Series Review: The Demonata by Darren Shan

There is so much blood in this series.

Like, SOOOOOO much blood. The Demonata is, without a doubt, the bloodiest series I have ever read (and I like horror novels!).

And yet, I really really enjoyed this series - even though I’m not at all the intended demographic and it definitely wasn’t my first choice of book and I probably won’t read other series by Darren Shan.

You see, I mostly read The Demonata because all my younger siblings went through a Darren Shan phase and I felt like I should keep up with their interests somewhat (though, honestly, reading Darren Shan hasn’t suddenly brought us insanely close or influenced my siblings to read anything I’ve recommended ever). So over the course of a year, I dutifully read the series and, at the end, I was actually kind of happy that I had.

There are a lot of good things about The Demonata:

• STRANGE AND BIZARRE PLOT ELEMENTS GALORE - So Grubbs Grady lives with his uncle and along the way there’s a lot of demons and plenty of magic and some life-or-death chess matches and colorful blobs and werewolves and bullying and famous filmmakers and family drama and motorcycles and medieval times and just a lot of everything. Grubbs spends most of his time hunting/fighting demons and the rest of his time being an average teenage boy, but all the fun fantasy elements and plot twists make the story much more fun.
• GOOD BALANCE OF HUMOR AND HORROR - Overall, I’d classify these books as YA fantastical horror (or maybe YA horrific fantasy?), but it’s not all dark and bleak. Shan does an excellent job of making our characters funny and likeable and able to see the good in their terrible situations. They’re frequently joking around and having fun, in spite of their circumstances and that makes them very fun characters to read.
• UNPREDICTABLE - I’ve read a LOT of YA books and I feel like I have a pretty good idea what’s coming most of the time. But Shan kept me in the dark frequently. He took the story in ways I never imagined, he started telling the story from a different point of view, or gave the reader more background (which completely changed my ideas of what was going to happen). It’s really fun to read books when you legitimately don’t know what will happen.
• UNIQUE CHARACTERS - While a few of the characters in this series fit stereotypes (i.e. Grubbs Grady as the tortured teen hero), most of them are interesting and unique. Having the story told from different viewpoints also helps the reader to appreciate each character, their background, their place in Shan’s world, and their contribution to the story.

And even though I really enjoyed this series, it wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows (in fact, I don’t think there was any sunshine and there were definitely no rainbows in the entire series). There were some parts that I didn’t appreciate:

• MEH WRITING - I wasn’t expecting too much out of these books, but I was still a bit disappointed. The writing is passable at best and doesn’t really suck the reader in at all. Shan writes best when he’s writing about really bloody and graphic scenes (and there are a lot of those), but being a good writer is being able to write the whole story well, not just the gory parts. Shan’s The Thin Executioner is written much MUCH better (and is somewhat less bloody), so it may be a better place to start.
• UNREALISTIC - I know, I know - it’s partly a fantasy series, but STILL. Sometimes, the plot would go to extremes that were just too much for me to believe. Things would either work out far too well for our heroes or everything would suddenly come up to stop them and it was just too much for the sake of a dramatic ending (since this usually happened at the end of one of the books).

My favorite book in the series is Bec - the fourth book. We've spent most of the series up until now hanging out with Grubbs Grady and hearing his sad tales and seeing things from the point of views of Grubbs and the people he hangs around with. But we begin Bec by being transported into another time and seeing the history of a lot of the problems that Grubbs is facing and that changes everything. Also, Bec is a fantastic female character (in a series with mostly tough men and a few hardcore women) and her influence throughout the rest of the series is huge.

If you don’t like blood and guts, don’t read this series. However, if you can tolerate some of that and some mediocre writing for a fun and absolutely ridiculous story about good vs. evil and teenage angst, then this is a good series for you.

On still crying over Sanderson's "The Dark Talent"

There are some books that make you sad. And there are some books that hurt your heart a bit. And there are the books that legitimately make you cry.

And then there’s The Dark Talent (the final book in the "Alcatraz vs. the Evil Librarians" series) by Brandon Sanderson. No other series in existence can destroy a person as completely as this one can. I’ve read plenty of the sad YA novels that fangirls weep over incessantly. Trust me when I say that this is much, much worse.

The series follows young Alcatraz Smedry, who discovers that he comes from a line of royalty with unique Talents. Alcatraz is able to break things better than anyone else he knows. Grandpa Smedry is incessantly late. Some cousins are terrible dancers, some are experts are getting lost, one is even exceptional at spilling water on the floor while doing the dishes (thus ending a drought). The books are hilarious, absolutely ridiculous, and a delight to read. Until the final book.

I’m a huge Sanderson fan and my favorite aspect of his writing is that I never know what’s going to happen. The book that ended closest to how I thought it would was Warbreaker, and I was still way off. I’ve always seen this ability to twist endings as a gift, though I now realize that  Sanderson is deceptive and kind of mean (I’m sure he’s a delightful person in real life, but in his fantasy serieses, he’s insanely cruel). He’s the master of twist endings (so I should’ve seen this coming), but somehow, no one believed he could take it any further than he already had.

And yet he did.

And this scares me. If Sanderson could destroy my soul so much with a children’s series (I repeat - A CHILDREN’S SERIES), how destroyed will I be once “The Stormlight Archives” are finished? Or when he writes Elantris’ sequel? Or when he finally shows us just how intertwined the Cosmere really is? Do I dare read the next book he releases?!

