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Film Review: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2

amethysth — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 13:10:54 GMT

Happy August 1st everyone! I meant to update yesterday for Harry Potter/JK Rowling's birthday, but I basically spent the day ~~helping my parents weed the garden~~ freaking out over the fact that all of my friends had been chosen as betas for early access into pottermore.com and I had fallen asleep waiting for the site to load! (I'm registered now though, and my username is MoonThorn54. ~~My sister got SnitchDragon25, which sounds so much cooler.~~ If you made it in, what's yours?) I'm just incredibly excited because I've missed solving for clues to get stuff (like a book title, a la Half Blood Prince) from JK Rowling, and this reminds me so much of the locked door in the shady hallway on her website. Good times. And Pottermore excites me because a) BACKGROUND INFORMATION ABOUT EVERYONE AND EVERYTHING, b) We're only getting Book One right now, and stuff related to Philosopher's Stone, so JK Rowling has found a way to keep the magic, the actual WAITING for something Harry Potter related alive. I was siriusly going to miss that. (If you haven't registered yet, and you don't mind sacrificing some sleep, I siriusly recommend you wake up at 4 AM and refresh pottermore.com until the next clue is up, solve it, and register. There is something awesome about getting that Hogwarts email in your inbox. And the clues are fun, even though they're all numerical (and thus require some math XD ). I'm definitely waking up to see what clue from Prisoner of Azkaban goes up tomorrow because it's one of my favorite books!)

Anyway, I could spend this entry talking to you about complicated academic decisions, some awesome and not so awesome books I've read recently, how I've become addicted to the show How I Met Your Mother, or how it's Ramadan (Ramadan Mubarak to everyone celebrating/fasting today!), but I'm going to finally post my review for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2 to celebrate the fact that it's tied James Cameron's Avatar's record for Fastest Film to $1 Billion worldwide. (DH2 has been shattering records left and right, and it is now the best, most grossing Potter film and I am so proud of it!) So... let's talk the final film in my favorite franchise of all time.

Sorcerer's Stone and Goblet of Fire are my favorite films, but if Deathly Hallows Part 1 and Deathly Hallows Part 2 were one incredible 4.5 hour film, it would be my favorite. Deathly Hallows, Part 2 with all its triumphs and flaws actually is the most epic Harry Potter film. The tag lines? "Epic Finale", "The Perfect Farewell". They ALL apply. It's not doing this well in the box office because it's the last one. It succeeds because, even though it's not perfect by any means, they've finally got it at least 90% right. I loved DH1 because I thought the heart of the book was there. DH1 was a film made for book lovers. DH2, however, actually balances both. For the most part, anyway.

- The beginning was flawless. Yeah, I was a little upset that in the last film and in this film, we don't get to see Harry ever have a struggle about horcruxes vs hallows - he chooses hallows since the beginning in the film that when Dobby dies, though it's still sad, it's not AS meaningful. His death ultimately guides Harry to where Dumbledore wanted him to go. But I actually didn't notice this while watching the films the first time, so it's a minor detail. (But I always liked that Harry is the one who, when faced with the quest, chooses the one that matters over the one that leads to more power. He doesn't know what he's up against, and he knows that Voldemort is after that wand and he'll have it soon, but he finally, even with the mystery around his past, puts his faith into Dumbledore. The fact that they undermined this, as well as Dumbledore's backstory, to a lesser extent though - I don't think Dumbledore's backstory was really necessary for the films, so I understand completely why they left that out- is actually a pretty big deal.) But yes, Gringotts, the imperius curse, the dragon escape! I loved it at all. I thought the pacing was great, I loved the imperius scene, and yeah, the break-out was even better than what I imagined inside my head. So well done. (Question: Does Griphook get murdered by Voldemort in the book? I can't remember...)

- Voldemort laughing hysterically. LOL, everyone in my theater laughed. I think it's awesome though because Voldemort WOULD be giddy over the thought of killing Harry Potter finally, so I don't even care that the film started to randomly feel like a comedy. If you think about it, it's actually very in character. Kudos to Ralph Fiennes for being insane intentionally. (Yeah, that was intentional.)

- Everyone points out that Voldemort hugging Draco is awkward. Yes, yes it is. But am I the only one noticing the fact that during the hug, Voldemort's wand is right at Draco's throat? Kind of threatening, don't you think? Like he was also daring anyone to cross him. I wonder if he could sense that Draco was not his biggest fan at this point... Something to think about.

- In case people still don't understand this, Crabbe wasn't in the film. Goyle died in his place and the random guy behind Draco was Blaise. (That scene was brilliantly done, so I don't care who died and who didn't and who was there and who wasn't. AND HOW AWESOME WAS IT WHEN HARRY WENT BACK FOR DRACO AND DRACO CLUNG TO HIS BROOM. I was just imagining Tom Felton saying some of his Drarry lines, lol. (He keeps mentioning Drarry in interviews recently. It's so amusing!) And YAY for Ron keeping his line about killing Harry if they died for Draco. YES.

- I was actually happy with how many lines from the book - VERBATIM - were in this film. Basically everything Dumbledore says at King's Cross. Which is awesome because this was the first time Michael Gambon seemed like Dumbledore to me. Though I was annoyed that single words were being cut out of quotes. James says, "Until the end," instead of "Until the very end." Sirius says, "Quicker than falling asleep" instead of "Quicker and easier than falling asleep." Yeah, that stuff bothers me. (Only because I LOVED those two quotes and then they were not quite right. ><;; )

- Can someone please tell me why Cho Chang was there? Yeah, she's in the book, but so are Fred and George. I figured she was there because they called people from Dumbledore's Army to take refuge in the Room of Requirement, especially when Harry shows up. But int the film, even though she's a year older (so she should have graduated), they had her in her Ravenclaw robes, and then at the assembly that Snape called for students. So she had to still be at Hogwarts... But she graduated! *headache* Is this explained anywhere, or did Warner Bros. mess up?

- Loved the scene when Harry stood up in front of the student body and told them what Snape did (or what he thought he did). I think it was powerful that he was in his Gryffindor robes, but it amused me that he had so quickly changed into them (did someone lend them to him?) and then changed out right after Snape disappeared. I'm guessing he was in them so he could blend in with the students until he wanted to announce himself and make that speech? Or... I hope so. Otherwise it's quite random. But definitely powerful.

- "HARRY POTTER, YOU LISTEN TO ME RIGHT NOW!" Lol, I love Luna. She was brilliant in the film. AND NEVILLE. His scenes with Scabior and the snatchers was brilliant. And I love that at least in the films Neville/Luna is canon. YES!

- Say what you want about Ginny Weasley, but she was pretty awesome in the "WHO IS THAT HAGRID'S HOLDING?" and "NOOOOOOOOOOOO!" scene. I was waiting for SOMEONE to scream when they saw Harry's dead body, and in the book, Hagrid and McGonagall scream and it's brilliant, but I love that his two professors are just so shaken and numb and it's Ginny who calls out for him. I was waiting for some kind of awesome Ginny moment in the films, and yeah, it should have happened in HBP, but I'm glad it does happen at all.

- McGonagall was freaking awesome, and so adorable. I love that scene when she uses that spell and Hogwarts comes to life to protect them, and then she gets excited that she finally has a chance to use that spell, and Molly Weasley's face at her giddiness is so hilarious! Maggie Smith was flawless in this film. (The fact that she had cancer and actually continued to act during that time is also really amazing. This woman is incredible.)

- It wasn't exactly the way I pictured it, but I still loved Molly Weasley's triumphant moment. Everyone in my theater clapped when Bellatrix died. And anyone who says there is no way Molly Weasley could have killed her has to understand that we know nothing about how strong Molly Weasley is as a witch, a mother's love is a powerful thing, and lastly, by that point, Harry had already sacrificed himself for all those people and nothing the Death Eaters did could fatally affect ANY of them.

- The deaths! I was a little disturbed by Lavendar Brown's (GREYBACK ATE HER. O_____O ), Remus and Tonks' was heartbreaking, and Fred's, even though they didn't show us the scene we see in the book (it's a deleted scene!), made me cry, especially because moments before, you heard George ask Fred if he was alright. I cried when Ron cried though, that scene was so powerful.

- I don't know if anyone has noticed, but the Snape we see in the films is NOT the Snape we get in the books. I'm not going to rant about the complexity of Severus Snape, how he's both heroic and terrible, and how people have to appreciate his flaws and his heroics in order to actually appreciate him as a character... But I will talk about The Prince's Tale. I loved this chapter in the book because it revealed so much about Snape and Lily's relationship, and Snape and Dumbledore's relationship. Though it was certainly beautiful in the film and I did find it heartbreaking, they COMPLETELY ruined the chapter. Snape in the film is... a saint, and if you know Snape as a character, despite the brave things he did, he was not this perfect tragic hero. JK Rowling actually calls him an antihero, brave, heroic, but also bitter and cruel. I hated that they removed his behavior toward Petunia. There was so much foreshadowing there about how he really felt about Muggles, and it was just... gone. I really hated that they got rid of the very reason WHY Snape and Lily's friendship ended. The fact that he attacked other muggleborns with his Death Eater friends, that conversation about her not liking what the Slytherins were doing, the fact that he called her Mudblood and she'd been making excuses for him for years... It's so IMPORTANT. Lily in the film literally is best friends with Snape one day, and then James Potter smiles at her in the hallway and the next thing you know, she's dancing with James and happy and Snape is alone. THIS IS NOT WHAT HAPPENED. Their friendship ended because Snape was hypocritical and prejudicial and in a gang and Lily couldn't support that, especially because she's Muggleborn. I'm not even going to comment on the fact that James had light brown hair once again (Siriusly, WB?) or just... didn't wear glasses as a child. The way they portrayed Lily just... wasn't right. Lastly, though it was certainly sad, the Godric's Hollow scene really irritated me. Snape was not supposed to be there that night, and once again, WB is trying to make Snape/Lily more than it was. Sirius Black was supposed to be there. He was supposed to see JAMES' dead body, he was supposed to lose it and run into Hagrid on his way out, and then chase after Peter. No one knew they were at Godric's Hollow anyway, just Voldemort, Peter, and Sirius. So yeah, I'm sick of marauders stuff going to other characters, especially Snape. Because Snape in the film is more of a tragic hero than he is in the book, and in spite of this... The Prince's Tale was hundreds more heartbreaking in the book. I don't hate Severus Snape. I like the character, and I respect him for what he did, whatever his reasons. But I hate that WB has to make him the saint, the super-hero. That wasn't the character JK Rowling created, and it's not the character I wanted to see. Especially at the expense of Harry's parents. (And as sad as the scene with Snape clutching Lily's dead body was, I was kind of more concerned about the fact that he was clutching a dead body as baby Harry continued to cry and cry. Siriusly!) Also... that line he says to Dumbledore about hiding them all? Kind of annoyed that they erased the first part of that line when he offers James and Harry in exchange for Lily and Dumbledore calls him out on it. See, lasting unrequited love or not, Snape was also THAT man. And I hate that filmgoers will never know. (And that so many of those nonreaders walked out of this film so confused, thinking, WAIT, SNAPE IS HARRY'S FATHER? Ughhhhhhhhhh.)

- Snape's death scene was freaking awesome though. I love that Harry tried to help him. I think I prefer the vial of memories over the tear, but either way, fantastic scene. I cried at "Look... at... me. You have your mother's eyes." But I laughed at the fact that WB, for nonreaders, had to specify why Snape wanted to look at Harry before he died. Though I remember people not getting the symbolism behind "Look at me," so I understand.

- I didn't like that Harry told Ron and Hermione that he was a horcrux. I thought it was more powerful in the book when he left on his own, with Neville being suspicious, and then returned dead. But I'm pretty sure Yates just wanted to throw in one last Hermione/Harry friendship hug. (They hug in every film. I like it, but yeah, not necessary.) I also hated that Hermione claimed to already KNOW. HOW COULD SHE HAVE KNOWN? It took Dumbledore years to figure out, and clever witch or not, there is no way she would have figured that out.

- Loved the forest scene, especially when Harry reached for Lily's hand.

- Why was Oliver Wood in the film for ONLY two seconds?

- Kind of upset that Neville didn't get to kill the snake infront of Voldemort when he defied joining him, but I did like Neville's speech. But the chase for the snake was kind of awesome to see, and it was even more awesome when Neville did kill Nagini, so yay. I guess they did that for a more visually exciting scene, so I'll let it go.

- I lol'd at the part when Bellatrix tried to help Voldemort up and he pushed her away.

- Ron and Hermione! I LOVED IT. The Chamber of Secrets, the "That's my girlfriend, you numpties!"

- Narcissa was amazing. The way she grabbed Draco and led him out of the battle, not even caring what happened, and the way Lucius turned back just for a second and then ran along with his family... Brilliant.

- The final battle with Voldemort was brilliant. My only wish was that they had kept that one scene they had in the first Deathly Hallows trailer, when Voldemort asked Harry, WHY DO YOU LIVE? And he replied, BECAUSE I HAVE SOMETHING WORTH LIVING FOR. Ah well.

- WAS ANYONE ELSE REALLY UPSET THAT HARRY DIDN'T REPAIR HIS WAND WITH THE ELDER WAND BEFORE BREAKING IN AND THROWING IT AWAY? I'm just going to pretend he did that behind the scenes before we see him there with Ron and Hermione, and before he breaks the thing.

- King's Cross was beautiful. Say what you want about it, but I LOVED it. The children were perfect, and yeah, Ron and Draco kind of aged poorly, but they were better aged than the original previews we got for this scene a year ago before they refilmed it. I loved that the children said goodbye on the train like Harry, Ron and Hermione did at the end of SS. And I love tha the last scene was of the trio, and Harry especially, smiling proudly. All was well. (BUT WHAT WAS UP WITH THAT '19 YEARS LATER' FONT? I was expecting some fancy, awesome, magical thing! Not Times New Roman!)

Basically, this film was a rollercoaster of emotions for me, but it was so incredibly made, and even at the end, all I could do was thank Warner Bros., Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson, and the rest of the cast and crew, and especially JK Rowling for a job well done. It has been quite an amazing decade, and I am honestly going to miss it. (The only thing that will forever bother me is The Prince's Tale because I'm a marauders fangirl through and through, but that can't be helped...) I can't wait to see it again. AND IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN IT, GO RIGHT NOW!

Book Review: The Hunger Games Trilogy

amethysth — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 09:58:02 GMT

Sorry this has taken forever to write. I finished reading the trilogy three weeks ago, but then I needed time to collect a response that would do the books justice. And after that school started, so two thirds of this went unwritten and it's probably incredibly jumbled now (completely unedited), but here you are anyway. (Haha, touchthesoul can probably tell that parts of this were written weeks ago because... I didn't talk to her this morning. XDDD)

A few years ago, I was stuck in a crowded elevator and ended up having the most amazing literary conversation with my R.A. I told her how awesome (and sad) The Sweet Far Thing (which she hadn't read at the time) was, and she told me that if I enjoyed Gemma Doyle and Harry Potter, then I should seriously read Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games, which had just been released. So I waited a few weeks, hunted down the book, was completely captivated by it, and then... it just ended. It escaped my memory until Catching Fire, which once again was compelling until it ended, and then both just disappeared from my mind.

Though I've been reading this series since the beginning, the reason I've never talked about it is that while there have been parts of the story that I loved while I was reading it, they didn't stay with me. It's not that they weren't memorable because I hold onto them now, after finishing Mockingjay. It's the way her first two books ended. (I tried explaining it to touchthesoul this morning, and I was just confusing and unclear, so I doubt this will make any sense at all...) In series like Harry Potter and Gemma Doyle, each book (excluding the last books because the way a series ends is a completely different matter and I'll speak in extreme detail about Mockingjay's ending later) has a sense of finality. Like that book within that series actually HAS ended. In Sorceror's Stone, it's when Harry's going back home, but looking forward to what Hogwarts has to bring him during the next six years. There's a sense that this part of the larger story has ended, and a different piece that connects AND will lead to something else will follow. Like a hint of foreshadowing or suspense, something that makes you relive the books in your head, constantly think about it, and then go crazy waiting for the next one. Maybe it's just me, but I didn't see this in THG or CF. It was like they were in the middle of a conversation or an adventure or something and it just stopped. Not like it was a cliffhanger, but literally like they had just finished discussing something and instead of ending it or filling the moment with some sort of... anticipation, it just... stopped. Like a chapter or many are just missing. Like this piece of the puzzle, of the larger series, wasn't quite over. And then the next book would take place a few weeks or month over and whatever seemed missing from the ending would appear in the form of slight reflection, a flashback, a single line, some dialogue.

I'm not saying this is terrible, but it will explain why I can't review The Hunger Games trilogy in pieces. Without the dividers like other series have (or clear dividers, since not everyone will feel this way), it felt like one huge novel. I couldn't read Mockingjay without revisiting The Hunger Games and Catching Fire back to back to back for this very reason. And this is why I give you a super long, still kind of muddled, single gigantic review of the series as I try to finally piece together the story... and the way I feel about it.

In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlaying districts. The Capitol is harsh and cruel and keeps the districts in line by forcing them all to send one girl and one boy between the ages of twelve and eighteen to participate in the annual Hunger Games, a fight to the death on live TV. Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen, who lives alone with her mother and younger sister, regards it as a death sentence when she is forced to represent her district in the Games. But Katniss has also resolved to outwit the creators of the games. To do that she will have to be the last person standing at the end of the deadly ordeal, and that will take every ounce of strength and cunning she has.
[Publisher's Summary]

What attracted me immediately to The Hunger Games was this premise, the idea that our world in the future would consist of such advanced technology and fashion and somehow have such... primitive and cruel forms of entertainment. People always describe THG as Battle Royale, but since my knowledge of BR is actually rather limited, I always say it's more like ancient Rome and their gladiator games, only children are used instead of criminals and beasts are just part of the terror that awaits them in the arena. The greatest terror is actually their fellow "competitors", and even more than that, the government in charge. So immediately, it's amazing/striking/interesting/insert-adjective-of-choice-here to see, just in the gist of what the book is about, that there is so much depth here. This is a series that will make you think, to the point where you might go insane finding real life situations that could end up this way, or did, and you'll end up substituting it with other things you care about (like, for me, I had to talk it over and over and over again with my sister in Harry Potter terms, destroying the already tragic life of the marauders to the point where Sirius Black lives with the terrible life he had and eventually goes crazy... Umm, yeah, I'll stop before I share some of my more... disturbing "substitutions", even though they're more suited for Mockingjay than THG or CF).

Actually reading the series is another experience altogether. THG succeeds in every way possible. Collins not only breathes life into this futuristic, bleak world, but also creates characters who, despite the first person point-of-view, leave their mark on you.

You have a remarkable memory," I say haltingly.
"I remember everything about you," says Peeta, tucking a loose strand of hair behind my ear. "You're the one who wasn't paying attention."

