Frozen

So, we should probably talk about Frozen.

I'd been looking forward to this movie for a very long time, so I am happy to say that it didn't disappoint--at least not much.

Here's the gist with no spoilers. The story is loosely based on Hans Christian Anderson's The Snow Queen. Elsa and her little sister Anna are princesses and best friends, but Elsa has magical-ice powers that are becoming harder and harder to control. After accidentally hurting Anna, Elsa isolates herself in the hopes that she will someday learn to control her powers. She attempts to do this by controlling her emotions ("conceal, don't feel").

Unfortunately, Elsa and Anna's parents die (I promise this isn't a spoiler) leaving Elsa to become queen. At Elsa's coronation, Elsa isn't able to control her emotions and reveals her magical-ice-powers to everyone. The kingdom is shocked; Elsa runs away and isolates herself on the top of a mountain, leaving the kingdom in an eternal winter. The story picks up when Anna follows her, hoping to save the kingdom from the snowstorm with the help of a talking snowman named Olaf, a "rugged mountain man" named Kristoff, and a reindeer named Sven.

Here they all are! Plus Hans (a visiting prince Anna's got her eye on)

One of the things that Frozen does extremely well is it's show-stopping song "Let It Go" sung by Idina Menzel as Elsa. You can watch the whole sequence online here and just be in awe at the beauty. The lyrics are all poignant and appropriate to the situation, the animation flows nicely and only augments the viewers emotive response, and Menzel's iconic voice brings the song remarkable power. While there was certainly nothing wrong with the other songs in the movie, they all do pale in comparison to this one. I read one YouTube comment that described "Let It Go" as "the best three minutes in the film," and that may very well be true.

I'm also a huge fan of the animation in the recent animated films (I'm thinking Tangled and Rise of the Guardians), which I know isn't a popular opinion. There are those Disney purists who long for the days of yore when everything was hand drawn. I feel that; I get it--really, I do. But I don't think the beauty of hand drawn animation discredits that of CGI. But this is off topic. The point is, I thought the animation in Frozen was gorgeous. The characters were fine, but the scenery is what really blue me away (especially in "Let It Go" sequence. I promise I'll stop mentioning this scene soon).

I'd been hearing complaints for months about how the female characters in Disney CGI films were all looking the same. And I can see their point, but it's not making my feminism senses tingle, and I'll tell you why. Here is a picture of Anna and Rapunzel side by side.

Please ignore that it says French_Disney_Princess

They do look pretty similar, don't they? Same big eyes, same button nose, thing lips, white skin, light colored eyes and hair. However, I agree with this dude that, if you're going to criticize these two particular characters for looking alike, then you have to criticize a lot farther than that. One of the points that Erlandson makes is that Disney has a particular "look" for its female characters that includes big eyes, thin lips, and a button nose. Erlandson cites Ariel as the character that popularized this model, and I can see what he means.

Big eyes, button nose, thin lips. Sounds familiar. So as you can see, the problem of Disney's female characters all looking pretty much the same is hardly unique to Frozen and Tangled. It is a wider problem that can only be addressed with time and more culturally diverse movies. Because Disney only recently made The Princess and the Frog, we probably won't see another African American protagonist for a while, but I would be interested to see if a South American princess joins the line up in the coming years. To sum up, the fact that Disney's female characters follow an archetype doesn't bother me from a feminist perspective, but I agree that Frozen hardly adds any diversity (yes, it's the first film set in Sweden, but it's still Europe) to Disney's princess cast.

As for the people complaining that Elsa and Anna look too much alike...they're sisters. It's okay.

Moving on. The storyline was comfortable--good, but not groundbreaking. There was, however, a twist on the "true love's power" trope at the end, which was refreshing. I don't want to give too much away about the storyline, but I will say that my only disappointment was that I wish Hans had been handled differently. That's all I'm saying.

The characters were lovable and charming. Elsa was much more mature than Anna, which showed because of the more complex struggles she had to face and her more practical personality compared to Anna's carefree and "looking for love" mentality. What this means is that while Anna is probably who you would consider the traditional protagonist (she's got a lot of screen time, she's a heroine, and she's got the romantic subplot), Elsa is even more compelling a character.

I heard someone say that Elsa's character and the plot were basically just a revamped "Wicked." The fact that Idina Menzel voices Elsa corroborates this statement, as do several elements of Elsa's character, but I prefer to think Disney didn't just rip off "Wicked"...is that too idealistic? I've never seen "Wicked," but from what I know of it Elsa's story is very similar to Elphaba's, but I think the addition of Anna sends the story in a different direction.

Kristoff, Sven, and Olaf were the other three main characters in Frozen. Kristoff is an antisocial ice-seller who thinks the only friend he needs is his reindeer. He's funny and lovable, but, while the movie definitely has romance, he isn't the main focus or goal at the end of the movie. Instead, Frozen focuses on the relationship between Elsa and Anna. Sounds great to me!

Sven would not make it on my Top Ten Disney Animal Sidekicks list. He's fine, but not given much screen time and I found him much less expressive than Maximus from Tangled. Olaf is the main source of comedy in the film, and his humor can be a bit low-brow sometimes, but the story of the snowman who longs for summer is endearing so I'll forgive him that.

Overall, I really enjoyed Frozen and I can't wait to see it again. I think it did a great job of still having romance, but not having it be the focus of the film. The film even makes fun of the "love at first sight" mentality, which shows a lot of progress from Cinderella and Snow White. Like Brave, the crux of the film is on familial relationships and being comfortable with who you are, showing that true love comes in many forms. I also liked that one of the protagonists (Elsa) has to deal with mature problems, responsibilities, and consequences. 

Go see it! Procrastinate whatever you're supposed to be doing and get yourself to a theater!

The Odd Sea

The Odd Sea by Frederick Reiken is the story of a family coping with the disappearance of one of their own: a son and brother named Ethan. The Odd Sea is narrated by Ethan's younger brother, Philip, an observant young man who, maybe even more than anyone else, is having trouble accepting that Ethan won't be returning and that there aren't any answers to explain his disappearance.

