tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-70705344765595884312024-02-20T17:50:13.817-05:00Natasha's ShelfHonest and moral reviews of new (and some old) book and movie releasesNatasha Haydenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05153762424693669076noreply@blogger.comBlogger277125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7070534476559588431.post-12992434299068315262015-04-30T13:00:00.000-04:002015-04-30T13:00:00.505-04:00The Gracekeepers<i>The Gracekeepers</i>, by Kirsty Logan, crosses what I like about young adult fiction (story and setting) with the prose and themes of adult fiction, which it is. As my readers know, the adult section of my shelf is very short, but occasionally, I do pick one up. What attracted me to this one was its setting, a world covered by water, almost like in the movie <i>Waterworld</i>, and a circus boat traveling from island to island. Books about circuses are always a bit odd and intriguing, especially if the setting has other large quirks, as well. (For instance, my husband and I thought of writing a book about a circus performing in a post-apocalyptic world before we ever heard of the concept elsewhere. The idea intrigued us: the pursuit of happiness amidst despair. Well, we never wrote more than a couple short stories about it, and now, I've seen at least this book and one other like our idea on the market.) Cross <i>Waterworld </i>with the book <i>The Night Circus</i>, add a bit of mythology and a large dose of melancholy, and you have <i>The Gracekeepers</i>.<br />
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North is the bear trainer in the circus. She ignores the past as she dances with her bear for her act and sleeps by his side at night, all the while balancing life and death, and not just her own but that of her secret unborn baby. Callanish is a gracekeeper. She has webbed hands and feet. She has run from her own past and lives by herself on an island, where she helps damplings (those who live at sea) bury and mourn their dead, the period of mourning marked by the days it takes for a bird (called a grace) to die in a cage. Two lonely women from opposing backgrounds, one a dampling and one a landlocker (those who live on the small amount of land there is), cross lives in this tale of tragedy and hope.<br />
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I think the title of this book was not well-chosen. Only half the book is about any sort of gracekeeper, and there's only one of any importance to the story until the end. I suppose it fits the emotional resolution of the story, but it seems to also spoil the ending or, at the very least, hint at it.<br />
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As for the end of the story, it reminds me of why I veer more toward young adult fiction. Our world is gritty and real and sad enough without novels that are likewise. Granted, some of the young adult fiction I read is more violent and certainly has gritty elements to it (<i>The Hunger Games</i>, <i>Divergent</i>, <i>The Maze Runner</i>), but somehow, those stories, despite a degree of realism, portray the idealism and hopefulness of youth. <i>The Gracekeepers</i> is a little more about how life really goes, if you believe you have to make your own way and God doesn't factor in. It portrays a rather sad and pointless existence. And I suppose, in this existence, the female protagonists actually have a pretty decent ending. Their pasts are finally put behind them, and they find a satisfactory end, all things considered. It's actually almost happy, though I had a hard time seeing it that way at first. I guess I wanted more. More justice. More redemption. More hope. More happiness. I'm used to reading books that don't really end, the beginnings of series. But for a standalone book, I wanted a bigger bow on the end, the strings all tied up neater. Instead, I got somber realism...well, at least as much realism as you can get in a bizarre world such as this one.<br />
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There's one more thing about the story that is important to me, as a Christian, to mention. The world of <i>The Gracekeepers</i> has its own versions of religion, one of which has to do with hoarding wealth, leaving pollution in its wake, working hard toward salvation and forgiveness (No grace here! And maybe that's the point.), and condemning all those who don't get in line. It's very cultish. Another form of religion worships the land and the trees for their rarity. None of that is even close to what real faith is, sadly, and if that's what people imagine religion to be, no wonder they don't want it.<br />
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All that said, the story is beautifully written. Not too much detail is given, and a lot is understated. But the detail that's there is enough to create strong visuals and lingering impressions. It's a world painstakingly created and not easily forgotten. I think it will impact people differently than it did me, so if you're intrigued, give it a chance. My own rating is three out of five stars. This book is available mid-May.Natasha Haydenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05153762424693669076noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7070534476559588431.post-33383256059056854342015-04-29T15:57:00.002-04:002015-04-29T15:57:14.455-04:00The Perilous Sea (The Elemental Trilogy #2)I was not quite as enthralled with <i>The Perilous Sea</i>, a young adult novel by Sherry Thomas, as I was with the first book in the fantasy romance series: <i><a href="http://natashasshelf.blogspot.com/2014/01/the-burning-sky.html">The Burning Sky</a></i>. In fact, my rating dropped from four and a half stars to three. I still liked it; three isn't bad. Sequels are just hard, and if you come to a resolution in the romance aspect of the book, which the first book does already, you have to change things up to keep the reader interested in that. When everything's happy and mushy, that's great. The reader wants things to end there, but the interesting part is the conflict. Granted, I think more books should be written about the happily-ever-after-or-not, what happens after love's first glow fades when reality sets in. I think the <i>Divergent </i>series does a decent job of keeping the romance interesting by adding depth to it once the characters are finally together.<br />
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So, <i>The Perilous Sea</i> changes things up to keep the reader interested. In some ways, the changes aid the plot of the story, but as far as the romance goes, it's basically a reset, which is a cheap way to liven things up. Iolanthe (Fairfax), supposedly the greatest elemental mage of her time, and Prince Titus experience memory loss (it's almost cheesy!), and the reader gets to see them fall in love all over again. Yay.... The book alternates between two storylines, one which takes place in the Sahara Desert as the two lovers run for their lives, though they can't remember who they are, and one which takes place in the weeks leading up to their memory loss, in which their relationship takes a downward turn. It would be an interesting dichotomy...if we hadn't already been there, done that. We already got to see them hate and then love each other in the first book.<br />
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But in setting up an intriguing mystery for the reader to unravel, the two storylines, past and present, work great, the stronger of the two being the one before the memory loss when things start to go south. The conflict between Iolanthe and Titus is rather painful, but the circumstances that pull them apart are intriguing and leave the reader guessing until the end--who is good, who is bad, who is powerful, who's a pawn.<br />
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Since Sherry Thomas is an adult romance writer, I had concerns after reading the first book that the trilogy wouldn't remain sex-free, even though the first book was. This second book teetered dangerously close as the two made plans to have a romantic getaway, but they never ended up doing it. It's possible book three may have that sex scene, though one can always hope they'll be too busy fighting the bad guys to have time for it. In any case, the implication that it's coming and that the characters have no moral reservations about it lowers my opinion of the romance even further.<br />
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If the romance wasn't in the way, I think this could be a really good fantasy series with fun characters (Iolanthe pretends to be a boy at an all-boys school in Victorian London, which provides many entertaining moments) and high-stakes danger in a world part-normal-part-magic, similar to that of <i>Harry Potter</i>. Hopefully the next book will be as epic as the first book's set-up promised.<br />
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<i>The Immortal Heights</i>, book three of The Elemental Trilogy, comes out in October of this year.Natasha Haydenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05153762424693669076noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7070534476559588431.post-22673673498624623602015-04-28T19:42:00.001-04:002015-04-28T19:42:20.577-04:00UprootedIt has been a few weeks (I know, that is now practically the byline of this blog), but I recently read <i>Uprooted</i>, by Naomi Novik, and enjoyed it very much. There seem to be conflicting ideas out there about whether it's young adult fiction or not, but though it shares similar elements with YA, like a 17-year-old heroine and a fantastical storyline, I think it's more in the realm of regular fantasy, which also often has younger protagonists.<br />
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In this tale of wizards and an evil Wood, Agnieszka has a penchant for tangling with nature. Leaves, dirt, and other messes all seem to gravitate to her, and she can find plants others can't. But in her corner of the world, nature is not something one wishes to tangle with. Agnieszka's village is near the Wood, where poisonous plants and evil creatures can taint and destroy you with your smallest intake of breath or the barest scratch. A wizard called the Dragon keeps the Wood at bay and protects the nearby villages at the price of one maiden every ten years, and it's time to pick again. He chooses girls with talent and beauty, so Agnieszka knows she is safe. He will not pick her.<br />
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The Dragon is old in years and temperament, but youthful in appearance. He is shallow and petty when it comes to beauty, but powerful in magic. Preferring solitude, he avoids the politics of the kingdom as much as possible until the prince seeks the Dragon's help to find his mother, whose loss to the Wood fueled a war. When Agnieszka is thrown into the midst of the kingdom's politics, between war and the Wood, she finds herself surrounded by danger on all sides, her only hope lying in the most dangerous path of all.<br />
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I enjoyed this detour from my normal reading, more detailed than young adult and less angsty. Agnieszka is a bit of an old soul, certainly mature for her age, and even more so by book's end. I don't really mind angsty teenage stories all that much (I do read a lot of them), but this one just has an edge to it that keeps it out of that category. Maybe it's the grown-up romance (which actually wasn't my favorite part of the book; more on that in a bit). Maybe it's that the world is not so narrowly focused on the heroine, not all about meeting her needs. Maybe the thought processes are more mature or the story is darker. (Though, have you read young adult lately? I'm doubting the latter.) In any case, it was interesting to read this kind of story without some of the young adult conventions I'm used to seeing.<br />
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Speaking of conventions, a big staple of YA fiction is romance. <i>Uprooted </i>does have an element of romance, but it is underplayed and untraditional. And maybe that's why I didn't like it. I think underplaying the romance is an interesting way to go, but making it untraditional, as well, may upset reader expectations too much. (SPOILERS follow!) Agnieszka falls in love with the Dragon, no surprise there. But it's far from a healthy relationship. He's rude and crotchety-mean and much, much older (though YA, too, messes around with age differences--<i>Twilight</i>, for instance). It might help if his mind retained youthfulness, but no, he's pretty much an old fogey who's conceited and vain about his looks. While you could say he warms up to Agnieszka, he never really gets nicer. There's something good to be said for loving someone despite their flaws, of course, but in this case, the relationship borders on abusive. And a bit unbelievable...this naive, innocent girl willingly pushes past all his defenses, literal and figurative, to sleep with him? Granted, the lead-up to it is rather realistic: a certain situation causes them to become more emotionally intimate, and that bridges the gap to the physical side of things. The book has one and a half sex scenes, which I am both impressed by and annoyed with: impressed by the restraint, annoyed because I'd rather not see any sex at all.<br />
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After going that far physically, a YA book would be all about the relationship for the rest of the story. Again, this one differs in that you'd almost think they had a one-night stand and went their separate ways. In fact, I believed that nearly to the end of the book. Then, strangely, when romance had been a subplot the whole time, it got the last say. I would have liked more romance (with a better emotional response from the characters) or none at all. What there was just didn't work for me, though it was not bad to try for that kind of originality.<br />
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Where the book's romance doesn't phase some, its darkness might--its dealings with magic and witches and evil. In the realm of fantasy, those things don't bother me so much. I make a distinction between witches in fantasy (where the word implies some sort of magic-wielder, neither good nor bad by default) and Halloween or Disney witches (meant to be scary and mean and evil by default). I don't like the latter at all, but this book falls more into the first category, where the witches actually fight evil.<br />
