I don’t know where to start my review of this book. So, let me just start from the beginning.

Please understand that this review contains MANY spoilers!

New York, US, where the whole story takes place, fictionally of course.

Thomas is a Hikikomori, or in other words a recluse- a person who withdraws himself to one place, mostly his room, but away from society. Obviously, something terrible has happened to him. His wife lives in the next room. Yes, same apartment but they’re not sharing a room together anymore. You find out soon enough that Thomas’s reason as to why he is this way is because he lost his son and blames himself entirely for it. To be completely honest, I thought it’d be something else, not that losing a child is not a big deal but I just thought it might be more… of a mystery? I guess people grieve in different ways, and the loss of a child is not a pain I ever wish to know. His wife Silke hasn’t left him. She stuck with him while talking to him between the wall/door, screaming at him, crying constantly, but mostly going about a relatively normal life for three years. Yes, he has been a Hikikomori for three years!

Silke’s last attempt to save their marriage, is to bring in a rental sister. A “sister” who is not a direct family member but someone who can possibly coax him out of the shell he’s created. Apparently it’s a phenomenon in Japan, a Hikikomori and a rental sister, one wouldn’t exist without the other. So Megumi, just an ordinary Japanese woman who is a clerk at a store somewhere in NY, starts to show up and talk to Thomas regularly. But she has her own deep and dark past of course. Her brother was a Hikikomori and died after being in a room for four years. She came to the US to escape everything.

Now, I understand why some people might think that this story is perverse. All three of them have issues. Thomas eventually has sex with Megumi and develops feelings for her that are totally different from the feelings he has for his wife. “A heart can love twice” he says. For him to start a new life with Megumi might be easier. Megumi,while her brother was still alive, wanted to take her brother away from his harsh reality where he was beaten up everyday for being half Japanese and half Korean. So she started to have sex for money. But her brother died before she could raise enough money to save him. She also falls for Thomas, it’s a pull that they feel for each other and honestly, I couldn’t understand it. Maybe he made her feel needed? She could save Thomas when she couldn’t save her brother? What was Silke thinking, bringing a young Japanese girl into her husband’s life? Did she know of the consequences that might happen? Was she okay with it? And Silke herself, sometimes brought men into the apartment to entice Thomas to come out and do something about it. Yes, it is all very wrong. But when I think more about it, that is what life is about. You become desperate and do anything and everything to cling on to what little hope you might have. We don’t live in a fairy tale world where you find the love of your life, your soul mate and live happily ever after. You work at a marriage, make mistakes, forgive them and move on, and sometimes move on with someone else.

So, I didn’t think this book was perverse, it was just writing about what was real. Ultimately, Thomas came out of his room because of his room to try and set things right with his wife but then she attempted to kill herself by setting the apartment on fire. His instincts failed him when their son died in a car accident three years ago but this time they kicked in just in time for him to save her. Later Thomas asks Silke why she thinks they still have a chance in their marriage, what has changed? Silke says that she knew when Thomas came for her during the fire to save her life, even before their bodies hit the floor, that he chose to live and he ultimately chose their marriage, after all. Which, unfortunately, could have been her big misunderstanding since he would have left if not for Megumi’s new situation which I will explain in the next paragraph.

During the time that Megumi was falling for Thomas, she finds out that her mother, who abandoned their family to go back to Korea, was actually pregnant when she left and has since returned to Japan to start a new life. They all want her to come back to them there. She ultimately decides to go back for the sake of her little brother, who is also half Japanese and half Korean. Her decision is what decides the outcome of this book, leaving Thomas with Silke, who are now also left to try for a new beginning. Who knows what will happen to them, maybe Thomas would’ve been better off with Megumi, but we will never know.

The dust jacket of this book kind of tricked me into thinking that this was an odd love story where a relationship worked with three people in it. What I should have known is that relationships never work that way- at least not that I’ve ever known.

I don’t know what to think of them. I don’t know if I should pity them or be scared that it could so easily happen to anyone I know.

This book was written beautifully and it read like music. I can say that it was the most “REAL” book I’ve read in a long time. I will be looking forward to his next book.

 

“Firelight,” a wonderful and a delight of a title if you ask me. And to think that it tells a story about dragons! Needless to say, I was a bit excited. Any significant series that I know of that are based on dragons is the “Eragon” series, but I never developed the taste for it. Many Young Adult books has written countless books on ‘vampires’ ‘werewolves’ ‘angels’ and even ‘fairies.’ It’s about time someone picked other magical species, like DRAGONS!

Firelight, Vanished, Hidden by Sophie Jordan 3.5/5 stars

The story flows as though you are drinking a decent red wine when you are already tipsy. You know, when you know that the wine is good since you’ve been drinking all night but after you are a bit tipsy, you wouldn’t notice a difference between a $50 bottle and a $8 dollar bottle? The story felt like that to me. As usual, I didn’t have much expectation but the world itself was pretty fascination and the author’s description of her dragons was quite beautiful. So, I got sucked into it. But soon enough, I found flaws and annoying side characters as well as main characters. But it was just soooo easy to read through it all!! Which is why I finished all three books in about a week!