Katniss is practical and strong and independent and unrelenting and fierce and brave and hostile and paranoid and not exactly likable (but I liked her), but just so real. Layers upon layers that... you don't really truly understand her until you actually hit Book 3. I'll confess that I'm not one of those people that fell in love with Peeta at first sight. I liked that he was intelligent and eloquent and creative and loyal and everything you'd want in a boy who is absolutely smitten with you, and though there were moments when he stole my heart, he didn't steal it completely until somewhere before the middle of Mockingjay (which is funny because a lot of people absolutely hate Book 3 Peeta). I think it's mostly because Peeta is such a reliable character, important when he speaks and important to Katniss because of their history, that I (and Katniss) took him for granted. He was charming and adorable, but I didn't think too much of him because I didn't expect much romance in this book (though I know this was basically their strategy for winning sponsors and Capitol support), or realize that her relationship with Peeta would actually become such an important part of the main plot of the series (a little in THG, a little more in CF, but SO MUCH in Mockingjay). And of course, I'm glad I was wrong.

From the first time she was mentioned in THG, I knew I would love Rue. It wasn't that Katniss was just drawn to her because she reminded her of Prim, her reason for entering the Games in the first place. It was that she, like Peeta when they were younger, reminded her of things she'd forgotten after her father's death. Like how much he enjoyed music and mockingjays. The fact that several times in the arena, when it was obvious that she was missing her family and had grown attached to Rue, she almost called her Prim made me smile. I hate that she died, but I love the way Katniss "memorialized" her.

I also love how, again, even though it's written in the first person, Collins still leaves room for foreshadowing and symbolism and themes and stuff that the readers can guess at (like how in THG, we always knew that Peeta was trying his hardest to keep her alive even when she swore he and everyone else was out to kill her because that's what you do in these Games) but never really know until they hit it in a later chapter or a later book.

"The Girl Who Was On Fire and The Boy With the Bread"

I think the first time Cinna introduced her as "the girl on fire", I knew it would be important (I didn't think it would be referred to for the rest of the series, which it was, but it just sounded like... the phrase was just extremely loaded). (And this is where this becomes more of a series review and not just THG, Book I because I'm going to end up jumbling things up a bit.) Katniss Everdeen, the girl on fire, was meant to be memorable. Something to get her noticed, just another part of her image for sponsors in the Games so she can stay alive. When I first saw the phrase, I thought it was maybe a reference to her personality--she's headstrong and fiery and sponsors should know that she has what it takes to survive. This isn't ENTIRELY what it was though. The Girl On Fire always reminded me of a phoenix, someone dead and dying but with enough strength to rise from the ashes. I don't mean this as a symbol of hope (we all know The Mockingjay is the symbol of hope), but I mean this as a sort of foreshadowing. From the moment Katniss becomes The Girl On Fire, she's reborn, even if she doesn't realize it, even if she doesn't want it. Like she's living in this grotesque world that is painfully dying, and she knows some of it, realizes it's unjust, but is more resigned. Things are what they are, and that's that. She becomes more aware after entering the Games, and especially after talking to Peeta.

“Then I remember Peeta’s words on the roof. “Only I keep wishing I could think of a way to…to show the Capitol they don’t own me. That I’m more than just a piece in their Games.” And for the first time, I understand what he means.”

It's not that she embraces the rebel cause or desires to lead a rebellion, but that she's finally fully understanding why things shouldn't be this way, confused why things are this way, and just a little lost. You see it in the way she hesitates killing the mutts because their eyes are human, when she dwells over the fact that all she's known are selfish, cruel humans, but somehow, a boy felt for her and took a beating just to give her some bread.

I don't know about you, but I love that she calls Peeta (continuously--not always because the boy DOES have a name) "the boy with the bread" so many times. Bread was more than just food that they rarely had and couldn't afford. It's what connects Peeta to Katniss before they go through the Games and the war. It's a symbol of hope and a reminder that not every person, even in this world where things are terrible, is evil, that some of us are still capable of empathy and sympathy and kindness. I think Katniss even says it at one point. "The boy with the bread that offered hope" (not a direct quote).

And this is where I'd talk about dandelions and how much I loved the role flowers played in this book (they're rarely mentioned because they aren't a sight she usually sees, but I love the mentions because... A) The first time she sees a dandelion or anything with natural beauty after she'd lost her dad and her family life/living situation fell apart is right when she considers thanking Peeta for the bread, and it's like that added symbol of hope, that beauty and gentleness isn't entirely lost to this world. b) The flowers she used to decorate Rue were a bit of a turning point. I mentioned before how Rue gave her some companionship in the Games, but the relationship they had developed was so strong, and yeah, Rue was the one who reminded her of a piece of her father she had lost. The songs, the mockingjays, the lullaby... And of course, since this point, music (especially in Mockingjay) plays a role in Katniss' life again (and the war in general). c) Isn't it interesting how a lot of the characters (Katniss and Prim, for example) are named after flowers and plants?

"You said at the interview you'd had a crush on me forever. When did forever start?"

"Oh, let's see. I guess the first day of school. We were five. You had on a red plaid dress and your hair... it was in two braids instead of one. My father pointed you out when we were waiting to line up."

"Your father? Why?"

"He said, 'See that little girl? I wanted to marry her mother, but she ran off with a coal miner.'"

"What? You're making that up!"

"No, true story. And I said, 'A coal miner? Why did she want a coal miner if she could've had you?' And he said, 'Because when he sings... even the birds stop to listen.'"

"That's true. They do. I mean, they did."

"So that day, in music assembly, the teacher asked who knew the valley song. Your hand shot right up in the air. She stood you up on a stool and had you sing it for us. And I swear, every bird outside the windows fell silent."

"Oh, please."

"No, it happened. And right when your song ended, I knew--just like your mother--I was a goner."

And of course, mockingjays--the symbol of the rebellion, another reminder that something beautiful could still develop in the bloodshed.

So basically, it was an awesome start to an awesome trilogy, and I'm sure there's lots more to say about it, but I'm going to move on to Catching Fire.

Everyone calls CF "the weaker sequel" but I think there was just so much Collins wanted to add to the story or clarify in this book that it only appears weaker. And once again, it suffers from the fact that because things are a little less orderly than THG (it's not just about the Games this time, but talk of rebellion, pondering escape, threats, realizing that being a "victor" makes life just as miserable, but even more manipulated by the Capitol than merely living in the district suffering from hunger and dreading the Games). And I think the abrupt ending I poorly explained before is worse here because of this structure (or lack thereof). I understand why it's written the way it is, but this novel, even more than THG, feels like it needs the other two pieces of the story, and I couldn't appreciate it as a second book of the series until I had read THG before it and Mockingjay right after.

What I love about this book is that it explains so much more of the background. District 13 has basically intrigued me since the first time it was mentioned, so it was awesome to hear the full story, and see how Katniss came to realize what readers probably always suspected - that there's so much more to the history of Panem, of the districts, than what they were told.

Snow was interesting. He didn't make much of an impression on me in book one (how could he when he was barely in it?), but since his impromptu visit to Katniss' home, I was incredibly creeped out. I mean, it makes sense ~~for a vile, creepy blood drinker~~, but the incredible amount of creepiness (showing up at her house? knowing all that stuff about her and peeta? always somehow watching them?) took me by surprise.

I loved the way the entire beginning of this book was set up. A glimpse of her happy-ish, but strange and awkward life at Victory Village. Her memories of songs she sang with her dad, historical, rebellion ones that her mom was uncomfortable hearing in public because she didn't want the government to arrest/attack/seize/something them. More about her parents' history. Her own thoughts about Gale and Peeta (I think she thought about both of them more in this book than in Mockingjay because of the set up. Here, she has the chance to be with either in a way that's fair to each of them. They're both around, so she can consciously make a decision. Technically speaking, she chooses neither. Gale is someone who she cares about, so she doesn't know if what she feels is any more than that. She's just come back from The Hunger Games. He nearly lost her. She almost died. Whatever she felt for him, something she swore was just friendship in Book One, amplifies (and logically so) because of that experience. He was the only male in her life for a really long time and he's basically how she survived all those years after her dad's death, discounting Peeta's bread. On the other hand, Peeta is the DIRECT reason she survived and she'll always feel indebted to him for this reason, and his role in THG is how she survived again. But her feelings for him are always in question too because.. . Is it because she feels like she owes him? Because he saved her? Because she KNOWS he loves her, and he's told her more than Gale ever had the chance to?

For the record, I'm a Peeta/Katniss fan and I believe they actually do love each other. My rambling is just basically trying to come to terms with the fact that in Mockingjay, her feelings are so confusing and muddled that the parts of the story that actually did deal with the love triangle came across that way as well and were a pain to read. In CF, I can understand her dilemma. She doesn't know her feelings, so she can't make a decision. I think Collins introduced this in this book quite well. I really wish its finale had been executed as well as the introduction.

NEW CHARACTERS! I loved Finnick. I loved him the first time I read about him and I fell in love with him again during the reread. He's just such an awesome, hilarious, Sirius/James/Fred/George-esque character that he's difficult not to love. His story made me cry (though I blame touchthesoul for that - I was fine before talking to her about it)!

The actual Hunger Games part of the story wasn't as exciting/interesting as the first book, but I don't think it was supposed to be. Its purpose was mostly to set up the ending of the book (blah baffling abrupt endings!) and for him to develop a friendship with Katniss and Peeta and for them to get to know each other, since they'll all be working together in Book 3.

The one thing that REALLY caught me by surprise (and made me so sad) was that Peeta was captured. It's a good thing I'd forgotten all about that because honestly, I would have died waiting a whole year thinking about WHAT the Capitol was doing to him!

Anyway, I really enjoyed CF, despite the fact that it's not as put together as THG (because its purpose was, again, to connect the other two books and lead in to the ending). It was awesome for story-development, and there were some amazing moments and yay new characters. :D (And maybe it's just me, but I actually really enjoyed reading about the beginnings of the rebellion and all the politics and wars. I'm glad she went more deeply into that because it is the main point of these books!)

And finally, Mockingjay...

This book reminded me so much of Deathly Hallows (not in the story, though I will discuss that later, but in the feeling I got reading it). It's not that the moment lived up to the moment I finally had that orange book in my hand and could stay up all night reading it (I don't think anything will ever compare to that, actually), but just A sense of excitement, that this is the novel that will change everything you feel about this series, the novel with the potential to be absolutely brilliant and horrific and memorable. I've read many series and trilogies after HP, but none have made me feel this way and I was already feeling some of this before even opening the book. So yes, incredibly high expectations. I think this is why, out of all three books, I'd say Mockingjay is the page turner. I'm not saying it's better than the others (the best book, in my opinion, is the first because of how well it's written and put together, but that's not my point), but that there's so much going on that despite the fact that the writing is so much more jumpy than the other two, and not as good (I'm not saying it's abysmal. I'm saying it's not up to par with the rest of her work), you keep reading because you need to know. It's what makes you unable to put the book down because the story's already captured your attention from books one and two and this is the end and it will absolutely kill you not to know how everything ends.

Or at least, this was the driving force behind the fact that I kept reading, even though I was confused because Collins was going backward and forward in time and I couldn't keep up. Some things happened way too fast. Everything after the mission to attack and kill Snow is so hazy, and once Finnick died, it was like something inside Collins had exploded. Suddenly things are speeding through, there's way too much action and not enough description to accurately cover it all and flash forwards and more confusion and I don't even know. I actually think the pacing wasn't that bad until that point, but everything seemed way too rushed afterward.

What I liked about this book:

- Finnick/Annie. So glad they were reunited. They were cute. I love the part when he glares at... well, everyone who says anything that upsets Annie or triggers awful memories. I love that they were married. That they have a son. I hate that he died. ;______;

- Peeta. Okay, so maybe I'm in the minority here, since I know a lot of people hated what she did to him, but I thought it was interesting. I never expected it because Peeta was always the innocent one. The one Katniss could depend upon. The one who was always calm and a voice of reason, completely nonviolent. He was something of a miracle in the environment Collins created. So it was interesting that she forced him to get caught up in the war, to become a prisoner, to lose part of himself. I hate that it happened to him, but I thought it was fitting for the story. War kills, and what effective way to get this across than to take the one completely good character and taint him? Take away a piece of him that he'll never be able to get back? Though she does this to Katniss too, taking away the part of her that can still find happiness in the world. I thought it was a brilliant move (even though it killed me reading it) to use Peeta to demonstrate this theme.

I just wish she hadn't used it to try and push the Gale/Katniss thing she entertained in CF (because maybe it was just me but their interactions in Mockingjay, since everything revolved around the war and Gale's thoughts never quite agreed with Katniss', seemed forced).

- Themes! I discussed this a bit after THG, but the one thing that I love Collins did here is take the "don't trust governments wholeheartedly" theme to a new level. Snow is vicious and his government is absolutely horrible, BUT SO IS THE REBELLION GOVERNMENT IN DISTRICT 13. I was worried that she was going to just leave it like this, with the message that no government is trustworthy because I wondered what she wanted to accomplish with this message. What would be the point in writing a trilogy to show that everything is horrible, you have no solutions, and life is just dreadful anyway? I was glad that it didn't end like this at all. It ended with a different theme, that war destroys, but there is hope that the future won't experience all the tortures of the past, that there are things people can't move on from, but not all humans are selfish and power-hungry and some relatively good government can exist if the right people are found.

- Are you, are you
Coming to the tree
Where they strung up a man they say murdered three.
Strange things did happen here
No stranger would it be
If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree.

Are you, are you
Coming to the tree
Where the dead man called out for his love to flee.
Strange things did happen here
No stranger would it be
If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree.

Are you, are you
Coming to the tree
Where I told you to run, so we'd both be free.
Strange things did happen here
No stranger would it be
If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree.

Are you, are you
Coming to the tree
Wear a necklace of rope, side by side with me.
Strange things did happen here
No stranger would it be
If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree.

- Peeta and I grow back together. There are still moments when he clutches the back of a chair and hangs on until the flashbacks are over. I wake screaming from nightmares of mutts and lost children. But his arms are there to comfort me. And eventually his lips. On the night I feel that thing again, the hunger that overtook me on the beach, I know this would have happened anyway. That what I need to survive is not Gale's fire, kindled with rage and hatred. I have plenty of fire myself. What I need is the dandelion in the spring. The bright yellow that means rebirth instead of destruction. The promise that life can go on, no matter how bad our losses. That it can be good again. And only Peeta can give me that.

So after, when he whispers, "You love me. Real or not real?"
I tell him, "Real."

[Though I wish this relationship was more gradually developed, that it had been developed by this point. Basically, I wish Collins had already proved by this point that Katniss loves Peeta because I KNOW she does and I SEE it in the subtext, but the circumstances, again, are just so convenient and coercive toward this that it COULD be unclear if it really is REAL or NOT REAL. To other people, anyway, because I BELIEVE HER. But I hate that there is that doubt there. There are so many people who don't and she can't fix this.]

- The very last scene in that epilogue (lol I don't feel like posting that one). Yeah, I actually thought it fit quite well. Dismal, perhaps, but not the worst part of this book.

What I didn't like:

- Many parts were slow. Many parts were fast. Many things were poorly explained/described. Already mentioned it, but yeah, the pacing bothered me.

- I hated how the love triangle was handled. When she thought about it, she wasn't sure of her feelings and at this point, it was irritating because she'd literally vacillate between the guys. It's not like CF, where she's not really committing to anyone or returning any affections consciously. Here, it's like one day she prefers Peeta and one day it's Gale and though it's obvious to us that a lot of her emotions are just unreliable because of the position she's in, it doesn't hit her until the end, when Gale is conveniently (*cough*cop out*cough*) shipped away and she and Peeta might as well be dead and are just thrown together. *sigh* I expected better from you, Suzanne Collins!

- PRIM. She was the reason Katniss entered the games. A lot of it just feels pointless with her dead, actually (and I hated that it was a bomb Gale created that killed her. *cough*cop out*cough*), though I guess that is the point. Katniss probably feels like the time she's spent being used by the rebellion and the corrupt government and the games has been a waste since the one person she wanted to save died. I get this, but it still bothers me.

- FINNICK. ;______;

The biggest argument against Mockingjay is that it's "too much of a downer". Umm, it's always kind of been this way. THG wasn't pleasant to read, and okay, they survived at the end, but what about the bigger picture? Everything in the background then, everything leading from CF is in Mockingjay. It's always been there and it always needed to be addressed, and while she could have gone the Harry Potter route and made things end the way they did, but a tad bit more uplifting for the characters, I like that she didn't. Actually, though the book did disappoint me for the things I didn't like about it, this is one thing I agree with. I don't think THG could have ended like Potter. At all.

(Posting chats with friends because I'm way too lazy to go through this again. Yeah, I've been discussing this on and off for the last month.)

amethysth: Tell me you finished Mockingjay.

K: Who do you take me for? :-) yeah I was actually kinda disappointed about how rushed the ending was. You?

amethysth: I was really enjoying it up until it went crazy during their mission to kill President Snow. I think that's when everything was going too fast and the writing was just really weird (like she'd fast forward and rewind and it was really rushed and confusing, and then it stayed that way until the end of the book). On one level, I want to... give her the benefit of the doubt and say that it was like this because the book is written in the first person, and that's how hazy everything was to Katniss at that point because things probably were moving really fast during the mission and she was kind of lost, and then after that day, when she's knocked out and just re-awakens, everything really is constantly hazy for her, so the writing's that confusing and there's no real sense of time... But I think if she really wanted to show this, she could have done it better, and she SHOULD have fleshed things out a bit. I was annoyed at how things were handled with Gale too because sending him off to District Two instead of her actual...ly having to make the choice was just too easy (she defends her choice later, and I agree with it, but this still could have happened better). I was sad Prim died, since she's been trying to keep her alive since Book One, but I think Collins needed her to die, so that Katniss could finally lose it completely.

I was sad Finnick died (he was one of my favorite characters).

AND I didn't like how the rebuilding of her relationship with Peeta was rushed (it was going fine before, and then basically that entire segment at the end when she's back on Twelve goes insanely fast and I thought it could have used more development because it was LITERALLY like they could barely be in the same room and then he was finally slowly rediscovering himself and then immediately he was almost where he was with her before, but only more silent and more pained).

So I guess you could say that I was both satisfied and disappointed because, like the Gale thing and that part of the book where things are moving too fast, there was so much more potential there. But then I actually liked the actual ending (which I know bothered a lot of people) because I can't imagine it ending any other way. Like there's the hope for a new world, that humans won't be as cruel as the last time, but some experiences just destroy you too much. But you still move forward and try to deal with it. And I loved that she showed that there could be cruelty and corruption on the rebel side too ( I KNEW she would do this, but then I was worried that she'd do it and not resolve it, like she'd show that Katniss would be used and abused on both sides and that you can't trust either side, and then that would just make you ask, "What was the point?" because yeah, their situation is hopeless, but what would Collins be saying at that point (like... 'humans are cruel, governments suck, and you're screwed either way'?). I'm glad she had Katniss assassinate Coin (and I love that Snow still died cracking up to death), and I have hope that Paylor would be a better leader anyway.

