Sarah Rees Brennan

Actual rating: 4.5/5

I received an e-arc of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. This did not affect my opinion of the book in any way.

I really enjoyed reading this book! I loved how the author managed to tackle serious themes like equality, minority rights and social change by seamlessly including them in a fantasy retelling of Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities (which I really want to read now, btw).

At first, I struggled a bit to connect with Lucie as a character. I guess I just couldn't figure her out. Which in the end, I realised, was exactly the right reaction for me to have. Lucie is a girl who has witnessed so much darkness in her life, that it has marked her forever, even if she eventually manages to move to the Light part of the city, which is where all the wealthiest and most powerful people live. But even though she is relatively secure in her new status, Lucie knows everything could be taken from her in the blink of an eye, and she and everyone she loves would be back in the Dark - or worse. This constant conflict between the Lucie who has suffered and clings onto her safety, and the one who doesn't forget her humanity and fights until the end for those she loves, was what made it difficult for me to completely understand her at first, and also what made me love her so much as a character by the end of the book.

Several things happen throughout the book, including numerous murders, abductions and a revolution, so I guess you could focus on the action-y part of the story and get lost in it, and that would be perfectly fine. It's a good storyline, with enough action and suspence to keep you glued to the pages. But, for me, this book was about a lot more than just its plot. It was a delicate-yet-gut-wrenching critique of society, of just how easy it is sometimes to get lost in propaganda, to unload all the world's troubles on a single group, forgetting our common status as humans.

This book definitely gave me a lot to think about, both through the storyline and through the individual characters. Lucie is definitely the one that will stick with me the most, because she is probably the one that most represents all of us throughout her development: moving from blind acceptance because she fears losing everything she has worked for up to her fierce determination in fighting an unjust system to protect her loved ones and the weakest who have no one else to fight for them, Lucie is a remarkable example of character development.

Definitely a highly recommended book, and one I will gladly re-read as soon as I get a chance!

For this and more reviews, visit Book for Thought. … (mere)

Perché ho letto Le cronache di Magnus Bane? Sul serio, mi ero ripromessa di ignorare qualunque altra cosa fosse uscita dalle mani di Cassandra Clare nonostante i deliri dei fan fossero ovunque perché, dopo aver letto la prima trilogia degli Shadowhunters, non mi sembrava il caso di infierire ulteriormente su me stessa.

I miei ricordi dei libri di Clare non sono dei migliori, per quel che ne è rimasto: soprattutto una grande irritazione per il suo stile, così pedante nel volersi assicurare che i suoi lettori capissero esattamente le azioni dei suoi personaggi…

Quindi, perché ho letto Le cronache di Magnus Bane? Be’, a mia discolpa dirò di essere entrata in un circolo vizioso di trash molto spinto, roba davvero forte adatta solo a chi ha il pelo sullo stomaco: mi sono guardata Shadowhunters, la serie tv, che è probabilmente una delle cose più brutte che siano passate sugli schermi televisivi negli ultimi anni. Pensate a un qualunque difetto possa avere una serie tv e vedrete che Shadowhunters ce l’ha…

Comunque, è così brutta da avermi incuriosito: questo mese esce la seconda stagione e non vedo l’ora di vedere quanto potrà essere ancora più brutta… e non paga della serie, il mio ingordo desiderio di trash si è spinto a volersi ributtare sui libri… Ora, la seconda trilogia degli Shadowhunters mi sembrava un po’ troppo pure per l’esaltazione da trash, così mi sono buttata su Le cronache di Magnus Bane. Se vi interessa la serie, vi raccomando di non seguire il mio esempio, perché io mi sono vista spuntare personaggi sconosciuti o dimenticati in ogni dove…

Alla fine di questa non-recensione, vi dirò che Le cronache di Magnus Bane si prende tre stelline perché non è irritante quanto la trilogia (sarà stato merito delle due coautrici, Johnson e Brennan?) e ha brillantemente appagato il mio bisogno di trash, almeno fino alla prossima stagione di Shadowhunters…… (mere)

I'm mad it took me so long to read this. It's so good. It's absolutely wonderful. I've been crying through half of it. I don't cry through books that much.

I'm not gonna lie, while "Fence" the graphic novel series (at least vol 1-3, which I've read), is beautifully drawn (I loved Johanna's art for years before the series began) and pretty well paced, it didn't stand out to me as much in comparison to other sports & school m/m stories I've read. I was also worried the switch from C.S. Pacat to an author I've never heard of would be an issue, given I liked the "Captive Prince" trilogy and loved "Dark Rise".

I could not have been more wrong. While the opening was a tad slow, Aiden's second POV bowled me over, and the roller coaster of emotion never stopped. It was wonderful, just wonderful. This is the best entry in the series thus far. It's been a while since I read the graphic novels, and I'm probably missing out because I didn't read at least vol 4 before this, but wow. Just wow. The pacing, the angst, the backstory development, the humor. It's wonderful and deliciously painful and honestly I'm gonna stop now so I can read the next one. I'm glad at least I don't have to wait for it to be published.

