Rae CarsonRecensioni
Autore di Il fuoco e la rosa
Recensioni
Paige wakes up from being sick, discovers she's been in a coma for several days... and that she might be the last person left alive. Her entire family, neighbors, and seemingly everyone has died from a terrible illness that she has survived. With the company of her neighbor's [adorable] sheltie dog, Paige ventures out on her own to see if anything is left of humanity.
First of all, I think this is the first piece of media (aside from music), I've consumed that acknowledges the COVID 19 pandemic, and doesn't pretend we live in some alternate world where EVERYTHING IS FINE.
Since the death of her husband, the king, Elisa is now fully responsible for the kingdom. Which brings me to another favorite point of this series: the politics. I didn't realize it much before reading this series, but I kind of live for complicated politics in fantasy worlds. (I mean I should've realized this after reading Game of Thrones but whatevs.)
Anyways, Elisa has to deal with the complicated politics of being a monarch. Some of the decisions she has to make are really difficult ones, but she must appear strong to her people, with assassination attempts and plots against her lurking around every corner. I liked the fact that things didn't always work out perfectly, which I think is a flaw with a lot of YA heroines.
Going back to the characters, all of them are becoming so precious to me!! I love the bond of friendship that grows between Elisa and her allies. I love how much more we learn about characters that were more secondary in book one. Plus... the romance. It's such a good, slow burn. ;)
Long story short, even though this isn't a groundbreaking fantasy world, there is so much meat to this story in other ways, that I think it's 100% worth the read.
I don't know how I genuinely feel about this. . .
Rae was improved from the previous novels but only a few hairs. She was still an irritating character.
"Even though, like Rey, Leia was descended from unspeakable evil."It depends on how one sees it, Anakin wasn't evil. He was corrupted. . . So, I do not agree with you, Rey.
Ben redeemed himself completely, so it is safe to say the sequel trilogy was his story from the beginning, and having Rey as a character wouldn't have changed it.
The battles were enjoyable. Nothing else was really memorable to mention. Character growth was achieved, but I loved the tension between Ben and Rey.
The Skywalker dynasty came to an end.
Palpatine as a clone? Wow, really? How unoriginal. . . When did he clone himself? In the clone wars? Or did he keep some of the technology of the Kaminos to clone himself later? Nothing explained or given more context of.
Palpatine was the smartest man in the galaxy . . . He would have let his clone die on the Second Death Star. (Just saying.)
Thank you, Ben Solo, for redeeming your family name.
It's interesting that the sequel trilogy took a concept from the legend Canon and changed it into this sorry excuse of a trilogy.
I am sad about the six previous movie novelizations falling under Legend Canon, and these expanded novels as Canon.
Movie novelizations based on enjoyment:
Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith.
Episode 5: The Epmpire Strikes Back.
Episode 2: Attack of the Clones.
Episode 6: The Return of the Jedi.
Episode 1: The Phantom Menance.
Episode 9: The Rise of Skywalker.
Episode 4: A New Hope.
Episode 8: The Last Jedi.
Episode 7: The Froce Awakens.
Now, I can broaden my universe. Hopefully, there are better novels in the Expanded Universe, which includes the new Canon novels.
It's been years since I read the first three books in the Fire & Thorns series, and I was concerned that I would have forgotten too much about the previous books, but this book stands on its own fairly well. Carson's writing is strong, and as with the previous books, she doesn't pull her punches. In reading about Red's experiences as the only female Guard recruit, I couldn't help think of Tamora Peirce's Song of the Lioness and Protector of the Small quartets, so if you enjoyed those stories, you might like this one. I'd recommend reading the whole series, just because they are so good, but this book could be read as a stand-alone.
Most of the faith-based fantasy that I've read has been a thinly disguised way to deliver a 'god-is-good-and-wants-you-to-do-the-right-thing' message. This was more a story about self-discovery and growth. And Thank You Rae Carson for a unique heroine--at the end of the book, I still wasn't sure if she is plain, beautiful or striking--because that had NOTHING to do with the story--nice touch.
I eagerly look forward to the next book in the series.
