Booked

    Just so I set the right expectations, remember that this is not a review of the Ranger's Apprentice series and its companion series, The Brotherband Chronicles. There is already an excellent review of by Grace To on Book Bloggers in the Chat; read that if you're looking for quality content. Rather, this post is a look at the bizarre worldbuilding lurking below the surface of Ranger's Apprentice, from the point of view of someone who picks apart poor worldbuilding for fun. Part 1: The bad      Throughout books three through seven, the worldbuilding is what most would consider low-effort, distilled, subpar, culture-appropriating garbage. Essentially, each nation is composed of the most basic stereotypes of a given ethnic group. Flanagan doesn't even try to hide this. Skandia? Hey, that sounds kind of like Scandinavia, which makes sense. Skandia is basically all viking myths compressed into a small, icy package. All Skandian men are massive, musclebound bootle...

 Before anything else, I want to say that this book is not light at all. It depicts gruesome and graphic scenes, and it is very dark. I will also talk about some scenes in the book including the ending, so a spoiler warning should be said too. All Quiet on the Western Front follows Paul Bäumer, a German soldier who enlisted in World War One at 20 years old, and his group. The novel was published in 1929 and written by Erich Maria Remarque, who served in the war himself. It features strong themes of how the war has destroyed each one of the soldiers. The novel is not perfectly written, which I would not expect of a translated book from 90 years ago. However, it amazes me how it can be so descriptive. There are paragraphs where it only talks about the details of a forest going by while on a train.  The main characters are not heroes. They don't even think of themselves as heroes; they only fight for their lives. One of the strongest scenes in the whole book points this out. I w...

    It's 1934 the dust bowl and Billie Jo is just trying to survive. Out of the dust is an award winning lyrical novel that tells the tale of 14 year old Billie Joe. Billie Jo is from Oklahoma during the dust bowl years throughout this sorrowful story Billie Jo must learn to navigate through her life even though everything she loves has slowly been ripped out of her life one by one.     Billie Jo's life was as normal as it could get when you're a 14 year old girl living in the dust bowl. Billie Jo shared a passion for playing the piano with her mother; and she loved her daddy like there was no tomorrow. But within the blink of an eye Billie Joe's seemingly normal life goes up in flames. Her mother is gone and the one thing she shared with her is nothing but a painful memory. Billie Jo's father is nothing but a shell of the man he once was, a living memory of the past. Billie Jo must learn to live with the physical and mental pain she has been subj...

The Dark is Rising series by Susan Cooper is about the battle between good and evil, The Light and The Dark. There are 5 books in this series, and I am in the middle of the fourth. I am going to tell you about the first three, and what I think of them. If you read the title, you already know I think they are very cool and good, but just keep reading anyway. Book one: Over Sea, Under Stone Over Sea, Under Stone follows the adventure of three siblings named Simon, Jane, and Barney. They take a trip to a small town in Cornwall and while exploring the house they are staying, they find an ancient map that leads to a grail, and this map attracts the attention of The Dark. They and their great-uncle Merriman follow the trail of the map all while evading the forces of The Dark. Book two: The Dark is Rising The Dark is Rising  introduces a new character named Will Stanton. On his eleventh birthday, his whole life turns upside down and he becomes a member of The Light. Will is an Old On...

Intentional spoilers      This is going to contain tepid spoilers for Bram Stoker's classic Dracula and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde , by Robert Louis Stevenson. Social osmosis has almost certainly already spoiled the important bits, so you can still enjoy the books after reading this. Unintentional spoilers      Dracula is a vampire. We all know this. And this kinda takes the air out of what makes Dracula  so good. See, the first half of Dracula  leaves the reader in the dark on who Dracula is; as far as we know, he's just a strange Transylvanian old man looking to buy some premium land in England (exciting). The characters slowly piece this together, and this is an integral part of the suspense. But we get none of this. We know that Dracula is a vampire. We know that vampires suck blood, and as such, when we learn of the two puncture marks on Lucy's neck, we automatically piece together that Dracula is getting up to something...