Season Review: Once Upon a Time

Once Upon a Time
Starring: Ginnifer Goodwin, Jennifer Morrison, Joshua Dallas, Lana Parilla, Robert Carlyle, Emilie De Ravin

Season Two Review

    My advice for those of you who have not seen this show yet: go back and watch season one. Then STOP.

Summary for Episode 201:
The curse is broken and the people of Storybrooke, Maine, remember their past. Emma is reunited with her parents. However, just as celebrations get into swing, Mr. Gold has another dark ploy up his sleeve. Plus, Regina's past actions appear to have consequences.

    Like many Oncers, I was very excited for this show to return last September. I was with it from the very first episode, and I've convinced many people, my mother and best friend included, to become just as obsessed with this show as I am. Once Upon a Time's first season was filled with great writing, a interesting and unique plot, some great re-imaginings of some old fairy tales.

     Also like many fans, I was very interested to see what the producers would do with the show since the first finale brought about the end of the Curse keeping the Storybrooke residents in the dark about their true identities. 

     What I got this season started out decently well, what with Emma and Snow/Mary-Margaret (who shall hereby be referred to as Snow) forced into some serious daughter-mother bonding time as they are plunged into the tattered remains of the Enchanted Forest, plagued by ogres and other not so niceys since Regina's big-bad Curse took out a good chunk of it. Snow was back in the business of being Disney's bad-ass princess/queen, being a killer shot with the bow and arrow, knowing how to live off the land, and all that. And there was a really interesting storying going on between two/three new characters and a new kind of evil monster.

     Aurora (Sleeping Beauty), Phillip, and Mulan had a really interesting relationship going on, and something tells me there was definitely more going on between Mulan and Phillip while they were searching for Aurora's "tomb" for 28 years. Then Phillip is kinda-killed by this weird shadowy soul-taker-sucker thingie that has a Chinese-sounding name but GREATLY resembles a Harry Potter-esque Dementor, and Aurora and Mulan are stuck working together to find a way to get back his lost soul. 


     THEN they meet up with Snow and Emma and they kinda help each other out but it's more Mulan and Aurora helping Snow and Emma get back to the real world before Regina's even more evil mother, Cora and Rumplestiltskin's (Gold) ultimate enemy, Captain Hook. 

     Hook and Gold's relationship was actually really well done, and has an interesting dynamic between the two, although "killing" each other and realizing later that they'd failed miserably does get a little old after a while. 

     Does that sound like a lot to take in? Yeah, it was for me, too. Not to mention that all of this is happening while a whole bunch of other crap is going on in Storybrooke, like how some people do and don't have magic, and how suddenly there's a mine of magic in town, and having to deal with everyone's fairy tale character traits mixing and mingling in with their own "real world" personalities and junk like that. Prince Charming (hereby known as David) turns into the "police chief" in town (since, you know, his daughter the real police is stuck in a magical world with no woodsy survival skills whatsoever), and he's in charge of keeping everyone's characters straight and making sure everyone is in and accounted for in Storybrooke, so everyone can find their friends, I think, but we didn't get a whole lot of looking at that aspect of it.

     Regina became a pariah in town due to her magic being returned, which nobody liked, even though after sending Snow and Emma to the Enchanted Forest, she tries to be a good person and not use her magic because she wants Henry to love her. She has some pretty cool episodes in this first half of the season. We learn more about her relationship with her evil mother, and then we get some more of her relationship to Snow and Gold, as well as her past love, the one that was killed by Cora. If you didn't appreciate Regina and her struggle in the first season, then you definitely grow to love her in this season. She really tries to prove herself to Henry and the other fairy tale people in town.

     So Snow and Emma and Mulan and Aurora and Cora and Hook are in what's left of the Enchanted Forest, trying to find a way to get back to Storybrooke. The method appears kind of complicated, requiring a magical bean that doesn't exist, and a dried-up lake of new life and some kind of crazy awesome magical circumstances. Obviously there's a huge struggle, and the bad guys almost win, but then, miraculously, Emma realizes that she's got some cool magic inside her and Emma and Snow escape back into Storybrooke, met by Regina, Henry and Gold.

      That's the end, right? HA, that's only nine episodes. We've still got another half to go. To give us something to watch, somehow Cora and Hook are able to sneak Hook's whole freaking Jolly Roger into the Storybrooke harbor with a new portal that was able to be summoned up in, like, a 90-second flashback scene. Why isn't everything that easy the first time?

