The First Reasonable Plan Since This All Began - Review of "Once Upon A Time: The Jolly Roger"

This post contains SPOILERS for Once Upon a Time Season 3, Episode 17, "The Jolly Roger." Read at your own risk!

Oh sweet mother of angels, pirates, and mermaids - Once Upon a Time, THIS is what you could be!

Last summer, I discovered ABC's show about fairy tale characters living in modern times and trying to get back home. That was when I'd initially finished watching Season 1 on DVD, which I quite enjoyed. I've since watched Season 2 and been keeping up with Season 3... and I'll be honest - it's kind of gotten dull. Most everything that can be done with the main characters has already been done and it was starting to feel like the writers had run out of ideas. Even the prospect of including characters from stories like The Little Mermaid and Rapunzel fell flat on their faces (well, the Rapunzel storyline more than The Little Mermaid - I mean, that princess in the tower could have been anyone. There was no point to all that hair). Honestly, the Charmings are bland, Henry's annoying, and that stupid love triangle between Emma, Neal, and Hook was just... ugh! The only characters I really like anymore are Regina, Rumple, and Captain Hook (and yes, I realize that all three of these characters are... not exactly "villains" - more of anti-heroes. But damn if they aren't compelling to watch!)

I often ask myself why I am still watching this show.  Even on weeks that I am most certainly NOT going to watch, I find myself catching up on Hulu. I guess I see how good this show could be and how much it is just not living up to its potential - instead of finding new ways to tell these stories, they just shoehorn the characters they've overused into these incredibly boring tropes.

However, last night's episode "The Jolly Roger" had me standing up and cheering again. Because THIS is what OUAT could and ought to be!  I even want to call out the writer - David H. Goodman - by name and publicly applaud him for this idea. Not to mention the actors - particularly Colin O'Donoghue and Joanna Garcia Swisher for stellar performances. Even Rebecca Mader - whose Wicked Witch of the West I haven't really been that enthralled with to this point - put in one of the most convincing villain moments at the end.

So - what made this episode different from all the others? For starters, the focus isn't on the Charmings. At all. Snow White isn't in the flashbacks trying to appeal to Hook's better nature and Charming isn't there doing... whatever the crap he does. In fact, the Charmings get to take Henry (who hasn't had a convincing thing to do since Season 1) off to run over mailboxes in David's truck and that's the extent of their involvement (I will say that this second half of Season 3 has benefited greatly from Henry not remembering anything about Storybrooke. He's just happy in the corner playing Xbox or whatever and I am happy for him to stay there. I'm counting down the days until they can send that boy to college and we won't have to look at him on a regular basis. He contributes nothing to the plot anymore). Regina and Emma go off to get Emma to figure out how to use her powers, which - IT'S ABOUT DAMN TIME!! How long has Emma known about her magic and she hasn't used it? Hell, if I had the choice between summoning fire to roast someone's ass or shooting them with a gun - I'd choose fire. Now that Neal's dead (oops - spoilers) it seems that Emma is going to be put to better use than sitting around debating her conflicting loyalties and pining for her baby daddy (sorry - I just kept waiting for Neal to do something interesting and it never happened. Other than him dying to resurrect Rumplestiltskin. In terms of Characters Who Actually Do Something, I say we viewers got the better end of that trade-off).

Thus, we are left with Captain Hook. Who also has been improved since Neal's death, in that his bid for Emma can be taken more seriously. Beyond that, though, Hook is faced with a choice. He remembers the past year that's been lost, but he's not telling anyone about it. This episode goes into why - at least in part. Hook's crew wants to go off and search for their ship The Jolly Roger so they can get back to their old pirating ways. Hook - well, Hook's had a taste of being one of the good guys and he's not sure that he wants to go back to being a scoundrel. Even before Season 3.2 starts - we have a flashback of him in a pub in the Enchanted Forest paying off a barmaid that his men gifted to him as part of a post-robbery celebration. Hook is not the dastardly pirate that he tries to pass himself off as - but neither is he this squeaky-clean hero-type.

Enter Ariel - who hasn't found Prince Eric since everyone was sent back to the Enchanted Forest. And since Hook has a reputation for being a good guy as well as a sea-faring pirate, Ariel thinks that he can help her find her prince, who also has a penchant for sailing the sea. Hook agrees, especially since there is strong evidence that Eric was captured by the same people who have his ship.

Back in Storybrooke, Ariel shows up again with the same problem. She can't find Eric - but Hook, Snow, and Belle (who is finally used to her utmost potential in this episode) come to her aid. Hook is a little reluctant to help, but he agrees since he is the one who knows the most of what happened during the "Missing Year." Snow eventually leaves the main action to be Henry's "not-grandma," leaving Hook and Ariel to look through Mr. Gold's shop for clues as to the whereabouts of Prince Eric.

I've got to talk about Belle here for a bit. Even though she doesn't have a whole lot of screentime, what she does have is used beautifully. In recent episodes, she's had to deal with Rumple's kidnapping and imprisonment by the Wicked Witch, but instead of moping and pining about it, she's going through all the things in Gold's Pawn Shop (which Rumple/Mr. Gold left to her when he thought he was going to die - long story) and organizing things, cataloging them, running the shop the best that she can. She provides the ray of hope that Snow White usually does, though to greater effect, since that's kind of becomes Snow's one and only character trait lately. But Belle's sense of hope is more pronounced because she has gone through so much and is still going through a lot. There is one line that sums her optimism out the best - when she agrees to let Ariel look through the shop for anything belonging to Prince Eric, Belle says "Maybe good news will be contagious." It was a small moment, but it was so indicative of the situation that all of Storybrooke is dealing with and we didn't need to gather the whole town in a room to look at each other with suspicion until Regina yells about... whatever.  It helps that Belle and Ariel have already established a solid friendship with each other (in the only episode from Season 3.1 that didn't have me throwing things) and I want to see more of that - not necessarily from these two characters, but I would like to see more relationships between these types of "secondary" characters.

Hook finds a cloak belonging to Prince Eric in Gold's shop - he recognizes it because Ariel had it in the Enchanted Forest when he met her before. Belle casts a tracking spell on the cloak which will enable the cloak to find Eric. The cloak flies off and Hook and Ariel take off after it. After a while, the cloak lands in the water in the Storybrooke harbor and disappears into the sea. They both take it to mean that Eric was lost at sea and Ariel looks devastated - but at the same time, she says that it's better that she knows where Eric is, rather than looking and never finding him.

Before I get to the climax of the story, I've got to end the Enchanted Forest storyline - the storyline that nobody but Hook can remember (and the one that he's not telling, but it's evident that he's not about to talk about it). He and Ariel find The Jolly Roger and Hook faces down Blackbeard, who's taken over the ship. They fight and Hook wins. He's about to kill Blackbeard when Ariel stops Hook because Blackbeard knows where Prince Eric is and if Blackbeard dies, Ariel will never find Eric. Hook ignores her and makes Blackbeard walk the plank anyway. Ariel yells at Hook - that he is not a hero, that he is just a scumbag pirate and that's all he'll ever be. Ariel leaps into the sea and becomes a mermaid and goes off in search of her prince, leaving Hook to think on Ariel's accusations and to regret that he is not a better man.

Folks - THIS is the kind of character that Once Upon a Time's Captain Hook should be. Hell, this is what they should be doing with ALL of these fairy tale characters. And I don't just mean putting princesses in pants and giving them weapons and making them warriors as well as eye candy. I mean giving them good backstories and motivations and doing interesting things with them (that have nothing to do with terrible home lives because that trope has been done to death and it's not even a surprise anymore - not just in OUAT, but in most fairy tale retellings. Gregory Maguire's Wicked started it and no one's had an original idea since). Captain Hook in popular culture is associated with Disney's foppish dandy who's obsessed with killing Peter Pan and scared of crocodiles. And this Hook kind of started out that way, but he's since been given a chance to expand as a character - he's a bit of a lovable roguish scoundrel (not unlike Han Solo or Malcolm Reynolds). Hook wants to be better, but he's not sure about leaving behind his previous life - whether or not he can do it, let alone if he should.

