Just finished reading The Dragon Heir last night. It was something of a letdown as a finale to the trilogy. The basic plot was that Jason, whom we met in The Wizard Heir, steals some magic stuff from under the baddies nose. Then everyone wanders around, acting like out of character idiots, until we finally get to the seige of Trinity by the evil people. Some people die, we get a deus ex machina, the end. If I sound irritated, it's because I am. Plot threads wandered, characters vanished from the story and never came back. The main twist at the end was so incredibly obvious I was annoyed the characters hadn't figured it out themselves. There was a sub-twist to go with it that surprised me though. The ending was what seriously irked me though. When you end a series, you need to wrap everything up. Give a sense of closure or whatever. This book didn't do that. There are still questions left hanging and it just seemed too abrupt. The last few paragraphs felt distinctly like the editor forced the author so summarize her ending or something. I really liked the previous two books in the series, so I'm upset that the final book is such a stinker.

stardf29: i'm glad you liked p&p ! it's such a great book. although most of my friends don't seem to like it, i really love the movie version with keira knightley. she does a really great job as elizabeth. i've only read two other austens and they were both great- emma and sense and sensibility...you should read one of those

I just read an awesome book called "Alcatraz Versus The Evil Librarians" by Brandon Sanderson and it was awesome! I can't wait for book 2.....

I've recently read this new-ish series called The Hunger Games!! its a trilogy and I'm so obbsessed with it! the 3rd book isnt out yet and I am waiting very impaitently. If your looking for a good young adult series I suggest this trilogy!!

I just started a book called "Gregor The Overlander"

it's written well, but the plot is a little boring.....but I am only at the begining, so I will have to see how the rest of it goes......

I finished Leviathan by Scott Westerfield several days ago. It was quite good. I loved the inventive world-building and the steampunk take on World War 1. Also, the two protagonists are very likeable and well-written. The writing was a bit sparse (being YA lit) but overall it was quite enjoyable. The ending was very much a cliff-hanger. I'm looking forward to the next book in the series - Behemoth.

I'm now reading Misery by Stephen King.

okay, forget what I said about "Gregor The Overlander" being boring! I finished it today and I LOVE that book! I am planning to read the rest of the books in that series! it was really awesome once I got past the beggining!

I've started Persuasion. I had to return The Fellowship to the library so I'm reading this until I get another copy out...

lysander, RE: Planet Narnia, it sounds like his argument was rather unfinished at that time. I've found the book very convincing, though I suppose that could be my own limited knowledge in Lewis' works (apart from the CoN). However, Ward does mention the "seven books" problem, though I haven't yet read his conclusions on that. It's clear that LWW was written as a one-off, but the planet assosciated with the book (according to Ward) is Jupiter, Lewis' favourite, and the one he seems to say the most about through his other books. Michael Ward also gives examples from Out of the Silent Planet and other Lewis writings, and I think this gives the theory much more credibility. Personally I don't really care if there is a "secret" in the Chronicles. This book, however, has showed me what little things there are in Narnia that I didn't see before; the meaning of "Cair Paravel", for example. Anyway, I think the best way to be angry at someone's argument is to study it. So you should probably read it.

Oh, I love Persuasion! It's my favourite Austen.

I can't find the rest of the Percy Jackson books in my library ... I might have to reserve them, annoyingly, because they'll probably become available at a really awkward time!

I tried reading Percy Jackson and found it a bit disturbing and the plot was kind of all over the place.....I guess it's just not my kind of book!

mar_girl: thank you SO MUCH for introducing me to The Bible and Literature: A Reader! You have no idea how rare Biblical literature classes are ... especially at the university level.

You're welcome! I'm glad I could help. And thanks for those MLK day links. He was an amazing man. I had to read his book Stride Toward Freedom: the Montgomery Story for my last religion class. It actually reminded me of C.S. Lewis in parts--he appeals to the head as well as the heart. Highly recommended.

I know I'm going to get a great deal of flack for this, but the concept of that book really turns me off. I have not read it, but I heard Ward talk about a portion of it back in '05 at Wheaton College, before it was actually published. It seemed to me exactly the sort of far-fetched, out-on-a-limb literary criticism that I despise. There are so many holes in the argument too ... if Lewis never planned to write 7 books, how could he have modeled them after the 7 planets of the medieval cosmological system? Of course, Ward is coming to speak at my university this semester, so perhaps after hearing him speak twice I'll finally break down and read the book so I can either solidify or recant my current opinion.

I'm with mara when it comes to Jane Bites Back: JA living in modern times is interesting enough - why was it necessary to make her a vampire?

(Answer: marketability. )

Yay, lys agrees with me! To play devil's advocate, Lewis could have accidentally written LWW to correspond with Jupiter, and then made the next book like Mars and so on… Yeah, I don't quite buy that. I still want to read it, though. I'm very interested in the medieval conception of the planets, much more so ever since I read The Discarded Image (which is a must-read if you want to find out about Lewis's view of the middle ages and the planets). We watched a video of The Canterbury Tales, and one of the stories told was of a Greek story complete with Venus, Saturn, Mars, and Jupiter, "the prime mover," and it showed the earth with concentric circles rotating around it, and I kind of said, "Oooh!" out loud in class. But mostly I was mentally yelling, "That's wrong! Jupiter isn't the Prime Mover! Jupiter is one of the things being moved!! The gods aren't outside the rings or planets, they ARE the planets! And Saturn is not the other gods' grandfather. I'm pretty sure."

