ANALYSIS: The Hero's Journey in "Throne of Glass" Series by Sarah J. Maas

 

SYNOPSIS

After serving out a year of hard labor in the salt mines of Endovier for her crimes, 18-year-old assassin Celaena Sardothien is dragged before the Crown Prince. Prince Dorian offers her her freedom on one condition: she must act as his champion in a competition to find a new royal assassin.

Her opponents are men-thieves and assassins and warriors from across the empire, each sponsored by a member of the king's council. If she beats her opponents in a series of eliminations, she'll serve the kingdom for three years and then be granted her freedom.

Celaena finds her training sessions with the captain of the guard, Westfall, challenging and exhilirating. But she's bored stiff by court life. Things get a little more interesting when the prince starts to show interest in her... but it's the gruff Captain Westfall who seems to understand her best.

Then one of the other contestants turns up dead... quickly followed by another. Can Celaena figure out who the killer is before she becomes a victim? As the young assassin investigates, her search leads her to discover a greater destiny than she could possibly have imagined.

INTRODUCTION

What better way to start off the new year than with a good hero's journey?

I picked "Throne of Glass" up in my favorite bookstore when I was sixteen and have been a faithful fan of Sarah J. Maas ever since. I think this book is better than some reviewers give it credit for, and it gives a great example of the hero's journey--I would even say it gives many.  

This analysis of Celaena's hero's journey will include spoilers for the series! To be marked with (!) before a spoiler. 

The Call to Adventure in "Throne of Glass"

In the series' first installment, Celaena Sardothian arrives at the Glass Palace to compete to become the King of Adarlan's official champion, sponsored by his son, Prince Dorian. Celaena is asked to compete for her freedom, something she has never truly had. If she fails, she will be returned to the slave mines of Endovier, a place she was willing to die to escape. 

The "call to adventure" is an important part of any story, and it requires several important ingredients. First and foremost, to be a proper call to adventure, it must matter to your hero. By placing Celaena's freedom on the line, Maas has created sufficient motivation for the girl to act. However, more than just the plot of the book has been kicked off here. A decade ago, Celaena's loving parents died, and she was forced to flee from her wartorn home country, finding herself on the doorstep of Arobynn Hamel, a self-styled assassin king who takes Celaena in and trains her to become an assassin. In the prequels, we see that though Celaena is full of swagger and attitude, she is ultimately subservient to Arobynn until she finds a greater friend and genuine love in Sam Cortland, the son of a courtesan. However, Sam's death at the hands of Arobynn breaks her, and any moment she had gained to change her world is sapped. 

For the first time, Celaena has hope for freedom. All she has to do is win the competition and serve her time as the royal champion and all she ever wanted, a peaceful life in the country, is hers. But a CTA has to do more than just matter to a protagonist. It has to disrupt their life so much that they must act. Maas does this by putting Celaena in prison so that she has no real choice, but also by bringing the bright and driven Princess Nehemia into her life. Celaena and Nehemia are fast friends and find that they both find the king tyrannical. Without Nehemia to guide her forward, Celaena may never have had the motivation to actually begin her journey, as Nehemia's vision is unable to be completed without her. 

Celaena's call to adventure comes in the form of the two things that matter most to her: freedom, and love and friendship. 

Crossing the Threshold in "Crown of Midnight"

"Crown of Midnight" is most people's least favorite book in this series. It's slow and stagnating. Not much of note happens with Celaena, and much of it is people trying to get Celaena to react in some way. Perhaps Maas didn't need to drag this story on quite as long as she did, but there was a reason for this book.  

Before I get into Celaena's arc in this journey, I want to bring up another major journey in this series. Dorian is one of many viewpoint characters, and while this is undeniably Celeana's story, he seemed more important than many other characters, to the point of being a deuteragonist. He is one of our first viewpoint characters, along with Chaol and Celaena, his actions kick off the plot, and he serves as a foil for Celaena. The two share many similarities. !They are both bookworms, both very confident and flirtatious, both royalty, and both heirs to their kingdoms. They even met once before Celaena's world came to a crashing end, back when she was a princess. 

Foils aren't just the same character, though, and Dorian differs from Celaena in a few distinct ways. !Whereas she was the princess of a destroyed kingdom, he was the son of the conqueror who destroyed it. Her father guided her through the isolation her volatile magic caused for her, while Dorian was terrified of his father finding out. 

