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November Books
Hotel of Secrets by Diane Biller
It is New Years Eve in Vienna and Maria Wallner is determined to rebbuild the Wallner Hotel, her family legacy even though her mother neglected it throughout the economic downturn. The hotel is her life and provides a distraction from romance which all of Vienna is waiting for her to partake him. After all Wallner women only love one man passionately, and scandelously. Maria has seen how that one-minded devotion from her mother leading her to become selfish and neglectful of the rest of her life. Maria has so much more to work for than just one man.
Eli Whittaker also has his mind devoted to work as he travels to Vienna to look into the financial gaps in the embassy. He is all about rooting out corruption in the American gov. so men of privilege won’t get away with everything just because of their wealth. However, the missing finances seem to be entangled with the Wallner’s residences and he soon finds himself more invested in protecting Maria.
This book was chock-full of competence. I mean, Eli Whittaker was just amazing as a person and as a romantic interest. I wish he was real. He’s has Darcy’s awkwardness without his prejudice and disdain. How could Maria not fall for him. And Maria is great too, so confident and witty yet unable to accept help after seeing her mom’s blantant affair ruin their family. Something Eli and Maria bond over as he has his own neglectful parental figure that convinces him that he is better off alone than in love because being love is a vulnerability that feels more dangerous than a gunshot.
Speaking of gun-shots, Biller deliciously blends espionage intrigue with the lush historical romance of Vienna in winter. It’s just dazzling. Regency romance is nice but it’s also great to get a change of pace like with Vienna’s love of waltzes, nonchalance of spies and joie de vivre towards life, and love. Plus the familial aspects of the story also drew me in as Maria and her half-brother strive to make a positive relationship despite their family’s petty dramas. I just feel that some characters got the short shrift like Maria’s mother who went through an abrupt though hysterical in-character change to maternality. There was a French spy who served as comic relief for the most of the novel, and I was just waiting for him to reveal his secret skills but it never happened. He was a minor character and it wasn’t the point but I was still disappointed by that.
I was not disappointed by Eli and Maria’s sizzling, intense chemistry and how Maria took the reins with the more celibate Eli, highlighting the different attitudes toward sex between cultures and how they were able to communicate so they both had an amazing time that was so different from what they ever had before. I
Seriously, just go, go read this book!
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Mirror, Mirror Review
Maguire sets his tale of vanity and murder in 16th century Italy where the wicked queen is played by a historical domain character, Lucrenzia Borgia, sister to Ceseare Borgia who was the inspiration for Machavelli’s The Prince.
Lucrenzia is vain but her jealousy of Bianca, the girl as white as snow stems from her brother’s lecherous preference for 11 year old Bianca over her.
Yep, we’re playing with incest and pedophilia here. You know this retelling is twisted.
The story follows in a predictable retelling though one can tell that Maguire is more enamoured with the insane antics of the vicious Borgia family’s power struggles than with Bianca. One can’t blame him as the Borgias are mad, hedonistic and unashamed as they murder and manipulate people however they want with a hefty dose of a paranoia to boot. The more compelling chapters come from Lucrenzia’s POV as readers get a glimpse of her isolated childhood, backstabbing court life and the multitude of sins she comitted that lead to her downfall. It almost felt like Maguire wanted to do a story about the Borgias but he’s so well-known for fairytale retellings that he had to throw it into Snow White in order to get published.
Bianca’s chapters contrast nicely with her innocence at peril at every turn and her abrupt exile from her home, isolated as she becomes a woman but unsure of what is happening is thematically sound. I just found it disgusting as Maguire doesn’t hold back in describing the abandonment, blood, nudity and pain that follow her. It almost feels like a weird pornographic thrill of torturing her. Which I guess is an homage to the original Grimm stories that did squirm away from the erotic morbidity (I mean have you’ve read the original Little Red Riding Hood. I mean, original original!). Homage or not I was not a fan.
On a whole the story was slow, stretching out the tale of Snow to almost 300 pages when it felt finished at 200. There were some interesting elements such as having Bianca’s father being alive, sent on an impossible journey by Ceseare and he has his own odyssy home. And the dwarfs were creatively imagined as bitter stone people who wish to become individuals like humans.
But neither could rescue this book as a whole from slow pacing and attempt to be a historical-fairytale mash-up.
2 stars.
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Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister Review
Maguire takes the tale of Cinderella to Holland during the height of the Tulip madness. Beauty is the theme of the day, the traditional aesthetic beauty of femininity, the beauty immortal captured on canvas, the beauty in nature, and of course, the inner beauty in charity.
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After Alice Review
Maguire is best known for his work retelling the stories of Oz’ famous characters (and inspiring the subsequent Broadway play) but as the library didn’t have Wicked, I decided to take a look at Maguire’s other fairytale works.
After Alice is just as implied where a minor character from the original novel, Ada, falls down the rabbit hole a few minutes after Alice. In her search for her best friend, Ada meets all the famous characters who confusingly lead her to the infamous tea party and croquet, just a few minutes later from the original tale.
This is interspersed with the events of the real world above the rabbit hole and outside the looking glass as Ada and Alice’s family members “search” for the missing children but are too caught up with their own adult liasons and nonsense to be effective.
