Short People Problems

Clocking in at 5’2″, I’m generally regarded as a short person. I’m shorter than most people, so I have to look up when I’m talking to them (but I usually just end up talking to their chins) and I have trouble reading menus or watching plays over people’s heads. You know, the usual slew of short-people problems. (Not that tall people don’t have problems, too.)

In elementary school, whenever we had assemblies, the fifth graders would sit on chairs in the back and everyone else would sit in neat rows on the floor in front of them in descending order of grade with the kindergarteners in the front row. In theory, this is a good idea because older people are taller, right? So, hypothetically, if the older kids sit in the back, they’ll be able to see over everyone else’s heads because everyone else is younger. For me, at least, this didn’t really work out. After kindergarten, I was always seated behind taller, but younger, students, so I never got to see anything. (Another flaw in this plan: those freakishly tall kindergarteners that make me jealous of their height.)

Being short my entire life, I’d come to accept that this is the way it will be forever, no matter how much I hope and wish and stretch and dream.

Until I went to Bangladesh.

It turns out that Bangladeshi people just happen to generally be even shorter than me, and for the first time in my life, I got to experience being tall. I got to look over people’s heads, I got to look straight at (or down at) people when I was talking at them. I got a taste of being tall, all 5’2″ of me.

And I never wanted to go back (to being short). But I’m back in America, the land of tall people, and here we are again, short.

But this isn’t the shortest I’ve ever felt. When I lived in Kentucky, the general population seemed to be significantly taller than the general population of Michigan. When I walked through the hallways, I was stuck staring at people’s shoulder blades instead of the backs of their heads. I had trouble finding my classes because I couldn’t see anything except humans. Whenever I talked to sixth graders, they were always shocked that I was in the eighth grade. Every single one asked me twice to double check and when I assured them that, yes, I am, in fact, an eighth grader, they always responded with a “but you’re so short!” In Michigan, while I am on the shorter side of average, my grade is never questioned.

Warning: This following segment will feel contradictory to the rest of the post.

While I’ve always felt short, I’ve never felt extremely short. As I said, I’m on the shorter side of average.

Mare Barrow from Red Queen, as I recently learned, is a fellow 5’2″.

Mare Barrow, as it states over and over over the course of the four-book series, is extremely short. She barely makes it to the shoulders of most of her acquaintances.

Which begs the question, “How ridiculously tall is the general population of Red Queen?!” and “Was this entire series developed to make me feel bad about my height?”

Book Review: War Storm

So, I just finished the final book in the Red Queen series.

It’s the first ever series I have ever finished in the history of the world.

It was okay.

Warning! This book review consists of spoilers for the book series and War Storm so please refrain from reading this review if you haven’t read the books yet. There are spoiler free parts (only for War Storm) and spoiler filled parts.

Onto the summary:

VICTORY COMES AT A PRICE

Mare Barrow learned this all too well when Cal’s betrayal nearly destroyed her. Now determined to protect her heart –and secure freedom for Reds and newbloods like her– Mare resolves to destroy the kingdom of Norta once and for all… starting with the crown on Maven’s head. But no battle is won alone, and before the Reds may rise as one, Mare must side with the boy who broke her heart in order to destroy the boy who almost broke her. Cal’s powerful Silver allies, alongside Mare and the Scarlet Guard, prove a formidable force. But Maven is driven by an obsession so deep, he will stop at nothing to have Mare as his own again, even if it means destroying everything- and everyone- in his path. War is coming, and all Mare has fought for hangs in the balance. Will victory be enough to topple the Silver kingdoms? Or will the lightning girl be forever silenced? In the epic conclusion to Victoria Aveyard’s stunning series, Mare must embrace her fate and summon all her power… for all will be tested, but not all will survive.

Non-spoiler Section

Despite the description, this book is actually a messy, imperfect and odd way to end the Red Queen series. It’s very long (being 662 pages) but, for some reason the series feels unresolved. I will go into the specific reasons why in the spoiler section.

For now, let’s focus on what the book did right. In War Storm, Mare and other main characters feel so much more human and have clear motivations other than to defeat the Maven. Mare’s family is fleshed out more (especially Tramy), Evangeline’s love interest Elane burns a fire in her heart, and Cal is tied to the crown, his noble personality taking charge.

Also I love the settings in this book. They stomp out the places we’ve been in the other books by a long shot. Translation: Montfort is beautiful.

Spoiler Section

Why was the book unresolved, you ask?

