly forbidden, and he also commanded her to sleep with Javid.

Leto and Ghanima allow themselves temporary possession by the memories of Paul and Chani, and they seek advice from them. They conclude that they must follow Paul's Golden Path, the one he saw in his visions and ran off into the desert to escape.

The Preacher visits Farad'n on Arrakis to interpret his dreams. He refuses to tell Farad'n his interpretation, but reveals that Tyekanik bargained with the Preacher, who wanted to hear Farad'n's dreams in exchange for him commanding Duncan Idaho to come to their side.

Alia plots to abduct Lady Jessica and make it seem as though House Corrino was responsible, and Leto warns Jessica of this, and also tells her to cooperate with the abduction. Leto also warns Stilgar not to trust Alia, and that he sees three paths in his visions: that he will die outside of Sietch Tabr, that he will marry Ghanima, and that he will kill Jessica. Stilgar is highly disturbed by this conversation and tries to ignore it. Alia tells Duncan to kidnap Jessica, and he sees for the first time that she is possessed. He agrees anyways, and leaves.

Alia requests for Jessica to sit in the morning council to hear the supplicants. Alia says for Jessica to take the first petitioner, who is a musician who is in Arrakeen on a pilgrimage. He was jumped and had his money stolen and he appeals to be given money to return home. Jessica asks where he intends to go, and he says he intends to go to House Corrino. Jessica knows this is somehow a trap from Alia, and asks him to play music so she can decide what to do with him. He improvises a song and Alia becomes offended when he compares her to a death-spirit. Jessica allows him to go to House Corrino. Then a Fremen Naib, a former member of Paul's Fedaykin, appeals to them about how the terraforming of Dune is killing the sandworms and the spice trade. A priest runs forward insisting he be removed for wanting to appear under false pretenses. Alia silently commands the priest and he tries to shoot and kill Jessica under the guise of trying to kill the Fedaykin. Jessica and the man, Ghadhean, duck out of the way, and Ghadhean delivers a deadly blow to the priest. Jessica commands two servants to save the priests life so he can be questioned, but another member of Alia's court kills the priest before that can happen. Jessica accuses Alia of attempting to kill her, and calls her out for being possessed by the Baron. She then escapes with the help of Ghadhean and some other Fedaykin in the room. They hide her in an abandoned sietch, and Duncan Idaho comes to take her to safety, but actually abducts her and takes her to Salusa Secundus and House Corrino, defying both Alia and Lady Jessica in favor of the orders of the Preacher.

Leto and Ghanima know that House Corrino has sent animals to hunt and kill them. They sneak out into the desert at night and plot to make it seem as though Leto was killed so he might go find Jacurutu and lead humanity down the Golden Path. The Laza tigers find them, and they hide in a crevice in the rocks. They use the poisoned tips of their crysknives to kill the tigers by swiping their paws with them, but Ghanima is injured by their claws. Leto leaves on a sandworm and heads south, while Ghanima hypnotizes herself into believing that Leto is truly dead, and she won't believe anything else until he sees her again and says the words "Golden Path" in one of the ancient languages they both speak. She makes her way back to Sietch Tabr and sees a Fremen man and woman talking in the secret exit. The man has a control panel for the Laza tigers. Ghanima kills him with a poisoned needle, and takes the woman hostage.

Duncan and Jessica arrive on Salusa Secundus. Farad'n is displeased by the scheming of his mother, which Jessica and Duncan take advantage of. They make a deal that Jessica will teach Farad'n in the way of the Bene Gesserit, and she will also announce that she is there of her own free will so Alia cannot make it seem as though she were kidnapped. Farad'n banishes Wensicia, and then they begin to plot a marriage between Farad'n and Ghanima. Duncan tries to kill himself for some reason, and then disavows himself from the service of the Atreides.

Leto arrives at Jacurutu, but is caught by a Fremen named Namri, father of Javid, and Gurney Halleck. Gurney Halleck is under orders by Lady Jessica to make Leto undergo the spice trance, and to kill him if he shows signs of becoming Abomination.

Alia has Ghanima in her possession and tells her that she is going to marry Farad'n. Ghanima adamantly refuses, saying she will kill him for the death of Leto. Alia and Irulan try desperately to convince her, but she continues to refuse, until Alia agrees to let Ghanima kill Farad'n when they are betrothed. Irulan is appalled and tries to talk both of them out of it, but it is the only way in which Ghanima agrees.

Namri's niece Sabiha is assigned to guard Leto during his trances. Leto hypnotizes her and she falls asleep, allowing him to escape the sietch and hide out under the sand in the midst of a storm. Jacurutu was the old abandoned sietch of the Cast Out, a group of Fremen that stole others' water, but the Cast Out were still alive and weren't living there, so he travels further south.

Duncan returns to Alia, who is disappointed in him, but commands him to go back to Sietch Tabr to help guard Ghanima, who has returned there with Stilgar and Irulan. Duncan goes, but dodges the escort of one of Alia's guards, as he deduces that Alia was meaning for him to die on the trip there.

Leto encounters the Cast Out harvesting spice, and demands he be taken to their sietch, Shuloch, which is nothing more than a ramshackle village. There he discovers Sabiha, who was sent there as punishment by Namri for letting Leto escape. He goes out at night and covers his skin with sandtrouts, the first form of the sandworms. They engulf him and becoming a living stillsuit that make him much more powerful and more fast. He escapes Shuloch and makes a mission of destroying the qanats of the sietches to try and set back the terraforming by generations. Back in Jacurutu, Namri reveals to Gurney that him and his son Javid have been working for House Corrino. Gurney kills him and flees Jacurutu.

Months later, Leto, who has gained the power to control the sandworms and become nonhuman due to his bond with the sandtrouts, confronts the Preacher and his child guide. He kills the guide, and forces the Preacher to reveal his true identity as Paul Muad'Dib. Paul tries to talk Leto out of following the Golden Path, but Leto refuses.

Duncan tries to convince Stilgar to put Alia to a Trial of Possession. Stilgar insists upon him and his sietch remaining neutral. Javid walks in and Duncan kills him, forcing Stilgar to kill Duncan. He then remembers some of Leto's words to him about not trusting Alia and protecting Ghanima, and he takes his sietch and flees into the desert. Alia enlists one of Stilgar's former sietch members to hunt him down.

Leto and Paul find Gurney Halleck hiding out at a different sietch and bring him back to Shuloch with them. Gurney is stunned to see Leto's transformations and Paul alive. Stilgar tries to meet with the man assigned to hunt him down to work out a treaty between him and Alia, but Alia's other soldiers kidnap Ghanima and Stilgar kills the other Fremen.

Alia plans for Jessica and Farad'n's arrival for Ghanima's betrothal. She gazes out of her window, and sees the Preacher approaching. He gathers the crowd and she sends her priests down to grab him and bring him to her, and plans to have him enter at the same time as Ghanima, because she has figured out that he is Paul. Farad'n and Jessica arrive and come to watch the Preacher, but a mob breaks out in the street below. The priests try to grab Paul, but he is stabbed to death. Alia is enraged, and reveals to Jessica and Farad'n that that was Paul. The doors burst open and Leto comes in dragging Ghanima behind him. He says the words and Ghanima breaks from her hypnosis and asks him if their plan worked. Alia demands to know about the plan, and her and Leto fight, him throwing her around like a doll with his new super strength. He gives her two options: Trial of Possession, or she can throw herself out the window. She becomes fully possessed by all of the lives within her, mainly by the Baron, but she is able to fight them off long enough to throw herself out of the window.