You can buy "Throne of Glass" on Amazon or your favorite bookstore.

REVIEW: "The Little Prince" by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

 

SYNOPSIS

A pilot stranded in the desert awakes one morning to see, standing before him, the most extraordinary little fellow. “Please,” asks the stranger, “draw me a sheep.” And the pilot realizes that when life’s events are too difficult to understand, there is no choice but to succumb to their mysteries. He pulls out pencil and paper and thus begins this wise and enchanting fable that in teaching the secret of what is really important in life, has changed forever the world for its readers.

WHAT I LOVE MOST

Honestly the theme of this book really moved me. This book I originally read as a young teen, and it is one of the few to make me cry. This book was originally written in French, and while I intend to read it as such someday, I have only read the translation by Richard Howard. 

This book is a children’s book, yet it is quite introspective at times, questioning what exactly people find valuable in life and detailing the little prince’s interactions as he stumbles through an adult world that he finds bewildering. This bewilderment is the source of the book’s message as the little prince questions the established actions of people as they chase what the little prince sees as meaningless things, yet we ourselves can see ourselves and people we know in these adults, forcing us to wonder whether we chase things of little value.

I feel this book is for all ages, as its simple plot and illustrations make it a story digestible for children, who might find a sense of connection to the little prince’s wonder at the frivolous pursuits and rules of adults, yet it really can be a story of rediscovering the passions of youth that one leaves behind to fit in with a mature world. I personally find the book a fantastic view on children and adults alike.

LOVING CRITICISM

Honestly, this book is very satisfactory for children, though the tragedy may be harsh to them. Adults may find the book simplistic and the symbolism obvious, and they may find it ridiculous to read a book written for children’s comprehension level.

MY FAVORITE CHARACTER

My favorite character would have to be the pilot. The pilot’s role in the story is at first glance minimal. He acts as the storyteller for the little prince, nothing but a vehicle for us to have a glimpse into the story of the little prince and his rose.

On the second look, you realize what he is. The principle crux of his character is his fascination with the little prince. The pilot presents himself as a responsible adult who simply desires to fix his broken plane and escape the desert. He is the grounded realist, contrasting with the imaginative dreamer that is the little prince. Yet he becomes fascinated with the prince because he sees himself in the prince. 

The prince asks him to draw a sheep, a task a young pilot would have enjoyed. But after the pilot’s dreams of artistry were crushed in childhood when his pictures failed to garner interest and were dismissed. The pilot, ready to get rid of him, hands a drawing he made as a child, but he is shocked when the prince correctly identifies the picture. This leads to the pilot seriously attempting to draw a sheep, and after that he begins their acquaintance.

The pilot sees in the little prince the imaginative wonder he once had, but was crushed when the grown-ups around him thought it wasn’t respectable. This is the first person that the pilot sees as truly understanding of him, and their friendship grows until the pilot repairs the plane and their sorrowful farewell.

SHOULD YOU READ THIS BOOK?

This question’s answer, to me, is yes. This book is an emotional journey for both adults and children as we look at what exactly is meaningful in life, and it shows the joys of youthful imagination.

REVIEW: "Catch-22" by Joseph Heller

 

SYNOPSIS

    Set in Italy during World War II, this is the story of the incomparable, malingering bombardier, Yossarian, a hero who is furious because thousands of people he has never met are trying to kill him. But his real problem is not the enemy—it is his own army, which keeps increasing the number of missions the men must fly to complete their service. Yet if Yossarian makes any attempt to excuse himself from the perilous missions he’s assigned, he’ll be in violation of Catch-22, a hilariously sinister bureaucratic rule: a man is considered insane if he willingly continues to fly dangerous combat missions, but if he makes a formal request to be removed from duty, he is proven sane and therefore ineligible to be relieved.

WHAT I LOVE MOST

    Catch-22 is a book that I consider, along with War and Peace, one of my top three favorite books. I can’t think of the third one, but I’ll get there when I remember what it is. Anyway, now that’s out of the way, let’s talk about what I liked about the book.

    This book’s central and recurrent theme is insanity. From the titular rule to the daily interactions, Yossarian finds insanity everywhere. In fact, most of the people he encounters claim the same about him. Insanity is the only attribute one can find in almost every chapter.