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The darkness of this book has more to do with evil creatures and beings who poison and corrupt the good, which is an apt illustration of how good and evil correlate in the real world. In a Christian worldview, we are born sinful. It's innate. Left to our own devices, lazy about our eternal well-being, evil thrives. Thinking more scientifically, the world tends toward entropy. Either way, left alone, the world is bad. Things fall into disorder. It takes work to make things good, to make things beautiful. Disney says that Belle tames the Beast; it's a lie. In real life, pardon me saying so, the Beast would eat her heart out. All this to say that the Wood in <i>Uprooted </i>acts like evil really acts. It's aggressive. If you aren't keeping it out, be sure it is trying to--and it will--get in. I appreciated the truthfulness of this story's take on evil. But be warned, it's dark and heavy stuff. People in the story are corrupted or die or both. It's not for impressionable minds.<br />
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Despite the romance and the darkness, I enjoyed the style of storytelling, the magic of the world, and the way the story broadened in scope as it went on, adding layers and depth, taking the reader to surprising places by its end. I enjoyed the friendship between Agnieszka and her best friend Kasia (she's awesome!), which has more substance than the romance. I give the book four out of five stars.<br />
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<i>Uprooted</i> is available mid-May.Natasha Haydenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05153762424693669076noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7070534476559588431.post-56164549986112531612015-04-09T18:40:00.001-04:002015-04-09T18:40:23.524-04:00The 5th Wave<i>The 5th Wave</i>, by Rick Yancey, has been out awhile (since May 2013), long enough to already have a sequel (<i>The Infinite Sea</i>, published in September 2014), but though it caught my eye way back when, I didn't pick it up until this year. I gave it only three out of five stars for various reasons, but none of those reasons was my interest once I started reading. The book hooked me quickly and fascinated me throughout. It's one of those suspenseful, mysterious stories where you don't quite know what's going on until near the end, a little bit like <i><a href="http://natashasshelf.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-maze-runner.html">The Maze Runner</a></i> in that regard. But as with <i>The Maze Runner</i>, I wasn't completely satisfied.<br />
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<i>The 5th Wave</i> sets the stage with an alien invasion that has progressed in waves: 1) total blackout, 2) coastal areas flooded, 3) worldwide plague, 4) snipers killing the human race one by one. Cassie has lost everyone and everything she knows in this hopeless battle for survival and now waits in hiding, wondering when and what the 5th wave will be. There's no one she can trust; the aliens look just like us. There is no place to go; the aliens attack where humans congregate. There is hardly reason to keep trying to live, but humanity is stubborn that way, and Cassie has at least one reason. Though the outcome looks bleak, Cassie is determined to go down fighting.<br />
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Cassie starts the narration, but the book veers off from a focus on her later on so that you begin to wonder if she really is the main protagonist we're rooting for or just one of several. The story starts getting into different characters' points of view, which broadens the story quite a bit but creates some confusion as to Cassie's significance in it. Once you get used to the idea, however, some of the other characters' plots are similarly intriguing.<br />
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In some ways, the story is what you'd expect from an alien invasion story. In every one, the humans don't go down without a fight, and somehow they end up triumphing. The funny thing is, the book is trying so hard not to be like those stories. Cassie's musings even make fun of people's perceptions of aliens before the attack. She says the stories are all wrong; we never had a chance. But, of course, someone must survive, or we wouldn't keep reading. So, as much as the story strives for originality, it has to follow certain formulas, at least a little, in order to even retain an audience. I don't have a problem with this; I simply find it ironic.<br />
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(Minor SPOILERS this paragraph.) As I said, I was thoroughly intrigued by the book's premise and mystery, and captivated to the end. But I can't say I loved the book. Some time has passed since I read it, unfortunately, and I couldn't tell you exactly what threw me off most. The story goes to dark places. I don't usually mind darkness, but it gets a little brutal and graphic and leaves you feeling, at best, uneasy. At one point, you get vibes of the Holocaust. There's a lot of death, and if you thought <i>The Hunger Games</i> was brutal because kids were killing other kids, you won't like this. There's the violence, but then there's the romance, which borders on Stockholm Syndrome, though no one is actually a captive in the situation. There's probably a better term for falling in love with your savior, especially when the two of you are the only ones around. Anyway, it's a bit clichéd: girl is rescued by handsome stranger, who also happens to be the only other person she's sure is alive, and falls in love with him after he cares for her injuries. It's hard to swallow at first. Maybe it was because I <i>want </i>romance in my novels that I eventually got used to the relationship, even if I found it strange sometimes.<br />
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A movie adaptation is in the works. I can only wonder what it will be rated, though I am curious enough to consider seeing it. The book's sequel is available at my library, but I haven't quite felt the urge to pick it up.Natasha Haydenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05153762424693669076noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7070534476559588431.post-8587846310289873652015-04-09T14:36:00.000-04:002015-04-09T14:36:03.144-04:00Firefight (Reckoners #2)[This review was first published with others on a <a href="http://www.childrenofthewells.com/natashas-shelf-is-exploding-with-good-reads/#more-1419">blog</a> I wrote for <a href="http://childrenofthewells.com/">Childrenofthewells.com</a> and has been only slightly altered for this website.]<br />
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Brandon Sanderson, author of high fantasy, changes style and tone a bit for this young adult series that began with <a href="http://natashasshelf.blogspot.com/2014/07/steelheart.html"><i>Steelheart</i></a> and continues with <i>Firefight </i>(published January 2015), but his wit, humor, and vision for winding up a story toward a great end are all on full display. The beginning of <i>Firefight</i> didn’t reel me in immediately, despite having already secured my interest with the first book, but by Part 2 of 5, the game was changing, the stakes were rising, and I was hooked. By about the halfway mark, it began to get difficult to put the book down. My husband, Nick, and I rarely read the same stuff, but we both like Brandon Sanderson. Being a young adult fiction reader, I generally prefer quicker reads like this one. Nick has yet to convince me to read Sanderson’s 1000-page (and that’s just one book out of a whole series) high fantasy epics. And I have to chuckle a little bit as I say that since <i>Firefight </i>and the other books of this series are all about Epics.<br /><br />(SPOILERS in this paragraph, if you have not read <i>Steelheart</i>) In <i>Firefight</i>, David is a Reckoner, a member of what used to be a highly secret group of Epic slayers, but now David has become a legend. All he wants is for the people to fight back against the super-powered Epics, humans who, one infamous day, gained powers and have used them to conquer and destroy the world. They are dangerous and nearly invincible, each with one carefully guarded weakness, the only thing that can possibly take them down. They are madmen, every last one of them. In this case, absolute power does really corrupt absolutely. David and his team are about to attempt to take down a very powerful Epic and her cohorts in what was once New York City and is now Babilar, a city covered by water where the citizens live relatively peaceful lives under the rule of Regalia. But the woman David loves works for Regalia, and even though his love is an Epic, David is willing to risk his life to prove she can be redeemed.<br /><br />This was a great sequel. I liked the first one well enough, especially as it progressed (Nick and I both agree that Sanderson has the art of the ending <i>down</i>), but sequels are hard. How do you keep everything that made the first one good but turn it around enough so that it’s not just a copy of the first? Well, you could take notes from Sanderson. He introduces new places, switches out a few people, and changes up the protagonist’s motivations, but still keeps the same sense of humor and, really, even the same basic plot. This series is set up spectacularly for that. There’s always another cool Epic to fight in a world overrun by them, right? But Sanderson has the imagination to remake and redirect his story in such a way that everything is as exciting as the first time. Arguably, this second book is actually better than the first, and that takes serious talent! He is currently writing Book 3, <i>Calamity</i>, and I can hardly wait! Five stars.Natasha Haydenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05153762424693669076noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7070534476559588431.post-29193542416152778132015-03-07T19:46:00.001-05:002015-03-07T19:51:27.211-05:00Fairest[To save me some time and get some reviews posted before I fall further behind, I am going to re-post a couple reviews I wrote elsewhere first. I'm involved with a group of writers at <a href="http://childrenofthewells.com/">childrenofthewells.com</a>, a website dedicated to the telling of a post-apocalyptic fantasy story we are in the process of writing. Six full novellas are already available, and while we wait for our authors to finish the next installments of the story, we post blogs about all manner of things. This month, we are focusing on our latest Good Reads, which coincides with my own blog perfectly. When my week at CotW came up, I posted four quick <u><a href="http://www.childrenofthewells.com/natashas-shelf-is-exploding-with-good-reads/">reviews</a></u> at once, borrowing from some of the ones I'd already posted here on my personal blog, as well as adding a couple new ones. This time, I am borrowing from my CotW blog and re-posting, with minor tweaks, one of those newer reviews.]<br />
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<i>Fairest</i>, by Marissa Meyer, could almost be a standalone novel. It is the fourth book of a young adult series (<i>The Lunar Chronicles</i>) I love and preorder yearly. (I rarely stick with a series enough to pay money for it, spoiled as I am with free advance reader copies.) This one, published in January, is a break in the overarching story of the series and tells the villain’s tale instead. Narrowly focused as it is, it's a bit shorter than the other books in the series.<br />
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<i>The Lunar Chronicles</i> are modern, sci-fi twists on fairy tales we know, taking place in a world where the moon is inhabited by Lunars with special powers and where humans on Earth are dying of a virus that doesn’t touch Lunars. <i><a href="http://natashasshelf.blogspot.com/2012/01/cinder.html">Cinder</a> </i>is about a cyborg who gets to go to the ball (<i>Cinderella</i>). <i><a href="http://natashasshelf.blogspot.com/2013/03/scarlet.html">Scarlet</a> </i>is about a pilot who teams up with a man-wolf hybrid (<i>Little Red Riding Hood</i>). <i><a href="http://natashasshelf.blogspot.com/2014/02/cress-lunar-chronicles-3.html">Cress</a> </i>is about a hacker who lives alone in a satellite in space and just longs to be rescued by the man of her dreams (<i>Rapunzel</i>). And <i>Winter </i>(coming in November 2015) will be about a beautiful princess whose evil stepmother, the queen of the moon, keeps her under careful guard (<i>Snow White</i>). <i>Fairest</i>, then, is about the rise of the queen of Luna and about the forces, some her own fault and others not, that turned her into the villain of the entire series. I enjoyed it very much, but of course, it wasn’t about the heroines who ultimately band together as the series progresses. Though each story focuses on a different leading lady, they all converge as well.<br />
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In <i>Fairest</i>, Levana is the younger princess of the Lunar people and, therefore, not the heir. But she is the one interested in politics while her queen sister is concerned only with her own pleasures. When a daughter is born to her sister, Levana is pushed even further down the line of those to inherit the crown. Scarred and ugly on the outside, Levana constantly uses her glamour to disguise her features. All she wants is to be beautiful and loved, and in the world she’s grown up in, the only way to get what she wants is to take it by force.<br />
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It is certainly an intriguing story. Complex villains are fascinating, despite (or perhaps due to) their moral corruption. Fortunately, though the protagonist in <i>Fairest</i> has little in the way of a moral compass, this does not transfer to the telling of the story, which is tactful and PG. The only thing "wrong" with <i>Fairest </i>is that it is not about the good guys. Sometimes good guys are seen as boring, but in this case, the heroines’ stories are just as good as the villain's, and they’re more...well, happy. So, this one “only” gets four stars.Natasha Haydenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05153762424693669076noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7070534476559588431.post-57439354886091934602015-02-28T22:16:00.001-05:002015-02-28T22:16:34.602-05:00Storm SirenWell, it's been more than a month since I read <i>Storm Siren</i>, a young adult fantasy by Mary Weber, and alas, the details are slipping away. I know I enjoyed it quite a bit and gave it four stars on Goodreads.<br />
