A Game of Thrones

Being a tv-less household, let alone HBO-less household, Andy and I came to Game of Thrones a little late in the game. (Pun!) We had to wait until the first season was released on DVD before we could immerse ourselves in the world of Westeros and beyond. We just finished watching the second season last month and now the fact that season three is currently showing on HBO but we have to wait for nearly a year before we'll see any of those episodes is softly killing Andy, I think.

 
It should be admitted that I'm a fantasy nerd. As a teen, I inhaled Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth series (who else misses Legend of the Seeker? Erm . . . just me then?) although I never finished the series after I'd read all the books that had been published through 2001. Maybe I should get back to them one of these days, but truthfully, the thought of sitting down with 1000+ page book kind of intimidates me any more. I read all of the Mist of Avalon books until Marion Zimmer Bradley's death. And I'm always in the mood for a good fantasy mini-series like Pillars of the Earth. So it was probably inevitable that Andy and I would fall wholeheartedly for the world George R.R. Martin created for his Song of Ice and Fire.

 
For his birthday in November, Andy received a copy of George R.R. Martin's  A Game of Throne which he read from cover to cover before the day was done. (For reals, all 807 pages in a single day.) Over the next month or so, Andy churned his way through the entire (published) book series, all the while insisting that I needed to read the books too because they were "so much better than the show."

So in the middle of December, I turned the first page of A Game of Thrones. It was interesting. It was good. I read 200 pages in the first few days. But then, I had books that I needed to read for reviews. And then my lovely brother gave me a gift certificate to Barnes and Noble for Christmas which meant I got my hands on some books I'd been longing to read. And I started to get a little tired of the fact that I already knew the next plot twist and turn since the HBO series follows the plot of the first book quite closely.  And well, you know how it goes.

Basically the gist of this post is that I finished the book on Friday. As in, the book that Andy read in a day, I read in four months. Funny isn't it, when two people can agree on liking one thing, but their approach to said thing can be so totally different.  What makes my very slow reading all the more shocking is that I'm the reader around these parts. Andy can go for months without picking up a book.

And that's not even half the battle. Now I have four more massive books waiting for my attention. I'd like to have read both books 2 and 3 before this current season comes out on disc so I'm sort of ahead of the curve. That nearly 2000 pages that need to get read between now and next February. Normally, I'd hardly even see that as a challenge, but considering the fact that it took me four months to read the first (and the second shortest) book, I'm starting to doubt my ability. You guys, I'm not sure I can do this.

What have you been reading/watching lately?

 

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Book Review: Born Wicked

As a teenager, even before the sweeping Harry Potter phenomenon, I always gravitated toward fantasy literature. As a result, the book shelf in my childhood bedroom is stuffed full of tomes by Tamara Pierce, Patricia Wrede, Jane Yolen, and, of course, J.K. Rowling. If it has witches, wizards, and dragons in it, I'm all over it.
   
So I was pretty excited when my copy of Born Wicked by Jessica Spotswood, arrived.

This debut young adult novel follows the tumultuous journey of 16-year-old protagonist, Cate Cahill, to adulthood. Since her mother's death, Cate's taken on the responsibility of mothering her two younger sisters, a task that would be difficult even if the three weren't witches. The family lives in New England at the turn of the 20th century, but for some, yet to be explained reason, the Cahills' world is drastically different than the world historically was at that time. New England is ruled by a heavy-handed religious authority, the Brotherhood. When young women reach age 17, they must either marry or join the female religious order, the Sisterhood. Being a witch in this world means imprisonment . . . or worse.

This first book of the Cahill Witch Chronicles (a trilogy) holds all the elements you might expect in a YA fantasy novel. There's a prophecy, danger, a love triangle, and an overbearing governess. The dialogue moves along at a snappy pace and although I felt that Spotswood was guilty of holding back a little too much "illuminating" information in the book's beginning, despite the ambiguous start, I did come to like the main characters quite a bit.  

One of the most confusing things about the book to me was why the book is set in a drastically altered "real world." India and Dubai are mentioned in the book, but it's clear that New England is cut off from the rest of the United States, if there even is a United States in Cate's world. New London (Connecticut?) is the commerce hub in the books, rather than Boston, which seems like the obvious choice. I'm sure Spotswood has her reasons, but it's not explained at all in the first book and unless she plans to turn the books into a deep and remarkable commentary on world politics, I'd have preferred she'd set the story in a whole new made-up world. Some of the most compelling arguments I've heard again communism and racism were set in novels with completely imagined realities.

Born Wicked certainly doesn't have the depth of say, Philip Pullman's Golden Compass books and I'm not sure it will have the broad appeal of the Twilight series. (Although, having never read the Twilight books, I can say for sure.) But it's a rollicking quick read with loveable characters and I'll probably pick up the next books to see just how things end up for Cate and Co, especially since this first book ended on a cliffhanger.

And when I say cliffhanger, I mean cliffhanger. 

You can join in the conversation about Born Wicked over at the BlogHer Book Club.






Disclosure: I participated in this review for the BlogHer Book Club. I was compensated for my time and received a complimentary copy of the book. However, all opinions expressed in the review are my own.

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