That brings us to the ending of the episode. Hook runs after Ariel to tell her everything that he knew of her during the "Missing Year" - that he made a mistake and it cost her chance of finding Prince Eric and that he regrets his actions and he's sorry for it. He also confesses that he knows what it's like to love someone and never having them. Ariel asks who it is that Hook loves and he says it's Emma Swan.

And here, my friends, is the best reveal that Once Upon a Time* have ever given us!

"Ariel" reveals herself to actually be the Zelena (the Wicked Witch of the West) in disguise. When Hook admits that he loves Emma, Zelena curses Hook so that the next time Hook kisses Emma, Emma's magical powers will be taken from her. Hook says that he'll warn Emma and Regina and everybody of Zelena's plans, but Zelena comes back with the threat that she will kill everyone that Hook cares about - including Emma and Henry - if he breathes a word about her plans. Zelena is at her absolute best in this moment. THIS is the kind of vengeful Wicked Witch I thought we would be getting. She's vindictive and nasty and just plain wicked (if I may use that term). And if I get more of this in the lead up to the season finale, I will forgive that stupid twist of her being Regina's half-sister (good grief - how much more convoluted can these family trees get??)

Hook goes back to the Charmings' loft, despondent and in despair. He finds Emma, who's been practicing magic with Regina. And she's actually getting quite good! She summons an image of the real Ariel, who found Prince Eric a long time ago and they're living happily on an island off the coast of the Enchanted Forest that was not affected by the Wicked Witch's curse. So, Hook is happy for Ariel, who found her happy ending, in spite of his screw-up.

Now, we've all seen this trope where a character keeps vital information away from the people they care about in order to save their lives (Harry Potter did it, Spider-Man did it - just to name a few). But this is the first time that I actually believe that Hook has no idea how to deal with this situation. He's never been anywhere near this kind of thing. He's been a pirate since time immemorial. Any goodness he once had is gone - even though he's slowly been turning over a new leaf, he's still not comfortable with admitting that to anyone, least of all himself.

This is the kind of meaty storytelling that this show is capable of and that I would love to see more of. I mean, they've worn out the possibilities surrounding the Charmings and Regina and Henry - let's delve into some of these other side characters that haven't had a chance to be fleshed out. We haven't seen hide nor hair of Cinderella since "The Price of Gold", which was the 4th episode in Season 1 (that was also written by David H. Goodman and it remains one of my very favorite episodes - I think there's a correlation here). Sleeping Beauty's been abandoned by the writers, Rapunzel didn't get much of a character arc (let's face it - that whole episode was just a waste) - bring back some of these characters and let the main ones rest for a bit!

At the end of the day, Captain Hook was given a marvelous character arc in this episode and all the little hints and plot threads that they've been weaving with his character - one key reason why I keep watching Once Upon a Time, in spite of all my complaints about the show - are starting to come together and I couldn't be more pleased (unless next week's episode continues this grand tradition and this wasn't a one-time fluke, that is).

This was a long post, but the episode gave me so much to parse and digest - that's the sign of a fantastic story! I hope I'll find cause to wax lyrical about next week's episode, but that's until next week. In the meantime - I've gotta go watch this one again!

This should have been my first clue that this episode was going to be amazing.
Hook disguised as a knight! *fangirl swoon*

***
*Given that one of those reveals was that Peter Pan is in all actuality Rumplestiltskin's father - I don't know that this was a terribly great compliment. Still, my point stands.

***
EDIT: I went back and watched older episodes of Once that featured Hook because, well, why not? And I find I have to amend one of my earlier statements - it's wasn't "Ariel" that was the only episode of 3.1 that didn't have me throwing things (because there was plenty of opportunity for throwing things there). The honor of being my favorite episode of 3.1 goes to "Good Form" which, given the timey-wimey way I watched Seasons 2 and 3, was actually the first episode I saw that really featured Captain Hook in any prominent way. Beyond being my intro to my eventual favorite character, I just loved how different it was to most everything else I'd seen. Especially seeing how dull Season 3 had been to that point - having an origin story for Killian Jones was just a lot of fun and I've since gone back and watched it four or five times. So - there's that.

There Is Not Enough *headdesk* In The World...

They're splitting Allegiant into two movies. Sweet Mother of Rassilon - WHY?

And yet... no one can muster up the gumption to do a Wonder Woman movie...

I swear I read something a couple a weeks ago that said unequivocally that this was NOT going to happen (Can I find that article now? Of course not!) And I was quite relieved. Apart from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, which actually had enough material to warrant a split (Goblet of Fire also should have been split, but let’s not open that wound today - since I already did it here), none of these YA novel adaptation movies have needed that extra film to tell the whole story. But I guess someone changed their mind. And I am really tired of this trend. It was good for the first one, but now it’s just stupid. I mean, they might as well just trot out promotional materials that say “We don’t give a shit about your favorite stories - we really just want all your money!” Usually I’m happy to give them my money if the product is good and I feel like I'm getting of quality in return. But when it’s so blatant that this is what they’re doing, it makes me nervous about the kind of movies they’re going to put out.

Let’s just break it down here - like I said, Harry Potter needed the split (more than it actually got, if truth be told). Breaking Dawn (fourth book of Twilight)... well, we could have a whole conversation of whether the fourth book was even necessary, let alone an extra movie (Full Disclosure: I only saw Breaking Dawn, Part 1, with the caveat that I would watch it with RiffTrax commentary. Even that couldn’t salvage the sheer awfulness of that movie and I didn’t even bother with Part 2).

The next one on the chop is Mockingjay, which is still baffling to me. I mean, they got all of the necessary material from Catching Fire into one movie. In terms of essential plot elements, Mockingjay does not have anything more than Catching Fire does. In fact, I would venture to say that Catching Fire actually has MORE in terms of story and would have needed the split far more than Mockingjay does. But it’s Mockingjay that gets the split, simply because the studios don’t feel the need to go out and find something else to fill that release date with. Or whatever the thinking is behind this stupid fad.

If The Hunger Games films don’t need this trope, the Divergent trilogy needs it even less. While Divergent the book and Divergent the movie were so good that it hurts - there is still a long way to go with these movies. Insurgent as a book suffers the most from being over-long (I’m right in the middle of re-reading Insurgent and I’m already finding places where the story could be edited down to be more interesting. It’s not a terrible book by any means - there are some very excellent scenes and character moments in this story. But material around them is padded down with a lot of excess that isn't needed and I’m hoping that gets worked out of the screenplay). Allegiant returns to the greatness of Divergent, but that ending is a sore point of contention with many of the fandom (personally, I see why it ended that way. I may not like the way it ended from an emotional standpoint, but from a storyteller’s standpoint it was a gutsy call and I applaud Veronica Roth in taking such a risk. And it doesn't bother me the way it bothers other people. Hell, I’m re-reading the whole series, aren't I?) Now that I think of it, Insurgent could probably be pared down enough to give some of Allegiant’s story to that movie! (There is precedent for such things - some of what happened in the book The Return of the King went into the movie for The Two Towers and vice versa. But that was a situation with timelines and plot-threads running through the whole series. Still - it works out in the long run).

The Divergent series does NOT need four movies. But it’s going to get them anyway. And the storytelling is going to suffer because of it. That makes me sad. Because the overarching story is SO good and SO worth your time, but the executives and the accounting eggheads just see dollar signs and want to bleed these franchises dry until there’s nothing left to enjoy anymore. Part of the fun of these things is that there is an ending and they don’t go on and on forever and they don’t overstay their welcome. We as fans may say “it’ll be sad when this whole thing is over” because we’ll have to say goodbye to our favorite characters and we love them a lot - but there is such a thing as too much. And if you had an endless supply of just one thing, it would become stale and boring and you’d get sick of it. And there is nothing more tragic than having something you once loved so much become stale and boring.

Obviously YA fiction is a viable market for filmmakers - maybe these efforts would be better suited to finding other YA properties that would lend themselves to good film adaptations. Ruby Red by Kerstin Gier comes to mind, as does Matched by Ally Condie and Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo. In fact, I would sacrifice my left kidney for a good Shadow and Bone movie. As much as I love Divergent, Shadow and Bone is in the same class. But no, we have to keep beating the same franchises to death instead of trying to find something new and interesting.