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The story is this: Nym is a slave, sold from owner to owner because of her unusual looks, looks that mark her as an impossible and dangerous magical being. In Faelen, they kill her kind at birth, but perhaps because she is female (when all the others are male), she escaped that fate, and now no one knows what to do with her except pass her along before she kills them all. Nym doesn't want to kill, but she can't control her powers. When her emotions rage, she ends up calling forth storms and lightning from the sky until everyone around her is dead. But her fifteenth owner is delighted with her powers and offers Nym the chance to use them to fight in the war. Nym really doesn't have any other options, and when she meets the first person who has ever been able to keep her powers at bay, her training begins.<br />
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Weber's world is unusual and exciting with a bit more detail than you typically get in young adult fantasy but not so much as to make it high fantasy. This world, its fantastical and bizarre characters and creatures, Nym's struggle with her own powers, and the war setting all draw the reader into a tale that intrigues to the end and excites anticipation for the next installment in the series. There's a little romance, too, of course, but the book is a clean read. No sex or graphic violence, though people do die (it's about a war, after all).<br />
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What surprised me most about the book as I began to really enjoy it was that it appeared to be from a Christian publisher: Thomas Nelson. I didn't think I was reading Christian fiction at all, mainly because most of the ARCs I have access to are secular and because most Christian fiction doesn't impress me easily. It's either too preachy or too safe, not morally (I like good, safe morals) but thematically. I'm more impressed by stories where the author is Christian but writes a book that appeals to secular readers and perhaps has a more subtle message. Good stories are good, period, and shouldn't have to be encapsulated in a religious bubble to remain "Christian." That said, there are some great Christian authors out there, who write both secular and Christian stuff, like Ted Dekker.<br />
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This story had nothing in it to scream "Christian message coming your way!" except a piece in the middle that was written with more mythological flavor than religious. However, it was clear enough to me, seeing where the book was coming from, that this was the author's way of squeezing a bit of belief in as subtly as possible. Actually, I think it still might have been a little over-the-top. This quiet, pastoral setting just popped up out of nowhere and provided background for the mysterious, religious focal point of the book. It didn't quite mesh with the direction of the rest of the story. I think what the author was trying to accomplish was necessary, but I'm not sure she chose the best way to say it, carefully as she tried. Ironically, I found it too much and too little at the same time. Obviously she was trying to say something without saying too much of anything, and I'm not sure it got said. It honestly could have been written from several different religious viewpoints. But it was a small enough section of the book that it wasn't obtrusive. I don't think there's room to read too much into it.<br />
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Aside from my mixed feelings about the presentation of belief in the book, I am always excited to see a book like this on the market. Subtlety is beautiful. Let's not throw our soap box messages at the world. Let's speak our hearts instead. Let's be storytellers like Jesus. He who has ears to hear, let him hear, right?<br />
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<i>Storm Siren</i> is certainly an original story, entertaining right up to an end that surprises and leaves you eager to know how it will all unfold. The jury's out on that one until <i>Siren's Fury</i> arrives in June!Natasha Haydenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05153762424693669076noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7070534476559588431.post-80174989393639816972015-02-21T19:42:00.003-05:002015-02-21T19:42:47.703-05:00A.D. 30I finished this book, <i>A.D. 30</i>, by Ted Dekker, quite awhile ago, and I apologize that the delay in getting this review out has somewhat diffused my initial impressions.<br />
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I gave the book four stars (It's Ted Dekker...how could I not?), but it's a different kind of story than what you might expect from the thriller writer. When I first heard what it was about, I thought of <i>The Big Fisherman</i>, by Lloyd C. Douglas, who also wrote <i>The Robe </i>(two books I read in middle school and was very impressed by). But aside from having similar female protagonists with similar vendettas, their plots play out far differently.<br />
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<i>A.D. 30</i> takes us on Maviah's journey from the depths of the Arabian desert to the palaces of kings and eventually into the presence of another kind of king, Yeshua (Jesus) of Nazareth. Maviah is the illegitimate daughter of an Arabian ruler. She's a former slave brought back to her father's household but still looked down upon. She is nothing, but when her father's wife dies and his alliances fall apart, she may be the only one who can help her people. She just has to go to Palestine and convince King Herod of the Jews of her worth. Accompanied by trusted servants, one of whom she grows to love, she sets out to do the impossible: become a queen. Only an Arabic tribe that wants her dead, two dangerous kings, the past, and her own grievances stand in her way.<br />
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While the main plot and conflicts of the story are completely fictionalized and deal with alliances and power-struggles, the climax has to do with issues of the heart, and the heart of this story takes us to the hillsides of Galilee to the teachings of Jesus Christ. Dekker uses passages straight from the Bible for almost all of Jesus' dialog but, of course, still manages to put his own fictional stamp on those scenes, making Jesus seem more of a mystic to the people and the reader than we normally think of him as. In Dekker's telling, he is mysterious. He speaks in riddles, never directly. He knows things about people that a normal human shouldn't be able to know, as though in constant contact with a Being who gives him insight into every heart. Some of these things conflict with how I view Jesus in the Bible, but I didn't feel I could dismiss them entirely. We don't really know much about the day-to-day interactions of Jesus. Perhaps he always spoke in riddles. We know he always taught in parables. Did Jesus know from moment to moment what people were thinking? How much of God was in the Man? While on Earth, he was human, but is it conceivable that God gave him super-human knowledge on a moment-by-moment basis? I guess so.<br />
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Writing about Jesus in fiction cannot be easy. I know Dekker had been thinking about this book for years, and I could definitely see Dekker's views on how Jesus works today written into his view of Jesus when he walked the Earth. I'm not sure Dekker is right on this, but I can't say definitively that he's wrong either. I appreciate that he tried not to add to or change Jesus' own words, but there's still a surprising amount you can do without words to create a persona. Regardless, the important part, Jesus' teaching, is not changed. The interesting part comes in how the people interpret Jesus' words, and that can be fictionalized all you want, I suppose.<br />
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I confess, my favorite pieces of the story were those that were entirely fictionalized. The sections with Jesus were a little off-putting, partly because so much Bible was directly quoted and because Jesus came across as so mystical and a bit inhuman. I don't know how it might have been done better, but it just didn't entirely work for me. Knowing Dekker, though, I think he'd be happy if the Jesus parts made people uncomfortable, as long as they made them think about what Jesus' words really mean. Hopefully, his version isn't too distracting for the truth to come out. On my part, I saw the truth most clearly not in the words I am so familiar with but through Maviah's understanding of them, and I think that, too, is part of Dekker's plan here.<br />
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Dekker always has a message, and you'd expect nothing less from a work of fiction that quotes the Bible directly. His latest focus in writing has had a lot to do with identity and who we really are, as seen through God's eyes. This book has some of that, certainly, but also a lot about letting go of grievances, forgiveness. I noticed other themes as I read, but some of those elude me now after so much time.<br />
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<i>A.D. 30</i> appears to be the beginning of a new series or, at least, the first of two books. It will be interesting to see where Maviah's story goes and how Dekker handles the other events of Jesus' earthly life. Dekker always surprises, perhaps more subtly now than in his early works, and he always makes me think. For that, I am a big fan, ready to explore whatever he may throw at us next.Natasha Haydenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05153762424693669076noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7070534476559588431.post-27872543161241120692015-02-18T14:41:00.000-05:002015-02-18T14:41:59.951-05:00Movie Quick Takes: Belle, Into the Woods, and The GiverYikes! I am behind on my reviews! I have several books and movies I would love to share with you. I prefer to give books their own individual blogs, so I will first try to go succinctly, in one post, through the latest movies I've watched.<br />
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<b><i>Belle</i> on DVD</b><br />
This period piece, a true story, is fascinating and romantic: a great date movie but also an interesting history lesson. It tells the tale of a girl born to a white father and black mother and raised in luxury as a Victorian lady in 18th century England. Of course, the slave trade was in full swing then, and she was accepted by very few into society and unlikely to make a match despite the inheritance left her by her father. She was free and independent but still burdened by the laws and prejudices of the nation. At the same time, her uncle and guardian was under pressure as Lord Chief Justice to make a ruling on the drowning of a shipment of slaves, specifically on whether or not they were insured cargo. The question is, how can you insure something as priceless as life, and if it is insured, is it no more valuable than cargo? Dido Belle finds herself facing a similar question in her personal life. Though not a slave, is she still property, just a woman to be bought by the man who needs her money? Or is she free to have more...to find love?<br />
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It's not a story about overturning slavery, but it's one of those that led up to it and one I'd never heard before. Rated PG, it's not a hard look at slavery, like <i>12 Years a Slave</i>, but a look at the other side and in between, at the good people who fought for what was right and strove to make a real difference bit by bit. Those stories are worth telling, too. The movie is also a reminder of the times that gave us stories like those of Jane Austen's, stories about convention and the rules of society and young ladies striving to make matches and young men inheriting or having to seek out their fortunes by other means, a world very different from our own. Seen in the light of this story, this culture is sometimes amusing and sometimes ridiculous. It's Jane Austen...but not quite. Entertaining but certainly thought-provoking.<br />
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<b><i>Into the Woods</i> in the Theater</b><br />
The music is memorable enough that I recognized songs from my days of listening to them online, when I worked at a bookstore and had never heard of <i>Into the Woods</i>. This musical was adapted from the stage for the screen and boasts such talents as Meryl Streep, Emily Blunt, Johnny Depp, Chris Pine, and Anna Kendrick, just to name a few. The costumes are unique, if a bit edgy. The setting is lush. The music is at times haunting, which is appropriate for a movie about a collection of fairy tale characters crossing tales in the woods, and sometimes it is downright funny. There is a song sung by two prince brothers as they frolic on a waterfall, and it was one of the highlights of this particular viewing experience for me. But the story is depressing and kind of sadistic. The fairy tales we know start as we expect. Cinderella gets to dance with a prince at the ball. Jack brings goodies down the beanstalk. Rapunzel's prince climbs her hair to offer her true love. Red Riding Hood faces the wolf. The story that ties them all together is that of a baker and his wife who are collecting items to break a witch's curse and thereby have a baby.<br />
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But the fairy tales end up diverging from happiness in ways the Grimm brothers would applaud. And since I'm not a fan of things grotesque or immoral (The movie is rated only PG, but I found some of the ideas disturbing enough and certain themes mature enough to warrant a higher rating. <i>Planes</i> is rated PG. I don't think I'd take younger than middle school to this myself.), I wasn't as enthralled as the music tried to make me be. The message of the movie ends up being very modern, which is to say, it sounds good on the surface but doesn't have a lick of depth or sense. It's contradictory. It says, "Anything goes." It says, "What happens in the woods stays in the woods." I do realize that some of that absurdity is meant to be there, but I also know that people latch onto meaning in music. And there just isn't any consistent meaning here. I heard mixed reviews about this movie before I went into it and thought I might like it better than what I was hearing. At least, I wanted to see for myself before judging it. And though I don't love witches, that doesn't even bother me as much as immorality and the pretentiousness of one of the ending songs that appears to give meaning to the movie but contradicts everything else the movie seems to be about. I'm rather sad the movie didn't turn out better. I wish it would have ended halfway through with a more positive, less egotistical message.<br />