So basically mixed feelings.

K: Ok I agree with you on every. Single. Point. That's exactly how I felt about everything. Especially the ending - I'm really glad it ended the way it did, but it was rushed and I would really have liked to see more. But yes yes yea yes.

S: it was an "eh" ending. i didn't like it as much as i did the first book, and ugh i felt bad for peeta. i rooted for peeta since the beginning and when the capitol screwed him up i was like "oh isn't this convenient for katniss and gale." - which annoyed me! and katniss was playing both of those boys! and the only... reason the katniss realized she cared about was because a) he was always there even in his crazy capitol mind state and b) cuz in her mind gale killed her sister. her love for peeta wasn't as dynamic as i hoped it would be and that just annoys me. i hate the epilogue cuz it reminded me of the epilogue of the last harry potter book. i mean come on, kids with switched parent characteristics is so cliche and dumb!

amethysth: Hey, hey, that better not be an insult to Harry Potter. (Especially because there are no switched characteristics in HP. Sort of. Only Albus Severus inherits the green eyes, and both boys have Harry's hair and the girl has Ginny's, so there....) --Umm, yeah, I'd probably defend HP to the death. ^^;; (I happen to like the Harry Potter epilogue because the point wasn't to answer a catalogue of things people still wanted to know about the wizarding world. This was the end of HARRY's story, and all he had ever wanted was to have a family and be happy, and he is. So it was fitting and awesome. Shh.)

ANYWAY... I think Peeta was too innocent. I think she wanted to destroy that innocence to make a statement about war or something. I don't know, it seemed necessary to me. I hated that Katniss doesn't make a real decision about the boys too, actually. She wasn't irritating to the point of Twilight because so much else was going on and I don't think the love triangle was ever supposed to be such a huge part of the story, but of course, she introduced it so she had to resolve it. But yeah, I totally agree. The Gale being shipped away to District Two was a cop out too. She never actively rejects him until everything happens with the bomb and her sister, and she doesn't accept Peeta either until the very end when it's like, "we're thrown together, but you know, we make sense." I honestly believe she DOES love him, but the writing was such crap after Finnick died (when everything went to chaos and was going way too fast and yeah, the pacing was horrendous, and I hated how the author kept moving backward and forward into time because it was just confusing and bad writing) that that entire relationship is just rushed. Maybe if she had developed it through the course of the book, it might have been better. Gahh.

I think the purpose of this epilogue was different than HP, by the way. It's forward in time to again show that things are peaceful now, like HP. But HP's showed that Harry had gotten through and was finally happy (and if Harry was miserable like everyone kind of is in the THG epilogue, then people might have killed JKR from wasting their time for the last decade). And I think that was always the point. Finding happiness despite the fact that his life has always been such crap. Finally having a family because he never really had one.

(I suppose the only way HP could ever have NEEDED the hopeless ending is if Harry had been used by the Order and it turned out that Dumbledore was never just against Voldemort and he just wanted the power for himself and then Harry would be like, "MY ENTIRE FAMILY DIED JUST TO ALLOW ANOTHER MADMAN TO GO RULE THE WORLD AND KILL PEOPLE. WHAT THE HELL" until he's so tired of fighting that he becomes crazy and lost. But that didn't happen and the Order was good and it succeeded and he survived and yeah, yay happy ending.)

In THG, the point was to show that humanity was corrupt, no matter what side you're on, and that the rebels were just as bad as the Capitol, and the whole thing had been disguised as a fight against injustice when it was a race for power. In the end, the human race isn't so hopeless, with Paylor leading and The Hunger Games ended, but there are some things you can't recover from and Katniss and Peeta have suffered so much. Like she was used by both sides, she never had a say in what she wanted to do and no one was ever honest with her. She's lost hope in humanity at that point, but Peeta, despite the fact that he was kind of brainwashed against her, was still there for her, and he's always the epitome of goodness in her eyes. Even when he was trying to kill her. Hence the "dandelion in the spring" quote (which I really liked). So ignoring the ridiculousness of the appearance of her children, I think the epilogue was actually a good way to round up everything. The world isn't as bad as it once was, but she doesn't really fully trust anyone and she can never be normal or completely happy again, and Peeta's the only one (even though again, that whole relationship was rushed and I really do hate how she just shipped Gale off and never had Katniss actively make a decision until it was basically made for her) who can kind of give her this. Sometimes. She's never cared for children, and she can't be happy in them, and sometimes she loses her sense of self because she's barely hanging on. So she reminds herself that goodness does still exist in the world, and she gets over the fact that her children are so sheltered because she wants that for them. And yeah, she can never really recover from the hunger games.

S: XDDD thank you for that philosophical reasoning. I think you should write a book commentary! :)
yeah, i understand that she couldn't recover from the hunger games and how she really didn't want kids. oh well...i wonder what they will do about the... movie.

amethysth: LOL, sorry for writing so much. I've spent a while thinking about this (because I was disappointed too, and I still am, but then there are those things I mentioned before that just make sense, so I can't let myself be annoyed with them... if that makes any sense).

[...Umm, yeah, guys, I really do write that much when I IM people. (Just ask touchthesoul and obsessive_a101.) Shhhh.]

And actually, I could probably say even more about this, but I'll save the discussion for the movie(s). Overall, still mixed feelings, but I'd say the trilogy lies between 4-4.5 stars. Cookies for you if you actually read through all of that, haha. XDD

fic: subtle perspectives [Lily/James]

amethysth — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 02:34:45 GMT

Thanks to everyone who participated in the Lily/James fest! I had a ton of fun being part of that, and I'm incredibly happy to see that awesome people like touchthesoul, mandyloo, and pencil_gal participated! All the entries were amazing, fiction AND art, and yeah, just so much fun! (And a SPECIAL thanks to moon_destiny and touchthesoul for editing the mess my fic was before submission. Seriously, it wouldn't even be readable if it weren't for you two! ♥ )

I even walked away with an awesome award (though basically everything won an award, but it was still an extremely nice thing for them to do and some of the other categories were really amusing XDDD ):

Transfiguration Award for the Best Friendship to Romance Transition!

Insanely fun! Definitely participating again next year, if they do it again.

Fic is posted here (because I'm in the middle of studying and don't have time to format it in this entry), if anyone is interested. Drabbles for the flash fiction round (I got addicted and actually wrote the most!) to be posted soon. :D

[Lily/James] Song-Fic Meme

amethysth — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 19:39:13 GMT

Studying gets boring, so for the past two hours, every once in a while, I took a "random song" break and did this meme. Umm, just remember I'm under tons of stress and pressure before you read these (basically "please don't judge me for my... randomness/strangeness"). Though actually, they're a MILLION times more sane than the fics I'll be writing the SECOND I'm free.

Song-Fic Meme: 1. Pick a character, pairing, or fandom you like.
2. Turn on your music player and put it on random/shuffle.
3. Write a drabble related to each song that plays. You only have the time frame of the song to finish the drabble; you start when the song starts, and stop when it's over. No lingering afterwards! (I cheated and lingered on for ten seconds of the last one, but THAT WAS IT. I swear I've never typed so fast in my life.)
4. Do seven of these, and then post them (DO NOT go back and edit).

(The song isn't mentioned, but some lyrics from each are. You're welcome to guess if you think you know them. --Haha, yes, a second meme inside this one meme. Or maybe I'm too lazy to label them as well. XD )

[Lily], it's almost over,
Let's promise that when we're older,
You'll meet me on Diagon Alley,
Take my hand and fly away with me.

James closed his eyes, hands held over the crystal ball so hesitatingly that if Sirius didn't know he was completely full of it, he might have taken him for a seer. The hint of a smirk was evident on his face, and his partner--somehow a very unhappy Lily Evans--was watching him carefully, part of her hoping that he would take the exam seriously and not jeopardize her grade as well.

"I see... Lily Evans--"

'Oh no, he wouldn't...'

"--in Diagon Alley after graduation, married to the most handsome bloke she's ever laid eyes upon."

Lily wanted to die. Thankfully, Remus came to the rescue.

"I didn't know you wanted Sirius to date her, Prongs."

Sirius barked. "I'm up for it, Evans."

...Or maybe not. Was it too late to transfer to another school yet? Beauxbatons, perhaps? Pigfarts?

Unbelievable sights,
Indescribable feeling,
Soaring, tumbling, freewheeling
Through an endless diamond sky

When James told her he had "the most amazing surprise" for her, Lily had never expected this.

"A magic carpet? Where did you get that from?"

He grinned. "Isn't it amazing? I nicked it from Filch's Office. He considers it "highly volatile; to be incinerated."

She laughed. "But... it just looks like a rug. How do you know it even wor--"

Before she could finish her sentence, he had grabbed her hand, lifting her up on the rug. Taking her into his arms, he nudged the carpet to fly.

And suddenly, they were soaring, high above Hogwarts, into the scintillating summer sky.

"James, this is..." She couldn't even get the words out. Reaching for his face, she kissed him, not even caring that the sudden swift movement jerked the rug, throwing her books (and all her homework) somewhere into the Forbidden Forest, and nearly knocking the glasses off of James' face.

At that very moment, nothing else mattered. Because when a guy treats you like a Disney princess, you hold onto him.

Somehow you saw someone worth saving,
You pulled me back into the light.
Now if ever I can rescue you,
When you need two arms to fall into,
You know exactly where I'll be,
Just look for me--Oh, look for me.
When it seems like you have lost it all,
And you feel like you're in free-fall,
Going deep into the blue,
I will rescue you.

"Can I sit here?" she asked, hoping he would raise his head.

He shrugged, continuing to stare into the distance without uttering a word. He had been that way for the last few days, always at the Astronomy Tower, always just looking out past the scenery, beyond Hogwarts, as if there was a specific place, some secret location he was looking for, but could never really find. Sirius had tried to talk to him several times during the week, but he would always just slip away. Remus couldn't catch his attention, and Peter couldn't relate at all.

She knew she had nothing to do with this, but a James Potter who didn't smile, who didn't prank every living (and several non-living) thing before breakfast, who didn't brush his fingers in his hair or fiddle with that bloody snitch every five minutes simply was not right. She felt like she had to do something, to say something to him, to tell him that she knew what it was like to lose your family, and she wouldn't even pretend that everything was okay because she knew it wasn't.

But seeing him this way--so silent, contemplative, distant... She couldn't even get the words out.

So she sat down beside him, her fingers finding his as he fell into her, ever so slightly, and her message had gotten across.

Just her presence... It was all he ever needed.

Back like you never broke,
You tell a dirty joke.
He touches your leg,
And thinks he's getting close
--For now, you let him.
Just this once,
Just for now,
And just like that,
It's over.

Don't turn away,
Dry your eyes, dry your eyes;
Don't be afraid,
And keep it all inside, all inside.
When you fall apart,
Dry your eyes, dry your eyes.
Life is always hard
For the Belle of the Boulevard.

James was livid--eyes-flashing dangerously, fists-clenching, seeing-red livid and no one in Gryffindor had ever seen the usually grinning Sixth Year so angry before.

"Apologize," he ordered Fenwick. "And do it before I fight whatever it is stopping me from making you regret the second you said two words to her."

It might have been amusing since Benji was half a foot taller than James and twice as wider, but the way his eyes had glazed over, or even the way he was standing--so prepared to attack the second he had a reason to do it made the Ravenclaw prefect not even dare to challenge him. "I'm er... sorry, Lily." Before Potter could call him back and make him say a more appropriate apology, he bolted.

Attempting to calm himself down before he scared as well, James turned to Lily, whose eyes were clenched shut and anyone could see she was trying so hard not to cry. "I'm sorry," he whispered. "Fenwick's a jerk, and I know you can take care of yourself--you probably would have hexed him far worse than I had--but I just... I had to do something. And that stuff he was saying about you, Lily--it's so wrong. Merlin, you're probably the most amazing, most beautiful--"

Though she didn't feel much like smiling, she couldn't stop herself. "I... Thank you," she said, cutting him off.

He didn't know why, but those two words made him feel a million times better than he would have had he actually punched the smirk off of Fenwick's face.

I tried to tell you, "I've got to get away."
I tried to say, "I need my space."
I've got to get some distance in between
My heart and my head,
I'm on the razor's edge,
And I've been here before;
I know the way...

She sighed, watching him laugh with his friends in the Great Hall. He had had his back turned to her the second she walked in, and she knew he was purposefully trying to avoid her eyes, but there wasn't anything she could do. They were mates now--good mates. He had been there for her when no one else had--her issues with her sister, her parents' death, that thing with Severus. She couldn't afford to lose that.

But then, why could she get him out of her head? The sound of his laughter after joking around with her during patrols. The kind-of-frustrating, kind-of-adorable way he still occasionally mussed up his hair (before catching himself and stopping). That devastating expression on his face when she turned him down for the final time...

"Just talk to him," Alice advised. "He'll understand."

"I can't," she explained.

"Why the hell not?"

"BECAUSE I'M IN LOVE WITH JAMES BLOODY POTTER," she shouted, tired and frustrated and confused and so sick of all this drama.

Alice laughed. A few seats away, James blinked, not sure he had heard that correctly, while. Sirius and Peter "whooped" like mad.

...Merlin no, had she just said that out loud?

And I see you're sitting next to me...
It's been four weeks at least!
I just can't get the words right
On this blank piece of paper.
But then I wrote,
"Do you like me? Yes or no?
Do you think that I am cute?
Would you date me? (You can say, 'maybe.')
I just have to know..."

"Prongs, why have you been staring at Evans this entire Potions lesson?" Remus asked, thinking the question was harmless. "You didn't prank her again, did you?"

James rolled his eyes. "No, Moony, I didn't." Returning back to his red-head-stalking, he said to Sirius, "Does it look like she's writing on that piece of paper? The crumpled one on her desk?"

Sirius blinked. "Umm no. Why?"

He groaned. "I don't get it. It takes HALF a second to mark off a box. HALF A SECOND."

His friends stared. "A box?"

"YES! I asked her if she would go out with me, and to mark off yes or maybe."

Remus, Sirius, and Peter burst out laughing. "Tell me you didn't, Prongs."

"But I DID," James claimed. When their laughter increased, he frowned, baffled. "Why? Asking her in person didn't seem to work, so I thought I'd write to her instead."

Sirius only laughed harder. "No reason, Prongs. It's always nice to know when your best mate has suddenly become a pre-teen Muggle girl."

'Cause when I looked into your eyes,
And you dared to stare right back,
You should have said, "Nice to meet you; I'm your other half."

James didn't know what was wrong with him. Every day this week, he had somehow been partnered with Lily Evans in all his classes, and something about her was just... messing with his head.

Though he knew he wasn't a particularly focused thirteen-year-old boy, he had never been so distracted in his life. Whenever she was around him, all he could notice was the brilliant red hue of her hair, or the way her eyes grew just a millimeter bigger whenever she was excited or on the verge of figuring a particular difficult spell out, the way she scrunched up her nose when she couldn't make sense of something or the way her laughter was like the softest bells twinkling at Christmastime. He could never pay attention to anything else whenever she was near (and she probably thought he was the biggest moron for being able to do nothing but stumble and stutter in her presence).

What was wrong with him?

"Hey, mate, are you okay?" Sirius asked him.

"Do you think there's something strange about Evans?" he said instead.

"What? There's something ALWAYS strange about Evans."

"No," James frowned. "I mean, like... She just makes me so... dizzy. And the world is always warmer around her. And my heart's always beating so fast, I swear it'll burst. Like if I spend another second with her, I'll implode."

At that very second, on the other side of the room, a frustrated redhead shouted, "I DON'T KNOW WHAT'S WRONG WITH ME. IT'S LIKE HE PUT A SPELL ON ME--A SPELL!"

Sirius barked. "Whatever you have, it looks like Evans has it, too."

***

Wow, that was wayyyy too much fun. I'm so tempted to do more, but I'll resist. Back to that awful to-do list!

more books... because they're all so pretty.

amethysth — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 20:46:17 GMT

So I've been doing some reading lately... (Is anyone actually surprised?)

"Regina?"

I hate myself because his voice gives me hope in the place in my stomach that's most anxious, and then I hate myself even more because when I turn, seeing him makes that feeling worse. Or better. I don't know.

"I was looking all over for you," Michael says, causing another desperate hopeful twinge in my gut. "I wanted to talk to you. About last Friday."

"Okay," I say.

"I don't think we should hang around each other anymore."

He doesn't try to soften it or anything; he just says it. I don't think we should hang around each other anymore. Before I can even try to get a grip on it, he's saying more things I don't really want to hear.

"I wasn't fair to you. I let you sit with me at lunch and I let you do it for the wrong reasons and I should've known better--" He pauses. "--Even if you deserved it."

My mouth goes dry. "Great."

"Regina..."

"It's fine."

"I just think it would--"

"It's fine, Michael," I say.

"I can't..." He trails off. I don't even understand why he's still talking, because I said it was fine. "And you're really in it, and I just think it's bullshit. It's a waste of time."

"Okay," I say. "Thanks. I'll see you--" I laugh. "Oh wait, I won't."

"I'm just trying to give you a reason--"

"My life is bullshit. I got that part. And I deserve it. You don't need to say anymore. I got it."

"That's not what I--"

"Kara and Anna--total bullshit. Got it. And Donnie? That was total--"

I press my fingers to my lips before I realize what I'm doing. It's like my body won't accept calling it bullshit because it wasn't. What Donnie did to me is still with me. It doesn't go away. A horrified realization crawls across Michael's face, because he didn't think that far back, which is okay, because I didn't deserve that.

But it hurts.

"Regina--" He sounds stunned, like he can't believe he has to backtrack on his awesome speech about how my life is such bullshit. "Regina, I--"

"It's fine, " I repeat, stepping around him. "You don't owe me anything."

Summary: Climbing to the top of the social ladder is hard--falling from it is even harder. Regina Afton used to be a member of the Fearsome Fivesome, an all-girl clique both feared and revered by the students at Hallowell High... until vicious rumors about her and her best friend's boyfriend start going around. Now Regina's been "frozen out" and her ex-best friends are out for revenge. If Regina was guilty, it would be one thing, but the rumors are far from the terrifying truth and the bullying is getting more intense by the day. She takes solace in the company of Michael Hayden, a misfit with a tragic past who she herself used to bully. Friendship doesn't come easily for these onetime enemies, and as Regina works hard to make amends for her past, she realizes Michael could be more than just a friend... if threats from the Fearsome Foursome don't break them both first.

God, this book... Seriously, Courtney Summers is just... brilliant. She's definitely becoming one of my favorite novelists. (Does anyone remember my 'OMG THIS BOOK' post from September when I read her debut novel, Cracked Up to Be? Yeah, this post is going to end up being like that.)