C'mon, Lionsgate! You know you want to!

Well - at least we’ll always have the books. They don’t disappoint as easily.

***
Seeing as how a lot of my initial reviews of a lot of these books are on my now-defunct book review blog, I really need to keep up with my "Throwback Thursday" thing that I've let lapse AGAIN! (argh)

Winter Soldiers and Snowstorm Patriots: Review of "Captain America: The Winter Soldier"

Spoilers! Herein contains a very spoilery review of Captain America: The Winter Soldier!!

It's no secret that I positively adore the way Marvel Studios has crafted their Cinematic Universe. And the acquisition by Disney has, in my opinion, only expanded their ability to tell brilliant stories. Even the integration of Agents of SHIELD on television has been fantastic (despite a bunch of bellyaching from entitled fanboys, but I ignore that. Agents of SHIELD is awesome and anyone who says otherwise is selling something).

I managed to stay spoiler free for this movie for the most part (and here is where you should look away if you still haven't seen the movie)... ... (spoiler buffer)...

...

....

...

(end spoiler buffer)

I knew that the Winter Soldier was Steve Rogers' childhood friend, Bucky Barnes because the fans of the comics pointed that out in the lead-up to the movie. And that's about where my knowledge ended. But I was NOT prepared for the onslaught of new information this movie presented.

First off - I have to talk a little bit about some misleading information in the trailer. It's obvious from the trailer that Robert Redford is the villain of this piece (and I'm glad that he was because I'm not a fan of the guy on principle and it would have made my skin crawl to actually have to cheer for him in a Marvel film), but it was starting to look like Nick Fury was even at odds against Captain America. And I am very glad that did not turn to be the case.  But what did turn out to be the case - holy cow! Let's just start from the top -

I love that we get to see Steve more or less integrated into modern life, but still working out a few things (all this time and he still hasn't see Star Wars??) He meets a war veteran by name of Sam Wilson while he's out on a run in the park and the rest of us think "Yup - second tier Avenger, right here!" Now, Steve's still the same nice guy that we all know and love - but he's also a SHIELD... not agent, exactly. More like a highly-skilled operative. Steve learns that SHIELD has been developing an arsenal of helicarriers (that Tony Stark advised on a bit, apparently) that will enable SHIELD to take out baddies before they do anything at all - this project is known as Insight. The theory of the idea sounds okay on the surface, but in practice it doesn't sound real great to Steve. He realizes that he doesn't like being just a pawn in Nick Fury's chess game - and things really have changed from the world that Steve knew before he because a super soldier. Against this backdrop, Steve visits his old flame from the WWII pre-SHIELD, Peggy Carter, who looks to be suffering from some type of dementia or Alzheimer's (nope, you didn't hit nothing important - just my feels), and then he takes a trip to the Captain America exhibit at the Smithsonian, which results in even more feels. If ever there was a fish out of water, it's Steve Rogers.

Meanwhile, back at SHIELD, Nick Fury is having a hard time accessing a super-high-tech flash drive and it's bugging the crap out of him, so he asks a buddy of his, played by a very crusty Robert Redford, to delay Project Insight. Long story short - a bunch of thugs attack Fury and he dies. But not before he gives Steve the super-high-tech flash drive and tells Steve not to trust anyone at SHIELD because they've been compromised. During this, Steve encounters a mysterious assassin that all the trailers and posters have told us is the Winter Soldier.

When Steve refuses to tell SHIELD the details of Fury's death, SHIELD operatives try to capture Steve and he ends up on the run along with Natasha Romanoff. Along their merry adventures, they discover that Hydra (remember the Red Skull and the Nazis in Captain America: The First Avenger?) has been manipulating SHIELD into creating Project Insight for them and that the world is a lot more complicated than anyone initially thought. They've kept Toby Jones's (of all people) brain downloaded on ancient data tapes locked away in a basement that can only be accessed by the super-high-tech flash drive. Basically, Hydra's gone underground in their quest for world domination. And the Winter Soldier is a key component of that manipulation, assassinating people who get in the way of Hydra's plans (including, it is inferred, Howard and Maria Stark - from a headline clear in the heck from the first Iron Man movie. Never let it be said that Marvel doesn't know its own story). The way Hydra intends to continue their domination is by spying on everybody - knowing everything about their lives and using that information to predict how they will act, so they can take out anyone who might be thinking of rising against them. Which immediately reminded me of this:



(Harold Finch is one of the Avengers and no one can convince me otherwise).

Oh, and by the way, Steve finally finds out that the Winter Soldier is his old pal Bucky that he thought was dead. And Hydra's been doing some nasty experimentation on Bucky since he was captured in 1944. Bucky doesn't remember Steve - the poor guy doesn't even remember his own name!

This whole story is so heartwrenching from beginning to end. I knew Marvel was going for the emotional twists in Phase 2 and I'm really glad they are - but man, I almost can't take it! I mean, our heroes win (more or less), but SHIELD is in shambles and Nick Fury's on the run (oh, he's really not dead. Even when he "died," I kept waiting for him to come out of the shadows and have a plan. Which he did - but not necessarily the plan I wanted). The way it ended - I wonder if the characters from Agents of SHIELD are going to make a movie appearance at some point.  Because the Hydra goonies are still out there (at least one of them is - that guy who was fighting Sam Wilson at the end. Oh yeah - Sam is actually the Falcon, by virtue of these super-cool mechanical wings that he was trained to fly with in the war. Which is about the coolest damn thing ever!) and nobody trusts SHIELD and Natasha's cover is blown to pieces (wait a minute! Where the crap was Hawkeye in all of this??) - they need to rebuild SHIELD somehow. And the players are there, if they want to bring in Agents of SHIELD. Which, I think they will. And the events of Avengers: Age of Ultron will probably bring that into play.

(Calling it now - Agent May from AoS is a Hydra operative. Guess I'll see tomorrow night).

Some more about Bucky (oh my poor, poor heart - the post-credits scene in the Smithsonian...) I loved Bucky in Captain America and I was mad that he died in that movie. But, this being the comics, no one ever stays dead. Honestly, I think Bucky has the potential to be a character like Loki - someone who you should hate, but you can't for Reasons. Where the Reasons for not hating Loki is that he's a charismatic bastard, Bucky's Reasons are going to be that he's got a lot of backstory to tell and a lot of material to work with. There is a lot they could do with him, which is unusual to happen with a Marvel villain (at least, up to this point in the movies). Mostly, they've just dispatched the bad guys and gone on to the next plotline, but they've left Bucky's ending hanging, which intrigues me endlessly (maybe he'll get his own movie at some point - who knows? Hell, there have been rumors of a Loki movie, so why not?)

Loved this movie, loved how intense it was (there were points that I thought Steve was done for), loved how it's integrated elements from other Marvel movies (even that douchebag senator from Iron Man 2 was a Hydra guy! I thought we were done with his crap) - this is Marvel at it's uttermost best and I'm glad that I wasn't spoiled for the twists and turns. I love how complex this universe is getting and just how good the stories are. These may have started out as action-y popcorn flicks, but there is some meaty storytelling going on here, and as long as they keep giving me that, I will keep spending money to see these films.

It's Our Choices More Than Our Abilities - Review of "Divergent"

After seeing Divergent yesterday, it took all my willpower not to march straight back to the box office and purchase a ticket for the next screening (well that, and I was with a friend and we were also both ready to go home). In fact, I'm sitting here thinking "Why isn't this out on DVD yet so I can watch it over and over??" It's just so good!

I hadn't read any reviews for Divergent before seeing it, but now I'm noticing a lot of negative stuff from the High And Mighty Critics (which, just transpose my thoughts on the people who determine Oscar nominees to the Elite Literati Movie Critic class and I think we can all agree on what my feelings on what they think are). To which I reply - bullshit. And I'm going to give my ten minute rebuttal.