To be honest, I wasn't expecting much from The Odd Sea. It's Reiken's debut novel, and I bought it at a library sale for $2.00 with a green "mystery" label on the side in goosebumps handwriting--not exactly a stellar recommendation. So, I've been putting off reading it for a while, letting it get lost in the back of my bookshelf while I read more well-known novels. However, I was pleasantly surprised when I finally got around to reading it.

The "mystery" label the library stuck to the spine is really a misnomer, more of an indication of the story's compelling narrative and the drive the reader feels to know and to understand than because of any actual mystery plot or tropes. Like Ethan's family and friends, the reader desperately wants to know what happened to Ethan. Reiken tantalizes the reader several times throughout the novel with possible solutions, each time hammering home the point that there is no solution. The mystery in The Odd Sea then isn't some formulaic story with all the facts outlined neatly at the end (as much as I love Agatha Christie, it does get a bit old sometimes), but an acknowledgement that life's questions about loss, death, and absence in all forms cannot be explained or made better, but must be accepted as part of life in order to move on.

Watching the characters deal with Ethan's disappearance was one of the most touching parts of the novel for me. I found especially heartbreaking the way Phillip and his older sister Halley had to assume the role of a comforter and almost parental figure while their mother was being treated for depression and their father was feverishly working to build a timber house. There were numerous touching scenes showing a broken family working to heal together in whatever way they can, which rang true to me.

I suppose one of my only faults with the book is with Ethan's characterization, though I'm not entirely sure whether to hate or love it. Ethan is inhuman in The Odd Sea, both in his ghostly presence weaving through the pages and the characters' lives, but also in the way his actions are so...contrived might be the right word. There was one scene in particular in which Ethan suddenly smashes a perfectly good guitar against a tree. It's a beautiful, startling moment, but it feels a little forced in that Reiken is trying to make Ethan appear mysterious. This could also just be a side-effect of Phillip, the narrator, idealizing and de-humanizing (forgetting about his "living, breathing, visible human body") Ethan, which is valid, but I also find characters like Victoria and Melissa to be equally contrivedly-unique.

Overall, The Odd Sea was an enjoyable and very fast read. I would recommend it, though if you're easy to cry have a box of tissues ready. Also, there are some...questionable sexy-times scenes, so anyone who finds cheating or large age-gaps between partners to be icky might want to steer clear.

MERLIN

I mentioned in a post (that was, admittedly, quite a while ago) that I'd started watching BBC's Merlin. Well, I am proud to announce that after a whirlwind couple months spent huddled in front of watchseries and trying to avoid seeing too many spoilers on my tumblr dash I have finally finished Merlin! It was announced shortly after I started watching that the current series airing (series 5) would be the last. This almost made me stop watching because I knew that when/if I ever caught up the show would be over completely. I'm slightly heartbroken, but I'm glad I continued watching til the end regardless.

Excuse me for a moment.

Okay. I'm ready.

There will be NO SPOILERS in this blog post. At least not anything from the last season, but I consider the others fair game, though I'm going try and be very general about it all because it aired so recently and I know people may only now be starting to watch.

Merlin is a show about a young warlock--you guessed it--Merlin. Merlin is the same Merlin you're thinking of, though much younger, sassier, and ganglier than you probably had in mind. He leaves his mother and small village life to go to Camelot and apprentice for his mother's friend, Gaius, the court physician, despite magic being outlawed there by King Uther Pendragon. Almost immediately upon arriving, Merlin saves Gaius' life but reveals his magic in the process. Lucky for him, Gaius used to dabble in magic as well and promises not only not to hand him over for execution, but to guide him magically.

Merlin then accidentally gets on Prince Arthur's badside (the handsome prat) and then even more accidentally becomes his manservant, which is both the best and worst thing that ever happens to him. You might ask why he doesn't just leave, but a great dragon living under the castle told him it was his destiny to be by Arthur's side to protect him and help Arthur bring about the glorious days of Albion united. Seriously, I can't make this stuff up.

From there on out Merlin and Arthur gradually develop from mutual hatred to tolerance to friendship to full out bromance--which could be seen as less BRO and more just ROMANCE if you look closely (and by that I mean if you look at all). Seriously, browse the merthur tag on tumblr and you'll have gay feels comin out the wazoo.

Anyway. The show covers five series in which we follow Arthur on his journey to kinghood and Merlin on his journey of saving Arthur from every magical beast, spell, and ailment known to mankind. We meet several characters that you might recognize from the original legends including Morgana, Morderd, Guinevere, Lancelot, and Gwaine, though they are all adaptations. 

My favorite is Gwaine.

I don't remember why. Maybe it has something to do with how he's such a good friend to Merlin, or how he doesn't fit into the nobility stereotype, or how he is very brave and courageous--no, no, that's not it. I'm sure it'll come to me later.

In all seriousness, I've really enjoyed watching Merlin. It is in turns hilarious, touching, and soul-wrenching. My absolute favorite aspect of the show is just watching the friendship between Arthur and Merlin, and watching them grow up. The show covers a good deal of time with them, and we see them struggle each in their own turns. Merlin struggles with the obvious problem of needing to hide his magic, but also with the guilt he feels lying to his friends and the conflict over whether he should reveal himself to them or not--whether he'll ever be able to. Arthur too struggles to redefine what it means to be a king through his friendship with Merlin, marriage to Guinevere, relationship with the commoners (especially in regards to the knights), and his stance on magic. Laughs and Guinevere's heaving breasts are all well and good, but as a reader I can't love anything more than seeing characters develop, and Merlin provided me with that.

If you needed any more encouragement to watch the show, there's always this:

If that doesn't convince you, nothing will.

