hi! It's Penny here and as usual I'm going to talk about some bookish things
specifically today I wanted to talk about the last 1,000 pages of fantasy
that I've read. This is a series I've been doing lately where every time I've
read a thousand pages of a particular genre I do a wrap-up of those books and
I talk about what I liked about them, what I didn't like about them, and who I
might recommend those books to. So this time we're going to talk about them from
worst to best although I did give all of these books three stars, except for the
last one which I gave four stars, so I do think that all of these books
are okay and there would probably be someone that likes all of them. Also all
the books except the last one again are part of a series and I am hopeful that
the series will improve as they go on so I am continuing with all of these series.
The first two books that I'm going to be talking about are the first two books
of the Inheritance Cycle and that is Eragon and Eldest. Now even though I have
this in physical form I did listen to both of these on audiobook and I have to
be honest the writing style wasn't really for me and so I really needed
those audiobooks in order to get through these. But there were some aspects that I
enjoyed so I am glad that I read both of them. As I said I will be continuing on
with the series because I know that Christopher Paolini was very young when
he started writing this series and so I'm hoping that as things go on he will
just get better and better. I don't know that the second book proved that theory
but that's what I'm hoping. So this series follows a boy named Eragon. He
finds this rock or he thinks it's a rock. It turns out to be a dragon egg and he
becomes one of the first dragon riders in a really long time. In the first book
he's learning about what it means and trying to find somewhere where he can be
safe. In the second book he is starting his training to learn how to be a proper
Dragon Rider. I will say I found this in a lot of ways
to be quite generic fantasy. Given the time that was written and the youth of
the author I think that makes a lot of sense. But it's set in this very
tolkien-esque world. So we've got dwarves and elves and Dragons and just all those
classic fairy tale tropes. I do really like some of the values and the logic
that Christopher Paolini puts into this book especially in the second book. And
one thing that I really loved about the audiobook is that I thought the voice
that the narrator put on for Eragon sounded a lot like Mark Hamill when he
played Luke in the early Star Wars movies and they're such similar
characters in a way that that seemed perfect. So they're both being raised by
their uncles and then something bad happens and their uncle dies and they're
constantly complaining about it's not fair and they kind of still going
through that same journey like realizing that the other chosen one and training
to gain their abilities. The two stories are very similar and so I found that
particular voice really well done and really appropriate. In the second book
Eldest, I did think that the structure of the story and the plot was a little
bit less clear. There is quite a big like plot twisty type thing at the end
which was probably lacking from the first book but it didn't really seem to
have much direction for a lot of the book .wWereas the first one I felt was
quite a clear quest that we were following. So I think that I would
recommend this book to people who really love dragons. Potentially people who are
quite new to fantasy or people who really like Tolkien type fantasy. Now I
personally don't really like Lord of the Rings. My favorite Tolkien story is Roverandom,
which is a bit of a random one. I didn't really like Tolkien because I
don't like his writing style. But I don't like this writing style either but the
world... the elements of the world are very similar so perhaps if you like Tolkien
you might like this series too. Once I've read the next couple of books in the
series I'll be able to say whether it gets better or not. So then the next best
fantasy book that I have here to review and recommend would be Miss Peregrine's
Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs. This is the first book in a
trilogy although I believe there is another trilogy that has started to be
being released as well. And as I said in my wrap-up, I kind of ruined this book
for myself by watching the movie first. I have to say I think the movie was
incredibly well done. I really enjoyed it. So then this was a bit of
a let down. Partly because the movie already set me up for what was going to
happen so in this book I never really felt like there were any surprises and I
don't know whether if I'd been reading it without having watched the movie I
would have had that same experience or whether I would have found some of the
stuff really interesting and unique. So this story is about Miss Peregrine's
Home for Peculiar Children. This is a home where there are these children and
it's all based on these weird photos. So Ransom Riggs has collected all these
strange photos and also looked at other people's collections and then kind of
built the story around these photos and so most the children in these photos are
the children in the home for peculiar children and peculiar children have some
kind of strange ability. However most of the story we follow Jacob whose
grandfather grew up in this home for peculiar children and has always been
told stories by his grandfather about the different peculiar children but as
he got older he stopped believing these stories until his grandfather dies under
mysterious circumstances and he ends up tracking this home down. I do have to say
I don't think the story was particularly realistic. Maybe it didn't try to be but
I just don't believe that Jacob's parents would have let him go looking for this
home for peculiar children, especially given his mental state after his
grandfather passed away. I also thought he was quite a whiny brat given how
privileged he was. Then the romance in this story is all based around Jacob and
his grandfather's ex-girlfriend, who is still the same age because there is some
small time travel aspect in this story. So Jacob has this thing with his
grandfather's ex-girlfriend and I just found that kind of icky. Like I don't
really believe that if I somehow ended up in the future and my boyfriend's
grandson was there that I would want to date him? Urgh, that's so gross.
Honestly like even if he was the same age as me it would still feel like
pedophilia. So I found that part kind of icky. I do also think that just the plot
and the pacing was done so much better in the movie which is why this book
let me down. However that's said, if you don't mind the idea of dating your
boyfriend's grandson and also you like the idea of these peculiar children with
all these different weird abilities and you kind of like creepy old photos and
you don't mind that the writing style is quite basic... I feel like I'm not selling
this one? I think it's an interesting world. I think maybe before I finally
recommend this one I need to read more of the series to really get a feel as to
whether it improves. But I did like some of the powers the kids had and it was
kind of fun so it wasn't bad. I think it just wasn't
what it was hyped to be. That hype, always messing with your perceptions. Ok next
we're gonna talk about Rebel of the Sands by Alwyn Hamilton.
