review for Pendragon: The Merchant of Death

So I seem to have a lot of friends who read these books.

Well, okay...three.

Still, it seems like a lot when it's their absolute favorite books apparently, and they talk about them ALL THE TIME.

Naturally enough, I thought that I should probably give the series a try. Book one, here I went. And went. And went...and went. It took me a really, really long time to read, to begin with. Which is not always necessarily a bad thing; I have been reading this one other book for about five months now. And it's good; it's great. It's just taking me a long time.

(And please don't think that this is because I am an extraordinarily slow reader. I'm not. I can read relatively quickly. The more times I read a book, the quicker it goes--usually.)

But back to Pendragon.

To begin with, I didn't like the concept. I feel like young-person-is-called-to-save-the-universe is overdone to the extreme, and usually will decide to NOT read a book based on this factor alone. But I thought, "Okay, there has to be something cool about it. I mean, my friends like it, right?"

I'm going to divide the rest of my review into two parts: Liked and Didn't Like.

Liked

- Osa. She was great. I mean, she was SUPPOSED to be great, but she still was great.

- Loor, whom throughout the whole book I preferred to Bobby.

- Mark. Even though he was the stereotypical kind, thoughtful, gentle geek boy for most of it, he kicked just enough butt to make me like him.

- The format of journal/people-reading-the-journal/journal again. It was pretty cool and fun to keep up with both worlds.

- Pacing. Mr. MacHale did a good job of keeping things moving and interesting, and I appreciate that SO SO SO much.

Didn't Like

- The two girls who survived the whole book were instinctual, primal characters who had to have boys tell them how to think things through *glowers* One character who this happened to would be fine. Or if it was occasionally a girl who could correct a boy too. But at least two times, in COMPLETELY PARALLEL SITUATIONS, the girl blindly followed her instincts and the boy corrected her. I'm sorry, it ticked me off.

- Rampant! Use! Of! Exclamation! Points! Good grief, this book had a lot, keeping in mind that I'm generally in favor of the whole "less is more" thing when it comes to these excitable points of punctuation. I think I counted something like eight on a single page, and these are not big pages we're talking about here (!). So, Mr. MacHale? Get someone who's just chillin' to read your ms sometime. But that's just me being picky, so let's move on to something bigger. Much bigger.

- Saint Dane. Arguably the character with the most fallen flat potential. Saint Dane could have been a hero turned bad, he could have been a slightly sympathetic character, he could have been surprising--and oh wait--he could have actually had a REASON for trying to bring chaos upon all the territories.

I guess all this doesn't sound really positive, does it? In fact, that Likes list looks pretty wimpy compared to the Didn't Likes. But really, I did like it. It was entertaining and mostly enjoyable. Not my favorite. And I probably won't read it again. But I might read, say, the sequel...

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

Okay, so I feel like I'm pretty good at reading the signs in books. I'm fairly good at going, Okay, this and this and this is going to happen. Probably.

Not with Rebecca.

Rebecca is the story of a young woman who marries a man named Maxim de Winter. He takes her back to his home, Manderley, and she begins to uncover awful secrets about the former Mrs. de Winter, whose name was Rebecca.

I got to about page 250 and I think I gasped out loud. Actually, I gasped out loud a lot. It's full of twists and turns and complete plot reversals. If for no other reason, read it to see how a really good reversal is done!

I adore this book. The very last page left me completely stunned as the author pulls yet ANOTHER twist--and then ends the book!

Rebecca is very fantastic and highly recommended by me.

a lovely quote

I'm reading this fantastic book called Rebecca right now. It's by Daphne du Maurier. Anyway, I was devouring--I mean, uh, reading--it yesterday and came across this brilliant description of one of the gentlemen:

"Yes, Frank," I said. I called him Frank because Maxim did, but he would always call me Mrs. de Winter. He was that sort of person. Even if we had been thrown on a desert island together, and lived there in intimacy for the rest of our lives, I should have been Mrs. de Winter."

I just like that very much.

And that is all.

Inky

love is in the air

By this I mean all sorts of love, like

a) my friends and I have been getting along REALLY well lately. Like, even the few of those beloved people whom I sometimes just kind of want to edge away from. They're agreeable, I'm agreeable. I love it when this happens! It's so...so...happifying.

b) love of stories. My writing has taken on a new wonderful PURPOSE lately. I think I might actually have been given the resolve to finish some of my stories, and that is a great feeling.

c) even though, for whatever reason, I have been feeling achy lately, life seems to be going really well. My family is cheerful and loving and we're just doin' good.

So this is an optimistic post! Let's keep ROCKING!

Inky

Happy Mothers Day!

To moms, grandmoms, and everybody else!

Lately this holiday has become a very special one for me. My mother does so many wonderful things in caring for her parents, watching out for all of her friends, and being a role model for me. A lot of my friends are closer to her than they are to a lot of adults; she's very easy to relate to and is understanding and sympathetic. She's great.

Dad and I collaborated to cook her favorite meal for lunch as a surprise, and I got a DVD she's been wanting to see for ages.

HAPPY MOTHERS DAY, MOM!!!!!

follow-up to ideas post

I just went on Scott Westerfeld's--of Uglies, Midnighters and Peeps fame--website and found this killer answer to the "Where do you get your ideas?" question:

"From a little town called Schenectady. They make them there." And he links to the County of Schenectady's page.

Scott Westerfeld is pretty awesome anyways, but this is a fabulous answer in my opinion.

Inky

P.S. Also--I still haven't got a title for the "letters" story! Comment and please give me HELPS! I'll return the favor for YOU.

jelly beans

So, my uncle and aunt sent us this big bag of jelly beans in the post today. They're called Belly Flops, because they're the Jelly Bellies that didn't turn out quite right. Some of them look a little funny, or are globbed together in twos.

But they taste good. I love jelly beans. And not just for the flavor.

Recently, there's something very enticing to me about the surprise of what your taste buds are going to get next. It's completely luck of the draw when you open a bag. I just ate some foul little dark green ones, followed by a lovely blue tie-dye that was some kind of sour blue rasberry. You have to actually take the chance of tasting something wonderful, or something awful. It's very...interesting and intriguing for me. I don't know. But I love it. Once I was given this little box of jelly beans in really weird flavors--one was soap, another was rasberry, and yet another was actually vomit! (That one was disgusting beyond WORDS. Oh my gosh. *shudders*) They were all labelled on the back--oh, the grass-flavored one was pretty good, btw--but there were several that were very similiar, and it became a guessing game once again. There were some great buttered popcorn ones, if I recall correctly.

So, yeah. Jelly beans. Two thumbs up.

gardening

This evening, Mom and I planted a lot of things. We planted tomatoes--three different kinds!--and bell peppers and green chiles and best of all, an apple tree. *sighs happily* I LOVE trees.

And I really love to garden. I have a pot of basil planted, just hoping and praying that it will come up. There's something very soothing to me about getting my hands--and knees, usually--covered with dirt. The smell is so good.

Writing and school are both going pretty well. Math is easy enough that it's almost boring; I hope we move on to new material soon. And as for writing, I'm up to 15 pages on the 19th century one that I was talking about in earlier posts.

Also, new theme! What do you think?

Inky