Yes, we've all seen that Divergent is being compared to The Hunger Games. But the similarities between the two go as follows:

1 - They're both young adult dystopian novels.
2 - They both have female lead protagonists.

And... that's about it for similarities. Which, I guess doesn't make for compelling print media for the low-information crowd, but whatever. In reality, these two stories are vastly different. And here is where I'm going to enter spoiler territory for both the book and the movie, so if you have neither read the book nor seen the movie, now is the time to turn away (and get yourself to the library or bookstore or movie theater and correct this problem - for it is indeed a problem and lacking on your part).

The story starts out brilliantly with Beatrice Prior (played by Shailene Woodley) narrating the opening while we see images of a futuristic Chicago - which has either severely gone the way of Detroit, or was incredibly made-up in CGI to look like a complete ruin. Beatrice explains that, in her society, people are divided into five factions: Abnegation for people who value selflessness, Amity for people who value kindness, Candor for people who value honesty, Dauntless for people who value bravery, and Erudite for people who value intelligence. And when I say these factions value these traits - I mean that those traits are they're entire lives! Anyone who doesn't live up to the faction ideals is a weirdo at best, Factionless at worst. Beatrice is from Abnegation, but she and her brother Caleb, are old enough to be part of the Choosing Ceremony, where children from the different factions can decide to stay in the factions they were born into, or they can transfer to a faction that they feel they are most suited for. But before Ceremony takes place, they are subjected to a mental test that will tell them where their innate tendencies lie and that's supposed to help them make their decisions.

What I love about the opening narration is that it's not just a straight info-dump - it's also a vehicle to show how Beatrice doesn't know what she should choose. She's never felt totally selfless, but she knows it would hurt her parents if she left Abnegation. She admires Dauntless most of all, but, again, Dauntless and Abnegation are such opposites. Turns out, when she takes her test, she discovers she's Divergent - which is someone who doesn't fit in any one faction. And Divergence is a threat to the society - if anyone discovered she was Divergent, she would be killed.

Nothing like a hefty dose of "You're So Different You Might Die" to usher you into adulthood, right?

At the Choosing Ceremony, Beatrice chooses Dauntless - the brave faction. Although "bravery" most of the time manifests itself more like "stupidity" (they don't get on the train like normal, sane people. To prove they have no fear, they run and jump on the damn thing while it's running at high speeds!)

(We all know which faction I would NOT be joining, right?)

But Beatrice - now styling herself as Tris (because Beatrice is a dopey Abnegation name) - proves herself continually through the eyes of her trainers. Including Four (played by Theo James) - who is the best Dauntless has to offer, and also the most mysterious and the hottest.

What sold me on the book when I read it is also what sells me on this movie - the story and the characters. Not just Tris (although her storyline with her family is compelling as hell), but also Four's background. I don't want to give it away, even though I gave the spoiler alert (some things you have to discover on your own). But I will say that I love how he isn't all broody and emo, like what often happens in popular YA novels nowadays. Even though we're meant to think he's the dark, hot, and grim love interest, there are so many levels to his character - as Tris discovers when Four takes her into his own fear landscape to practice the mental component of Dauntless training.

I have to take about the main leads. Because even though Tris is the main protagonist, Divergent is just as much Four's story as it is Tris's - and as their relationship grows and blossoms into something amazing, it becomes a story of two halves. First of all, I LOVE that their relationship is given time to grow organically, which makes the characters seem even more believable. And I'll be honest, when the trailers and the promo images started coming out, I wasn't sure how I felt about Shailene Woodley and Theo James in the lead roles. But the pair of them totally blew me away! (we're going to blame the marketing department on the low expectations here). Even from the first scene where Tris jumps into the underground Dauntless compound from a five(ish) story building and Four is there to greet her, the whole theater crackled with their chemistry (sorry for the cliche there, but I couldn't think of what else to call it). In their strange little Dauntless way, it was like they were friends right at the offset and then their friendship became something more - especially when Four discovers that Tris is Divergent - but he doesn't report her, even though he's in leadership. In fact it comes out that Four is Divergent as well (this revelation slowly builds up until the climax where the Dauntless are forced to become mind-numbed zombie soldiers thanks to a control serum that doesn't work on Divergents, but they both have to pretend that they are under mind-control in order not to get killed).

The leads are awesome. No doubt about that. But what about the supporting cast?

Well - Ashley Judd is in this movie *sigh*. I'm not a fan of Ashley Judd just because I just find her to be a contemptible person in general. But she plays Tris's mother and I knew she's not in it much and that she dies at the end, so I felt I could overlook her character (but can I just say - I had the hardest time believing that she really had any feeling toward Tris. And when they're running for their lives under gunfire and they're firing back, I was just "Ashley, have you EVER held a gun in you entire life??")

Happily, we have Kate Winslet as the antagonist, Jeanine Matthews. And similar to how Woodley and James worked so well together, Winslet is just as good on her own as the villain. It's evident from the beginning that her character is not to be trusted, but the way she plays it - you want to like her, you want Tris to like her. But at the same time, you know she's bad news. The ending confrontation only shines because of that. So, second only to the relationship between Tris and Four, I adored Kate Winslet in this movie.

The rest of the cast is pretty good. If I had one complaint about the book, it's that there were so many characters and so many names to keep track of. Veronica Roth does an excellent job of keeping track of so many plotlines and personalities, but I had a hard time keeping up in places. Luckily, the movie streamlined a lot of these characters into a core group - and I really only remembered one name - Christina, played by Zoe Kravitz. Mostly because the character made herself memorable and it's a particularly hard name for me to forget :) Christina is a Dauntless transfer from Candor and she and Tris become fast friends. I think she had a love interest of her own in the book, but it was cut from the movie, which I think was a good thing. She had plenty to do as Tris's sidekick (of sorts) and she was the unofficial ringleader of the other Dauntless intiates. And that's all they really needed there - other than that one douchey guy that tried to kill Tris, but he was quickly forgotten (at least, for me).

Basically, Divergent captured the spirit and the tone of the book and gave us all a great look into this world. The set design is amazing and the CGI effects are stellar (my favorite part is the scene with Tris on the zip-line flying through buildings and seeing the city in a way she's never done before - that's where you really feel like she's learning to be part of her faction and you're happy for her). The way they treated Divergent gives me hope for the next movie - which, I find Insurgent to be a weaker story, simply because it gets padded out waaaaaay too much narratively (I think you could cut out 100 pages of that thing). But I'm hoping the movie will pare it down to the essential story elements and that it might be better than the book (which, believe you me, is not something I say very often).

Anyway - Divergent is awesome, just like the book on which it's based (so I guess we can add a third similarity between this and The Hunger Games). If you loved the book, you'll love the movie. If you've never read the book, you'll still love the movie. If you hated the book... well, we need to talk about your life choices.

(More Tris and Four, please!)

Hey Disney! The World Needs Frozen 2!

Let me start with this: I adored Frozen. The story, the characters, the music - it was utterly perfect in every way that it could be perfect. I was pulling for it to win Best Animated Picture and Best Original Song at the Oscars (I usually stay out of Oscar season, mostly because I find it to be just a bunch of egotistical jackasses in the middle of a tedious circle jerk over boring movies that are made solely for the Elitist Artsy Snob crowd that John and Jane Q. Public suddenly have to pretend to care about simply because that simpering nitwit anchor on Good Morning America was losing her head over it. Besides, nothing I like ever wins).

Ahem - anyway - Frozen. Loved it to pieces. I bought the soundtrack right after I came home from the movie theater and I've been playing it WILLINGLY nearly nonstop and I have all the lyrics memorized (and I don't even have kids to blame this on).

Having said that - Frozen needs a sequel. Hell, The Incredibles and Cars are both getting sequels (I never saw Cars 2. I thought the original Cars was great and the sequel was completely unnecessary, so in my headcanon, it doesn't exist) - the idea was floated during the Oscars during the acceptance speech for Best Original Song - it's one of the most successful (if not THE most successful) movies Disney has had in a long time - bring back the original cast and animators and make a decent go at it and they could totally take home another Best Animated Picture award! (at least give the public another earworm).

