80 Books No.29: Black Swan Rising by Lee Carroll

I bought this because I thought it would have some connection to Swan Lake. It sort of did, very slightly, in as much as black and white swans seemed important in some way (I sort of lost track of those bits). Mostly, however, it was to do with vampires, fairies and the sixteenth century alchemist John Dee. Which, you know, is completely logical.

Falling into a genre apparently known as 'urban fantasy', Black Swan Rising was about Garet (or Margaret dependent upon how you want to be introduced to her) who seems normal on the surface but has a lot more hidden beneath the surface. She finds out that her mother's death in a car accident was far from accidental and that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in her philosophy.

Okay, it's essentially Twilight for a slightly older audience (I think; I don't know why but it feels more adult than Stephenie Meyer's novels).

However, this is not all bad. Being pretty much Twilight means you do get some overblown angst, a sexy vampire and a massive fight between good and evil. And the characters here are at least more likeable and perhaps more believable; they're generally quite 'normal' anyway, with, naturally, the exception of the elves, fairies and gnomes which crop up around every street corner in Manhattan. This element I liked, as all of these mystical beings lived their every day lives alongside humans, either as nurses or pawnbrokers or radio DJs. It probably shouldn't have worked, but did, and these characters were just the backdrop the novel needed.

There was logical progression in the plot and it came to what I consider a satisfying ending; it was slightly open-ended but gave a sense of closure. I would criticise Garet's almost instant acceptance of this magical world, even given her complete immersion into it, but then if she hadn't immediately got on board with it, it would have been a hell of a tedious novel! As it was, it was actually quite gripping and exciting, and I desperately wanted Garet and Will to get together even if he seemed horrendously dangerous.

A pretty decent read if you like ridiculous fantasy. Would make a good film!

The Host

In my review of The Silver Linings Playbook, I discussed some of the differences between the book and the film in the ongoing issue of which is better. On that occasion I concluded that both formats shed a little more light on the characters (basically fudging the issue in a typical Literature graduate manner).

With The Host, I've found my conclusion much easier to come to, and given that this is a Stephenie Meyer based text, it might be a little surprising. Let me state on record right here that I have read all four Twilight novels; I've seen all five Twilight films (I'm not including The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner in this list because, let's face it, who has the time for that?) I paid actual money to see those films at the cinema. Perhaps most appallingly, I've even read that godawful Twilight-fanfiction rip off, Fifty Shades of Grey - it's probably testament to how bad E L James is as a writer that she makes Meyer look talented. I've not enjoyed very much of these things, but anybody who reads this blog regularly has probably gathered by now that I'm incredibly picky with books and films: my not enjoying something is much like everybody else shrugging and saying 'it was okay.'

But The Host I enjoyed. I remember reading it pretty compulsively and getting quite involved in the whole Wanda-Ian-Jared-Melanie odd triangle/square thing. I loved Ian, but also like Jared. In fact, it was really only Melanie who irritated me, suffering as she was from a little bit of Bella Swan-itis. Yes, this was essentially the same story only with aliens rather than vampires, but at least Wanda, and to some extent Melanie, actually considered the effects of their actions upon others, which was refreshing after Bella and Edward's 'but we love each other' for thousands of pages.

So I was really excited when the film came out. I was looking forward to seeing it all played out on screen and to not seeing K-Patz clogging up the screen with their overly brooding and miserable presences. I was hopeful.

In the end, though, it was all a bit underwhelming. Firstly, the screenplay was a bit poorly put together in my opinion. Possibly the cheesy dialogue was lifted straight from the novel and it's just a bit more palatable in printed form; certainly the suspension of disbelief was easier for me when reading the novel than when watching the film. Because of the sometimes duff line, the acting was a bit wooden at times, although Saoirse Ronan did a good job acting against herself and coming across as two different characters, making Wanda and Melanie distinct entities.

