Category: Books

This Shattered World

16. March 2016

Author: Amie Kaufman & Meagan Spooner

Pages: 390

ISBN: 978-1-4231-7122-5

Series: Starbound Trilogy #1

Genre: SciFi

Like in the first instalment of the Starbound trilogy the book is about two characters that could not be more different on the first glance. On the one hand there is Captain Jubilee ‘Lee’ Chase who is serving in the military on the outpost of Avon. She is there to help keep the rebellious Fianna in check who are not content with the planet’s progress in the terraforming process. One of the rebels is Flynn Cormac, the brother of the former leader of the rebellion who was executed by the military.

The lives of these two cross as Flynn comes into a bar on the military base to ask questions about a discovery he made. There he meets Jubilee and he kidnaps her because he feels this is the only way for him to stay alive after their encounter does not go as planned. Even though he wants to end the war between the military and the Fianna, he does not believe that killing is the best option. Instead he wants to use his prisoner to get a chance to enter negotiations with their oppressors. Of course this is a position not favoured by all the rebels and Flynn has to take a decision that will change the future of everyone.

Being confronted with this situation, both Jubilee and Flynn uncover truths about their lives, the planet they live on and about each other that they would not have if they hadn’t met.

Also, special appearances from characters from the first book These Broken Stars.

Review

I was so looking forward to reading this book because I enjoyed the first work of these two authors. I had to wait a long time because I bought the paperback version which was out about one year later then the hardcover version. At least after all this waiting I can say that it was totally worth to wait. I wanted to read this book first out of the few I bought recently as it is SciFi and I heard a lot of good things about it.

I have to say that it certainly is not my most favourite book but that is not because this one is not spectacular but more because I just fell in love with other books more. There are a few things that just don’t add up for me but these are minor. The plot is very predictable but the message I took from the book makes up for every little flaw I found. As Jubilee remarks in the book, there are not just two sides to one thing meaning that there is always more than e.g. good or bad and everything looks different from another perspective. Sometimes there just has to be somebody who shows us a different way to open our eyes.

As These Broken Stars, this work is written from a first person point of view and the characters we get to follow change in each chapter. The main protagonists have opinions about each other which are made very clear in their chapter and then in the next we find out about the mind-set of the other one.
Expectedly, the characters start hating each other and develop feelings and sympathies for each other and the other side. Those changes happen quite fast and almost too conveniently for the plot but getting to know the protagonists more and more, all this is put in context as Jubilee and Flynn get to have a more developed background story.

The two authors do a wonderful job in waving the background setting into the current situation and each chapter is containing the exact amount of information and feelings needed to be able to empathise with both Jubilee and Flynn. When reading, I always wanted the characters to interact some more, to see more of their behaviour towards each other but not because there was something missing but because the authors did such a wonderful job in providing all those points yet making me hungry for more at the same time. I felt the struggle that both endure during the story of the book is covered well in their emotions and reactions and although it can seem rushed sometimes because the storyline continues I believe that this reflects the pace of a story that deals with an impending war.

Overall I have to say that I liked this book even more than the first one of the Starbound Trilogy and I am not sure if I can wait for the third to be published as a paperback version before I feel the unrestrained need to devour another book of those two wonderful authors. And because it is Science Fiction and the leopard can’t change its spots. 

More from Amie Kaufman, Meagan Spooner

Still Alice

12. March 2016

Author: Lisa Genova

Pages: 336

ISBN: 978-1-5011-0773-3

Series: -

Genre: Contemporary

In the book we get to know Alice Howland, a 50-year-old cognitive psychology professor at Harvard University and also a linguistic expert. She attends conferences, talks and meetings all over the world.

She first realizes, there is something wrong with her when she can’t remember a word in one of her presentations. This unnerves her but only after she ‘gets lost’ while running on campus she sees a doctor because she thinks the symptoms could be a result of her menopause. She is told to see a neurologist who diagnoses her with familial early onset Alzheimer’s disease.

During the story we can see how she struggles to tell the news to her husband, her children and at work. She has a hard time being less and less able to understand conversations and books. We get to see Alice in different situations displaying the challenges and problems she faces on a day to day life and how she and her family try to live with her disease.