*this review may contain spoilers*

Jacinda is a VERY rare fire breather even among her kind. She is treasured but protected in the most twisted way. As a teenage dragon who loves to fly, she rebels. She is quite self righteous and won’t stick with a plan for five whole seconds. She falls in love the worst possible guy and puts everybody she loves in danger. (no surprise there)

Will is a dragon hunter. He finds the human form of Jacinda irresistible as well as the dragon. He has more than a handful of secrets himself including his whole family and no doubt the prince charming of this story. A loner at heart until he found Jacinda, now he just won’t leave her alone.

Cassian the next leader of the dragon clan, is not much introduced in the first book. But he makes his presence from the second. He is big, tall and powerful, he always thought he would be mated with Jacinda, thus making him a worthy opponent of Will. (a character I pity the most in this series…)

Tamra, Jacinda’s TWIN sister, totally caught me off guard. So, I won’t say much but I would’ve like to read more about her.

These four main characters mingle very nicely throughout the story. Sophie Jordan writes it in a way that a reader could imagine at least a dozen outcomes and never a dull moment. Also all three books reads like a whole story instead of having months in between books. Although I have questions unanswered, (that’s only because I pick at ever little things! lol) I would recommend these books to anyone who is in need of a fast and furious read!

It’s already April and personally, I haven’t had enough of Winter to let it get away.

I mean, the cherry blossoms are starting to bloom in Washington D.C., which means I’m pretty much going to have to live with the fact that Spring is coming… Whether I like it or not. It’s not that I don’t like Spring, I just wish I could have seen more snow this year. Field covered with fresh snow that it hurts to look at it directly kind of snow, half your leg is stuck in snow that you can’t move kind of snow, making a snow man and his family kind of snow, and of course, streets are too slippery you can’t go to work/school kind of snow. =D

So, I tried to compensate the loss I felt with a good book that reminded me of Winter.

“The Snow Child” by Eowyn Ivey

“5 STARTS!”

Let me just start off by saying that it is a great book. But if you are the kind of person who gets crazy with ambiguous endings, you might not like this book at all.

The story is based on a Russian fairy tale, an elderly couple who cannot have children of their own builds a child out of snow, the next day the child comes to life and soon she becomes their center of everything. They say the fairy tale has many different endings and the author has chosen to leave us with a conclusion of our own.

The background of it all is not that different, two couple who has already suffered from a loss of a child decides to move to Alaska, away from family and friends. At first they are distant, indifferent to each other. But when the first snow came, it was like a new beginning. They make a child out of snow, a girl. Now, you don’t have to be a detective to know that this girl they made out of snow, becomes a child in flesh and blood the next day.

The book is divided into three sections.

First, it’s all about the dynamics of the couple, how they came to be. The narrative also goes back and forth from wife to husband which makes readers understand a whole lot better of what’s going on both of their minds.

Second, they both have very different sentiment for the girl. Wife, who thinks that she is a “snow maiden,” from a book her father read to her when she was a little girl and grateful for the fact that she has something to love again. Husband, who has seen the other side of this girl and thinks of her as nothing but a lost child and mourns for her. It portrayed two sides almost perfectly and when they finally shared with each other of what they knew of the child, the collision was so real yet troublesome.

Third, a new narrative is introduced, which I thought it was the weirdest part of the book. The Snow Child, at this point, gave me wonder as to if she was a real person? or a snow maiden? And it worried me to think that there won’t be a perfect ending for this story after all. Also it was by this point that I thought I would be okay either way.

The story is written so poetically at times that I kept reading the same sentence over and over again. It draws you in deeply and forcefully like the white snow in the mountains and makes you feel like you are the only person in the world when you are reading it. I teared up many times during the story, felt the heart squeeze itself from time to time. I recommend this book for all those who already misses the Winter and an adult fairy tale.

————————

(a passage or two from the book)

All her life she had believed in something more, in the mystery that shape-shifted at the edge of her senses. It was the flutter of moth wings on glass and the promise of river nymphs in the dappled creek beds. It was the smell of oak trees on the summer evening she fell in love, and the way dawn threw itself across the cow pond and turned the water to light.

I remember with some shame that the rest of us teased you about seeing such spirits, but now my own grandchildren chase similar fancies and I do not discourage them. In my old age, I see that life itself is often more fantastic and terrible than the stories we believe as children, and that perhaps there is no harm in finding magic among the trees.

She had thought often of Ada’s words about inventing new endings to stories and choosing joy over sorrow. In recent years she had decided her sister had been in part wrong. Suffering and death and loss were inescapable. And yet, what Ada had written about joy was entirely true. When she stands before you with her long, naked limbs and her mysterious smile, you must embrace her while you can.