Leto is crowned Emperor, and he makes Farad'n his Scribe. The Naibs swear fealty to him and worship him as the embodiment of Shai-Hulud. He speaks with Farad'n privately with Ghanima, asking him for his Sardaukar forces. Farad'n doesn't want to give them up, but Leto says that he will. He also says Farad'n will not be marrying Ghanima, but that he will marry her, and that Farad'n will secretly father the Atreides line going forward as Leto is no longer able to reproduce. Farad'n tries to argue, but Leto insists this will happen, and that he will rule for 4000 years and create a Golden Age, but all of his subjects will be weak and subservient. He renames Farad'n as Harq al-Ada, the historian that has been writing most of the passages throughout the book.

Leto II Atreides (Desert Demon/Ari/Batigh): Leto was definitely an unsettling part of the book. He says a lot of odd things before he starts taking spice, but afterwards, his chapters kind of drag on and on with a lot of his musings and movements through the world. Like with Paul, you think that he is trying to do the good and right thing, but after he takes the spice, he is sucked onto this Golden Path, and, because he is young and pre-born, he doesn't have the power to resist like Paul did.

Ghanima Atreides: She is my favorite character in the book and I really enjoyed all of her scenes.

Duncan Idaho (Hayt): Once again I am confused about a lot of Duncan's motive and actions in the ending of the book, if anyone has any clarification about this feel free to message me!

Stilgar: I really like how we got more of Stilgar's perspective in this book, seeing him question his loyalty and make certain connections. The twins, particularly Leto, really manipulated him, and it was interesting to see how in the first chapter he questioned killing the twins and in the last chapter he questioned if he should have done it when he had the chance.

Alia Atreides (St. Alia of the Knife/Coan-Teen/Abomination/Womb of Heaven): Alia's descent into madness was really interesting to watch. I feel like we never got to see Alia's true personality, which makes sense because she never had one. She tried to create her own sense of self to the point of her own detriment.

Storyline: I really enjoyed this book the most out of the first three. The second half of the book was quite a bit slower because a lot of it was Leto high on spice in the desert, but I liked the short chapters and the switching of the perspectives. It does get a little confusing with the weeks and months that pass with only vague mention, but it wasn't too much of an issue.

Quotes: -"Government and religion united, and breaking a law became sin. A smell of blasphemy arose like smoke around any questioning of governmental edicts. The guilt of rebellion invoked hellfire and self-righteous judgements. Yet it was men who created these governmental edicts."-Stilgar (p.6)

-"The joy of living, its beauty is all bound up in the fact that life can surprise you."-Leto II (p.83)

-"Atrocity is recognized as such by victim and perpetrator alike, by all who learn about it at whatever remove. Atrocity has no excuses, no mitigating argument. Atrocity never balances or rectifies the past. Atrocity merely arms the future for more atrocity. It is self-perpetuating upon itself--a barbarous form of incest. Whoever commits atrocity also commits those future atrocities thus bred."-The Apocrypha of Muad'Dib (p.117)

-"The past may show the right way to behave if you live in the past, Stil, but circumstances change."-Leto II (p.133)

-"What other function did the priesthood serve than to deny individual will?"-Stilgar (p.139)

-"It's beautiful, but it's not art. Humans create art by their own violence, by their own volition."-Duncan (p.143)

-"To suspect your own mortality is to know the beginning of terror; to learn irrefutably that you are mortal is to know the end of terror."-Jessica (p.154)

-"Good government never depends upon laws, but upon the personal qualities of those who govern. The machinery of government is always subordinate to the will of those who administer that machinery. The most important element of government, therefore, is the method of choosing leaders."-The Spacing Guild Manual (p.171)

-"Our civilization could well die of indifference within it before succumbing to external attack."-Jessica (p.172)

-"If you put away those who report accurately, you'll keep only those who know what you want to hear... I can think of nothing more poisonous than to rot in the stink of your own reflections."-Jessica (p.181)

-"Governments, if they endure, always tend increasingly toward aristocratic forms. No government in history has been known to evade this pattern. And as the aristocracy develops, government tends more and more to act exclusively in the interest of the ruling class--whether that class be hereditary royalty, oligarchs of financial empires, or entrenched bureaucracy."-Bene Gesserit Training Manual (p.221)

-"But one learns from books and reels only certain things can be done. Actual learning requires that you do those things."-Farad'n/Harq al-Ada (p.245)

-"Is your religion real when it costs you nothing and carries no risk? Is your religion real when you commit atrocities in its name? Whence comes your downward degeneration from the original revelation?"-The Preacher/Paul Muad'Dib (p.262)

-"To claim absolute knowledge is to become monstrous. Knowledge is an unending adventure at the edge of uncertainty."-Leto II (p.314)

-"But the evil was known after the event!"-The Preacher/Paul Muad'Dib "Which is the way of many great evils."-Leto II (p.406)

-"The child who refuses to travel in the father's harness, this is the symbol of man's most unique capability. 'I do not have to be what my father was. I do not have to obey my father's rules or even believe everything he believed. It is my strength as a human that I can make my own choices of what to believe and what not to believe, of what to be and what not to be."-Leto II (p.449)

[385bookreviews]

1.36.2 Dune Messiah by Frank Herbert

SPOILERS

Pages: 282

Time Read: 5 hours and 52 minutes

Overall Rating: 4.5★ Storyline: 3.5★ Dialogue: 4.5★ Characters: 4★

Genre: Adult Science Fiction

TWs for the book: Death, war, violence, pregnancy, drug use, murder, injury, infertility, death of a parent, addiction, drug abuse, grief, colonization, genocide, adult/minor relationship, su*c*de, ableism, body horror, fire, incest, child death, psychosis, abortion, miscarriage, racism, slavery, cursing, cultural appropriation, classism, confinement, execution, religious fanaticism, religious bigotry

POV: Third person

Time Period/Location: 12 years after the events of Dune; On Arrakis/Dune

First Line: What led you to take your particular approach to a history of Muad'Dib?

The book begins 12 years after the events of Dune with a historian named Bronso of Ix being interrogated by a member of the Qizarate, Paul Atreides' religious order. Bronso is to be executed for committing blasphemy, while he argues that Paul committed religious sham in order to bring the Empire under his control.

Princess Irulan, Paul's wife, conspires on Wallach IX with Edric, a mutated Steersman of the Spacing Guild, the Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam, and a Tleilaxu Face Dancer called Scytale. They plot to remove Paul as Emperor. The Bene Tleilax play a grand part in their plan, as they took the body of Duncan Idaho and made him into a ghola, a remade being that has the body of the deceased person but none of the memories. Irulan reveals that Chani hasn't been able to get pregnant because she has been putting contraceptives in her food.

When Irulan returns back from Wallach IX, she demands Paul give her a child. Paul refuses, but Chani tries to make a case for it.

Scytale shapeshifts into Duncan Idaho to go and see a former Fedaykin warrior who is part of the conspiracy against Paul. Him and his son have kidnapped the daughter of another Fedaykin at Scytale's request. Scytale kills them both and takes the girl.

Paul welcomes Edric into his household, and he brings with him the ghola of Duncan Idaho, who has been turned into a Mentat/Zensunni philosopher with metal eyes called Hayt by the Tleilaxu. Paul and Alia, now 15 years old and a priestess to the people, are shocked by his arrival. Edric insists Paul take Hayt as a gift. Hayt discloses to Paul that Edric intends him to destroy Paul, but he doesn't know how. While he shows mannerisms of Duncan Idaho, he refuses to hold any of his memories or be the man that they once knew. Paul permits him to stay. The Reverend Mother was found aboard the ship that carried Edric, Hayt, and Scytale (disguised as a servant). Paul had banished her from Arrakis so she is placed under immediate arrest. Irulan visits her in her cell, and she reveals that Chani has changed her diet so she can't be drugged with contraceptive anymore, and that Paul has repeatedly denied Irulan's requests to have a child. The Reverend Mother says that Paul and Alia must have a child then to preserve the Atreides bloodline, and that if Chani becomes pregnant Irulan must find a way to abort the baby or kill Chani. Irulan protests and almost refuses, but the Reverend Mother gives her no choice.