This is a beautiful cover for starters. I really love the cover and for that
reason I really wanted to love this book. Unfortunately I couldn't quite give it
more than three stars but I am so hopeful for this series because the main
reason that it let me down is that the fantastical elements that I was promised
don't show up until the end of the story. But that means that the next two books
should have it all the way through and so hopefully that means I will like it a
lot more. So this story follows Amani who is this girl. Her parents are
dead and she lives with her uncle in the middle of the desert and her uncle has
plans to either marry her himself or sell her off. She's not really keen about
being stuck in this middle of the desert town at all so she decides to use her
shooting skills to go out and earn herself some money in this shooting
competition. While she's doing that she meets this guy named Jin and eventually
they end up escaping together and going on a bit of an adventure. The story does
have fantastical elements in that there are particular people who have different
magical powers because one of their parents was a Djinn and once we met some
of these characters and they started doing cool magical stuff I really
enjoyed it but I did feel that it was just a bit slow. I also I thought the
romance was quite predictable and we do meet this kind
group of people near the end and then some drama goes down and I thought we
just hadn't really gotten attached enough to that group before the drama
happens to get the emotional impact that the drama was trying to achieve. Trying to
say stuff without spoiling you but it's hard. There are also a lot of
parts to the story that just doesn't seem very realistic and I know that it's
fantasy but you still expect within fantasy to be some kind of reality set
up that the characters live within and I didn't feel that things were realistic
within the world that had been set up. But I am interested in some of the
characters that were introduced near the end as well as the powers so I'm really
hopeful that this series will improve. I think if you like desert fantasy with a
little bit of an Arabian flavor but still a little bit Wild West as well
then I think you will like this. Just go into it expecting that there won't be
too much fantastical stuff until the end. Ok so then the last fantasy book that I
am going to recommend to you today is Maddigan's Quest by Margaret Mahy. I
gave this book four stars but honestly in my heart I wanted to give it five
stars. I just when I looked at some of my other 5 stars, it
doesn't quite compare. But I did really love this. And I will admit part of that
is probably because Margaret Mahy is a New Zealand author. I come from New
Zealand. And this is a dystopian future that's quite obviously set in a
dystopian New Zealand because there are Maori elements and also just a few like
landscape and bits and pieces that make it seem like it's it in New Zealand
however there's been this big event in the past called the Destruction that has
destroyed everything and now the roads tend to change and very hard to get
from town to town. All the towns are quite small and they don't have much
technology anymore but there are still remnants of our current world hanging
around. So in the story we primarily follow this girl named Garland who is part of
the Fantasia - Madigan's Fantasia. So she is a Maddigan and the
Maddigans run this like circus troupe that travel around. Unfortunately
right at the beginning they get attacked by this motorcycle gang and even though
a couple of other characters have traveled back in time from the future in
order to stop this incident, Garland's father does end up dying. And so
throughout this book she's working with these two boys and this baby that had
come back in time to try and stop future things from going wrong.
She's also dealing with the fact that her father has died and there's this new
guy that is sort of forming a relationship with her mother and so
she's dealing with that as well. And I thought that those aspects of the
story where she's dealing with her father's death and this new family
that's forming, I thought that was done really well. And I think because this is
quite a young adult fantasy like almost middle grade but maybe not quite, I think
it's probably relevant for a lot of people their age like learning to deal
with stepparents and how to get along with them and how you can form a
relationship with them without betraying your biological parent. So I thought that
was really well done. Also there are some other characters that I really love so
there's a character called Boomer who was basically just this kid who's just
slightly younger than Garland, he loves to play his drums noisily all the time,
and I thought his development throughout the story was really great and I started
out kind of disliking him by the end I think he was my favorite character. Also
I really enjoyed the way that the Maori references were just sort of casually
slipped into the story like it wasn't a big deal. And this book is also made into
a TV series which I watched a while ago and I do really want to rewatch it.
It has um young Rose McIver if you know who she is
from iZombie, is that what it's called? It has Rose McIver, it also has what's her
name? Oh I can't remember any of their names. Hang on I gotta look up her name
up oh it also has like Danielle McCormick is Garland's mother
and a couple of other famous actor people in it. So it's a really great TV
series. I do recommend it. I really want to rewatch it and I can see why they
made it into a TV series because every chapter is very episodic because they
arrive at a new town and there's a new issue that they need to overcome and
then they do and then they move on to the next town but somehow it doesn't get
repetitive because every issue is different and there is a plot thread
that goes throughout the story as well. And I remember in the TV series when
they drop those little bits of Maori I was really impressed and I was really
impressed with it in the book as well. There is also a library in this book
which was pretty cool. Always good to see a library in a book. I
just think this is a really lovely story. I liked the little time travel aspect
to it. I always like time travel books. I thought the characters all seemed really
lovely except the bad ones who were just just the right amount of awful for a
young young adult novel. I think if you like young adult or middle grade
fantasies that deal with a lot of family issues then you will really love this
book. If you want like a tiny bit of time travel and a horrible monster bad guy
this is definitely a good book to read. I really need to rewatch the TV series
like really really soon. So what do you think? Have you read any of those fantasy
books? If you have I would love to talk to you about them more down in the
comments and hear what you think about them or if you haven't read them I'd
love to hear whether you think you might pick them up in the future. Otherwise
thank you so much for watching! I hope you're having a wonderful day and I will
see you next time :)