A delightful read. Absolutely. One of my favorites this year.… (mere)

I adored "Striking Distance", and while I think that was a better book altogether than this, I also really loved most of "Disarmed", and the climax, and really, I just can't not give this book five stars. In ways it's not as good as "Striking Distance", but just like that book, it was what I really wanted, and it gets five stars for that.

There’s still a lot of absolutely wonderful angst and all the characters struggling with their own journeys and relationships and their care for each other. I think four POVs is a bit much for both novels at times: it would have been better to focus on one pairing or even one character, but it does straddle that as well as "Striking Distance" by giving each character a good narrative. I'm not sure how folks coming from the graphic novels will appreciate these because while I can understand being disconcerted by the shift in character for the novels, I think the novels do a good overhaul of the cast, giving them solid personalities and good dynamics to mess with. The graphic novels are good but they're relatively sparing in too many areas. The character and relationship meat in the novels is much better.

Unfortunately, while a lot of stories don’t handle miscommunication very well, this book teeters along the fine line of getting it down well, but overuses it and kind of ruins the balance. "Striking Distance" did a better job because there seemed to be slightly less of it, just more in the second half of the book that worked out. Book 2 just launches straight from the beginning with it, and it’s kind of frustrating at times.

Another issue is that this probably could have used at least one other edit, possibly from someone who’s lived in the US. "Disarmed" seems more... shoddily written for some reason, or at least more often we get “big thing happens at the end of one chapter” but is basically nixed in the following chapter off-page, along with odd inconsistencies or things that feel that way. Nicholas is often the victim of this, to the astonishment of Seiji and other characters. Part of it his character: fencing is the most important thing to him, so insults and depression flow more easily off him, which confuses other characters. What unfortunately happens is he’ll walk off in rage, and then just be fine again when he’s needed for someone else’s story. Seiji notes at one point quite pithily that this is likely a sign of all the things Nicholas went through prior to this that he’s just “fine” externally.

One admittedly minor bugbear of mine was time. It’s a problem in "Striking Distance" as well, mostly in how exactly much time is passing. Is it weeks? Months? Days? Hours? It’s never really clear, but I know at one points a character (I think Nicholas) says weeks, so I think it's only been several weeks max since Nicholas starts at King's Row. Only around three days pass between the novels. I know friendships can be fast, especially high school and college ones, but it feels like a lot more time has passed (or should have), but it’s incredibly weird to keep learning actually it’s only been a a short while. Where this also manifests is the trip to France. I’ve only been to one sort of training camp that was also three days. I get that they’re often short. What’s odd is when a character is looking back at King’s Row in America and thinking “I’ll be back in four days” before getting on a plane TO FRANCE. This I think suffers from something a lot of Europeans don’t understand: it is a lot longer for Americans to travel from the US to Europe because Americans have to cross the Atlantic Ocean, not just the English Channel. In fact in the story, the characters take 2-3 planes one way. The travel itself can often eat up an entire day on its own (and I've done the East coast to Paris trip, it's not short), even if you live on the East coast or New York in particular (a lot of international flights start in New York). While there’s going to be weirdness in crossing back and forth between timezones, what this roughly means is either the character wasn’t accounting for travel time (which would be odd), or this camp would be… a little less than two days, and it’s meant to drastically help these characters in their skills? I mean maybe that’s normal for fencing training camps. It’s definitely an odd detail, though. Heck, Google says fencing camp is usually a week? That makes a lot more sense? Whereas a four-day camp would make more sense for someone who’s local.

And another inconsistency: in "Striking Distance", Seiji notes that other fencers were being racist to him for calling him a samurai (because he’s Japanese and uses swords). It’s clear it was annoying enough for him to remember it: although he was speaking to Eugene at the time, he still said it. In "Disarmed", Nicholas makes a comment about how Seiji's not dressed like a ninja would be. Although you could write this off as “Seiji hasn’t had the racism talk with Nicholas yet” (though he shouldn’t have to), it’s odd that the book chose to bring up this form of racism as an issue… and then seemingly waved it off later. Not for any particular narrative reason, but just out of bad writing/a lack of editing. It’s a minor example of how inconsistency is a bigger problem in this book. There are other minor things. Seiji in "Striking Distance" says he doesn’t and never will eat bacon, yet the one time we see him eating breakfast in volume 1 or 2 of the graphic novel, he has a slice of bacon on his plate, along with other food that isn’t a protein shake, like he normally eats in the book (I don't really mind that so much, it makes sense for his character and it's a cute detail, particularly in his relationship with Eugene and the other muscleheads, but it's an odd inconsistency). Aiden appears to attend every match in volumes 1-4 of the graphic novels, but the novels emphasize he almost never attends them (though this could just be character POV coloring their experience of him). I’m not exorbitantly mad about this, because his character’s been tightened up and is more consistent within the novels, but it’s just… more uncomfortably obvious in "Disarmed". It wouldn't be such a big deal if he didn't commentate in some of the graphic novels rather than just being a passive bystander or I don't know, ducking out to make out with someone.

Overall, though, the story is sweet, heart-wrenching, funny, and overall wonderful. I love Aiden, Harvard, Seiji, Nicholas, Eugene, and Seiji's dad. Wonderful book. Far better than the graphic novels. Glad I finally picked these up.… (mere)