    Really, for me, what made this theme special was how the repetition of the comedy reflects this. Everyone has their unique quirk, a comedic insanity, that, as the book progresses, it becomes a sobering horror. This horror is in my opinion omnipresent throughout the novel, yet it is hidden. As the novel progresses these actions slowly build upon each other until they head to their ultimate and logical conclusion.

    The true heart of the novel is the titular catch. Yossarian spends his time after learning of it trying to understand it. Where does it come from? What power does it have? Who is in charge of its implementation? How can he escape? The climax of the novel ultimately exposes to Yossarian the truth to these answers.

    A unique attribute about the book is that it is told nonlinearly. The novel starts in the middle of his quest to escape catch-22, but it proceeds to jump around as it describes characters and events. Yet I feel that the progression of events follow the book thematically, and it can be quite funny seeing the origin of jokes chapters after their introduction.

LOVING CRITICISM

    So, what are the problems with the book? There are a few problems such as repetitive humor, confusing narrative, and a large number of characters.

    The humor in this book, while we move through various scenes, and many of the jokes are quite funny, is very formulaic. I don’t quite think this to be a bad thing necessarily, I simply feel people may get bored, frustrated, or irritated by this.

    The narrative, if one wants to try and sort everything out, is complex, with chapters running before, ahead, or even parallel to others. I feel people may want to organize all these events, but I feel it is easier if one tries to treat each one as separate stories, sharing a continuous theme and setting. It takes a chart to truly get each part down, but really there are enough call backs and set pieces to generally get a feeling when each chapter appears in relation to other events.

    There is a massive amount of characters, some minor, major, and a few that change from one to the other. Most characters though tend to have simplistic characterization, often a prominent trait or quirk, that helps you remember enough about them. Characters often have segments that introduce them though and give you a general understanding of who they are.

MY FAVORITE CHARACTER

    I feel that my favorite character would have to be the protagonist, Yossarian. He originally comes off as a one-note character like everyone else, a lazy and womanizing bombardier who wants out of a war he sees himself as nonfactor, yet he comes out more fully fleshed as we discern the effects of the death of the radio-gunner Snowden on him. Due to nonlinear narrative Snowden is introduced as dead and his death becomes one of the major set pieces of the story, but his death is the climax of the story.

    Yossarian ultimately becomes a man desperately trying to keep his life in the face of insane cohorts, selfish or impotent commanders, and a deadly enemy trying to kill him on every mission he goes on. Ultimately, his character arc is the main meat of the novel.

SHOULD YOU READ THIS BOOK?

    I feel this book is one of my favorites, so I feel I am a bit biased when I say that you should read it. This book is very comedic and silly, yet at times open and horrifying. The book is pretty long, with most editions running over six-hundred pages. There is also the criticism that I brought up before, so try to see if you would like it.

REVIEW: "Shadow of the Fox" by Julie Kagawa

 

SYNOPSIS

Every millennium, whoever holds the Scroll of a Thousand Prayers has the power to call the great Kami Dragon from the sea and ask for one wish. The time is near...and the missing pieces of the scroll will be sought throughout the land of Iwagoto.

When demons kill half-kitsune Yumeko’s adoptive family, she’s forced to flee her home with one part of the ancient scroll. Fate thrusts her into the path of mysterious samurai Kage Tatsumi, who is Yumeko’s best hope for survival. But he’s under orders to retrieve the scroll. An uneasy alliance forms, and Yumeko begins the deception of a lifetime, knowing her secrets are more than a matter of life or death―they’re the key to the fate of the world.

MY INITIAL TAKE

Julie Kagawa was one of the first YA writers I read, and I loved the Iron Fey Trilogy (no, I do not acknowledge The Iron Knight because whiny Ash is a disaster). I stopped reading her books after being disappointed by her Blood of Eden series, which were just too grim and frankly depressing for me. However, Shadow of the Fox is a return to the things that made The Iron Fey so great: mischievous beings, well-researched lore, and a strong cast. The return to the more light-hearted style also highlights her growth as an author. Tatsumi manages to be brooding and mysterious, even when in his own narrative, something that, unfortunately, Ash missed the mark on in his standalone novel. Yumeko's playful pranks and naive-but-not-stupid nature bring to mind some of the best qualities of Meghan and Puck. 