In other news:

• I'm back in America. More specifically, I'm back in Clemson, SC getting ready to start school on the 9th. I've moved into my house, which is fantastic because I have my own bedroom and bathroom. yessssss
• I told y'all that I was doing Nanowrimo this year, but I neglected to mention that I WON! I completed 50,000 words on my WIP novel The Island. The book is nowhere near done yet (I would say I'm about 1/3 of the way through) and I haven't touched it since then, but my new year's resolution is to finish it, so there should be more to come. 
• I'm currently reading Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Practchett, which is delightfully naughty. My other new year's resolution is to complete a challenge my mother has been doing for several years now to read one book for each letter of the alphabet. Of course I'll read more than that, naturally, but I wouldn't normally seek out books that start with the letter X, so it should be a nice challenge.
• Tumblr convinced me to watch Teen Wolf, so I'm in the second season of that now. I can't say I'm too thrilled (I want to shave Allison's hair off and make Scott eat it) but there's only two seasons so nbd
• ONCE UPON A TIME COMES BACK ON TONIGHT AND I'LL GET TO SEE MORE OF HOOK MY BABYYY!!! He and Emma totes belong together. OTP don't bash it.

Chihayafuru

I haven't mentioned this before, because I am aware that I already seem like such a dork that I probably shouldn't push the envelope, but I like anime. Granted, I'm no diehard fan, but my freshman year of college was spent watching quite a number of anime. Ouran High School Host Club, Fruits Basket, Itazura na Kiss, Junjou Romantica, Inuyasha, Kimi ni Todoke, Zero no Tsukaima, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, Loveless, Shugo Chara, Gakuen Alice, Card Captor Sakura, Skip Beat, Clannad, Vampire Knight, La Corda D'oro, Kaichou Wa Maid Sama, Full Moon wo Sagashite, and Full Metal Panic. That's a lot of anime to watch in a year at college.

In case you couldn't tell by that list, I'm kind of into the girly animes. I know they have a technical name (shoujou, maybe?) but I just call them girly. Even Inuyasha was too battle-y for me and I ended up fast-forwarding through the fighting parts and mainly just watching anything with Kouga in it. I would classify Chihayafuru as a girly anime, so if that's not your thing then steer clear.

Without giving away any spoilers, Chiahayafuru is the story of three childhood friends who grew up and grew apart, and are now trying to find their way. What brought them together was a card game called karuta, and that is what will hopefully reunite them. The protagonist and character who is mainly pushing for the reunion is Chiahaya, whose love for karuta has remained even while her friends have moved on to other hobbies.

NOW There Are Spoilers

Okay, there are several things I really liked about Chihayafuru. First of all, I never imagined that watching a show about a card game could be so intense! The creators do a really good job of making sure you understand how the game is played so you can follow along in suspense rather than be confused about the rules. They really got me invested in who was going to win and what mistakes Chihaya was making and how she could improve and omygodpleaseletherwin

The players' movement is a big part of what makes the show so suspenseful. The objective of karuta is to listen to the first part of a poem being read, and to touch the second part on the board in front of you before your opponent does. That is obviously a very simplified version, but you get the gist. The players move with sharp, sweeping motions that utilize their whole bodies, which helps to make karuta much more interesting than if they were playing, say, rummy, which would get old around episode 2.

The show made me want to learn how to play karuta, which is saying something. Of course, I won't. I have no time to play, no money to buy cards, and no friends to play with. That is discounting the biggest obstacle: I wouldn't understand the japanese poems.

Another aspect of Chihayafuru that I really enjoyed was the art. I am unable to watch an anime, no matter how good the plot may be, if I don't like it visually. It just doesn't work for me. Chiahayfuru was beautiful. The characters were very detailed--I especially noticed that Chihaya is drawn with lips. Isn't that kind of unusual for an anime? Maybe not but it felt unusual. Or maybe unique would be a better word. Taichi was my favorite character visually because, well...you know. I got the inappropriate feelings towards an animated character. Just look at him!

Who wouldn't get squiggles in their stomach after looking at that?

The characters were another thing I really enjoyed about the plot. They were all likable, but had flaws that were realistic and are each dealing with their own personal struggles within the major karuta-reauniting conflict. Chihaya is too oblivious to anything other than karuta (including Taichi's feelings, damn her) and has to deal with the unfair amount of attention which is placed on her sister. Taichi is pressured by his family to be perfect, a little spoiled and used to getting things his own way, and has to deal with his feelings for Arata both as a rival for Chihaya's love and as a friend. Arata's grandfather tragically passed away while Arata was playing a karuta tournament, plunging him into depression and guilt. And that's only the main characters! All in all, I would say that they are very well-developed.

My only real complaint would be that there is a lot of recap in the show before you move on to the new plot devices. Which is fine, you can always use a refresher on how the characters are doing in their matches, but it does get a little annoying sometimes. Just sayin'.

But what I like most about Chihayafuru is that there is going to be a season two! 

Hey, that just rhymed! 

Don't judge me.

Brave

I'm so happy that I got to see Brave this weekend! I usually am nannying and babysitting so I get to have an excuse to see all the new Disney movies (the four-year-old was so confused about why I was balling in Toy Story 3) but since I'm in Virginia with grown ups for the summer I was worried I would have no one to go with. Fortunately, I went to visit a friend of mine who goes to the Naval Academy this weekend and roped him into seeing it with me. He was a pretty good sport about it.

Be Warned, there are SPOILERS!!

Brave tells the story of Merida, a Scottish princess who isn't ready for the marriage and strict rules that being a princess entails. She would rather roam free on adventures and settle down when she finds true love. This creates a rift between Merida and her mother, the queen. Fueled by anger, Merida searches for a way to change her mother (interestingly she doesn't even consider changing herself) so that she can live the life she wants. Merida follows the Will-O'-the-Wisps (blue floating light fairy things) to an old witch who gives her a cake that will change Merida's mother and thus her fate. Merida gives her mother the cake only to find that rather than making her change her mind about marriage, it turns the queen into a bear! Merida and her mother have two days to reverse the spell by "mending the bond" before the queen will be a bear forever!