Immortal Beloved Review

Finally. A fresh story and an enjoyable read about immortals! Immortal Beloved is a true first in a series, mostly laying out the foundation for the next books, which I found entertaining from cover to cover. Cate Tiernan’s masterful portrayal of the 459 year-old immortal, Nastasya, is truly captivating. All the mystery about this character, compounded by her lack of knowledge about the immortal world and its’ history, makes this story incredibly compelling. And though it isn’t free of clichés, by any stretch, the fact that Immortal Beloved is centered on self-realization and the difficulties of making life-altering changes, sets it apart. Finally we have a story that has relatable struggles and realistic conflicts such as- the agony of ending unhealthy friendships, finding humility, making hard choices that lead to being ostracized and isolated, admitting to addiction or unhealthy life-styles, as well as the struggle of having integrity, when not bothering would be so much easier. In a time when the YA market is saturated with so many books containing very few unique qualities, I really found this story to be refreshing. I appreciate that the whole of this story is about personal reflection and growth, rather than obsession over two boys, teen-aged drama and the self-centeredness that so many lead characters seem to employ. It’s a rarity for YA books to get me thinking deeply about my own life, which this one did more than once. Several times I found myself reflecting on the patterns of my life that may be unhealthy, and feeling encouraged that change is possible for anyone, even if that means taking drastic measures if it’s necessary. So overall, I really enjoyed going with this ageless girl on a journey of monotony, as she learns to live in the now, to re-identify herself, so that she can ultimately feel all of the emotions that are essential to give meaning to the experience of life. And I would certainly recommend this book to any lovers of this genre.

However, as engaging as this story is, and for the many fruitful lessons hidden in these pages, there’s really not much else that happens, in terms of excitement. After I finished the book, I found myself wondering when and if the climax occurred, and for that matter, what the conflict even was. There is little build up between Nastasya and her antagonist, nor any reasonable explanation as to why this tension exists and plays out the way it does. For that matter, there were many other potential villains that would have made much more sense. Unfortunately, as it is, the climax ends before it really begins, which left me feeling like I had a bad case of whip-lash without the car-wreck. Nevertheless, the lack of a thrilling “bad guy” doesn’t really take that much away from the story. Since the drama that does happen goes so underdeveloped, it just ends up feeling like an unnecessary afterthought. And in a sense, Nastasya’s identity crisis has her playing the role of both the protagonist and the antagonist, which is much more entertaining in the end.

I also found the love story-line to be really disappointing, but thankfully it doesn’t consume too much time. I’ll be the first to admit that I have really low expectations and little respect for most YA romances, but bias aside, this relationship is just wrong. As the story unfolds, Nastasya learns that her past is deeply intertwined with the past of her love-interest. As it turns out, they are indeed mortal enemies… who just happen to find each other completely irresistible. What’s worse is that this guy has a terrible past as a pillager and rapist- and not to give too much away, he had even once attempted to rape Nastasya. This is where the whole love theme just becomes too big of a stretch for me. I’m not sure if this was just a bad effort at a creating a new kind of forbidden love or what. And while I’m all for lessons on forgiveness, living in the now, “we all have pasts” sort of thing- I just don’t see the value in teaching young girls the virtue of forgiving a rapist. I could have actually bought into this part of the story if they had just simply been mortal enemies, but I mean seriously, this is too unnecessarily messy. And in terms of finding anything relatable about their love, it’s impossible for me to understand how anyone could get past such a violating experience. Regardless, even if none of this were part of the story, the few moments that these two are together feels very unnatural. It’s typical, ridiculous, YA romance that goes a whole lot like- “I hate you, now let’s make-out”, and me going, “Whaaaat!?… Whyyy??? Nooo”. So I’m just going to do my best at forgetting that rape is even part of the plot, so that I can just go on ignoring the love story-line and enjoy the rest.

On a final note, and all criticism aside, I really do recommend this book to any fan of this type of fantasy. There are some really valuable lessons that Nastasya’s journey has to offer. We all suffer from the busyness of life, and very much like immortals, can relate to how time is always escaping us. So in a world where finding the next distraction is just too easy and we treat boredom more and more like the plague, it’s nice to find a book that actually asks us to embrace it. This book had me wishing, more than once, for my own place to go and learn how to appreciate the mundane things of life. I am so very guilty of being on a constant search for my next big adventure that I often miss the one that’s happening right here all around. But that’s what’s so special about books, isn’t it!? We get to go to such places between the pages.