It was nice to get a chance to explore non-Western myths and Kagawa's explanations of the unfamiliar vocabulary were thorough enough that I didn't feel lost. I wasn't sure how much I would enjoy this book, given that I haven't read YA fiction in a few years, but it was light-hearted and fun, an overall easy read, and it manages to avoid both talking down to its younger audience and depressing anyone who reads it. And the cliffhanger definitely makes me want to read the next book!

WHAT I LOVED MOST

As previously mentioned, the return to form for Kagawa hit a nostalgic note for me and reintroduced me to her writing. It hits all the tropes of YA fiction that I haven't seen as much since I've been reading more adult fiction: Yumeko is a plucky heroine, who while mischievous, refuses to take moral shortcuts; Tatsuki is the brooding boy archetype, whose heart melts with prolonged contact with Yumeko; Okame was a loveable scoundrel; and Daisuke was the knight (or samurai, as the case may be) in shining armor. It didn't really make me think too much. The characters aren't one-note or flat, but they are simple and straight-forward. Their motivations are laid bare. There are no schemes or deep secrets that make them overly complicated. It was some much-needed lightness after a long and emotionally draining year. 

MY FAVORITE CHARACTER

Daisuke stood out to me as a character with little screentime, but quite a bit of impact. He first appears in the little short stories about Suki the maid that appear in between each section of the book. Suki is the fake-out protagonist, and I honestly thought Daisuke was going to be the male lead in an unlikely romance between a maid and the equivalent of a prince. Even though that ended up not coming to fruition, that he was kind to Suki when the other nobles were cruel stood out, and he remembers her when she disappears. Unlike the other nobles who don't care about Suki at all, Daisuke remembers her name after their brief encounter and notices when he hasn't seen her for months. 

He is out of the spotlight for quite a while to the point I had almost given up asking, "what happened to flute-boy from the first chapter?" And then he reappears, in such a dramatic way that I couldn't help but laugh. I don't want to spoil it, as it is a major reveal, but it did so much toward painting a picture of who he is as a character, and it instantly shot him to first place in my books. 

LOVING CRITICISM

It's not so much a flaw as a personal preference, but I'm not a fan of gratuitous use of a foreign language for no reason. It just reminds me too much of the bad fanfic I read (and, guilty as charged, wrote) to really like it. The use of honorifics, like -san and -chan, were not problems to me, as those help to establish the setting and are used consistently. Random uses of hai and baka when the characters normally said "yes" or "idiot" just seemed a little out of place. 

SHOULD YOU READ THIS BOOK?

I would recommend it for 14-18-year-olds who enjoy fantasy and are interested in different pantheons, I would recommend it. If you like The Iron Fey, it's likely you'll enjoy this series as well. For adults, if you want a fantasy that isn't dour or full of gratuitous sex scenes, this is a safe bet. 

You can purchase "Shadow of the Fox" on Amazon, or your favorite bookstore.

REVIEW: "Blood Meridian or The Evening Redness in the West" by Cormac McCarthy

 

SYNOPSIS

An epic novel of the violence and depravity that attended America's westward expansion, Blood Meridian brilliantly subverts the conventions of the Western novel and the mythology of the "wild west."

Based on historical events that took place on the Texas-Mexico border in the 1850s, Blood Meridian is an epic novel that traces the fortunes of the Kid, a fourteen-year-old Tennessean who stumbles into a nightmarish world in which the market for Indian scalps is thriving.

MY INITIAL TAKE

My initial take of this book is quite complicated. This book is shocking, horrifying, and shows depravity on a mass as well as an individual scale, yet this book is moving, spiritual, and shows scenes of wonder and beauty.

The synopsis may be sparse, but truly telling of how this book is not really about the events at all. Events happen as we trace the kid, a young teenager heading west, as he becomes a scalp-hunter and travels with the Glanton Gang, but the novel’s meat is its intelligent and questioning dialogue and its description of the world in which the characters live in, a world of brutality and bloodshed.