(Before I go on - the following discussion WILL SPOIL Frozen. If you have not seen Frozen - first of all, WHAT??? Get thee to a movie theater or Disney download [I hear that's a thing now] and watch this movie!)

Honestly, with Frozen, we only got half a story. This movie, for all it being based on Hans Christian Andersen's The Snow Queen and Elsa being the eponymous queen, is Anna's story. Anna is the lonely girl who has to be shut inside the palace in Arendelle because they can't risk Elsa's power becoming public knowledge. Nevermind that Elsa's the one shut up in her room and slowly losing control of her powers with nobody and nothing to help her - Anna is the one we are meant to feel sorry for. It's the perky, happy, cheerful, outgoing sister that takes center stage and saves the brooding, depressed, introverted sister from herself  (I would be lying if this didn't irk me just a tiny bit).

As much as I love this movie, I feel like there is more to the story. How did Elsa come by her powers? Are there others like her out there? Is there more she can learn? Is this something her children will inherit? How will she help them understand this ability?

Now that the setting and characters and backstory of Frozen have been established, I want to see an adventure with Elsa. Anna got her happy ending - let's tell Elsa's story of self-discovery. Because I don't think that she got a whole lot of that ("Let It Go" notwithstanding. Actually, that sequence doesn't even solve her problems. If anything, it made them worse) and she is due for some answers.

I don't proclaim to be the first one to have put forward a possible scenario for Frozen 2 (in fact, if Disney was smart, they already have people on this). But this is what I'd like to see: open with Elsa being Queen of Arendelle, being all queenly and awesome. Anna and Kristoff are perfectly happy with... whatever they're doing. The reindeer and the dopey snowman can be there too doing - reindeer and snowman things. But someone comes to Arendelle with rumors of another Snow Queen in a distant-yet-nearby land. Elsa is intrigued - while she's achieved mastery over her powers, she still doesn't know where they came from in the first place (and her parents never could or would tell her). If there are others like her, shouldn't she help them learn to control their powers? No one should be locked up simply in fear of what they can do. Elsa is determined to seek out this new person and find out what they can learn from each other. Anna and Kristoff are more than capable of taking care of Arendelle in her absence (and if you want a sinister B-Plot to go there, well, go ahead and do it).

Elsa takes off on her adventure (bring along the dopey snowman if you must - but leave those stupid rock trolls behind) with a suitably awesome musical number to accompany the anticipation of meeting someone just like her. Along the way, she meets up with Hans, the disgraced prince who mucked things up royally in the first movie (no pun intended).

Okay - I HATED what they did to Hans. Because here is this immensely likable character that I (at least) fell in love with and he turns out to be the villain. FOR NO GOOD REASON! (if you needed an antagonist, why not that old and crusty mustache dude? Wasn't there enough antagonism from the blizzard and the circumstances of the eternal winter?) But in the sequel - Hans is penitent and seeking forgiveness for his actions. His brothers gave him so much grief over what he did before and have basically kicked him out of their kingdom. The only way he can return is with the power of the new Snow Queen. Elsa initially mistrusts him and he hardly blames her. But through a series of events that writers more clever than I can work out, they end up traveling together (where they're going is pretty dangerous and they both conclude that it'd be safer to do so - even if Elsa refuses to trust Hans for a long time).

When they get to where they're going, they discover a kingdom much like Arendelle (just colder). They are refused entrance into the kingdom for reasons that no one can explain (sound familiar?) Hans, being the youngest of so many brothers and having been picked on a good portion of his life - which included being locked out of the castle - finds a way inside the palace of this new kingdom (as an aside, Elsa is impressed with his secret-passage-finding skills). Guards catch them and they're thrown into prison and they discover a child who has snow powers and has been hidden away by her parents. Only, much worse than Elsa ever was. Where Elsa was at least kept in her bedroom, this child is a prisoner and treated very poorly (as poorly as you can get away with in a Disney movie, that is). Elsa promises to get the child out and teach him/her (no reason it couldn't be a boy with these powers. Again, writers more clever than I could take it from here) to control these powers. Hans has been picking the lock throughout this touching interlude and finally breaks them out. Only to find out that this child's mother is the Original Snow Queen - that is, the Snow Queen that Elsa's curse came from. There's some contrived reason that this Snow Queen took out her anger on Elsa's parents - curse the firstborn child, and all that - but this Snow Queen is impressed by Elsa's mastery of her powers. The Queen tries to tempt Elsa to turn to the dark side - citing that people will never understand her powers and she needs to be around people like her (HOORAY for conflict of character!), but dear sweet Hans steps in with the whole "Being a Villain Isn't All It's Cracked Up To Be" speech (which could very well be directed at the writers of the first movie, in a meta sort of way) and Elsa finds the resolve to refuse the Snow Queen's offer. The Snow Queen is pissed and vows revenge on Arendelle and zips out there to do her thing (it's magic, dammit!) Now, the mission is to get to Arendelle before she destroys everything - and that could coincide with the sinister B-Plot that Anna and Kristoff are dealing with. Elsa and Hans and company go tearing off after the Snow Queen with not a whole lot of ideas of how to stop her, only that it must be done. They get to Arendelle, Big Ass Showdown between Elsa and the Snow Queen, the Snow Queen is defeated, Elsa and Hans kiss (oh come on - you had to know that was coming), Elsa teaches the Snow Queen's little prisoner how to be utterly awesome with his/her powers, and Elsa is the Queen of Arendelle and the Queen of Winter and pretty much just rules up and down the land.

Yeah, it's kind of rough, but it's a start. It opens up doors for Elsa's character to be explored and gives her room to grow and become more than the shy, depressed, introvert that Anna was tasked with saving in the first movie. Bonus points for redeeming Hans from a fate that was totally unnecessary and totally unwarranted. And no annoying rock trolls.

If nothing else, this gives me something to work into fan fiction.

The Preemptive Critic - The Giver

This book tops my Greatest Books Written in All Of Our Lifetimes and Beyond list (that I made up). While not necessarily the granddaddy of all dystopian fiction - it's more like a beloved aunt. Certainly it's an intro to dystopian novels for younger readers (I first read it in fourth grade and LOVED IT). The book is much more homespun and personal - a moral tale about the power of memory and remembering the bad things as well as the good and having the ability to make your own choices and taking responsibility for those choices - leaving the great and the grand world-building for future franchises to tackle.

This book was one of the first books that I CHOSE to read for myself (other books I read in elementary school, while fantastic and lovable and enjoyable, were actually given to me by my parents or teachers). I read my first copy of it to pieces - literally! It completely fell apart and I had to get a new one - which is about the same time I found out that there were sequels (while not as compelling as the original, were still very good). I hold The Giver in such high esteem in not only my bookworm career, by my entire life! So, when I heard that a movie of The Giver was going to be made, my very first thought was "Please for the love of all that is good and holy do NOT screw this up!"

Well... having only seen the trailer, I'm not saying that they did screw it up. But I'm not not saying it either (hovercraft? motorcycles? daily injections? WTF???)

I preemptively do not like this movie. But I'll probably still see it in the faint hopes that they did not just totally crap all over my childhood.

(In a completely unrelated subject, io9 has an article about terrible movie trailers for movies that are awesome).

ATTENTION TOWNSPEOPLE!!

THE NEW SAILOR MOON ANIME HAS A TITLE AND ARTWORK AND A (tentative) RELEASE DATE! THIS IS NOT A DRILL!!

omg squeeeeeee!! (English translation here)

Just to give you all an idea of why this is such a huge deal - nearly everything to do with Sailor Moon went out of print around 2003 (or thereabouts) and there was absolutely no new content. Anywhere. No repeats of anime, no reprints of manga, no toys being made - NOTHING. Sure, the live-action series came out in 2004 (which I have not seen 'cause... I have this thing about the bits I've seen. Like... it's going to be weird watching it. Maybe I should just suck it up and try it for real) - but that was it. To borrow a phrase - Moonies were kind of experiencing Wilderness Years of their own.

