Review: Prince of Thorns

Prince of Thorns by Mark Lawrence
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

“I've been known to be contrary. When something pushes me, I shove back. Even if the one doing the pushing is me. It would have been easy to gut him then and there. Satisfying. But the need was too urgent. I felt pushed.”

Jorg Ancrath is probably THE best anti-hero I have ever known. He's just fourteen, he's annoying and thinks he's always right, he goes against people just because it's fun, he's cruel and he's brutal. But he's also true to himself, he knows he's all those things listed above, and he's still the best and funniest narrator ever. Prince Honorous Jorg Ancrath narrates his own story, and it's one hell of a story!

Between the present and the past, we learn that his mother and younger brother were killed right in front of his eyes while he was stuck in a bush of thorns by men of Count Renar. Wanting to revenge them, he sets off with a bunch of criminals and soon turns to be the leader of their gang at only 13! Villagers near their death stare with wide-eyes while they claim he can't be older than fifteen. Little did they know that Jorg SAYS he will be king once he's fifteen.

With a quest for revenge, Jorg guides us through an adventure to gain back his rightful place by his father while fighting ghosts, necromancers and almost death itself. Jorg pushes through with his cruelty which is made to shock us but is so honest it feels refreshing. Jorg has no second thoughts about his acts, and reading the honest way of how his feelings are written felt just right, refreshing from all the conscious main characters of nowadays. Jorg is an anti-hero, but you'll fall in love with him just in time.

“Memories are dangerous things. You turn them over and over, until you know every touch and corner, but still you'll find an edge to cut you.”

Mark Lawrence is a genius and wrote this book in a genius way. His words never fail to amaze, and the little world-building we have feels massive. It is dark and gritty, even thrilling, and the whole feeling of it almost makes you feel heavy. This is a heavy book that CAN'T be read in little time. It has you thinking to understand some things, and you have to be in the mood to read it, otherwise you'll get lost. This isn't to say it doesn't have its share of humor. The dark-humor in it is intense, and it's always delivered to us by our dear Jorgy, as the main character sometimes refers to himself. This is a character-driven story. We feel what Jorg feels and we WANT what Jorg wants. The way Mark writes Jorg is so sarcastic and compelling that it's impossible to hate the main character, you'll find yourself taking his side. As a character-driven story, Jorg also lets us know about the side-characters who are all different and important in their own way. This is a book where even characters that are mentioned in only one chapter get a name. It wouldn't be right if they didn't, as Jorg is narrating it to us and they were all people he met. Speaking of other characters, one thing I really want to see more explored is his relationship with Makin. Makin was a knight, the best man with a sword, captain to Jorg's father, and he ended up with Jorg and a bunch of bandits. Most important of all, he's constantly present in Jorg's life.

All in all, this book is definitely a solid 5. It has everything I wanted from the moment I knew he was an anti-hero. Anti-hero are my favorite type of main-characters, and when there aren't anti-heroes, I usually find myself rooting for the villain, maybe because of the inner layer of humanity that they have but that they never show when doing their most cruel acts. The mood is incredibly dark and the characters are cruel, it has sword fighting and necromancy, dirty sieges and honorable combats. It's completely (notice how I say it again) dark but brilliant at its finest. Mark Lawrence is definitely one of the best writers of this genre, and I can't wait to continue on reading Jorg's history, because I DEFINITELY want to seem him at the highest point. And this, my friends, is how you know it's a good book: when you're rooting for the worst person ever. I really am rooting for him to become the Emperor.

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Review: Mundo del fin del mundo

Mundo del fin del mundo by Luis Sepúlveda
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Well! This was something else! I've given it a 3 star rating but that won't be my final rating because I read it for a class and took a long while to read it (because I was "forced" to), so I'm thinking about reading this again in the future, I just don't know when that future will be.

I'm Portuguese, read it in Spanish for Spanish class. My level of Spanish is pretty basic, although I can pretty much understand it. Still, most details completely went past me and all the amount of names and all the places the ships would go through, which always come so so close (many many names about all the 20 places a ship goes through on the same paragraph). Because of that, I sometimes felt confused because later on a name would be repeated but I wouldn't remember it so I would be like "did I miss something?" Well yes, I did miss something, because my Spanish level is not even A1 complete (A1 is lowest, C2 is highest).