     Then, you'd think, since we've just spent nine episodes falling in love with the strange relationship between Mulan and Aurora, we would get follow-up stories with them in the Enchanted Forest, following what Mulan suggested was a way to find Phillip's soul. I also think it would have been really cool to see Mulan's story and how she and Phillip teamed up together, not to mention how Aurora was put under her sleeping spell.

      But we never got to know what was up with that, did we, Producers? Nope. Nine episodes into this season, they're storyline is completely dropped.

     They're not the only ones, either. There were some cool things happening with Ruby, and a giant named Tiny, and we can't forget that no one can cross the Storybrooke town border that was born in the Enchanted Forest. If they do, they completely forget everything, who they were, who they know, and who they were under the Curse. They become a blank slate and everyone worries over them...for like two seconds and then we completely forget about them, unless your Mr. Gold and it's Belle that's lost her memory, because GODDAMMIT WHY??? THEY ARE PERFECT and oh wait, he's gotta leave town because he thinks he's found out where his lost son, Baelfire is hiding out.

      Hold on, back up. After Emma and Snow come back, Emma tries being nice and including Regina in a bunch of town-ish things, because she raised Henry and all that jazz. But Cora is a mean mean person and does some bad shit around town disguised as Regina to get the town to hate her again. Mother of the Year, right?

      So Gold (with the help of some magic potion he was able to concoct that allows him to pass the town border and keep his memory) and Emma (and Henry, because no one trusts Regina around him) run off to New York, where supposedly Gold's long-lost son is living. (If you don't remember Baelfire, he hated what the power of The Dark One did to change his father's personality and got a magic bean from a fairy to take them to a world where there was no magic so they could live happily together again. Gold proved to be too much of a coward to let the magic and power go, and accidentally let Baelfire slip into The Real World. Ever since that moment, every thing Gold has ever done, said, and schemed, in The Enchanted Forest and Storybrooke, has been to find and get back to his son).

     Where they think they'll find Baelfire, they find Emma's ex-boyfriend, Neal. He's made brief appearances before this, having received a Storybrooke postcard in the opening of episode one and a nice little flashback episode of his and Emma's crookery relationship before Emma was arrested and knocked up with Henry.

       Then we find out that Hook won't freaking die, even after being shot -by a gun! He turns up in New York (don't know how he remembers what he's doing, since he's OUT OF STORYBROOKE) and stabs Gold.

   

   Back in town, there's a stranger, and no one knows who he is, what he's doing in Storybrooke, or if he saw some magic fighting Gold and Hook and Belle were doing when he crashed his station wagon. There's a dumb little flashback episode about when the Curse first took place and how outsiders used to be allowed into town, and then we're like OMG IT'S THE SAME LITTLE KID FROM, LIKE 30 YEARS AGO. WHAT THE HECK IS HE DOING HERE? And I don't know about anyone else, but I was hoping for some kind of huge new-media drama, with camera crews coming all up in the town's business, checking out the new magic bean crops, and sniffing around Regina's poison apples. No, instead they do something really dumb with it.

      First, though, let's talk about the one other GREAT episode in this season besides The Crocodile. The Miller's Daughter was FANTASTIC, and it is the story of how Cora came to be how she is. It is fantastic, and it's pretty upsetting how it ends, not because it was badly written, but because you're so briefly happy for Cora and Regina and even a little bit for Gold, and then all your hopes and dreams are dashed with a bit of Snow being really frickin' annoying.

       Anyway, the last good villain in this show dies, and then we need some new villains, so lets go back to the outsider, who i can only remember as Owen, even though that's not his name anymore, and then we bring in Neal's useless fiance, Tamara (Tam-AAAARRRR-a). First of all, she's just got a look about her that says "you know i'm up to no good," and he's a creepy old dude, and together they make the dumbest evil duo trying to "rid the world of magic" -also, they are an ugly couple. She is so pretty, she can do SO much better than that guy.

       They're storyline and "plot" is really dumb, and they think kidnapping Regina will make people freak out and that she'll tell them how to get rid of the magic in town and get rid of their whole Enchanted Forest world or something stupid like that. I don't know, I tended to tune them out when they were on screen.

       So yeah, they do some stupid stuff, and while everyone in town is getting SUPER DUPER excited to use the magic beans to go back to the Enchanted Forest, Team Stupid steals all the beans that Regina steals from the town and then they kidnap Henry and, in the name of some nameless government organization bent on destroying magic, head to another world with the last magic bean. Why this seemed like a good plan, i don't know, because they ended up in Neverland, where there is a giant Shadow playing the part of Peter Pan that is kidnapping little boys. WHY WOULD YOU BRING A LITTLE BOY TO NEVERLAND, YOU DUMBASSES??