I may not be familiar with the western genre, but this is no Tombstone. This is not a tale of independence and free-spiritedness. These are not characters who hold onto their values in a world filled with gore and heartless depravity. These characters are black-hearted villains who callously beat, rob, rape, and slaughter their way across northern Mexico. They are the terrors who intimidate one into doing what they want. They are the ones who kill, not because they are card-carrying villains, but because they wanted money or found you an annoyance.

The morality of the characters is not white and black, but rather dark-grey and black. The characters who are not completely depraved, still murder and act indifferently to the actions of far worse offenders.

WHAT I LOVE

Now, in the prior section I talked briefly about “beautiful” language, but I decided to save it for this section.

I absolutely must say that I think the prose is artistically done. McCarthy’s style shows scenes amazingly, but in trade, I find it very difficult to understand at times. I really don’t know how to describe it, but it is almost poetic in its elaborate and admittedly purplish ways. I feel as we move across these vistas of violence, we see a sense of callousness as violence becomes increasingly meaningless to its perpetrators and the distant-yet-clear language perfectly shows that.

Ultimately, This novel is an artistic masterpiece that paints beautiful and nightmarish landscapes as it delves deeply into the nature of violence and whether there is meaning behind it.

LOVING CRITICISM

The novel’s focus on artistic merit can feel boring to those who enjoy an engaging story and a proper plot and conclusion. Its complex prose can shut out those who prefer clarity, and can be hard to read due to the convoluted style and unique punctuation usage. The violence, which throughout the book occurs to adults, children, and animals, is definitely a nonstarter for those with a sensitivity to violence or dislike of it.

MY FAVORITE CHARACTER

The book has plenty of characters, with most of them without introduction and none likable, though there are two characters in particular that I find interesting: the kid and Judge Holden.

The kid is an interesting character, yet like many characters, he is very enigmatic. The narrative follows his story, which many may say makes him the protagonist, yet the narrative says very little about his thoughts and actions. This is compounded by the fact that during his time in the Glanton gang, the narrative shifts to follow other events, some of which the kid does not appear and at least a few where he is not even present for. 

The beginning of the book describes him as an illiterate, brutal, and violent person. He is generally indifferent towards the depravity of his cohorts, and participates in the violence perpetrated by the gang, against natives and later any who cross their path. 

Yet, he is shown in some scenes to have a sense of pity and even performs acts of mercy occasionally. He is one of the few who helps other members of the gang. Notably, he is also one of the few who refuses to be afraid of the judge, where the others avoid him at all costs.

He befriends ex-convict Toadvine before they both join the gang, and latter befriends a fellow member, the ex-priest Tobin. Ultimately, the kid is cold, pragmatic, and generally indifferent towards other people, but he does show near the end more complex emotions such as a reluctance to kill when not necessary and does seem troubled by the violence he perpetrated with the gang in retrospect.

The other character of interest is Judge Holden. Whereas the kid seems to be merely cold, violent, and unempathetic, the judge is a true monster. He is a cool, somewhat-friendly, knowledgeable, well-educated, and philosophical man, in every way different from the kid. Though they are both brutally violent and have no problems with it, Holden goes out of his way to commit violence, beating out even Glanton in brutality towards people and animals and is even implied to be a pedophile.

He functions as the unofficial second-in-command of the Glanton gang, yet no one really knows anything about them. Every member claims to have met him at least once before joining the gang, and he joins after mysteriously waiting for the gang in the desert. The gang’s feelings of dislike towards him range from the scalphunter Brown’s discomfort to Tobin’s fear. The only two who don’t feel this way are Glanton and the kid, the first indifferent and the latter dismissive. 

He is described as youthful, hairless, and entirely too pale for comfort. He argues that murder is the most noble of sports, and argues the philosophical points of this. He declares mastery over all life, and uses this as justification for his recordkeeping of all living things they come across. his philosophy is depicted in the line, "Whatever exists without my knowledge, exists without my consent." He is shown half-dressed and nude frequently, dancing to fiddle-music in the moonlit night. Ultimately, he is implied to be eternal in the book’s extremely ambiguous ending.

SHOULD YOU READ THIS BOOK?

Honestly, this is a hard question. The book may seem to be historical fiction, but one doesn’t have to know the history to read it. It definitely is an adult fiction, and those who have difficulty with violence should avoid it. Sexual violence is never shown , though the after effects are, particularly rape-murder. Those who have difficulty with or don’t like elaborate and complex prose styles should avoid.