Book Summary (No Spoilers)

In the world of “Immortal Beloved”, immortal beings, unbeknownst to humans, live all around. These immortals, aside from being very difficult to kill, are all born with access to magic- although most of them have stopped learning how to use it long ago. This is a relief for the 459 year-old Nastasya, the story’s lead character, who becomes violently ill every time she has tried using it. Plus, she much prefers her current life in London of blending in with humans, endless partying, binge drinking and club hopping, where no magic is necessary. The story begins with her and her closest friends going out for a usual night of over-indulgence when on their way she witnesses a terrible event: her best friend using dark magic to harm a human. Instead of responding in any particular way, she continues on with her night, as if nothing had happened. It wasn’t until the next day, while remembering the evil she’d seen, that she becomes overwhelmingly horrified by her complete indifference. In a sudden world shaking moment of self-realization, she panics and fleas in search of help. No longer trusting her friends, she doesn’t know where to go or who to turn to, so she sets off at first, just hoping to disappear. But when she recalls a memory from many years before, she finds herself heading to America, in search of a lady who had once offered her an alternative way of life. Although the proposition didn’t resonate at the time, what she most remembered about this woman is that she seemed different, and it was that difference that Nastasya most desperately wanted now. However, what she finds at this woman’s home is a rehab, a sanctuary of sorts, where immortals live together, learning how to value life, as well as how to use white magic. As it turns out, this place is like a foreign world to Nastasya, full of inhabitants that she doesn’t understand, with an approach to life that she finds almost unbearable. But what choice does she have? She wants to be a better person and she really wants to stay lost from her friends. That doesn’t keep her from growing impatient with her treatment plan, which she’d honestly hoped would be a quick fix. Instead what she finds is a prescription of doing dishes by hand, eating bland food that she’d grown herself, and going on pointless star-gazing walks- a far cry from her prior big-city, bar-hopping life style. River, the care taker of this place, with great insight explains to Nastasya that it’s vital to slow life down, back to being about the small moments, in order for her to re-gain a sense of the meaning in life. She explains that for immortals, life becomes a big blur of years meshing together, and existence becomes all about finding the next grand experience or any semblance of a new sensation. So even though help doesn’t come to Nastasya in the way that she had hoped- a quick dose of meds or two weeks of detox- she ends up finding so much more… herself.

So, needless to say, I’m looking forward to continuing on to the next chapters of this story. We still don’t know much about the leaders of the sanctuary/school/ rehab, where Nastasya is now living, or the extent of their magical power. Can they read minds? Who are they and how did they get to this place? We will also, hopefully, learn a lot more about what it means for Nastasya to be from the family she’s from and what sort of power that might mean she has access to. There’s also the issue of her friends from back home, who seem to be much closer to finding out her location. Will they be the new antagonists or will the one from Immortal Beloved start to make some more sense? All of this leaves me anxious to read the next book, and excited to learn more about Nastasya and what her future holds.

 

How many of you can believe that it’s already February 2013? Have you been keeping up with your new year’s resolutions? One of the resolutions Tiffany and I made was to write at least one blog entry a month. So far, it’s not going that great for me. =P

I have, however, been reading alot of books! You’d think I was trying to make up for not reaching last year’s challenge, but truthfully, there’s just so many great books out there right now! Though it may not seem like that many to some of you, it has at least got me wanting to share and review the ones I have read, and finally feeling like I’m back to my old-self again. So, since I’ve been in a mood, almost giving up hope on finding another good YA book, like “Hunger Games” or “Harry Potter”, I’ve spent some time appreciating some other genres, albeit very similar.

Urban Fantasy! Epic Fantasy! and Science Fiction!

I yearn for a strong story that doesn’t revolve around two or three love struck teenagers, always too willing to die for each other. Many of these books I’m recommending are written by a male author, because lately, aside from “Harry Potter” and “Hunger Games”, I couldn’t really think of a significant female author who has written a great fantasy novel. If you know of any, please let me know- Meanwhile, here is what I’ve read so far that you should consider reading:

 

Game of Thrones series by George R.R. Martin

This series gained world-wide fame after HBO picked it up and turned it into a hit show. But rest assured, it wouldn’t have been picked up if it had not already been hugely popular among readers, which it has been, for many years.

George R. R. Martin is absolutely a master of story telling. There is no arguing that. These books hold endless story lines, dozens of main character and such and intricate plot there’s no way to summarize it shortly. Just simply said, the show doesn’t even begin to do it justice.

It is a long read, and skipping from character to character might give you a migraine, but that also makes it easy to pause after each chapter and take a moment if you need to (but most fans find it hard to put these books down).

*The fifth book “A Dance with Dragons” was published July 2011.

 

Iron Druid Chronicles by Kevin Hearne

If you are looking for a nifty, sarcastic yet humorous narrator, Atticus and Oberon are here for you! They are no ordinary main characters.

Atticus is a last remaining druid who is at least two thousand years old. His companion, Oberon has a sense of humor that would make you smile and laugh at the same time, and better yet, he is a dog. Inevitably, he triggers a chain reaction that drives him to come out in the open and fight for the ones he shouldn’t be attached to in the first place.

As funny as these books were, what I really found most compelling about them was the author’s research on urban/other-world/mythology. It is quite intense and gave me the change of story-telling scenery that I needed, after all of these vampires and werewolves in high schools.

*The fifth book “Trapped” was published November 2012.