Then the 20th Anniversary happened in 2012, and The Powers That Be opened the floodgates. Manga reprints, new toys and T-shirts, a new stage musical, and HOLY CRAP A REBOOTED ANIME! SLATED TO BE RELEASED SUMMER 2013! IS THIS THE REAL LIFE??

Except Summer 2013 came... and it went... And there was zero news about the anime. No casting or artwork or ANYTHING! The fans would go ape over the latest lipstick line - but I was all "Yeah, yeah, shiny pretty stuff - oooh, that Sailor Mercury Figuart looks awesome (my birthday's in a few months, FYI) - BUT WHERE THE CRAP IS THE ANIME???"

Friends, Romans, Countrymen - we wait no longer. Today, the official Sailor Moon website put up a countdown in the animation section of the site (which, I suppose they're going to go through with because... why the hell not?) and then the above image and text was leaked by someone in the Toei Animation offices and the internet went wild (MoonKitty has the full rundown of everything we know - which looks so much less anemic than it did yesterday).

I am super-stoked about this. Sailor Moon was my gateway into anime when I was thirteen (I have a younger sister to thank for that - much to my parents' chagrin) and even though I went through a period of time where I kind of distanced myself from it (to my great shame) - I've come back in recent years and I cannot WAIT for this! It's influenced me creatively in so many ways and it represents a bright spot in my junior high and high school years (which generally just suck for everybody all the way around. Show me someone who loved middle school and I will show you a flaming hot liar). For a lot of us in the 90s, the Sailor Scouts (shut up, I'm a dub baby) were our first foray with female superheroes and that means a great deal (a team of interplanetary princesses who double as superheroes and kick ass in high heels and have their own unique personalities and are the bestest of best friends and there's a super-awesome love story thrown in for good measure - what's not to love?)

I'm still not totally sold on July being the final release date because it's been pushed back so much since the initial announcement and I'm pretty skeptical still, but even so - there's only one thing for it. WE DANCE!

(What did y'all think we were going to dance to?)

EDIT: Interestingly enough, all this comes the day after I changed my laptop's wallpaper scheme to Sailor Mercury. Serendipity, indeed.

Also - there will be reviews. Look forward to it! :)

The Preemptive Critic - Mr. Peabody and Sherman

When I was a kid, The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show was a staple of my "Old School" cartoon viewing (along with Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny, of course). One of the cartoon segments within Rocky and Bullwinkle was Peabody's Improbable History all about a genius dog, Mr. Peabody, who teaches his young charge, Sherman, about history by the use of the WABAC machine to time travel to those historical time periods (gee - where have I seen that premise before?) I adored Mr. Peabody's adventures and it came to the point where I only watched Rocky and Bullwinkle reruns just for those short cartoons. When I learned there was going to be a Mr. Peabody movie, I just about leaped out of my theater seat with glee.

Simply by way of nostalgia, I preemptively love this movie.

(But I will go postal if they screw it up).

Throwback Thursday - Kissing the Dead: A Cautionary Tale

*Originally posted on cj's bookshelf on July 1, 2011*

Title: I Kissed a Zombie, and I Liked It
Author: Adam Selzer
Publisher: Delacourt Press
Publication Date: January 2010
Reading Level: 16 and up

Synopsis (from Goodreads) -
Algonquin “Alley” Rhodes, the high school newspaper’s music critic, meets an intriguing singer, Doug, while reviewing a gig. He’s a weird-looking guy—goth, but he seems sincere about it, like maybe he was into it back before it was cool. She introduces herself after the set, asking if he lives in Cornersville, and he replies, in his slow, quiet murmur, “Well, I don’t really live there, exactly. . . .”

When Alley and Doug start dating, Alley is falling so hard she doesn't notice a few odd signs: he never changes clothes, his head is a funny shape, and he says practically nothing out loud. Finally Marie, the school paper’s fashion editor, points out the obvious: Doug isn't just a really sincere goth. He’s a zombie. Horrified that her feelings could have allowed her to overlook such a flaw, Alley breaks up with Doug, but learns that zombies are awfully hard to get rid of—at the same time she learns that vampires, a group as tightly-knit as the mafia, don’t think much of music critics who make fun of vampires in reviews. . . .

My Review:
First and foremost - "I Kissed a Zombie" is a parody of "Twilight." Now, I've made no secret that I severely dislike the "Twilight" books (for many reasons, not the least of which it offers up a perverted version of one of my - and the author's - core religious beliefs and that didn't sit well with me at all. Again, another rant for another day), so this sounded intriguing. Anything that pokes fun at "Twilight," I like to give it a shot. I actually met Adam Selzer briefly when he was on a teen author panel at the Utah Library Association Conference back in May [2011]. I didn't get to speak with him for very long, but it was long enough that I wanted to fork out $8 for his book and read it.

Alley Rhodes is no Bella Swan (or any other main female character from a paranormal romance novel, for that matter). Alley is witty, sarcastic and she constantly makes fun of all the girls in her high school who are dating vampires. Did I mention that, in this world, all the vampires have come out and made themselves a regular part of society? Which means, of course there are going to be tons of high school girls falling over themselves to get a piece of that undead action. [SARCASM WARNING!] Because, as we all know, high school girls are entirely that stupid. That's the kind of sarcasm Alley and her friends, the Vicious Circle (who also run the school newspaper), employ on a constant basis. And I have to admit, it's actually quite funny.

Then Alley becomes enamored with Doug, a guest singer for a band Alley is reviewing for her column in the school paper. He sings all her favorite songs and actually sings them well (Alley has a thing for dead gay singers from the 1930s) and she thinks that he's actually sincere about being a goth - not just these pseudo-goths that are just goth because it's suddenly cool on account of all the smokin' hot vampires around.

Another thing I found hilarious was, after Alley discovers Doug is a zombie, her debate with herself whether or not to become a zombie. She contemplates things like the fact that she'd have to drink embalming fluid every four hours (she decides that she could acquire a taste for it) and how long she and Doug could last as zombies before crumbling into dust (well, if they're careful, there are billions of years before the sun expands and the earth explodes. Then, they'll just be zombies floating around in space).

It helps when you read a book to know that it's a parody. If that had not been in the forefront of my mind as I read this, I would have hated it. But as it is a commentary on some of the more absurd premises in paranormal teen romance, it makes a lot of sense. It was a quick little read and one you might enjoy if you're looking for a fluffy piece of beach reading this summer.

The World's Cutest Whovian!

I just found this today and since I couldn't make it to Gallifrey One this year, I thought I'd post it. I adore Lindalee and her Doctor Who videos! If you can contain your SQUEE long enough to click "Play," enjoy!



(I would love to meet this little lady - she's going to go far in life!)

May It Be A Light in Dark Places

Title: Shadow and Bone
Author: Leigh Bardugo
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.
Publication Date: June 5, 2012

Synopsis (from Goodreads) -
The Shadow Fold, a swathe of impenetrable darkness, crawling with monsters that feast on human flesh, is slowly destroying the once-great nation of Ravka.

Alina, a pale, lonely orphan, discovers a unique power that thrusts her into the lavish world of the kingdom’s magical elite—the Grisha. Could she be the key to unravelling the dark fabric of the Shadow Fold and setting Ravka free?

The Darkling, a creature of seductive charm and terrifying power, leader of the Grisha. If Alina is to fulfill her destiny, she must discover how to unlock her gift and face up to her dangerous attraction to him.

But what of Mal, Alina’s childhood best friend? As Alina contemplates her dazzling new future, why can’t she ever quite forget him?

Glorious. Epic. Irresistible. Romance.

My Review:
Oh, Shadow and Bone... what can I say about you?

Well, for starters -

(I suppose I ought to elaborate)

I initially read this back in 2012 when I was on the reading committee for CLAU when the short list for the Beehive Awards was being compiled for the 2013-14 season (which is being voted on right now). And my vote was YES! YES! A THOUSAND TIMES YES!!! I even harbor a slight hope that it will win this year, even up against the likes of The Fault in Our Stars by John Green (side note: I read that one. I don’t see what the big deal is about it. For reasons I put in my Goodreads review. But I realize I am in the vast minority on that opinion. You may now proceed to take away my bookworm cred).

