Author Archives: Goddess in the Stacks

Book Review: The Thinking Woman’s Guide to Real Magic

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real magicThe Thinking Woman’s Guide to Real Magic
by Emily Croy Barker
563 pages
Published 2013
Fantasy

This book is FANTASTIC. I was enthralled from start to finish, and frantically looked up the author to make sure she is writing a sequel. (She is, thank goodness!) I absolutely loved the main character, Nora, and the acerbic magician Aruendiel. Even while cheering for the opposite side, I even enjoyed reading about Raclin and Ilissa, the villains of the novel.

In Nora Fischer, we have a modern, independent, feminist woman transported to a place and time where women are inferior (by nature, most think.) There are even linguistic influences that make them inferior; women speak with a lot of “um” and “well” type words in their speech, while men don’t. When Nora protests that this makes women’s speech sound weaker, she’s told that that’s “just how women speak.” Seeing her confronted with the sexism ingrained within the medieval style culture, and seeing her confront Aruendiel with how sexist it actually is, was a wonderful sub-plot of the book.

The main plot was well-paced and interesting – after being kidnapped by Ilissa at the beginning of the book, and enchanted into being a beautiful, love-struck little ninny, Nora recovers herself with the help of Aruendiel, and spends the rest of the book evading re-capture and finding her place in this new world. The descriptions are colorful, the characters are deep and fascinating, and the land and culture itself shows just how much thought went into creating this world. This is an absolutely spectacular debut novel, in my opinion, and I cannot WAIT for the sequel, since Barker did leave a few questions unanswered at the end of the book. I really can’t rave about this book enough. If you like fantasy, (or Pride and Prejudice, since this book, while not attempting to be a retelling or anything, had a lot of the same feel) you should really pick this one up.

From the inside cover of The Thinking Woman’s Guide to Real Magic:

Nora Fischer’s dissertation is stalled and her boyfriend is about to marry another woman. During a miserable weekend at a friend’s wedding, Nora gets lost and somehow walks through a portal into a different world, with only her copy of Pride and Prejudice in her back pocket. There, she meets glamorous, charming Ilissa, who introduces her to a new world of decadence and riches. Nora herself feels different: more attractive; more popular. Soon, her romance with the gorgeous, masterful Raclin is heating up. It’s almost too good to be true.

Then the elegant veneer shatters. Nora’s new fantasy world turns darker, a fairy tale gone incredibly wrong. Making it here will take skills Nora never learned in graduate school. Her only real ally – and a reluctant one at that – is the magician Aruendiel, a grim, reclusive figure with a biting tongue and a shrouded past. And it will take her becoming Aruendiel’s student – and learning real magic herself – to survive. When a passage home finally opens, Nora must weigh her “real life” against the dangerous power of love and magic.

Book Review: Alice in Zombieland by Gena Showalter

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aliceAlice in Zombieland
by Gena Showalter
404 pages
Published 2012
Urban Fantasy

This was an interesting re-imagining of Alice in Wonderland. In Alice in Zombieland, Alice Bell’s life has always been curtailed by her father’s insistence that monsters exist. The family cannot leave the house after dark, she’s been taught how to fight hand-to-hand and with a couple of weapons, and they never – NEVER – drive past the graveyard. All of this changes in one night – when Alice “falls down the rabbit hole” as it were – and discovers her father wasn’t insane after all.

Now, living with her grandparents, haunted by visions of her little sister and glimpses of monsters in the dark, Alice – or Ali, as she insists on being called – finds herself being called on to fight the monsters alongside the roughest crowd in her high school. Falling in love with the leader of the bad boys doesn’t help her social life, but might help her stay alive.

I enjoyed this book and will probably pick up the sequel, Through the Zombie Glass, if I can find it at the library. The writing flowed well most of the time, and while Alice began a little whiny, by the end of the book she was pretty bad ass. It felt…. a little more “young adult” than some young adult books I’ve read; the emotions seemed detached or damped down a bit. While she was dealing with grief over the loss of her family, and possible death at the hands of zombies, it just didn’t feel as raw as I think those emotions should have felt. And the notion of a bunch of high school kids fighting zombies – with the support of adults, including the high school principal – was a little weird. Still an interesting book, and not a waste of time, but it felt a lot like “teenagers are special snowflakes!”