So in case you couldn't tell from that excerpt or the odd youtube vid (I chose it because there's something creepy and haunting about it--God, Regine, at least act like you don't give a damn basically describes so much of this book... I think it's awesome), this book is about Regina Afton and what happens to her after her best friend's boyfriend tries to rape her at a party (and none of her friends believe that it was rape). I thought it would be like Just Listen, and the situation kind of is, but it's more of a combination of that novel with Mean Girls and... I don't even know. I'd certainly say it's original.

It's intense. The writing is simple, but elegant, and its simplicity is part of what makes some of the narrations haunting, raw, and emotional. Seriously, there's so much more to this book than what the summary makes it out to be. It's more than just another high school novel. It deals with handling best friends who aren't good people, who make you do things you don't want to do, but you never stand up for yourself and you do it (and then how everyone ends up hating you because you're the person actually torturing them, though they realize on some level that it was your terrifying, mean friend too). Or how you've done so much that you subconsciously didn't agree with that you hate yourself so much (and the people you hang around with), so your body develops a physical disorder. Or how (and I quote), some girls are just really fucked up (hence the title).

One of the biggest challenges is the relationship developing between Michael and Regina (how do you befriend a person who made your life hell for years? how do you see her as a person and not a tormentor? and for Regina, how does she even go about making amends? Is there any point, or will he forever be on his guard, either waiting for her to mess up whatever tentative thing they have, or fighting the desire to want to see her "suffer up close" because part of you knows she deserves it?), and even bigger than that, I think, is trying to understand Regina as a character (and eventually coming to love her--which I did) because she doesn't make the greatest first impression, and she really wasn't a nice person. It's amazing how Courtney Summers gets inside her head, and while there are all these inner challenges the reader faces while reading it, Regina realistically wins you over, and Courtney Summers pulls it off brilliantly.

I'm going to still say I like Cracked Up to Be more, but only because I loved the suspense. This one isn't a mystery-type thing (it's not like Just Listen, when you don't exactly know what happened til the middle and you hit Annabelle's reflections), and they really are different, so they shouldn't even be compared (but I can't help doing so).

Read both if you get the chance. I can't stress enough how much I love this author.

It's hard not to notice Terra Cooper.She's tall, blond, and has an enviable body.

But with one turn of her cheek, all people notice is her unmistakably "flawed" face. Terra secretly plans to leave her stifling small town in the Northwest and escape to an East Coast college, but gets pushed off-course by her controlling father.

When an unexpected collision puts Terra directly in Jacob's path, the handsome but quirky Goth boy immediately challenges her assumptions about herself and her life, and she is forced in yet another direction. With her carefully laid plans disrupted, will Terra be able to find her true path?
[from book jacket]

North of Beautiful is just... beautiful. There's no better word for it. The writing is gorgeous, the two main characters (and their mothers) just capture your heart from their very first introduction, and the actual story is just.... breathtaking? compelling? I can't even describe it. (I wish I still had the book [it went back to the library], so that I could fill this space up with so many amazing quotes, though I know 75% of them would end up being cute moments between Jacob and Terra.)

This book follows Terra's own personal journey in being comfortable with who she is--her relationship with her mother, brothers, her friend Karin, her boyfriend Erik, and most of all, her father (I just wanted to hit him 75% of the time--what a douche), and the way these relationships and her port wine stain control her life. And Jacob... He was just amazing. I loved the way they just kind of... charged into each other's lives after that first meeting, even though they were still virtually strangers, and it was just beautiful the way their friendship and love and respect (and a lot of things that are missing from most of her other relationships) developed.

And the underlying theme of maps and discoveries and new lands (and geocaching, which sounds like a blast and I've never heard of it before) just really brought the whole book together. Wholeheartedly recommended.

Ellie remembers how the boys kissed her. Touched her. How they begged for more. And when she gave it to them, she felt loved. For a while anyway. So when Josh, an eager virgin with a troubled home life, leads her from a party to the backseat of his van, Ellie follows. But their "one-time thing" is far from perfect: Ellie gets pregnant. Josh reacts with shame and heartbreak, while their confidantes, Caleb and Corinne, deal with their own complex swirl of emotions. No matter what Ellie chooses, all four teenagers will be forced to grow up a little faster as a result. Told alternately from each character’s point of view, this deeply insightful novel explores the aftershocks of the biggest decision of one fragile girl’s life — and the realities of leaving innocence behind.
[from book jacket]

I feel like this book had the potential to be really poignant and meaningful ("Jumping off swings," trying to escape who you are or your geogrpahy and just fly towards your dreams, is this beautiful metaphor that really carries through the entire book, showing different types of relationships--Ellie's innocence with Corinne when she was younger and how she always wanted to jump as far as her friend, the way Josh wants to leave his home life behind and everything that happened with Ellie and the baby (I'm not telling you, but the conflict is abortion or giving the baby up for adoption, so it's really hard on both of them), and the adorable kind of love that develops between Corinne and Caleb), really beautiful, and just... really amazing and thought-provoking, but while there are certainly many moments that are so beautiful in this book, it doesn't quite reach that level. The characters aren't cliche (Josh isn't a jerk and Ellie isn't a slore (I'll elaborate on this later) at all, the story is well written and realistic and kind of emotional, and while you sometimes want to slap Ellie in the face for... not being stupid, but thinking stupid things or not understanding things that are right in front of her, and you kind of wish that Caleb, though he's the most likable character and--really, adorable is the only way to describe him, would respect his friend also (he chooses to respect Ellie and Corinne's requests over Josh's and ends up not keeping his friend informed at all about what's going on with the mother or the child when it's obvious that he cares and even though they want nothing to do with him, part of him is dying through not knowing)---

Sorry, I didn't mean to jumble up a million thoughts into that one sentence. My point is, the problem I had with this book were the alternating perspectives. It's written in first person point of view, and each chapter is a different character, and I guess this could have worked if maybe it focused on two characters instead or the book was twice the original length, but because there were so many, and each had their own issues as well as the main issue of the pregnancy, it failed to make as much of an impact as it could. I closed this book remembering some beautiful excerpts, but still feeling like I didn't really know any of the characters that well.

By the way, the summary makes Ellie seem like a slore--for want of a better term. She isn't. She's actually this kind of innocent, really lonely girl, with parents who don't express love really well (you get the feeling that they don't really care, except for maybe two moments towards the end, when it's obvious that they just don't show affection well), that it seems like she's a little neglected. So after the first time it happens (which isn't covered in the book, but only reflected upon later), it's like she didn't know what was happening (she wasn't the experienced one), but then later, she remembers how she felt loved and comforted in that guy's arms before anything happened and she wants to feel that way again, so when it starts happening again, she doesn't stop it. Until, well, she gets pregnant.

Anyway, it's still a relatively good read (I'd give it somewhere between 3 and 3.5 stars), though I have to confess, I picked it up because I really loved the cover.

--Anyway, sorry for book-spamming flist again. These are probably the last ones I'm reading for a while, since I've officially begun spring semester.

[OH! I WAS JUST SORTED INTO HUFFLEPUFF AT hogwartsishome. SO EXCITED!]

...I love to read, okay?

amethysth — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 21:47:20 GMT

I don't know if you guys realized this, but... I really really really love to read. A lot. In fact, I dragged my parents to the library in the middle of a snow storm just so I could have all these awesome books to read. Well, I didn't know that they were awesome at the time. I just had a list that I wanted to check out of authors and pretty covers and interesting summaries. Anyway, I didn't want to spam you guys, so basic summaries and covers for display, but actual reviews under the cut.

"Everyone has their awkward stage. Lanky, gawky, chubby, beanpole--whatever. It's just a phase, right? Except my awkward stage has stuck with me..."

Despite her charm and biting wit, 17-year-old Cyrie Bergerac doesn't have it all. Certainly not the heart of gorgeous and smart Eddie "Rox" Roxanninoff. Further complicating her crush is Cyrie's pretty but tongue-tied friend, Leyla, who admits that she's into Rox. When Leyla asks for Cyrie's help getting him to see her true self, Cyrie starts writing Rox e-mails about music and love and life... in Leyla's name.

Cyrie's got an armory of clever retorts for every lame insult that comes her way, but how do you get someone to know the real you if you can't show your face? Will the pain of watching her best friend hook up with her biggest crush cause Cyrie to face her worst fears and confess her love?

So this isn't an actual review (mostly because I usually review really long, complicated books that I like to dissect and analyze to pieces--or short, striking books that move me so much I'm stuck thinking about them for weeks and weeks, and this is not one of those). In fact this book jacket description is both accurate and misleading. At Face Value is this cutesy, less-than-300-page paperback YA novel I picked up from the library just because I liked the cover (shhh!). It sounds really cliche (it's a twist on a cliche), kind of vapid (it isn't), and totally fluffy (it is). It IS incredibly fluffy, but I actually ended up really enjoying it anyway--mostly because of the animated characters. Cyrie is intelligent and quick-witted, the kind of girl who always has something to say and knows exactly how to respond in confrontational situations (and she has plenty of them--I just realized in the middle of writing this that that stupid book jacket summary failed to mention that her problem with her face is that she has this giant nose and everyone is always bugging her about it and so, in turn, it just bothers her immensely. The point of this novel is to explore the notion that "true beauty is in the interior, not the exterior," so it's really weird that they didn't directly mention that in the synopsis). Eddie/Rox is the kind of guy I'd say is perfect--kind, witty, intelligent, athletic, but I don't know... It's such a short novel that, while I'd definitely say it was developed, he's not in it enough for me to judge him (otherwise, I'm sure someone reading this is going, "What a Gary Stu," but he wasn't really. He wasn't perfect perfect. I'm just calling him that because in my opinion, this guy is awesome).

But yeah, while it really did have some substance (these characters are way too geeky for it not to be somewhat substantial) and I loved the exchanged emails and the quirky dialogue, it wasn't like one of those books that would keep you awake thinking, "Wow, that was incredible. This book is amazing!", so I'm not going to actually review it. It's the kind of thing you want to read just to smile (or laugh--I thought it was really funny sometimes), and if that's right up your alley, I say, go for it. It might have been a bit predictable in one plot point (I just guessed two things and it ended up being accurate, so don't let this detract you if you're interested--short, fluffy novels aren't exactly valued for their unpredictability), and it does sound cliche, but for the kind of book it is, it's actually pretty original and I really did enjoy reading it.

[Edit: Haha, I just realized this is a retelling of Cyrano de Bergerac (her last name is Bergerac also! I can't believe I didn't notice this before!), only the genre is more romantic comedy than tragedy!]

Parting quote:

"Sometimes I wonder what would happen if I pulled down all the walls I've built up and just started fresh. No concrete. No spackling. No paint, even. Just me being me and not worrying about how I look or act or sound. Maybe if we all did this then we'd just be able to look our problems or our loves in the face and say..."

[So I'm a sucker for all the cute emails they send each other, and they really are substantial. In fact, I'd probably fill this entry with some of the beautiful candid words they exchanged, but I don't have the time. I'd recommend this book just for these alone, actually.]

"Just listen," Adam says with a voice that sounds like a shrapnel.
I open my eyes wide now. I sit up as much as I can. And I listen.
"Stay," he says.
[from book jacket]

I don't know where to begin with this book. It is probably the most beautiful, most heartbreaking, loveliest book (yeah, lovely is certainly fitting) I have read in a long time. I don't even know how to describe it. It's serious and funny, but the best word I can use to describe it is poignant, about the struggle we (through the protagonist, Mia) face every day, and the decisions we make, but even more than that, it's about the choice for survival...

This book is written like an organized montage of memories--present tense, but overlooking the past, present, and future all at once. Mia, her brother, and her parents on their way to visit some family friends and the weather causes a truck to hit their car in such a way that her parents die instantly, her brother's in critical condition, and her body suffers many, many injuries. For practically the entire book, it's like she's having an "out of body" experience. Her "spirit" is no longer attached to the physical part of her, and she's watching herself in the ICU as family, friends, doctors, and nurses visit her, and she realizes (after hearing a conversation one of the nurses have with her grandparents) that in this limbo state, it's up to her to make a decision--to stay or to leave, to join her dead immediate family or stay on earth with all these other people who care about her?

I don't think I've read a book that has affected me this deeply, this emotionally in a while. Honestly, it was beautiful, and parts of it really made me teary. I don't think "five stars" expresses how incredible it was, and for a book that's approximately 200 pages, that's a lot to achieve. Seriously, this is at the top of my recommendations so far for 2010. Simply breathtaking.

(Also, it includes some awesome characters--Mia's got the coolest parents and the sweetest boyfriend in the world, and the cutest little brother--and tons of music (she plays the cello and dates this guitar player and I think the parts about how they started dating and their ability to appreciate both kinds of music are truly the best), so if you like either, totally worth reading just for them. And for the sweet memories.)

There were no surprises in Gatlin County. We were pretty much the epicenter of the middle of nowhere. At least, that’s what I thought. Turns out, I couldn’t have been more wrong.
There was a curse.
There was a girl.
And in the end, there was a grave.

I should have reviewed this the second I read it because I don't really remember it anymore, but I'll try my best. Basically, this book interested me because it's like Sailor Moon meets Tsubasa meets Impossible meets reverse-Twilight meets To Kill a Mockingbird with witches (not Harry Potter, but like the classic concept of witches who had to hide out and practice magic to protect themselves from other demonic creatures or other witches out there). Umm, maybe I should explain...

Ethan Wate lives in the middle of nowhere. He's a sophomore in high school, plays basketball on the team, has a cool best friend and is generally-liked, but nothing really exciting happens in his life or his town. His mother died in a car accident a year ago, his father is shut up in his room all day writing a book, and his primary guardian is Amma, the housekeeper who believes in spirits and tarot cards and magic.

Then, suddenly, he starts hearing cryptic songs and dreaming about this girl who is reaching out for him. They're both falling, and while he doesn't really understand why, she's calling to him for help, like he's the only one who can save her. Something catastrophic always happens in these dreams, and every time (they're reoccurring), he always wakes up covered in sweat and mud (in the dream, there's lots of dirt, and their hands when they reach for each other are always muddy).

One day, this new, beautiful girl Lena enrolls into the high school in his grade, and suddenly the town is going crazy because this girl is the niece of Mr. Ravenwood, the local recluse/pariah. People are intrigued by her because she's new and from so many different parts of the world (she spent her life traveling all over), but they stay away because a) she's related to a supposed-maniac-who-keeps-to-himself-and-never-socializes and b) strange things happen around her. When Ethan gets a good look at her hands, when her dreams become even more frequent and even more vivid, he realizes that she's the girl from his dream and he's drawn to her.

I won't give away the whole story, but the basic gist is that--gradually (it's not rushed at all, and the length of this book proves it)--the two of them become friends, but she hesitates. It's obvious she's hiding something. Eventually, Ethan realizes that it's because she's a witch, or a Caster, which is the term they use and she's so cryptic and anti-social because she's a living time bomb. When she turns sixteen, because of the curse left upon her family, either the light or the darkness will claim her, and she's worried that she'll be taken by the darkness. If this happens, because of the type of Caster she is (her powers lean toward 'natural,' which is rumored to be the most dangerous), she's afraid of what kind of havoc she'll wreak on... well, not exactly the world, but her family and the people she loves.

As Ethan and she discover that they have some odd mental connection, and that the dreams are implying that he has some role in all of this, he falls in love with her, all the while discovering that there is some history between his ancestors and hers, that his mother had something to do with all this and that might be why she had that fatal "accident" last year, that Amma and Lena's uncle know more than they're letting on... It's complicated. A battle of good versus evil, a love story and a tragedy all at once.

To be honest, I'm still not sure what I thought about this book. I loved the story. Plot-wise, it's awesome, actually. A combination of some of the best parts of all those stories I listed above. I'm guessing this is what Melissa Marr and all those other famous YA authors who reviewed it liked so much about it. The story is actually handled really well, and the writing is not terrible (it's not exactly brilliant either, just average). What did bother me about it was that, while it was awesome that it was written in Ethan's perspective, sometimes he sounded a bit feminine (especially when he talked about his feelings). It wasn't over the top, but it was there enough to bother me sometimes. What really really bothered me was that while the action and the development is spread out really well in the entire book, there's a point around the climax and during it when it gets REALLY abrupt--so much is happening that it's hard to keep up.

I wouldn't really say it seemed like Twilight because of all the other stuff happening in this book, but I guess the comparison is unavoidable. He doesn't really fall in love fast--there's definite development--but after he does fall in love, I guess it seemed like the extent of the love wasn't plausible. Not always, just sometimes. I can't even explain this. Like, for most of the time, you know he loves her, but he hasn't known her that long, and he's behaving the way a guy would, and it's sweet. But for like a second, you'll get a glimpse of the I-must-have-loved-you-forever type thing, and I guess again, Twilight puts me off this because I think obsessive creepy stalker Edward and his You are my LIFE now and it weirds me out.

Part of me feels like the analysis was too-thorough just because it's a small-town/new-person/love-story thing and Twilight exhausted my patience for this, but the plot really is handled better and there really is one. I don't really love the characters as much as I do for some other series (Gemma Doyle and Harry Potter, for example) and none of them particularly left an impression on me, but I loved the story behind the ancestors, I loved the way the ancient book and the dreams were utilized, and some concepts really were original.

Overall, I enjoyed it well enough, but I don't know how I'd rate it. It's an average book with average characters and average prose, but a really interesting story. I don't really do star ratings, but for this one, I'd have to say about/almost 3.5 out of 5 at best. If the characters had grabbed me and the prose and perspective was better, it would be at least a 4. So it's totally worth a read, just to see for yourself (though I don't know if I'd buy the thing).

Oh, and WARNING, this is a series. I just know it is. The creepy song at the end sort of hinted at it, and then it just made sense that this WOULD be a series because WB just bought the rights to the films they're using to fill the spot available after HP is done with. (This void makes me really sad, but obviously, they have to fill it.)

Tamsin Greene comes from a long line of witches, and she was supposed to be one of the most Talented among them. But Tamsin's magic never showed up. Now seventeen, Tamsin attends boarding school in Manhattan, far from her family. But when a handsome young professor mistakes her for her very Talented sister, Tamsin agrees to find a lost family heirloom for him. The search—and the stranger—will prove to be more sinister than they first appeared, ultimately sending Tamsin on a treasure hunt through time that will unlock the secret of her true identity, unearth the sins of her family, and unleash a power so vengeful that it could destroy them all.
[from the publisher]

This is probably one of the best YA fantasy books I've read in a while. Tamsin is this incredibly believable character, and the premise really grabbed me. Imagine being in a family of witches and being told that you were prophecised to be this amazing witch and then discover that they were wrong--you have no power at all. It's like James and Lily Potter being told that Harry would destroy Lord Voldemort, but it turned out that the entire time... Harry was a squib all along. And to grow up with that constant reminder, especially since Tam lives in a village of witches and they all look down at her like this failure... It has to be difficult, and I thought MacCullough really captured this.