Before we begin, I feel the need to say that I got sick right as I finished this book, so it's been several days since I completed it and my memory ain't that great. For that, I'm sorry, but I'll do my best to categorize what I thought about this book. I'm still recovering so my brain is wonky and I'm forcing myself to write this before I lose more of my memory of this book so forgive me if I don't make sense. I won this book in a giveaway.
After finishing chapter one, I was really intrigued by what was happening. The copy I got also says it's an unread proof, but there was very few mistakes throughout this book which was honestly surprising to me since my own proofs are FULL of mistakes. Big points for that aspect. I really love the cover and I felt curious to see what was going to happen.
This started as the flu and then wiped out most of the population in six days. Hmm, it's beginning to look a lot like covid~
{When I was younger, the coronavirus seemed to last forever.}
Oh... I guess it ISN'T a covid story then, for fuck's sake lmao One thing that threw me off a lot was the mention of the monstrosity. When the explosion started, she grabbed the 'monstrosity' and darted from the house but I could NOT figure out what the fuck it was until many chapters later.
{"That dish is called the Monstrosity, and it's coming with us. Nonnegotiable."}
I'm honestly not even sure if she mentioned the name - it's the bowl she made by the way - and I honestly couldn't be bothered to go back and check to see if she did mention it. I just know that it left me scratching my head a few times until I finally realized it was the damn bowl.
{I open the back of the car, lift the cargo mat, and hit pay dirt. Not a crowbar, but a tire iron will do just fine.}
This is another thing that really fucking confused me. When she said 'pay dirt' I imagine that with a negative connotation. I have NEVER heard this phrase used in my twenty-eight years of life and every time I read it, I figured she didn't find what she was looking for only to find out it's a positive thing meaning she DID find what she was looking for.
Now, most of the time when I get books, especially giveaway books, I don't read the synopsis which is how this book went for me. I didn't realize it was Sci-Fi, which is one of my least favorite genres. I'm not big on space or aliens at all. I'm not a non-believer per se but it just feels very... farfetched, I guess? And not the pokemon. Like, why the fuck would some other planet ever give enough fucks to come and visit US? Humans are terrible. And who's to say that they are any more advanced than we are? They were probably popped into existence at the same time we were. I don't know, man, it's just not a topic that excites me and it's kinda blah to me. At the time that I wrote this comment, I did not know if it WAS aliens, but if that weird glowy guy in the hospital was anything to go by, I was pretty sure that's where it was heading. I won't lie - when I read the description of this thing and Trey's insistence that it was aliens, my enthusiasm for this book dropped quite a bit, but that may be my fault for not reading the synopsis to know what I was getting myself into.
{"I've personally always thought the world would be better off without humans," Tanq says. "Maybe it's time to give another species a turn at the top."}
We found it, bois, the best line in this book. If you know anything about me, you know that I do not like human beings as a whole and I've thought this many times in the past. Maybe that makes me an asshole, but I've seen the cruelty of human beings just for the fun of it. Humanity is trash and they've honestly gone unchecked for way too long, running free to rob, murder, and rape to their heart's content. Ridiculous. But that's a whole 'nother can of worms.
The March 26th chapter is so goddamn long and goes on for AGES. Every single page, I would tell myself that I would finish the chapter and then go inside, but it continued to go on and on and on and finally, I just said feck it. I understand that the chapters are formatted like diary entries, so if a lot happens in one day, that chapter is gonna be super long, but my fucking god do I hate that format. For me, I'm not fond of taking a break in the middle of a chapter and usually force myself to finish the chapter before taking a break, so when you have a chapter that goes on for 20+ pages, it really fucking sucks. I don't actually know how many pages there were in that chapter and I don't have the energy to check, but it certainly feels like it was 20+ pages.
{"Shawntelle made me swear off of Black guys."
"What? Why?"
"She said that white women fetishize Black guys. That it's a form of racism. And she was my best friend, so... I listened."
"She sounds like an amazing person."}
No, she sounds fucking terrible. I don't know what has me more shocked here, the fact that Shawntelle made her promise that shit or the fact that Paige actually fucking agreed to it. You're deadass gonna sit there and tell me that falling in love with someone of a different skin color is fetishizing them and it's racism... No, fam. You say that is fucking racist. Love does not see color, bro. If Paige happens to fall in love with a black dude, she's racist if she tries to date him?? I honestly can't tell if this author is trying to appeal to the 'woke' community that has cropped up in recent years or if she just genuinely felt like the character needed that personality but my fucking god, bro.