The body of the girl that Scytale took from the Fedaykin is found in the desert. Alia and Hayt investigate, but find no clues as to who she is. They head home, and Alia tries to figure out if any of Duncan Idaho remains in Hayt. When they land back in Arrakeen, Hayt kisses her.

Paul is haunted by his visions as he searches for a way to end the Jihad. The only path he sees is for him to disengage, but he can't figure out how to. He meets with the Reverend Mother and makes her an offer: they can have his genes, and he will allow Irulan to be artificially inseminated by him (which is an atrocity to the Bene Gesserit), in exchange for Chani and his children's safety, as she is pregnant. The Reverend Mother insists she must discuss this with the Bene Gesserit before she accepts.

Scytale shapeshifts once again and becomes Lichna, daughter of Otheym, the Feydakin's daughter he killed and left out in the desert. Paul immediately knows that "Lichna" is a Face Dancer, but he feels he must act out exactly what has happened in his visions, as it is fate. Scytale (as Lichna) tells Paul he must go to Otheym's house, as he has a list of names who are involved in a Fremen conspiracy against him. She insists that Chani go with him, but he refuses. He has her confined and put under guard, and then goes to Alia's temple to be met by his guide. A Fremen leads him to Otheym's house, and he is greeted at the door by a dwarf, which goes against his vision. Otheym is immensely sick, and him and his wife are now poor due to the cost of medics. Otheym explains that the dwarf, Bijaz, is a Tleilaxu creation that has imbedded in his memory the names and locations of the scheme against Paul. They urge him to take the clearly prescient dwarf, and Paul leaves, knowing what is about to happen. An atomic hits Otheym's house, and burns out Paul's eyes along with all of his soldier's and guard's eyes. Paul, however, uses his prescience to "see", and he is further deified by his followers.

Korba, a member of Paul's Qizarate, is brought before the other Fremen Naibs and Alia, and is accused of treachery against Paul. He denies it, but Paul appears and reveals that the conspirators stole the atomic weapon from him, which was illegal for him to possess. He is sent back to his cell, and Alia was able to determine which of the Naibs were on Korba's side, further weeding out conspirators.

Hayt goes to interrogate Bijaz, and Bijaz traps him using vocal cues. He reveals that him and Hayt were made by the Tleilaxu together, and puts a command in him that when Paul tells Hayt the words, "She is gone," Hayt is to attempt to kill him. He also reveals that this is intended to see if Duncan Idaho's memories return to him, which if they do, then it will be the first successful attempt to return former memories to a ghola, and they can then use this to try and bribe Paul by offering to bring Chani back to life if he gave up everything and lived in exile. Bijaz then forces Hayt to forget the conversation.

Alia overdoses on spice in an attempt to look into Paul's future but is unsuccessful and is saved by Hayt.

Chani, Paul, Bijaz, Hayt, Stilgar, Alia, Irulan, "Lichna", the Reverend Mother, Edric, and the rest of the court go to Sietch Tabr for Chani's birth. Paul knows what is about to happen, but he stands outside. Hayt discovers that Bijaz has put a command phrase in him and he goes to tell Paul. While they talk, a Fremen comes to tell Paul that Chani is dead but his twin children are alive. He is shocked by the fact that there are twins, even though Chani told him about them, as he only saw his daughter in his future visions. He tells Hayt, "She is gone," and Hayt begins to fight the urge to kill Paul. He tells him to run, but Paul refuses, knowing he will resist. Hayt then remembers everything and becomes Duncan Idaho once more. They go to see the babies and Chani's body, but Paul's prescience begins to fail and he starts to go truly blind. Alia, distraught, brings in "Lichna", who has now revealed herself to be Scytale. Scytale holds a knife to the babies as a threat to Paul, saying the Tleilaxu will restore Chani and he will let the babies live, but only if he gives up his throne and CHOAM holdings and lives in exile. Paul then is able to use the eyes of his infant son, who is fully conscious, to see Scytale, and he kills him with a throw of his knife. Paul tells them to take Chani's body away, and names his son Leto II (not to be confused with his eldest son that died in Dune who was also named Leto II). He names his daughter Ghanima, which Stilgar's wife Harah insists is a bad omen. He then goes to his room, where Bijaz confronts him and Duncan and makes Scytale's offer again. Paul tells Duncan to kill Bijaz before he succumbs, and he does. After this, Paul is fully blind and unable to use his abilities anymore. As is Fremen custom, he banishes himself to the desert. Stilgar executes Edric and the Reverend Mother, and Irulan renounces the Bene Gesserit and vows to raise Paul's children. Alia mourns the loss of Chani and her brother, and begs Duncan to love her, which he says he does.

Paul Muad'Dib Atreides (Mahdi, Lisan al-Gaib, Emperor of the Imperium, Usul, Kwisatz Haderach): I loved Dune Messiah because it used all of the foreshadowing of Paul's fate from Dune. Paul's story is not heroic, but tragic, and while his internal battle could be a struggle to understand at times, it still all came together in a beautiful, heart-wrenching ending.

Chani (Sayyadina, Sihaya): While her death was awful, I loved what Frank Herbert did with Chani in this book and with her relationship with Paul. While everyone says that Chani in Dune is madly in love and blindly follows Paul, I think this book definitely gave her more of her own personality. She is practical and headstrong, and, especially when she is described from Paul's perspective, you can see how much he truly loves and respects her and her opinion.

Duncan Idaho (Hayt): Duncan/Hayt was such a strange part of the book for me, especially as everyone including himself was confused on his identity. He spouted a lot of mysterious vague dialogue throughout, and his relationship with Alia definitely raises some eyebrows.

Alia Atreides (St. Alia of the Knife, Abomination, virgin-harlot): Alia was also an odd character for me, as she is supposed to be an adult in a child's body and yet she acted like a child a lot of the time. I feel like the way she was described and the way she actually was were very conflicting, although I am sure that is part of the whole point.

Storyline: This book was largely dialogue, which could be tedious but I definitely did still enjoy it. While I wish we had gotten to see Paul's Jihad, getting a feel for how it went and how their worlds are now 12 years after the fact is almost like a puzzle. I definitely wish some things had been left out, like Paul and Stilgar walking in on Alia naked, the plotting of incest by Irulan and the Reverend Mother, and Duncan and Alia's adult/minor relationship.

Representation: Scytale is asked if he is a man or a woman, and he says that all Face Dancers are "Jadacha hermaphrodites", meaning that they can be whatever sex they wish to be. The term hermaphrodite is definitely outdated, but I was surprised that there was a gender fluid character who used he, she, and they pronouns throughout a book written in the 1960s.

Summary: I think that this book was essential in driving home Frank Herbert's intention with the original story of Paul Atreides. Dune and Dune Messiah were both broad critiques of capitalism, imperialism, climate change, genocide, colonialism, and, most obviously, religion as a means to control the masses.