Review

I wanted to read this book for over a year because I wanted to watch the movie based on the novel and I for that I had to first read the book. As the movie got so much praise and generally books are better than their motion picture counterparts I had quite high expectations on the book and I did not get disappointed.

I sure had heard of Alzheimer’s disease but reading about it in this amazing book provoked a lot of feelings inside of me. I can say that this is one of the few books that actually made me cry while reading it and not just once. After having processed one situation in Alice’s life, we are confronted with the next difficulty in her new life and her tries to adapt with a degrading brain.

Even though the book is written from a third person point of view and we only get insides on Alice’s feelings, Lisa Genova just writes so amazing that the thoughts and feelings of the other characters can be guessed. Sometimes the passages are just as short as a few pages but still the atmosphere they convey is on the point.

The best thing about the book for me and this is the thing that makes it extremely scary too, is that so many times I had to think how it would be like for me to go through all this. After finishing the book, I remembered Alice saying: ‘I’d rather have cancer.’ I know that cancer is nothing you should wish to have but thinking about being able to do less and less every day and knowing that you will not remember the conversation you just had because your brain just shuts down more and more every day is one of the most horrible things I can imaging happening.

Now maybe one could say that it is not because the book is so good that I felt those emotions but because of the topic, I have to disagree. Lisa Genova’s writing reflects the condition of the character as the longer into the book, the more the language indicates on the situation of the main character. I think that although the topic will always be something that makes it easier to maybe like the novel, the conversations and thoughts have to be consistent in itself. They show the desperation but also the good memories that Alice still has. And with all that is happening to her, we can never forget that she is Still Alice.

Six of Crows

4. March 2016

Author: Leigh Bardugo

Pages: 462

ISBN: 978-1-62779-509-8

Series: Six of Crows #1

Genre: Fantasy

In Ketterdam, a large city on the island of Kerch, Kaz Bekker gets a job offer that will change his life and the life of his crew. Kaz, working his way up through the ranks of the Dregs since he was nine years old and at the age of 17 he now is the right hand of the gang boss with the nickname Dirtyhands fitting his reputation. When he is approached by a rich council merchant to break into and retrieve the object of desire from the impregnable fortress of Djerholm, the capital of Fjerda, he cannot pull the job of alone but needs the best crew he can find.

The persuasion for this job is far from easy as no one who attempted to steal from the Ice Court came back to talk about the adventure. Knowing this, Kaz negotiated 30 million kruge for the job and with a few tricks of his he gets the right people assembled for this heist that could end deadly.

With a sniper with a love for gambling, a sneaking spy with a troubled past, a determined Grisha surviving in an unwelcome place, an explosive expert with unlikely family ties and a condemned criminal with a hope for vengeance they try the most difficult heist Kaz has ever planned.

While accompanying them on their journey we get to know their pasts, why they agreed to take the job at all and why they take certain decisions and actions.

In each chapter we follow one of the protagonists from a third person point of view yet get insides in their state of mind, feelings and thoughts.

Review

I heard a lot of things about this book, how good it is and that it kind of is a must read yet I had it on my bookshelf for over a month before I started reading. I read the Grisha-Trilogy and I liked it and it is written very well but I also felt a little disappointed so I feared that Six of Crows is going to be a similar experience. But how wrong I was! The book is just amazing.

I love the way it is written and the characters because no matter how good they are at what they do best, there is still something human in them, they are not perfect, they make mistakes. When reading about their back stories I could not help but feel some kind of understanding for each character, they felt like real people because every story was thought through. I personally do not like characters that are just perfect in every way or are able to everything they try. Even if it is fantasy I want to find something that I can identify with in the characters and that is very hard to do when the person I read about has no faults at all.

Not only the protagonists but also the world is described beautifully and with a richness in detail so you get the idea of how everything looks like and can imagine the scenery in your own mind. And if you lose track of the setup of the world there are two gorgeous maps at the beginning of the book.