       There are obviously some other things going on during the season, and they can be summed up in bullet points:

• Snow White being really annoying and virtuous and "omgoodness we have to help and make all the world wonderful and beautiful and I love my family and thank goodness we're all back together again!"
• Charming/David is useless. Literally. He takes over as police chief while Emma is in the Enchanted Forest, and literally everything that could go wrong does and he's almost never the one to fix things. The one time he does is because he talks to Ruby in her wolf form and calms her down. 
• Cora and Hook's weird little relationship.
• Everyone, literally EVERYONE trying to find Gold's Dark One Dagger to kill him.
• Aurora's, Henry's and Snow's crazy freakish trapped fire dream that they all get from being under a sleeping curse -that was kinda cool.
• Regina being stupid and spiteful after someone dies and changes Belle into a really annoying piece of Rumbelle fanfiction
• The Rumbelle fanfiction episode, Lacey.
• The huge freakin' deal the media team made about "the new hero, Robin Hood," who was barely in 10 minutes of his own episode.
• What happened to Emma's magic? Why did we forget that existed?
• Snow killed someone, intentionally, and darkened her own heart. Why wasn't that explored?
• The townspeople want to go back home and Snow is uncomfortable with that.
• Ruby disappears :,(
• The producers forgetting their own rules for their universes. Watch this season a second time if you can bare it and play the "point out the inconsistencies" drinking game. you'll be dead by episode three, I promise.
• Henry alternately being brilliant, a human prop, a brat, or just kind of not there.

      So there you have it, Season Two of Once Upon a Time in a very opinionated nutshell. 

      Although I was highly disappointed with it, I'm told by my less critical peers that I'm being too harsh. 

      I tell my less critical peers that I deserve some glimmer of quality television with all the bullsh*t that's on today, and Once used to be that last season. They spoiled me with good writing and quality dramedy last year, and then they expect me to eat the slop they tossed on my TV screen this year? HELL NO.

      Sorry I'm not sorry, but a Blonde never lies and she'll never let a show/book/movie off easy.

      
Blonde's Rating: 1.5/5
IMDB.com's Rating: 7.7/10 (3.8/5)
Amazon Instant Play Rating: 4.7/5

That's all for now. If I find any news about Season 3, or the upcoming "Once Upon a Time in Wonderland" thing, I'll post it on my Shows Page.

Thanks,
The Blonde

Golden by Jessi Kirby

      Seventeen-year-old Parker Frost has never taken the road less traveled. Valedictorian and quintessential good girl, she’s about to graduate high school without ever having kissed her crush or broken the rules. So when fate drops a clue in her lap—one that might be the key to unraveling a town mystery—she decides to take a chance.

     Julianna Farnetti and Shane Cruz are remembered as the golden couple of Summit Lakes High—perfect in every way, meant to be together forever. But Julianna’s journal tells a different story—one of doubts about Shane and a forbidden romance with an older, artistic guy. These are the secrets that were swept away with her the night that Shane’s jeep plunged into an icy river, leaving behind a grieving town and no bodies to bury.

     Reading Julianna’s journal gives Parker the courage to start to really live—and it also gives her reasons to question what really happened the night of the accident. Armed with clues from the past, Parker enlists the help of her best friend, Kat, and Trevor, her longtime crush, to track down some leads. The mystery ends up taking Parker places that she never could have imagined. And she soon finds that taking the road less traveled makes all the difference.

     It's been a long time since I could honestly say I've read a satisfying book, and I am delighted to say that  Golden has broken my streak of unfulfilling reads. It's been a while since I've read a purely "chick-lit" book (I think it was Sarah Dessen's Along for the Ride) and this was a great leap back into the genre.

    Parker Frost was definitely a character I could relate to in terms of her small-town home, her relationship with her mother and her best friend, and her love and desire for the romantic, dreamy way of life to play out in reality. I felt that Parker was relatable in the way her thoughts work and her decision-making process. 

Things That I Liked:

     I really appreciated how the story remained focused on Parker's relationship with Julianna's journal, and the story of her relationships with her friend Kat and her crush Trevor were always back-burner plots.

     I thought that it was really interesting how Parker's vision of Julianna's "local legend" status changed for Parker as she read the journal. I wasn't expecting the revelation in Julianna's journal, and I definitely wasn't expecting Parker to be able to actually solve a mystery no one in her town knew needed solving. 

