AtomicKnits

Dragon Strike

Dragon Strike is E. E. Knight's sequel to Blah Blah Blah, Age of Fire. In this book, the three siblings, AuRon, Wistala and The Copper FINALLY meet each other.  The build-up to the meeting took up almost three quarters of the book, and was SO anticlimactic.  For three and three quarters books you are WAITING for this moment, and when it finally comes, it's like 'no one was there for me' (Copper), 'I'm a forgiving soul, so I forgive you' (Wistala), and 'Huh, I'm not as mad as I thought' (AuRon), and then they just move onto the next stupid thing! SERIOUSLY, the description of this big meeting was only TWO pages and I feel kind of cheated.  There should have been long drawn out family drama and all this stuff going on for the rest of the book and then left open ended so I would want to read the next book (yes, there is another one). It's like waiting your whole entire childhood to go to Disney World and meet Mickey Mouse and then when it finally happens, you find out that it's just some dude in a costume, you take one picture, and then you're shuffled out and onto the next stupid ride that's not as good. This book should have been called Dragon Disappointment.

The Prophet of Yonwood

The Prophet of Yonwood is the third book in Jeanne DuPrau's Books of Ember.  This is a prequel that takes place about a generation or two before the City of Ember is created.  I liked it for the most part, but I was kind of disappointed, because I thought it was going to be about the actual thought process and execution of the City of Ember.  Instead it was about about life in general during a time of global crisis and impending apocalypse.  I did enjoy the themes a lot - how religion can be used to control people and how easily people allow themselves to be controlled while they're in a state of fear.  I liked the idea that there was a Prophet in the town, however, I was also disappointed in the way the prophet just all of a sudden snapped out of her weird sick mumbling state.  I am looking forward to reading the forth book in this series which picks up with the send of the second book left off.  I also still want to read about how Ember was set up and founded and the issues that went along with that.  I'm hoping Jeanne DuPrau chooses to write a book during that time.

The Last Light of the Sun

Disclaimer: Ok, I promise I am going to get back to knitting content soon.  I have strayed from the blog in general and I want to get back to it!  I have finished some things, and also some other things I can't post until after Christmas.  I am pretty settled in my new city (Eugene is the best!) and my new job (also the best!). I am happy, things are steady, and there is lot of fiber related things to be done and blog about!

*Sigh.* The Last Light of the Sun by Guy Gavriel Kay is one of those books that I kind of really like and kind of really don't like at the same time.  It's my second Kay, and I think I had the same struggle reading this one as I had with the last book of his I read.  I feel like I can't really even sum up the story in simple words, which might be a good thing.  It takes place during the time (a long time ago) when the Vikings were invading England.  There are Vikings, so, yes, there is a lot of hacking people to bits.  There are also English royals, so, YES, there are faeries and mystical happenings.  There's some traveling and falling in love.  I think my favorite part of the book was the characters and the way the author sneakily developed them.  As I made my way through the slog that was the plot, I totally ended up caring about what happened to the people at the end.  Also, there were some really cool asides that took you through the lives of passersby of the actual main events.  I really enjoyed these little stories, and I found myself kind of disappointed when I had to go back to reading the main story.  This one was alright. I know a lot of people love this author, but, honestly, I'm not sure if I will pick up any more from this one.

Priestess of Avalon

Priestess of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley and Diana L. Paxon is the forth book of Avalon I have read, and I kind of think it might be my last.  This novel chronicles the life of Helena, mother of Constantine.  She faces the rise of Christianity in the Roman empire, and this super intense theme gave the story potential to be so awesome! But, alas.  I believe that Marion Zimmer Bradley started writing this book and died before it was completed.  Diana L. Paxon finished writing it.  I have to say that you can totally tell!  I haven never read anything else by Diana Paxon, but all I know is that the first part of this book was awesome and the past two parts were not that good.  They were slow, uneventful, and did not have the required percentage of pagan/Avalon stuff required to fulfill my needs.  I think there are more Avalon books after this one, and I am hesitant to give them a go now. Ah well, we had a good run.

Abarat

Abarat by Clive Barker was recommended to me by Beth when I was going on a trip to the library in search of some sweet YA.  I really thought this was an excellent book!  It was really good storytelling, and I found I could easily escape into this world and leave my cares behind.  The artwork that went along with it is great as well and helps you to visualize the world and the characters.  The story is about a girl named Candy Quackenbush from Chickentown, Minnesota (already rules, right?!) who is kind of an outcast.  One day she is wandering is a field and finds herself taken away to a land called the Abarat.  Adventures begin and new characters are met.  I felt like this book was only setting the stage for the next books in the series, and I am really excited to get to read those soon.  I would recommend this book to anyone who likes adventure stories.  This is a fantasy, but I think it's very accessible, and readers who don't really like fantasy still might like this book.