First of all, let me just say that I didn't get any of that from the trailer. From the trailers I thought Merida was going to have to fight off a huge bear to prove her bravery or something. There wasn't even a hint of the whole mom-turns-into-an-animal plot. That isn't to say I didn't like it, but it did take me by surprise.

What I enjoyed most about Brave is how different it is from what Disney and Pixar normally do. There is no romance to speak of. Merida has no prince or true love's kiss. While the idea of a princess wanting to break free isn't new *cough*Jasmine*cough* the fact that there is no marriage or kiss or hero to speak of is definitely unique. The part of me that loves Happily-Ever-Afters was sad that Merida didn't get her prince, but having a heroine who is strong and brave enough not to need a prince is a happily ever after in its own way. 

Another difference was the distinct lack of animal-sidekick in Brave. Sure, the horse (Angus--brilliant name) was present, but he wasn't nearly as influential a character as, say, Maximus in Tangled. Brave is also Pixar's first female protagonist and their first fairy-tale, which I thought was interesting.

This movie was HILARIOUS! I cracked up throughout the whole thing, but especially right when the queen is turned into a bear. Normally human-in-animal-body comedy doesn't work for me, but for some reason watching the bear mime these prissy, feminine actions really tickled my funny bone. The triplets were also great--three little red-headed devils who can get away with anything.

As for the music, the only thing I can really say is that I don't remember it. True to a Pixar film, this isn't a musical-style movie, so all the music just kind of stayed in the background for me. My friend who saw it with me assured me the music was kick-ass though. I'll have to pay better attention next time I see it--and yes, there will be a next time.

The animation was, of course, lovely. Pixar and Disney are like a Super Team--they make magic. Incredible magic. I fell in love with Merida's hair. I watched the Tangled commentary on the DVD (because, you know, I'm a dork who has no life) where they mentioned that hair was one of the hardest things to animate. You can see why this would be a challenge for Tangled. I feel like in Brave Disney and Pixar were taking everything they'd learned about hair and showing it off--in a good way. Merida's hair was lifelike and vibrant as hell and simply beautiful.

Overall, if you haven't seen Brave yet, go kidnap a four-year-old and watch it RIGHT NOW!

The Legend of Korra

I mentioned in an earlier post that I was watching The Legend of Korra, the much-anticipated sequel to Avatar: The Last Airbender. I wrote a post about Avatar where I pretty much talked about how amazing it was and that you should go watch it. I stand by this opinion with Legend of Korra. It is fantastic for a children's show--something that can be entertaining and accessible to all ages. I will admit that I wasn't as whole-heartedly thrilled with LoK as I was with Avatar, but I enjoyed it.

The main premiss of Legend of Korra is to follow the next avatar, Korra, and her adventures in the future. It seems to be set in Republic City around a 1920's-esque time period, with cars newly emerging and jazz etc. What this means is that we get to know a whole new cast. The only really familiar face we see is Katara, the only surviving member of the gaang. I actually preferred this to continuing with the characters we know. I feel like Aang, Katara, Toph, Sokka, and Zuko's story was done and that any more story dealing with them would have felt cheap.

That's not to say we leave the old crowd behind entirely. Korra ends up living with Tenzin, one of Aang and Katara's sons, to learn airbending. From their house she can see a huge statue of Aang looming over Republic City. We also get to see a statue of Toph, and meet her daughter Lin Bei-Fong. Lin is the police chief of Republic City, enforcing laws by using metal-bending--a nice connection to her mother.

The producers actually put a lot of little things in LoK that you can just tell are purely for the fans to feel nostalgic of ATLA--and I'm grateful for them.

I came across this picture on Pinterest the other day and it just about made me cry. I feel like Katara must have a very conflicted but strong relationship with Korra. On the one had, Korra is the reincarnation of the love of her life. But on the other, she is a constant reminder that Aang is really dead and gone. I feel like these two images are too similar for the artists not to have done it intentionally. They're beautiful.

Another cool moment was in the finale, after General Iroh II jumps out of a plane and manages to hang onto a rope attached to the statue of Aang's glider. Iroh says something along the lines of, "Thanks for looking out for me, Aang." This is such a tear-jerking moment because, while it's the General who says it, he is voiced by Dante Basco, the actor who voiced Zuko in ATLA. Sooo goooddd.

Avatar and Legend of Korra are different though. LoK is considerably darker than ATLA. The villain is Amon, a mysterious, masked man who somehow can take people's bending away. Only the avatar is supposed to be able to take people's bending away, which makes Amon truly scary. He uses this power to pursue his dream of creating a bending-free world. His Equalist movement is supported by lightning-fast chi-blockers, reminiscent of Tai Lee in ATLA. I found it really interesting that Amon and the Equalists used technology to fight against the benders, kind of like a metaphor for traditional old values being beaten out by technology.

My only real problem with LoK is how rushed it felt. I'm not just talking about the finale (which was much too fast-paced IMO) but the season as a whole. From what I understand, LoK was initially supposed to be a 12-episode mini-series, meaning that the creators had to set up character development, plot, conflict, and resolution all in 12 episodes. This is made even more challenging by the fact that, apart from the finale, the episodes are only 30 minutes long including commercials. Considering that, the producers did a fine job, but now that we know there will be a second season, I would have liked for things to have slowed down and been fleshed out more.

For instance: the romance. Anyone who watches this show can tell you that romance is a major part of the plot line. This makes sense because the characters are in their late teens so are obviously...romantically inclined *coughcough* horny little bastards. But there's just so much romance for 12 episodes! I think what mainly frustrated me was that it appears all the conflict, both romantic and otherwise, has been resolved with the end of the season. Normally producers like to leave you with a little something to push you into watching season two, but we don't get that in LoK. All the characters are left in a pretty good place (I'm trying to do this with minimal spoilers, y'all, but it's hard as fuck) more in line with a series finale than a season finale. It disoriented me, I guess you could say.