“So I’m guessing we won,” I (mare) sigh, too surprised to even comprehend what that means. I have no idea what a real victory would even look like.

“Not entirely,” Kilorn rubs a hand over his dirty cheek, smearing grime across the clean parts of him. Idiot, I think kindly. “They managed to limp back out to sea. I think the big shots are negotiating a cease-fire right now.”

IT ENDS WITH A BLOBFISHING CEASE FIRE FROM THE LAKELANDS.

In the ending pages of the book, this unresolvedness just keeps on going with a light air of “We’re safe, but only for a while.”

Another thing that was unresolved was Evangeline and Elane. I mean, there are a few lines at the very end of the book that state that Evangeline is an honored guest of Montfort, but not much else.

Even Maven’s death felt unresolved! In the last few minutes of their battle Maven let Mare kill him. The main thing in the end was how it “wasn’t too late” with Evangeline rebelling against her parents for Elane and Cal putting the crown aside for Mare. Was it too late for Maven? What if he stayed alive?

Maybe this was Victoria Aveyard wanted to portray. Maybe she’ll make another series following Mare and the others a year or so later (maybe even a different crew in the same world— like the Grisha Trilogy and SOC).

I loved the parts with the Lakelander queens, the rickety alliance between Cal’s crew, Montfort and the Scarlet Guard and the little lines hinting at Evangeline and Elane’s relationship. (If you have read the book you know which line I’m talking about.) Montfort provides a free democratic country to compare the corrupt nations of Norta and the Lakelands to, which is another reason why I’m swooning over the bison filled mountains. The bison are great.

Despite how much I liked about War Storm, the novel was one of the shabbiest of the series.

I didn’t like Maven this time around (he just seemed lazy, angry and spoiled) and he didn’t seem like the scheming little guy he used to be. He feels more like time bomb just waiting to blow, or one of those characters who you know dies first in a horror movie.

Another thing I greatly disliked was the vagueness of everything, which I don’t think was problem with Aveyard’s writing as much as it was just stuffing an epic conclusion, or a whole blobfishing WAR into 662 pages.

Lastly, I would like to point out that the book didn’t seem as clever when it came to major plot points. Take Iris’s siege on Bracken’s children for example. The guards were stupid and distracted. Why? How did Montfort survive as a nation with these idiotic guards? Why did Davidson, who is clearly an intelligent person, let these imbeciles guard a prisoner of war?

If I had to rate this book from one to ten , one being absolute scum and ten being a gift from the heavens I would give this book a six.

Translate that into stars and this book is 3.5 stars out of five.

Book Reviews!!

Stranger Than Fanfiction by Chris Colfer || 4/5

Cash Carter is the young, world famous lead actor of the hit television Wiz Kids. When four fans jokingly invite him on a cross-country road trip, they are shocked that he actually takes them up on it. Chased by paparazzi and hounded by reporters, this unlikely crew takes off on a journey of a lifetime–but along the way they discover that the star they love has deep secrets he’s been keeping. What they come to learn about the life of the mysterious person they thought they knew will teach them about the power of empathy and the unbreakable bond of true friendship.

•••

Stranger Than Fanfiction is a somewhat light-hearted (but also sad) and really fast read. I liked how the characters interacted with each other. Yay platonic relationships. Cash Carter was my favorite character.

Colfer has an amazing writing style. He uses a ton of humorous similes that are my absolute favorite. The only thing that bugged me about this book was that it sometimes read like an LGBT+ pamphlet, which really broke from the characterization and the flow of the story.

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All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven || 5/5

Theodore Finch is fascinated by death, and he constantly thinks of ways he might kill himself. But each time, something good, no matter how small, stops him.

Violet Markey lives for the future, counting the days until graduation, when she can escape her Indiana town and her aching grief in the wake of her sister’s recent death.

When Finch and Violet meet on the ledge of the bell tower at school, it’s unclear who saves whom. And when they pair up on a project to discover the “natural wonders” of their state, both Finch and Violet make more important discoveries: It’s only with Violet that Finch can be himself—a weird, funny, live-out-loud guy who’s not such a freak after all. And it’s only with Finch that Violet can forget to count away the days and start living them. But as Violet’s world grows, Finch’s begins to shrink.

∴∴∴

So after reading the really sad book that is Stranger Than Fanfiction, I picked up All the Bright Places because I expected it to be happy. I mean, it has the word bright in the title!

Dudes, I was so wrong. Warning: This is a sad book.