In the end, the only people I would recommend this book to are people who enjoy books for artistic and literary purposes as much as entertainment, have no issues with McCarthy’s style, and can stomach brutal violence.

REVIEW: "Not Even Bones" by Rebecca Schaeffer

 

SYNOPSIS

Nita doesn't murder supernatural beings and sell their body parts on the internet--her mother does that. Nita just dissects the bodies after they've been "acquired." Until her mom brings home a live specimen and Nita decides she wants out; dissecting a scared teenage boy is a step too far. But when she decides to save her mother's victim, she ends up sold in his place--because Nita herself isn't exactly "human." She has the ability to alter her biology, a talent that is priceless on the black market. Now on the other side of the bars, if she wants to escape, Nita must ask herself if she's willing to become the worst kind of monster.

MY INITIAL TAKE

"Not Even Bones" sucked me in and kept me up late at night reading. This fairly gruesome novel is a departure from my usual choice in stories. I prefer to follow heroic characters in stories with at least a bittersweet ending if it can't be happy, but Rebecca Schaeffer created a cast of antiheroes and straight-out villains that force you to love them, despite their warning signs.

Nita, a seventeen-year-old butcher on the black market, loves her job working with dead bodies, justifying that she has never personally killed anyone. She goes through several moral crises over the course of the book, but ultimately has no intent on changing her morals or crossing back over to the light--she is a part of the underground world through and through, and she intends to stay there. She is joined by the male lead Kovit, a Thai zannie (a vampire-like creature that feeds off physical pain), who works for the American mafia as a torturer. These two make no excuses for who they are, insisting that they are not misunderstood or helpless victims of their situations. They are, rather, active members of the criminal underworld who live there because they choose to be. While they arguably cannot leave the underworld without facing consequences, Nita points out that is in itself a choice. They are not good people and probably very bad ones, but nonetheless, they are hilarious, with delightful interactions. 

The supporting cast is no less impressive. Reyes is a villain you love to hate for her tough, no-nonsense behavior and her paranoia over her very precarious position as the "queen of parts." Boulder is a creep, eating the raw body parts of supernatural beings...right in front of them. And Mirella, one of the more "good" characters, is ruthless in her quest to survive and hell-bent on vengeance. 

WHAT I LOVED THE MOST

A good hero is always a joy to read about--they're fun to root for, easy to love, and they inspire others to find kindness in the world. A good villain, however, is always fun. They can go further, to more dramatic extremes, to reach their goals. They aren't held back by morals to making the "right" decision or sacrificing what they love for the greater good. 

While Nita isn't a villain (yet), she is a distinctly morally ambiguous character. Early on, you can argue that she has little choice in her career. Her domineering and abusive mother would never let her leave, and has taught her a harsh lesson in what happens when Nita says "no." Still, Nita wants to think of herself as a decent person, at best, and at the very least, not the monster her mother is. This keeps her from completely losing herself. Something brought up late in the book is the importance of boundaries, even for villainous characters. A character who has been deeper in the criminal underworld than Nita has ever gone warns her of the importance of not losing herself to the brutality of the black market. She doesn't need to be moral, but she should keep some hard rules and lines. 

This book is able to go places that others can't, because its characters are not good people. It explores the psyche of rising villains by examining what kind of life leads a person to kill and sell others on the black market, while also showing that no one is a total monster...at least, that such people don't last long. And it completely demolishes the concept of the Freudian excuse. Nothing in any of the characters' backstories is used to justify their actions--they do this because they enjoy it and because it grants them something that improves their lives. I am excited to read the next installments of "Market of Monsters" and to see how Nita evolves. 

LOVING CRITICISM

Schaeffer's descriptions can get a little...extra. It might just be my personal preference, but while Nita's creative descriptions of Kovit's Slasher Smile are clearly meant to get his dangerousness and amoral personality across to the reader, they get pretty lengthy and awkward. This is especially the case when lengthy descriptions are repeatedly used with these characters. 

MY FAVORITE CHARACTER

Choosing a favorite character is tough when each character has such a strong presence, but I would have to say Kovit is my favorite in this book. He's dramatic, he's over the top, and he's brutally honest about who he is. There is no woe-is-me from this character, and he isn't a broken man to be fixed. He doesn't want to be fixed, a nice break from other male leads, since, let's be real, the "broken man needs to be healed by a kind and gentle woman's love" is a little tiresome. 

