Oh my goddddddddddddddddddd.
I am not sure how to talk about this without spoiling the very end of the series. Here is the non-spoilery review: It did not wrap up the way I expected! I think the ending works, and it definitely builds on the themes that came before it. I loved Lily and Katie and Kelsea. I liked the book's discussion of what is or isn't a utopia and what it means to create a "better world." I liked Kelsea's struggle between wanting to help people and do good things, and wanting to just destroy the shit out of bad guys once she had that power. This book was more dystopian than I usually go for, but it's not utterly hopeless. It's not a Hunger Games ending, if you know what I mean by that. It's really well written, and nearly every question that was asked, gets answered. It takes a lot of YA fantasy tropes and spins them on their heads, for better or worse. And after I finished it, I needed to run around shouting at a friend for a long, long time. I think it's well worth a read.
OKAY HERE ARE SPOILERS. STOP READING NOW. GO READ THE BOOKS. SPOILERS.
One thing that had carried me through the dystopian parts were the little excerpts of books at the beginning of each chapter, implying that Kelsea would win the war and the future would be bright. And at some point in this book you realize that although she wins, these books come from a darker future timeline where everything is even more fucked up -- and when Kelsea makes her ultimate decision to use the Tear jewel to go back in time, they vanish. I loved that.
I had spent a lot of books 1 and 2 wondering why William Tear's vision of a perfect utopia was a kingdom, not a democracy. And that question is pretty thoroughly answered in this book. Because it got fucked up. Because he got killed. Because Jonathan got killed, too, and because the Raleighs were jerks. So in the final timeline there are not and never have been any kings, only one Queen of the Tearling.
SO let's talk about that ending. I figured we were going somewhere ~it's all a dream~ about the time Aisa died horribly, but was absolutely not expecting the way it actually all came down. On the one hand, yeah, it feels a little bit cheap to erase everything. Row gets a fast death after creating centuries of suffering and violence and destroying everything in his path, including children. None of Kelsea's sacrifices or struggle really happened. She never killed anyone, she never had to deal with that. She goes back in time and undoes the major turning point in history, and then that's it. Gavin doesn't have to atone for centuries, either. (Can we talk for a second about the sexy, daring Fetch as a whiny little monster of a teenage boy? I laaaaaaughed.)
But on the other hand -- oh my god, does she pay a price for that. The scene where she murders Row is one of the creepiest things I have ever read. And then at the end, when she wakes up in what is inarguably the Better World at last, having saved her kingdom, having saved all her friends, having saved the world... she's all alone, and she will be forever. She saved the world and lost literally everything doing it. No one knows her. I still expected some kind of wink at the end, for the Mace or someone to also vaguely remember or recognize her. But no one does, not the Mace, not Father Tyler, not Pen. It's devastating. It balances out how good things are really beautifully, but oh my god, it leaves you feeling hollowed out and miserable at the same time. She saved the world! And no one knows, or cares, or remembers her. What a fucking gut-punch.
Grade: A
#87 in 2016
Showing posts with label Johansen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Johansen. Show all posts
Saturday, December 3, 2016
Tuesday, August 16, 2016
The Invasion of the Tearling, Erika Johansen
The second book in a trilogy can be hard to pull off, but I loved this book. It added to what we knew from book one, it advanced the plot, it was full of great exciting moments. And it ends on a cliffhanger, which I figured it would, but.... Now I have to wait a couple of months for the last book to find out if the series sticks the landing. (I really hope it does.)
In case you forgot: the Tear is a fantasy land, and Kelsey is its queen, raised in seclusion so she couldn't be murdered by her mother's enemies. In book 1 Kelsey comes back to her kingdom, realizes how messed up things are, and tries to make it right -- which kicks off a war with a much more powerful country on the border. We also know that Kelsey and other characters read books from our world, reference the Bible and Shakespeare, and came to the Tear on something called "the Crossing," in boats, a few centuries earlier. All the technology and history from before that is more or less lost, though.
In this book Kelsey has to figure out what to do about the invading army. She has magic, and she has the potential to use it to destroy her enemies, but just like Luke Skywalker could have told her, once you go down the dark path forever will it control your destiny. Kelsey can't save her people without doing some potentially terrible things. And meanwhile, she's having visions of the life of a woman before the Crossing, back in Manhattan, dealing with a dystopian slight-future where a terrible US president has seized power and is using censorship to make life terrible, especially for women. But maybe there is hope for a better world...
This story gets dark (if you have trouble with sexual assault or self-harm I wouldn't recommend it) but I loved the story Kelsey finds herself watching, and I loved Kelsey's story, too. I really liked how it expanded what we know about the Crossing, and the Tear, and I liked Kelsey's arc here. I also like Pen, and the Fetch, and the Mace. So many good characters! So much going on!
And who the heck is Kelsey's dad, you guys. Seriously, I need to know.