It's a pretty story and you can see it's well written even if I couldn't completely understand some parts because of all the confusion it brought me.

I want and will read it again in the future and will give it a rating, and that rating will be the one that I think this book deserves once I'm able to fully grasp its content.

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Review: Days of Blood & Starlight

Days of Blood & Starlight by Laini Taylor
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

[Edited 4/11/2016]

Not enough words can convey how much I love this book.

Okay! So! I decided my previous review didn't make any justice to this wonderful book, it was just too emotional and all over the place. With that in mind, I'll write another one without spoilers and that grabs the essence of the book better.

Laini Taylor is a genious, let's just start there. This is the second book in a trilogy, but Laini Taylor gives us world building in a way that doesn't become boring but that reminds us of everything that was going on, so that the world of seraphim and chaemeras doesn't come with a "bang." With that, we can see the way she perfectly crafted her world AND her characters.

All of her characters are so well written it almost becomes silly. We have Akiva, and Karou, and Thiago, and Zuzana and Mik and everyone else and all their motives, emotions, feelings, are perfectly clear and justifiable. Nothing in this book was random or by chance, everything clicks together, everything makes sense.

It is still a sad book in a time of war, and so the rare happy moments become precious. If you want to read it thinking romance is the main point, it isn't. Seraphim and chaemeras are in the middle of a war, and it gets to you. You can almost feel what it's like to BE at war through the characters, whether it's from Karou's standpoint or from Akiva, or from side characters who are introduced to us so we can have a good view at what a war does to people from both sides. And all that emotion made me cry, more than once, for the very first time with a book.

Also, if you were a bit confused with Daughter of Smoke and Bone, even though (at least for me) everything made perfect sense at the end, this book has a whole different feeling to it and, once again, there are no loose ends.

And that's why Laini Taylor is a genius, because of the way she delivers emotions and how she makes them feel so real just through words. It's a beautiful book, beautifully written because Laini really knows how to describe settings and emotions, and it doesn't fail one bit to amaze. It's simply perfect in every single aspect, and so it fully deserves 5 stars.



[Old review, written 31/10/2016]
This was awesome! Such a rollercoaster of emotions! Laini Taylor promises and she delivers, without fault! I have to say, the little poems dividing the "parts" of the book are beautifully done. The only thing I somewhat felt was missing was romance, but it just wouldn't look "good" in a story like this one (hope people don't consider this as a spoiler)! But this book made me cry, and I had never cried with a book!
(view spoiler)[I just love love love the constant feeling of war and, I have to be honest, the whole sadness that fills this book. Everyone is just sad all the time, except Zuzana and Mik, who come to lighten up our world and Karou's life. They're a breath of fresh air delivered at the right time. Another character who's never sad is Thiago. He's so hateful, so disgusting, so what happened to him serves him right, although I wish he had suffered a little more. Still, he's dead and that's all that matters. People can't imagine my shock when I saw he was "back", I could swear I was more pained than Akiva when he saw how Karou looked at him. Good thing we learn soon after that it's Ziri, but poor Ziri, being in Thiago's body... I almost wish Karou and Ziri end up together, he's just so lovable, but Karou and Akiva belong together so I had this crazy idea of seeing Ziri with Liraz. Could that be possible? I can definitely see it happening in the future, with Ziri's real body. Now, as I said, this was the first book that made me cry. First time was when Bast thanked Karou, and no one had thanked her before. That made me real tearful. Then, of course, when Zuze and Mik left. And! As a final part, when Akiva and Liraz understood Karou couldn't bring their brother back. That made me really mad as well, Hazael deserved to be happy. But that's war! And how hateful is Jael, and how smart he is, to be honest. Akiva was set up really well and it delivered another shocking turning point that won't be good for us here on Earth. It can be good, on one side, as Akiva and Karou, Seraphins and Chimaeras, are finally united against a common enemy. I just hope they end up together in the third book and NO ONE DIES, a love like theirs deserves to live on. Akiva deserves so so much to be happy, he suffered so much since he was born and he always tries so hard to do the right thing. It really got me anytime Laini described Akiva while he was suffering, which was the permanent state he was in this entire book - suffering. So I just want to see him with Karou all happy and fluffy! What really made me curious was the queen of the Stelians! I want to see the role she'll have and how it will influence the pending war on Earth as she felt Akiva's magic, and how these two characters will connect. To end, I really hope Thiago stays really really dead, and never comes back. I just have a feeling Jael (serves him right, what Festival (!!!!) did to him but it somehow didn't deviate him from his ways) will be... ehm... disgusting enough to fill in Thiago's spot as the repulsive villain. (hide spoiler)]
This was a big review! And I still feel like I haven't fully expressed my feelings about this book. They are so many! Sorry about the extensive lenght of this review (it's my first one ever holy), but please DO GIVE this series a chance, it's perfect, it has romance and sadness, war and moments of peace (filled with sadness, ah), and even comedy in the middle, believe it or not. Laini Taylor is a perfect writer.