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<b><i>The Giver</i> on DVD</b><br />
This movie was so surprising. I'd heard a good opinion of it from someone I respected, but it was out of theaters so fast I didn't have a chance to see it then. I shouldn't have been surprised it would turn out so wonderfully, but since I've read vast amounts of dystopian fiction, some with really unique premises, I just wasn't sure <i>The Giver</i> (PG-13, 97 min.) would translate from book to screen well. I guess I thought it might be too tame, but I was wrong. The world was actually brought to life for me better than when I read the book, somehow. Reading about people living in a world devoid of color is quite a bit different than seeing it. That's one of the things that comes across better in a movie. And maybe it's because I now have children (and didn't when I read the book), I was certainly more affected by the scenes of euthanasia. In <i>The Giver</i>, certain babies and all the old are euthanized, and the people are ignorant of what that means, having lost all emotions. But Jonas is given the opportunity to learn about the world from ages before in order to be an adviser to those who don't have emotions. He alone gets emotions back. And, no surprise, it changes his world. I didn't mind that Jonas in the movie is older than Jonas in the book. It all worked beautifully for me, making the story richer than I had even remembered. Granted, this sort of story is perhaps slower-paced than something like <i>The Maze Runner</i> or <i>Divergent</i>, but I think it's just as well done cinematically and deserves a place among the top runners of the young adult book-to-movie adaptations trend.Natasha Haydenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05153762424693669076noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7070534476559588431.post-35747089699569227172014-12-30T14:37:00.002-05:002014-12-30T14:37:31.314-05:00Unbroken in Theaters NowAfter reading <i><a href="http://natashasshelf.blogspot.com/2014/08/unbroken.html">Unbroken</a></i> this year, I was pretty excited to see the movie. It's just such an incredible story of a man who endured weeks adrift on a raft at sea only to end up being tortured in a Japanese POW camp during World War II. The book goes into so much more detail about the kind of man Louis Zamperini was and how that affected his outlook during his trials than a movie ever could, so whether you see the movie first or not, I highly recommend you also read the book.<br />
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As much as I like Angelina Jolie, I admit I was a bit worried about her directing this film. She's fairly new to directing, and she's a woman (*Gasp* Did I just say that?). I don't think I'm being biased to say that women generally have different viewpoints than men. We're wired differently with different interests and concerns, and I wasn't sure how that might translate to the condensed and adapted telling of a survival story. Granted, a woman wrote the biography and did a fantastic job.<br />
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When I saw the movie was rated only PG-13, I wondered even more. It's not that I necessarily wanted to see all the torture, but I felt that to be true to the book, the story warranted a stricter rating. After having seen the movie, I am conflicted about the rating it was given. I do feel like the hardships of the POW camp were downplayed (or perhaps it was just that the sheer amount of them described in the book couldn't make it into a 137-minute movie, thereby easing the intensity of the whole ordeal), but I also think the subject matter was intense enough to justify an R rating.<br />
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Bottom line, the movie is accurate but just doesn't convey how impressive this story really is. In that way, it <i>is </i>like a PG-13 version of the book. Whether that's due to directing or the medium the story is told in or the time constraints, I don't know. Where I think Angelina Jolie and the actors did a fine job is in bringing out the characters and the emotions of the story. Jack O'Connell is a great Louis Zamperini, and the story hones in on the key aspects of his character that got him through the war.<br />
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(SPOILER alert) Before the movie came out, I'd heard that it didn't portray Zamperini's faith enough. And his faith, especially at the end, is kind of what seals the deal on this book for many. It's that last punch that makes a believer like me giddy with emotion. But I think the movie did it just right. It foreshadowed it and then ended where it needed to at the end of his physical trials, leaving a footnote on a black screen to tell you about how his faith enabled him to survive and forgive after the war. I thought it actually made a pretty big impact like that.<br />
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If you want a story that's a celebration of life in the midst of some of the worst life has to offer, a true tale of courage and heart with a solid redemptive finale, take it from a fiction reader...fiction has nothing on this.Natasha Haydenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05153762424693669076noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7070534476559588431.post-59532479031688165622014-12-18T14:51:00.003-05:002014-12-18T14:51:56.094-05:00Hacker<i>Hacker </i>is the third installment of <i>The Outlaw Chronicles</i>, a young adult series by Ted Dekker. See my reviews of the other two books <a href="http://natashasshelf.blogspot.com/2014/02/eyes-wide-open.html">here</a> and <a href="http://natashasshelf.blogspot.com/2014/05/water-walker.html">here</a>. Each novel generally focuses on a new person, but in <i>Hacker</i>, we get to see the continuation of one character's story from <i>Eyes Wide Open</i>, the first in the series, while we are also introduced to Nyah, a seventeen-year-old girl who hacks corporations to blackmail them into giving her a job. Basically, she shows them their weaknesses by hacking them and then fixes the problem, all to provide for her mother, mentally impaired in a car accident. But when Nyah messes with the wrong people, she is forced to run to a person who turned his back on her, to Austin who is dying from a brain tumor. Together, they attempt the impossible to find a cure for Austin and Nyah's mother. It's the biggest hack of all, and the clock on each of their lives is ticking.<br />
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For whatever reason, this book didn't impact me as deeply as the other books from the series or as much as most Ted Dekker books do. Don't get me wrong, it was still entertaining and meaningful. But the message from each of these books (yes, Dekker always has a message, but his books usually don't feel preachy) is essentially the same with only little variances. And I got the message better in the other books, especially in <i>Water Walker</i>, which is perhaps my favorite of the three, the message being one about identity and who we really are beneath the costume of appearance, intelligence, or whatever else we define ourselves by. Maybe I didn't get into this one because of the hacking terminology. It intrigued me but was a little over my head. Maybe it was character. I didn't identify with Nyah as much as with some characters. Maybe it was the plot which, while it moved fairly well, lacked a certain edge I've come to expect from Dekker's books. Maybe all those were fine, and I just wasn't into it this time. I haven't been doing as much reading here toward the end of the year. My mind is on other things.<br />
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Regardless, the series is good, and if you really want to get the full picture, start with <i>Outlaw</i>, which is awesome and kind of sets up the series, though it's also a stand-alone book. I'm looking forward to reading <i>A.D.30</i> next, also a recently published novel from Ted Dekker but one that I expect to be quite different from anything of his that I've read before. It's the perfect time to read the fictional account of a person who lived through Jesus' days as we head into Christmas. And even after reading <i>Hacker</i>, I'm expecting quite a lot out of this next one.Natasha Haydenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05153762424693669076noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7070534476559588431.post-41853024263599974062014-12-01T22:53:00.001-05:002014-12-01T22:53:33.431-05:00Movie Quick TakesMovie-wise, here's what I've been watching lately: lots of post-apocalyptic (I'm also into the CW show <i>The 100</i>), a generous helping of science fiction, and plenty of adventure. Life has been hectic, but I didn't want to let these go by without at least a few words.<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Interstellar</i> (In Theaters)</span></b><br />
The world is dying, overrun by dust storms. People survive by farming, but crops are still dying out. A group of explorers goes through a mysterious wormhole in space in search of a new planet to call home. A father must choose between his daughter and the survival of humanity. Cool science fiction taken at a slow pace that does not feel labored, and at three hours, it doesn't feel too long either. Explores love's power over even the dimensions of space and time. Great acting! Stars Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain, and a host of other A-list names, some appearing only briefly. Definitely one to see in theaters, but hurry before it's gone! PG-13.<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;"><i>The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1</i> (In Theaters)</span></b><br />
Katniss must choose whether or not to be used as a weapon against the Capital as she joins the rebellion in District 13. Meanwhile, the Capital's weapon is the boy she loves: Peeta. The movie is well-made and provides an interesting look at propaganda. (We watch a movie about people who create propaganda for TV, and we get to watch them watch their own propaganda and see the fallout of it. And isn't the message of these movies a sort of propaganda in and of itself? Have we got the message, or are we just glorifying everything the story is supposed to be against?) It's true to the book, which means it's also very depressing. The politics are interesting, but the movie just doesn't have the action appeal of the other two. Jennifer Lawrence and her co-actors are great, as always. I could watch Woody Harrelson and Elizabeth Banks in their roles forever. I was slightly distracted by any scenes containing Philip Seymour Hoffman, remembering how he died before filming ended and wondering which parts were affected by that. PG-13. Two hours.<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;"><i>X-Men: Days of Future Past</i> (Now on DVD)</span></b><br />
In the future, the X-Men have nearly been exterminated by unstoppable robot creatures created using mutant biology. The only way to stop them is to ensure they are never created in the first place. So, Wolverine is sent to the past to Professor X and Magneto's younger days in order to stop loose cannon Mystique from making a costly mistake. Fun romp. Great characters. Needed more Quicksilver. Enjoyed it very much, but a month or two later, I don't have lasting impressions. PG-13. Just over two hours.<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Snowpiercer</i> (On DVD)</span></b><br />
The world is frozen over, and the only people alive ride a 1000-car (supposedly 1001, at least in the graphic novel, but in the movie, it looks much smaller) train that never stops and completes one circle of the globe every year. A group living in the slums at the back of the train tries to force its way to the front. This two-hour movie is rated R and is dark, disturbing, and graphically violent (but no sex). Its bleak ending has the barest sliver of hope. I wouldn't watch it again, but I found it intriguing. What would a world like that do to a person's psyche? Everyone is just a little touched by insanity. Chris Evans (known for his role as Captain America) stars as a much dirtier, darker, grittier kind of hero.Natasha Haydenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05153762424693669076noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7070534476559588431.post-11305626047225463082014-10-30T23:09:00.001-04:002014-10-30T23:09:13.803-04:00The JewelIt's been a couple weeks since I read <i>The Jewel</i>, a young adult novel by Amy Ewing (busy month for us!), so this review will mostly be overall impressions. What attracted me to the novel in the first place was a pretty cover and a fascinating premise: teenage girls sold to rich women as surrogates to birth their babies for them. In addition, these girls have magic powers (the why of this is never quite explained...maybe a topic to be covered in future books of the series?) that allow them to manipulate the color, shape, gender, and growth of the babies. All this takes place in a world separated into tiers of wealth, with the rich at the center of the city, a ring of merchants after that, an industrial ring, a farming ring, and finally a ring for the poorest of the poor, from which the magic surrogate girls come. It's a pretty nice set-up for a dystopian world.<br />
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(SPOILERS follow.) The thing is, some of the subject matter is a bit...adult. Teenage pregnancy is still kind of frowned upon in modern USA (though maybe less now than it used to be). Though it's been a part of other cultures for millennia, it's not something our kids are really prepared for. Violet, the main character, does manage to avoid pregnancy in this book despite her enslavement, but she does undergo doctor's appointments and tests that my younger, teenage self might have found a little freaky to read about. Fortunately, nothing is overly graphic, so I'd still consider it teen-appropriate material.<br />
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I was more bothered, really, by the other morally degraded content of the book. Girls are not the only ones forced into certain lives. Teenage boys can sell themselves as companions who entertain rich females in every way except the actual sexual act. But since the mothers buy these boys to entertain their daughters, some of the mothers are a bit proprietary toward the companions and use them to meet their own sexual needs (again, not graphic; this is only spoken about and not depicted at all).<br />
