Cat Dragon

I sawSamantha Birch's  Cat Dragon when I was wandering around Chapters (sorry, it's now Indigo). It looked super cute, and sounded like a fun cozy fantasy, which was exactly what I wanted to be reading, so I decided to give it a try.

Cat Dragon is the story of Aloysia Papplewick, a magicobotanist witch who lives in Tangleroot Valley. Aloysia has never been able to bond with a cat dragon, the one animal who makes witches' magic more communal, and so has been doing her own thing on her farm. But when the valley's magical guardian sickens and the valley's Council blames her (and honestly, Aloysia blames herself as well), Aloysia sets off on an adventure with her best friend's brother, Hollis, and the cat dragon kitten she found to try to gather three magical ingredients needed to craft a potion to hopefully heal the guardian.

While this is the basic plot of the book, it's not at all what I expected from reading the synopsis. I was expecting a lot more of Aloysia at her home, dealing with the prattling pumpkin patch (that was an interesting bit of worldbuilding - some witches decided to save their soul in a soul seed rather than passing on when they died. So each year they would regrow as a pumpkin, which Aloysia then carved their faces so they could talk. Admittedly strange, but an interesting part of the world because the pumpkins who were related to Aloysia kept commenting on and trying to interfere with her life). But the trouble with the guardian happened pretty quickly, and then Hollis and Aloysia went wandering around from place to place looking for ingredients (I didn't feel like they were "whisked off to a mysterious mountain" - they deliberately went to another country (there was a border crossing) and several different towns and cities). Then after they got the ingredients and put the spell together, it didn't work, so they (unexpectedly) had to go have a magical standoff against magical plants in an ancient tower. Again, not what I was expecting to be reading, and a little all over the place. But interesting nonetheless. Birch created a very neat world of witches and their familiars and it was fun seeing different parts of it.

Some of the characters Aloysia and Hollis befriended along the way were quite interesting, too. Lan was probably my favourite: she was a blind basically treasure-hunter who used her cat dragon, among other things, to lead her around like a seeing eye dog.  She's smart and fun, and definitely (in my opinion) the best character of the book. Another character I really liked was Crow. He was funny and I wished he was in the book a bit more (being a crow, he kept being sent back to Tangleroot to bring the ingredients the party found).

Aloysia was, honestly, a bit annoying to be following. She blamed herself for everything, even when things weren't her fault. And through most of the book I never felt like she was growing or changing - she kept doing her thing (which she was good at) and blaming herself when things weren't working.  

I also have to say: the book's name is a bit weird in context of the story. Yes, Aloysia does find a cat dragon, Littlewick. Yes, he is there with her for most of the adventure. But the story was never really about Littlewick, or his bond with Aloysia. Littlewick was more a part of the setting, giving it some flavour. But the title could have very easily been something more fitting than "Cat Dragon."

So while I found Cat Dragon interesting, I will admit that I struggled with reading it at times. It has some really neat ideas in it, and some great characters. But it wasn't what I expected, and I was sad that I didn't get what I had been hoping for. 

The Poppy War

 My mom and I went shopping earlier this month, and I bought a few books that sounded really good.  The first one was The Poppy War by R. F. Kuang.

The Poppy War tells the story of Rin, a war-orphan who has set her sights on attending Sinegard, her country's best military academy.  After acing the entrance test, she quickly discovers that getting in was the easy part - remaining at Sinegard will be more of a challenge, especially when the other students and some of the teachers do not believe she belongs.

I was fully on board with The Poppy War through this beginning part.  I thought it was really interesting being along with Rin's struggles and fight to remain there, how she accidentally opened herself up to a God, and ended up pledging Lore after her first year, rather than Strategy like she planned.  I loved her quirky teacher, Jiang, and really enjoyed their interactions as he imparted his wisdom to her in his unique way.

But then parts 2 and 3 of the book happened.  Rin's country, Nikara, has long been threatened by the Federation of Mugen, a neighbouring island nation that was hellbent on conquering Nikara.  When war breaks out, Rin and her classmates quickly find themselves drafted into the army.  Rin is given to the Cike, a small division made up entirely of shamans (people connected to the gods).  

These sections of the book get progressively more and more difficult to read.  Rin's commander seems to slip more and more into madness from his god, while also under tremendous pressure to succeed.  He is angered that Rin isn't calling the Phoenix (both their God), despite her having done so before. He ends up hitting her in a very uncomfortable scene, which makes her call forth the fire; he then remarks "So that's what it takes."  This is made all the more uncomfortable because Rin seemed to have feelings for him.

But that didn't prepare me for the massacre of Golyn Niis (Chapter 21).  I had no idea it was coming.  I've since read that it is based off of a historical event where the Japanese massacred a Chinese city in much the same way.  

After getting through that chapter, I honestly thought I was going to stop reading.  But the book has good reviews, so I hoped it would get better.  Besides, I had already made it through about 400 out of 500 pages.  So I decided to persevere.

Unfortunately, while not as rough as that one chapter, I had a very hard time with the remainder of the book.  Along with the very uncomfortable situations that Rin found herself in, I also could not longer connect with her as a character.  She made some very terrible choices at the end of the book that I did not like reading about.  

In the end, I found that The Poppy War was not the book for me.  I will not be reading the rest of the trilogy.