Anyway - Shadow and Bone. You know that quote about writing that goes something like "If the book you want to read doesn't exist, you must write that book"? In this case, I'm going to have to turn that statement around a bit and say that this is the book I have wanted to write for years, but I just haven't been able to make it work (I'm still gonna try, though - in my own way). But I was thrilled beyond words to discover this book the first time around and I have no idea why I never wrote a proper review of it before now.  But I re-read this recently and I got up the gumption to write about it, so here we go -

Alina Starkov is an orphan girl with one friend who has been there for her and that is Mal Oretsev. They end up in the army for the kingdom of Ravka when Alina discovers that she has the power of the legendary Sun Summoner.  The Sun Summoner has been looked for over the centuries by the Grisha, a powerful order of mages who are only beneath the king in terms of power in Ravka. The Grisha are both beautiful and terrifying to the ordinary people, being an order separate and apart from the rest of the country, but they are necessary in combating the volcra, which are creatures that live in the Unsea which divides Ravka and threatens to consume the entire country. And then, you have the usual political enemies and antagonistic neighboring countries making war with Ravka all the time - so someone like the Sun Summoner would be pretty great to have around.

Alina, however, doesn't want to be the Sun Summoner. She doesn't fit in Grisha culture (it's much like the Jedi Order, where young children are identified and taken from their families and trained in the Jedi Temple and that's the only culture they know for a long time) and it's hard for her to adhere to traditions.  She befriends Genya, a Grisha girl who is a servant of the queen (and when you find out why, you kind of want to punch something), which is truly remarkable to the other Grisha.  And the leader of the Grisha, the Darkling, basically puts himself in Alina's back pocket for reasons that I don't want to spoil because that's part of the FEELS. But really, all Alina wants to do is go back to being Mal's best friend and back to being an ordinary girl.

What makes this story work so well rests within Alina and Mal's relationship - and this is a HUGE reason why I adore this book so much.  From the start, it is established that Alina and Mal are all each other really has in this world. They grew up in the orphanage and they left the orphanage together. Alina's power is discovered when Mal's life is threatened.  In terms of love stories in YA fiction, this is honestly one of the best ones there is anywhere.  It feels real and sincere and like it could happen to anyone.  Even as Alina learns about her powers and finds out a lot of really marvelous things about herself - Mal is always that central touchstone in her life.  And it goes both ways, which is absolutely fantastic. In fact, the only reason that there is any conflict between them at all is because Alina’s powers as the Sun Summoner come out into the open and the Grisha pull them apart because that’s just how things are done with the Grisha.  You don't tell the Grisha "No." You just don't.

That kind of dovetails into my next subject - but I also love how Alina has been thrown into this new culture and she doesn’t feel like she fits in. Not because the people are bad or mean to her, necessarily. But because the Grisha are typically found as very young children and they don’t have time to learn any other way to live. In fact, the Grisha characters - particularly Genya - are so multi-faceted and multidimensional. It could have been easy to write all Grisha as narrow-minded and villainous - but they aren’t. They all have distinct personalities, even if they aren’t “on-screen” (as it were) for very long (my favorite of these minor characters is David - read the book and find out).

I also have to talk about the Darkling. Oh my holy crap, the Darkling. I’m not sure how much I want to spoil, since I want my reviews to encourage people to read these books if they haven’t already... oh, what the hell... it’s kind of obvious if you look hard enough. I love how ambiguous his character is at the beginning, though the hints are there that is is just bad news. And his interactions with Alina are so well-paced and so well-written that you do find yourself wanting them to end up together and you’re almost disgusted with yourself afterward (which makes it easy to sympathize with Alina when what happens happens). If heroes are only as good as their villains - then Alina is shaping up to be an incredible hero.

The world-building in this story is absolutely incredible. It’s more or less based around Russian culture which, between watching the Olympics in Sochi and reading a book I found on NetGalley about the Romanov sisters, has become a bit of an interest for me recently. It’s one of those hidden gems in history that gets overlooked - mostly because so much of Russian history was suppressed until comparatively recently (at least, within the course of my own lifetime - I was six when the Soviet Union fell). Western European culture becomes a template for so many fantasy novels - mostly because that’s kind of a literary touchstone for our own culture and that’s what we know the best. But it’s really cool to see other cultures being mined for ideas for fantastical settings (another excellent example is Avatar: The Last Airbender with its Asian and Inuit influences). And not just being mined for ideas, but being mined well.  In the case of Shadow and Bone, there are points where it's hard to tell where the Russian influence ends and the made-up stuff begins because it's just so seamless within the narrative.  And I appreciate that in the world building.  I like that I can say - "Okay, that part's from Russia, that part's made up, that part... um... I'm not sure..."  Then again, I like to get lost in a book's culture and background, so I like that I can just say "This is all Ravka" and be totally okay with it.

(Also, I can totally pinpoint the moment I realized why the book was called Shadow and Bone. I won't give it away, but I was quite pleased with myself when I figured it out. I'll give a hint: it was the same point I understood the cover art).

In conclusion - Shadow and Bone. Go read it NOW! And then go find the second one, Siege and Storm. And then go preorder Ruin and Rising because the ending promises to be one hell of a finale.  And then go cry because this story is so great we still have a few more months to wait.

Throwback Thursday - Yes Virginia, You Can Have Character Focus in Dystopian Fiction

*Originally posted on cj's bookshelf on June 24, 2011*

Title: The Roar
Author: Emma Clayton
Publisher: The Chicken House
Publication Date: April 1, 2009
Reading Level: Age 12 and up

Synopsis: (from Goodreads) - 
Mika and Ellie live in a future behind a wall: Solid concrete topped with high-voltage razor wire and guarded by a battalion of Ghengis Borgs, it was built to keep out the animals, because animals carry the plague. At least that's what Ellie, who was kidnapped as a child, has always been taught.

But when she comes to suspect the truth behind her captivity, she's ready to risk exposure to the elements and answer the call of the wild. Listen. Can you hear it? She's strapping on her headset, jumpstarting her Pod Fighter, and--with her capuchin monkey at her back--she's breaking out!

My Review: 
I have long since learned not to trust book summaries.  Either they will make a good story sound boring or an awful story sound intriguing.  Such is the case with "The Roar" - I would not have picked this one up had my supervisor not suggested it.

Also - speaking of unreliable summaries - this book is not about Ellie.  It's about her twin brother, Mika, who refuses to believe that Ellie is dead even though his parents, teachers and counselors tell him she is.  But Ellie comes up enough that this is not a deal-breaker for me.

(Suggestion to publishers - WRITE BETTER SUMMARIES!)

The world Emma Clayton has created for her characters is both fascinating and terrifying.  It is a world where everyone has to take what the government says at face value because there simply isn't any other source.  They are told that they must stay behind The Wall surrounding the country because of a devastating Animal Plague that nearly wiped out all of humanity.  The poor people are packed into tiny fold-out apartments and are given glorified mold to eat.  The children are given "Fit Mix," which they are told will give them the necessary nutrition, but it actually turns out to be something more sinister.  Mika's the only one who questions anything this government tells him, to his detriment, but he also succeeds at the beating the government at its own game (and I'm not talking about the arcade game that gets the whole plot in motion).  The moment when Mika discovers the government's BIG SECRET is so satisfying that I didn't care that I had pretty much called it at the start of the book.

This is one book I actually don't want to spoil too much, though it isn't hard to guess where it's going to end up. That doesn't necessarily make it an inferior story.  Far from it, actually.  "The Roar" is a fast-paced, in-the-moment, intriguing and enjoyable read.  The main thing about this was that it was so focused on the characters and how they responded to their situation and didn't focus so much on the situation came to be (which is how dystopian fiction ought to be - I'm lookin' at you "Uglies").

Throwback Thursday: The Bad Things Don't Always Spoil the Good - Review of "The Book Thief"

Throwback Thursday makes a triumphant return after a (unintentional) five-month hiatus! For those who missed it (probably a lot of you), I used to have a blog I used solely for reviewing books. But then I started doing more with this blog and decided to consolidate them both. I didn't want to lose all the work I'd done on cj's bookshelf, so I'm slowly migrating them over here. I started last year, but got distracted and kept forgetting to do it. But it's back for your enjoyment!