Writing wise, this story is brilliant. I was absorbed in the plot, Tam was awesome, and everything was just so exciting. I kind of wish I hadn't read the spoilery summary though (that's from the publisher, so I'm sorry if TECHNICALLY I just spoiled you) because you can't really tell, if you haven't read the summary, that that stranger is suspicious. I mean, I thought he was, but I wouldn't have realized as quickly without that knowledge.

What I will say about this book that isn't so positive is that while I thought Gabriel was a great character (handsome, musical, talented, her partner in crime--what else could you want?), I thought the relationship (he was her best friend when she was younger and then he moved away and a few months later, she found out she had no magic, and she everyone else was avoiding her, so she didn't keep in touch, thinking he, too, would want nothing to do with her. but then he comes back, and while there is awkwardness and some development and it is natural, it still felt like there was something missing... Like it needed a bit MORE romantic build up, but I guess in a short book with so much happening, something had to give and the romance really isn't the point of the book at all, so I guess the author was right in letting it go... But I still say it would have been better if she had built it up a tad more and maybe considered making it a bit longer...

A lot of reviews focused on the fact that she smokes and it wasn't in any way related to the plot. I think they wanted some emotional reason why she smoked, that it had some connection to her being the black sheep of her family or something and while it seemed this way because of how the author chose to introduce the smoking (her sister was bugging her, she started smoking, her sister started saying how it would be harmful to her body, and she started saying how she didn't care... and I don't know, it sounded like there was a connection at the time)... I don't really think this has anything to do with anything. So she smokes? I think it's a bad habit and I'd personally never do it, but sometimes, people just smoke because they feel like it. She goes to school in New York City. Trust me, lots of people smoke in NYC without any deep reason for it. They just feel like it. So yeah, umm, don't let this deter you from reading it.

The one ACTUAL gripe I have about this is that... *SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER* Tam's family lied to her about her powers for all those years and they only tell her when the situation demands it, and while she is rightfully angry that they pretty much destroyed her childhood (think about all those sneers, all that time she spent thinking she was worth nothing) and prevented her from practicing magic like every other person in her family, she isn't as angry as you expect her to be. I mean, I know she's in the middle of trying to fix this dangerous thing that's happening, so she can't dwell too much on how her family lied to her about who and what she is for so long, but it just didn't seem natural how she pardoned them so easily and carried on with what it is she had to do... I guess you can call this maturity, but for a seventeen year old, for this seventeen year old, it really didn't seem all that realistic.

In spite of all these things (I had to seriously nitpick on this book to even assemble this list of "well... this could be better"), I still recommend this book. It's a great urban fantasy, and I definitely would consider it a page turner. I started it late at night and couldn't stop reading until I finished. It was that great. Definitely check it out!

And keep in mind that this is most likely a series (or it, at least has one sequel). It BETTER be, in any case, because THAT ENDING was... Well, I'll let you see for yourself.

[BTW, I don't know if it's just me, but I am in love with this cover.]

About three things I was absolutely certain. First, Edwart was most likely my soul mate, maybe. Second, there was a vampire part of him–which I assumed was wildly out of his control–that wanted me dead. And third, I unconditionally, irrevocably, impenetrably, heterogeneously, gynecologically, and disreputably wished he had kissed me.

Pale and klutzy, Belle arrives in Switchblade, Oregon looking for adventure, or at least an undead classmate. She soon discovers Edwart, a super-hot computer nerd with zero interest in girls. After witnessing a number of strange events–Edwart leaves his tater tots untouched at lunch! Edwart saves her from a flying snowball!–Belle has a dramatic revelation: Edwart is a vampire. But how can she convince Edwart to bite her and transform her into his eternal bride, especially when he seems to find girls so repulsive?

I didn't expect this book to be amazing (it isn't at all, actually)--I don't really know what I expected, but it wasn't what I got. This book has some amusing lines, and while I get that the terrible writing is just a parody of Meyer's style (it is--you can tell based on the amount of adverbs and incorrect adjectives used, or the long, run on sentences that don't seem to have a point, or the content itself), but it was still really difficult to read and though I think this was the point, I had to force myself to get through it (which, again, is a feat since this is a really short book). I wouldn't recommend reading it at all to be honest (if you want a parody, just read Twilight), but it had some pretty hilarious quotes that I will love to share. In fact, they were the best parts of the book.

I turned to thank him kindly for the use of his pencil but he was looking at me in horror, his mouth agape, an open invitation to all sorts of airborne organisms like birds. He grabbed the pencil and started wiping his hands with baby wipes and rubbing the pencil with Purell. Then he drew a circle around himself in chalk and returned to copying notes from the board, singing this jingle amiably to himself:

"Germs contagious. Contagion alert. But Edwart and Purell are stronger than dirt."

"Were your eyes green yesterday?" I asked quickly.
He looked at me with a blank stare--the blank stare of a god. The kind of god in a commercial for a hubcap repair shop.
"Well, yeah. I mean, I have green eyes," he said.

My mind was moving quickly: the red stuff in Edwart's mouth, his being late to class during the blood lab, the bats, Transylvania... It didn't make sense. I thought for a while longer. I took an Odwalla bar break. I thought some more.
Then, suddenly, I remembered the accident, and Edwart's snow-proof body, and his eyes that changed from I-don't-remember to green, and I knew. YES! VAMPIRE!

"So I just sign here?" I asked.
"Yes. Right below the words, 'Edwart hereby possesses the soul of:'"
"Okay!" I signed my name.

"That's what I mean about you. You're special. We both are. We both think about more things than others. You want to have a discussion about those things?"
"Sure," I said. "I'd love to have a discussion about those things."
We had a discussion. It was really interesting.

"He knows I'm with you."
"Fat lot of use that'll be when we're marooned on the road. Forever. It's a good thing my parents inserted a chip in my arm that tells them where I am and lists the possible ways I could go missing."
"I'm sorry," I said, but I wasn't really. When guys gnash their teeth and knit their brows in a broody, furious expression, it means they have found their soulmate.

"As if you could outrun me!" he shouted.
"As if you could outfight me!" he punched the air.
"As if you could outclimb me!" He hugged a tree and tried to wrap his legs around it before tumbling to the ground.
"Now are you afraid? Now will you go out with me?"

"So all this time you thought I was a real vampire?" Edwart whispered furiously.
"Sure," I said, "you know, the lion falls for the lamb."
"What?"
"Sorry, it's easier for me to explain things in animal terms."

"Belle," he said, "it's time to go."
"Already?"
"It's been five hours. We've been lying on the grass staring at each other for five hours. Please... I really need to get home."

I had no one to turn to--neither vampire nor human. 'God, I need a werewolf friend,' I thought.

I was getting a little impatient. Were we going to have to wait four books and thousands of pages for anything to happen?

...Sorry for the really long entry. I just thought this would be better than reviewing all these books in separate posts and spamming flists. Anyway, there's actually MORE, believe or not, but I still have to read them. I don't know if I mentioned this, but I'm too lazy to review them, so if you guys like awesome YA, realistic, contemplative stuff, check out Sarah Zarr's Once Was Lost and if you're into steam punk, awesome historical retellings, definitely read Scott Westerfeld's Leviathan, though keep in mind that this one is a series as well (yeah, I didn't know, so now I'm anticipating a sequel next October, though that is only a rumored release date). Happy reading, guys!

...once upon a time.

amethysth — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 22:42:27 GMT

I was supposed to review several books in this post. I just finished Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl that I know several people have been asking about, but I don't think I have the energy to gather my thoughts about it right now. I'm still a little... disoriented.

I went to the bookstore today to read North of Beautiful. It's been missing from my library for over a year now (someone checked it out and never returned it) and it keeps getting sold out at the bookstores, but I actually saw a copy today. Then I decided I wouldn't read it yet because I want to buy it (later, when things are on sale because books these days are so expensive), so I was going to read Waiting for You by Susane Colasanti instead. But we ended up spending so much time looking through their humor/children's section (my sister wanted to get odd presents for some of her friends), and time just flew. I knew I'd never be able to finish it, so I went for the smaller book, Living Dead Girl by Elizabeth Scott. It's the ONE book of hers I have yet to read and it's really difficult to find, but Borders had it, so I was in luck.

I heard this book was "written beautifully, but absolutely haunting and too disturbing for words," a unanimous consensus. Every one-star review states this. Every five star review states this. The appreciation of the disturbing is what makes the difference. Basically, everyone agrees that this book is brilliant, but some just wish they had warning.

I had warning, but... I found it... alluring? The critiques interested me. The fact that I love this author and she wrote something SO bizarre interested me. It was just calling. I answered. Part of me wishes I hadn't...

"Once upon a time, I did not live in Shady Pines.
Once upon a time, my name was not Alice.
Once upon a time, I didn't know how lucky I was."

"Alice" is a fifteen-year-old girl who was abducted when she was really young, taken when she had been separated from her class by an older man ("Ray") at the aquarium. By threatening to harm her family (after lying to her about how he'll take her home to discover where she lives), he gets her to do whatever. For the first few years, she cries all the time. He forces himself upon her, abusing her both sexually and physically, and he starves her, wanting to keep her 'young' and 'childlike' all the time because that's what he likes. (Ray was sexually abused as a child by his mother, so he's a really disturbed human being. If you can even call him that. Seriously, I wanted to punch this guy every time I read about him because 'douche' and 'jerk' do not even begin to describe what scum he is.)

"They know I do not belong here, that there is something not right about me. But they will do nothing about it.
They still say nothing, ask no questions.
No one does. No one has.
No one ever will..."

By the time she's fifteen, she has pretty much given up hope that someone will save her. She knows she can't be saved, so when Ray tells her to find someone else to take her place (since "Alice" was getting too old), she's fine with it. Another little girl will lose her life, but at least now, "Alice" won't have to suffer. She recognizes, on some level, that this is wrong, but she's so far removed from reality by now that survival is all she cares about. Even if it means letting Ray torture her. Even if it means delivering someone else to him, so that he'd torture her less. Or maybe even let her go/kill her.

"I can see myself in the plastic and it waves me into a strange, distorted creature, the shadow of something or someone.
I look wrong. I look dead.
I'm not though. I'm only partway there, a living dead girl.
I have been for five years."

What is chilling about "Alice"'s story is that she is telling her story AS she is living it (beginning from when she's fifteen). This book is written in the present tense, first person, and many chapters begin with "once upon a time" (especially used to relate events of the past), and tell a story in a seemingly harmless way, but the things she's saying are so... disturbing. She lives in a distorted reality, but this reality is no fantasy world. This is OUR world, and that is what chilled me most. Elizabeth Scott uses short sentences, but her writing is so simple and to the point, her words so carefully chosen that they really are "beautiful" and "haunting." You hear about abductions and sexual assaults all the time, but what hit me most was NOT the content of this book, but... the imagery. Everything is so vivid, but this is both what is fascinating and disturbing about it.

This book is a five star book. It IS brilliant, and if you can stomach it, please give it a go. It's the kind of YA novel you don't necessarily want to read, but you SHOULD at one point in your life because this is some girl's story. This is real, and someone out there is living it, as the rest of the world pays no mind.

I'm not finished with this book. We had to leave the bookstore when I just hit page 80 (almost halfway through), and I'm a little glad we did. I don't think I would have stopped reading. I felt like I had to know what happened to this girl--the mark of a good writer. But well, it's almost New Years, I'm on Christmas break, and I was in SUCH a good mood before I started reading. I've never winced/cringed/made as many faces as I did today while reading this book under the span of an hour. My sister said I looked like I was in pain, and I think the mental anguish was just too much for me. I overestimated my mental strength. (But I think... a while from now... maybe after finals or midterms next term, if I'm given the opportunity to read it again, I'll go for it. 'Alice' remains in my mind haunting me, and she can't be freed until I know.)

Book Review: Going Bovine, Libba Bray

amethysth — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 23:27:34 GMT

I probably should be doing some school work or writing, but I started this book yesterday and literally could not put it down...

So your name is Cameron Smith and you suffer from an intense form of apathy. You're incredibly intelligent, but you don't try to get grades above straight Cs. You don't "experience" music; you only listen to it to mock it. You have no friends, you don't care about yourself, or anyone else. You can't connect with your dad, who is possibly cheating on your mother and spends more time with his physics than he does with his family, or your mom, who is basically a doormat living through stories and myths she teaches her students, or your twin sister, who was probably once your best friend and now is so above you on the social ladder that she barely says two words to you. You've never gone on adventures or parties or road trips. In fact, the only time that felt real to you in life took place when you were five-years-old and almost drowned in the Small World ride at Disney World.

And then suddenly, you find out you have mad cow disease (the human form), and you're most definitely going to die. So you receive a vision in the form of a punk rocker angel who tells you not to fret--there's a cure! You just have to take this kid to whom you've never spoken with you and look for random but connected clues and you'll find this doctor and all will be well. You think you're losing your mind (you are), but since you've suddenly decided that you don't want to die, you go along with it. Suddenly, you're doing things you never imagined--rescuing talking garden gnomes who swear it's their mission to return to this parallel dimension, trying to save the world through music and physics, crashing parties you've never dreamed of attending, being a participant on a reality show and winning a ton of money, attending a jazz concert and speaking with a legendary musician, wishing on the tree of wishes, falling in love, connecting with your sister, building friendships with the gnome and that guy you once didn't care to know in such a way that you can't imagine never laughing and joking and being with them at all. You don't realize it, but somehow, you begin to care, to care more about... everything like you never thought possible, and for the first time in your life since that time when you were five at Disney World, you're actually happy. You're not simply existing, you're alive and this makes all the difference.

Going Bovine is just absolutely brilliant. It's hilarious, witty, and thoughtful, and honestly, I never thought it would affect me as much as it did. I thought Libba Bray was crazy the first time I heard about this book, and of course, I still think that, but this is not a fantasy novel. It's realistic fiction disguised as fantasy fiction and science fiction with a dab of young adult, but honestly, under it all, it's just... real. Cameron is like so many people today--people who don't live, but merely exist. The existential questions in this book are what got to me the most. And that ending! She threw me for a loop with The Sweet Far Thing, and here she does it again! I don't know why I don't expect the unexpected from her anymore. Anyway, this novel is a ton of craziness mixed with meaningful messages and insight and awesome characters you want to take home with you, garden gnome included. It's like Peter Pan meets Don Quixote meets some story about parallel universe traveling, and the insane mixture is addicting. Just brilliant.

Go read it! :D

Book Review: Equus, Peter Shaffer

amethysth — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 00:13:22 GMT

I know, I know--everyone on my flist is sick of hearing about Equus. But this is different! I had to read a play or poem of my choosing for my Poetics class, so I chose Peter Shaffer's Equus to read and honestly, I think I'm even more in love with this than I was before. There's something about Equus that's just so... real, even if the events described seem bizarre (though really, they're based on a true event) and completely insane. I can relate to everything Dysart says so well (which is something I noticed when I saw the stage production, but Richard Griffiths was sick that day, so I missed a lot of what he said--his character is so sarcastic that I absolutely love him. Reading the play was an interesting experience because--other than the fact that I heard Richard Griffiths' and Daniel Radcliffe's voices in my mind as I was reading their lines--the text is so focused on Dysart, while in the stage production(and I know this isn't just me--every critic said the same thing), Alan stole the show. I mean, it's the same words (minus my favorite one of Alan's jingles--he sings television jingles to irritate people so much that they leave him alone), but they just have a different effect both ways.

(Book Jacket) Summary: Alan Strang is a disturbed youth whose dangerous obsession with horses leads him to commit an unspeakable act of violence. As psychiatrist Martin Dysart struggles to understand the motivation for Alan's brutality, he is increasingly drawn into Alan's web and eventually forced to question his own sanity. In its remarkable 2008 production, Equus proves once again to be a timeless classic and a cornerstone of contemporary drama that delves into the darkest recesses of human existence.

Also, everyone should watch/listen to (at least the first minute or so of) this (because it's basically a jingle Dan wrote for Gypsy of the year and I love how he takes the seriousness of this story and just pokes fun at it).

Favorite Quotes

"With one particular horse, called Nugget, he embraces. The animal digs its sweaty brow into his cheek, and they stand in the dark for an hour--like a necking couple. And of all nonsensical things--I keep thinking about the horse! Not the boy: the horse, and what it may be trying to do. I keep seeing that huge head kissing him with its chained mouth. Nudging through the metal some desire absolutely irrelevant to filling its belly or propagating its own kind. What desire could that be? Not to stay a horse any longer? Not to remain reined up forever in those particular genetic strings? Is it possible, at certain moments we cannot imagine, a horse can add its sufferings together--the nonstop jerks and jabs that are its daily life--and turn them into grief? What use is grief to a horse? You see, I'm lost. What use, I should be asking, are questions like these to an overworked psychiatrist in a provincial hospital? They're worse than useless; they are, in fact, subversive..."

(He continues on about how he's wearing this horses' head himself, but this monologue is just too long for this entry, even though I love it to pieces. ><;;)

***

Dysart: Do you dream often?
Alan: Do you?
Dysart: It’s my job to ask the questions. Yours to answer them.
Alan: Says who?
Dysart: Says me. Do you dream often?
Alan: Do you?
Dysart: Look--Alan.
Alan: I'll answer if you answer.
[Pause]
Dysart: very well. Only we have to speak the truth.
Alan: [mocking] Very well.
Dysart: So... do you dream often?
Alan: Yes. Do you?
Dysart: Yes. Do you have a special dream?
Alan: No. Do you?
Dysart: Yes. What was your dream about last night?
Alan: [quickly] Can't remember. What's yours about?
Dysart: I said the truth.
Alan: That is the truth. What's yours about? The special one.
Dysart: Carving up children.

(This was the best dialogue in the play! Dan said the lines with deliberate gaps and it was like Alan's mocking Dysart the whole time. So it was like, "No.---Do--you?" Also, it's probably the first breakthrough Dysart makes, so it's pretty intense, but equally hilarious.)

***

The Normal is the good smile in a child's eyes. It is also the dead stare in a million adults. It both sustains and kills--like a God. It is the Ordinary made beautiful; it is also the Average made lethal. The Normal is the indispensable, murderous God of Health, and I am his Priest. My tools are very delicate. My compassion is honest. I have honestly assisted children in this room. I have talked away terrors and relieved many agonies. But also--beyond question--I have cut from them parts of individuality repugnant to this God, in both his aspects. Parts sacred to rarer and more wonderful Gods. And at what length... Sacrifice to Zeus took at the most, surely, sixty seconds each. Sacrifices to the Normal can take as long as sixty months.

***

With one particular horse, called Nugget, he embraces. He showed me how he stands with it afterwards in the night, one hand on its chest, one on its neck, like a frozen tango danger, inhaling its cold sweet breath. 'Have you noticed,' he said, 'about horses: how they'll stand one hoof on its end, like those girls in the ballet?' Now he's gone off to rest, leaving me alone with Equus. I can hear the creature's voice. It's calling me out of the black cave of the Psyche. I shove in my dim little torch, and there he stands--waiting for me. He raises his matted head. He opens his great square teeth, and says, "[mocking] Why? Why Me? Why--ultimately--Me? You really imagine you can account for Me? Totally, infallibly, inevitably account for Me?"