I think that how rushed the season was definitely impacted the character development. Without going into details, we learn a lot about Amon very quickly without really having time to process it before the season is over. Other than Amon the characters are reasonably well-developed even though I still want more. But I don't think I'll ever stop wanting more.

Overall I had a lot of fun watching the first season of Legend of Korra and will definitely watch the second. I hope the second is a little more spread out, and I pray that there will be a third season. I feel like they could do a third season because the fandom is so loyal and friggin' amazing that they would watch it forever.

SPEAKING of the fandom, I have some recs for you of awesome people doing awesome things in the ATLA/LoK realms.

First, I believe I've mentioned her before for her Harry Potter fanart, but Viria13 is a lovely artist who also has a few ATLA/LoK drawings. They are amazing and you should go check them out!

I've mentioned the youtuber sawyer7mage before too, but he's worth mentioning again. He reviewed every episode of LoK nicely. I agree with pretty much everything he says and I strangely want to rub my nose up against his. Don't judge me.

You should also check out the myriad of fan-made youtube videos that are out there for LoK. Below is one of my favorites by RoseKnightingale. it combines the  series ATLA and LoK and throws in some Anastasia music to boot. Watch it please! You can check out WooperRevival134 as well. His videos are hilarious!!

Well, that's it for me! I hope you'll give Legend of Korra a shot if you haven't done so already!

The Lost Gate

I was at a library book sale when I happened upon this book. I'd read Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game and the sequel Speaker for the Dead last year and loved them both, so I decided to give this one a try. Hey, it's only a dollar, right?

Don't pay more than a dollar for this. Maybe it's just because I loved Ender's Game so much, but The Lost Gate did not meet my expectations. 

Fair warning, this review has SPOILERS

The book is about Danny North, a thirteen-year-old boy who is--you guessed it--different, special, unique. He is a member of the North family, one of several families on Earth that originated from a magical-alien-god race from another planet called Westil. Long ago, the people of Westil came through gates (kind of like portals) created by the rare gatemages and frolicked among us. You probably know them better as every god you've ever heard of, such as Zeus etc. 

The idea of the gods of long ago still being around today isn't exactly unique nowadays. Off the top of my head I can think of American Gods by Neil Gaiman (which blows this shit out of the water) and the Percy Jackson series by Rick Riordan. In fact, the whole book is very un-unique if you ask me. The beginning especially reminded me of a YA book called Graceling by Kristen Cashore. In that book there are also people who have special powers or talents, made distinguishable by the fact that they have different colored eyes. The protagonist of the book is thought to have a killing Grace and is despised (much like Danny is despised for being drekka) but in the end it turns out she had a survival Grace, which is a supremely awesome thing. Read The Lost Gate and you will find very similar ideas.

Anyway, as long as the magical-alien-gods in The Lost Gate had a way back to Westil, they remained powerful. But a gatemage, Loki, mysteriously closed off all the gates leading back to Westil, stranding everyone and weakening their powers over time. Ever since then, the families have promised to kill any gatemages they come across to prevent further disaster.

Danny is a smart, precocious, and seemingly useless boy. He is the only son of the two leaders of the North family, but rather than being a great mage like his parents, he isn't even able to make a clant. (You are probably wondering what a clant is. To answer your question, as far as I can tell it is a golem. If you are wondering what a golem is, you should google it.) Everyone looks down on him because they assume he is a drekka (someone without mage capabilities), but oh-so-conveniently forget that one of the signs of a gatemage is that they are unable to produce a clant. They also show a great affinity for languages (which Danny has demonstrated by showing off in school) and like to play pranks (again, Danny has made this obvious). So I don't really understand why it comes as such a surprise that Danny is a gatemage, but whatevs.

Anyway, Danny flees, and the book basically tells the story of how he comes to learn about and control his gatemagery while on the run from his apparently brutal family. He meets friends and enemies, but mostly friends. Actually, one of my main problems with the book is the marked lack of trouble for Danny. Sure, he keeps thinking about the constant threat of his family finding and killing him, but they never do. Not even close. Years pass and he has no encounters with his family. Plenty of other people find him, sure, but they miraculously don't want to kill him. They followed him to help him. I think my English teacher would call this a lack of stakes.

The book as a whole feels rushed. The layout is odd, in that we pass so much time with Danny, actual time, like years, that aren't covered in scene in the book. Maybe it's just me, but because so much of Danny's life was in summary, I didn't get to see him interact enough with people. Or at least I wanted more interactions, because that's where I really learn about the characters. Instead we just get a sentence like: "Danny trained with the Silverman's for three years without getting anywhere." And then the Silverman duo go from contemplating whether or not to kill him to getting teary-eyed when he calls them "mom" and "dad." That was just one example of where the passage of time was too much of a leap for me. Was that a pun? Almost, right? hahaha I'm so punny.

I didn't much care for the protagonist, Danny North/Silverman/Stone. Most of the time his jokes and smart-mouth came off as obnoxious (which Card does point out, so I guess I can't really blame him for) instead of funny. Like that kid in the back of the class you is always cracking jokes when you just want to punch him so he'll shut up and let the teacher talk already. I would say he is funny about 20% of the time. But when I did find him funny, I cracked up, man. Lemme tell ya. My favorite line in the book was probably:

"I don't want to go to high school for the classes, I want to go to high school because that's where they keep the girls."

In fact, the whole concept of Danny wanting to go to high school was one of the most interesting aspects of the book for me, and I wish it was explored more. It could have taken up its own book in this series, rather than all the awkward time jumps happening--but whatever. I found it especially charming that Danny prepared for high school by ready YA fantasy lit. I did not like how Danny handled high school. He promises himself he is going to keep his head down and just get a normal, high school experience, and then creates a gate his very first day that heals people's acne and bullshit like that. Not exactly subtle, Dan.