     I liked that the expected conclusion for the Julianna-plot came, but in a way I wasn't anticipating, and I definitely didn't see Parker's personal "conclusion" coming as it did. 

Things That I Didn't Like:

     I think my one complaint for this story is the lack of view on Shane, Julianna's boyfriend, but ultimately this book was focused on Julianna, her journal, and what she wrote in it. There wasn't much involvement of Shane and his thoughts and feelings because they both weren't sharing the journal and Julianna can't read minds.

Overall Impression:

    A great, easy, and entertaining read from a new-to-me author. I had very few issues with this novel, and I highly recommend it for a summer read!

Blonde Rating: 4.5/5

Amazon Rating: 4.4/5 

Goodreads Rating: 4.2/5

I hope you'll pick up a copy of this book and enjoy it as much as I did,

Thanks!

The Blonde

Icons by Margaret Stohl

Your heart beats only with their permission.

Everything changed on The Day. The day the windows shattered. The day the power stopped. The day Dol's family dropped dead. The day Earth lost a war it didn't know it was fighting.

Since then, Dol has lived a simple life in the countryside -- safe from the shadow of the Icon and its terrifying power. Hiding from the one truth she can't avoid.

She's different. She survived. Why?

When Dol and her best friend, Ro, are captured and taken to the Embassy, off the coast of the sprawling metropolis once known as the City of Angels, they find only more questions. While Ro and fellow hostage Tima rage against their captors, Dol finds herself drawn to Lucas, the Ambassador's privileged son. But the four teens are more alike than they might think, and the timing of their meeting isn't a coincidence. It's a conspiracy.

Within the Icon's reach, Dol, Ro, Tima, and Lucas discover that their uncontrollable emotions -- which they've always thought to be their greatest weaknesses -- may actually be their greatest strengths.

     It sounds pretty cool, doesn't it?
     It doesn't sound like it would be very confusing, or repetitive, or like it would leave you with more questions than answers, does it?

     Well, it does. I'm not saying it wasn't worth the read, but it was confusing, and, after reading the book twice, I'm still not sure what the four main characters "are" in terms of their weird powers and their strange inner connection to each other.
     I did, however, enjoy the interesting aspect of these "Big Brother" alien invaders and how the whole society changed around their invasion and their loyal followers. I thought the dynamics between the main characters was unique, but I was confused by some of their motivations and morals.

Things I Liked:

     I think my favorite character was definitely the computer, which goes by a myriad of different science-fiction inspired names. "He" was quirky and had more personality than the evil villain Ambassador that we meet once and her right-hand-man Colonel Catallus possessed. 

    I liked the glimpses readers got of Tima's background. We didn't have a whole lot of character development from any of the four main characters, but the bits we got into Tima's past helped show readers that she has the potential to be a deep and complex character. Same with Lucas's inability to side with the other three, or his mother and her oppressive army.

    I was really interested in the brief bit of mystery that was peppered into the ending about the origin of how the aliens came to be drawn to earth.

Things I Didn't Like:

    Dol needs to let go of the freakin' pig. We barely met the people she shared her whole life with (the Padre, Bigger, Biggest, and Ramona Jamona the pig) yet all she talks and thinks about is this pig. Maybe it's just supposed to be another symbol for a scene later, but it got annoying after a while. All the readers ever really knew about this pig is that she had soft ears and she pooped in the Church the day Dol was taken away. Either Stohl needed to expand on the relationships between Dol and these characters, or she needed to cut the pig out.

    I wanted to understand why the Ambassador was bothering to educate Tima, Ro, and Dol, if they were just tools to begin with. Obviously she wants to treat her son with the best she can give, but I don't understand why she felt that the others were just as special, or why anyone thought it would be a good idea to have them interact with each other so freely.

    What is Fortis's deal????

Overall Impression:

    It was an interesting start to a new series, and I'm definitely interested in reading on to see if the four can shut down all 13 icons, and if Ro will actually act out on Lucas as all signs point to him doing eventually. I'm also interested to see the new "twist" of what these four children are and what they were made to do.

    I was a bit confused through a lot of this book, but the read is non-stop and it ends on a can't-put-it-down kind of note.