Apart from that, Leigh Bardugo did a brilliant job in weaving the story so it does not appear constructed. Sure there are events happening that just come by conveniently but things like that happen in real life too and I never had the feeling like ‘Oh right, what would they do if this had not happened at all’ or ‘Really, I so expected that’. I guess generally you can get a rough idea of the ending of a book and Six of Crows was no exception to that rule yet, in contrast to other books, I did not want the book to end, I wanted to read on and on and on.

The fact that the story is about a heist and tells so much about the people in it makes it a great reading experience. For me the book could be a standalone as well because sure, I can hear about the characters and their stories a lot more, but I also felt that the insights we got in their lives was well rounded, even with the ending we got. There are only very few books I can think of that were planned to be more than just one book and get you excited for more yet they could have worked on its own and I think that is a truly remarkable achievement.

More from Leigh Bardugo

An Ember in the Ashes

29. February 2016

Author: Sabaa Tahir

Pages: 446

ISBN: 978-1-59514-803-2

Series: An Ember in the Ashes #1

Genre: Fantasy

The book follows the lives of Laia and Elias and how they become intertwined as their paths cross.

Laia is a 17-year-old Scholar who is living with her brother Darin, 19, with their grandparents since their parents died. The Scholars were once the rulers of the Empire until the Martials took over the power and since then have oppressed and enslaved the Scholars. There are rebels and Scholars, the Resistance, who try to fight against their suppressors such as the parents of Laia and Darin.

One night when the two siblings are in their room they are raided by soldiers leaded by a Mask, an elite soldier, who are looking for Darin as they suspect he is a spy for the Resistance. Though their grandparents are killed, Laia can escape in exchange for the raiders getting their hands on Darin. Wandering around all alone, she tries to find the Resistance to ask them for their help to get her brother back. Not being treated very gently and confronted with disbelieve and doubt she agrees to spy on the vicious Commandant at Blackcliff, the training facility for the Masks.

There, Elias is in the final steps of his training to become a full Mask. He is the finest yet at the same time the student with the most doubts of the system. The academy becomes the stage of a competition to determine the next ruler just as it is predicted by the Augurs and Elias is one of the chosen competitors such as his friend Helen. Together they try to win the challenges, stay alive and not let their feelings for each other get the best of them.

The paths of Laia and Elias cross in a place they hate and fear and without knowing they start to depend and care for each other. As Laia attempts to gain information about her brother’s whereabouts and secrets the Resistance can use for their cause and Elias trying to escape his own prison at the academy, they have to take decisions that will change their lives and the lives of their friends as well.

Review

I happened to find this book by accident as is was advertised on one of my bookmarks I got from my bookstore. Reading the summary on it, which was in German, I was not very convinced but searched online and the English description was much more appealing to me. So I decided to order the book and was super excited to start reading.

And it blew my mind. I started reading as soon as I could get my hands on the book around noon and was done sometimes in the same night. I literally could not put it down as Sabaa Tahir’s writing is so capturing I was totally lost in the story and the characters as they get more and more background and depth the farther you get into the story. You can understand their feelings, plans and hopes and why they take the actions they do.

Written from a first person point of view the chapters on each character do a good job on making you feel and see the way Laia or Elias take in their surroundings and situations. It is also easy to differentiate between the two main protagonists as the personality is reflected in the writing style. This way you also get to see how they grow on a task or are uncertain and sometimes weak on the inside yet overcome their fears to achieve their goal because they do these things more for others than for themselves. But just like every other person they are not perfect and they fail, they get hurt physically and mentally, and they sometime are at the edge of their strength.

The setting is described equally wonderful because enough space of the book is used so everything can be imagined while at the same time does not bore you to read through these passages. To keep track of the locations that the plot takes place there is a marvellous map at the beginning of the book. 

I think this book is truly magnificent as I don’t get annoyed with the protagonists on any point of the story because even if they do things I wouldn’t do, from the way it is written I can understand their motives. Because of that and the well-crafted characters with flaws and everything I never had the feeling that the author introduces a storyline that just gets to be in the book because it is convenient for the progress of the main story.

I really am looking forward to the release of the second book to see how the story advances further with maybe utterly different sides of the protagonists because of new dangers or tasks they have to face.