Knit Two

I saw this one on the 'new' shelf at the library and picked it up.  I have kind of been wanting to read Knit Two by Kate Jacobs, but I definitely didn't want to buy it, and I kind of didn't want to read it.  It read fast and was pretty entertaining, which was good, and someone just didn't up and die at the end for no reason, so that was good too.  I was kind of disappointed with the development of the characters in this sequel.  Since there is no one main character anymore (she died), now we follow the other women and men involved equally.  That's ok, but I ended up not really caring that much about any of them, because I only got to know them each a little bit, instead of maybe one or two a whole lot.  I think I may have preferred that.  But, it was cute, a good ice cream sundae read, and I will probably read more books in this series if/when they come out (if I don't have to buy them).

The Help

The Help is Kathryn Stockett's first novel, and my book club picked it to read for next meeting.  I thought this was a good book. It wasn't anything mind-blowingly amazing, but it was addicting to read, and I enjoyed the characters and the story and the ending.  This book is about three women living in 1960's Jackson, Mississippi.  Two of them are Aibileen and Minny, African-Americans who work as maids, and one of them is Skeeter, a rich white lady who has just finished college and moved back home to live with her parents.  All three of the women are very bothered and fed up with the racism and segregation laws prevalent in their community.  Skeeter's dream is to be a writer, so she decides to write an Anonymous book telling the stories of what it's like to work from the maids' perspective.  Skeeter also had a special relationship with her own family maid.  Some of the things that happen are funny, some are sad, and some will make you want to cry in a not sad kind of way.  This is definitely a good chick-lit fix (if you need one), and I hope Kathryn Stockett doesn't become a one hit wonder.  I did think she did an excellent job with the characters.  I would recommend this book to anyone who likes reading about women and their relationships with each other, or anyone who likes reading about "everyday life" during a period of America's past.

Ender's Game

I never got to read this one as a kid either! Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card - the first in a series of 4 main ones and I guess a bunch of extra ones too?  I liked this book a lot.  It was weird and disturbing and well-written and cool!  I had to remind myself a bunch of times that most of the characters are all little kids and only 6 years old when the story begins.  There are already rules today in some countries that limit the amount of children a family can have, but it's interesting in this book how the extra children are put to use by the government in whatever way they saw fit.  They aren't really considered people.  The twist at the end was *kind of* predictable, but it was still really powerful when it happened.  I liked how the ending started to open up another can of worms so that crazy stuff can happen in the books to come, which I definitely will read. I would definitely recommend this classic to sci fi fans, and also people who like ready stories with child characters.

Dragon Outcast

Alright, I am not going to spend a lot of time on this. Dragon Outcast, the third book in the Age of Fire series by E. E. Knight.  This book actually kind of had me by the middle to end, but it just did not deliver in the end.  It is interesting that the outcast of the clutch of dragons would be the one to rise to a relatively powerful position and how it came about, and I will read the next ones, because now I really want to know how pissed Wistala and Auron get when they see their outcast brother ruling over dragons and men and blah blah blah.  But, yeah - really cool world, lots of potential, weak delivery. Send along the next one please.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

I recently joined my cousin Emily's book club, and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson was the book at was chosen for next month's meeting.  I usually stay away from murder mysteries and crime novels in general, so I didn't know if I was going to like this book or not.  I am excited, however, to read some books that I maybe wouldn't choose myself.  I thought this book was alright I guess.  I really liked that it was a page-turner and kept my interest.  The female characters are awesome.  You can tell that the author really liked (yeah, he's dead) women in a respectful way.  I didn't like all of the violence in the story.  I thought a lot of it was gratuitous, especially the part toward the beginning of the book with Lisbeth Salander and her gross lawyer.  I felt like it was a really cheap way to accelerate Lisbeth's character development.  I mean, I get why it happened and why someone like her would let that happen and blah blah blah, but I would have liked to get to know Lisbeth better throughout more pages and more less gross events.  Anyway, this is a good mystery and it was very suspenseful.  I really liked the pacing and I think I'm a fan of Stieg Larsson's writing style.  I'll probably read the sequel.  I would definitely recommend this to people who like a good 'ol gruesome murder mystery and readers who like strong female characters.