Blonde Rating: 2.5/5
GoodReads Rating: 3.7/5
Amazon Rating: 4/5

Thanks for reading,
The Blonde

Black City by Elizabeth Richards

A dark and tender post-apocalyptic love story set in the aftermath of a bloody war

In a city where humans and Darklings are now separated by a high wall and tensions between the two races still simmer after a terrible war, sixteen-year-olds Ash Fisher, a half-blood Darkling, and Natalie Buchanan, a human and the daughter of the Emissary, meet and do the unthinkable--they fall in love. Bonded by a mysterious connection that causes Ash's long-dormant heart to beat, Ash and Natalie first deny and then struggle to fight their forbidden feelings for each other, knowing if they're caught, they'll be executed--but their feelings are too strong.

When Ash and Natalie then find themselves at the center of a deadly conspiracy that threatens to pull the humans and Darklings back into war, they must make hard choices that could result in both their deaths.

I had never heard of this book until my supervisor recommended it to me, and I'm so glad she did. I couldn't put this book down; it was interesting and it read very easily, and the characters were great and relatable. Some of the secondary characters, like Day, and even Natalie's mother, could have been developed a bit more, and I would have been interested to see a bit more into Beetle's mind/past.

The story is set in a fictional city torn apart by war, racism, and segregation of two races: humans, and vampire-like humanoids called Darklings (so, i guess it's more like segregation between intelligent species). Most of the Darklings in the city are corralled into a ghetto called The Legion, separated from the rest of the city by a huge, imposing wall and constantly monitored by Darkling guards and human Sentry, to ensure that no one crosses over the wall, human or Darkling. it is, however, commonplace for rogue Darklings with an infectious disease called Wrath to somehow cross over. The disease eats away at their minds and flesh, and they go insane, attacking any thing and anyone.

Ash is only half Darkling, and was raised human, so after the war between the two races, he was allowed to stay on the "good" side of the wall, though he often wonders about the rest of his family on the other side. 

Natalie hates it in Black City, and wants nothing more than to leave -that is, of course, until she meets Ash, who at first she detests for his being a Darkling, and his piss-poor attitude, but then he grows on her through random acts of kindness and too many classes with poor seating options.

There was a decent amount of on-going mystery in this story, and just when it seemed like something was about to get boring -BAM! Someone dies because Natalie's being stalked, or BOOM! Natalie's douchebag bodyguard wants to fight Ash, or WHAM! there really ARE more half-Darkling children in the world! Or maybe not. Basically, it's full of twists, turns, conspiracy theories and not-so-theoretical conspiracies, and crazy blood bonds and love connections and laws that don't make sense.

I liked most of this story, so I'm just going to go into the things I didn't like or understand:

1. What are the general time-period laws of this place? One minute Natalie's wearing some kind of corset get-up and riding in an expensive, Sentry-grade horse drawn carriage, and the next she's glancing at her cell phone every ten seconds (which mysteriously wasn't mentioned at all for about 200 pages of the book -I had no idea phones existed in this universe until she was waiting for someone to text her halfway through the story). They need horse-drawn or steam-powered vehicles, but tanks roam the streets regularly, and the Emissary has a fully-equipped high tech laboratory in her basement, in which her own personal scientist is constantly doing DNA testing and experiments with some crazy-advanced technology.
I think I understand the feel that Richards was going for with this mix, but it just sort of confused me for a long time (like, whenever fashion or travel was mentioned).

2. What was the point of Evangeline? She was there for maybe 40 pages, kinda screwed up the relationship for like a day, and then she "left town" after making some threat to Natalie. I hope she has more of a role in the next book, because right now she's serving as not much more than an annoyance and a slight explanation for Ash's and Natalie's sudden bond.

3. I wish the "rules" of this universe had been explained a lot sooner in the book. It was about halfway through the book when we learn that there are some weird creatures in this world, like humanoid-cat things that have poison that can kill Darklings... That information would have been good to have earlier.

4. The last "trial" period of the story went by really quickly, and yet both narrators make reference to how its been about four weeks since the last action-y thing that happened. We had no sort of reference of time, or how miserable these characters must feel simply waiting to find out their futures.

Overall Impression:

Basically, all of my issues are things that should have been caught by a managing editor or even a copyeditor, but whatever.

I still really liked the way the story was narrated and set up, and I think the character of Ash in particular was especially convincing, which isn't common with female writers, so PROPS!

I think that the continuation of this story has a lot of potential, and I can't wait to start Phoenix.

Blonde Rating: 4.5/5
Amazon Rating: 4.1/5
GoodReads Rating: 3.8/5

The second book in the Black City series, Phoenix, comes out on June 4th.

That's all for now,
The Blonde

(Also, it's totally so cool that they blew up a rose to get this cover).