Of course I've stared at such images before. Or been started by them... And weirdly often now with me the feeling is that they are staring at us--that in some quite palpable way they precede us. Meaningless, but unsettling... In either case, this one is the most alarming yet. It asks questions I've avoided all my professional life. [Pause] A child is born into a world of phenomena all equal in their power to enslave. It sniffs--it sucks--it strokes its eyes over the whole uncomfortable range. Suddenly one strikes. Why? Moments snap together like magnets, forging a chain of shackles. Why? I can trace them. I can even, with time, pull them apart again. But why at the start they were ever magnetized at all--just those particular moments of experience and no others--I don't know. And nor does anyone else. Yet if I don't know, if I can never know that, then what am I doing here? I don't mean clinically doing or socially doing--I mean fundamentally! These questions, these Whys, are fundamental, yet they have no place in a consulting room. So then, do I? --This is the feeling more and more with me. No place. Displacement. 'Account for me,' says staring Equus. 'First account for Me!' I fancy this is more than menopause.

***

Dora: And me? What about me? What do you think I am? --I'm a parent, of course, so it doesn't count. That's a dirty word in here, isn't it, 'parent'?

Dysart: You know that's not true.

Dora: Oh, I know. I know, all right! I've heard it all my life. It's our fault. Whatever happens, we did it. Alan's just a little victim. He's really done nothing at all! [Savagely] What do you have to do in this world to get any sympathy--blind animals?

(My sister and I cracked up when she said this. We reiterated that last phrase to each other so many times because we just found it so amusing. His parents are really such amusing, stupid but educated characters.)

***

Dysart: [Quietly] Can you think of anything worse one can do to anybody than take away their worship?
Hesther: Worship?
Dysart: Yes, that word again!
Hesther: Aren't you being a little extreme?
Dysart: Extremity's the point.
Hesther: Worship isn't destructive, Martin. I know that.
Dysart: I don't. I only know it's the core of his life. What else has he got? Think about him. He can hardly read. He knows no physics or engineering to make the world real for him. No paintings to show him how others have enjoyed it. No music except television jingles. No history except tales from a desperate mother. No friends. Not one kid to give him a joke, or make him know himself more moderately. He's a modern citizen for whom society doesn't exist. He lives one hour every three weeks, howling in a mist. And after the service kneels to a slave who stands over him obviously and unthrowably his master. With my body I thee worship! --Many men have less vital with their wives.

***

”Don't you see? That's the Accusation! That's what his stare has been saying to me all this time. 'At least I galloped! When did you?' --[Simply] I'm jealous, Hesther. Jealous of Alan Strang.”

***

And while I sit there, baiting a poor unimaginative woman with the word, that freaky boy tries to conjure the reality! I sit looking at pages of centaurs trampling the soil of Argos--and outside my window he is trying to become one in a Hampshire field! --I watch that woman knitting, night after night--a woman I haven't kissed in six years--and he stands in the dark for an hour, sucking the sweat off his God's hairy cheek! [Pause] Then in the morning, I put away my books on the cultural shelf, close up the kodachrome snaps of Mount Olympus, touch my reproduction statue of Dionysus for luck, and go off to hospital to treat him for insanity. Do you see?

(By the way, he did not mean literally sucking the sweat. I have to put this here because people have SO many misconceptions about this play and story--It's NOT like THAT!)

***

Alan (to Dysart): I don't know. I kept looking at all the people in the street. They were mostly men coming out of the pubs. I suddenly thought--THEY ALL DO IT! ALL OF THEM! ...They aren't just Dads--they're people with pricks. ...And Dad--he's not just Dad either. He's a man with a prick too. You know, I'd never thought about it.
(to Jill) Poor old sod!

Jill: That's right!

Alan: I mean, what else has he got? ...He's got mum, of course, but well--she--she--she--

Jill: She doesn't give him anything?

Alan: That's right. I bet you... She doesn't give him anything! That's right... That's REALLY right! ...She likes Ladies and Gentlemen. Do you know what I mean?

Jill: [mischievously] Ladies and gentlemen aren't naked?

Alan: That's right! Never! ...NEVER! That would be disgusting! She'd have to put bowler hats on them! ...Jodhpurs!

[Jill laughs]

***

Dysart: [crying out] All right! I'll take it away! he'll be delivered from madness. What then? He'll feel himself acceptable! What then? Do you think feelings like his can be simply re-attached, like plasters? Stuck on to other objects we select? Look at him! My desire might be to make this boy an ardent husband, a caring citizen, a worshipper of an abstract and unifying God. My achievement, however, is more likely to make a ghost! --Let me tell you exactly what I'm going to do to him! I'll heal the rash on his body. I'll erase the welts cut into his mind by flying manes. When that's done, I'll set him on a nice mini-scooter and send him puttering off into the Normal world where animals are treated properly: made extinct, or put into servitude, or tethered all their lives in dim light, just to feed it! I'll give him the good Normal world where we're tethered beside them, blinking our nights away in a nonstop drench of cathode ray over our shriveling heads! I'll take away his Field of Ha Ha, and give him Normal places for ecstasy...and one thing I promise you, he will never touch hide again! (He'll go through life)_ I doubt, with much passion. ...Passion, you see, can be destroyed by a doctor. It cannot be created.

***

And now for me it never stops: that voice of Equus out of the cave--'Why Me? Why Me? Account for Me!' All right, I surrender. In an ultimate sense, I cannot know what I do in this place, yet I do ultimate things. Essentially I cannot know what I do, yet I do essential things. Irreversible, terminal things. I stand in the dark with a pick in my hand, striking at heads! I need, more desperately than my children need me, a way of seeing in the dark. What way is this? What dark is this? I cannot call it ordained by God: I can't get that far. I will however pay it so much homage. There is now, in my mouth, this sharp chain. And it never comes out.

Seriously guys, read this. It's so awesome and complex and it really makes you think--but it's also fun, too! It's probably one of my favorite plays ever. Wholeheartedly, wholeheartedly recommended!

(By the way, in case anyone has misconceptions about this, Alan is not in LOVE with the horse. Yeah, okay, he rides it bare, but it's because he worships the horse like a god--it's a ritual act and the core of it is that horse and rider have nothing between them; they're one person. Only in extremity, but you'll realize why if you read this.)

fic: epistulae desiderantis [Lily/James]

amethysth — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 02:44:13 GMT

Title: Epistulae Desiderantis
Author: amethysth
Fandom: Harry Potter
Pairing: Lily/James
Rating: G? PG? One of those.
Words: 2103

Summary: Suddenly, his lips press against hers—so slowly, so delicately—and she tries to ignore the feeling that this is goodbye. 'James will come back,' she persuades herself. 'I just know he will.'

Dedication: This is a gift!fic for obsessive_a101 because she wrote this amusing marauder piece for my belated birthday gift and I wanted to write her a gift!fic in return for her belated. (Also, I love how my birthday is your half birthday and so your birthday is my half birthday—it’s like treating myself! Haha.) I'm sorry it isn't a fandom you're actually in (since you can probably count the HP fanfics you've read on one hand), but I know you like Penelope and obviously you like Harry Potter, so this is the best I could do. For now.

—Also, it's dedicated to Lily and James Potter, for being awesome (and because Halloween marks the anniversary of their death, so it seems appropriate).

My Darling, James
James, My Love
Dear James,

She offers him the brightest and widest smile she can muster, and immediately his eyes fill with concern. He knows the gesture is halfhearted, that there are so many things she desires to scream at him at this very moment, but for reasons unknown to him, she forces the impulse away.

"I'll be fine," he starts to say, but Lily stops him.

"I believe in you."

Suddenly, his lips press against hers—so slowly, so delicately—and she tries to ignore the feeling that this is goodbye.

'James will come back,' she persuades herself. 'I just know he will.'

You've barely been gone three days and yet, I feel as if a century has passed. I don't know where you are or what it is that you must do, but I wish you the best and hope that everything is going well. ~~I miss you terribly.~~

Lily Potter tries to smile as she listens to Remus Lupin remind her for the umpteenth time that everything will be fine. "The Order of the Phoenix needs James," he explains. "He's one of the most skilled wizards they have and it would only make sense that they send the most talented and the most agile members out there." She understands this, she supports this, but she can't help but worry. What kind of mission have they given him that requires no contact, no news, such secrecy? Why won't they share the details with her? (Because of Harry?) She knows she's just as talented, just as intelligent, just as qualified as James and the two of them already have defied Voldemort together twice... So why didn't they trust her?

"He's safe, Lils. You know James. He and Sirius will storm in there, do whatever it is they were told to do, and be home in no time. This is James Potter we're talking about, remember? Whatever his faults, he's committed."

She nods her head, attempting to use her friend's words to drown out the many anxieties coasting in her over-analytical mind. 'Stop worrying! James will be fine,' she tells herself. (But if this were true, then why does it feel as if someone has ruptured the very essence of her soul?)

Sometimes I feel as if you've never left. The autumn wind brushes against my cheek, and I feel your fingertips dancing upon my skin, warm and ever so gentle. Your voice sings to me with the birds each morning, chuckling and off-key, and every time I hear Harry laugh, my heart jerks, thinking that you have finally returned.

Even with the unending spontaneous visits from friends and members of the Order, Lily can't help but feel alone. In spite of the amount of guests she receives, her life is empty now, weary, hollow, and monotonous. She feels claustrophobic in this house, in this village, in this perfunctory life she has (somehow) created for herself, and she longs for the ardent days of before... Of chasing and chastising James in the yard as he took Harry for a broomstick-ride she had specifically vetoed. Of falling asleep in his arms and feeling him smile against the side of her face as day turned to night and night turned to day.

She imagines that even in the reality of anarchy and decay, weeks ago this war had nothing to do with her. —Yes, she was still confined to the house, and yes, her barely three-month-old son was still in danger, but this sense of imminent dread did not follow her every second of the day. In spite of it all, there were moments, moments in which she felt safe in a way that she isn't sure is possible anymore.

Now, as she watches Frank kiss Alice's cheek, and Arthur and Molly swing their smallest boy high into the air, she longs for her former peace of mind.

She wishes James were here.

When I close my eyes, I feel your lips gently caress my eyelids, and I find that sleep has escaped me once again. I see you everywhere, smiling and teasing and flitting about, but this ache in my heart subsists. How does one embrace a ghost?

'He's just tired,' she tries to reason, but the more she watches her son—his pouting lips, vociferous whimpers, and the crimson blotches etched upon his face—the more she discovers that she cannot surrender to her delusions. Of course she knows why he feels unsettled; she feels the same way herself, constantly haunted by her own personal demons, her vitriolic thoughts, multiplying anxieties and flagrant inconsistencies.

She lifts Harry into her arms, rocking him slowly up and down the way James would do the second he heard his son cry, humming his favorite childhood tune ("Harvey the Hairy Hippogriff") with occasional bits from one of hers ("Hush Little Baby"). "It's okay," she whispers, tracing small circles on Harry’s back and adjusting his head more firmly upon her shoulder. "I'm (still) here." When he gurgles, capturing a fistful of thinning russet locks and placing them in his mouth, she almost laughs, instantaneously hearing the words James had "exchanged" with his son the first time Harry had decided that he preferred his mother's hair to baby food. ("Now Harry, a gentleman never slobbers upon a woman's hair," her husband explained, ostensibly serious. "You'll never get the girl that way. What you should do instead is find a girl who appeals to you and, before stuffing her flamboyantly colored hair into your mouth because you're so nervous, charm her with your hilarity and wit. Merely some water balloons, hair coloring hexes, basic transfiguration—harmless things, really—would do. And then soon enough, if a sufficient amount of time has gone by and you've followed her around quite a bit (with countless, but completely original and amusing professions of love), you'll capture her heart—and she'll never leave you alone afterward!" he declared as Sirius let out a bark of laughter and Lily hit them both upside the head, highly amused.) Noticing his drooping eyes, she carries Harry into her room, wrapping her arms around his now-slumbering figure as she herself attempts to claim a moment of respite as well. Instead, she finds herself awake hours later, fingering her son's own unkempt strands.

When she rises in the morning, cradling her son in her arms, Lily nearly pinches herself at the sight of disheveled ebony.

'It's only Harry.'

Each day, I sit alone and imagine the things you must be doing, and I picture myself beside you, battling, defending, achieving all the things we vowed to accomplish in order to brighten our son's days. We would be a team, reckless and calculating, eager and calm, bold and wary. An untouchable duo. But as the shadows gradually blanket the earth and the light dims in my baby's eyes, I know this is a virtual reality. I can't leave ~~and I don't understand how you could have either~~.

"Do you believe in magic?" Lily remembers asking him the night Professor Dumbledore informed them of the prophecy. To any other wizard, the question would have sounded ridiculous. 'We're magical—of course I believe in magic!' he would say. But James merely blinked, tilting his head slightly and interlacing her dainty fingers in his own. She had eyed him carefully then, noting his furrowed brow and bitten bottom lip as he seriously considered her words. For the longest moment, he said nothing, holding her body tightly against his, failing to conceal his tense muscles as they paced outside their former Headmaster's office. "Yes," he finally declared later as he lay down beside her, whispering the word into her shoulder when he imagined she was fast asleep. "I believe."

These days, she wishes she had his resolution. She wants to believe, to be able to mull it over and decide that miracles do happen, that although the world is black and white and undoubtedly grey, the clouds will drift away eventually. With only faith, magic, and pixie dust, this nightmare will end, the war will be won, and everything will be just the way it once was.

But she isn't like James and she's not even sure James is like himself anymore. When she looks up at the sky, the possibility of such wonders occurring is scant. She sees no stars, just faded memories and fallen heroes. Lily doesn't want a place in this legacy. She isn't a martyr or a heroine and all she really wants is the chance to watch her son grow and to age as well, alongside her husband. But he's off chasing windmills elsewhere, fighting for reasons she can no longer remember.

She wishes he would remember his son. She wishes he would remember her.

I think of you always. ~~Do you ever think of me?~~

It has been thirty one days, ten hours, nineteen minutes and eight seconds since the day she had seen him off, and Lily doesn't know what to think anymore. Time is playing tricks on her, passing so quickly, so abruptly, that she isn’t sure she can keep up with it. How much longer is she meant to endure this—this agony of never knowing, never hearing where he is or when he'll return. Professor Dumbledore tells her not to fret, that her husband is one of the best they have and of course he and Sirius will succeed. Moody won't even answer her. ("Potter's persistent. He'll come back when he gets the job done.") Remus avoids her eyes and Peter claims to be just as much in the dark as she is. They can't write her a fairytale and so they envelop her in empty words and halfhearted assurances, refusing to distress her with news she already knows. (Other members sent on this mission have either returned or were killed, so where are James and Sirius?) Every moment that passes by increases her apprehension tenfold, but even she realizes that—by now—the situation is hopeless. He's gone, leading, fighting, dying—and there is simply nothing she can do about it.

I'm trying to be strong, I'm trying to be hopeful, but James, I can't do this on my own. I can't let myself think—What am I supposed to do if—~~you never come home again?~~

As she has taken to doing every night, Lily tucks her sleeping son into his crib, kissing him upon the forehead before grabbing a novel and sitting down upon her mother's old rocking chair in the den. She opens a window, allowing the fresh, arctic air to peck her face as she reads, but she finds that she is unable to concentrate. Before she can stop herself, she's shrieking, crying with such abandon that she fails to notice that salt and water have drenched the pages of her book. Lily wants to control herself, to remind herself that she's a Gryffindor—Where is her bravery? Optimism? Strength?—but she can't blink away the tears.

‘Where are you?’

The stars mock her, glittering in the obsidian sky so gloriously that Lily has to force herself not to stare. She doesn’t want to see his name scrawled in the moonlight. Shivering, her hands reach for her fleece blanket and she inhales sharply. She swears she just touched his fingertips. Shaking her head, she begins to wrap the warm cloth around her shoulders, wondering if her body has involuntarily surrendered to the mental anguish and she has finally lost her mind. Her eyes close—one sheep, two sheep, three sheep, four—and before she can fully grasp what is happening, she is engulfed in a pair of arms, bruised and battered and significantly shaken. She doesn't want to look up, to meet his eyes and discover that some cruel, sadistic deity is playing tricks on her and she's only dreaming.

"Lily...," he whispers, holding her closely, and, eyes opening, she feels her breath catch in her throat. His hair is long, coarse, and ferociously feral, and his eyes—although scintillating just as brightly as always—appear weary, cautious, and aged. She brushes his jaw, rough and unshaven, with her palm and before she realizes it, she's sobbing again, holding onto his arm, his chest, his face, and seemingly every part of him at once. So many things she wishes to say to him ("I thought you would never come home... Don't you ever dare leave me again!"), but before she can find the words, she feels his lips graze her own. "Please don’t let me go."

And somehow, all her shouts, rants, and concerns no longer need to be expressed. James is home, and Lily finally feels whole.

Fin.

Note: We're reading Ovid's Heroides/Epistulae in Latin right now and the first one we read, Penelope to Ulysses, inspired this. I've actually seen many LJ fics in which Lily has to be home for Harry and James goes off to war, but none explored this idea of writing letters and it just intrigued me. I've always loved Penelope (I wrote my first university research paper on her two years ago) and there's just so much about her—in personality and in situation—that is just like Lily that I couldn't help myself. I hope the combination of letters and scenes wasn't too bizarre (the style is fairly new to me and I’ve never written in present tense before and this is both my first time writing anything Harry Potter and Lily/James—basically, this whole ficlet is experimentation) or difficult to follow. And also, I apologize for the letter. I've written few in my life and never a love letter, so yeah, sorry if that was awkward (was it?). ><;

(Also, the song 'Sau Dard Hai', and 'its beautiful lyrics/translation and the song 'Vanilla Twilight' kind of helped, though I had already mentally written the entire fic before even realizing that they were relevant.)

—Did anyone catch that if you scramble the numbers (the part where she counts how long he's been gone to the last second), it's the date they died? 10/31/1981. (Just double the one in 'thirty one' because I couldn't put a second 'one' anywhere else. ^^;; )

Oh, and in case you’re wondering, the title translates to 'Letters of Longing' (assuming I translated it correctly). I know it actually seems like 'a letter,' which is how I wrote the letter (separately) initially, but the passage of time (and the—hopefully—change in tone) in the tiny epistolary pieces is supposed to imply that actually these are bits of many letters—and because they are excerpts, the greeting is missing. But it doesn't matter if it's all just one letter to you.

—Actually, should I delete the greeting? Is it better with the ‘Dear…’ or should it start immediately with ‘She offers him…’? Also, where it says, 'Lily nearly pinches herself at the sight of disheveled ebony.'—I'm torn between making this statement grammatically correct and adding a real noun (some word for hair?) after it or leaving it as is. I like the way I have it now, but I'll take common opinion into mind. (Is the bold/italics formatting okay or is the combination—I mean for the actual letter part of it—too difficult to read?)

