Reviews for Week 16

Reviews Week 16

April 18th-24th

Book 45: The Castle of Llyr

by Lloyd Alexander

Read April 18th

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I am absolutely adoring this series and that makes me so happy. This is a wonderful fantasy world that I cannot get enough of along with its wonderful set of characters. Taran is really growing more and more into the leadership role throughout the course of these books, and he has grown so much on me.

For this book, I wanted to touch on the character Princess Eilonwy, who I have yet to really talk about that much. She is such a strong character. She's got the right amount of sass and she is so clever. I love that she's not afraid of letting people know what she thinks about them and what she thinks about anything. She is the type of character that you want kids to see. I love how we finally are getting answers about many aspects of her family, her bauble itself, and the evil enchantress Queen Achren who we met in the first book.

The world-building has been great, and I cannot wait to see what will happen in the next book. This series is definitely becoming a new favorite of mine.

Book 46: Disney's Hercules: Official Comics Movie Adaptation

by Evan Skolnick, Fabian Nicieza

Read April 20th

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Great graphic novel adaptation of one of my favorite Disney movies. Loved how they adapted this!

Book 47: Little Thieves

by Margaret Owen 

Read April 19th-24th

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This was a phenomenal fairy tale retelling. I loved every single page of this book, and I especially loved the main character, Vanja. Going into the book I knew the basics of the original fairy tale, but I have never read it myself. I really love where Margaret Owen took this story. Vanja does a lot of terrible things, but I just loved her so much. Her narration was perfection. I loved the little stories she told throughout the entire novel and how they were interspersed in the entire story. It was great to get little pieces of her past and to learn more and more along the way.

“Once upon a time, there was a girl as cunning as the fox in winter, as hungry as the wolf at first frost, and as cold as the icy wind that kept them at each other's throats. Her name was not Gisele, nor was it Marthe, nor even Pfennigeist. My name was -is- Vanja. And this is the story of how I got caught.”

Retellings from the point of view of the villain are some of my favorites and this one was one of the best I have read. Vanja really was more of an antihero in her tale. She is such a complicated character, who we see grow a lot over the course of the novel. Her relationships are definitely an important aspect of this. When we first meet Vanja, she has a very hard time trusting anyone and that makes a whole lot of sense when you learn her story.

Emeric was such a great character. I love how he is first introduced and how Vanja took him for granted. It was great when she finally realized what she was up against and when we realize how fast he figured her out. Their rivalry, comradery, and then their eventual relationship were all beautiful. It was just so much fun to watch them play off of each other. I could not get enough of their interactions.

“You’re what happens when an encyclopedia wishes on a star to be a real boy, if that encyclopedia was also an absolute prick.”

Then we have her relationship with Gisele, the princess whose identity she steals. We slowly find out what has happened between the girls basically their entire lives and it is so complicated and messy. It was entertaining to see them once they meet up in the book. Gisele is not a pushover character in the slightest and it was quite entertaining to see her role.

This book had great LGBT representation with a beautiful romance between two female characters and also binary characters. It was wonderful to see how accepting the world of this book was to that.

Then we have the gods, who are a very intricate part of Vanja's story. At the beginning of the book, Vanja is taken in by who she calls her Godmothers, Death and Fortune. They are both so vital to Vanja's story and have helped shape who she is as a character. We also get the god who curses Vanja and sets the plot into motion. All of these characters and the many other gods we see throughout the novel were so intriguing. I love seeing the different depictions of Gods in fantasy worlds. Especially, the character of Death. Death is a popular character in literature for good reason and her depiction here was similar to some I have seen before.

Finally, I want to talk about the setting. One of my favorite things is when a book takes a real place and makes it fantastical. This book was a perfect example of that. The German setting was great and loved how much it played into the story as a whole. It just felt so authentic and drew me even more into this world.

This was a beautiful story with a powerful message, lyrical writing, multi-dimensional characters (that I adored), and a setting that felt so real. I highly recommend this novel and I cannot wait to read the next one.