Quotes: -"Have you considered what it meant for Alia to be born into this universe, fully cognitive, possessed of all her mother's memories and knowledge? No rape could be more terrifying."-Bronso of Ix (p.3)

-"You think Muad'Dib is yours because he mated with Chani, because he adopted Fremen customs. But he was an Atreides first and he was trained by a Bene Gesserit adept. He possessed disciplines totally unknown to you. You thought he brought you new organization a new mission. He promised to transform your desert planet into a water-rich paradise. And while he dazzled you with such visions, he took your virginity."-Bronso of Ix (p.4)

-"Muad'Dib's Qizarate missionaries carried their religious war across space in a Jihad whose major impetus endured only twelve standard years, but in that time, religious colonialism brought all but a fraction of the human universe under one rule."-Bronso of Ix (p.8)

-"A creature who has spent his life creating one particular representation of his selfdom will die rather than become the antithesis of that representation."-Scytale (p.22)

-"The Fremen are civil, educated, and ignorant... They're not mad. They're trained to believe, not to know. Belief can be manipulated. Only knowledge is dangerous."-Scytale (p.25)

-"Religion, too, is a weapon. What manner of a weapon is religion when it becomes the government?"-Edric (p.110)

-"...to endure oneself may be the hardest task in the universe."-Hayt/Duncan Idaho (p.130)

-"I think what a joy it is to be alive, and I wonder if I'll ever leap inward to the root of this flesh and know myself as I once was. The root is there. Whether any act of mine can find it, that remains tangled in the future. But all things a man can do are mine. Any act of mine may do it."-Hayt/Duncan Idaho (p.133)

-"If you need something to worship, then worship life--all life, every last crawling bit of it! We're all in this beauty together!"-Paul Atreides (p.255)

[385bookreviews]

1.36.1 Dune by Frank Herbert

SPOILERS

Pages: 617

Time Read: 14 hours and 42 minutes

Overall Rating: 4★ Storyline: 3★ Dialogue: 4★ Characters: 4.5★

Genre: Adult Science Fiction

TWs for the book: Violence, death, death of a parent, war, murder, colonization, fatphobia, drug use, p*dophilia, child death, grief, misogyny, sexism, addiction, slavery, blood, genocide, classism, pregnancy, torture, homophobia, drug abuse, xenophobia, cultural appropriation, racism, religious bigotry, injury, arranged marriage, r*pe, injury, kidnapping, gore, s*xual assault, su*c*de, body horror, child abuse, alcohol, gun violence, psychosis, animal cruelty/death, confinement

POV: Third person

Time Period/Location: The planets Caladan, Arrakis, and Giedi Prime; 20,000 years into humanity's future.

First Line: In the week before their departure to Arrakis, when all the final scurrying about had reached a nearly unbearable frenzy, an old crone came to visit the mother of the boy, Paul.

Paul Atreides is the son of Leto Atreides, the Duke of the planet Caladan, and Lady Jessica, Leto's concubine and a woman of the secretive Bene Gesserit. Leto is appointed Duke of Arrakis, the desert planet that produces spice. Spice is the most valuable product in the universe, allowing members of the Spacing Guild to see into the future in order to navigate through space, as computers and such technology are banned. The infamous Harkonnens formerly controlled the planet, but the Emperor stripped them of the privilege and gave it to Leto in order to pit the two houses against each other further and prompt Baron Vladimir Harkonnen into destroying House Atreides. The book begins when the Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam of the Bene Gesserit visits Jessica and Paul amidst the moving chaos. She tells Paul to put his hand in a box where he is to feel immense pain, and she holds a poison dart at his neck to keep him from retracting it. This was a test, as she says, to see if Paul was truly human. She scolds Jessica for producing a male, saying she was supposed to bear a female to keep the breeding plan in place. By birthing a male, Jessica tried to create the Kwisatz Haderach, the male savior of the universe that the Bene Gesserit have been trying to produce for centuries through their breeding program. Paul tells the Reverend Mother of his prophetic dreams, and the Reverend Mother cautions Jessica about the future.

They travel to Arrakis and have a somewhat rough transition. Paul is almost killed by an assassin, Lady Jessica finds a mysterious warning from another Bene Gesserit, and Leto struggles to undo the damage of the Harkonnens on the populace, harvest spice with damaged equipment and the threat of sandworms, and gain the trust of the Fremen, the mysterious natives who live out in the open desert. Information is planted, and Hawat, the Atreides Mentat assassin, begins to suspect Lady Jessica of treason, just as the Harkonnens have planned. The real traitor is Doctor Yueh, but he is never suspected as he is supposed to have Imperial conditioning making him unable to kill another person. Leto sends Duncan Idaho, one of his top soldiers, to make a connection with the Fremen, and progress is being made, until Doctor Yueh drugs him and allows the Harkonnens to invade. He hates the Baron for killing and torturing his wife, however, and gives Leto a poison gas tooth so he can kill the Baron. Yueh is ultimately killed by the Baron, Leto kills the Harkonnen Mentat but the Baron escapes, Duncan Idaho, Gurney Halleck, and Hawat flee, and Paul and Jessica are captured, tied up, and dumped in the desert. On the way out, the Harkonnen soldiers attempt to r*pe Jessica, but Paul and Jessica use the Voice on them, a form of mind control, and manage to escape. Upon exposure to the spice out in the desert, Paul's Bene Gesserit and Mentat training come together and he can see the past, present, and future. He foresees himself becoming a religious icon to the Fremen called the Lisan al-Gaib and leading a holy war (jihad) across the galaxy. The Bene Gesserit planted legends and religious myths among the Fremen to protect any member of the Bene Gesserit who gets stranded among them. He decides to do his best to make sure the jihad doesn't happen. Duncan Idaho finds them the next day, along with some Fremen and Liet Kynes, a planetologist beholden to the Emperor and part of the scheme to destroy House Atreides. He, however, sees Arrakis as his home world and is deeply connected to the Fremen, and believes Paul to be the Lisan al-Gaib. He helps them escape when the Harkonnen catch up. Duncan Idaho is killed, and Kynes is captured. Jessica and Paul fly into a sandstorm and are presumed dead. Hawat is also captured by the Harkonnens. The Baron uses poison to manipulate Hawat into joining his side, and he kills Liet Kynes by dropping him into the desert. Gurney Halleck joins up with spice smugglers. Paul and Jessica go into the deep desert to find the Fremen, running from sandworms and fighting sand slides and dehydration. They are finally found by the leader of a sietch named Stilgar, who met with Leto and had befriended Duncan. They try to take Paul and kill Jessica but she bests Stilgar in combat. They agree to take them both in, and Paul then meets Chani, the Fremen girl he had been having dreams about and the daughter of Liet Kynes.

They travel to another cave the Fremen use, and Jessica and Paul begin to try to prove to the Fremen that Paul is the Lisan al-Gaib. Jamis, one of the warriors Paul had previously fought off, challenges Paul to a duel to the death. Paul kills him, and learns he must now take care of Jamis' wife and children. When they arrive at the sietch, Jessica agrees to become the new Reverend Mother. The Reverend Mothers hold the consciousness of all who came before them, but they can only access the women. Jessica, who is pregnant with a daughter, drinks the Waters of Life, a poison that opens her mind. The baby however, Alia, is also made conscious in the womb, and is later born fully conscious as well. Chani and Paul get together.

There is a time jump, and the Baron's nephew Beast Rabban, has been ruling Arrakis with an iron fist, part of the Baron's plan to then quell the dissention when his other nephew Feyd-Rautha arrives and is a better ruler. Feyd is sneaky and violent, and attempts to have the Baron killed, partly due to Hawat's scheming. Lady Fenring, a member of the Bene Gesserit who's husband is close with the Emperor, sleeps with Feyd in order to become pregnant with his child and continue the Harkonnen line. The Emperor begins to grow discontent with the Harkonnens.

On Arrakis, Paul becomes an official Fremen by riding a sandworm. His sister Alia has been born, and Chani has given birth to her and Paul's son, Leto II. Stilgar says that Paul must kill him and replace him as leader. Paul refuses, and reconnects with Gurney Halleck. He further proves himself to be the Lisan al-Gaib, especially after he drank the Water of Life and survived, something that is meant to kill any man who drinks it. He also claims his title as Duke of Arrakis. The Emperor, displeased with how the Baron has not managed to quell the Fremen rebellion, comes to Arrakis himself, and Leto II is killed and Alia is captured. Paul and the Fremen plot to wage war against the Harkonnens, the Emperor, and the rest of the great houses if need be. Alia and the Baron are brought before the Emperor, where Alia reveals that she is the Baron's granddaughter, as Jessica is his daughter. She then (at four years old) assassinates the Baron and escapes. The Emperor and his people are forced to retreat as their base is attacked. Paul reclaims the city of Arrakeen, and calls a meeting with the Emperor. Feyd-Rautha attempts to kill Paul in a duel by cheating, but Paul kills him. Then Paul offers to the Emperor that he will marry his oldest daughter Irulan and become Emperor himself. The Emperor is left with no choice but to concede.

