A "Serie"ous Review: Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas

      

    

This review covers the main series as I have not read any of the prequel materials.  Normally, I would review each of the individual books, then the series as a whole.  In this case, to prevent spoilers, I will be reviewing the entire series.  When Celaena is rescued from the slave mines in order to take part of a competition, by the crown prince Dorian, she is thankful.  All of her opponents are men - thieves, assassins, brutes.  However, something dark is lurking in the castle and killing off the fighters one by one.  She must kill in order to survive, while also avoiding what is killing her competitors.  In the final fight of the competition, it brands her and sets her on the path to her destiny.   

I loved this series!  I would finish one, then try to get the next one as quickly as possibly.  They are very fast paced and difficult to put down.  I spent more than a few nights staying up on my Kobo reading in the dark, much to the frustration of my husband.  The author is a master of the cliffhanger, so you just HAVE to read the next book in order to see what happens next.  Celaena is a very independent woman who knows what she wants and she'll do what she must in order to get it.  On the path to her destiny, she makes a number of unusual friends and allies who will assist her in the ultimate and final confrontation.  LGBTQ+ friendly.

Similar Books:
Graceling Realm Series by Kristin Cashore

    

The main character from Graceling reminds me of Celaena.

The Ascendance Trilogy by Jennifer A. Nielson

    

Although the main character is male, the cutthroat competition is very similar to Throne of Glass.

Rule Series by Ellen Goodlett

 

The politics of the kingdom remind me of the politics that occur in the Throne of Glass series.  Bonus points for LGBTQ+ normalization of relationships.

A "Serie"ous Review: The Mapmaker's Trilogy by S.E. Grove

          

The Mapmaker's Trilogy by S.E. Grove

In The Glass Sentence, we travel with Sophia on an adventure where she follows the directions of a mysterious glass map.  She finds and makes new allies along the way including a new companion named Theo.  The politics of the time echo our own.

In The Golden Specific, she sets out on a mission to find her parents after being given a hint to their whereabouts by a mysterious benefactor at the Nihilism archives.  We also meet some interesting new characters and find out more about the different Ages across the globe.

In The Crimson Skew, Sophia and her companions arrive back in North America only to find everything in disarray.  She continues onward to find her parents and along the way gathers the necessary allies as they all head towards their shared destiny.

I honestly picked up the first book on a whim from the library.  I wasn't really reading anything at the time and wanted something interesting.  The cover captured my eye and the description on the back clinched the deal.  Sophia is a strong, independent female character who accepts her companions as they are.  The plots are compelling and, once the world building is out of the way, very fast paced.  You will read the entire trilogy just to see what happens next.  This is a wonderful fantasy series!

Other similar series:

His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman


Northern Lights is the adult edition of The Golden Compass.

Enchanted Forest Chronicles by Patricia C. Wrede



Inkheart by Cornelia Funke

Book Review: The Glass Sentence

The Glass Sentence by S.E. Grove

This was an amazing book that was hard to put down! When I did put it down over the Easter weekend, it was with great reluctance. When I started reading it, I couldn't stop until I got to the ending!  I stayed up much too late to find out what happened.
In 1799 the world experienced the Great Disruption in which something happened so that time in the world was fractured and then came together in different times. The year is now 1891, Sophia is the daughter of two explorers who have gone on an adventure, leaving her with her uncle Shadrock. When he is kidnapped, she goes after him with the help of Theo. Together, they have great adventures while searching for him and heading into danger. Will Sophia be able to decipher the map in time or will she doom the entire world?
Read Alikes: The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman
The Son of Neptune by Rick Riordan

The Selection Book Review

The Selection by Kiera Cass

Published by Harper Teen, 2012

This is the first book of a planned trilogy.  In the American state of China, the royal family selects 40 girls from the population for the royal prince to choose to marry.  When America is selected, she is heartbroken as she has been secretly dating someone for about two years who is below her caste.  The ones, basically royalty, are on top and the eights are on the bottom.  However, this is her chance to not only better herself, but help her family and she strikes a deal with her secret boyfriend.  This book is a combination of the TV show The Bachelor and The Hunger Games.  While not everything is recorded and broadcasted like in The Hunger Games, particular events and interviews are broadcasted.  Unlike The Hunger Games, there are rules in the house and if these rules are broken, then the offender gets kicked out.  This book is suggested for those who like dystopian novels, romance, love triangles, series and suspense.  I suggest ages 16 and up as that is the age of the Selected.

P.S.  There’s supposed to be a televised series of the books, so keep your eye out!

Shiver and The Night Wanderer

So, I read Shiver.  I really liked it once I got into it.  The characters are fully developed and it acknowledges the reality of some teens parents.  I also really liked when the same events were told from the perspectives of Sam and Grace.
The Night Wanderer was interesting as well.  I figured out pretty quickly what the main character was.  I found it really interesting to hear the history of the Ojibwa from the point of view of Pierre L'Errant.  The girl is very realistically portrayed and I have to say I remember arguments similar to that which I had to my parents.