The Chapters Sale

I wandered into Chapters the other day, and found out that they had extended their annual Buy 3 Books and Get 1 Free sale until Sunday. And me being me, I had to go and take advantage of it, even though I definitely do not need any more books! I phoned a friend up, and we planned to make an evening of it, hanging out and choosing books. But when we got there, we had about 20 minutes to choose our books because the store was closing! (Chapters used to be open until 10pm on Friday nights, but they're now open until only 9pm). Needless to say, I was able to choose my four books pretty quickly. I bought Dust by Elizabeth Bear, Raven's Shadow and Raven's Strike by Patricia Briggs, and Fallen by Tim Lebbon. I'm kind of excited about the Lebbon book, as I've never read anything by him before. My friend loved Dust, and really recommended it to me, so hopefully it will be good. And the two Briggs novels sound really good; I'm hoping to fly through them like I did the Mercy Thompson novels.

Of course, this brings the List back up to 125 novels. I am definitely still buying them faster than I'm reading them! But I'm in the middle of a really good book, so hopefully I'll be able to breeze through a bunch, bringing the List down to 100 before summer's end!

List Update

I thought that now would be a great time to do another List Update. It is now crunch time with school, so I haven't really had time to read things that I want to. So there are currently 112 books on the list, with two more on their way, and I am definitely thinking about picking up another. This means that I am looking at 114-115 books within the next week or two. These last three have a bit of a story behind them, so I figured I would share.

I have had an ebay account for quite awhile now. I signed up sometime last year, but then didn't have time to sign up for Paypal. Without Paypal, I didn't bother ordering anything off ebay, so I was reasonably safe. And then last Wednesday, I was over at a friend's house, and decided randomly to sign up for Paypal. You see, I was randomly surfing ebay, and found a book that I wanted. I wandered over to Paypal's website, and discovered that I can sign up and immediately start shopping on ebay. And so I did. Sarah Zettel's Under Camelot's Banner is on its way! (Of course, while searching around a bit, I found out that there is a fourth book to this series, Camelot's Blood, so that might be added to the list as well in the near future...)

The other two books that I mentioned are sort of connected in that it is Amazon.com's fault that I have bought/am planning to buy them. I was wasting time last night, and found that Amazon.com had recommendations for me (I must have signed up with them sometime in the past, but I do not remember why). So I looked to see what they were trying to sell me, and discovered that I could manipulate their recommendations, based off of rating what I own and what I've read. So I spent a lot of time last night doing so.

While I was wandering through the many recommendations, I noticed one author come up a few times: Patricia Briggs. It was a weird coincidence, as I had just found someone's blog and they had talked about books by Patricia Briggs. So of course, now I'm curious, and I'm planning on checking the book out over the next few days (there's a copy in Chapters right now, so if I have a chance over the next few days I'll stop and see what it's all about).

Finally, there was another recommendation for a David Farland book that I had never heard of before. It sounded interesting, so I did a quick search on ebay, and found a rather cheap copy. Worlds of the Golden Queen is on its way!

There was a fourth book that I was interested in buying, Warrior by Marie Brennan. But it turns out that I own it already; it was originally published under a different title, Doppelganger (I originally thought it was the third book in the series, but it looks like there will only be the two).

So that is the news right now. Luckily school is almost over, so I should be able to tackle some of these books soon!

List Update

I thought that now was a good time to write another List update. Lately I haven't read a whole lot off of the List, focussing mainly on school books. But I have been buying more books lately. Over the last few weeks, I have been to Chapters three times. As a result, the List now has 105 books on it!

Luckily, I now have about a week where I am free to read whatever I want. So I am definitely going to tackle a List book or two (as well as a library book most likely). Also, my Chapters gift certificate from Christmas has been used up, so hopefully that will help to keep me out of the bookstore as well. I'm not entirely sure what I am planning on reading next, but I do have a lot to choose from!

Oh, I wanted to mention with this update the addition of Interludes. Interludes are books that other people lend me to read. This would include things like Twilight, which my cousin lent to me. I wanted a way to distinguish non-List books that were not from the library or a school book, and I felt that the term Interlude was fitting. So far, there has only been one entry marked as an Interlude (Heart of Hush), but I'm sure there will be more to follow!

List Update

And with the conclusion of The Timewaster Letters, the List is now down to 103 books! I know, my last update said I was down to 102 books, and I was hoping to get below 100 during the holidays. But of course, Christmas was included during those holidays, and I got a few new books and a few Chapters giftcards. So inevitably the List was doomed to rise. And with school starting again today, I will have even less time to read List books. I will try to read a few during the year (most likely I'll be able to get the graphic novels out of the way), but most likely the List will stay around 100 books until school is finished in the spring.

Bookstore Adventures

Well, I am proud of myself: I went into not one but THREE bookstores yesterday, and I didn't buy any books!!!! And believe me, it's not because there were no books that I wanted....

My friend and I first decided to go to a local used bookstore. While there, I found a book that is in the same series as the one I am currently reading (Legions of Hell by C. J. Cherryh), so it was tempting to buy that (even though I figure I am better off reading the one I have before deciding whether or not I want more). Next we went to Chapters, but nothing really caught my eye (except for a few books I've wanted for awhile). And finally we went to Coles in the mall, where I found You Suck! by Christopher Moore for only $7.99. But I managed to leave it behind! (I figure I'll go back in August and if it's still there for cheap, then I'll pick it up).

Go me!

The Bookstore Delimma

Well, it appears I have to stay out of bookstores! I wandered into Chapters yesterday to kill some time, and ended up wandering out with two more books! So the List is back up to 99 books!!! This is also because I have been extremely slow with my reading (and busy!) So I have decided that I am going to attempt to stay out of the bookstores until the first week of August! Wish me luck!