Paul Muad'Dib Atreides (Lisan al-Gaib, Mahdi, Duke of Arrakis, Usul, Kwisatz Haderach): While Paul is the main character, he is not the hero of the story. He starts off fairly innocent, merely a 15 year old confused by his abilities but studiously honing them under Jessica and Hawat's training. When he gains access to the spice and sees the jihad, he swears he will do everything to avoid it. But ultimately he doesn't. He uses the legend of the Lisan al-Gaib in order to gain support and acceptance by the Fremen, at first under his mother's direction. But throughout the story, his desire to know the future and avenge his father takes over and he succumbs. He expresses regret and loneliness at the end as he realizes all of his friends are now his followers, but ultimately, he made all of the choices to get there. Paul would like to think this fate was simply unavoidable, but there were times where it wasn't. He could have chosen not to drink the Water of Life or try and take the throne from the Emperor.

Stilgar: I think Stilgar is a particularly interesting character because he is the exact representation of why what Paul is doing is not good. He is a strong, determined leader, but by the end becomes a fanatic worshipper of Paul, and, as Paul even notices, he become less of a person when he does so, losing his agency and cultural identity by blindly following this boy due to a fake prophecy created by the very people he fights against.

Duke Leto Atreides: Leto definitely tries his best to make the best of a bad situation by trying to ally himself with the native Fremen and protect his family from the Harkonnens as best he can. While Paul is said to be more like his grandfather, he definitely is what Leto might have turned into (without the religious fanaticism) if he had survived and continued to rule over Arrakis.

Baron Vladimir Harkonnen: Full disclosure, I did see the movies first, so I was hoping to get a more similar Baron to Stellan Skarsgård's portrayal. The book version was definitely not nearly as imposing or terrifying. Especially once we get to see his POV, he is just a slimy, greedy old creep. On the up side, this makes him very easy to hate.

Storyline: While a bit tedious in certain parts, I really enjoyed this book. I'm a sucker for good world building and immense detail to flesh out a story to make it feel real and Frank Herbert definitely succeeds in this. That said, the dialogue could be a bit strange at time, as well as Gurney's random songs, and the switching of POVs mid paragraph. Despite that, it was a unique and powerful story. There is a lot of social commentary here, addressing white saviorism, colonialism, imperialism, religious fanaticism, and a critique specifically of America taking oil from the Middle East. I especially loved all of the foreshadowing that went into this. While people say that the movies were meant to be looked into and nothing was spelled out for you, you definitely had to be paying even closer attention in the book, lest you miss out on the themes and parallels.

Quotes: -"Once, men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them."-Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam (p.14) -"But let us not rail about justice as long as we have arms and the freedom to use them."-Duke Leto Atreides (p.111) -"There is probably no more terrible instant of enlightenment than the one in which you discover your father is a man--with human flesh."-Paul Atreides (p.131) -"That honorable banner could come to mean many evil things."-Duke Leto Atreides (p.134) -"There is no escape--we pay for the violence of our ancestors."-Paul Atreides (p.186) -"Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past me I will turn to see fear's path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain."-Paul Atreides (p.291) -"Arrakis is a one-crop planet... It supports a ruling class that lives as ruling classes have lived in all times while, beneath them, a semihuman mass of semislaves exists on the leavings. It's the masses and the leavings that occupy our attention. There are far more valuable than has ever been suspected."-Pardot Kynes (hallucination) (p.349) -"We must depend not so much on the bravery of individuals, you see, as upon the bravery of a whole population."-Pardot Kynes (hallucination) (p.350) -"No more terrible disaster could befall your people than for them to fall into the hands of a Hero."-Pardot Kynes (hallucination) (p.351) -"Deep in the human unconscious is a pervasive need for a logical universe that makes sense. But the real universe is always one step beyond logic."-Paul Atreides (p.471) -"When law and duty are one, united by religion, you never become fully conscious, fully aware of yourself. You are always a little less than an individual."-Princess Irulan (p.516) -"I swear this to you by the love I hold for you, a love I will still hold even after I leave you dead on this floor."-Paul Atreides (p.546) -"One of the most terrible moments in a boy's life... Is when he discovers his father and mother are human beings who share a love that he can never quite taste."-Paul Atreides (p.546) -"...they have something to die for. They've discovered they're a people. They're awakening."-Paul Atreides (p.570) -"...Paul saw how Stilgar had been transformed from the Fremen naib to a creature of the Lisan al-Gaib, a receptacle for awe and obedience. It was a lessening of the man, and Paul felt the ghost-wind of the jihad on it." (p.592) -"I have seen a friend become a worshipper."-Paul Atreides (p.592)

[385bookreviews]

2.252 The Wolf and the Woodsman by Ava Reid

SPOILERS

Disclaimer: This review is my personal opinion. I did not like this book, but it is not my intention to hate on anyone who did like this book. I encourage you to read things on your own and have your own feelings about them.

Pages: 410

Time Read: 8 hours and 25 minutes

Overall Rating: 1.5★ Storyline: 1.5★ Dialogue: 2★ Characters: 1★

Genre: Adult Gothic Fantasy

TWs for the book: Violence, gore, blood, body horror, self harm, mutilation, religious bigotry, antisemitism, death, animal death, injury, murder, xenophobia, animal cruelty, torture, physical abuse, war, racism, death of a parent, bullying, hate crimes, colonization, child abuse, genocide, grief, emotional abuse, s*xual content, kidnapping, fire, confinement, vomit, classism, abandonment, racial slurs, misogyny, child death, sexism, trafficking, body shaming, toxic relationship, cultural appropriation, toxic friendship

POV: First person

Time Period/Location: The fictional country of Régország; including the village Keszi, the forest of Ezer Szem, the Black Lake, the Little Plain, Kaleva, Lake Taivas, and the capital city of Kirláy Szek.

First Line: The trees have to be tied down by sunset.

Évike has spent her entire life in the pagan village of Keszi, hidden away by the forest of Ezer Szem. Girls in this village are gifted with powers, the ability to forge metal by singing, the ability to make fire, the ability to heal, or, the rarest, the ability to have visions of the future. They wear wolf pelts as cloaks, giving them the title of wolf-girls. Every few years, the Woodsman, loyal servants of King János Bárány of Régország, come and take a wolf-girl to the capital, Kirláy Szek, where they are never heard from again. When Évike was 10, her mother was taken. She was born with no powers, and her father was Yehuli, a race of people that serve as tax collectors for the king. She has spent her entire life with one friend, Boróka, and was raised by the táltos (seer and village leader), Virág. The story begins with her helping the village prepare for the Woodsmans' arrival, and is taunted and teased by a seer girl Katalin and her friends. When they go to see Virág that evening, she has a vision, seeing that the Woodsman are coming to take Katalin. Because she is the only other seer in the village, and she is to replace Virág when she dies, she dyes Évike's hair and makes her pretend to be Katalin. The Woodsman take her and drag her off into the woods. On the way there, one of the Woodsman, Peti, tries to kill her in a religious fervor. The leader of the four Woodsman, one-eyed Gáspár, chops off Peti's arm as punishment. He later dies from infection and blood loss. They make it out of the forest and camp near the Black Lake, where the other two Woodsman are eaten by shapeshifting monsters disguised as black chickens. Gáspár and Évike fight them off, and he reveals that he is the legitimate son and heir of János Bárány. He says that his bastard brother Nándor wants to mess up the line of succession and overthrow their father. He follows the Patrifaith, like most of Régország, but is fervently religious and wants to exile the Yehuli and kill all of the pagans. Régország is also at war with Merzan, a country to the south, and where Gáspár's mother came from. King János wanted a seer so he could use her power to win the war. Gáspár wants to give his father a seer before Saint István's Day to stop Nándor from taking over, but in the fight Évike's hair dye came off and she was revealed for what she was. They make a bargain, that if Évike helps him find the turul, a magic bird that can see past, present, and future, he will let her return to her village.