Edit: If anyone wants to read the letter that this is based upon (Ovid, Heroides 1: Penelope to Ulysses), there's a great translation here.

Book Review: The Miles Between, Mary E. Pearson

amethysth — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 00:31:35 GMT

The Miles Between, Mary E. Pearson

I picked this book up because I've read other novels the author wrote (Scribbler of Dreams and Adoration of Jenna Fox) and enjoyed them. So naturally I liked this one as well. I'm way too tired to write my own summary, so here's the one on the book jacket:

Destiny Faraday makes a point of keeping her distance from her classmates at Hedgebrook Academy. Her number-one rule: Don’t get attached. But one day, unexpectedly finding a car at their disposal, Destiny and three of her classmates embark on an unauthorized road trip.

They’re searching for one fair day—a day where the good guy wins and everything adds up to something just and right. Their destination: Langdon, a town that Destiny’s unsuspecting companions hope will hold simply a day of fun. But, as Destiny says, “Things are not always what they seem.” Only she knows that Langdon holds far more than that—a deep secret she has never shared with anyone.

Honestly, I don't know what I expected when I read this summary, but this book surprised me in so many (good) ways. Des is a refreshing protagonist. She's quirky, she's lonely, she's stand-offish, sarcastic, and she has family issues. But she also has this fascination with numbers--she tells true stories of fate and coincidence all the time (like how Lincoln and Kennedy were born a hundred years apart, died a hundred years apart, were succeeded by presidents with the same last names, who were also a hundred years apart, etc etc).

Other things I didn't expect: Parts of this novel were really sad. The first few chapters hint that they were heading in some sort of 'this is a sad story' direction, but there's this huge unexpected twist, and seriously, I did not expect it at all.

And a parting quote:

"Today defies explanation, but for me, life has never been explainable. It's been a lopsided, illogical, messy affair, where answers are in short supply, but maybe that's the way it is for everyone. Sometimes the fairness is all bunched up in one place, and all the injustice is bunched up in another, and sometimes it is all bunched up in the most improbable ways, but whatever you get, wherever you are, there are still moments that pin you to this world when you'd rather float away. Small, in-between moments, where there is magic and purpose and design and they are so perfectly beautiful they ache. Like all the in-between moments of today. Maybe the good guy doesn't always win. And maybe fairness doesn't always land where it should. But today felt good, deliciously and wonderfully good... And sometimes that's enough."

Recommended! :D

Book Review : Willow, Julia Hoban

amethysth — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 21:50:17 GMT

I wasn't going to read this initially because it was my first day of school and I shouldn't have been spending my free time at barnes & noble. But I did, and I'm so glad that I got this out of the way. This novel has been on my to-read list for months now, and I really just needed it out of my system.

So... Willow by Julia Hoban:

"I just figured out why someone would want to make the first mirror," Guy said.
"Why?" Willow asked
"I think some lover wanted his beloved to see how she appeared to him. He wanted her to be able to see herself the way that he did."

Imagine that you have this not-completely-together but relatively-happy life. Your parents are anthropologists and you and your brother have been all over the world studying and experiencing with them. You love to read, you love what your parents do, and you have this great relationship with your older brother, who is also pursuing the same field. Then one day, you and your parents are out and the weather has gone from 'stormy' to 'torrential downpour,' and although you're only sixteen years old, your parents are beyond tipsy and they ask you to drive. So you do, not realizing that in a few moments, the weather will be too powerful for you to make it through, and the car will crash, and ultimately you will survive... but your parents will not.

This is the story of Willow. Actually, this merely covers the background of Willow's story. The book is really about the aftermath of the crash: her new nonexistent relationship with her brother, the fact that she's behind in all her school work, the way she can no longer easily connect with people, her failure to cope with the thought that she will never have parents or anyone who cares for her in that way ever again, etc. She blames herself for their death (in fact, to her, it's not just blame--SHE killed them) and she's caught in a whirlwind of emotions, trapped in several worlds--"home" with her brother and his wife and infant daughter, school, work, and the minutiae of every day life--where she no longer belongs, and she's guilty that it's her fault that so much has changed since that night. Because she can't deal with the emotional pain, she inflicts physical pain to herself, cutting her leg, her stomach, mostly her arms, but only enough to make numb, and not enough to get noticed.

Unfortunately (it's actually very fortunate) for her, this eccentric guy--Guy (yes, that is his name)--is intrigued by her. He sees that she's lonely, can actually hold a conversation with her, and shares the same anthropological and reading interests, and accidentally discovers her secret. He's torn between wanting to tell in order to help her and keeping his promise that he won't, but he wants to understand her and earn her trust and so he stays with her, there when she needs him.

Although there were one or two parts of this novel that irked me slightly (mostly just three tiring comparisons), the story itself swept me away. I liked how refreshing the characters were. Willow was so much more than just a cutter, and it's interesting how two completely eccentric people could find each other, and although it took me a while to get used to his name, Guy has to be one of my favorite literary characters. Seriously, the way he handled everything, the way he handled her... It's realistic, and it's impressive, and I absolutely love him for it. This story is heartbreaking at times. Parts of it--two scenes in particular towards the end (one with Guy and one with her brother David)--are really emotional. The psychological depth is remarkable, and seriously, the way the romance is worked into all of this is just... It just fits so well. It's sad yet beautiful, and the ending is slightly unpredictable but equally amazing. Wholeheartedly recommended.

Book Review: Let the Right One In, John Ajvide

amethysth — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 01:38:48 GMT

Thank you everyone for the lovely 'get well messages' you left my laptop, lol. The wire's actually still very much dead, but I've ordered a new one and it should be here sometime after school starts. My personal computer, on the other hand, back up and running and probably almost better than ever (it's five years old and it's been dead for a few months now, ever since my virus protection began spazzing out and occasionally refused to work, and then the computer got hit by a really bad virus that refused to let anything else function, and I just stopped turning it on. I suppose I should have had my brother look at it immediately--and I did ask--but he kept putting it off and eventually, I just started using my laptop, which was always reserved for schoolwork, all the time). Anyway, now that I have internet access once again and a living and breathing machine, I should be caught up to my flist really soon.

So I read Let the Right One In by John Ajvide. Briefly, it's a Swedish vampire novel, written about a year earlier than Twilight, only probably much much longer in length. The title, which confused me until the lyrics were present in part five (there are no chapters, just segments and five parts in total), is actually from the Morissey song, "Let the Right One Slip In," which is referencing vampire folk lore (ie. vampires cannot enter a house unless invited)--meaning, if you're going to invite a vampire into your home or even a room, make sure it's the "right" one. XD

I don't want to spoil the story too much, in case anyone else was interested in this, but basically, it centers around Oskar Erikkson, a twelve-year-old chubby boy who enjoys puzzles and has a fascination with murder mysteries, or maybe just murder in general because he's constantly picked upon in school by a group of bullies. They make him squeal like a pig, they beat him, they play pranks on him, and they even throw his face into a toilet on a regular basis. Oskar knows he should stand up for himself, but he's also smart enough to realize that he doesn't have the strength or the force to fight back, and if he struggled when they attacked him, they would only attack him more--so he just goes along with it. One day, after being intrigued by the news of a ritual murderer who had attacked a boy in his village just a few years older than him, Oskar was outside his house attacking a tree with a knife, pretending that he was the murderer and that the tree trunk was oine of the boys who bullied him. A girl randomly appeared next to him, asking him what he was doing, and because of the way she spoke, her pale skin and charcoal hair, the fact that it was snowing outside and she was wearing this thin pink sweater, Oskar found her interesting. Eventually, he discovered that she lived right next door, and they met more frequently, and this girl, Eli, became his best and most precious friend.

I don't know how I felt about this book. I enjoyed the story, but as a book, at times it really annoyed me. The novel is written in scenes--it's about the only way I can describe it. For example, there will be three or so pages about whatever Oskar is up to at the moment, then there will be break in the text and you'll be reading about another scene focusing on a different character--the mysterious man who lives with Eli, one of Oskar's bullies, this boy Tommy who Oskar admires, a policeman, some random guys you encounter at one point, etc. etc. The scenes overall make sense and add up, but for pages upon pages, I was trying to figure out why I was reading about this character, and waiting for the focus to return to Oskar. A lot of the other character scenes were just really boring, and the novel is pretty long, so most of the time, I was just thinking how much more interesting it would be if a certain part or a specific scene was just... edited or cut out entirely. Sometimes it just seemed like too much, and seriously, the Oskar/Eli scenes were the ones that were mostly intriguing (at lest for me. I did enjoy some of the other ones, particularly those researching the ritual murderer, but most of the time, I really wanted to skim it).

One thing I need to specify is that this novel isn't as cutesy as it sounds. Ultimately, it is sort of a cute child love story--a weak boy becomes friends with a vampire girl, whom he just thinks is an abnormal girl but still human, and eventually falls in love with her in that way only children fall in love. It's innocent. But this novel also details so many social aspects of Sweden that aren't quite as cute or innocent (pedophilia, drug/alcohol consumption, theivery, child prostitution, and of course murder). Some of the language is really crude, and it threw me off guard when this language even appeared in the Oskar scenes. In some ways, the honest way in which these things are written, make the novel appear to be a type of social commentary--it's not preachy, but it is showing you Sweden as it is, and while I liked that he did this, most of the time, these things were really uncomfortable to read about.

Hakan, this man who stayed with Eli, even though he knew he was, in particular disgusted me. I felt sorry for him because it was obvious he had a rather pitiful life, but he chose that lifestyle (he was a drunk pedophile whom Eli encountered one day and offered him money for blood and he's fine with what she is and murdering for her just because he really hopes she'll allow him to touch her one day).

The ending took some rereading to fully comprehend, and I'm actually still not sure I wholly understand it. I don't know if something was lost in translation, or if it was the fact that I was reading this in ebook format and there was just something wrong with the ebook, but the details were rather fuzzy. I know what happens, and it sounds fine (it doesn't disappoint me because the novel was so long, at this point I wasn't sure what more I expected out of it) and there probably was no other way to end it after everything that was happening, but some things could have been tied up a bit more. Or at least clarified so that I didn't have to look it up to confirm that what I suspected had actually happened.

(One thing I still don't understand---*spoiler*---is why Eli, the girl, is really Elias, a boy. It didn't make much sense the way it was glossed over in the novel, even after Oskar asked the question (again, this could have been my translation), and it left me thinking, "Wait, so she was a boy before when she was human, but she turned into a girl after becoming a vampire"--which of course, still makes no sense. She's actually no gender, neither male nor female, but this again is confusing.)

Quotes!

"They could give a number of reasons for why they had to torment him; he was too fat, too ugly, too disgusting. But the real problem was simply that he existed, and every reminder of his existence was a crime."

(Poor Oskar!)

* * *
"That will be amusing."
"You mean fun?"
"Yes. Fun. Fun."
"You're a little strange, you know that?"
"Am I?"
"Yes, but it's OK."
"You'll have to show me what to do, in that case. Not to be strange."

(This amused me so much, considering I rarely use the word 'fun' myself and if you've ever spoken to me online or in person, you'd realize that I sort of abuse the word 'amusing.')

-Not a quote, but I cracked up when I saw the word 'Volvo.' It had nothing to do with the vampire, but it just really made me laugh when I saw it--for obvious reasons. (actually, I was thinking, 'I wonder how many vampire novels use characters who drive Volvos?')

* * *
"They are the final words that Christ uttered on the cross. My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me? Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?"

(I thought this was interesting because in Swedish, Eli means 'God' and there's this scene where Hakan shouts that line, and it's obvious a parallel to Jesus on the cross.)

* * *
"Do you sleep in a coffin?"

Eli laughed, shook her head. "No, no, I..."

Oskar couldn't keep it in any longer. He didn't mean to, but it came out like an accusation when he said: "But you kill people!"

Eli looked back at him with an expression that looked like surprise, as if Oskar had forcefully pointed out that he had five fingers on each hand or some such equally self-evident fact. "Yes. I kill people. Unfortunately."

"So why do you?"

A flash of anger from Eli's eyes. "If you have a better idea I'd like to hear it."

"Yes, what... blood ... there must be some way of... some way to... that you..."

"There isn't."

"Why not?"

Eli snorted, her eyes narrowed. "Because I am like you."

"What do you mean like me? I..."

Eli thrust her hand through the air as if she was holding a knife and, said, "What are you looking at, idiot? Want to die, or something?" stabbing the air with her empty hand. "That's what happens if you look at me."

Oskar rubbed his lips together, dampening them. "What are you saying?"

"It's not me that's saying it. It's you. That was the first thing I heard you say. Down on the playground."

Oskar remembered. The tree. The knife. How he had held up the blade of the knife like a mirror, seen Eli for the first time. "I. . . don't kill people."

"No, but you would like to. If you could. And you would really do it if you had to." "Because I hate someone. That's a very big . . ."

"Difference--Is it?"

"Yes?"

"If you got away with it. If it just happened. If you could wish someone dead and they died. Wouldn't you do it then? Sure you would. And that would be simply for your own enjoyment. Your revenge. I do it because I have to. There is no other way."

"But it's only because ... they hurt me, because they tease me, because I..."

"Because you want to live. Just like me." Eli held out her arms, laid them against Oskar's cheeks and brought his face closer. "Be me a little." And then she kissed him.

(I really liked the way this confrontational scene went. Oskar was trying to cope with the fact that Eli was a vampire, and the way she explains it to him... I don't know, I just really liked the way it was written. His reaction, her reply--they were just perfect.)

* * *

Eli turned his face to Oskar's, and then pressed a kiss on his lips. For a few seconds Oskar saw through Eli's eyes. And what he saw was ... himself. Only much better, more handsome, stronger than what he thought of himself. Seen with love. For a few seconds.
(This scene made me smile.)

Overall, I thought it was okay, and if given the choice, I would probably read it still knowing what I do know now just for the Oskar/Eli parts. I don't know how graphic the movie is (the novel was really really graphic), but it'll probably determine if I decide to watch it.

Book Review : Cracked Up to Be, Courtney Summers

amethysth — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 18:20:28 GMT

You know that feeling when you read a good book and then it's so amazing that you can't stop thinking about it until ages afterwards--maybe until you find another good book to finally get your mind off of it? For me, Cracked Up to Be by Courtney Summers was this book--even before I ever got a chance to read it. I heard about this book a while ago, when I was browsing through those amazon lists of recommendations and the summary and the cover just grabbed me. Then when I failed to find it at my local Borders, or in either of the libraries closest to me (one actually had the book, but there was a wait list that still has not extinguished to this day), it started plaguing me. I would search for the book obsessively online (which was impossible because this book wasn't published in ebook format, or even in audiobook); I would look for it every time I went to any store selling books; I would compulsively check the library website to see if they had it available yet. I didn't even know if it was any good; I was just drawn to it and I couldn't get it out of my head. It wasn't until yesterday at B&N that I finally did see it and sat down and read it.

I have to say that this book, even after my attempt at stalking it for months, surprised me. It wasn't anything like I imagined, and yet, I still loved it even more than I thought I would. And now, before I continue gushing about how much I enjoyed this book, here's the summary.

"...What is the worst thing that you've ever done?"

Briefly, this book is about Parker Fadley, a girl who was on the surface relatively perfect. She was beautiful, head cheerleader, honor roll student, most popular, perfect boyfriend, perfect daughter, etc. etc. And then at this party her boyfriend threw, so many things happen that spin her world and suddenly, she's not the same anymore. It sounds cliche, and it probably would have been if this book was written in that order, in that style. This book starts with new Parker Fadley, girl who seems to have nothing at all. She cuts class, she attends school drunk, she's angry and bitter almost all the time, she hates people and she's trying to do everything in her power to get everyone to leave her alone, but they just won't. Her ex boyfriend is the only person she talks to willingly and he doesn't really get it. He can't understand what is entirely wrong with her, but he has his ideas and he knows not to ask her. She won't say there's a problem because there actually isn't a problem. Something happened, but no one can guess at what it was and why it still bothers her. She sees the school counselor once a week, her parents think she's on the verge of suicide, but any talk of dying Parker does is half-hearted. This new boy, Jake, is the only person still attempting to get to know the real her, to make sense of her, but how can he when Parker wants this, she wants to alienate herself from the rest of the world because she's different, she's wrong, and she lives in this world where things need to be right.

I can't do this book any justice describing it or re-summarizing it. At first, I wanted to say it was like Sarah Dessen's Just Listen (because everyone should know right about now that I compare most YA lit I read to Sarah Dessen; actually, Sarah Dessen is the standard by which I even compare Sarah Dessen--which makes perfect sense if you read this review ) , but it's actually a lot darker. Parker's more like Remy (This Lullaby, Sarah Dessen), the story isn't really sweet (it's a mystery and I thought it was absolutely haunting), things aren't exactly tied up at the end, but the end is so very fitting and I wasn't disappointed at all.

As someone wrote in an editorial review, "Parker Fadley is a character you won't forget." You'll want to know more about her as you're reading the book and her thoughts and words will keep you on edge. She'll stay with you long after you've finished, and perhaps, you'll continue thinking about her even after you've reached the end. "The writing is breathtakingly unforgettable."

And I would quote the book here, but I actually don't own it, so I'll just keep it simple: Read this book. I wholeheartedly recommend it.

"...what a treacherous thing to believe that a person is more than a person."

amethysth — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 01:25:39 GMT

"Margo always loved mysteries. And in everything that came afterward, I could never stop thinking that maybe she loved mysteries so much that she became one."

And essentially, this is the plot of John Green's Paper Towns.

[Spoilers below the cut.]

So I heard about this book ages ago. It was mentioned on Leaky because John Green is a huge Harry Potter fan (hence that lovely quote about Voldemort from the novel I used to begin this post) and a New York Times bestselling author, and because the book won the Edgar Award (which is basically for amazing mysteries) and because marissameyer reviewed it a while ago and I just KNEW I had to read it.

The basic summary is that Quentin has loved Margo, his next door neighbor since they were kids, for a long time. He thinks he knows her, like every one else thinks they know her because Margo is something of a legend in their high school. She's sort of a free spirit--so adventurous, up for anything, etc. (but not spontaneous at all because no matter how far fetched her ideas are, she always plans them with magnificent detail and always carries them through). She's obviously popular; he's intelligent but well-liked and his one connection to her, other than that they are neighbors, is that at one point when they were nine, they were relatively close and shared a mystery. Margo decides that the city they live in, Orlando, is full of fakes and takes Quentin randomly on a journey to do some last minute "missions" and then randomly disappears. And so, he isn't sure why, but he feels compelled--feels like she WANTED him--to go on an adventure of his own and find her.

I seriously enjoyed this novel. The suspense kills me, the characters are just so lively (I love Quentin and all his crazy friends. I didn't like Margo so much because I felt that the Margo Quentin loved didn't actually exist, but I'll leave readers to figure that out on their own--that's too much of a spoiler for me to even write here).