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In <i>The Jewel</i>, Violet falls in love with Ash, who is one of these companions. Both of them find themselves slaves in the same household and reach out to each other. At least that's the way the book tries to sell it. I had a hard time buying Ash's "slavery" since he basically chooses to lead this kind of life. While the surrogates have no choice and little freedom in their new lives, the companions are paid and are even considered acceptable company in the upper echelons of this world. I had a hard time respecting Ash as the love interest (I had someone else in mind, actually) and rooting for the romance. I never like it when the teenage love interests of a book have sex, but when a character is basically a male prostitute, whatever the book is trying to say about the wrongness of that gets a little muddled when he has no problem having sex with a girl he gets to choose. I get the difference there, but I'd rather see more realistic repercussions to an enforced lifestyle of prostitution. I didn't want the sex to be there at all, but if it had to be, difficulty being vulnerable with Violet, difficulty giving her more than he might give a paying partner, would have been more realistic. I just didn't buy it.<br />
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One other minor moment in the book bothered me because it was cheap conflict. Violet is a slave, and she knows that Ash is essentially one, too. After they have an intimate moment together, she sees him with the girl he's been paid to be a companion to and she gets mad. It just annoyed me. She knows what he does, knows he doesn't have a choice (according to the book, at least). Her anger comes off as petty in this situation. If he doesn't have a choice, she doesn't really have a right to be mad at him. If anything, she should understand him and forgive him because they are both being forced to do things they don't want to do.<br />
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Without the companion parts, I would have liked this book more. It was different and intriguing. It offers a lot of interesting moral discussion without being too over-the-top. (For instance, the girls are impregnated in a lab by doctors and not by having to sleep with their owners' husbands or anything too heinous like that.) So, I give it three out of five stars.Natasha Haydenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05153762424693669076noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7070534476559588431.post-893537411387071972014-10-21T20:20:00.003-04:002014-10-21T20:20:32.370-04:00The One (A Selection novel, #3)After reading and reviewing <i><a href="http://natashasshelf.blogspot.com/2012/05/selection.html">The Selection</a></i> and <i><a href="http://natashasshelf.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-elite.html">The Elite</a></i>, by Kiera Cass, I just have a few thoughts to add about <i>The One</i>, which ends this trilogy. I admit, I enjoyed the series...more than I thought I would. It's odd because I'm not really into pageantry and I've never watched <i>The Bachelor</i>. I do, however, enjoy an occasional reality TV show (more along the lines of <i>Survivor</i>), and I do love to read dystopian young adult fiction. This series combines both, but to read more about that, start with my reviews above. (I was rather negative on <i>The Selection</i>, but as I read the other books, I was proven wrong about a few things, including the heroine's name.) Obviously, this review may SPOIL the earlier books of the series, so if interested, don't read on here.<br />
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In this third book, the Selection comes to a close. One girl, just a commoner, is chosen to be the prince's wife. It's almost like a fairy tale, except this one comes with the politics of a world dying for a change in leadership. You would think--<i>I</i> would think--it would be mostly fluff, but it doesn't come across that way.<br />
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(This paragraph definitely contains SPOILERS.) But I didn't give it five stars. As usual, I come to the end of a series and find something lacking. Actually, this time, I am pleased with the end. Some might find it too neat and happy, despite a few deaths, but I like the overall turnout. No, the end is not the problem, but getting there is a little bumpy. Throughout the three books, the main character, America, has been hiding a lingering love interest from the prince. At the end of the second book, she makes her decision between the two men in her life, but in the third book, the effects of hiding one from the other linger. The conflict comes to a head when the truth is revealed near the end in a close that feels both a bit rushed (multiple people die quickly and without much fallout) and a bit tacked together for the sake of added drama and angst. I would have preferred a more mature approach to the revelation at the end, both characters realizing the irony of the situation (the prince was allowed to date 35 girls at once, but America would have been in serious trouble if her one other love interest was discovered).<br />
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Other than that, I was mostly pleased with the book and, aside from the annoying love triangle, the series as a whole. Three stars.Natasha Haydenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05153762424693669076noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7070534476559588431.post-51479192283947824572014-10-11T20:56:00.001-04:002014-10-11T20:56:48.286-04:00Outlander (the book)I got interested in <i>Outlander </i>through the advertisements in <i>Entertainment Weekly</i>. I'm always interested in TV shows that are a little (or a lot) out of the ordinary. First, the pictures attracted me, and then I watched the free first episode on the Starz website. I was a little worried about the amount of sexual content the show would have, being on Starz, and my worry was warranted. When I finished the first episode, I had mixed feelings. I was undeniably curious about where the story was going, but I was put off a little by the sexual gratuity. I would have continued to watch more of the show anyway if I could have, but I don't have access to Starz on TV. So, the show was done for me, at least until DVD. But fortunately for me, it was based on a book, and I figured that was a better way to satisfy my curiosity anyway.<br />
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The attraction of the story lies in this: Claire is a war nurse from 1945 who, while trying to reconnect with her husband on a trip to Scotland, finds herself transported through time to 1743. There, she becomes captive to a Scottish clan and is eventually forced to marry. It's certainly an interesting premise. But that's not all the story has going for it. Once I started to read, I was fascinated by the land and people that the author, Diana Gabaldon, describes so well. There's a wealth of detail in this book.<br />
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There's also an intriguing moral question. If a person is married, and happily so (though that doesn't affect the morality of the question), but finds herself two hundred years in the past with no knowledge of whether or not she will ever get back, is it right to get married again and essentially be married to two men at once, though in two different times? I'm not sure the book gives a satisfactory answer, though it is certainly addressed.<br />
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(SPOILERS ahead.) The shock value of this situation is not singular in this story. And I have mixed feelings about this, too. Gabaldon seems to rely on providing as much shock value as she can throughout the book. While this pulls the reader further into the story, I think it also hinders her story in two ways. First, the story seems a little less likely. (I mean, it was never that likely to begin with, but all the details do create a fairly believable world.) Second, the shock value often goes hand-in-hand with moral depravity. For instance, Claire encounters a predecessor of her 1945 husband in 1743. He looks nearly identical to her husband but ends up being the villain of the story. He attacks Claire, creating a link between her first husband's face and violence. He's a sexual sadist and gets pleasure particularly out of violating men, both body and spirit. All that seems a little over-the-top. Speaking of sadism, the one scene that almost stopped my reading was toward the middle of the book when Claire's new husband (1743) whips her with a belt. It's to punish her for nearly getting him and his men killed, but he gets some pleasure out of it, too. The book does a remarkable job of explaining the situation and relating the fallout of it (I did keep reading, after all), but it made me so mad. I won't spoil every instance of shock value for you, but these should give you an idea.<br />
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And unfortunately, on top of a lot of shock value, Gabaldon is at least as graphic as the one episode I saw of the TV show, though the TV show added details that weren't in the book. Now, I've never read <i>Fifty Shades of Grey</i> and don't plan to, and I'm not really comparing the two books, but I doubt <i>Fifty Shades</i> could be much more graphic. There are pages and pages of details about Claire and her 1743 husband's sexual explorations. Later in the book, there are details about the villain's homosexual sadism. Not much is left to the imagination. As far as the sex scenes involving Claire go, I was at least happy that she was married. Morally, that is acceptable. But is it morally acceptable for a person to read all that explicit sexual content? Perhaps there are people out there who can read it with impunity. Their consciences are whole, and they are unaffected by what they read. I admit, I can't. And I think a lot of people who do read that stuff shouldn't. I think it hurts us, raises expectations that can't be met, causes us to long for a fantasy that isn't real. It's not harmless. Our culture says it's harmless, and we've become much more sexually "free," or so we believe. We give our hearts and souls away for nothing. We are free...to lose everything. And through books like these, we numb our consciences until we believe the lie.<br />
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Soap. Box. Sorry. But it needed to be said.<br />
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<i>Outlander </i>begins an eight-book (eight major books so far, but there are also extra related books) series. The first book was published in 1991, and the latest book was published this year. So, there's quite a lot of content. But as interesting as some of the details about Scotland and the livelihood of people from the 18th century are, I think I am already done with this series. Perhaps it's just that these are very long books, and it took me awhile to get through <i>Outlander</i>, and I'm ready for something else right now. But also, I think I need to be careful about searing my conscience with images that are meant to shock and entice. From what I know of the latest book, I don't think that aspect of Gabaldon's books goes away. I do know the series continues on years into Claire's future (in the past), and I'm sure there's a lot of great stuff in there. But for now, it's not for me.<br />
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I give it three out of five stars.Natasha Haydenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05153762424693669076noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7070534476559588431.post-36483038473773721132014-09-30T14:47:00.002-04:002014-09-30T14:51:55.756-04:00The Maze Runner in Theaters NowI loved the movie adaptations of <i>The Hunger Games</i> and <i>Divergent</i>, and the preview for <i>The Maze Runner</i> (PG-13, 113 min.) had me pretty excited. But much as James Dashner's endings in all the <i>Maze Runner</i> books fell short of my expectations and hopes, this movie disappoints. I think, perhaps, if I'd not read the book (especially as recently as I have), I would have liked the movie better. But watching the movie first and finding out the ending would have ruined the mystery and tension of the book. So, I guess my recommendation is this: If you are a movie person, watch the movie first. If books are always way better than movies to you, read the book first. Enjoy the story first in the medium you like best, and if you must, check it out in the other, too.<br />
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The story is this (taken more from my memory of the <a href="http://natashasshelf.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-maze-runner.html">book</a> than from the movie, though they are relatively the same). Thomas awakes in an elevator box of sorts, moving slowly and mysteriously toward an unknown destination, but the worst of it is, Thomas remembers nothing about his life. He knows how life works and the names of objects. He just can't remember anything specific pertaining to him except his first name. But everything is about to get stranger. When the box opens, he finds himself in a community of teenage boys who are all like him, no memories, and who are stuck in a giant maze full of monsters. Thomas is supposed to do what he's told, have a good cry if he needs to, and adapt to his part of making their community work. But Thomas is too curious for his own good, and he's not just going to sit by and do nothing.<br />
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The premise was fascinating to me. I like stories such as <i>Lord of the Flies</i>, and the TV show <i>Lost</i>. And out of this whole series, <i>The Maze Runner</i>, most similar to those, is my favorite book. The ending is decent enough in that it provides some answers without needing to resolve everything (overall, I don't like how Dashner resolves everything in the series, but if you take this first book by itself, it's fine). I figured the adaptation to a movie would be pretty straightforward, and I was excited to see the story come to life in that way.<br />
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Now, hear me out. I know you have to change things when you adapt a book into a movie. Things have to be shortened, focused. If a story takes place in a character's head in the book, you have to figure out a way to translate that to a medium that's largely outside the character's head (unless you provide character narration, which some movies do). So, I get it. I'm not one of those who swears the book is the only way to go. This blog is about books <i>and </i>movies because I really like both, and I love to see adaptations. Now, the adaptations don't always work for me, but I can generally see a movie as a separate entity from the book and not be too disappointed.<br />