 

Demon Cycle series by Peter V. Brett

This is a fantastic series that I found randomly on Goodreads. I have recently finished the first book and I cannot begin to explain how much I loved it! The three main characters struggle to live different and better lives from a very young age. The world is set in a place where demons rise from the ground after sunset, which turns out to be the least of their problems.

I love the descriptive third person narrative in this story. It offers so much insight and depth to the main characters, despite not knowing what each of their personal thoughts are. It is also written in a way that both males and females could appreciate. I would recommend this series to anybody who needs a good read!

*Third book “The Daylight War” was published February 2013.

 

Other than these three series, I have only read a handful of books written by a male author. But I have a feeling that I will be looking for more books with male POV this year. I admit, they do not write epic love stories (which I never enjoy anyway), but I have found that their plots seem more complete and their world-building has me wanting to live in their worlds.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the Young Adult Crusade Series, I highly recommend reading it- it’s one of the most exciting (teen) stories I’ve read in a long time! I came across it accidentally at a Borders closeout sale (ahh, I miss you Borders) and it was such a pleasant surprise! While it’s not the most intricate story I’ve ever read, it definitely makes up for it with tons of action and lots of fun. Bestselling authors of the Wicked Series, Nancy Holder and Debbie Viguié, have spun a compelling dystopian-esque tale set in a world where vampires, or Cursed Ones (C.O), live openly among humans with leaders who have an ultimate agenda of world domination. I love that the vampires in this story stay true to the ageless myths surrounding them- evil creatures that see humans as nothing more than prey. At the center of this story is an international team of six vampire hunters, who have come from all over the place to study at the Sacred Heart Academy in Salamanca, Spain. The first two installments burst cover to cover with action sequences that will keep your heart racing as you travel the world trying to save it.

Damned

Damnedis the 2^nd book in the Crusade Series, and I definitely would not recommend reading it first, as it picks up where Crusade leaves off. (On the same note, if it’s been a while since you’ve read Crusade, the authors do a good job of filling you in throughout the book so that you won’t feel lost- which can also be a bit daunting at times). After a somewhat failed mission in New Orleans, Team Salamanca has retreated to their university in Spain and are trying to pull themselves back together. Amidst accessing who their allies truly are and the lurking rumors of a super species vampire threat, we find Jenn trying to adjust to her new role as leader- and she’s not the only one struggling with her new position. Further deepening the complexity of the story, in Damned we are offered great insight into the lives of the other major characters, which we’ve only briefly gotten to know before. Through flashbacks and by following several points of view, Nancy Holder and Debbie Viguié weave a compelling world built on sub-plots, all the while telling a larger story. What we find at the heart of Damned are the internal battles plaguing the minds of each team member as they struggle to unite and fight together for a purpose they all passionately believe in. Ultimately, this is a great continuation, surely worth reading if you enjoyed Crusade, and definitely carries its’ weight in entertainment. At the same time, while I couldn’t help myself from frantically flipping page after page and never wanted to just shelf it (for me it’s simply a guilty pleasure), there are some massive holes in the plot as well as intriguing but confusing themes that I would like to address. Since Damned, very much like Crusade, is diluted by multiple POV’s, I am going to break this down as simply as possible- by character.

***The Following Segment Contains Spoilers***

Antonio: Jenn and Antonio, their forbidden love and twisted pasts are the driving force of Crusade. However, the story begins on a different foot in Damned as Jenn has distanced herself from Antonio in light of seeing what a monster her sister Heather has turned into as a vampire. She is somehow blaming him and/or can no longer trust who he is at his core. This is the very essence of the plot in this book. Who is Antonio and why is he the only vampire on Earth with a conscience, or even worse, a soul? As soon as the story picks up and gets juicy, Team Salamanca finds itself on a mission to Russia where there is a rumored vampire creating a super species that can withstand daylight. At first Antonio stays behind to continue his effort with Heather, hoping to bring back her humanity (after all, if he can fix Heather he is both helping Jenn and gaining back her trust). However, as the imminent threat of the team is made known, Antonio can’t resist the urge to go and try and protect the girl he loves. Unfortunately, as it turns out, while on this mission in Russia the team is infiltrated by Aurora, the vampire villain we met in Crusade. We are given more insight into her interest in Antonio through a series of flashbacks. It boils down to the obsession of her unnamed sire (the Father of all vampires in-sorts), who desperately wants to understand how Antonio defied the basic nature of vampirism. Antonio’s existence threatens his plans to over-take the world. Therefore he has sent Aurora to capture him, and this time she succeeds.

