Chuyển đến nội dung chính

Geeks and the Holy Grail (Camelot Code #2), by Mari Mancusi, for Timeslip Tuesday

The first book in the Camelot Code series, The Once and Future Geek , mixed time travel between the medieval world of King Arthur and our own, and it is a very entertaining book.  The second book in the series, Geeks and Holy Grail (Hyperion, October 2019), is also entertaining (though not quite as funny; King Arthur as a modern day high school student is hard to beat....). When Morgana, sworn enemy of King Arthur, attacks the druids of Avalon, Nimue, the youngest of them, takes the Holy Grail and runs with it.  King Arthur is dying, and only the Grail can save him.  Desperate to keep it from falling into Morgana's hands, she stumbles into Merlin's Crystal Cave.  But instead of Merlin there to help her (he's on vacation in Los Vegas, in our time), there's only his very inexperienced apprentice, Emrys.  His attempt to hide the grail works, in a sense--as a small, flatulent dragon, it sure doesn't look much like a grail.  But it isn't much use to Arthur as a...

The Secret

Exile

By Rebecca Lim

A drink of cold water can be very refreshing.  The feeling of cold water on your tongue which then slips down through your throat can feeling amazing.  But now, make that water a little warm.  Not quite as refreshing but still pretty good.  Now, put some red, yellow, and blue food coloring into the warm water to make it brown. Then dump in something that makes the water a little chunky. The warm brown water  with chunks is not nearly as appetizing as the cold water.  If I was going to chose between warm brown water or almost anything else I probably would.

Exile is about an angel who has been banished and calls herself Mercy -- mmm, water.  Mercy wakes up in different people's bodies, in Exile she is in Lela's body.  This idea was pretty interesting and I couldn't wait to start reading.  But, unfortunately, that wasn't all.  She is in love with Luc, an angel who has not been banished and talks to Mercy in her sleep.  She is also in love with Ryan, a boy who she knew from an earlier life -- warm the water up a little.  She calls Ryan Luc's mortal counterpart.  For the first 18 chapters Mercy, astonishingly quickly, learns to live like Lela, including balancing taking care of her dying mother and her job.  She then mixes herself up with a boy named Ranald when she promises to go out with him if he finds Ryan on the internet for her -- oh, here's the food coloring.  But, she never plans to do this because Ryan is going to come for her! She is so excited about that.  In fact, it is all she can think about; it is all I read about -- was that a chunk in my water?

One of the better aspects of the book was Lela's friend Justine.  Mercy learns to feel compassion for her and eventually sees how hard Justine's life is and tries to help her.  In general Mercy's feelings and actions seemed unrealistic.  They seem the most realistic in regards to Justine.

I think the book could have been better if just a few things were added.  I think the book would have been a lot better if Mercy/Lela was more realistic.  Everything seemed a little removed and her priorities didn't to make sense. As Mercy waits for Ryan, Lela's mother is less and less important.  This seemed weird because Lela's mother was dying.  Even if it wasn't actually Mercy's mother I think she should have cared for her a little more. I also think it would have been better if there was more conflict in the book.  Not enough happens to challenge Mercy's will or give Mercy a chance to prove herself or anything really.  The book just seemed a little pointless.  Many of the ideas were good but weren't done as well as they should have been.

This book is a 1.

Nhận xét

Bài đăng phổ biến từ blog này

The Hippo at the End of the Hall, by Helen Cooper

If you are a fantasy fan who loves quirky small museums with collections of oddities, you will love  The Hippo at the End of the Hall , by Helen Cooper (first published in the UK in 2017, now out in the US from Candlewick, Oct 2019). Ben's invitation to the Gee Museum was delivered by bees.  He'd never heard of the place before, but despite his mother's reservations about letting him go there on his own (reservations which seem, for reasons, to be a bit much, even taking into account the fact that Ben's only ten)  he went...There, in its rooms full of taxidermidied creatures, other natural history collections, a glass bee hive, and clocks and other treasures collected by the Gee family from around the world years ago, he found magic, and the truth about his father, who died many years ago while off on an expedition of his own. Ben also found danger, one of my personal least favorite types of danger--the unscrupulous developer, in this case paired with the unscrupulous d...

The Moon Over Crete, by Jyotsna Sreenivasan, for Timeslip Tuesday

The Moon Over Crete , by Jyotsna Sreenivasan (1996, Smooth Stone Press), is a slightly older children's time travel story, interesting for several reasons. It's the story of a modern girl, 11-year-old Lily, whose mom is Indian American, and whose dad is European American.  Lily is finding it difficult being a girl--her best friend is interested in dressing to impress boys, a boy in her class is sexually harassing her and no one is doing anything about it, her mother isn't letting her do things (like go exploring off in the woods) that she'd be allowed to do if she were a boy.  Lily's flute teacher, Mrs. Zinn, is the only one who seems to understand Lily's growing resentment. And happily for Lily, Mrs. Zinn is a time-traveler, fond of visiting ancient Crete, where (in this fictional world) there is almost utopian gender equality.  Mrs. Zinn offers Lily the chance to go to ancient Crete with her for a few weeks,  and Lily accepts.  Having an experienced adult guid...

The Time Museum, Vol. 2, by Matthew Loux for Timeslip Tuesday

Delia and her cohort of kids training at the Time Museum to journey across the ages are back in another adventure-- The Time Museum, Vol. 2 , by Matthew Loux (First Second, June 2019).  This graphic novel has all the brightly illustrated fun and excitement of the first volume ( my review ), and even more danger and suspense. Delia and the other kids are getting ready for their next time travel mission, with the help of none other than Richard Nixon.  Nixon is a surprisingly capable instructor, and the tips and tricks he provides during training come in very useful indeed when things start going wrong.  Their mission sounded straightforward--travel back to 18th century Versailles to patch up French/US diplomatic relations, but it quickly becomes complicated by a temporal loop that brings future versions of themselves back in time too.  And then things become very strange indeed when all of them travel to a dystopian future, where an old enemy awaits.... I have to conf...

Free $100