Ten Reason to Read The Iron Fey

10 Reasons to Read The Iron Fey

Hello All,


If you haven't heard about Julie Kagawa's The Iron Fey series, (or if you have) and you, like me a year ago, don't think you like books about faeries, you need to take a look at my list of 10 reasons why you should read this series, or at least give the first book, The Iron King, a fair and unbiased shot.


Reason #1: A Strong, Relatable Heroine
Meagan Chase is the main character in this series. At first she seems like any other ordinary teenager, unpopular, totally in love with the hot-shot jock, and a goofy best friend by her side...until her little brother is stolen from their home and Meagan starts seeing crazy magical creatures all over the place. Suddenly Meagan's world is turned upside-down as her best friend turns out to be the most infamous trickster faery in the world and her search for her brother takes her into the beautiful and dangerous world of the Nevernever, the feary world, too dangerous for mortals.

DeviantArt user: http://skellingt0n.deviantart.com/art/Iron-Fey-196138057

Meagan is an awesome heroine because she has no idea what the heck she's doing, and that fact is completely believable to the readers. It's also great to find a girl who is so determined to reach her goal that she's willing to do anything, even if that means traveling to a poisonous world where no one can protect her! Meagan is clumsy, strong, full of love and passion, and totally and completely believable.

Reason #2: Comedy
These books are hilarious. That's not to say that there isn't a lot of action and drama happening, but the tension is often broken up to let the reader breathe during these high intensity moments -like right in the middle of a life-or-death battle!
Most of this comedy is brought on by Meagan's best friend, Robin Goodfellow, aka Puck from "A Midsummer Night's Dream" aka the most awesome MoFo ever. He has some of the best one-liners in these books, tossed out so non-chalantly in the middle of a serious moment that you HAVE to laugh out loud...even if you're in the middle of your Psychology class -oops!

Reason #3: Grimalkin
The coolest cat you will ever read about in your life. A mix between the Cheshire Cat and (am I crazy?) Professor Snape, he is wise and more than a little blunt. He is an essential character to each book's story arc, because without this feline, Meagan and crew would be stuck chasing their tails, so to speak, never getting anything done. He has a nasty tendency of disappearing at the slightest hint of danger and not returning for some time, but he really does know everything, and grows a reluctant fondness for the heroes of these stories -but he'll never admit to it.

Reason #4: Literary Antagonists
We've all read Shakespeare, some more eagerly than others, so readers should recognize King Oberon, Queen Tatiana, and Queen Mab of the Feary Courts in the Iron Fey series. Mab, mentioned in "Romeo and Juliet," is the cold ice queen of the Unseelie court, the icy, heartless and cruel fey who are constantly at war with the Summer court, where King Oberon and Tatiana from "A Midsummer Night's Dream" rule the Seelie fey, who are equally cruel, but take great and obvious pleasure in tricking and riddling their prey. The two Queens are definitely not Meagan's allies throughout these books, for a multitude of reasons, and Oberon isn't always on her side, either, but he's more "lenient" -if that's what you want to call it -with her than the others. It's really cool to see these characters and their larger-than-life personalities brought to light out of their original stories, especially when Kagawa alludes to their well-known histories in Shakespeare's works.

Reason #5: A Real Sense of Danger
I won't reveal any major plot points here, but just know that all of your soon-to-be-favorite characters are going to be in serious, life-threatening danger in these books. And each book raises the stakes of that danger just a bit more, bringing more tension and urgency to each chapter. Come prepared with a box of tissues and an oxygen tank, for when you start hyperventilating.

Reason #6: A Menagerie of New Magical Creatures
If I tried to name all of the faery creatures in these books, I think this post would be as long as its own novel. Basically every faery-related creature you've ever heard of makes at least a basic appearance in one of these stories. Some of these things include giants, trolls, goblins, wood nymphs, satyrs, unicorns, sirens, kelpies, redcaps, and even The Big Bad Wolf -that's right, THAT one. These creatures are all characters in themselves and often move the plot along or turn it around in a new direction. Otherwise they paint a very colorful backdrop to this already technicolor story.
Reason #7: The Hot Guy
Ash.
'nuf said.
Once you read the books, you'll understand. Strong, beautiful, hiding a dark and brooding past -love him. You'll have no choice.
(Team Ash)


Reason #8: The Forbidden Relationship
Meagan's a human, Ash is an Unseelie prince. All the rules of nature and the Nevernerver say it's impossible for them to be together. What better reason to try it? Love, duh. I love these two together, and screw everyone and anyone who tries to tear them apart! I died a little inside every time Ash had to push his feelings for Meagan away and pretend like it didn't matter! (But not in a Twilight-y way, more like a more intense and they-will-actually-kill-us-if-we-do-this kind of way).
Thank Goodness for The Iron Knight. It restored all of my faith in princely heroes, long nearly unattainable quests, and the possibility for happily ever afters -not that they belong in every story, of course.