My Jane Austen class is so amazing! We just went through Lady Susan and The Watsons, and now are on to Sanditon. I loved LS: it's flawed, yes, but not as badly as my professor made us believe, and it is really a neat departure for Austen. The Watsons was so very incomplete as to make it difficult for me to enjoy, but it does have a lovely heroine. Beyond the actual reading, however, the class is so fun! My prof actually littered her syllabus with random JA quotations; for instance, when she was outlining the parameters for out web posts, she said we needed to write "one thing very clever, be it prose or verse, original or repeated—or two things moderately clever—or three things very dull indeed." So of course I had to open my first web post with "Oh! very well," exclaimed Miss Bates, "then I need not be uneasy. 'Three things very dull indeed.' That will just do for me, you know. I shall be sure to say three dull things as soon as ever I open my mouth, shan't I?" And then I proceeded to list three dull things about the reading.

JEALOUS!!!! Also, that is awesome.

Welcome, narniahannah!

stardf29: Yes! I'd go with Sense and Sensibility next; that's how I read them.

Glad to hear Alcatraz Versus The Evil Librarians and Leviathan were good--they sounded interesting.

Children's books award winners

I've been delving into Shannon Hale's books and finding that I like them a great deal. Her fairy tale retelling didn't really strike me as a retelling, since the characters in the stories are so distinct and 3-D. She's very good at characterization, and I've been able to sympathize with all of her MC's so far- and I've liked them! (I hate it when I dislike the MC.) I've read The Princess Academy, Book of A Thousand Days, The Goose Girl, Enna Burning, River Secrets, and Forest Born.

One of my favorite things about her books (that I've read) is that she lets the characters play their own parts. For example, Ani in The Goose Girl is the heroine, but she doesn't try so desperately hard to be the heroine that everyone else is a side character and they do nothing to help the plot. The boys and men in the stories that I've read by her play their parts just fine, and are not cast off to the side simply because they are boys and men.

I would not say that there is feminism in the stories because the women do not seem to be struggling to make a point that they are better and more awesome than all of the guys. What I see is strong, interesting women that I'd like to be friends with; and frankly, that's a breath of fresh air.

sweeet, I adore Shannon Hale's books! I discovered The Goose Girl a few years ago and have read it again and again since then.

I think you're right that it isn't quite a retelling. I read the original tale after reading Hale's story and found it lacklustre. Shannon Hale brought a great amount of depth to the imagery in the fairy tale.

Annoyingly, the UK doesn't have Forest Born yet. I'm tempted to order it from the US, but I want all my books to match!

I finished War and Peace today- well, I'll admit I skipped some of the second part of the epilogue where the author was talking mainly about different ways of looking at history and etc (at least, that was what I gathered). I hope that's not an evil and terribly wicked thing that I did, skipping some.

All in all, I enjoyed it. The characters were one of the things that stuck out at me the most, and in the best sense too. One or two people have expressed their opinion that there really was too many characters and it was quite confusing, but I didn't really find it that way at all. At the beginning, sure, there may be quite a few characters to keep straight but once you get into the story it's not so confusing. But what I liked about the characters was how real they seemed- many of them had noticeable flaws in them, times when one loved them and times when one rather dislikes them. They had things to overcome, lessons to learn, they were humans and not some sort of character that is too good to be real. On that note, the main characters weren't so flawed to be unlikeable either. Since there is a variety of characters in this novel I found there was at least one or two I could identify with and most I liked (except for the ones that the reader is obviously not supposed to like, I didn't like them very much at all...).

The other thing I liked (aside from the general storyline, etc) was that one didn't have to be an expert on the battles and other events of that time period to still enjoy the book- you can learn it as you read along, since there is quite a bit of information is included in the book as part of the story. I thought it was nicely blended in though, so as not too jarring and etc.

So! I guess for now that's my thoughts on the book, although there are much more feelings I have concerning it that right now I can't exactly put into words... yet.

On to other reading....

I read The Moorland Cottage by Mrs. Gaskell about a week ago and enjoyed it, although because of the storyline I couldn't exactly call it delightful. I posted some thoughts on my blog here, if anyone so cares.

Welcome to the Books thread, narniahannah! You like Nancy Drew as well? So do I!

Stardf: I hope you enjoy your next Austen read! I personally like Persuasion quite a bit, but I think pretty much all of her work is good to read next, so, er, yes. I'm so much help.

I'm tempted to order it from the US, but I want all my books to match!

Oooh, I didn't know you were a Shannon Hale fan! Which copies do you have? I was a bit peeved, all my "Bayern" books are in this copy:
http://bookbutterflyangel.files.wordpre ... -girl2.jpg

but then they came out with the "modern" editions (read: boring) and my cover of Forest Born looks like this: http://curiouscate.files.wordpress.com/ ... t-born.jpg
I don't even think there was a different edition of Forest Born.

For Shannon Hale fans...thoughts on Austenland? I have mixed feelings about it.

the women do not seem to be struggling to make a point that they are better and more awesome than all of the guys.

Yup, totally know what you mean. It kinda bugs me when I see fantasy book after fantasy book proclaiming that the main character, "Princess so-and-so" doesn't like embroidering/sewing/cooking/singing/being a girl/whatever and instead wants to ride horses and wear boys clothes etc. Why must they announce it as some shocking revelation? At this rate I'd rather buy a book that said "princess so-and-so wasn't like the rest of the princesses who hated long skirts and loved riding horses. She preferred to sit quietly inside, work on her sewing, and read books. "

I've recently read this new-ish series called The Hunger Games!! its a trilogy and I'm so obbsessed with it! the 3rd book isnt out yet and I am waiting very impaitently. If your looking for a good young adult series I suggest this trilogy!!

I echo what georgiefan1 says. The Hunger Games, and it's sequel Chasing Fire are really quite brilliant. I stayed up wayyyy too late reading them and it was literally very exciting...what they call a "page-turner" I guess!