Grade: A
#67 in 2016
In case you forgot: the Tear is a fantasy land, and Kelsey is its queen, raised in seclusion so she couldn't be murdered by her mother's enemies. In book 1 Kelsey comes back to her kingdom, realizes how messed up things are, and tries to make it right -- which kicks off a war with a much more powerful country on the border. We also know that Kelsey and other characters read books from our world, reference the Bible and Shakespeare, and came to the Tear on something called "the Crossing," in boats, a few centuries earlier. All the technology and history from before that is more or less lost, though.
In this book Kelsey has to figure out what to do about the invading army. She has magic, and she has the potential to use it to destroy her enemies, but just like Luke Skywalker could have told her, once you go down the dark path forever will it control your destiny. Kelsey can't save her people without doing some potentially terrible things. And meanwhile, she's having visions of the life of a woman before the Crossing, back in Manhattan, dealing with a dystopian slight-future where a terrible US president has seized power and is using censorship to make life terrible, especially for women. But maybe there is hope for a better world...
This story gets dark (if you have trouble with sexual assault or self-harm I wouldn't recommend it) but I loved the story Kelsey finds herself watching, and I loved Kelsey's story, too. I really liked how it expanded what we know about the Crossing, and the Tear, and I liked Kelsey's arc here. I also like Pen, and the Fetch, and the Mace. So many good characters! So much going on!
And who the heck is Kelsey's dad, you guys. Seriously, I need to know.
Grade: A
#67 in 2016
Friday, June 24, 2016
The Queen of the Tearling, Erika Johansen
I know my goal for the month was NOT to buy any new books but JUST ONE isn't bad. And this one was on sale when I picked it up, it barely counts as a purchase!
This is fantasy -- our heroine is a princess who has been raised in a cabin in the woods because her uncle the Regent would kill her if he knew where she was. The Red Queen in the next country over would kill her, too. And so would the assassins who've been hired, and maybe a whole bunch of other people, including the soldiers who are supposed to be protecting her. When she claims her throne she finds out just how screwed up her country is, and she has a lot of difficult choices about how to fix it, when changing anything will mean inevitable war with the neighboring countries that have been preying on it in her absence.
This is a familiar story, but I still found it really interesting. I liked that the main character is a girl, and that her kingdom seems to have been ruled by lots of queens, good and bad. The main antagonist is a woman as well. I like that our heroine isn't beautiful or thin. She isn't a great swordswoman, but she has a very firm sense of right and wrong. She's driven by a need to be better than her mother -- I can't remember a lot of high fantasy where that's a driving character motivation. I liked that instead of a generic fantasy land this place was settled by the English and Americans after some kind of "crossing" that destroyed all their technology. It means historical references and books and religion can all be familiar. It also adds a vague dystopian element to the world, which I hope is explored more in later books. (On the other hand, some of the language is jarringly not fantasy; royals and nobles suddenly shouting "fuck you!" breaks the mood of the book a little.)
This is so compulsively readable that I wonder if it's YA -- if it is, there's a lot of fairly graphic sex going on, most of it creepy or non-consensual, and lots of referenced rape and murder. There are also a bunch of mysterious elements I want explained. Who is the evil spirit? What's the deal with The Fetch? Who is Kelsea's dad? I'm going to pick up the second one to read on summer vacation next month and I'll let you know.
Grade: B
#56 in 2016
This is fantasy -- our heroine is a princess who has been raised in a cabin in the woods because her uncle the Regent would kill her if he knew where she was. The Red Queen in the next country over would kill her, too. And so would the assassins who've been hired, and maybe a whole bunch of other people, including the soldiers who are supposed to be protecting her. When she claims her throne she finds out just how screwed up her country is, and she has a lot of difficult choices about how to fix it, when changing anything will mean inevitable war with the neighboring countries that have been preying on it in her absence.
This is a familiar story, but I still found it really interesting. I liked that the main character is a girl, and that her kingdom seems to have been ruled by lots of queens, good and bad. The main antagonist is a woman as well. I like that our heroine isn't beautiful or thin. She isn't a great swordswoman, but she has a very firm sense of right and wrong. She's driven by a need to be better than her mother -- I can't remember a lot of high fantasy where that's a driving character motivation. I liked that instead of a generic fantasy land this place was settled by the English and Americans after some kind of "crossing" that destroyed all their technology. It means historical references and books and religion can all be familiar. It also adds a vague dystopian element to the world, which I hope is explored more in later books. (On the other hand, some of the language is jarringly not fantasy; royals and nobles suddenly shouting "fuck you!" breaks the mood of the book a little.)
This is so compulsively readable that I wonder if it's YA -- if it is, there's a lot of fairly graphic sex going on, most of it creepy or non-consensual, and lots of referenced rape and murder. There are also a bunch of mysterious elements I want explained. Who is the evil spirit? What's the deal with The Fetch? Who is Kelsea's dad? I'm going to pick up the second one to read on summer vacation next month and I'll let you know.
Grade: B
#56 in 2016
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