Reason #9: The New Enemy
Everyone who reads faery folklore knows that the fey can't stand the touch of iron. Well what could possibly be more dangerous to a world of fey than an enemy made completely out of iron and as powerful as the imagination can dream? No one has ever thought to create this kind of bad guy, and it puts a very interesting twist into the storyline of these books. It makes winning for the good guys ten times as difficult as it would have been, and it puts an extra edge of tension to every encounter with the antagonists.
A brilliant idea for a new twist to the folktales.

Reason #10: A Fun and Easy Read
I hate it when teachers try to make you read books, because those literary fiction novels are so hard to read through with a looming deadline. For those kind of books, you need to be in a specific state of mind and have oodles of time to slowly absorb the atmosphere that the literary fiction is building. I have a short attention-span, and I don't have time to wait for that atmosphere to build.
That's why I like YA so much. It lays out an entertaining story very simply, so you can get lost in the story, not the words.
You will get lost in the Iron Fey. There's no question about it -the descriptions are too vivid and the characters are too lifelike for a reader to remain firmly planted in the real world. The action of the story takes you away from your reading room and into the Summer Court, or the through the halls of the icy palace of Tir Na Nog. There is no escape -once you're in, you'll Never -never! -come back out.
And you won't want to, either.

Sever by Lauren DeStefano (Chemical Garden)

     With the clock ticking until the virus takes its toll, Rhine is desperate for answers. After enduring Vaughn’s worst, Rhine finds an unlikely ally in his brother, an eccentric inventor named Reed. She takes refuge in his dilapidated house, though the people she left behind refuse to stay in the past. While Gabriel haunts Rhine’s memories, Cecily is determined to be at Rhine’s side, even if Linden’s feelings are still caught between them.

     Meanwhile, Rowan’s growing involvement in an underground resistance compels Rhine to reach him before he does something that cannot be undone. But what she discovers along the way has alarming implications for her future—and about the past her parents never had the chance to explain.

      In this breathtaking conclusion to Lauren DeStefano’s Chemical Garden trilogy, everything Rhine knows to be true will be irrevocably shattered.

     The end of Fever prevented me the luxury of relaxing between reading it and this sequel. It's not too often that I read a series where the next book is available right away, so I took this opportunity and was soon back into Rhine's world, quickly reaching the conclusion to this trilogy.

     I have a lot of mixed feelings about this installment in the series. I feel like a majority of the front matter in this book was waiting around. Either they were waiting for Rhine to be released from the hospital, or Rhine was waiting for a good time to leave Reed's place, they're waiting for the opportunity to escape Vaughn, etc. 

     However when we weren't waiting for something to happen, SO MUCH was happening, and there was either a lot of action going on or there was a lot of information being fed to Rhine and the reader. So much information, in fact, that I think Rhine was kept a little too in-the-dark in the first two books, because the entire second half of the book is like an information overload. There's intel about Rhine's genetics, and her brother Rowen's actions in the last year, and Vaughn's true intentions with the twins (the sister wives, and Linden, and the maids, and pretty much anyone he could get his hands on). There was a shocking reveal 250 pages in that doesn't really get explained very well by the end of the book, and then there's suddenly a hostage situation. It was a lot to process very quickly.

     

Things That I Liked:

     I really liked Reed and his eccentricities. He was a really interesting character, and I'm almost sad that we only got to know him in this final installment.

     I liked the added layer of this world/disease that was brought about with Hawaii and all that entails.

     I was confused but delighted by Rhine's and Linden's obvious lingering feelings for each other, and I definitely felt Linden's heartache and hesitation to trust his former-favorite wife.

     I liked that Cecily finally decided to grow up.

     THE ROSE REVEAL. So shocking. So good.

Things That I Didn't Like:

     I was confused about the Hawaii-addition and if it was explained how that whole "situation" was possible, I think I missed it.

     I wish there was more Gabriel. Or at least more worry for Gabriel.

     I wanted Rowen's actions/thought process about his attacks/bombings/trusting-of-certain-people to be explained better. Again, if that did happen, I missed it.

     MORE MADAME (and Jared). Wanted it. Didn't get it.

