Brief Book Reviews

Mom has asked that I write reviews of every book I read this winter. Actually, I'm pretty sure she thinks I should write a book review of every book I read ever. I'll write brief reviews here, but for my own reasons, not for the writing samples my mom suggested they'd be useful for. And my books focus mainly on fantasy, with some science fiction mixed in occasionally.

I reviewed the Redemption of Althalus already, and Mistborn, so first I'll write a brief review of Wizbiz. I didn't actually finish that book all the way--it was made of two or three smaller books. I read only the first, which was the first half of the book. I wasn't terribly impressed. The idea was good, but that's about all it had. The characters were stereotyped and one-dimensional, the plot wasn't terribly exciting, and the dialog was terrible. Shame, too. I really liked the idea of using magic being like writing a computer program. And it had a lot of potential.

I just finished the book Through Wolf's Eyes, by Jane Lindskold (or something like that). I would give the book an A. Maybe an A-. It's about a girl who was raised by wolves. She gets found by humans, who take her back to human civilization when she's about fifteen. I thoroughly enjoyed it, especially how it kept hopping back and forth, showing human society from a nobleman's perspective, then a peasant's perspective, then an animal's perspective. The character development was outstanding--I felt a great attachment to every character in the book, and was pleasantly surprised that they changed as they grew up, despite the fact that the book only spans a few months. (Young adults mature very fast sometimes--particularly when wars are involved.) The only thing that knocked this book down from an A+ was my own personal loathing of anything to do with politics. Firekeeper, the girl who was raised by wolves, was thought to be the lost granddaughter of the king. The king's children had all died, so his nieces and nephews and their children were all fighting over who would be the king's heir when the old man kicked the bucket. Sounds exciting, but the minute details of all the political goings-on bored me to the point that I would sometimes do little more than skim until something interesting started to happen. Since I don't feel that I missed anything vital in the book, I consider the passages I skipped to be a waste of space. However, I did thoroughly enjoy the book overall, and was pleased and surprised by the ending.

And that's all for now. Toodles!