I have mixed feelings about Antonio’s part in this story. On one hand, it is through him that we find all the action, excitement and fun as his capture forces the team to go on a rescue mission in Las Vegas. However, between the time he is captured and the team actually getting there, Aurora somehow manages to “break” him and he resorts back to being a vampire through and through. When the team finally finds Antonio to rescue him, it is just moments after he has ventured into a church, just for fun, killing every praying member present, and just before he is about to kill the last human there- a wailing infant. It’s during this scene that I realized I just really didn’t care. This should have been a horrific scene, yet I found myself mostly indifferent. Through the building blocks of this story Antonio never proves to be that compelling of a character; if he wasn’t that interesting as a vampire hunting vampire… he certainly wasn’t interesting as a murderous one. I do realize that the authors are trying to hammer in the underlining question of how Antonio can be so different. Fair enough. But I would have just preferred exploring that question without the daunting drama that comes with his digression and now rehabilitation. There is an aspect here concerning religion that I would like to touch on later, but as far as the love story goes between him and Jenn- I just can’t see, especially now, how they can ever work out. Honestly, they were never really together in the first place, but if Jenn was having her doubts after seeing the state of her sister, how could she ever see past this? I also think this is because I was never fully convinced that they were actually through and through right for each other. I mean, he wants to be a priest and somehow feels that his commitment to God is sustained through a celibate life and she’s an atheist who has committed her life to hunt down vampires- the very thing that he is. All-in-all, in other stories where passion seems to trump the obvious road blocks, perhaps this would have worked. But this is a story where passion is hidden deep beyond every other smaller dilemma that always seems to take precedence. Their love story really causes conflicting emotions in me, because ultimately I know this is the couple the authors want us to be cheering for, but there is just something missing between the two of them, and on a simpler note, there is just something missing about him.

Jenn: Life for Jenn is more complicated than ever. She’s dealing with the ultimate betrayal of her father, the feat of saving her sister who no longer recognizes her, loving a person who is the very thing she hates and, in the meantime, being placed into the leadership position on a team that lacks any essence of cohesion. Here’s the thing- if I found it odd before that “just Jenn” (as she often refers to herself in Crusade) was named leader at the end of the first book, my feelings have at least quadrupled after reading this one. Finding her identity as leader is a huge and exhausting theme throughout these some odd 500 pages. I found myself constantly charging; ‘just because you call someone a leader doesn’t make them one!’. Jenn’s character is meek, indecisive, wishy-washy, emotionally-driven, and basically lacks just about every possible leadership quality out there- not to mention her teammate’s respect. I just don’t get the point. Why is it even necessary to have her be a leader? Is it just to give her some essential role to the story? But as it is, this is a major driving force in the story so we have to endure endless banters from both her and the other characters as they constantly go back and forth concerning her ability or rather inability to lead. This whole theme continues to build until the end where she suddenly, and somewhat miraculously, has a split-personality episode and ends up taking charge in a way that winds up feeling very unbelievable.

Skye: The White Witch Skye adds an interesting element to this story as her history and character become significantly deepened. We finally get to meet her mysterious ex-boyfriend, Estefan who kept popping into her mind in Crusade and scaring the life out of her. As it turns out he is a dark witch who has teamed up with Aurora and is part of the ambush in Russia. He is also apparently still very much in love with her, despite the twisted manner in which he chooses to show it. Since Skye has kept him a secret all this time, much at the expense of her team’s safety, she is driven by guilt throughout this story. She feels personally responsible for Antonio’s capture and his murderous actions which in turn drives her capability of using magic to a new level as she seeks to heal him (a.k.a find his humanity). In particular, I really liked the scene where she and Father Juan decide to call upon her Goddess to help with Antonio and through a ritual Skye actually becomes completely filled with her spirit. The authors are clearly trying to set something up here for the next book, as we find shortly after the ritual, she sees the Goddess’ mark on Antonio. In that, paired with Skye’s inconsistent ability to hear Antonio’s thoughts, we are seeing that they are somehow spiritually connected, we just don’t know how yet. Overall, I like Skye’s role in this story. She is a peace-keeper, encourager, healer and consistent within herself. I do wish at times that she’d be able to use magic in a way that would make her more capable in battle- but that goes against her commitment as a witch to ‘never cause harm’. That is perhaps the only downfall to her character- she is constrained by this belief which in turn makes her really weak in battle and frankly a liability as a team member. The only other completely confusing thing about Skye is that she apparently loves Jamie. This is only slightly focused on and probably just a simple element of drama to spice up the story. Either way we are given no foundation for why these feelings exist or what she really sees in him.