And then they fucking PRAISE her for it. Like yeah, she's dead and you shouldn't speak ill of the dead, but "she sounds like an amazing person"? No, she sounds like a goddamn dumbass.
Don't get me wrong here. There's over 7 billion fucking people in this world so I'm sure there ARE people who fetishize black people (and asians and mexicans and every fucking body else assuming you're not switching preference with fetish which are two very different things), but to look at your BEST FRIEND and say that they can't date an entire fucking race because it's a fetish if she's white... what the actual fuck, man. Like, this is blowing my mind right now. For you to sit there and pretty much say "I don't give a fuck if you fall in love with someone, if they are black and you're white, you're a racist" I... is that not racism in its self??
You're putting the color of someone's skin above all else which does not matter. It's nice to know who are you and to respect your heritage and culture, but at some point you have to stop looking at skin color as a factor to fucking divide people and put them into boxes to fit your own fucking narrative. Like, I know I'm saying more on this topic than I should be but goddamn if this ain't the stupidest shit I've ever read in any book. Just imagine that you fall in love with someone. They are your soulmate and you want to spend the rest of your life with them, but then you got to your BEST FRIEND to share the news and they call you a racist and say that you're fetishizing that person JUST BECAUSE THEY ARE BLACK AND YOU ARE WHITE.
I literally could not continue reading after this. I had to stop and put it down for a while before continuing and, honestly, I wasn't sure I WANTED to continue reading this, but I forced myself to finish it. And when I say force, I mean it. I did not like this book and I think maybe three stars is even too generous, but I'm a bit biased against Sci-Fi and it was my fault for not preparing for that which I think earns it another star.
Overall, I didn't feel any attachment to these characters. They felt paper-thin and didn't seem to have any life to them. I had no emotional response to this book aside from annoyance. It wasn't thrilling to me and, honestly, I wasn't really rooting for them to succeed in the end because I just didn't care about them at all.
The ONLY good character in this book was Emmaline and I don't even fucking like dogs. But, unlike most media featuring pets, she survives. Though I think it would be a lot better if ONLY the dog survived, but you know. Gotta give her props for not killing off the dog, at least.
Author's note at the end namechecked Polly Bemis as influence for Mary- as Polly settled in my home state, I can kind of see it? I guess? I am grateful for her presence (and really, also acknowledging the fact that fantasy historical fiction ought to include people of color because we were around in those days).
So yes of course I was excited for this book. A revisit to characters of my heart? A broadening of a world I adore? Sign me up!
What I didn't expect was a novel that while its a wonderful sequel to Elisa's adventures is almost perfect on its own.
I won't deny that having some knowledge of the world didn't help me, nor that knowing some of the characters already didn't give me an idea of what to expect at times. Here's the thing - this is not Elisa's story. Nor Mara's or Hector's. This is squarely Red's with back up from Rosario.
This is also not a "new generation same story" situation. Red's troubles, trials and tribulations are uniquely her own. Unlike Elisa who made and found friends fairly easily, Red is despised just by being in the same room. She's not sweet tempered or patient; she's rocky and brash, having to learn how to accept help from others.
There's a mystery brewing throughout that is well sewn. Carson has always excelled at weaving necessary plot information in a genuine way. The "Then" chapters, detailing Red's life up to that fateful meeting with Elisa give us a good guide as to why she's acting as she does. Carson offers a short explanation about PTSD in her author's note as well.
They did detract from the onward motion of the plot at times. Red relays some of her history in the story itself (as context) so occassionally it felt repetitive to have read it twice.
All in all I'd love to see more of Red as she continued her journey, but I'm just happy to have this one.
This also serves as a way to establish the reason for a lot of Mara's early antagonism as well as the bond she shared with many of the children shown throughout the first two books. In a matter of less than a hundred pages we see Mara go from a dreamer who saw freedom only in how far she could run to a leader, keeping a dozen or so children grounded and brave against impossible odds.
I wouldn't say that Mara is hard or grim; she has moments of such, but who wouldn't under such odds? She is trying to keep frightened, starving, injured and grieving children alive while avoiding the Invierno who are everywhere. She makes a lot of decisions that are hard and doesn't have a lot of time for coddling. Survival is on the line and discomfort now could save their lives.