I admire and enjoy reading about uber-intelligent and analytical characters, such as Andrew "Ender" Wiggen and Lisbeth Salander. But Danny's intelligence combined with his sense of superiority and obnoxious sense of humor that often ignored people's feelings was the opposite of endearing.

This was so frustrating because I know that Card can write. Ender's Game was fantastic, and the protagonist, Ender, was a precocious, intelligent, analytical child just like Danny, except he was actually likeable. I don't know here Card went wrong with this one, because I know he can do better.

The ending is a great example of how Card could have done better. In the last chapter, after Danny has managed to create a Great Gate and defeat the Gate Thief, there is a reunion between Danny and the North family, where we see his parents for the first time. I think Card should have left this encounter to a later book. Well, what he really should have done is introduce us to the parents before Danny ran away so we can actually form an unbiased opinion of them and see how dangerous they are instead of just hearing it secondhand. Then he should have given us a confrontation earlier in the book where Danny had to escape from the North family scouts that finally caught up with him, and the final encounter should have been saved for a sequel.

I think one of the main problems that doesn't work for the book is how powerful Danny is. He has this superpower so that if he ever needs to escape someone he just pops somewhere else and locks the gate so nobody can follow. He has a natural affinity for languages so he can understand ancient texts and speak to everybody in their native tongue. He can heal himself every time he goes through a gate. He is extraordinarily intelligent. And, for some unexplained reason, he is the most powerful gatemage ever heard of. He can create so many more gates than normal people, and without breaking a sweat. Why is he so powerful when the magical-alien-god race is supposed to be weakening? Who knows.

The Lost Gate was also predictable. I guessed that the Greek Girl (Hermia) was good and powerful from the moment we saw her. I guessed who Wad was. All in all, not many surprises to be had.

I would not recommend this book. If I find the sequel at another booksale for a dollar, I'll probably buy it, but not before trying to haggle the price down to 50 cents.

The Millennium Trilogy

I recently read the Millennium Trilogy and would like to inform y'all that I very much enjoyed all three books and would highly recommend them. Seriously, five stars. Go to your nearest library or bookstore or neighbor's house and find these books, because they are captivating and oh so good. I know I'm a bit late to the boat as far as this trilogy is concerned. My mother read the series when they first came out and loved them, but I have some problems with reading books that my mother read first. Especially if sex is mentioned AT ALL. It's just...icky. But I finally caved and I'm so glad I did!

I'm going to try and do this review Spoiler-Free in part because it's hard for me to wrap my head around the scope of these novels at the moment (who needs sleep?) and also because I know there are still plenty of people out there who are planning on reading them, and I don't want to ruin the surprise.

I would like to start off by saying how surprising it is that I like these books, because Larsson has a...unique, style of writing. Let's call it unique. For some reason, he feels the need to be super detail-oriented, going as far as to name what kind of cell-phone people have and mentioning every time someone has a cigarette. I was able to look past it.

So, book one, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I'm not going to lie to you, the book starts out slowly. One of the hardest parts of the first book for me was that Larrsson introduced me to Lisbeth Salander, gave me just enough of her quirky-yet-lovable personality to get me hooked, and then focused on this Blomkvist character a lot. And I hadn't developed any warm fuzzy feelings towards Blomkvist yet. To be honest, he's still not my favorite character, but I've grown to tolerate him more, you could say. It took me until literally half-way through the book until I started enjoying it. I usually don't persevere that much, but I just kept thinking that a book this famous, a book that my voracious-reader mother had recommended, just had to get better. And it did. The suspense (and presence of Lisbeth Salander) in the second half of the novel really brought the book to life for me.

The Girl who Played with Fire was my favorite of the series. In this book, Lisbeth is accused of murder. While there is plenty of evidence against her, Blomkvist is unconvinced and starts his own investigation to prove her innocence. What made me enjoy this book so much was how fast-paced it was--I literally read it in a day. Also--no spoilers--but the ending was freaking fantastic.

I thought The Girl who Kicked the Hornet's Nest was interesting because, rather than having a completely different plot as in the first two books, the third installment deals with the aftereffects of book two. I've never read a John Grisham novel, but Hornet's Nest is what I imagine one reads like. It was essentially a courtroom drama--but a courtroom drama with super-hacker Lisbeth Salander kicking ass and taking names. This book is the main reason I've felt the desire to spy on everyone recently. I want to learn how to hack computers and tap phones and find out shit about people and you have no idea how much I want to tail somebody. Anybody, just give me someone to follow around sneakily. I had a similar desire after reading Harriet the Spy, but that's a story for another time.

I also found this book a little odd, because we already knew so much. Some characters would be completely confused about why something happened or how and I'd be sitting in my bed screaming "No! Talk to Bublanski! He found out about that last chapter!" There is a marked lack of communication between the characters in the book, marked by the fact that everybody feels the need to turn their cellphones off all the fucking time. By the time the trial rolls around at the end of the book, we already know everything both sides are going to present and can deduce how it'll all play out. Strange, yeah? I guess that's just an example of how these novels are so character driven as well as having engaging plots. It's Lisbeth I was reading for.

Lisbeth really is a fantastic character. She is a kick-ass girl who should be frightening but instead manages to be endearing. Despite her prickly personality, Lisbeth has managed to make many loyal friends--some of them in ridiculously high places, like Paolo Roberto, a famous boxer. Normally a character with multiple tattoos and a promiscuous sex life would make me uncomfortable, but it works for her. The sex life doesn't work for Michael Blomkvist. For some reason he just rubbed me the wrong way--probably because I was having protective feelings toward Lisbeth and her poor, broken heart.

Unfortunately, Stieg Larsson passed away shortly after the publication of the third book. This is especially disappointing because--get this--he was planning to write TEN BOOKS!!! Can you believe that? So much more was going to happen and we will never know what! I've had some time to cool down, but when I first found this out minutes after finished Hornet's Nest I was in a rage. But, big picture, the books are surprisingly well rounded off since there were more planned. The books left the characters in a good place, and all the strings from the 2nd and 3rd book story arc were tied up nicely--but not too nicely, as my English teachers would say.