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But...(you were waiting for it, weren't you?), <i>The Maze Runner</i> movie annoyed me just a tad. It started with small details here and there, different from the book. I was prepared for the big cuts, but the small changes were surprising. They seemed unnecessary and made less sense than the way the details were written in the book. I will try to avoid major SPOILERS here, but if you are concerned, stop reading now.<br />
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Some of the changes didn't hurt the movie, but I don't think they helped either. They were just inconsistencies that bothered me, especially when I couldn't see the point of the change (for instance, in the buildings the boys built for themselves). One of those rather minor details that I do think does hurt the movie, however, is the presentation of the mysterious medicine vials. In the book, the medicine comes up in the shipments of survival goods the boys periodically receive from the Box. When they are attacked by the monsters, the boys use this medicine. In the movie, another character arrives with two medicine vials in a pocket, and the movie uses them conveniently for two major characters. Aside from that seeming very coincidental and accidental in the movie, it changes the story and doesn't make sense, to boot. It makes more sense for the boys to already have medicine they use as needed.<br />
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Okay, so I'm going to have to go into SPOILER territory (more for the book than the movie, though). If you were braving it out until now, congrats but you've been warned. One thing that really bothered me is that the sci-fi technology is dumbed down. There are some really cool things in the book like telepathy and invisible portals. That's not a spoiler for the movie because those things don't exist in the movie. So, yay, I didn't spoil it for you. The movie only spoiled the book. I can't figure out why the tech was changed. Some things in the book are just not explained. Could that be it? They wanted a more believable world than what the book presented? But that change is going to affect the rest of the story even more than it did the beginning. Stripped of some of those details that make this world so interesting, they're going to have to make up stuff that isn't in the books just to fill in the cracks in future movies. I already thought the pacing was a little slow for this movie, and now some of what makes the book more interesting is gone. And if they bring it back, it will seem inconsistent and have me wondering why they took it out in the first place.<br />
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Perhaps my biggest complaint is that the way the kids get out (and that's not spoiling because you knew they would) is totally different from in the book. Okay, "totally" might be an exaggeration, but it's enough different that it affects the story. And it's another change that just doesn't make sense with the way the maze is supposed to work and the answers we discover at the end of the story.<br />
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Well, I could go on. Even some of the last shots of the movie get details wrong, but those I actually do understand. It was done for the movie audience to have a better visual that the book doesn't provide. It was a change made for the movie to make a better movie. If you haven't read the book, it works. If you have, it's just one more way the tech is changed that disappoints.<br />
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Aside from being annoyed by detail changes, I do have one moral concern to share. The book and the movie have some pretty violent moments. Kids are killed, and the worst part is that hardly anyone stops to mourn or seems to care, except with the one character who's played up to get the audience to care. But PG-13 is an acceptable rating.<br />
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Having said all that, I'll admit I didn't dislike the movie entirely. It was enjoyable to watch one time and see the characters, like Newt!, come to life, though there weren't too many other stand-outs, even so. Here was a chance for the movie to improve upon a book that had a few faults of its own. It didn't. So, I give it a shrug and a throw-away three out of five stars.Natasha Haydenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05153762424693669076noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7070534476559588431.post-12347694224545905172014-09-11T14:26:00.003-04:002014-09-11T14:39:08.024-04:00The Ring & the Crown<i>The Ring & the Crown</i>, a young adult novel by Melissa de la Cruz, mixes fantasy and Victorian genres. The idea of magic competing against a sort of scientific and industrial revolution (not steam but electric) is an idea I've not run across a lot. In fact, it was unique enough that a group of my writing friends (myself included) created a world with a similar idea at its starting point. Our plot differs drastically from anything Melissa de la Cruz would write and was conceived far before I picked up her book, but the idea that magic is a sort of science is the backdrop of both stories. (Ours changes even from that. If you want to know more, check out <a href="http://childrenofthewells.com/">childrenofthewells.com</a>.)<br />
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<i>The Ring & the Crown</i> has a large cast of characters. Most young adult books stick to one or two to narrate the story, but this book is a step removed from the immediacy of first-person narration with a third-person limited viewpoint which is interchanged among five different major characters. Though the characters are appropriate for young adult, the writing style bridges the gap between young adult and fantasy or even historical fiction.<br />
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I didn't like all the characters. There were really only two I was rooting for, though I wasn't entirely antagonistic to the others. The setting of the plot both intrigued me and contributed to why I didn't like some of the characters. By at least by the end, I was sympathetic to most of them.<br />
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The setting is this: a war has come to an end by the soon-to-be alliance of Prince Leopold and Princess Marie whose interests lie in different directions than each other. Meanwhile, Wolf, the younger brother of the engaged prince is trying to find his own direction, be it in girls or fistfights. Leopold's lover, Isabelle, must sign away her engagement to him so that the royal wedding may progress. The American girl, Ronan, must find herself a rich husband in London to save her family's financial situation. And the magician Aelwyn must choose between a life of independence or a life of service to her childhood friend Marie.<br />
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The magic history bears remarking on as it appears to be related to a version of the stories of King Arthur, Lancelot, and Merlin, taking place perhaps near a thousand years after those events. Whether this book would claim that story to be the same one we know or whether it's all part of an alternate universe is not addressed but would be an interesting thing to ask the author.<br />
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I'm not sure if this book is part of a series, as most young adult books are, or if it is meant to stand alone. It feels like a standalone book, particularly at the end, which attempts to resolve all the characters' lives. The end is abrupt and unexpected. Looking back, I saw a few hints of foreshadowing, but there didn't seem to be quite enough time taken to set everything up. In fact, characters end up explaining the end to one another, an end that is interesting but that feels a bit like the cliff notes version. I certainly had mixed feelings. I generally liked how things were resolved overall, but I felt like not everyone's story was told adequately...and forget happily. I know stories don't have to end neatly and happily to be good (though I prefer happy, or a really good reason not), but when half your main characters fade into obscurity at the end of a book, it's not satisfying. Fortunately, they were the characters I didn't care about as much, but like I said, once my sympathy was aroused, I thought they deserved better. Maybe that's what a sequel could be for.<br />
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This book gets three stars from me. Morality plays a small factor in that rating. There was the sensuality I expected just from the nature of the book's content, but the details were mostly implied. There were places where it fit the story and other places where it didn't need to be there but was just added to give some wildness to a character, which could have been done in other ways. On the other hand, I appreciated the interweaving of story lines (until the end) and the way that the world felt like it had some history and depth, and I did enjoy the read despite the odd end and character complaints I have.Natasha Haydenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05153762424693669076noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7070534476559588431.post-37580670699594165032014-09-05T09:08:00.001-04:002014-09-05T09:08:23.398-04:00AfterworldsThis review contains a few SPOILERS.<br />
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I have been a big fan of some of Scott Westerfeld's work. I loved his <i>Uglies </i>series way back before young adult fiction was popular. The world he created in that book was just so different and surprising, and the plot hooked me through the physical and emotional changes the main character underwent. It was quite different from anything I'd read before. Since then, I've read a lot of dystopian young adult stories, so the novelty has worn off. But that series still stands out to me.<br />
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That's why I was so excited to receive an advance reader's copy of his latest book, <i>Afterworlds</i>, and so disappointed when I finished it. Westerfeld continues to try to push boundaries, but <i>Afterworlds </i>tries so hard to avoid all the stereotypes that it sabotages itself into becoming something predictable. Think of what's popular in culture right now: paranormal romance (romance is always popular, but if you can throw in a unique creature as a love interest, all the better), homosexuality, not being American (Americans are selfish and bad!) or at least not being white, individuality in youth, making your own living and being dependent on no one but yourself. (It's popular to not be stereotypical, which is sort of ironic, isn't it?) All these elements are thrown together in Westerfeld's story about an 18-year-old gay, Indian girl living on her own in New York City off the extravagant advance she gets for writing a paranormal romance. Like I said, it's so non-stereotypical it's predictable. The only truly unique thing I found in <i>Afterworlds </i>is that it is two stories in one. Every other chapter switches as you follow two plotlines: that of Darcy Patel's writing woes in New York and that of the manuscript she has written, a rather blasé love story between a girl whose experiences in a terrorist attack (the most interesting thing about the whole book) make her see ghosts and the boy she meets in the ghost world.<br />
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Westerfeld's characters are usually fairly complex, not wholly good or bad but an intriguing mix. Even in the <i>Uglies </i>series, I didn't always love them, but they fascinated me. In <i>Afterworlds</i>, I didn't like either of his protagonists. I couldn't find a reason to root for them. Darcy is naive, swayed by others' opinions, clingy, and a spendthrift. Though the novel points out her flaws, it doesn't help me like her better. Lizzie, the protagonist of Darcy's novel, is infatuated at first sight-and-kiss with a boy she meets in the middle of a terrible disaster. Though her deathly experiences supposedly give her a new role and purpose in life (and death), she muddles around for awhile, directionless. She is largely defined throughout the book by her connection to the boy she's kissed, and she doesn't have a lot to do on her own. SPOILER ALERT! But when she purposefully murders someone late in the book, any connection I thought I might have been forming with her was severed. The book doles out consequences for this murder, but none of it seems like enough, and the fact that the murder is committed at all just turns me off.<br />
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I gave this a two-star rating on Goodreads because on their five-star rating system, two stars means the book is okay. I didn't completely dislike it. I did read it through, after all. But I was disappointed in the story and the morals. I've already mentioned the murder. In addition, though there's nothing too graphic, Darcy's girlfriend does live with her, and the rest is implied. I won't go into the ethics of homosexuality here, but I will reiterate how culturally attuned this novel seems to want to be. By hitting on all our current cultural prejudices and preferences, this book just appears to be trying too hard. You might almost think it was mocking these aspects of modern culture, but it's too serious about itself for that. If this is the direction YA fiction is going, it's going to lose me. I love young adult fiction for its stories, but when they fail to engage or surprise me or when they become commentaries on culture, some of the innocence and simplicity of the genre is lost. They have grown up. They have become too self-aware....<br />