I already liked Mara from the books, so this was just icing. This served to illustrate why she is such a good fit with Elisa. I do think this was a story you could only fully appreciate if you had read the books first. The details we learned throughout those books are fully explored here and thus all the more appreciated.
It would honestly be hard for me to categorize this as a 'young adult'. If this had been written in the 90's then it may very well have been shelved with the mainstream fantasy books despite the narrator, Elisa's, age of 16. Carson questions the nature of love (familial, first love and enduring love), religion (faith, doubt, belief) and duty (to one's self, to one's country) without holding anything back. Elisa learns some very hard lessons in a relatively short amount of time and realizes some hard truths.
Elisa, in short, is my hero. Not because she saves the day. Not because she's clever and quick-witted and brave. Not just because of those things at least. Elisa is my hero, and would have been my role model for life as a teen, because she doesn't judge herself. She doubts why she was Chosen. She looks back at the way she was in her home kingdom with horror, but she doesn't ever say 'I'm a useless person'. Whenever she uses the words 'useless' and 'fat' she is repeating what others have said behind her back (or in at least one case, to her face).
She is self-conscious, she envies other women for their slim forms or graceful bearing, but she doesn't deride herself for not being that way. She is strong, just as many of the characters say she is, but she shows that strength in subtle ways. Standing up and remaining firm with the young Prince, keeping her calm when faced with a duplicitous lady of the court, keeping her wits when confronted with a terrifying enemy. Elisa's development is spurned onwards at first by her need to be useful to her husband, but it doesn't take her long to realize that she should change to be better for herself.
I admit I didn't like her husband, I didn't trust him or his motivations. I didn't think he was a bad man, but the way he was using Elisa just made me frown. I felt bad for Elisa though, wanted more for her, but at the same time I wanted to scream that not everything has to be about him.
Carson gives us quite a cast of characters to be entertained by. I was quite fond of some of them, though I suppose I didn't quite trust any of them? Even her old Nurse, who obviously wants to protect Elisa from everything and everyone, made me wary. Elisa was the pawn in a very powerful game, several powerful games in fact, and until she realizes her own power it was disheartening how easily she was manipulated or misled. How eager she was to believe certain fallacies because she was so desperately lonely and unfulfilled.
There are several times when Carson tempers the cleverness that Elisa shows with hard truths. Consequences for her decisions and actions, especially as we grew closer to the end, proved themselves to Elisa and I applauded her for being able to...move past them and regroup quickly. Even before she came into herself Elisa didn't just wallow, not when there was something else she could be doing. She had her moments, but then she was is still young, thrust into a terrible War that no one cared to explain to her.
While the ending lends itself well to being self-contained, there are two more books and the acknowledgement that more adventures await Elisa in the closing. An important plot focal point remains unanswered and to be truthful I want to see what the new Elisa can do with her strength and new found purpose.
The problem many are probably having is that the entire book just follows the MC on an arduous journey to California following the gold rush. There is no real plot of any kind beyond this.
So if you are neither grabbed by the wild-west setting nor manage to build a strong connection to the cast you are not going to have a good time with this story.
Luckily the characters, as well as the book in general, are very well written so it is pretty easy to find something to connect to.
But I can see disagreement with the actions of the MC or inaccuracies in the settings breaking the immersion quickly for some.
My biggest problem was that the MC never even seemed to consider any kind of revenge. She had plenty of opportunities and options available to her.
Yes, she is young but she is clearly not pampered and familiar with the hard realities of life, so her conveniently selective nativity never really sat right with me. It was just too convenient and even necessary for the inciting incident to work which is the weakest part of the story in my opinion.
(Spoiler for the opening of the story) She always treats the antagonist more like his worst deed was
Considering that the story at its core is only a basic "travel from a to b" story the pacing is well done but there is only so much tension you can squeeze out of this kind of story so the pacing feels rather ponderous in some sections and might be considered boring by some.
I wasn't precisely disappointed by the completely open end of this book but I am a bit doubtful that I will enjoy a more complex setting as it was set up for the next book.
It seems like this first book has set itself up to be followed by all the worst clichées.