It's harder to do this without spoilers than I thought, but I hope I was able to at least give you the impression that I loved them and think you should read them for yourself. That's what I was mainly going for.

In other news, I start my internship Monday. Wish me luck. I went to a pathetically small used book sale at a library today (a different library from my usual) and only came away with one book, which compelled me to buy more expensive books at a Books-A-Million later in the day. I can't wait until I'm making money.

The Graveyard Book

Let me start off by saying that Neil Gaiman is awesome! He does pretty much everything, he's written novels for children and for adults, graphic novels, and I want to say an episode of Dr. Who. He has such a unique mind and is able to create all these surreal worlds and people while still making them absolutely believable. So far I have only read The Graveyard Book and Neverwhere, but they were both beautifully dark books and I would completely recommend them. 

The Graveyard Book is the story of Nobody 'Bod' Owens, a real-life boy who grows up in an old graveyard, raised by ghosts. A mysterious man, Jack, murdered Bod's family when he was just a-year-and-a-half old. Luckily, the friendly ghosts from the graveyard up the hill protect Bod and take him in as one of their own. Growing up in a graveyard is, as you can imagine, quite different then growing up in the real world. Bod meets deceased people from times long ago, learns the ghostly arts of Fading and Dreamwalking from his tutor, has an encounter with the unknowable Sleer, and is almost killed by ghouls. The Graveyard Book follows Bod on all these adventures, watching him grow up and (as cliche as it sounds) find himself.

A bit of a disclaimer, the book is dark. It starts out--literally--with a knife, with murder. As adult readers, we often expect children's books to be happy and light, but that is underestimating a child's ability to understand the darker aspects of life. Neil Gaiman doesn't baby the children, I guess you could say, which I really like. Madeleine L'Engle spoke of children's great ability to grasp concepts that we don't give them enough credit for when she said, "You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children." The Graveyard Book is a book that is written well, and written for children.

**SPOILERS**

Sorry for the spoilers, but I don't think there's a way to talk about this book effectively without giving something away. I found this book incredibly sad--in a good way, definitely, but sad all the same. Bod, like his guardian, Silas, is an in-between person. He is neither fully living or fully dead. It is a coming of age story (bildungsroman) so by definition the protagonist is in-between, but the isolation of being in between the living and the dead is much different then being between childhood and adulthood. Even Bod's name, Nobody Owens. Nobody owns him, nobody can claim him as their own, he has no kin. And then at the end of the book, as Bod is becoming more and more invested in the corporeal world he is no longer able to see his ghostly friends and family. It is incredibly poignantly sad that he is being thrust out into the world with no connections and friends, leaving behind everything and everyone he knows. But there is hope. There is the hope of real life and all the experiences Bod is aching for and there is also the hope that when his time comes, Death will return Bod to his home in the graveyard. It's just...it's so good.

Just on a side note, I found Neil Gaiman's descriptions of the inverted cemetery wall in the ghouls world and the way the ghouls moved to be amazing.

**END SPOILERS**

A book club I'm in here at Clemson just did The Graveyard Book, and there is honestly just so much to talk about that I don't quite know where to stop. I feel like everything could be its own post, but I'm not really into doing a series so I think we'll just leave it as it is. But if you want, you could think about how the protagonists of children's books are so often orphans, or what really makes a person 'Alive', or why growing up stopped Bod from being able to see the ghosts or some other question that you think might be relevant. I don't know, just go with it.

All in all, I wholeheartedly recommend The Graveyard Book and Neil Gaiman as a whole. I need to get my hands on some more Gaiman! If you want to find him, go here. He writes a lovely little blog that I follow as well.

I am listening to Washed by the Water by Needtobreathe

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is a nonfiction work by Rebecca Skloot that tells the story of Ms. Lacks, her battle with cancer, the borrowing-kidnap of her cells, the magic those cells created, and her family. There's a lot going on.

Let me start off by saying that nonfiction is hard for me--it's just tough. Whenever I read something that I know is true, when I read about people and events that actually took place I go at it with reverence. With much more reverence than I read fiction with, anyway. Because fiction is made for imagination, it's made for dreaming and making up your own ending and wondering and fanfiction and mixing up the events and times and character names and just having fun with it. But nonfiction...that's a whole different story, now isn't it? When I read nonfiction I feel like I owe it to the subject to focus on their life, to read everything and really try and imbed every bit of information I can about this person or event into my brain. I need to remember the exact day she lost her first tooth, and what her mother's sister's husband's cousin's aunt's maiden name was. Because I have this need to honor the subject by studying their life, it takes me a lot longer to read nonfiction than fiction. And that is true of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, it did take me a while. But at the same time, it doesn't read like nonfiction--it's a story, not all about the learning and the science and the dates, but about the people and the story too.

 It's the people that drew me in. I'm going to be honest, I received this book as a Christmas present last year, if I remember rightly, and promptly put it away on the sciency section of my bookshelf and forgot about it. Because I don't do science. I'm an English major. I took Astronomy and Biology in the News and forgot all about cells and atoms and chlorine and the respiratory system as soon as I got handed my high school diploma. I remember unwrapping this book and thinking, "Jesus, Mom, why the hell do you think I would read this?"

But I gave it a chance and I'm glad I did. Skloot (that is such a funny name) doesn't overwhelm the book with science. Of course you still learn, because learning about Henrietta and her family would be impossible without also learning about he cells. The HeLa cells, I mean. These little cells, taken unknowingly from Ms. Lacks when she went in for treatment, have uncomprehendingly kept on surviving outside of her body where thousands of other cells have failed. They have reproduced and done all sorts of things--you know, important things. Like helping to create medicines like the polio vaccine, make advancements in cloning, and assist in cancer research. These little cells have done so much for the world, and have lived so long, giving their donor the illusion of immortality.