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But let's shake off the ghost of the future, shall we? We aren't there yet. This is just one book, and there are at least 30 books on my to-read shelf, half of which have to be at least a little interesting, right? Time to browse my ARC library and stow the cynicism. Forgive me for having a little fun with this review. There always seems to be more to write when there's negative feedback to give. Please remember that I do highly recommend Westerfeld's earlier <i>Uglies </i>series.Natasha Haydenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05153762424693669076noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7070534476559588431.post-19429845706034251512014-08-29T14:39:00.002-04:002014-08-29T14:39:50.136-04:00UnbrokenI am way late to add my two cents to the raving reviews of <i>Unbroken</i>, by Laura Hillenbrand, but I am just in time in terms of the movie being released on Christmas of this year, especially if you haven't read the book yet. Encouraged by my in-laws, I had this book on my back burner for quite awhile, though I was having trouble tracking down the copy being passed around. Then I heard that the movie was coming out at the end of the year, so I made it a goal to read it before then. Finally, I saw a movie preview, and the book bumped right up to the top of my list.<br />
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The genre is certainly not what I would typically read now, though I read a lot of biographies when I was younger, but I look for good stories more than anything. A good story is a good story, and I confess, sometimes the true ones can be the best. This is one of those.<br />
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To give you an idea of how good I found this book, I read it on vacation. Big deal, you say? Well, here's the thing about me: I don't read on vacation. Weird, I know. If I do read, it has to be unusual and fascinating enough to trump all the other out-of-the-ordinary aspects of vacation. That doesn't usually happen to me. Of course, I always take books with me in the hopes I will be tempted, but I'm usually not. The only time I can really remember reading on vacation and enjoying it was when I was pregnant with my first child. I was tired, and it was easier to just sit by myself in a cool room and read than go out into the sun and water. I read two fun YA books that week and relaxed more than ever. That was about five years ago. This trip was not quite so relaxing...fifteen people camping together with an RV and a collection of tents...the responsibility of two active children...but I managed it. <i>Unbroken </i>is not a small book, and aside from the first 50 pages, which I read before we left home, I read the whole thing on our trip. I'm sure you've heard this from others by now, but it's an amazing story.<br />
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Louis Zamperini died this year, but before that, he had the chance to form a friendship with the movie director of his life story, Angelina Jolie. Knowing this, I'm very excited to see the finished product. But even without Jolie, I'd be interested, especially after reading this book. Louis was quite a character from the beginning, a rebel of sorts. You could say that that very quality in him helped him through a lifetime of trials. He became an Olympian and then a soldier. He survived a plane crash and weeks adrift at sea, and then he became a prisoner of war under the cruel Japanese in World War II. Hillenbrand has collected his stories and the stories of many others, as well as conducted careful research, to piece together Louis's history and the history of the world he lived through. It's fascinating stuff, and it just gets better as the story gets more and more improbable. But the cool thing is that all that improbable stuff really happened and is well documented.<br />
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I won't give details about the end, but the end really clinched it for me. The end made this a truly inspirational story. I don't know if Hillenbrand is a Christian. She just tells the facts. But I think I can appreciate this story more as a Christian than if I'd come at it from a faithless background. The end brought me to tears in a wonderful, joyful, unexpected way.<br />
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If you are worried about reading a boring biography, don't be. There's nothing to bore. If you are worried about the size of this thing, don't be. It only gets more and more interesting. If this story was written as fiction, people would scoff at the improbabilities. That it's true is not even the most amazing part. It's in the details, and those I won't spoil. I love this story and give it a full, hearty five stars. Totally recommended!Natasha Haydenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05153762424693669076noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7070534476559588431.post-74579457149972906492014-08-25T15:09:00.001-04:002014-08-25T15:09:56.893-04:00Guardians of the Galaxy in Theaters NowI got to see <i>Guardians of the Galaxy</i> (PG-13, 2 hours) the second day it was out, but I was on vacation and away from computers and just haven't gotten around to reviewing it until now. That means this will be a short one because my first impressions are mostly lost.<br />
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Personally, I prefer my heroes a little more serious. But I had quite a few good laughs and enjoyed the cheesy lightheartedness of this film. I especially loved Bradley Cooper's Rocket Raccoon. He was by far my favorite character, and I love seeing the variety of Bradley Cooper's work. The plot was so-so, but I wasn't expecting a lot. I am interested in seeing these characters incorporated into the rest of the Marvel movie universe. I think the play of comedy against serious in the right doses could be really entertaining, although some of the other Marvel heroes are already balancing serious and comedic well enough.<br />
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For sure, this style of superhero movie is surprising and unique, and that's what it really has going for it in the sea of superhero movies we are now inundated with (not that it's a disagreeable inundation...yet). So far, Marvel keeps getting it right, but I hope their style and stories continue to evolve. The next Guardians tale won't have novelty going for it anymore. Three stars.Natasha Haydenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05153762424693669076noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7070534476559588431.post-62402279364805868672014-07-24T14:27:00.000-04:002014-07-24T14:27:06.457-04:00Gravity on DVDWhen you don't get to watch a lot of movies, it can take awhile to get to the more serious ones. Of course, 2013's <i>Gravity </i>won quite a few Oscars, including Best Director for Alfonso Cuaron, so I knew it was a quality film (which is not quite the same as a good movie). Additionally, I'd heard good things about it from people I knew, so I thought it would be interesting, too. When given the chance, I confess that for awhile I chose more lighthearted things to watch over this one, but I decided it was finally time to see what the fuss was all about.<br />
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Deserved fuss, by the way. This is definitely an impressive film. Tight and short (91 min.) and highly focused with just enough of an emotional center to make you invest in Sandra Bullock's character (she got a Best Actress nomination), played opposite George Clooney (Fortunately with no nakedness involved this time! Anybody seen <i>Solaris</i>? Don't. We have a long-standing joke about this in our family.). The cinematography is just brilliant, but I was deep enough into the movie to not pay it too much attention. With every shot, the director makes you begin to feel the enormity and terror of being lost and alone in space. My husband is right that this movie would have been awesome to see in the theater or, better yet, in IMAX.<br />
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There are a lot of noteworthy aspects one could talk about in <i>Gravity</i>, but one of the things I really thought made it superb was its simplicity. It isn't a complicated film like <i>Inception </i>(which was great, in its own way). Instead, everything but the basics is stripped away. A mission in space goes awry, and the goal becomes straightforward: make it back home. I guess that was the goal in 1995's <i>Apollo 13</i>, too, but this is more pared down. There are no flashbacks or scenes of other people on Earth. It's all about right now and the reaction to what's happening and the fight (or not) to live. Even the theme is very simple. The tagline is: "Don't let go." And that's exactly what it's about. Physically, hang on for your life. Emotionally, decide what's worth hanging onto, even if, ironically, that means you <i>do </i>let go.<br />
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Despite the movie's simplicity, or perhaps because of it, this sci-fi thriller is intense. It's rated PG-13, which I find appropriate. There is an instance where the F-word is spoken, and it's a circumstance one can forgive. There's also a scene of a guy with a hole through his face. Mostly, it's rated for scenes of high-stakes danger, and that's what keeps you on the edge of your seat.<br />
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Wish I'd seen it in the theater, but even on my small computer screen, its gravity pulled me right in. Four out of five stars.Natasha Haydenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05153762424693669076noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7070534476559588431.post-63389152360406516802014-07-18T22:34:00.001-04:002014-07-18T22:34:22.164-04:00SteelheartIf you've heard of the name Brandon Sanderson, you've probably heard he was the writer of the last few books of the late Robert Jordan's 14-book <i>Wheel of Time</i> series. My husband grew up on that series, the ending of which was just published a year and a half ago, so it was from him that I heard about this author. When I saw an advanced reader's copy of <i>Steelheart</i>, a young adult science fiction book by Sanderson, I picked it up both for the name on the cover and for the premise about superhumans crushing the rest of humanity with their powers and about a group of rebels determined to take them out one by one. Coincidentally, my advanced reader's copy has a praising quotation from the latest author I've enjoyed, James Dashner. And when my husband read the book first and thought I would really like it, that sealed the deal.<br />
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Happily, I was not disappointed. Sanderson knows how to write characters, and he knows how to write action, both a must for a story like this one. David, the book's narrator and central character, is an awkward and single-minded but endearing character. His eventual companions all have quirks of their own so that even when the action lags the entertainment does not. If there's any character I liked less than the others, it's the girl, probably because she's written from a male perspective and we don't get to see into her head.<br />
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Sanderson is good with the big picture, with what the world would look like with all these evil supervillains, or Epics, controlling it. And he's good with the details: the powers and weaknesses of each Epic, the idiosyncrasies of each character (like David's bad metaphors or Cody's wild Scottish tales), the logistics of a small fight scene or a big battle. It's a pretty large book but actually rather short compared to what Sanderson normally writes. I read it fairly quickly, despite the size.<br />
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The set-up for the book is this: Epics are powerful and evil, but they have weaknesses. David is the only person alive who has witnessed Steelheart's weakness, on the day David's father was killed in front of his eight-year-old self. Over the last ten years, Steelheart has ruled as the master of Newcago, where he turned everything to steel and enlisted the help of another Epic to make it always night. Steelheart appears invulnerable, but David believes all the clues are locked away somewhere in his mind, and if he can find and join the Reckoners, a group of rebels who are the only ones defying the Epics, he will attempt to take out the greatest Epic of all.<br />
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Sanderson delves into themes of heroism and revenge without coming across as preachy. With just a dash of romance but a lot of heart, this story is more than teenage boy escapism. It's shallowly fun where it needs to be but deep enough not to feel cheap. It's a story that should have appeal for both genders and all ages.<br />
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Admittedly, I don't read a lot of books like Sanderson's. For all I know, there's a lot of other similarly good stuff out there. I've read pieces of <i>The Wheel of Time</i> but have been reluctant to dive into that due to the sheer volume of the thing and the world-building. I prefer quicker stories. But this young adult story ended up being just right in length and detail, and I'm looking forward to reading the rest of the trilogy when it comes out. There is also a short novella between the events of <i>Steelheart </i>and <i>Firefight </i>(expected publication in early 2015)<i> </i>called <i>Mitosis</i>, which I enjoyed.<br />
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Four out of five stars for <i>Steelheart</i>.Natasha Haydenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05153762424693669076noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7070534476559588431.post-91346515076644178912014-07-12T22:37:00.001-04:002014-07-12T22:37:09.305-04:00Maleficent in Theaters Now (but barely!)I almost don't know what to say about <i>Maleficent</i> (starring a fabulous Angelina Jolie) except, "Go watch it." To reveal anything about the plot would be spoiling, and I'm impressed at how well the trailers hid the details of the story. If you enjoy fairy tales, especially retold fairy tales, don't miss this one.<br />
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Do you think I'm exaggerating? Is my praise too high? Perhaps. I don't think everyone will love this movie. If you like realism and cynicism (traits that define many movies today, particularly Oscar winners), the catharsis of tragedy, and Grimm-style fairy tales where not everything works out so well for the heroes, you might not appreciate this retelling. You might think it too neat, too perfect, too clean, too upbeat. Sure, it's not overly complicated. It's simply a beautiful fairy tale in a lush setting with fun, fantastical characters and the age-old conflict of good versus evil. It's traditional, but in its reimagined form, it's surprising--in the best sort of way.<br />