What really makes him a great character is how delightfully unhinged he gets. Man is a member of the American mafia, and he shows it. In the scenes where he tortures characters, he enjoys every minute of it, and in the scenes where he chooses to be vulnerable, he shows a real, human quality. Schaeffer has done an excellent job of creating complex characters that feel like real people. 

SHOULD YOU READ THIS BOOK?

This book is gory and gruesome, with murders, torture, and violence against children. If you have any triggers related to violence or are under the age of sixteen, then I do not recommend this book for you. But if you like stories that explore morality, have fast-paced action, and morally ambiguous plotlines, then this is the book for you. 

You can buy "Not Even Bones" on Amazon or your favorite bookstore. The Webtoon adaption of the same name is available for free online and currently on-going. 

REVIEW: "War and Peace" by Leo Tolstoy

 

SYNOPSIS

Tolstoy’s epic masterpiece intertwines the lives of private and public individuals during the time of the Napoleonic wars and the French invasion of Russia. The fortunes of the Rostovs and the Bolkonskys, of Pierre, Natasha, and Andrei, are intimately connected with the national history that is played out in parallel with their lives.

The prodigious cast of characters, both great and small, seem to act and move as if connected by threads of destiny as the novel relentlessly questions ideas of free will, fate, and providence. Yet Tolstoy’s portrayal of marital relations and scenes of domesticities is as truthful and poignant as the grand theme that underlies them.

WHAT I LOVE ABOUT IT

Honestly, War and Peace truly is a fantastic book. It is a deeply engaging book as we look into the fortunes of its main characters, several noblemen and noblewomen in Napoleonic Russia, as they quest for ideals such as happiness, personal fulfillment, or understanding of one’s meaning in life.

I first read War and Peace, in Mandelker’s edit of the Maude translation, about five years ago, and it was one of the most engaging books I had ever read. No stranger to classics of literature, I decided to tackle this immense novel and found a book that I could not put down.

Its characters were fascinating as I watched them engage in their domestic struggles. From Andrei’s feelings of unfulfillment with his married life driving him to the army, to Pierre’s complete bewilderment with his own life leaving him unmoored and frustrated, to Nikolai’s and Natasha’s youthful naivety leading them into dangerous pitfalls at violent war and precarious peace.

The moments we see in the narrative from the mundane to the chaotic, in my opinion, show meaningful description. We see this from scenes of war, where noble and impressive commanders give orders that are ignored, worthless, or past enforcement, and description of convoluted and tricky scenes as characters try to navigate the social circles of high society.

I truly felt this was an amazing novel.

LOVING CRITISIM

Frankly, the book is long. Many people would automatically see that as a nonstarter, and I admit that people who don’t read fast or find it tiring will struggle with this. The mass of text can seem overwhelming, and side characters are not the easiest to keep track of either.

The principal issue lies in the dozens of chapters without narrative. See, this book was written with a theme in mind, and back when this book was written, authors (like Victor Hugo) did not always shy away from giving the most precise reflection and description of various plots and themes. These chapters are increasingly prevalent in the second half, and if one decides to read them, they can kill your interest.

MY FAVORITE CHARACTER

Personally, my favorite character is Andrei Nikolayevich Bolkonsky. I feel he has a fascinating storyline, being driven to find a purposeful, fulfilling, and happy life.

At the beginning, we find an intelligent, driven, and witty young man. He finds his wife, while friendly and sociable, to be enamored with trivialities and thinks of himself as chained to this unfulfilling life.

In his attempts to escape this, he becomes an officer in the army, after which, he pursues a source of happiness through glory, domestic life, and romance. He attempts and struggles with all of these, and ultimately finds truth in his epiphanies on the nature and importance of man.

SHOULD YOU READ THIS BOOK?

Yes, absolutely. This is a masterpiece of literature, though I feel it should not be one’s first foray into high literature as it is long and didactic at times. If one likes historical fiction, one should definitely give it a try. I recommend this to adults as there are scenes of violence and the prose is opaque and hard to understand. Any sexual content is merely implied or happens off-page for those who are uncomfortable with that.