I’ve never cried while reading a book. But reading All the Bright Places was the closest I’ve come (tied with A List of Cages).

So if you want a book that tugs on all the heartstrings, I highly recommend this one.

The writing is beautiful, but the part that pulls it all together is the relationship between Finch and Violet.

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Glass Sword by Victoria Aveyard || 4/5

If there’s one thing Mare Barrow knows, it’s that she’s different.

Mare Barrow’s blood is red—the color of common folk—but her Silver ability, the power to control lightning, has turned her into a weapon that the royal court tries to control.

The crown calls her an impossibility, a fake, but as she makes her escape from Maven, the prince—the friend—who betrayed her, Mare uncovers something startling: she is not the only one of her kind.

Pursued by Maven, now a vindictive king, Mare sets out to find and recruit other Red-and-Silver fighters to join in the struggle against her oppressors.

But Mare finds herself on a deadly path, at risk of becoming exactly the kind of monster she is trying to defeat.

Will she shatter under the weight of the lives that are the cost of rebellion? Or have treachery and betrayal hardened her forever?

The electrifying next installment in the Red Queen series escalates the struggle between the growing rebel army and the blood-segregated world they’ve always known—and pits Mare against the darkness that has grown in her soul.

♣♣♣

This book was lovely, but not as lovely as the first one. I liked seeing how all the characters changed because of the events of the first book, and it was definitely fast-paced, but it lacks an overarching plot besides “destroy the bad guys”. It doesn’t really match the first book; it’s different, and it could definitely use some comedic relief.

Overall, I enjoyed reading the book, but it wasn’t as good as I remembered it to be from when I read it the first time.

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That was a pretty good reading round! Lot’s of great books, but my favorite of the three has to be All the Bright Places.

A Note: I’m currently on a trip to Bangladesh for my cousin’s wedding so I won’t be able to respond to all your lovely comments until I get back on July 15, 2018.

Quoting Quotes

I started doing this random thing recently. I take nice quotes I come across in books or songs or whatever, write them out, and stick them in my books for me to find later.

So here are some of the quotes I used (none of these are guaranteed to be accurate):

“The truth is what I make it. I could set this world on fire and call it rain.”

—Maven Calore, Red Queen

 

“When people say impossible, they usually mean improbable.”

—Strumhond, Siege and Storm

 

“Sometimes before it gets better, the darkness gets bigger/ the person you’d take a bullet for is behind the trigger.”

—Fall Out Boy, I Miss Missing You

 

If I find another quote, I might just stick it on the end of a future post. What are some of your favorite quotes?

Red Queen: Some Random Thoughts

My favorite book of all time is Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard. (Although The False Prince by Jennifer A. Nielsen and The Keeper of the Lost Cities series by Shannon Messenger are close contenders.) If you haven’t read it (or them) you should.

This post does include some mild spoilers. You have been warned. (But if you haven’t read the book, I doubt it’ll make much sense.)

I am currently reading Red Queen for the fourth time.

But my rererereading it brings up some points that I always have had questions about.

It explicitly states that there aren’t any physical differences between a Red and Silver, other than the fact the Silvers are generally paler and blush weird.

That implies that if one were to place a Silver and a rather pale Red next to each other, one wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between them (unless the Silver started blowing stuff up or something).

And now my question: The inside of a person’s mouth is pinkish due to their red blood. So if a person had silver blood, wouldn’t the inside of their mouth be gray or something? The corner of a person’s eye is also pinkish due to their red blood. Wouldn’t that be silver for a Silver?

So if the inside of a Silver’s mouth was gray and the inside of a Red’s mouth was pink, then wouldn’t the High Houses know that Mare was only posing as a Silver as soon as she opened her mouth to say something?

Spinette has made an interesting theory on this point, which will follow the colon: What if Silvers have a strange affinity for cherry Kool-Aid or something else with intense red dye?

And now my second question: I have some problems with Mare’s cover story. It said that Mareena Titanos was a Silver who was raised by Reds and she didn’t know that she was a Silver until she was seventeen.

That implies that she didn’t know the color of her own blood, which means that for as long as she could remember, Mareena hadn’t bled at all. Doesn’t this mean that Mareena never injured herself? She never even got a paper cut?

And if Mareena truly was a Silver raised by Reds who believed that she had red blood, it means that she never looked in a mirror to see that her mouth was not pink, but instead gray.

Either way, I am willing to overlook these minor technicalities and just love the book. (But I would love it if someone would explain to me how these things could be. I’m talking to you, Victoria Aveyard.)