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You've probably seen the trailers, and if you are at all familiar with Disney fairy tales, you know the character of Maleficent well. She's the villain of Sleeping Beauty's tale. She curses the baby and later appears as a dragon before being vanquished. She's quite utterly evil, not an ounce of heart in her. That's the old tale. This one delves a bit more into Maleficent's backstory. What might possibly give rise to such evil in a person?<br />
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While certain people I know (ahem...you know who you are) are rather fascinated with Maleficent as a character, I was more uncertain about the movie. I saw the trailers and was interested enough. I'm into complicated characters, and the TV show <i>Once Upon a Time</i> has done a great job of creating some really interesting villains who aren't all bad to the core, characters who start out with some good in them and who one hopes by the end might be redeemed, not undone. That's one direction I thought this movie could go, and I was interested in seeing that, though unsure of what the outcome might be. As for where it actually went, I will not say.<br />
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Honestly, when I saw the trailers and then heard what the movie was rated (only PG), I was flabbergasted. Maleficent is a scary villain, and I couldn't believe anyone in this day and age wouldn't take advantage of that fact to create some really scary special effects. Having seen it, I'm still surprised at the rating, but at the same time, I understand it. With our rating system, what <i>do </i>you rate a movie that doesn't have sex or language and isn't even all that violent? There were certainly a few scary parts (though not like you'd expect), bits of thematic darkness and a couple CGI-enhanced battles. But compared to what it could have been, I suppose it was rather tame. I wouldn't take my four-year-old to it (though he'd probably love it more than I'd want him to), but a ten-year-old? Eight-year-old? I guess it depends on the kid.<br />
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I wish I could say more about the story (and about its themes) because there's so much there to talk about. But I want you to be as surprised as I was. I have to say one thing, and it's almost SPOILING to do so. You've been warned. Just this: it's not what you're expecting. Even in this review, I've tried to give nothing away but what you already know, perhaps even mislead you once or twice. But if you are wary about going to a movie starring a villain, there's less need for caution than you think. I loved it, and I don't understand the fascination with Maleficent. (Sorry, You Know Who!) I'm curious to know what the villain's fans think of this movie. They might have a different reaction than I do, but I'm betting that if they love the character of Maleficent (weirdos!), they love good old fairy tales and will love this one, whatever their expectations are.<br />
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I barely saw this in the theater but am glad that I did. There was an epic quality to it that the big screen enhanced. If you have a chance, see it in theaters before it's gone. Otherwise, be sure to look it up on DVD. It makes more sense than <i><a href="http://natashasshelf.blogspot.com/2012/06/swath-in-theaters-now.html">Snow White and the Huntsman</a></i>, is as fun as <i><a href="http://natashasshelf.blogspot.com/2013/03/jack-giant-slayer-in-theaters-now.html">Jack the Giant Slayer</a></i> (Oooooh, I've turned you off, haven't I? People hated that one, for some reason!), and will likely go on my shelf next to <i>Ever After</i>.Natasha Haydenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05153762424693669076noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7070534476559588431.post-50264812728976922912014-06-29T14:58:00.002-04:002014-06-29T14:58:18.767-04:00The Eye of MindsI've been on a James Dashner kick, or at least I was when I read his <i><a href="http://natashasshelf.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-maze-runner.html">Maze Runner</a></i> books in quick succession. I was a tad disappointed with the <a href="http://natashasshelf.blogspot.com/2014/05/maze-runner-trilogy-books-2-and-3.html">end</a> of that book series, so I didn't bother to read the prequel, which was about different people anyway. But I saw <i>The Eye of Minds</i>, also by Dashner, on the library shelf alongside those other books, and intrigued by the premise, I thought I'd give it a try.<br />
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The book was interesting enough. I think it just hit me at the wrong time. I went on a four-day camping trip shortly after starting it, and here's something about me that you might think odd...I don't usually read on vacations. The only vacation over which I remember doing some lovely reading was the one where I was pregnant with my first child. I left the sun and water be and stayed on my bed in my air-conditioned room and just read. Ah, it makes me happy just to think of it. I read two whole books that week! And though I could do that at home, it was quite the accomplishment to do it on a vacation. I know that sounds opposite, but that's how I work. So, you guessed it, I did not read on my camping trip, and after that, summer whirled in like a cyclone: birthdays, holidays, outings, the World Cup! (Having spent my formative years in Brazil, I root for them, even against the USA should it get to that.) I knew the summer would fly by, but now in the eye of the storm, I'm still blinking in confusion and wondering how I got here.<br />
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This week, I finally got to the halfway point of the book, and then it was smooth and quick reading from there. The first half of the book took me all month. The second half took a couple days. And like I said, I don't think it's all the book's fault. But I think I'm over James Dashner...for now (not that there's much else to read, though there is a fall movie I'm looking forward to). As always, his premise is intriguing, and once he gets the action rolling, his books are hard to put down. But I'm never quite happy with his endings.<br />
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In <i>The Eye of Minds</i>, Michael is a gamer and hacker who spends much of his time in an immersive virtual world with his two best friends whom he's never even met in real life. While his body is nourished and his senses are stimulated in the "Coffin," as he calls it, he is able to taste virtual food, feel the sword slash in battle, and even experience death without real repercussions (like, obviously, staying dead). But when players begin to die in the game and not return to their bodies, Michael's hacking skills earn him the dangerous job of tracking down whomever is tampering with and controlling the virtual reality.<br />
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Aside from summer's interruptions, this book's timing was interesting because I was simultaneously introduced to the anime <i>Sword Art Online</i>, the first season of which I am almost through watching (short review here: the first half is better so far than the second). The main similarity is the all-immersive aspect of the virtual realities in both. In <i>Sword Art Online</i>, however, the characters are stuck in their virtual reality, and the only way out is true death (even in the physical world) or beating the game. <i>The Eye of Minds</i> begins differently, in that regard, but as the book goes on, the similarities are even greater. I won't spoil it more than that.<br />
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Due to the nature of virtual reality, you'd expect a lot of gratuitous sex and violence in a book about it, but I'm happy to say that Dashner steers clear of the sex. At one point, there's a lot of violence, but it's not made light of. The main characters, at least, don't do it for the fun of it, and there's some commentary on why anyone does it at all (though I'm not sure the author ever gives us a clear answer). The real interesting moral questions come at the end of the book and lead into its sequel, which will be available later this year. Most anything more I would say would spoil the book, so sorry. Only this: it doesn't have to do with sex or violence, but it was one of the things that made me unsure about the book. It's interesting but unsettling.<br />
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I give the book three stars because, overall, I enjoyed the read. I might even read that sequel some day. But for now, I need something that isn't quite such a downer at its end, so I part ways with James Dashner.Natasha Haydenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05153762424693669076noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7070534476559588431.post-63723691699442402002014-05-29T13:24:00.000-04:002014-05-29T15:44:02.649-04:0012 Years a Slave on DVDMy interest in the Oscar nominees has grown over the past few years. I believe I watched nearly all the Best Picture nominees from last year. This year, however, I wasn't so excited about the options. There were only a couple I was really interested in seeing, and even then, I'm taking my time to get around to them.<br />
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I just watched <i>12 Years a Slave</i>, and I'm not sure I can say that I liked it. It was certainly well-done and deserving of its Best Picture award. My husband did some research and found it was mostly pretty accurate, horrifically enough. I wasn't necessarily surprised by what I saw, being familiar with some of the details of slavery, but it was pretty amazing (and not in a good way, as Brad Pitt's character says) that it all happened to one man. It's based on the true story of Solomon Northup, an educated, free black man who was kidnapped and enslaved in the mid-1800's. He wrote a memoir about his experiences, and the movie is based on that.<br />
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I can't say I like the movie because, well...it's brutal stuff, vividly depicted in a visual medium. It's rated R for obvious reasons, among which are violence, nudity (not sexual), and some sex scenes (they are not too graphic, but they are disturbing). Just because something is hard to watch doesn't mean you shouldn't, but each person must take into account what they can handle. In some ways, I'm glad I've seen this movie, but at the same time, I don't think it was necessary. I'm not changed because of it. It disturbed me but didn't impact me. I'm not sure I would really recommend it to anyone. I keep wondering what the purpose of this movie was. Is our culture still so racist that we need this reminder? Will anyone who is racist actually see this movie, and if they do, will it change them? Slavery is awful. What was done shouldn't have been done. But I wonder if we dwell on the past too much when the present has enough injustices of its own. The past is "safe." What's that saying: "It's easier to ask for forgiveness than permission"? It's easy to say "I'm sorry" for something that's over. It's harder to stand up for our beliefs and put them into practice right now.<br />
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I'm not saying it's the movie industry's job to speak out on modern-day issues (though I'm sure they could certainly figure out a way to do so to great effect, as can be seen with the way they've pushed gay rights). It's not the movie industry's job to fight injustice, but if that was not the purpose of this movie, what was? Surely not entertainment. Perhaps it was to acknowledge an astounding true tale. I can accept that. But if we as a culture are trying to fight injustice, we need to start in the present with the sex trade or abortion, for example. It seems to me that we applaud recognition of our past failures (if I recognize it, I must be better), but we, myself included, merely gasp in horror at the news feed and then silently move on.<br />
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In addition to the movie's murky agenda, I didn't think all the nudity was tactfully depicted. You can get the sense of nudity from a person's back. Even bum shots (we all look the same from the back) are better than full frontal nudity which, to warn you, this movie contains. I didn't see the point of it.<br />
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One thing, neither bad nor good, that I thought was interesting in the cinematography is that the scenes are long. They are much longer than in most movies, long to the point of being uncomfortable, which I think was the point (and which makes me think there <i>was </i>some moral agenda behind this movie). The beatings are horrifically long. At one point, the main character hangs from his neck, his feet barely touching the ground, for an extended time, not just in terms of hours the man actually hung there in the story but in terms of seconds on the screen. The creators of this movie took time to tell the story well and to make the viewer pay attention. It is only a little over 2 hours long (134 minutes). In terms of how much suffering you can handle, it might feel long, but it is not too long in the sense that it was dragged out.<br />
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The music, by Hans Zimmer, is also very dramatic at times, more in keeping with something from <i>Inception </i>(which he also did) than with a period piece, but similarly to the purpose of the longer scenes, I think the purpose was to arouse a sense of foreboding in the viewer.<br />
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The acting is superb. Chiwetel Ejiofor (whom I previously knew as the villain from <i>Serenity</i>) is Solomon. And of course, Lupita Nyong'o won Best Actress for her role as Patsey. Benedict Cumberbatch and Brad Pitt, among other known actors, make small appearances. And the despicable (and way insane) slaver villain is played by Michael Fassbender.<br />
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I obviously have mixed feelings about this movie. While I agree that it has all the makings of an Oscar winner and deserves what it got, I don't think it's for the masses. Honestly, I'm not sure whom it's for. Obviously, not someone like me. The critics out there might call me racist or too prudish, but I can only give my opinion, regardless of how people may misconstrue it. I may be the last one to see this, but if you were considering it still, hopefully my review can help you make a better-educated decision about whether or not to see it.Natasha Haydenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05153762424693669076noreply@blogger.com0