The Knife of Never Letting Go

This is a really interesting book.  It takes place on a colonized world that is called the New World.  It is a coming of age story that takes place in a town called Prentisstown.  There are no women, killed by what is known as the Noise.  The Noise is a germ that is spread by the Spackles, the native aliens of the planet.  When Todd finds a hole in the Noise, he freaks out.  His parents help him run away and he runs into a girl, the only one he's ever seen in real life.  The story looks mostly at how nothing is ever what it seems.  The emotions in this book range, but the suspense is extremely well played out.
This is the first book in a series called Chaos Walking.

Book Review #2 - Dealing with Dragons

Book Review #2 - Dealing with Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Cover

Scholastic Cover

This book is the first in the Enchanted Forest Chronicles series. Although the language is easy to read for younger readers, the themes are more teen-oriented. Princess Cimorene hates being a princess and despises the lessons that she must take, such as etiquette. Consequently, she engages in some very unprincess-like lessons, such as fencing, cooking, Latin and magic. When her parents take her to a neighbouring kingdom and try to get her married to the prince, Cimorene, with some advice from a talking frog, decides to run away. She ends up working as a princess for the dragon Kazul and adventures ensue. With assistance from her fellow princess-in-captivity, Alianora, Kazul the dragon, Morwen the witch and the stone prince (who has a long story), she manages to defeat the villains. The book takes fairy tale conventions and turns them upside down, so it is best that the reader has been exposed to several fairy tale conventions in order to get the most from this book. From the very beginning to the very end, this book is about being true to oneself. This book is a fun read and is widely-appealing. There are two different covers available, one from the original publishing by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and the other from Scholastic. This book is available in audio format as well. Recommended for everyone.

All images taken from chapters.ca.

Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie

This is an excellent book.  It is about a boy who lives on the Spokane reservation in the USA.  After an incident where he throws a book and breaks a teacher's nose, he is encouraged to get off the reservation and go to school elsewhere by the aforementioned teacher.  Since the closest school is in the nearby town and is populated by Caucasian people solely, it is a big adjustment for him.  At the exact same time, he is regarded as a traitor by the other Aboriginal people who live on the reservation.
I initially decided to read it because I thought it was about a person who was of mixed heritage and I thought that I would relate to that.  When I realized what the book was actually about, I decided to read it anyway because it sounded really interesting.  I did relate to the main character in the book, just not in the same way that I thought I would.  I also liked the cartoons that were drawn by the main character scattered throughout the book.

Forever by Judy Blume

I read this book with a fairly open mind.  I really liked that it was really short, but showed how people can change in such a short period of time.  This book is all about first love and first experiences with sex.
I liked the realism of the scene where Katherine, the main character, loses her virginity.  I also like the advice and suggestions that she gets from the doctor when she wants to start the pill.  I thought there were somewhat unrealistic parts that had to do with sex.  I really liked the forward that came with the edition of the book that I read because it discussed what other advice the doctor would likely give her in the modern day to keep her safe from various STDs or VD (venereal disease) as it called in the book.
In terms of emotions, it was very realistic and it showed how people can change and grow.  It was not just the realism of the scene where she loses her virginity, but also the realism of life and the reactions to certain circumstances.  Her emotions are portrayed very realistically since it is written in the first person and so she tells the reader exactly how she is feeling and what she is thinking.
When I was in teacher's college, I was taught that as a part of Phys. Ed I would likely have to give THE TALK to (hopefully) only the girls in my class at some point.  However, I think that this book would serve as an excellent introduction to the topic and then move into a more specific direction.

Book Review #1 - Ella Enchanted

Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine

Ella Enchanted is a Newberry award-winning book by Gail Carson Levine. It evokes the archetype of Cinderella as a fantasy story. When Ella is born, she is “blessed” with the gift of obedience by a fairy. Whenever she disobeys or hesitates in following an order, it costs her dearly in physical pain. After her father re-marries, she is essentially banished with her two step-sisters to a boarding school that she hates. Although she manages to escape and meet with her father, she cannot avoid the fate of being exploited by her step family since her step-sister figured out that she obeys without question. Instead of dying like in the original, her father instead abandons her to live with her new family because he has lost all of his money in various schemes and needs to get it back. Ella meets her love interest early in the book and knows it is the prince. Unlike in the original story, Ella falls in love with him slowly through the letters that they write to one another. Eventually, they do live happily ever after. Although some of the characters seem two-dimensional, it is written in the first person from Ella's point of view and the reader experiences events with Ella. Although the story echoes the original Cinderella tale, it is the mastery description and wonderfully written characters that make it new again. This book is also available in paperback and with a library binding. Published 1997 by Middle Grade, 240 p. Hardcover, $16.25.