They begin their journey north to Kaleva, where they believe the turul is. They stop in a village which claims to be plagued by a monster killing people. Gáspár agrees to help them hunt the monster, much to Évike's annoyance. They spend a couple days there and eventually find the remnants of the missing people in the tent of the village leader. Gáspár kills him, and they go on their way again. Gáspár and Évike grow closer the farther they travel north, and eventually reach Lake Taivas and the forest they believe hides the turul. In the Patrifaith, the Woodsman cut off limbs and body parts or cut themselves in order to wield magic. Gáspár's missing eye marks him as a Woodsman, and he cuts himself to light fires. Évike begins to wonder if she could do something similar. The wolf-girls get their magic from Isten, the pagan father god, but she wonders if she perhaps should have been praying to Ördög, the god of the Under-World, this whole time. She cuts off one of her pinky fingers and then sticks her whole hand into the fire and it goes out. They are chased from the forest onto the frozen lake by walking trees, and Évike falls through the ice. Gáspár jumps in to save her, and they both become unconscious on the ice. They wake up in a tree house with a pagan woman named Tuula, and her pet bear Bierdna. They later meet her partner, Szabín, who is a former Patrician. She tells the story of how Nándor grew up with her and he fell through the ice on a lake and froze to death. The Érsek, the archbishop, prayed over him and he came back to life, so he was given sainthood.

Gáspár and Évike try to continue their hunt for the turul, but Tuula and Szabín warn them not to. They realize they don't have enough time, and begin the journey back. Gáspár tries to convince Évike to go back to Keszi, but she refuses, saying she wants to find her father. They encounter several monsters on the way to Kirláy Szek, including a monster disguised as a naked young girl. When the monster dies, an spell makes Gáspár and Évike drawn to each other and they make out in the woods, but when the spell breaks, Gáspár rejects Évike, which hurts her feelings. They arrive in Kirláy Szek on Saint István's Day and Évike tries to find her father Zsigmond. Someone on Yehuli street finally tells her that he is being punished by Nándor for working on a holy day. It is against the Yehuli's religion to touch pig, so they find Nándor making Zsigmond kneel on a dead pig. Évike tries to defend him but is taken to the dungeon. She is then presented before the king, who wears a crown of fingernails all coming from the dead wolf-girls the Woodsman have taken. He is able to wield all of their powers. He tries to get her to demonstrate any of the four abilities but she isn't able to, so he tries to execute her. She brings up her hand to touch his sword and it disintegrates. She makes a deal with the king that she will use her magic to protect him if he promises to leave Keszi and the pagans alone and free her father Zsigmond. He agrees, and she spends a week playing bodyguard for the king while reconnecting with her father and learning how to write and about her Yehuli heritage.

Then Katalin is brought into the capital by Woodsman, and Nándor tries to kill Évike. She escapes, and her, Gáspár, and Katalin flee north to Kavala, using Katalin's seeing ability to find the turul once and for all. When they arrive back at Lake Taivas, they are confronted by Tuula, Szabín, and Bierdna. They all fight, and Évike jumps into the frozen lake once again. She finds herself transported to the top of the turul's tree, and she uses her magic to kill it. When she reaches the bottom, the Woodsman have caught up to them and capture them all. They are taken back to the capital, and the king eats the eyes of the turul, but the power is too strong and he starts to go mad. Nándor kills him then and there, and captures Évike, Gáspár, and Katalin. He kills the Érsek, and says that Katalin and Évike will be executed the next day, and Gáspár will crown him as king. Afterwards he will stab out Gáspár's other eye and exile him. The next day comes, and right before the coronation, Katalin has a vision and says that the pagans have come to attack the city. The Woodsman fight the pagans but lose, and Évike and Gáspár kill Nándor.

Évike goes back to Keszi and agrees to be the ambassador between Keszi and Kirláy Szek.

Évike: This book was nearly impossible to get through due to Évike being the most unbearable main character I've ever had the displeasure of reading about. She is unbelievably horny for Gáspár the entire book with pretty much no basis. She goes from hating him to wanting to have sex with him in no time, and there is really no chemistry or connection between them at all. Évike is a brat, reading as no more than a moody teenager, while in actuality being 25 years old. She is hateful for no reason a lot of the times, and while she definitely has reasons to be angry, she's mostly just a bully. The entire plot revolves around her saving her abusers to prove that they weren't right about her, and then she goes back to them in the end. Pointed out by a reviewer called Nasi on GoodReads, she does not at all act like someone who has been bullied and abused for more than half her life. She doesn't try to avoid situations in which she could be hurt, or have much of any empathy for Gáspár. She finally feels at home and welcomed like she never has before with her father and the Yehuli, and yet she still goes back to Keszi to be with her abusers and that makes literally zero sense to me. Everyone she meets reminds her of either Katalin or Virág to the point of annoyance.

Gáspár Bárány: He had so much potential that was completely wasted throughout this book. He honestly should have been the main character and had everything coming through his POV. He had to go through a lot of complex emotions: betraying his faith, fighting his brother, trying to protect his father even though he hurt him, falling in love with Évike despite the fact that she was completely unlikable, becoming the ruler of a nation overnight. He goes through a lot of growth throughout the book that we don't get to see at all.

Virág and Katalin: Virág whipped Évike almost daily and was cruel to her, and Katalin regularly burned her and called her racial slurs, and yet, with no apology for said behavior, and some half ass excuses from both of them, they get a redemption arc where Évike completely justifies their behavior in her mind and goes back to them, and they start being nicer to her just because she saved them all. Katalin's reason for tormenting her was she was jealous that Virág was nice to her sometimes (even though Virág was nice to Katalin ALL the time and never beat her). Virág's reason for saving Évike from being thrown into the woods after her mother was taken by the Woodsman and tolerating her for 15 years was that she had a vision and knew that Évike would save her life in the battle.

Storyline: The storyline was boring and unpredictable (but not in a good way). The first 50% of the book is Évike and Gáspár wandering around and being bitchy with each other, and while this would have been the perfect opportunity to have the romance build up, it doesn't. If anything it proves how little of a connection is between them besides the fact that Évike is horny and finds him hot. The next half of the book had me wondering the entire time how the book was going to end because I didn't see a way for a good, plausible ending (there wasn't). The real magic of the book was the magic of convenience. Nándor brutally kills the Érsek with magic previously unseen before by the reader, and yet Évike and Gáspár take him out fairly easily in comparison to how powerful this character has been made out to be. We also never get an explanation as to why Nándor IS so powerful. Évike spends half the book wondering about it, and yet the only explanation we get is that it must have been the time he died in the ice. But how did he come back to life? Why did he come back to life? Why did that give him greater powers? What magic was he really using? Ava Reid set up a pretty cool magic system and then gave us nothing with it. We only see Évike's magic a handful of times before she loses it by killing the turul. The Yehuli are shown to have a really cool magic using words that is also barely demonstrated. Tuula's magic, seeming to be a control over animals that the pagans in Kavala, the Juuvi, possess, is underused as well. The happily ever after ending we get where suddenly the Merzani, the Yehuli, the pagans, and the Patricians are suddenly cool with each other despite years and years of hate, violence, and genocide is completely implausible.

Representation: The language and culture were supposed to be based on Hungarian culture, but after reading the comments of a Hungarian reviewer named Brigi on GoodReads, among others, I've learned that the "Hungarian representation" is more like loose cultural and linguistic appropriation at best. The Yehuli were based off the Jewish people. Gáspár is mixed as he is half Merzani and he faces racism from his own people due to this fact. He also is missing an eye. Évike is missing a pinky finger, and the rest of the Woodsman also have missing pieces of their face/body, but all of that is self inflicted. Tuula and Szabín are gay, and it is hinted that Katalin and Boróka might have feelings for each other.