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Review: The Blood Gospel

The Blood Gospel by James Rollins
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This almost gets a 4 star rating for me.

This was a very interesting read for me! Not only because it has to do with archaeology, but because it talked about a lot of things I had never heard and, of course, the one in me who can't just ignore history loved those parts. Before you ask, yes, I searched for what was real and what wasn't. Speaking of that, I really like the way James Rollins grabbed characters who were real historical people and gave them his twist to fit in the story. If I have to talk some more about the characters, I could get me some Jordan anytime (he's a stud but such a cutie)! All the characters are well written, and the relationship between them and the way those relationships and the characters themselves grow is well explained and makes sense. That was probably my favorite part, the way the characters were written. Our main character's inner conflict she has with religion and her own family because of it felt like a refreshing background for me, and it was well explored and well written.

What detracted me from giving it full 4 stars (or even 5) were mainly two things: I had a really hard time reaching the end of this, I don't know why. Maybe I was having a reading slump, because it took me almost two months to finish it. I like the way its written, I like the way the characters and all the settings are described. I love the input the author gives us about historical facts through dialogue between the characters, which is beautifully done, and have nothing bad to pin about the way its written, so I have absolutely no idea why I couldn't just bring myself to finish it.

The second thing, which made me cringe a little bit (and I don't know if this is a spoiler or not but I'll just consider it isn't) was the strigoi. Which basically means vampire in Romenian, if I'm not mistaken. It basically made me feel the same way The Strain did. A story with such good potential, almost ruined by vampires. I can't say I didn't like it, they're pretty different vampires, if one can say so, but it made me cringe. And every time the book reminded me they were vampires, I cringed a little more. Now, I can't speak for everyone, and that obviously shouldn't have influenced my opinion just because some of the characters are, well, vampires, but it did, and I can't lie about it. Because I was expecting a fictional book about history with some fictional history in the mix, not a fantasy book.

If you just ignore the fact that they're vampires, this is a very enjoyable book, which I enjoyed very much. Still, I'll read the second, everything in this is good except... well, you know what.

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Review: Moon Called

Moon Called by Patricia Briggs
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Please! Don't turn away from this book just because of the cover! DON'T! COME READ IT!!

Ahem, I have to be honest, I read it sometime ago, but I can still recall how it amazed me so much that it didn't have anything to do with the cover, (minor spoiler alert about her tattoo) except her tattoo - she really has it.

Moon Called caught me by surprise, and I loved it! I only bought it because it had a 50% discount (shame on me) and because I saw the reviews here were good. But it was such a good surprise!

It's about werewolves, yes, but it has nothing to do with the young adult books of nowadays. It's a pretty grown up book, but don't turn away just yet! It has absolutely no sexual themes. Now isn't this weird, somehow.

It has a complex story that is well written, and if you're wondering, there are no loose ends, everything is tied together in the end, all the characters are well written as well, but the dialogue is the strong point of this book. As for Mercy, she is a strong young woman who works hard for herself, not anyone else, and maybe that's what makes her so likable and FRESH, yes, because she's a main character on her own that has nothing to do with some typical female protagonists of werewolf/vampire books.

Please don't turn down this book just because of the cover, I promise you won't regret it if you like fantasy books and are looking for a more adult story that doesn't contain sexual themes nor erotic scenes. Seriously, if you're looking for a grown up story with vampires/werewolves that doesn't involve sex, this is the perfect book.

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