From the back of Alice in Zombieland:

SHE WON’T REST UNTIL SHE’S SENT EVERY WALKING CORPSE BACK TO ITS GRAVE. FOREVER.

Had anyone told Alice Bell that her entire life would change course between one heartbeat and the next, she would have laughed. From blissful to tragic, innocent to ruined? Please. But that’s all it took. One heartbeat. A blink, a breath, a second, and everything she knew and loved was gone. Her father was right. The monsters are real. To avenge her family, Ali must learn to fight the undead. To survive, she must learn to trust the baddest of the bad boys, Cole Holland. But Cole has secrets of his own, and if Ali isn’t careful, those secrets might just prove to be more dangerous than the zombies.

Book Review: Elantris by Brandon Sanderson

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elantrisElantris
by Brandon Sanderson
492 pages
Published 2005
Fantasy

I’ve enjoyed every Brandon Sanderson book I’ve read, and Elantris was certainly no exception. This was a beautiful mix of religious and political intrigue, magical mystery, and just a touch of romance. The ultimate answer to the mystery was so elegantly simple, but discovered so late, that consequences still had to be faced even when the main problem was fixed. (I’m trying to be vague so I don’t spoil it!) I loved both Raoden and Sarene, and in a way, Hrathen too. He was a wonderfully written villain – one of those villains whose motivations you get to see and understand, so you end up sympathizing with him even as you don’t want to see him succeed. Sanderson definitely has a talent for unusual fantasy novels, with elaborate plots and complex, well thought-out worlds.

In short, yet another amazing book from Brandon Sanderson.

From the back of Elantris:

Elantris: gigantic, beautiful, literally radiant, filled with benevolent beings who used their powerful magical abilities to benefit all the people of Arelon. Yet each of these godlike beings had been an ordinary person until touched by the mysterious transforming power of the Shaod. Then, ten years ago, without warning, the magic failed. Elantrians became wizened, feeble, leper-like creatures, and Elantris itself dark, filthy, and crumbling. The Shaod became a curse.

Arelon’s new capital city, Kae, crouches in the shadow of Elantris, which its people do their best to ignore. Princess Sarene of Teod has come to Kae for a marriage of state with Crown Prince Raoden, hoping – based on their correspondence – also to find love. She finds instead that Raoden has died, and she is considered his widow. Both Teod and Arelon are under threat as the last remaining holdouts against the imperial ambitions of the ruthless religious fanatics of Fjordell. Sarene decides to make the best of a sad situation and use her position to oppose the machinations of Hrathen, a Fjordell High priest who has come to convert Arelon and claim it for his emperor and his god.

But neither Sarene nor Hrathen suspects the truth about Prince Raoden’s disappearance. Taken by the same strange malady that struck the fallen gods of Elantris, Raoden was secretly imprisoned within the dark city. His struggle to create a society for the wretches trapped there begins a series of events that will bring hope to Arelon, and perhaps even reveal the secret of Elantris itself.

I’m back!

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Now that the holidays are well and truly over, I have a bit more time to blog again. I got rather busier than I’d anticipated this last month, between the holidays and starting a new job, so sadly I’ve had no time to review the books I’ve been reading. That will be changing! I finished Tamora Pierce‘s Tortall series, and her Magic Steps series, so I’ll be writing about all of those. I also read Elantris by Brandon Sanderson (Review Here), Alice in Zombieland by Gena Showalter (Review), and The Thinking Woman’s Guide to Real Magic by Emily Croy Barker. (That last one was SPECTACULAR and I can’t wait to tell you all about it! Edit: Review here!)

So many things happening! My local library re-opened on Saturday, so that will make new books much easier to get. Crash Course Literature, with John Green, is starting a new course in February, and they’re starting with Homer’s Odyssey (free for your Kindle device!) and Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex (also free for your Kindle!), so I have those requested from the library to re-read before the Crash Course videos come out.

I am very much looking forward to talking about everything I’ve been reading, so stay tuned!

