Legacy by Cayla Kluver

For a long time, the kingdom of Cokyri raged war on the kingdom of Hytanica. Then suddenly, Cokyrians abducted forty-nine newborn boys; forty-eight were returned dead. After that, the Cokryians disappeared. Sixteen years later, Alera, the seventeen-year-old Crown Princess of Hytanica, is facing an arranged marriage to a man she detestes when the Cokryrians suddenly reappear. Narian is a teenager from Cokyri who is found within the walls of Hytanica’s city. Alera befriends him, but war with Cokryi may be drawing near, a war in which Narian may play an important role

(Couldn’t she have picked a different name? I go to type “Narian” and write “Narnia” instead.)

I think it is obvious that Legacy is written by a new novelist. It’s not necessarily poorly written, but there are adjectives and adverbs galore, as well as lots of other description that seems unnecessary or poorly worked in. However, I don’t think it’s obvious that Cayla Kluver was only fifteen when she wrote this.

As far as books by teens go, Legacy’s pretty darn good. It’s a thick book, but it’s never boring. Kluver keeps the plot moving along nicely. Though it’s a pretty normal fantasy plot, it’s still enjoyable. Kluver’s characters may be somewhat stereotypical, but they still are three dimensional with the exception of some minor characters. I especially think she did a nice of job of creating Alera, the protagonist, who does share similar traits with other fantasy heroines–she’s opinionated and somewhat stubborn at times–but she’s still not overly bold, which was nice. It’s a solid debut, one that I think could easily have been written by someone older so it’s still a pretty darn good book. I think it’s better knowing that it was written by a teenager, but I still would not have put Legacy down, disappointed, if Kluver were twenty- or thirty-five rather than fifteen.

I had some minor issues with the book, but they’re all petty, mostly regarding the world-building. Kluver did a nice job creating Hytanica and to a lesser extent, Cokryi, though there were just some minor things that didn’t really bug me, just made me wonder, like the fact that the Hytanican calendar is the same as our calendar and that once Kluver mentioned Latin. Was this intentional, or did it not occur to Kluver and her editor?

It doesn’t matter. It’s still well worth reading and is well worth the money (Legacy is paperback for the price of a hardcover).

Beauty by Robin McKinley

Okay. So most of my friends really love this book. But to be honest, I thought it was just all right. I’m not even sure I really even liked it.

It’s a retelling of “Beauty and the Beast” and I suppose it’s a nice retelling as far as retellings go. *shrug* I’m not a huge fan of “Beauty and the Beast” and have never read another retelling of it, so I’m just going to say  that I didn’t really have a problem with it, plot-wise.

But the characters? Fairy-tale retellings should add depth to the characters, but I didn’t know any of the characters in Beauty. None of them seemed to have any sort of three-dimensional personality. So a lot of people point to the sisters as not being evil like in many fairy tales. Okay, so that was nice, that it was a loving family. But what were the sisters like? To be honest, I have no idea; I couldn’t even tell them apart. Same with the rest of the characters. They were dull.

That’s how I’d describe this whole book: dull. For a fairy-tale retelling, there was no magic. Okay, so yes, there was magic in the story (I want that library!) but unlike Ella Enchanted or Wildwood Dancing or The Goose Girl…the story didn’t seem magical. It was just flat, emotionless. The writing flowed nicely and everything but was completely lackluster. It bored me, to be honest.

Do I recommend Beauty? Well…I trust my friends’ judgment. I’m really surprised that I didn’t like this book because I was expecting to love it because A) I love fairy tale retellings and B) a lot of the LRRH-ers love it. So I’d say that because it seems I’m in the minority about this book, I’d recommend giving it a try. I didn’t care for it, but you might.

And was it just me or was the ending bizarre? *SPOILERS* What was with them all showing up? *END SPOILERS*

Unrelated note: I’m out of reviews for the time being. Hopefully I’ll have a review for Legacy over the weekend.

Eldest by Christopher Paolini

I have no idea how long I was reading this book. Probably like four months. Yeah. I mean, I’d rather read Eldest than The Scarlet Letter, but mainly because Eldest has sillier dialogue. The Scarlet Letter is just boring.

Main problems with Eldest.

