The Other Side of the Tunnel

“But everyone also lives in the world inside their own head. An inscape, a world of thought.” Truth.

19.13 NOS4A2

I just read a 690-page book in a week!  Who-Hoo!!! I’m back baby.  Thank you Joe Hill for the right book at the right time – and for scaring the crap out of me!!!

Joe Hill, much like his dad, takes something everyday and makes it totally creepy.  Like IT becoming morphing into whatever the individual is scared of, or like The Shining where you are locked up inside the place that is literally making you crazy, and in NOS4A2 where Hill takes on Christmas. 

You know when you walk around Target at Christmas time and there is music playing, and trees everywhere, and it is fun for about 15 minutes?  That is what Christmasland sounds like to me, so fun for a little while and then I would want it to be over, but for a kid? Heaven.  Just yesterday, Darren was asking when Santa was coming again.  No thought to the fact that a creepy old man coming down the chimney into our home is totally freaky!  Anyway, Charlie Manx likes to take little children to Christmasland, a place he has created in his mind.  And maybe the best part of the book for me was when Hill reminds us that many things that are now reality were once just imaginary.  See… Taking something that we all do, daydream, and making the reality totally reasonable.  That for me is scary and enticing at the same time.  So the story drew me in, and I was finally able to get lost again, but I have to say that when I found myself humming a Christmas carol during breakfast on Saturday I almost came out of my skin.

On The Fence

“It was time to let go.” Truth.

18.13 Shadow and Bone

So I loved parts of this as I read but after sitting with it a few days there are more and more things I didn’t like – and I hate (as usual) that it is another unfinished trilogy and so lost all of its steam at the end.

Characters –

The Good:

I love that Alina feels a sureness in her power – not like it is natural or outside of herself, but a thing she feels right about.  

It isn’t really clear who is good or bad, and it totally works.

The Bad:

Everyone is far too concerned about how they look.  This is a fantasy for goodness sake, can’t we leave the reality out?  Essentially she gets plastic surgery and this is skeevy for me.

I wanted to know more about the royal family. *To be fair, this may come later.

World Building –

The Good:

Original.

I like that it is allowed to unfold naturally instead of being explained ad nauseam to the reader.

Not a lot of back story.

The Bad:

Not a lot of back story. *Yes, this is both good and bad. 

There are a lot of different places mentioned but I don’t know why I should care about any of them.

I need a bit more about how the Grisha rankings work.

The Plot –

The Good:

The endless travel scenes plugged right along and I didn’t have to hear about every berry they tried to eat or fire they started.

The Shadow Fold seems like a genuinely scary thing and the bad guy is pretty bad and yet a bit logical.  Intriguing.

The Bad:

I read it two days ago and haven’t thought about it since, or thought of picking up the second book.

I finished reading the book and the story isn’t over.  I am honestly so tired of this.

Overall, I will be back, but I may wait until it has all been published.  Curses to the trilogies and my OCD to finish things I have started.  *See, I always bitch about it but also end up buying all the books – damn you capitalism.