Jamie: Out of all the characters in this story, Jamie grows the least. We aren’t given that much more insight into who he is other than a very hardened young man that, back in Ireland, lost his whole family in a tragic and brutal werewolf attic. His harshness was only further cultivated as a result of being raised by a ‘real men don’t cry’ sort of grandfather. He and Jenn are the only two on the Salamanca team who have no supernatural qualities, but his engulfing hatred of the C.O and knowledge of explosives make him an asset in battle. That, however, is his ONLY strength as a character, and it doesn’t count for much. (Well, that and the fact that he is somewhat secretly in love with his fighting partner Eriko and works very hard to protect her). That being said, I don’t think I have ever hated a ‘good guy’ as much as I hate Jamie. He argues just to argue. He goes against every decision that gets made. He verbally beats down every single person he comes in contact with, which is particularly annoying with his teammates. Everything out of his mouth is a jerk-ish remark making him the embodiment of negativity. In this way the authors’ way over-do it. He just simply isn’t compelling. There were so many times I wanted to jump into the novel and kick him off the team (or have someone punch him in the face, take your pick). Now that being said, and as many times as I thought to myself “he has what’s was coming for him”- I cannot express how utterly ridiculous this is when it happens. Jamie’s attitude and Jenn’s leadership theme finally come to head at the end of the book and Jenn’s solution is to challenge him to a fight. Give me a break. Not only do I find it unimaginatively unbelievable that little Jenn could win this fight, if the authors were trying to teach us anything insightful about leadership (or just simply trying to convince us that she could lead)- well they completely missed it. They spent the whole story building up to this final moment, attempting to cement Jenn in as leader and they do it through a barbaric duel?!? After she beats Jamie, apparently so badly that ‘he would need magic to survive’, I couldn’t help but laugh as she turns and asks each person there, one by one, ‘will you follow me?’ I know this was meant to be somewhat of an epic moment but it just felt so hollow and cheesy. Why couldn’t she have just given Jamie the choice to stay and follow her or leave? I mean just simply standing up to him would have been more of a challenge than she posed to anyone in the entire book.

Holgar: I’m pretty sure the Danish werewolf Holgar is my favorite character after this installment. He has every quality I want out of a male lead (only he’s not exactly the lead). As a werewolf he’s extra-strong and courageous but as a person he’s extremely intuitive and sensitive. With others he proves to be aware of himself and aware of them and their needs, making him one of the most loyal and encouraging characters in this story. In this way he becomes a source of strength to many of the members on his team. He is in love with Skye, his fighting partner, who (for God knows what reason) is blind to this by her infatuation with Jamie. I really hope in the next book they will develop something between Skye and Holgar, not only because he’s the sort of character that you’re always rooting for, but mainly because they have such great chemistry together as fighting partners. They just seem to fit. As far as further insight into Holgar’s story, we learn that the reason he left his pack in Denmark was because his father, the pack leader, decided to team up with the C.O and live openly ruling over humans. When Holgar stood against him and said that this was wrong, his father gave him no other choice but to leave. Making it an even harder decision, Holgar’s fiancé refused to join him and thus called off their marriage. In light of this it seems, in many ways, the choice Holgar made to leave his pack is just as significant and unlikely as Antonio having a soul. After all, he is not only going against his own kind but actually defying who he was born to be- a pack member. Only, for some reason, this doesn’t get that much attention. Moving forward, at the end of the book, when the team arrives back in Salamanca they find the university destroyed and Aurora there waiting for them. Only this time she has a pack of wolves with her. Yeah, you guessed it. It’s Holgar’s family. As the battle ensues Holgar ends up killing both his ex-fiancé and his father. This is a really crazy aspect to his story line but, in the midst of all the other fighting chaos, ends up feeling really rushed and over looked. It seems too heavy of a plot twist for only a few brief sentences to convey. I wish the authors had held off on killing them until the next book, build it up some more and allow us, as readers, to go with Holgar on this emotional journey. The pain and struggle that would accompany having to kill two people you once deeply loved is a pretty big deal. It just seems like such a wasted opportunity on building his character. Instead, I’m sure we’ll get to focus on his love for Skye. It just happened to play out that while Holgar was fighting his estranged father and ex-lover, Skye was captured by Estefan. Holgar is going to feel like it is totally his responsibility to do anything it takes to get her back.

Eriko: The Japanese member of the group Eriko was named ‘Hunter’ of their team before the story ever began. As Hunter she is given a special elixir, made by Father Juan, which gives her supernatural qualities such as super- strength, speed, and hearing. This in turn gives her the biggest advantage of the group in fighting vampires, as it makes her almost their equal. What we learn in this installment is that she thinks this elixir is slowly killing her and she spends the majority of the book in a great deal of pain. We also get to learn more about her past as a Japanese pop-star singer, when pieces of her life come to play during their rescue mission in Las Vegas. On that note, the authors do a great job of showing us her Japanese culture, which in-turn makes her character very believable. What I like most about Eriko is that she always seems deserving of having been chosen as the team’s Hunter. She never fails to be driven, committed, and fearless in what she does. Her character never complains, never gives up, never falls apart and never puts herself first, making it easy to both love and admire her. In the final battle, despite being in an extraordinary amount of pain, Eriko fights with the fullness of her heart. She ends up dying heroically trying to defeat Aurora and it happens in such a way that you feel she would have been proud to die. Since we know throughout the book that she is slowing dying anyway, her death feels less shocking when it finally comes, but I am glad it happened in battle and not sickly in a bed.