So Skloot does tell you about the cells, but instead of overwhelming you with dry sciency umbo-jumbo, she chooses to focus on the people--the characters. And they are characters! Henrietta's progeny have an unreal kind of craziness about them, but crazy in a good way. All the best people are mad (Alice in Wonderland, anybody? No? Okay, moving on) Skloot makes you really care about the characters, telling their faults and failings right along with their triumphs. The Lacks family had no idea how important their mother's cells were to the world until long after her death, and this book tells the story of their struggle to understand what the HeLa cells are, come to grips with the fact that they were taken without consent, and search for who their mother really was.

I mentioned at the beginning of this post the 'magic' of the cells. Magic isn't often a word connected with science, but I chose it specifically. I chose it because this story truly is magical. The cells do amazing things against odds, Henrietta shows a strength of character that can only be described as magical, and, after you've started reading, you'll realize that it was a miracle this book even got written. The story is unbelievable. My friend's boyfriend picked it up and read the back the other day. After he was done he turned to me and said, "Sounds good. It's fiction though, right?" That's how unbelievable it is--It sounds like fiction!

I'm doing a really bad job of this. I'm trying not to give spoilers away (wow, I usually don't think about spoilers in nonfiction) but at the same time tell you a bit about the book. Let me just say that it is good. It will take up a large chunk of time, but you will enjoy it. Probably. If anything, it'll make you look smart reading it.

If you're interested, you should go to the Henrietta Lacks Foundation.
I am listening to Dancing in the Moonlight by Toploader

This Means War

No Spoilers! I saw This Means War this weekend. It was...all right. The premise is that two spy friends both fall in like with the same girl and thus compete to woo her. They use every resource they have at the agency to spy on the other and sabotage dates. There is also the peripheral story of a bad guy (who knows what he did? Not me) that the two spies are supposed to be dealing with. They kind of put him on the back burner though, after all, the girl is much more important than our nation's safety. 

The three main characters were Reese Witherspoon, Chris Pine, and Tom Hardy. I love Reese and Chris, so seeing them was lovely, as Chris rocks my socks off. This is the first film I've seen with Tom Hardy, and he wasn't my favorite character, but it was a romantic comedy so I wasn't really looking for stellar acting anyway. 

This is a good movie for high schoolers. It's not very sophisticated, has some low level humor (a predictable paintball-to-crotch shot, for example), but has a make-out scene that'll still make them feel like they're seeing a grown up movie.

The comedy part of the 'romantic comedy' wasn't present. I hardly laughed out loud at all, instead finding myself more smiling and bouncing. And when I did laugh it wasn't a compliment to the movie. There is a scene towards the end that endangers Chelsea Handler's life that just cracked me up. I just saw it last night, but the details are already starting to get fuzzy--there was nothing gripping about the film. I really didn't care who Reese ended up with, or whether the bad guy got caught, or whether the guys were still friends. 

I feel like I would have enjoyed this movie more if at least one of its aspects was done better. The plot was just all over the place so that no part was fully developed. Like the spy bit, for instance. I was at least looking forward to a bit of action in the beginning, but I found it badly edited, not comedic, and definitely not thrilling. Or they could have made me care about the romance more, but they didn't.

Overall, I wasn't expecting much going in, but I was expecting better than I got. This Means War does not have my recommendation. If someone wants to go see it, you should sneak out and see The Chronicle instead.

These pictures of Reese With Her Spoon are ten times more hilarious than This Means War. You're welcome.

In other news, I get to go home next weekend! Free laundry, here I come!!

In preparation for Lent, my friends and I are baking a disgusting amount of sweets to eat before Wednesday. I have to eat a whole Family Size bag of York Peppermint Patties by myself--wish me luck!

By the way, just in case you are in any way interested in my love life, K has texted me 5 times since Friday. He's determined.

I am listening to Foundations by Kate Nash. There is an awesome dance to the song, choreographed by Kate Jablonski, that you should go watch. It is amazing, unique, and refreshing. I've been watching and rewatching all her videos for weeks because I can't get enough of her choreography. So good!

The Imperfectionists

I recently finished The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman. This was an interesting novel, as Rachman took an approach to storytelling that I hadn't encountered before. The Imperfectionists is a story about a floundering international newspaper based in Italy with a whole host of motley, lost little characters.

What is interesting about the book is that each chapter is dedicated to a different character. This allows the reader (or at least me) to get so involved with each character as we are able to hear their thoughts and learn a bit about their pasts and lives firsthand rather than relying on one narrator. Each of these characters are incredibly engaging. I got so involved with each one that even the characters who frustrated me (Why the hell are you with him? Stop! He's a douche!) were still interesting and entertaining. The downside is that with each new chapter I had to say goodbye to a character I had grown to love. Normally I get a whole book before I have to say goodbye. But because they all worked at the same newspaper, the characters did make cameos into each other's stories, which was always a happy surprise and tied the whole novel together as a whole. In the last chapter Rachman does make sure to tie things up, giving just a sentence or two about each character so I did get some kind of closure. I was so grateful for that, cause some of the chapters ended on cliffhangers that had me throwing the book across the room.

The Imperfectionists is a great book to read when you're busy. Because each chapter is devoted to a new character--a new story--it is easy to pick up a long while later and not feel completely lost. That fit well into my schedule right now, busy college life and all.

I will warn you that this isn't a happy book. As in real life, the characters don't get everything they want. Some of the characters get nothing they want--or at least nothing they thought they wanted. While this is an accurate reflection on the disappointments of life it doesn't leave you with warm fuzzy feelings. But sometimes that's okay, because even though they don't get everything they want and the ends aren't all tied up with a bow they characters are still okay. They're fine, maybe even happy. There's some hope for ourselves in that, I think.

In other news, I HATE WEDNESDAYS.

I am listening to the lovely song Permafrost by Laurena Sagura, which you should listen to and then buy. She's a Nerdfighter, so she is obviously made of Awesome, and who doesn't want to support Awesome?