Overall Impression:

     I was once again captivated by DeStefano's prose, and while I still believe that Fever is the better book in the trilogy, Sever does have a lot going on and a lot to love as a final book in a series. 

     I was a little "eh" about the ending, it seemed to come about a little too easily for me, then again I don't know how else I would have preferred it to go. Almost all of my questions were answered, and reading other reviews tells me that most everyone else who read the series had all of their questions answered to their satisfaction. 

     Overall for the series, this story presents a new and interesting concept, and it provided a really fascinating and complex social situation to work a story around. 

I will be waiting excitedly to get my hands on DeStefano's Internment Chronicles: Perfect Ruin book in October. For more information on that, please visit the book's GoodReads page.

Blonde's Rating: 3.5/5

Amazon's Rating: 4.3/5

GoodReads Rating: 3.9/5

Check out the reviews of the other books in the series, Fever and Wither.

Thanks!

The Blonde

Fever by Lauren DeStefano (Chemical Garden)

Book Review:
The Chemical Garden Series: Wither, Fever, and Sever
by Lauren DeStefano

Fever

     Rhine and Gabriel have escaped the mansion, but they’re still in danger. Outside, they find a world even more disquieting than the one they ran away from. Determined to get to Manhattan and find Rhine’s twin brother, Rowan, the two press forward, amid threats of being captured again…or worse.

     The road they are on is long and perilous—and in a world where young women only live to age twenty and men die at age twenty-five, time is precious. In this sequel to Lauren DeStefano’s harrowing Wither, Rhine must decide if freedom is worth the price—now that she has more to lose than ever.

     When I finished Wither, I didn't know if I was going to continue reading the Chemical Garden series, but i decided that the cover was interesting enough for me to pick it up, and I'm glad I did. I can honestly say that Fever is my favorite book in the trilogy.

     I feel like this book was more "alive" than the last one, and I think that had a lot to do with the constant moving from place to place, the impending danger of being found and caught, and the growing tension of Gabriel's and Rhine's respective illnesses.

     As in her last book, DeStefano has brilliant prose, very lyrical and enthralling. Fever has a lot more of the mystery who/what Rhine is in this dystopic world. The stakes rise as you realize with Rhine that she is slowly dying for seemingly no reason. The people Rhine and Gabriel meet on their way to New York are an enticing mix of good and insane, keeping you wondering when, or if, these two will ever be safe, or just able to get a single good night's un-drugged sleep. At first I was skeptical of the addiction of Maddie, the little malformed child from the carnival-themed scarlet district, but she turned out to be an unobtrusive addition, almost proving more perceptive and intelligent than Rhine, sometimes.

Things That I Liked:

     I really liked the parts of the book that occurred in the Madame's scarlet district. I think these scenes are the most colorful -haha- and the most energetic of the book. Madame is one of the more complex characters in this volume, and her energy is infused into her girls and her twisted carnival. The imagery of the district, as well, really pop compared to the other locations Rhine and Gabriel visit along the way to Manhattan.

     I liked the little mystery of Maddie, her picture book, her mother Lilac/Grace, and her grandmother. I thought it was an interesting twist to give the group something to keep moving for, and I'm glad that it gave them a place to rest for a little while.

     The scenes in the basement after Rhine's brought back to the mansion; they are terribly vivid, and they make my skin crawl with the detail, but I love having a physical reaction to a description, because that's when you know you've got great writing.

Things I Didn't Like:

     I don't know if this first thing is something I didn't like or if I just didn't understand it, but the  part of the book when Rhine was caught up in the idea that she could be dead, or that she could have died a year ago, or any time in between then and now. I thought it was strange that she was wondering and marveling at this fact as she was slowly rotting away, and they didn't come to any sort of conclusive thoughts because -surprise! -she doesn't die at the end of this book.

     Cecily's overall uselessness when she knew Rhine was back "home."

     The fact that Rhine didn't show Gabriel how grateful she was to have him with her, or even tell him. She thinks it a lot, but never lets him know, even when, at a few points, they're both pretty much dying.

Overall Impression:

     I really liked this sequel to the first book, and it leaves you on a note that's impossible to not follow-up on with the third and final installment. There are so many missing pieces of the genetic puzzle that is the living, breathing Rhine that you can't help but long to know why Vaughn is so invested in her and why her brother Rowan is being such a douchebag.

Blonde's Rating: 4/5

Amazon Rating: 4.3/5

Goodreads Rating: 3.9/5

Stay tuned to find out what The Blonde says about Fever's sequel, Sever, and check out Wither's review here.

Thanks!

The Blonde