Summary: This book did have the potential. The magic system was unique and intriguing. There was a lot of good commentary on religion and culture. Gáspár could have been a really intriguing character. The gothic horror folklore vibe definitely was there and could have been there better. But all of it was wasted on a horrible attempt at enemies to lovers and nicely wrapped up ending where everyone is happy, the end. Ava Reid definitely knows how to write, and a lot of her prose is beautiful, but it felt like she tried to use her prose to make up for the fact that her story was simply not good. There was an abundance of metaphors and similes, so dense in parts that I had trouble differentiating the descriptive language from what was actually happening. Some of the word usage didn't even make sense. I love the unique names, however, from what I've heard, the pronunciation and spellings weren't even done correctly, and going back and forth from the story to the pronunciation guide constantly was exhausting. There was an overabundance of repeated words, phrases, and information that made everything seem incredibly shallow, and the fact that this was happening in first person narration reflected on Évike and made her even more unlikable and stupid. Also with it being first person, a lot of the flowerly language didn't make sense for who Évike is, especially when you learn 60% of the way into the book that she is illiterate. I really don't know if I'll be picking up anymore books by Ava Reid, and I sadly do not understand the hype here as this was definitely one of the worst books I've read.

Quotes: "I can't even light a match myself, of course, but if the price of Woodsman power is being honor-bound to some morose, pitiless god who demands purity and perfection, I'm not sure it's worth the cost."-Évike (p. 65) "All that talk of quiet obedience is for their benefit, not yours. They don't have to go to the effort of striking you down if you're already on your knees."-Évike (p. 97)

[385bookreviews]

2.195 Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech

SPOILERS

Pages: 280

Time Read: 3 hours

Overall Rating: 2.5★ Storyline: 3.5★ Dialogue: 2.5★ Characters: 3★

Genre: Middle Grade/YA Fiction

TWs for the book: Death of a parent, death of a grandparent, stillbirth, hysterectomy, medical trauma, grief, car accident, abandonment, death of a grandparent, racial slur, brief discussion of the psych ward, paranoia, blood, ableism, pregnancy; very mild discussion of hanging, murder, kidnapping, and torture

POV: First Person

Time Period/Location: The time period is not clear but it takes place mostly in Bybanks, Kentucky; Euclid, Ohio; and then a road trip from Euclid to Lewiston, Idaho

First Line: Gramps says that I am a country girl at heart, and that is true.

Salamanca, a 13 year old girl and our main character, lived on a farm with her mother and father in Bybanks, Kentucky. After the stillbirth of her sister and a subsequent hysterectomy due to bleeding, Sal's mother leaves to take a bus trip to Lewiston, Idaho to visit her cousin, see the sights, and to ultimately find herself. Sal and her father learn not long later that her mother was involved in a crash and died. Shortly after, Sal's father rented out their farm and moved them to Euclid, Ohio to be closer to her father's friend Mrs. Margaret Cadaver. While there, Sal befriends an anxious girl named Phoebe Winterbottom.

Sal didn't get to see her mother's grave whenever she died, so her Gram and Gramps, her father's parents, take her on a week long road trip to retrace Sugar's last steps and to arrive at her grave in Lewiston on her birthday. While on the drive, she entertains her grandparents with stories about Phoebe and her family. She notices that Phoebe has a lot of wild notions about things and naturally assumes the worst of people. Sal spends a lot of time at her house and notices that Phoebe, her older sister Prudence, and father Mr. Winterbottom, tend to take Mrs. Winterbottom for granted and ignore all of the effort she puts in to her cooking. Sal also learns where Phoebe gets all of her wild ideas from, as her mother is also exceedingly anxious and worried about robbers and "lunatics". One day, while Phoebe and Sal are home alone at Phoebe's house, a nervous young man knocks on the door and asks to see Mrs. Winterbottom. Phoebe says she isn't there. After he leaves, Phoebe starts imagining the young man as some kind of lunatic looking to harm them. The paranoia increases when mysterious blank envelopes begin appearing at their front door step, all with mysterious sayings such as, "Don't judge a man until you've walked two moons in his moccasins" and "In the course of a lifetime, what does it matter?".

Phoebe and Sal befriend Mary Lou and her cousin Ben, who lives with her. Ben flirts with Sal, much to her confusion. Phoebe shares with Sal her wild conspiracies about Mrs. Cadaver, and they only grow whenever they see their English teacher Mr. Burbanks at her house helping her to replant a bush. Phoebe tells Sal that Mrs. Cadaver used to be married, but she probably chopped up her husband and buried him under that bush, and Mr. Burbanks helped. Not long later, Mrs. Winterbottom leaves a note that she will be gone for awhile. Sal then has to watch Phoebe go through exactly what she did when her mother left. Phoebe assumes that her mother has been kidnapped, tortured, or murdered by "the lunatic" (the young man that knocked on the door) or Mrs. Cadaver. She puts tape around mysterious spots in the house and collects random hairs as evidence. Her father and sister and Sal all try to explain that her mother wrote notes and left them frozen meals for dinner so surely she wasn't kidnapped, but Phoebe isn't convinced. She goes to the police station, but they laugh at her and don't take her seriously. Her and Sal then break into Mrs. Cadaver's house, and Phoebe tries again to take evidence to the police, but is once again shut down. While there, Sal manages to see that "the lunatic" is the police sergeants' son. At school, Mr. Burbanks causes some drama amongst the students after reading their summer journals aloud to the class. He reads in Phoebe's that she suspects Mrs. Cadaver to be a murderer, so he stops by her house to speak to her and Sal and explain that Mrs. Cadaver is his twin sister, and that her husband died in a drunk driving accident that also blinded their mother, Mrs. Partridge. Sal continues to see herself in Phoebe as the mystery continues, and through some minor sleuthing, they find out where Mike, "the lunatic", lives. They travel by bus to his college, running into Ben on the way to the hospital. They are about to go up to Mike's room, but change their minds, only to see Phoebe's mother sitting with closely with him and giving him a peck on the cheek. Phoebe is angry, and Sal gets scared and runs, assuming Phoebe will follow but she doesn't. She goes to the hospital to find Ben and discovers he is visiting his mother in the psychiatric ward. They kiss for the first time. Phoebe is immensely angry at her mother, and refuses to tell her father what she saw. When they arrive back at her house though, her father informs her that her mother will be coming home and bringing someone to meet them. They prepare, and Mrs. Winterbottom comes home with Mike, and explains that he is her son that she had put up for adoption before she married Mr. Winterbottom. Mr. Winterbottom is distraught she kept this from him but is determined to be civil and make it work. Phoebe is still angry and leaves with Sal, and they find that the mysterious letters have been being left by Mrs. Partridge. Sal finally decides to speak to Mrs. Cadaver about how her and her father met, something Sal had been avoiding. She discovers that Mrs. Cadaver was on the bus sitting next to her mother for the whole trip when it crashed, and she was the only survivor. Her father had met her in Idaho when he was making burial arrangements, and moved him and Sal closer to her so he could have some connection to the last person who saw his wife alive.