And the quotes! There are so many awesome moments in this book that I just wish I owned it, so I could keep reading it over and over (I went to the library and hung out there for four hours to read it).

“It is easy to forget the world is full of people, full to bursting, and each of them imaginable and consistently misimagined.”

***

"What a treacherous thing to believe that a person is more than a person."

***

"Look at all those cul-de-sacs, the streets that turn in on themselves all the houses that were built to fall apart. All those paper people in their paper houses burning the furniture to stay warm. All the paper kids drinking the beer some bum bought for them at the paper convenience store. Everyone demented with the mania of owning things. All the things paper-thin and paper-frail."

[I seriously love this quote. Margo says it in the beginning of the book and it follows Quentin around throughout the whole story, and honestly, I feel that she's totally right. The town she lived in, the people at her high school were total fakes and later, she acknowledges that she, too, was a paper girl--and really, to some extent, aren't we all?]

***

“I mean, at some point you gotta stop looking up at the sky or one of these days you’ll look back down and see that you floated away, too.”

[This was said by a Detective Holden--A Catcher in the Rye reference! How brilliant! How fitting!]

***

"Yeah, I'm a big believer in random capitalization. The rules of capitalization are so unfair to the words in the middle"
[I seriously love the randomness of this quote XD ]

***

“You listen to people so that you can imagine them, and you hear all the terrible and wonderful things people do to themselves and to one another, but in the end the listening exposes you even more than it exposes the people you’re trying to listen to.”

***

"And all at once I knew how Margo Roth Spiegelman felt when she wasn't being Margo Roth Spiegelman: she felt empty. She felt the unscaleable wall surrounding her. I thought of her asleep on the carpet with only that jagged sliver of sky above her. Maybe Margo felt comfortable there because Margo the person lived like that all the time: in an abandoned room with blocked-out windows, the only light pouring in through holes in the roof. Yes. The fundamental mistake I had always made--and that she had, in fairness, always led me to make--was this: Margo was not a miracle. She was not an adventure. She was not a fine and precious thing. She was a girl."

***

"You know your problem, Quentin? You keep expecting people not to be themselves. I mean, I could hate you for being massively unpunctual and for never being interested in anything other than Margo Roth Spiegelman, and for, like, never asking me about how it's going with my girlfriend - but I don't give a shit, man, because you're you. My parents have a shit ton of black Santas, but that's okay. They're them. I'm too obsessed with a reference website to answer my phone sometimes when my friends call, or my girlfriend. That's okay, too. That's me. You like me anyway. And I like you. You're funny, and you're smart, and you may show up late, but you always show up eventually."

***

"There was no shortage of ways to see her. I'd been focused on what had become of her, but now with my head trying to understand the multiplicity of grass and her smell from the blanket still in my throat, I realized that the most important question was who I was looking for. If "What is the grass?" has such a complicated answer, I thought, so, too, must "Who is Margo Roth Spiegelman?" Like a metaphor rendered incomprehensible by its ubiquity, there was room enough in what she had left me for endless imaginings, for an infinite set of Margos."

[This was inspired by Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass" and if you read this book and you're familiar with the poem, you will understand this quote's awesomeness.]

***

I stand in this parking lot, realizing that I’ve never been this far from home, and here is this girl I love and cannot follow. I hope this is the hero’s errand, because not following her is the hardest thing I’ve ever done.

And it is dark as I kiss her, but I have my eyes open and so does Margo.

After we kiss, our foreheads touch as we stare at each other. Yes, I can see her almost perfectly in this cracked darkness.

[This whole scene just really got to me. Maybe you need the context, which I'm not heartless enough to give you (Seriously, read this book!), but I just fell in love with it.]

***

"Nothing ever happens like you imagine it will," she says. "Yeah, that's true," I say. But then after I think about it for a second, I add, "But then again, if you don't imagine, nothing ever happens at all."

***

"Maybe it's more like you said before, all of us being cracked open. Like, each of us starts out as a watertight vessel. And these things happen— these people leave us, or don't love us, or don't get us, or we don't get them, and we lose and fail and hurt one another. And the vessel cracks open in places. And I mean, yeah, once the vessel cracks open, the end becomes inevitable. Once it starts to rain inside the Osprey, it will never be remodeled. But there is all this time between when the cracks start to open up and we finally fall apart. And it's only in that time that we can see one another, because we see out of ourselves through the cracks and into others through theirs. When did we see each other face-to-face? Not until you saw into my cracks and I saw into yours. Before that, we were just looking at ideas of each other, like looking at your window shade but never seeing inside. But once the vessel cracks, the light can get in. The light can get out."

So yeah, read Paper Towns because it's funny, suspenseful, thoughtful, and it really sucks you in!

Book Review: Sarah Dessen, "Along for the Ride"

amethysth — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 08:54:26 GMT

Wow, I haven't done a book review in so long... But it's Sarah Dessen, so of course, it's necessary.

To start... I read tons of reviews for this book before reading it. Not to decide whether to read it or not because of course I would read it! t's Sarah Dessen! and some of my favorite books--actually, most of my favorite books--are all hers. The Truth About Forever, Just Listen, and This Lullaby pretty much are the top of my 'amazing books' list and I wholeheartedly recommend them to anyone looking for a book about life, love, and pain, growth, and happiness (which I know is a rather vague description, but there's so much more I could say about Sarah Dessen's books that I'm not sure I'd be able to stop once I started). But out of curiosity, and on some level, to know what to expect.

So yes, I went into this book "prepared." Most people rated it between four and five stars on Amazon, convinced that it was a great story, with great characters, and a perfect summer read. Publisher's Weekly recommended the book, praised it as another great from Dessen, but--for the first time since This Lullaby (which was Sarah's... fifth book? About three others, before this one, came after it), failed to give it a starred review (I'll admit, despite the fact that it received plenty of starred reviews from so many other professional reviewers, this upset me). And then there are the people who gave it three stars (though I think these reviews, based on what was being said, really should have been a star, or half a star higher). The greatest criticism--even noted by positive reviewers was--that this novel, if written by any other person, would have had a perfect rating. Intriguing characters realistically portrayed, dynamic secondary characters, a relatively original plot, real-life family issues, romance, personal growth, etc. etc. It was the sort of book that would keep a person up reading until 4 AM, and by the time she finished, leave a huge smile on her face (and yes, I'm still smiling). The problem was--to them, anyway, as I have barely even begun my review--that this is Sarah Dessen, who has written nine novels, most of which (I'm pretty sure the last five plus her very first--not so sure about the others) have landed her on the NY Times Bestselling list for months on end. She's created so many characters that some people look at this new main character and think that she's a reminder of a character Dessen already wrote about. They see the leading male character and call him "a hollow shadow of her many other leading males, all of whom were amazing in their original books but seem one dimensional in this book." They all say the same thing--amazing story, but they wanted some more refreshing (for Dessen, anyway. They do acknowledge that the story itself IS rather refreshing, if they hadn't been so well-versed in Dessen's writing).

My observation? I disagree. I agree. It's a double standard, but I feel like it both hits the mark and misses entirely.

To begin, I'll start with Auden. I know some people had a hard time with her--they were more interested in Maggie, Adam, Heidi, even her parents. Which I suppose is understandable. She was a mostly quiet protagonist and in the beginning, she rarely spoke what was on her mind. Passive. Intelligent. More of an observer than an actual participant. They couldn't relate to her because they deemed her "unrealistically dull." I, on the other hand, sympathized with her. I could relate to Auden on a level that I could not relate to Ruby (Lock and Key), Remy (This Lullaby), and only somewhat to Annabel (Just Listen). Auden didn't have much of a chance to have a childhood. Her parents were both intellectuals and already dealt with a "colicky" son who never seemed to act his age and always behaved as the "old child" that they treated her like she was a young adult, even when she actually was a child. She was denied simple things like bowling, food fights, proms, bike-riding, and she pretty much grew up fending for herself, studying all the time, and staying away from anything social because she just wasn't comfortable in that environment. She was, I thought, a lot like Macy from The Truth About Forever, but even then, I saw her as an entirely different person. Macy knew how to be free from responsibilities, how to live, and just needed Wes to show her how to do that again. What Auden needed was to find herself, to deal with her past--like Macy, but to actually physically, emotionally, mentally learn how to live a life with meaning--to make memories, to forge relationships, to learn to fail (and try again). I actually saw her grow as a person, and sure, she wasn't as outgoing as some of the secondary characters, but seriously, not all of us are. I know I, for one, am not at all, and if that makes us "less dimensional" than them, well, that's a matter of opinion.

I've seen a million Eli/Wes comparisons that I feel that this must be mentioned. Eli was and was not like Wes (The Truth About Forever). Yes, he helped Auden go back and do the things she always missed out on in her childhood, but unlike Wes, he wasn't exactly the 'hero' of the story. He was a victim as well, and what I liked about this book was that it wasn't just Wes helping Macy, Owen aiding Annabel, and Dexter saving Remy. He was "haunted," as Auden observed, and actually, he reminded me a lot of Macy in the fact that both of them were dealing with the death of someone close to them (in his case, his friend) and had decided to give up the greatest thing that reminded them of the one who passed away. With Eli, it's different though. He didn't just witness a death like Macy did. He was involved, and I think this made all the difference. Eli was quieter, rarely speaking, doing pretty much nothing actually. His life was a standstill, and to make it worst, he couldn't sleep at night. He didn't know how to deal with the death, so he became a recluse to an even greater extreme than Macy's studying. I seem to always love Sarah Dessen's leading male characters, so it was no surprise that I loved him (though I guess, Wes is still my ultimate favorite--just because there's something about that Truth game. Though I suppose as a reader, we know more about Eli than him and while they are different people, they do have a similar presence).

The other characters were so much more rich than secondary characters in her other novels (I guess this has to do with the personality of the protagonist, especially since it's in the first person perspective, but I welcomed it), which I wasn't expecting at all, since Sarah Dessen's secondary characters are already rich. I loved Maggie and Adam and Heidi and even the baby. Hollis won me over eventually and while I don't know what to think of Laura, even she had moments where she surprised me. I don't know what to think of Auden's mother. I was convinced she, like her ex, was pretty much a jerk, but she surprised me in the end. She isn't comfortable "in the world of girls" and she comes across as condescending, but the truth is, she's just as awkward as Auden is socially. Well, she's an extremely social person, but only in cocktails and academic gatherings, with students and professors. She doesn't quite know what to do when speaking to other women, and she doesn't understand why Auden feels the need to explore the things she's missed out on all her life--but she makes an effort to understand her daughter, even if it takes her a while, and this actually surprised me. I swore to hate her, and actually ended up sort of liking her--especially because she proved herself wrong when she claimed "people don't change." Her relationship with Auden reminded me of Macy and her mother's, but again, I felt that the extra plot points (the divorce, her ex's remarriage) added some element to the mix that could not be present in The Truth About Forever. Both equally good, but relatively different.

I don't even want to talk about her dad. Okay, so he does go back to Heidi at the end and begins to do what he should have done with his first wife, but he just made me so angry. He was selfish, a bit narcissistic, and just such a jerk. I wish Heidi had slapped him. I'm glad their relationship grew to the point that he realized that he had to be there for his wife and his child, but it also annoyed me that he didn't realize he had hurt Auden, and he always took advantage of her. People like him exist, and I have to say that this is a character that Dessen did not actually, in any shape or form, explore in her other novels. I mean, she's written about jerks, but seriously, Auden's father takes it to a new level. He's never quite redeemed, and this is fine by me. I would like to continue disliking him.

So I don't really know how to comment upon the random stuff without completely giving the plot away entirely, but I'll list the jumble in my mind anyway.

1) The advertisement for this book was so misleading. It doesn't bother me, but it did bother other people. Yes, it's about two loners who connect because they're both insomniacs (a consequence of whatever it is the two main characters are suffering from) and they do explore the town by night. But the family dynamic/dysfunction was a huge part of the plot.

2) I liked the simplicity of the bike metaphor. It isn't 'this lullaby' or 'just listen' or 'the truth about forever,' but a common fact that everyone should know but many people fail to acknowledge. I actually, like several people, thought that the lock and key metaphor was almost forced, too fitting, not subtle. And yes, this book's metaphor wasn't subtle at all like the other three I mentioned earlier. But it wasn't forced. It was, as stated, simple and it fit in the book easily.

3) There were about three or four editing mistakes. Three grammatical, one spelling. It didn't particularly bother me, but I did notice them.

4) The epiphany scene (that's what everyone else seems to be calling it, so I will as well) would have been awesome, but this time, I'm going to have to say that it was almost straight out of Just Listen. It was great, it fit well in the context of the book, but here, just knowing that other scene, it did bother me. *sigh* It's a paragraph of similarities, but still...

5) The bonfire scene I heard about in that book trailer Penguin released surprised me. You get the impression that it's an important part of the story when you hear it on the trailer, but it was so inconsequential. Which, of course, is brilliant. I'm glad what I thought would happen actually did not. Actually, I was SO SURE that the guy described was Eli. And then it wasn't and I was amazed. And then excited because I really didn't want to know before I started reading.

6) Did anyone else scream, "DEXTER!" when Jake was first introduced? Sure, Dexter's a much nicer guy and Jake is a bit of a jerk, but the way he was acting during that first meeting with Auden just made me smile because I loved Dexter. (Of course, I know better now and will cringe if I ever reread that scene, but it was a cute moment at the time.)

7) This is the first Dessen novel, since her first three, to be set on the beach and in the summer. :]

I actually don't want to go into the story, but I have to say that I did love this book (and that I'd probably rate it a happy medium between the two highest ratings it seems to be getting--> 4.5 instead of a 4 or 5). It still isn't my favorite Dessen novel (I feel like nothing ever will quite compare with those three I kept mentioning constantly), but I loved reading it all the same. I loved the way Auden and Eli's relationship developed. I love the way Auden's relationship with Maggie and the girls developed. I loved their nightly escapades, even though they weren't in the biggest aspect of the plot as they were advertised. I liked how realistically the divorce/separation/family problems were portrayed. And, most of all, I loved the ending. Because it ended, things were resolved or on their way to being resolved, there was a general contentedness... Basically, it felt like an ending and didn't leave me wondering, like when I read Lock and Key, where the remaining hundred or so pages were because I just needed Nate and Ruby to physically be together. With Eli and Auden, it's obvious, it's cute, it's so Macy and Wes, and Remy and Dexter, and Annabelle and Owen--and I don't mean that they all have the same relationships and are happy-go-lucky and classic romance. Just that they are perfect, for each of them. :)

So yes, the gist is, if you're a Sarah Dessen fan, I think you'll enjoy this novel. And even if you aren't or have no idea who she is, if you're interested in realistically portrayed young adult stories and friendships and relationships, give it a shot. It hopefully, like me, would make you smile. :)

Book Review (ish): Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, J.K. Rowling SPOILERS

amethysth — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 03:40:21 GMT

After reading the book nonstop for the past twenty-four hours (well, actually, only twelve hours yesterday and one hour today, but you know what I mean), I have to say that this Harry Potter book was well worth the wait. JK Rowling has seriously outdone herself... I could not have expected a better book, and although I was going to read it because it was the last one, it was just... excellent. I never expected to enjoy it so much that my eyes actually craved to keep on reading, like it was an addiction. The Harry Potter books were good, but this one was amazing. I seriously loved it.

I loved the beginning with the seven potters. The search for the Horcruxes were well carried through and seeing into Voldemort's mind made the book incredibly interesting. The fact that Dudley actually cared for Harry, that he worried for him was so... adorable. I actually liked the understanding between them two, and it was a nice start to the mayhem that would soon follow.

Snape's memory had to be one of the highlights of the book. I knew that Dumbledore had to have asked Snape to murder him, that it was planned... but never did I realize what Snape had done for Harry, for Lily... The fact that he had loved her, even when she had fallen for James, that he had begged Voldemort for her life... It was so touching. I always liked him and I believed him to be a friend, but wow... He really did care for Harry. The things he had done... for the Order (it was sort of hinted that he was working for the Order and sort of spying on Voldemort for them, while pretending to be a servant of the Dark Lord). And his incredulity that Dumbledore, a wizard he respected, had been training Harry, saving Harry, telling him to help Harry for Lily... all of it, all that time... just to send him off to his death like a pig to get slaughtered. I loved that part because it finally proved his humanity. He cared for Harry because he cared deeply for Lily, and his death, in my opinion, was quite tragic.

Dumbledore's mounting secrets were... interesting. A lot of them I sort of expected because in the last few books... he seemed... "too perfect." In a way, it made him seem... more human. I always liked Dumbledore, but I think I actually liked him more knowing some more about him (though I suspect that knowing these things about him could make a person not like him as well).

The deaths were almost too much. I never expected Hedwig to die or Harry's wand (yes, I was upset when his wand broke in two... so of course I cheered insanely when he was able to mend it at the end). Lupin I thought would die because all his friends had already gone that path, but when he died with his wife and his child was left to Harry and Tonks' parents... it really upset me. And Fred! I can't even imagine one-ear George without his other half!

I liked how the Malfoys finally realized the side they should be on. How Narcissa lied for Harry once she discovered Draco was alive, and how even in the beginning when they asked Draco to identify if the boy was Harry and he replied "Maybe," I knew he wasn't a bad guy (then again, in spite of his arrogance, I always liked Draco).

Peter Pettrigrew's remorse and Percy's finally listening to reason made me happy.

And the ending! The Battle of Hogwarts was brilliant! McGonagall was amazing! And the fact that Harry had to die... I think I nearly cried there. I thought it was all over, that he would go there, die, and the last words would be something about the scar and the memory of the Boy Who (once) Lived--yes, I know, terrible, isn't it? I'm glad she didn't go that route though. I was happy he was alive--it was part of my biggest fear. The way he saved them all, his last words to Voldemort who thought he was dead--everything about the fight was amazing. I loved the action scenes in this novel.

I thought the 'Nineteen Years Later' was adorable. It was nice to see the families they had created, the happy Voldemort-free world that thrived. Harry's children were adorable. I loved them all! James had always been one of my favorite characters, so it was nice to see that there was another James Potter, one that seemed to be apparently just like his dead grandfather. Albus Severus was just so cute! I loved how he was the one to inherit Lily's eyes. Snape would have loved that. And their last child, Lily Potter, reminded me a lot of her namesake as well. Probably because of how anxious she was to attend Hogwarts one day like her brothers--it reminded me a lot of Snape's memory of Lily and Harry's own eagerness toward the school. I really wonder what Harry chose as a profession, and I found it adorable how everyone around the Hogwarts Express were staring at Harry as he came to see off his children, and Ron's comment about being a big hero...

*sighs in awe*

I think this book is JKR's masterpiece. A lot of the others I enjoyed, but this one, this one had some magic the others needed. This book is the reason why Harry Potter will probably continue to go down in history even now that there are no more books. It saddens me to see that it's over, but I think it's ended in a way that's not only memorable, but addicting. I feel like reading it again... all over.

To put it shortly... I simply love it. :]