I’m not sure when I’ll be ready to forgive him. But I’m not ready to read him yet. Arcanum Unbound has been sitting on my TBR shelf for months and it’ll stay there for awhile longer. I still need time to heal and to learn to trust again.

So RIP, “Alcatraz” series. It was fun. For awhile.

Series Review: The Underland Chronicles by Suzanne Collins

Before The Hunger Games, there was Gregor the Overlander, one of the most wonderful, delightful, and dark children’s books I’ve had the pleasure of reading. When my little brother handed this to me in 2005 or 2006, demanding that I read it, I wasn’t expecting much. I should have known better - he has fantastic taste in books (though he doesn’t read as often as he should these days) and always seems to know what I’ll like. We quickly became Underland fanatics, getting our hands on each sequel as soon as we could and staying up far later than our parents approved of to discuss the plot and our predictions. When the final book came out, my brother was vehemently outspoken about his dislike for the ending and stated that he hated the entire series (it’s now been almost ten years and he maintains that the ending ruined everything for him). We respectfully disagreed on this point.

Since then, I’ve probably reread the entire series at least five times. It’s beautiful and brilliant and I can’t get enough of it. When I left for college, I asked for a box set of my own since I couldn’t take the family copies with me (also, they’re all falling apart from being well-loved and well-read by all of us). I’ve forced these books onto several people and have tried to convince several others to give them a chance.

In saying all this, I’m trying to let you know that I’m pretty biased - I absolutely adore these books and I don’t know that I’ll have anything critical to say about them. They’re basically perfect.

To start off, they’re beautifully written. While I don’t like everything Suzanne Collins has written, I can say that she is a talented author and that she deserves the limelight. The descriptions are well done, the word choices are excellent, and Collins has a distinct voice when writing. “The Underland Chronicles” are written for children, but Collins doesn’t talk down to the reader at all. She esteems the reader as an equal and writes as though she’s speaking to a peer rather than a child.

With that attitude, Collins opens the door to handling some rather difficult topics. Gregor, our hero, isn’t perfect and wonderful and superb. He’s actually not someone you’d want to be. When the series starts, he’s the one running the household, watching after his sisters, and trying to stay positive even though he’s a very sad and very confused eleven-year-old boy. Gregor has a tough home life in some non-traditional ways for fantasy - his family loves him and they are close-knit and try to be happy, but the circumstances they’ve found themselves in makes it difficult for them to function as well as they want to. For a children’s book, this is rather heavy. In addition, throughout the series there are several moving and heart-breaking character deaths that are handled with care, though not with condescension. Collins again handles these situations as if writing for a more mature audience, trusting that her young readers are able to handle tragedy. For my brother and I (and our younger siblings, who probably started this series when they were 8 or 9), it was hugely rewarding to be trusted with such serious topics at such a young age. Some parents I lent these books disagreed, feeling that these books were too heavy for young children and held off on suggesting it to their kids until they were older. I was glad that I was able to deal with heavy topics at a young age because this gave me a chance to connect with the world around me more. When Gregor witnesses attempted genocide late in the series, this gives a vivid example of something that young readers will be hearing about for the rest of their lives and makes world tragedies seem more real and accessible.

Collins also makes sure that the adults she writes aren’t perfect. I’ve read too many children’s books that show the adults as all-knowing and all-powerful, which is how children sometimes feel about their teachers and parents. Several adult characters are shown throughout the series to be well-meaning, but deficient in some ways or misguided in others - and not in a “this is a stereotypical adult in a fantasy series” way, but in a very flawed, human way. Gregor is forced to learn who to trust and this gives the reader a chance to do this in their lives as well. This series shows that adults make mistakes and that sometimes, children know what’s right better than the adults. This is shown somewhat humorous throughout the series when Gregor doesn’t believe the prophecies that many Underland adults hold dear. Gregor stands alone in this conviction and is somewhat torn by it until he receives validation from an adult who’s important to him. This doesn’t even happen until the end of the series. Not only does this give the reader a chance to learn that they can (respectfully) disagree with grown-ups, but it shows children that grown-ups often disagree with each other. And that’s okay.

The characters in this series are phenomenal. As I stated before, they’re imperfect and frequently don’t know what they’re doing. People disagree in mature (and sometimes immature) ways, but they can come back from this. We see characters dealing with trauma and disappointment in surprising ways. By the end of the series, no character is the same. Each important character has learned hard lessons and has changed in dramatic ways. And they’re all so human (even the non-human ones). These characters are relatable without being Mary Sue’s or flat and uninteresting. Each character is complex and diverse and memorable and has a surprising depth for a children’s series.

The plot also has a depth that is not seen in many children’s books. In addition to being somewhat heavy, it’s obvious that Collins knows her world and is just giving the reader a taste of it. The plot moves along well and incorporates so many different aspects and areas of the Underland - giving the reader the opportunity to learn as Gregor does. The conflicts throughout the series are intriguing and attention-grabbing and the various plots and subplots stay with the reader long after the series is over. The issues and dilemmas the characters grapple with are so pertinent in 2017 - racism (though it looks more like specism in the series), wars, corrupt politicians, spies, political divisions, etc. It’s a complex series with a complex plot and complex themes - again, Collins is putting more trust in children’s ability to grasp these concepts that most children’s authors do.

Writing this makes me want to read them again. Maybe I’ll rope my brother into reading them with me. And maybe this time, he’ll feel differently about the ending. Maybe he’ll buy his own copy of the series and will love them and read them to tatters like we did growing up. And maybe he won’t this time. But I’ll keep hoping.