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Fullmetal Alchemist Vol 1-8
Alright, I started a new manga. One of the most popular ones apparently so this is a more spoilery what I thought about the first half of the series rather than a full-on review. But I guess it doesn’t matter since the spoilers won’t make sense to someone who hasn’t read them.
Let’s get to it!
Edward and Alphonse Elric are two prodigeous alchemists for the state. Otherwise known as the Amestria’s dogs. They’re super powerful and disliked in equal measures because of their position but they don’t take pleasure in that power. They’re only teenagers after all and were forced into the role by consequences of their own making.
When their mother died, they used their talents and skills to break the natural laws of alchemy and try to bring their mother back to life. Instead they brought back an inhuman moster. Alphonse lost his body, his soul bound to a body of armor (hence the title) while Edward lost a leg and arm. Now they hunt across Amestria, looking for cures and knowledge that will bring their original bodies back but on the way, they get entangled into a conspiracy involving homoculi and human sacrifices and no one knows who can be trusted.
Pretty exciting right?
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Warriors: Vision of Shadows
I know, I know, it’s been awhile but someone keeps taking them out so I couldn’t read them in order. I guess it goes to show Hunter and the Warrior cats’ enduring popularity. Go them!
Hunter’s next set of books pave new ground after the world-changing events of Omen of the Stars with Firestar’s death and Bramblestar’s ascension. Not to mention the prophacy of three, the return of Skyclan and more outsiders dividing the clan’s loyalties to the Starclan’s prophecy.
Here, the prophecy is once again the root of the problem as Starclan forsees the five clans coming together. But the introduction of Skyclan near the lake fuels territorial disputes and scarcity of resources.
Ontop of that, the protagonists aren’t necessarily related to Bramblestar/Firestar’s family which makes things different at least in terms of legacy characters and the problems of living in someone else’s bigger shadow. Violetkit and Twigkit were initially Skyclan kits taken into Thunderclan because of Skyclan’s detoriation. When Bramblestar and Alderheart help the Skyclan revive their ranks and move territories, the kits’ loyalties become divided and they feel they’ll never be accepted or find a home anywhere.
I really enjoyed how Hunter breaks new ground in terms of characters really trying to figure out their loyalties, and what is more important, finding the clan that will truly make them happy while respecting their own moral compass. I also appreciate that while they do live in Thunderclan, they are part of other clans so we get an inside look into Shadowclan and Skyclan.
However, some conflicts do get old like Alderheart feeling torn between duty as medicine cat and potential love only for him to choose medicine cat because they’re just not allowed to be happy. I mentioned this before but someone either needs to change the law or Hunter needs to find a different romantic conflict. Same with the return of Tigerstar as a villain. . . only not really. It gets confusing with the repetition of names. Oh, and an outsider coming in and stirring up trouble within the clans. That’s getting old too though I do like it really did divide Shadowclan to the point of overthrowing their current leader. That was exciting.
So on to the rankings!
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Thoughts on Tales from a Not-So-Posh Paris Adventure
Alright so I read the latest Dork Diaries, and while it’s cute. I’m left with more questions than answers.
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Ranking The Hero’s Guide trilogy
Everyone knows the story of Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Rapunzel and Snow White, but the truth is the bards got a lot wrong. For instance, all those Princes Charmings have a name, and their stories have cast them aside in various embarassing ways.
But it’s not the annoying songs that bring the princes together. That all starts when Prince Frederic drives off his Cinderella with his dainty, safe (aka boring) lifestyle. Determined to prove his mettle, even though he doesn’t know how to ride a horse, he goes after her and meets up with Gustav, Duncan, and Liam and they all end up in a convoluted plot headed by the evil witch Zabura to destroy the kingdom.
Through a variety of mishaps, failures, so many failures, the League of Princes is born and so much fun on the way. And maybe, just myabe these brash, arrogant, cowardly, silly princes can become heroes.
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Spare me your Revenge
You know how sometimes you see a passing feud on a tabloid and you get into it? Like it’ so vapid, so irrelevant to your own life but somehow you managed to not only read that article but then go into the rabbit hole of everything in that feud to the point that you can give a 12 point arguement and essay about said feud just to satisfy your own feelings that you’re right about “your side”?
Okay, maybe I’m the only one whose done that but I don’t think so. I may not have gotten into the Miley-Selena-Taylor-Demi feud or Nicki vs Cardi or whatever else, but this one got my attention. Which is weird because I only got into it way after Megxit and the Netflix interview and whatnot. But it got my attention and damn, it’s one ridiculous scandal after another.
Now I have already formed opinions, but in the name of fairness I tried to as objective as possible as I read these books. So let’s start with the good parts of Prince Harry’s memoir, Spare.
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Emerald Green Review
After finding out that Saint Germain and Gideon have been manipulating her this whole time, though she still doesn’t know why or what’s the endgame, Gwenyth just wants to wallow in her heartbreak.
But her friends, Lesley and Xemerius will not allow it. Now, they’re just a few clues from finding out where the treasure chest Lord Lucas (Gwenyth’s grandfather) hid and the final revelations may be so Gwenyth can finally know who is the real bad guy.
The meaning of the prophecy turns out to be much more fatal than Gwenyth ever thought.
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