**Originally posted on cj's bookshelf on June 17, 2011**

Title: The Book Thief
Author: Markus Zusak
Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers
Publication Date: December 2005
Reading Level: Age 14 and up

Synopsis: (from Goodreads)
It is 1939. Nazi Germany. The country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier, and will become busier still.

Liesel Meminger is a foster girl living outside of Munich, who scratches out a meager existence for herself by stealing when she encounters something she can’t resist–books. With the help of her accordion-playing foster father, she learns to read and shares her stolen books with her neighbors during bombing raids as well as with the Jewish man hidden in her basement.

In superbly crafted writing that burns with intensity, award-winning author Markus Zusak, author of I Am the Messenger, has given us one of the most enduring stories of our time.

My Review:

Oh, "The Book Thief" - you wonderful, wonderful piece of writing you.

This book first came to my attention through the Mark Reads blog.  All I knew was that it was set in Nazi Germany and there was a girl who stole books.  How the two connected, I hadn't the foggiest idea.  But the themes connected in one of the most beautiful ways I have ever seen.

So many of the stories about the Holocaust and World War II and Nazi Germany focus on the horrible things human beings are capable of doing to other human beings and "The Book Thief" is no exception.  But what this book does so magnificently is telling the story of Germans who - surprise! - didn't actually buy into the Nazi propaganda.  In fact, there were plenty of Germans who were just trying to take care of their families and follow the rules and do what they thought was right.

The best thing about this story is Liesel Meminger, the titular book thief who finds joy and solace in the books she "steals" from various places (though one of those places is the mayor's wife's library - and the mayor's wife purposely leaves the door open for Liesel).  She is just a little girl who plays with her friends and gets into mischief - just like any other kid in any other time period, but her experiences are set up against the backdrop of Nazi Germany.  Her childhood is peppered with flashbacks of her foster father's experience in World War I, scenes of Death (the narrator) picking up souls killed in the war and scenes of the people in Liesel's neighborhood taking cover in a basement during bombings.

My favorite chapter is when Max Vandenburg - a Jewish man Liesel's family is hiding - illustrates a story as a gift to Liesel to thank her for her kindness.  I don't want to go into details about Max's story because it is so lovely and wonderful, but the whole chapter was a brilliant depiction of the story as a whole.

This entire story is an exceptional tale of the very worst of humanity sitting right next to the best of humanity.  It takes all the black and white morality in storytelling and sits it on the bench and lets the grays of real people shine through.  Nothing is ever straightforward, as much as we try to make things good and right.  But that doesn't mean you stop trying to live a good and moral life the best way you know how.

Reading Only Ever Gave Me Hope

Title:The World's Strongest Librarian
Author: Josh Hanagarne
Publisher: Gotham Books
Publication Date: May 2013

Synopsis (from Goodreads):
Josh Hanagarne couldn't be invisible if he tried. Although he wouldn't officially be diagnosed with Tourette Syndrome until his freshman year of high school, Josh was six years old and onstage in a school Thanksgiving play when he first began exhibiting symptoms. By the time he was twenty, the young Mormon had reached his towering adult height of 6'7" when — while serving on a mission for the Church of Latter Day Saints — his Tourette's tics escalated to nightmarish levels.

Determined to conquer his affliction, Josh underwent everything from quack remedies to lethargy-inducing drug regimes to Botox injections that paralyzed his vocal cords and left him voiceless for three years. Undeterred, Josh persevered to marry and earn a degree in Library Science. At last, an eccentric, autistic strongman — and former Air Force Tech Sergeant and guard at an Iraqi prison — taught Josh how to "throttle" his tics into submission through strength-training.

Today, Josh is a librarian in the main branch of Salt Lake City's public library and founder of a popular blog about books and weight lifting—and the proud father of four-year-old Max, who has already started to show his own symptoms of Tourette's.

The World's Strongest Librarian illuminates the mysteries of this little-understood disorder, as well as the very different worlds of strongman training and modern libraries. With humor and candor, this unlikely hero traces his journey to overcome his disability — and navigate his wavering Mormon faith — to find love and create a life worth living.

My Review:
I've talked before about Salt Lake County Library's Reader's Choice program - how twice a year the system sets out twenty (or so) books from varying genres that they think will be worth their patrons' time and asks people to read and vote on which of the batch are the best (each library branch does fun things like drawings or games to encourage people to read these books - some patrons are even ambitious enough to read them all).  The last couple of groups of Reader's Choice books have been a little... well... lacking. As least, as far as I'm concerned. I'm certain that someone else found something they liked.

Anyway - I'd heard about The World's Strongest Librarian from an article in the paper last year highlighting Josh Hanagarne when the book was released. I thought it was neat that a guy from Salt Lake City was getting a book published and he worked for the Salt Lake City Library, but I didn't think too much of it at the time.  But then the book came up on Reader's Choice and I decided to give it a shot.

First off - I'm not a non-fiction type of gal. Memoirs especially kind of mess me up emotionally. It's either too sad that I can't finish or it's too happy that it makes me feel bad about my own failings and misfortunes (and then I feel bad for feeling bad because there are starving children in Africa and how dare I think I have it so rough!) I'd rather stick to my world of made-up stories and let the real world get on with the business of continually screwing things up. But this book... actually made me feel like maybe there are other people who have similar doubts about the future.

It helped that Josh's background was a lot like mine - living in small close-knit communities in Utah and Nevada, being the freakishly tall bookworm that's mildly skilled in sports (Josh got better at athletic pursuits - let's be fair here), growing up in the LDS (Mormon) faith. But that's about where the similarities ended. Because I have absolutely no idea what it's like to deal with Tourette's Syndrome. Oh, I've heard people talk about it and I've glanced at articles by medical professionals - but it's never touched my life at all. But reading about Josh's experiences and just how real he made it (especially writing for an audience who may or may not understand) helped put things into perspective.  I also loved the humor he displayed - almost made it feel like I was listening to a dear friend talk about his life (even though I've never met Josh - though I know people who have).

I think this is probably the most candid and real memoir I've ever read.  He doesn't gloss over the really tough stuff - but he also gives so much credit to others where some memoirs probably would make it sound terrible.  I especially loved how he talked about his parents - how they weren't sure how to help their son with Tourettes when they first thought there might have been a problem, but over time they turned to experts (and some not-so-experts) and worked hard to help Josh wherever they could.

Another thing I want to mention is how Josh talks about his faith. Like I said earlier, I'm Mormon and I've grown up in the church and I'm still active in my faith.  Sometimes when Mormons write memoirs meant for a secular crowd, they either go too far into "over-sharing" things that are meant to be sacred or they treat their faith like it's something to be ashamed of or even apologize for it.  But here, Josh actually struck a perfect balance between the two - he treats sacred things with the respect they deserve, while also not being afraid to poke fun at some of the LDS culture's more, shall we say, unique characteristics (being a single LDS female, I particularly appreciated his description of the LDS dating scene. Nothing ever changes).  It was refreshing to see that balance in a book like this (also - his description of the Missionary Training Center and the life of an LDS missionary is bang-on).

Ugh - I feel like I'm not really giving this book a good enough review. Can I just say that I read it in a four-and-a-half hour sitting? (minus the couple of times I got up to switch out the laundry) It was a compelling, interesting, enlightening book and it made me think about some things in my own life and my own challenges. I mean, I'm probably not going to run out and start lifting weights (I have zero upper body strength and I have since I was a kid in gymnastics class) - but I can certainly understand the act of looking for ways to overcome adversity and the acknowledgement in the end that the battle is never really over and moments of clarity come when you least expect them and leave just as quickly as they came.  I really want people to read this book - either just because you enjoy memoirs or because you need a realistic-yet-positive look at what this life is like and that things will be okay in the end. In the end, this book left me feeling positive and hopeful. I can't ask much more of a book, now can I?

In short: Run, don't walk, to your nearest library or bookstore and get this book. You won't be sorry.