Book 17: A Discovery of Witches

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Book Summary:
Diana Bishop is an alchemical history professor doing research while at Oxford University. When she requests a manuscript called Ashmole 782 at the Bodleian Library, she believes it to be an ordinary book, that is, until she gets her hands on it. Even though she has tried to keep all magic out of her life, she can tell that this ancient text is bound with it. Insisting that she wants nothing to do with her magic, she makes a few notes and then sends the book back. What she doesn't realize, however, is that this text has been lost for centuries, and the magical community will do anything to get thier hands on it. Soon after, witches, daemons, and vampires begin appearing at the Bodleian. One in particular is Matthew Clairmont, a distinguished scientist who also happens to be a vampire. Once Matthew enters Diana's life, she finds that nothing will ever be the same.

My Review:
If Harry Potter and Twilight were to have a baby, I'm pretty sure it would be this book. That being said, Deborah Harkness is a better writer than Stephanie Meyer, so this was a halfway decent book. I really enjoyed the fact that because Harkness is a history professor by trade, she somehow manages to make a novel that is one part historical fiction and one part modern fantasy. I have very mixed feeling about this book, however, because for some reason I really enjoyed reading it even though so much of it bugged me. Maybe Deborah Harkness put a spell on the book because that is pretty much the only explanation I can come up with.

Though I enjoyed the overall concept of a witch who wants nothing to do with witchcraft who gets violently thrown into that world, I felt that by the end the subplot romance becomes the total driving force for the story. This is fine if you're writing a romance, but I wasn't really wanting to read a romance when I picked up A Discovery of Witches. Also, I feel that though Harkness starts out writing a strong female character who can fully take care of herself, the second Matthew steps into the picture Diana becomes a major damsel in distress. On top of that, Matthew is basically a douche throughout ninety percent of the story, and Diana, after only a couple weeks of knowing him, is completely willing to choose him over her family at every instant. Matthew definitely falls into the stereotypical vampire role of obsession with a woman that turns into the need to posses her fully as if he owns her.  Honestly, I think in general I have issues with vampire romances because they make absolutely no sense unless ultimately the girl is going to become a vampire. If that is not the intention, there is going to come a point where you will look forty years older than your vampire husband. Do characters not take that into account before deciding they want to marry the living dead? On a completely different note, there were definitely some really cheesy lines that I literally laughed out loud at. I also wasn't to keen on the whole genetics side to the story where magical creatures have extra chromosomes, and you can tell what powers a which has based on her DNA. Even in a story about magical beings, this was a little too much of a stretch for me.

All of that being said, I flew through this book and really did enjoy the overall experience of it. Harkness made me care about the characters, and so I fully plan on reading the rest of the series. Maybe this makes me as bad as the twihards or maybe I've just been reading so many books recently that I'm not paying as much attention to writing as I am to the overall story or maybe ever since I first watched Buffy I've just really wanted to fall in love with a vampire, of this I am not sure. Whatever the reason, I definitely want to know what becomes of Diana and Matthew.

As far as family friendliness goes, this is definitely not a book for young teens. There is a decent amount cursing and some semi-graphic scenes both sexual ones and violent ones. I definitely would not let my young teen pick up this book.

My Rating: 5/10

Book 14: Midnighters - Blue Noon

I'm still trying to catch up on my reading, so for book 14 I picked the easy read of the final book in the Midnighters series by Scott Westerfeld titled Blue Noon.

 

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*Spoiler Alert: This is book three is a series, so if you don't want books one and two to be spoiled please stop reading*

To read my reviews of the previous books go here for book one and here for book two.

Book Summary:
Blue Noon continues the story of our midnighters - Jess, Jonathan, Dess, Rex, and Melissa - as they make a new discovery about the midnight hour that threatens to destroy everything. Blue time is now hitting randomly throughout the day, and they scramble to figure out why it's happening. They soon find that the walls between midnight and real time are crumbling, and if they don't find a way stop it, the darklings will finally be free to become the predators they once were. The only thing they know for sure, is that the flame bringer is the key to saving everyone.

Book Review:
I really don't want to spoil too much about this book, but let me just say that I hated the ending. I completely understand why Westerfeld wrote it the way he did, but it wasn't a plot twist I enjoyed at all. Now, normally when I read books I go to the end first to make sure I like the ending, and then I go back and read the book from start to finish. I've always said that the reason I do this is because a bad ending ruins the entire book experience for me, so if I don't like the ending, I won't read the book. Well, I promised myself that I wouldn't do that with this book challenge. I decided I would read all fifty-two books like a normal person. Let me tell you, though, had I read this ending first, I wouldn't have bothered with the series. Now, please don't take that as you shouldn't read this series. I did like the series, and if you aren't someone who gets super disappointed by twist endings, you will probably be fine. I just don't fall into that category.

Now that I've gotten my largest disappointment out of the way let's move on to the things I liked. The plot of this book was really engaging, and I found that I enjoyed it more than the previous two novels. I loved the idea of regular people getting pulled into the midnight hour because it's like when Jessica first discovered the blue time only on a much grander scale. I also really liked that the author used Jessica's sister Beth more in this storyline. I think one of my favorite things, though, was the midnighters learning that there is another side to their history, one that tells of mindcasters bending people's wills to match their own and wiping the minds of anyone who dared not submit to their authority. Before the previous generation was destroyed, midnighters ran the town of Bixby, and they stayed in power because they could control the minds of the regular people who lived there. I liked when Melissa realized that she wasn't the first crazy mindcaster, she was, in fact, the first sane one because she believed that their was a major problem controlling people the way the old mindcasters did.

Obviously the ending was the thing I liked least about this book, but there were a couple other things I didn't really enjoy. I realize that Rex being part human-part darkling was a major plot point for the series and without him they wouldn't have been able to stop the rip, but I really didn't like it. I thought Rex getting all creepy and saying that people smelled like prey was just a little too much for me.  Also, there were parts of the story that were a little slow, and I ended up skimming through chunks of the book because it was kind of boring.

Overall, I did enjoy this book until the last two chapters. As far as language goes, I don't think it's quite as much as book two, but there are definitely some curse words (but no f bombs), and there are still some sexual references, though as with the second book they don't ever come out to say that's what they're talking about. 

On the series in general, I failed to mention that some of the stuff they talk about is a little dated. They still use VCR's and cassette players throughout the series. While this obviously doesn't take away from the series, young ones who weren't very old when those things were phased out may be slightly confused by Melissa using a walkman.

My Rating: 5/10 - (the series as a whole I would give a 6/10)