Dull characters. Yep. Eragon’s just about perfect, especially after that one part, which makes that one line really really silly. And despite all his perfection, he’s just annoying. Hmm…perfect must equal annoying, since Edward Cullen is also pretty annoying in my opinion, though not as annoying as Jacob Black, and certainly not as annoying as Eragon.

And the other characters aren’t really any better. You have to wonder why Eragon’s in love with Arya, because she has like no personality whatsoever. And it’s not like in The Lord of the Rings where you know there’s a backstory to Aragon and Arwen (I’m sure the fact that Eragon and Arya have similar names is a complete coincidence *rolls eyes*) that’s not in the actual book (isn’t it in one of the appendices?). In Inheritance (I refuse to add “cycle” to the end; it’s just ridiculous, and what was wrong with it being a trilogy anyway? At nine hundred pages, you’d think that Bringsr could have been the last book easily) Eragon meet Arya when she’s unconscious and to be honest, throughout the books, he just seems infatuated with her. Hey! Like Bella and Edward! Wow, it must be a theme in young adult literature that your characters confuse infatuation with true love.

The only character I actually like in this series is Angela, and she’s not in enough to make it worthwhile. And Elva’s kind of interesting, though you her purpose is really to show you that ERAGON ISN’T PERFECT (which of course, he is because of course he feels all the right guilt).

The plot. Well, in this book, Eragon heads off to the elven city of Ellesmera to complete his training. What follows is a whole bunch of didatic text. I don’t really care about learning all this boring stuff about a magic system that I still have problems with anyway. I don’t think that those lessons are in the least bit interesting, yet the book is stuffed with chapter after chapter describing Eragon’s lessons. Surely it could have been condensed. Just keep the major scenes in which something happens. The book’d be a lot better (and shorter. Like two hundred pages, maybe).

(And why bother to read the book when you can just go off and watch The Empire Strikes Back? Just envision it in Middle-earth and you’ve read Eldest.)

Eldest also takes readers back to Carvahall. The Ra’zac have returned, this time to capture Roran, Eragon’s cousin, in an attempt to get Eragon to surrender to the Empire. But Roran and the villagers aren’t going down with a fight…

A smaller part of the story follows Nasuada, now leader of the Varden, who are camped in Surda and preparing to face the much larger army of Galbatorix. (*bursts out laughing* Please don’t tell me his parents picked that name.)

Okay. So needless to say, the parts following Roran and Nasuada are more interesting, so of course, they have less pages than does the story following Eragon.

The writing. Need I say more? Ridiculous dialogue that’s meant to sound archiac but is instead just stiled. Longwinded descriptions using SAT words that really don’t fit. Trying to sound eloquent can really just make you sound stuffy and like you have no idea how to write in English at all, as Christopher Paolini so perfectly demonstrates.

Other stuff I had a problem with.

One such problem is how easily people kill. Paolini tries to make his characters regretful (I think), but he’s just not a good enough writer to convey any emotion, so instead his characters just keep killing and killing and seem to be fine with it, which annoys me. Killing is not all right, Paolini. It just isn’t, and your main characters don’t seem to understand that. Despite Eragon freaking out when he killed some ants (and a mouse), he seriously can go into battle and slaughter tons of soldiers? Oh, because it’s his destiny. All right then. Still makes little sense, but since when has that been a forte of these books?

The whole bringing-different-philosophies-in part. The elves are vegetarian (vegan, maybe) and atheists (or I think agnostics). It’s odd because you’d think I wouldn’t have a problem with this, being mostly vegetarian and agnostic myself, but I do. I have a big problem with this. Not with the fact that the elves are. It’s their choice. Whatever. And really, we made our choices for the same reasons, so I understand perfectly where the elves are coming from. But gah! This book just got so preachy about it that I felt offended. And I agree with the elves! That just shows you how truly didatic it got. I felt like instead of reading a book, I was sitting in some philosophy lecture (and falling asleep). This part of the book could have been written so much better so that it wasn’t so obvious, more thought-provoking rather than “Yeah, whatever. Can there be some action now please?”

So anyway. Avoid this whole trilogy–oh wait, I’m sorry, <i>cycle</i>–unless…eh, just avoid this series.