During this whole story, Sal is in the car traveling with her Gram and Gramps to Idaho. They stop and see a lot of national monuments and sights. At one point though, while swimming in the river, her Gram is bit by a water moccasin. A boy who had been telling them to leave because it was private property helps to suck the venom out, and they take her to the hospital. She is weak afterwards, and has a cough. By the time they arrive in Idaho at midnight on Sal's mom's birthday, Gram is unconscious and they rush her to the hospital. They say she had a stroke. Gramps gives Sal the keys so she can drive herself to see her mother's grave. The four hour drive is on a dangerous and windy road, and Sal stops for a few breaks. At one of the stops along the side, a passing driver who is also stopped tells her that the bus her mother died in is down in the woods. She goes down and tries to get in it, but can't find a way in. When she comes back up, the police sheriff is there, wondering what she is doing. She explains everything that happened, and they take her and Gramps' car down to where her mother is buried. She is finally able to say goodbye properly and fully accept that her mother isn't coming back. The sheriff then drives her back to the hospital, where she finds a note saying that her Gram has died and that Gramps is back at the motel. They head back to Euclid. In the end, Sal and her father move back to their farm in Bybanks, and Gramps moves in with them. Gram is buried in the field and Mrs. Cadaver, Mrs. Partridge, Ben, and Phoebe all plan to visit them.

Storyline: This middle grade book has been sitting on my shelf since elementary school without me having picked it up. I finally did, and was pleasantly surprised by the beautiful, heart-wrenching narrative. Obviously the dialogue and characters are what you would expect of a middle grade book, but this story about grief and loss and the processing of those feelings was really well done.

Representation: Salamanca and her mother Sugar are described as being "American Indian". They also meet another "American Indian" man along their trip. I put that in quotes because there are multiple passages in the book criticizing the use of the term Native American. There is also the use of the a slur for Native Americans. Sharon Creech, the author, is not Native American herself, and has admitted to romanticizing Indigenous culture. The quote and article below was written by Dr. Debbie Reese, as I am not knowledgable enough or in the position to speak on this subject myself: "[Sharon Creech is] an outsider to Native culture, trying to write a story as if she's an insider. But her story is based on outsider's writings, and outsider's understandings, and it doesn't work... the Indian content doesn't really matter. It is simply a device, or, a decoration on a story about a young girl coming to terms with life and death." https://americanindiansinchildrensliterature.blogspot.com/2010/02/thoughts-on-sharon-creechs-walk-two.html

[385bookreviews]

2.62 A Short Stay in Hell by Steven L Peck

SPOILERS

Pages: 102

Time Read: 1 hour and 45 minutes

Overall Rating: 3.5★ Storyline: 4.5★ Dialogue: 4.5★ Characters: 3.5★

Genre: Theological Existential Horror

TWs for the book: Death, violence, su*c*de, murder, torture, injury, body horror, self harm, physical abuse, grief, gore, discussions of SA, blood, religious bigotry/themes, cancer, confinement, kidnapping, alcohol, nondescriptive s*xual content, slavery

POV: First Person

Time Period/Location: In the fictional Hell of the Zoroastrian religion.

First Line: Although I have loved many, there has been only one genuine love in my near-eternally stretched life--Rachel who fell to the bottom of the library without me.

The story begins with the ramblings of Soren, the main character of the book. He speculates on his billion year old life living in a near infinite library, while he searches for the book that tells the complete story of his life. He is able to tell of only a few books that have coherent writing, and implies that the book we are reading is one of them. He goes on to tell the story of how he got there. He was a 45 year old Mormon man with a wife and kids who died of a brain tumor and arrived in the office of a demon with two other men and two women. The demon says that this is Hell, and when a Christian man tries to argue that he was saved and believed in the one true religion, the demon informs them that the one true religion was actually Zoroastrianism, and that they will not be tortured physically or remain in Hell forever. He then sends them to their individual punishments. Soren arrives in a seemingly endless hall in a library. The top and bottom floors are so high up they are invisible, and when looking down the hall to the right or left, he can't see the end either. He discovers a room with beds and a bathroom, and a kiosk that will dispense whatever food or drink is desired. The instructions are simple: find the book that contains your life story, with no errors, grammatical or otherwise, and place it into the kiosk slot, and you will be taken to heaven. There is a clock on the wall noting the time and how many days its been.

Soren quickly makes friends and they shuffle through the books, realizing quickly that most of them are entirely gibberish, with hardly even a complete word being found in a single book. Soren struggles to come to terms with his Mormon faith being disproved, and has his first cup of coffee. When the others start drinking alcohol though, he runs away, and tries to get to the end of one of the hallways. He runs for around three weeks before turning and going back. He also realizes that all of the characters and symbols of the books are in English, and that there are only white people from America who died between the mid 1900s and 2043. He ends up getting with a woman named Betty for two years before moving on.

100 years later, he is with a girl named Sandra. They are part of a "university" dedicated to finding the books. Every year they have a ceremony where they read the best text found so far, which that year is simply one sentence in a book that reads, "The bat housed again four leaves of it." They also pray to the Zoroastrian god Ahura Mazda. After the ceremony, Soren speaks with Rachel, the one who read the text, and they have a deep conversation speculating about their situation. She then tells him of the expedition that she went on in year 58 to discover the ends of the library. A group went up, down, right, and left. She was a part of the left group, and they found nothing but more books, and they stopped seeing any other people after a year. After five years, they turned around and went back. The up group traveled for 23 years before turning back, and one member of their group stayed behind to continue climbing upward. Soren dumped Sandra for Rachel, and they are together for a 1000 years.

In their 1145th year in Hell, an extremist named Dire Dan claimed to have a vision from Ahura Mazda saying that he needed to punish people. He formed a cult that ran around the library, killing, torturing, and r*ping people, as he thought it would bring them out of the library sooner. The peace falls apart, and Rachel and Soren run away. They are caught by the cult members, called the Direites, but before they can grab Rachel she throws herself over the railing into the infinite pit in the center of the library. Soren tries to run as well, but is captured and knocked unconscious. For 36 days, he is held captive and killed six seconds after waking every day. He finally manages to roll away from the blow one morning, and they take him to a meeting. They say he can either be a tortured slave or he can take up torturing himself. Soren sees Dire Dan and shoves him over the railing, jumping with him. They both fall for days, Soren eventually losing sight of Dire Dan and dying of thirst. He wakes up and eventually learns to control his falling and swerve onto a floor, breaking his arms, legs, and neck in the process. A man comes by and offers to kill him, which Soren accepts. He wakes up the next day alone, and stays there for awhile before the man comes back. He has found a book with several complete senses, although they don't make much sense. Soren then continues upwards, and finds a man who had been crying. He doesn't engage with Soren at all, so he continues upwards and finds a group of people also crying. They tell him to continue up 17 levels and he'll find Took, and get the answer. Soren finds Took, and he explains that he did the math to calculate how many books are in the library: 95^1,312,000. When Soren asks if that's a lot, Took explains that there are only 10^78 electrons in the universe.

Soren wanders, distraught and empty for days. He falls for weeks and years as well. One day, while wandering on one of the floors, he sees someone fall past him. He jumps and grabs her, tying them together so they fall together. When she wakes up, she tells him her name is Wand, and they are intimate with each other. They figure out a way to swing Wand onto a floor, and then three days later, after repeated deaths, Soren manages to stop falling. He runs up the stairs, but never finds her. The book ends with Soren billions of years old, still searching for his book, utterly numb and broken.

Storyline: This was a very unique take on the afterlife and religion overall. It was a nice, quick, entertaining read. I went into this expecting more of a point to be made about humanity or religion, or for their to be some divine clarity or revelation at the end, but that's not what this book was. It was definitely more of a horror for me. The existential dread of it all was what really made it compelling. I wish there had been more elaboration on some things, but I do think the point of it was to not have that kind of clarification, so that might just bug me personally.

Quotes: "Strange, how a moment of existence can cut so deeply into our being that while ages pass unnoticed, a brief love can structure and define the very topology of our consciousness ever after."-Soren (p.1) "No. Sorry. The true religion is Zoroastrianism, I'm afraid. Bit of bad luck there. Christianity certainly borrowed a great deal from the one true religion, but not enough, unfortunately. Not nearly enough."-Xandern (p.7) "What kind of God would leave you burning forever?"-Xandern (p.8)