Book Review: Quintessence by David Walton

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quintQuintessence
by David Walton
320 pages
Published 2013
Historical/Steampunk Fantasy

With Thanksgiving over, I’ve finally had time to sit down with a book again, and WOW where do I start with this one?! Quintessence is a fantastical tale, set in an alternate Victorian Age England. In this reality, the world really IS flat, and the sun and stars are a half dome over the earth, meaning they’re much closer to the earth at the edges of the world. Our main characters are Dr. Parris and his daughter Catherine, part of an expedition to an island on the edge of the world, populated by fantastical creatures, where lines of magical “quintessence” power strange abilities.

This book was fantastic. I keep using that word – but it’s the perfect word for this book! There’s -just- enough romance to give it that happy-ever-after feeling at the end, but the romance was by no means integral to the plot. Walton wove together magical creatures, political intrigue, colonization issues, philosophy, and troubles with the natives into one coherent, magical tale. I LOVED it. I see on his Amazon page that there’s a sequel – Quintessence Sky – but I’m not sure I want to spoil the perfection that is the first book by taking the chance on the second!

I picked this book up largely because of the gorgeous cover art, but it does not disappoint. If you like steampunk, you should read this book.

From the back of Quintessence:

Five hundred years ago in an alternate age of exploration, the earth is flat. Alchemy is a true science, sea monsters menace the oceans, and Europe is embroiled in religious controversy. Here, the magic is thin, but at the edge of the world, where the stars reach down close to the earth, wonders abound. This drives the bravest explorers to the alluring Western Ocean, toward lands unknown. Christopher Sinclair is an alchemist who cares about one thing: quintessence, a substance he believes will grant magical powers and immortality. And he has a ship.

Fleeing an inquisition, physician Stephen Parris follows Sinclair to an island that perches upon the farthest horizon, bringing his daughter Catherine with him. The island teems with fantastical animals and alluring mysteries . . . and may even harbor the greatest and most coveted secret of all.

Book Review: Confessions of a Falling Woman and other short stories

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confessionsConfessions of a Falling Woman and other short stories
by Debra Dean
224 pages
Published 2008
Contemporary fiction

I picked up this book because the title intrigued me. I was expecting a book of short stories on a theme, being Falling Women, and instead I got a book of short stories by an author, one of them being from a divorced, adulterous ex-wife. For all that it wasn’t what I was expecting, and was not my usual fare, I was impressed by the quality of the writing and the emotions behind the stories. Most of the stories are tiny vignettes – glimpses into other people’s lives. The last story is a much longer story about a washed-up actor. The book is short, but still manages to cram in nine stories in 135 pages, with the tenth consuming 90 pages on its own.

The book begins with “What the Left Hand Is Saying,” about the people living in an apartment building coming together to form a community. “The Queen Mother” descibes a Southern Matriarch getting an intervention for her alcoholism. “The Afterlife of Lyle Stone” is a bizarre little story that I’m still not entirely sure what to make of. “A Brief History of Us” reads like a woman talking to her shrink about her family’s history. “Another Little Piece,” “Romance Manual,” “The Best Man,” “The Bodhisattva,” and “Confessions of a Falling Woman” all deal with varying aspects of love and romance. The crowning story of the collection is “Dan in the Gray Flannel Rat Suit” about a washed-up actor realizing he’s washed-up.

This was a decent collection. It’s not my normal cup of tea, though her novel looks vaguely interesting (The Madonnas of Leningrad). I’ll probably only pick up Madonnas if I happen to see it on the library shelf when picking up other things. If you’re into contemporary fiction, though, this might be worth a shot.

From the back of Confessions of a Falling Woman and other stories:

A surprised Southern matriarch is confronted by her family at an intervention… A life-altering break-in triggers insomniac introspection in a desperate actor… Streetwise New York City neighbors let down their guard for a naive puppeteer and must suffer the consequences…

In this stunning collection of short stories – five of which are being published for the very first time – bestselling, award-winning author Debra Dean displays the depth and magnitude of her extraordinary literary talent. Replete with the seamless storytelling and captivating lyrical voice that made her debut novel, The Madonnas of Leningrad, a national bestseller, Dean’s Confessions of a Falling Woman is a haunting, satisfying, and unforgettable reading experience.