Noah and Taamir: Two new characters show up in this story, Taamir and Noah, who incidentally end up getting adopted by Team Salamanca after the Russia mission goes wrong. Taamir basically goes completely undeveloped and seems to be there only to deepen our connection with Noah for the next book, since he is killed in the final battle. Noah on the other hand, is a much bigger character and is over-all very likable. He mostly seems to function as a source of encouragement for Jenn as she struggles being the team’s leader. He also doesn’t make his feelings for her hidden. There is definitely a love-triangle lurking on the horizon and as far as I’m concerned, I would just as much assume he and Jenn get together rather than she stick with Antonio. In many ways the two of them make more sense and have much better chemistry. However, as we know from the first book and now through this one, Father Juan has foreseen that Jenn and Antonio have a shared destiny with each other, which we can only assume involves their love for each other. I hate getting invested with love triangles, so I’ll keep any further opinions I have on the matter mute.

Father Juan: I both love and hate Father Juan’s part in the story. Okay, in fairness I just love him, it’s just that after finishing the first two installments of this series (and plenty of hinting around), we’re still left with the question of who he really is (and I really want to know!). Is he a saint sent from heaven for the end days? Is he an immortal being? Can he die? Is he human? This is sure to be a major part of the next installment, as they’ve spent too many pages building it up for it to go overlooked in the third and final book. Regardless, the authors have done a great job developing his character and making it a vital role. You really can’t imagine these books without him in it, because even though he’s largely absent at times, he’s still somehow the story’s nucleus.

On a deeper note, I saved Father Juan (FJ) to talk about last because you can’t talk about his element of the story without talking about the theme of religion, which is a rather huge aspect here. FJ, despite all of his mystery, is a devout Catholic priest. There is no denying this or confusion concerning his life commitment to the church. However, he also seems to be very practiced in other religions. For example, during the scene I mentioned with Skye, when she is filled by the spirit of the Goddess- well this is apparently a very complicated ritual that can’t be done without FJ’s help. The role that he plays required him to completely set aside his Christian faith and commit himself to the Goddess. Regardless of the fact that he somehow knows every single part of this ritual (as if he’d done it 1000 times before), I find it perplexing that someone as committed to a certain faith as much as he is, would so easily set it aside for another. I’m wondering what underlining statement the authors are trying make. Is it that we are stronger when we are spiritually united? Even later, we see this theme of intertwining religions become highlighted as Skye talks about seeing the mark of the Goddess on Antonio, who as far as we understand has found his humanity through his strong Catholic faith. So what does it mean that the Goddess has now claimed him? The authors have clearly made religion a huge aspect in these novels, by over and over again joining people together from very strong, but different religious (or anti-religious) backgrounds. I’m just not exactly sure what they are trying to convey as we see this both strengthen individual characters but weaken the group. My confusion is further compounded in that they also send a clear message that religion can be restraining in an unhealthy manner. For example, Skye believes that Antonio’s cure to finding his humanity will be found in his love for Jenn. However, Antonio is convinced that he needs to give her up to further his commitment to the church as a priest. We slowly see towards the end of this book that this is not the answer, but rather the solution might be found by both allowing himself to have his faith and his love for Jenn. Furthermore, we see countless times where Skye is also restricted by having such fundamentalist interpretations of her own beliefs. Her ultimate commitment ‘to not do harm’ leaves her defenseless on the battlefield, thus allowing her to be taken hostage in the end. So we see here that religion both weakens and strengthens the characters, but we’re still left wondering, which is it? Ultimately, there is an unclear theme involving religion here that is arguing both for the positive and the negative. Either way, I appreciate that the authors are bringing to light a very basic notion- that it is impossible to tell a story about immortal beings without pondering what their very existence says about the afterlife, religion, and where those belief systems began. This idea, in its simplest form, is the basic driving force of the story now. Is Antonio different from other vampires because of his faith? Who has given FJ such supernatural abilities, if not God? And finally, can religion be the uniting force that finally makes this dysfunctional team cohesive?

Overall, the 2^nd installment of the Crusade Series really steps it up in terms of thickening the plot. Even though I think their use of several POV, flashbacks and action sequences take away from developing the characters as well as they could, it does make for an exciting fast-paced read. The authors do seem to be working towards building this into a more serious story- and indeed I am taking it more seriously. I have greatly enjoyed the time I’ve spent living in this world, and can’t wait to read the conclusion Vanquished, which comes out in August (I’ve already pre-ordered it!). Whatever the answer is to all of these questions, what we can conclude is that the final book will follow The Father of all Vampires (maybe the Devil?) as he searches for them. For whatever truths these questions hold, they may be the very thing that prevents him from taking over the world.

Title : Knife (Faery Rebels #1)
Author : R.J. Anderson


Genre : Middle Grade / Fairy / Fantasy
Paperback : 320 pages
Publisher : Orchard Books
First Publication Date : January 8, 2009


There are humans at the bottom of the garden, and a glimpse inside their House convinces the fierce young faery known as Knife that they have knowledge that could help her dying people. But if the human world has so much to offer, why is the faery Queen determined to keep her people away from it? Is there a connection between the House and the faeries’ loss of magic? And why is Knife so drawn to the young Paul McCormick - that strangest of creatures, a human male?


Review :