I am not really a fan of this shallow version of the cheesy
All in all, despite not regretting reading this I feel a bit exhausted and have little motivation to pick up the second one not only for the reasons I mentioned but I struggle to put the others into words.
OK, to add one more comment: I liked having a heroine who was larger, and the body positivity that went with it. Of course, she lost a ton of weight while being kidnapped and was thrilled with her smaller body...Rae Carson is not exactly svelte herself and this all felt like a very unhealthy weight fantasy situation.
This is a great companion to the movie - Carson does a terrific job filling in the story from the movie, and building the inner story of the characters. Thompson's performance is again excellent, vocally creating the entire cast of characters. You KNOW these voices - he really brings Carson's novel to life. Paired with the visual images from the movie, this creates an amazing extended experience of this crowning episode of the Skywalker saga.
Any Sign of Life is a more sci-fi-oriented book to me. A lot of it sounded like I was trying to listen to a Star Trek movie. A lot of alien invasions and weird names for certain monsters like “Orkins” and “Farmers” were said which were confusing to me. The whole world was taken over by these aliens and supposedly they saw Earth as a better place for them to live so they began to change the atmosphere. Their home atmosphere was methane so when they secreted it, that’s what caused the apocalypse.
The book started off with the main protagonist, Paige Miller, waking up from a 6-day coma to find her family dead and rotting in their bedrooms. She gets up to look for any other signs of life besides herself. She’s only able to find her neighbor's dog, Emmaline, in her dead neighbor’s house. She eventually finds two more people named Trey and Tanq. Together, they talk about a radio broadcast telling them to go to a certain town because there are more signs of life. As the story progresses, they come across other people named Manny and Wyatt and learn why everything is happening. They all create a plan to take down this invasion and restart the world themselves. They come across many risks and even lost one of their people.
The theme of this novel is to work together using each person's individual abilities to achieve success. Without this, they wouldn’t have been able to take down the alien's barge. Manny saved everyone’s lives by protecting everyone from an alien who broke into the shelter and spared his life for theirs. Paige couldn’t be detected because she didn’t have the vaccine so she sent a boat into the barge in the water. The aliens were distracted by Wyatt, Tanq, and Trey because they could all be detected since they had the vaccine so they drove jet skis around the barge. They successfully took it down and got rid of the aliens causing them to end the story by talking about repopulating civilization.
Don't get me wrong, it’s not a terrible book. A lot of the parts were really interesting to read, but other parts were really wordy and boring to me. The middle of the book was mostly about the characters talking about going to college which doesn’t matter anymore because everyone else is dead. They also talk about past lives which is nice to get a feel for but some parts seemed repetitive. I personally do not recommend this novel because I am not a big fan of alien apocalypse books, but the beginning and ending were both very detailed and fun to read, so if you like apocalyptic stories then you would enjoy this book.
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I borrowed this e-book because I was hit by a BB for The Girl of Fire and Thorns but I had to wait in line for it whereas this was ready to borrow straight away; I read it quickly last night because it was due to expire and I couldn't renew it but, fortunately, it has only 78 pages (on my tablet). It seems to be set in (a parallel) South America with jungles, deserts and jaguars.
Crown Princess Juana-Alodia de Riqueza of Orovalle has decided to journey to the edge of the kingdom to show support for the wedding of the Conde who holds an important fortress there and shore up Orovalle's defences, with war threatening. She is also accompanied by her 15 year old sister, Lucero-Elisa, who seems to be the heroine of the main series, whom Alodia loves but feels is politically inept. However, when they get there after a less than comfortable journey, no one seems happy to see them. Though it is late spring and the weather has been very good, there are no crops in the fields. And a shadow cat has been heard screaming in the nights, which is enough to make the bride's superstitious father think of calling off this politically important union. When the bride's beloved niece disappears, with signs that the jaguar has taken her, Alodia decides to take action herself and win the people of Khelia's loyalty for Orovalle.
This is narrated in the first person in the present tense which, personally, I find awkward. The short length of this novella does mean that some details are skimped on; for example I thought the fight scene was too quick for me to be invested in. Other than that, I thought it was well written (though the title isn't entirely apt). And I did manage to borrow The Girl of Fire and Thorns so I will be reading that too, soon.
(May 2024)
3.5 stars½