Bluejay

I felt rather good about Bella and Edward after the trilogy and started to read this fourth installment with high hopes.

From the start I was just astounded by how much the style had changed, and not for the better. Did someone else write this book?
While reading I felt like watching a train wreck, but just couldn't make myself stop, wishing it wasn't happening. The characters lost their hold on me, I no longer knew who they were.

Some of my Twilight fan friends will crucify me for saying this but..
In my honest opinion, the story should have ended with Eclipse. Meyer could have tied up the lose ends right there. Going this far was unnecessary and left me feeling rather sad that the sometimes rocky journey I took with the characters had to end this way, me hoping I'll never hear from them again.

I hoped the writing would have gotten better in this second part. It hadn't.

Luckily, the story did improve although my fondness of Bella went down the drain. I could relate to her, but still felt like shaking and slapping her back to reality.. But I guess that black&white tunnel vision is what makes the teenage romance so unconditionally and irrecoverably wonderful.

In this rehash of Shakespeare's most tragic love story, I seriously rooted for Paris.. How about that Jake Black fanclub??

It's easy to understand why Twilight Saga has created such a buzz and sold millions of copies.

On the other hand, it baffles me how Meyer got away with such horrible writing. I'm not a native English speaker but still some of the parts were just absolutely horrendous.

Maybe I'm too old but I didn't quite fall head over heels for Edward. His smoldering eyes left me totally cold, on the other hand I did like Bella's character.

In the end, the story is what counts. Drawing from the old classics, Twilight is hardly an original, but it had enough appeal to make finish it in a day and buy the next part.

Every once in a while you read a book you want to recommend to all of your friends. This one was one of them for me.

I have two words for you. Read it.
You can get it for free (and legally) online just by Googling it.
I did just so, but now after finishing it I'm going to go to a book store and buy a copy of it to keep in my shelf.

It is a young adult novel but offers some serious food for thought for older audience too. It's placed in a a present/near future environment but the theme is timeless.

The cover text for Acacia: The War with Mein promised the regular fare, royals in distress, nation in peril, assassins and magic.

Durham writes beautifully without being too ornate. He has written historical novels and Acacia feels like one too. The author builds up a complex and deep world with believable background.

Description is this novels strength but also the weakness. The story flows through the landscapes and events and there are real gems, stunning pieces of narrative. But while there's plenty of that, dialog is scarce, leaving some characters rather flat.

The story turned out to be more than the cover lead me to expect, well constructed and skillfully written fantasy novel, promising an interesting sequel.

It is a small wonder to begin with that I even picked up this book after the previous one (Shadow of a Dark Queen) had been such a disappointment. The start wasn't promising either, in fact, it was pretty terrible.. So, it was another miracle that I actually got past the first two chapters.

As a whole, I would compare this novel to a runner, who after a slow and clumsy start accelerates to rather nice speed, clearing some difficult hurdles with impressive skill just to fall flat on his face before the finish line.
Surprisingly the middle was this novel's best section. Even while keeping in mind that this book is a part of a series, I think the transitions from the previous story to the next one were handled poorly. The beginning and the ending were, sadly, very bad writing.

Another thing that irked me was the repetition of expressions. If I had played a drinking game whenever someone 'exchanged glances' or 'an ample bosom' sailed in view, I'd be having serious problems with my liver right now.

A slight improvement compared to the first installement, recommended for readers who are already fans of Midkemia.

This is a beautiful coffee table book for all fans of Martin's Song of Ice and Fire.

In the beginning there's a collection of portraits of House Targaryen. I found this part especially interesting, because although the series is about time after these rulers, there is often references to them.
Rest of the book is divided by location and contains scenic pictures and character portraits.

What I really like that the artwork is from bunch of different artists, not just one person's interpretation, some of them well known, some enthusiastic fans.
The downside is that the quality varies, and some of the pictures are little more than just black and white sketches.
A big portion of the pictures can also be found online, so if you've done some surfing you've probably seen many of them.

It took some time after finishing the previous part, Deadhouse gates, before I was ready to tackle Memories of Ice.
Reading these novels easily becomes a full time job since they are getting pretty thick and at least for me, hard to put down.
I liked the two first books and this third one topped them with ease.

With Erikson you learn to expect the unexpected and still be surprised.
This story has more layers than ten average series combined.
Still extremely violent, sometimes laugh out out funny and thought-provoking throughout.
But be avare, with its staggering body count and extreme adult content it's still not for everyone.

I also think that the writing has improved, with more fluent style and easier structure to follow.
My head was still spinning because of the scope and pace of the story but at this point I've grown so attached to the characters I'd follow them to Hood's gates. And beyond.

I loved the first two books of this series and naturally had high expectations for the final one. Abercrombie is brilliant, Last Argument of Kings was as good as I hoped but in a different way than I anticipated..

The tone of the story stays the same, dark and grim and regardless of the fact that it happens in a fantasy world, it has realism in it that made me feel the sword cuts, smell the burning bodies and hear the death cries.

Only thing that bothered me slightly was the ending that left too much open. I liked the fact that the door was left ajar for new stories but with some things I would have liked to see less ambiguous endings. (This is the point about which I've seen the most negative opinions)

Abercrombie threw traditional fantasy cliches out of the window and made The First Law trilogy a great reading experience.

Abercrombie redeems the promise set by the first part of the First Law trilogy and delivers a rocking sequel that ranks very high on my personal list.
(It won't stand alone so before grabbing it from the bookstore, check out The Blade Itself.)

It's fast, funny, dark and refreshingly original. The interesting characters evolved even more, the plot twists left my socks spinning and the cruel..ish humor made me first laugh out loud, then blush in embarrassement and then chuckle once more. But as much as I loved it, I must say the younger audience and more sensitive souls might be better off skipping it.

The story left me biting my nails, waiting for the day the third book would drop in my mail box and thinking seriously about starting a Glokta fan club.

Arrow's Fall brings the trilogy to its not-so-unpredictable end.
The only change to the two previous books is the tone that dives (a bit too abrubtly) towards much more dark and violent events.

The style has improved a bit since the first book but the overall disappointment is sealed with the unoriginal conclusion.

I'm not sure to who I would recommend this trilogy. The story limps and style is too naive for older readers but some of the themes limits the younger audience.

The only reason why these books received whole two starts from me is that I actually managed to finish reading them, the single one is reserved for totally unreadable material.

Arrow's Flight continues Talia's story which started in Arrows of the Queen.

This book is probably the most solid of the three, thus a slight improvement compared to the previous part.
Still, if you're not a adolescent female with a My Little Pony collection, this probably is not for you.
There's some sexual (not very descriptive) content and even a gay (GASP!!) characters, but the story stays securely on a level that wont challenge more mature readers.