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Diana Wynne-Jones - Charmed Life Genre: Basics: This book - in fact, the entire Chrestomanci series, of which it is the first - really takes the idea of magic as a metaphor for power or influence and runs with it. This one is particularly awesome because it spends so much time and detail on examining what it’s like to be or feel powerless in a world of powerful and often selfish people. Why I like it: Because of Cat. And because Wynne-Jones doesn’t bend over backwards trying to make you like him, or even to decide whether he’s “good” or “bad”, “right” or “wrong”. Instead, it just lets him wander bewilderedly through a storm of smart and increasingly scary people who all have designs on him, and lets you watch almost disinterestedly to see whether he makes it. (Also, Chrestomanci’s hot. But, unfortunately, taken.) Favorite Part: Where Chrestomanci calls Cat to his study. Comic genius. Oh, also, any scene with Janet in it. I love Janet. Weakest Part: I … don’t know. I liked it all. Some critic I am, eh? Patricia Wrede - Calling on Dragons Genre: Basics: This is my favorite book of the Enchanted Forest Chronicles, the third one. It’s also the sad one, so if you don’t like sad books, be sure you have the next & final one on hand before you finish. The wizards steal Mendanbar’s sword (pay no attention to any Freudian ideas here) and now-pregnant Cimorene (& Co., along with a gluttonous floating six-foot blue rabbit-cum-donkey named Killer and some snarky cats) set off to steal it back. And run into difficulties. Why I like it: Because it’s the most complicated and interesting of the series, it doesn’t have a happy ending, it’s told from Morwen’s perspective, and it’s really funny. And Kazul gets to eat somebody. Favorite Part: Seeing Cimorene, after returning to the Enchanted Forest to see her life as she expected it to unfold completely wash away, move on. Weakest Part: Still the wizards. Vamist, though, makes up for it by being thoroughly weird and memorable. Diana Wynne-Jones - Howl’s Moving Castle Genre: Basics: Everybody loves a fairy tale with the least and youngest of the family succeeding against all odds. But … what about the eldest? Well, this bud’s for you. Sophie Hatter, oldest of three daughters in a market town hounded by a couple of powerful and unscrupulous magicians, runs afoul of the Witch of the Waste, then sets off to seek her fortune and perhaps find a good anti-wrinkle cream. Then she moves in with the debatably evil, definitely unprincipled Wizard Howl. And is the coolest, grouchiest, nosiest heroine ever. Why I like it: I love Sophie and Howl, and the chemistry between them. Sophie is so awesome and funny, and Howl is so wonderfully unheroish - vain, fickle, selfish … and well-dressed. Favorite Part: When Sophie zip-zip-zips her way around the countryside in half a borrowed pair of seven-league boots. Weakest Part: There isn’t one. This book is perfect and charming. You’ll like it. Or you’ll hate it. I don’t care; I like it. Patricia Wrede - Searching for Dragons Genre: Basics: This is the second of the Enchanted Forest Chronicles, where Mendanbar and Cimorene meet and fall in love while on a quest to rescue Kazul from the wizards. And, you know, whatever. More dragons! More zaniness! Why I like it: I like it because of all the random extra characters who show up to be funny and odd, like the giants, and Herman, and the lion guarding the pool, and … who are all extremely well-drawn and memorable. Favorite Part: The scenes at the giants’ castle, and the way that Mendanbar & Cimorene continually think up obvious but unorthodox solutions to the difficulties faced by many of the characters they run across. Or, possibly, the Right Honorable Wicked Stepmothers’ Traveling, Drinking, and Debating Society. Not so much because they really do anything, but because I would love to be part of such a coolly-named club. Weakest Part: The wizards are still pretty single-mindedly bad, though you see them being a bit more … bureaucratic and squabbly … this time, which is fun. Other than that, I don’t have many complaints. Robin McKinley - Beauty Genre: Basics: This is the Robin McKinley gateway drug. Beautiful imagery, engaging characters - everybody in the story is likeable and interesting, even the horse - and a very low level of the freakiness, grossness, or disturbing thematic material that shows up in some of her other stories make it a wonderfully fun experience to read, but it’s still, you know, smart. This is the first re-telling McKinley wrote of the story of Beauty and the Beast. It’s also the most straightforward one. Unlike the next two re-tellings, McKinley seems to use the fairy tale as little more than an outline for the love story she wants to tell and doesn’t comment too much about what the fairy tale means. In many ways it’s another bloody coming-of-age and falling-in-love story where a somewhat insecure and socially disconnected young person becomes slightly more secure and socially connected young person, only not as boring as that makes it sound. Why I like it: Truly? Because the Beast is incredibly hot. Actually, McKinley’s male lead characters are all pretty hot, but this one’s my favorite. Perhaps reading this book when I was a young, bitter, impressionable, and single teenager shaped (warped?) my perceptions, or perhaps McKinley and I have similar, er, tastes, or whatever, but … damn. Favorite Part: When Beauty and the Beast take turns reading to each other. It’s such a delightfully intimate passage. Weakest Part: The explanation at the end about why the Beast was made a beast. It seemed a little … skipped over. (Of course, he’s had two hundred years to put his side of the story together, and he is talking to his chickybonbon, and hey, we all see things the way we want to some extent, so I guess it makes sense. But still.) Religious Objectors Might Object To: Magic (even though the characters aren’t really practitioners). Also, the idea that one doesn’t see what one doesn’t believe in might rub some the wrong way. Other than that, it’s pretty unobjectionable. Well, I guess a young woman living alone w/ an older man (ish) might not fly, but then, that’s the story, you know? |
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