Secondly, the film was quite slow. Again, not wholly its fault: the novel is pretty long and from what I can recall, Wanda and Melanie spend ages in the desert getting to the secret hideaway; I probably got a bit bored at that point of the novel too. But watching the film reminded me what I had loved about the novel, and the film didn't quite capture it. I loved how Wanda was gradually accepted into the colony, the chessboard moves between her, Jared and Ian, and how sweet the relationship between Ian and her was. This was rushed, in my opinion, in the film, and I found myself sniggering instead of swooning. It wasn't really made clear why Wanda preferred Ian to Jared; the characters needed bulking out a little more, although both actors were pretty (more so than Edward and Jacob in Twilight so at least they hit those buttons for me).

It was, in summary, a pretty disappointing adaptation and I would urge anybody who has even a passing interest to read the novel.

80 Books No. 10: Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl

Unhappy boy who doesn’t feel like he fits in meets a girl who is ostracised by the community. He becomes infatuated. It turns out the girl is magical and has some awful curse and her family are quite weird and she shouldn’t be mingling with a mortal. Their love is almost all conquering.

It sounds sort of familiar, doesn’t it? It could be Twilight by almost any other name. Piggy-backing on the heels of Stephanie Meyer’s series, is this series, but this time it’s Casters (sort of witches and wizards) who are the topic rather than the rather ubiquitous vampires of late.

I really wanted to see the film of this, but having subjected my friends to the Twilight saga (and wanting to store up some Brownie points for The Host at the end of March) I gave into peer pressure and gave up. When I saw the book going cheap in ASDA, however, I decided to buy it as I like magical stuff and the first page seemed reasonably engaging.

And engaging it was as a whole. It seems unfair to judge the book by the sparkly vampire standards, but it is almost certainly aimed at the same audience and has so many similarities that it would be silly to overlook them. So here’s my opinion of it compared to Twilight.

The narrator is infinitely less irritating. Bella Swan pouted and sulked and generally mardied her way through four novels, whilst Ethan at least comes across as a likeable enough bloke. He behaves in a generally decent, if slightly over-the-top way, falling for Lena almost before he’s had time to even quite catch her name. And you have to admire a boy who is willing to stand up for his girlfriend against the whole town.

The relationship is also less weird than Bella and Edward’s. Yes, Ethan and Lena spend almost every waking minute together (either physically or communicating psychically) but it doesn’t become the demanding moaning miserable mess that the Swan-Cullen alliance is. Even as the climax of the novel approaches, their relationship still maintains some charm and innocence.

The setting is more believable than Forks. I mean, how likely is it that an average high school would just be fine with the Cullens and not react to Bella’s downright odd-ballness? At least here we get the real bitchiness girls are capable of which would absolutely be directed towards Lena, not least because she steals one of the popular boys from right under the cheerleaders’ noses. The reaction of the community makes this a far more believable tale within the world it is set. No, Casters are no more real than vampires, but the situations in this book ring truer than Meyer’s world does.

The writing is generally better too. It’s not Pulitzer Prize worthy, and there are perhaps too many descriptions of how Lena’s hair curled, but there is not the endless description over how wonderful she is, and how amazing she is, and how incredible she is, which frankly drove me insane in Twilight. And after all, this is generally a teen-read: they’re not really looking for War and Peace.

Which brings me to some of the negatives. I would have said this was too long, at over five hundred pages, and with some dodgy pacing at times, but in all fairness, the novel does make good use of almost every chapter, introducing key characters and events which tie together. Perhaps the flashback sections could have been cut down as they weren’t entirely necessary, although perhaps they will be picked up on in the following three books in the series. The shift of narrator towards the end, whilst necessary due to events, was jarring and slightly lazy on the part of the authors in my opinion; had they decided they wanted to switch narrator, perhaps they needed to do this earlier in the novel to set it up to be more natural for the reader. This smacked of convenience. After this shift, the ending was a little wet and I would have liked a little more punch, but I suppose five hundred pages of engaging material is quite a feat.

So now the question is, am I going to read the next three? Part of me says yes, it would be nice to see what happens next, but a (perhaps larger) part of me says no. It was enjoyable enough and kept me reading late into the night, but I’m just not sure I care what happens to Ethan and Lena. I would guess that some great event will mean that they can be together, potentially forever, and probably some characters will die along the way, and good will triumph over evil… and I just don’t care.

So maybe Stephanie Meyer wins out in the end after all.