Once Upon a Bookshelf

Bella Swan has just moved to a small town to live with her father. The high school is much smaller than the one that she used to go to, the type where everyone seems to know everyone else. Almost immediately, one of the boys at that school catches her interest, Edward, who she later discovers is a vampire.

I expected this book to end in one of two ways. I had hoped it to end in one of two ways. Needless to say, the way it actually did end completely threw me for a loop, and I’m torn between being so happy that a book could surprise me in that sort of way and being upset because it seemed somewhat anti-climatic to what I had been expecting.

Other than that, I have to say that this is one of the most enjoyable vampire books that I’ve read in the past few years. It romanticizes vampires a bit, makes you believe that not only are there bad vampires out there, but that there are ones that are good and caring and human; but it still has the allure of the dangerous to it.

The characters, as well, are loveable, even if the two main ones do remind me somewhat of Kaye and Roiben from Holly Black’s Tithe. There are some things about Bella’s character that I wish I could have gotten an explanation to, a few loose ends that I wish I could have seen tied up, and it makes me hope there’s going to be a follow up to this book.

Elena was supposed to be Cinderella – she had the evil stepmother and the evil stepsisters, and she was forced to practically be their slave. Only problem was that the prince she was supposed to marry was about 10 years younger than her. So, instead of getting an invitation to the ball, she got an apprenticeship with her Fairy Godmother.

I don’t even know how many different versions of Cinderella I’ve read or seen, but this definitly gets props for being the most original. I’ve mentioned it before, but I always really enjoy stories based on fairy tales. Really enjoy them. And Mercedes Lackey does some of the ones I’ve enjoyed the most.

I really liked the main character, Elena. I think it’s the thought that she’s just a regular human being who managed to wind up being a Fairy Godmother. The magical beings that you run into in the book are fabulous as well – house elves, giants and unicorns (and oh! the unicorns are quite humorous!).

The hero of the story, Alexander, though… I’m all for not-nice-guys being “redeemed,” really I am. But this time it just seemed so… well, it didn’t seem real. There was no real progression. One chapter he is an ass (literally), and a couple of chapters later, he’s the greatest sweetest guy in the world… Didn’t seem real to me at all. Ah well.

Also, I sometimes wish that I had never heard of the Hero’s Quest, because honestly, it’s getting somewhat annoying how every time I read a fantasy book I start analyzing what each bit is what from the Hero’s Quest. Hrmph.

I have to admit that I don’t deal too well when there’s a movie made out of a book. Sure I rave about it a lot of the time, but … when I get to watching it, all I do is pick apart the movie, and then usually don’t enjoy it at all. (There are, however, some exceptions to this – Harry Potter, Chronicles of Narnia, etc.) Or, even worse, if I see the movie first, when I get around to reading the book, I’ll just think about exactly what the movie cheated me out of.

It’s always such a relief when I can read a book after seeing the movie, and I can’t compare the two at all because I find them to be so different.

I had seen Howl’s Moving Castle mid-summer, and finally gotten around to picking up the book at the library yesterday morning… and proceeded to not be able to put it down until I was finished it last night. I loved the movie, thought it was brilliant, funny, and of course the animation was beautiful. The book? Again, brilliant, funny, and … well, a certain lack of animation, but still on the whole comparable to the movie in it’s wonderfulness.

Sophie is the eldest sister of three kids in a family, and it is well known that in fairy tales the eldest of three never does well in life. When her father dies, Sophie’s stepmother sends her two younger sisters out to do apprenticeships, while Sophie stays on at the family’s hat shop to help out and learn the business there. All is well (but quite boring) until Sophie comes across a wicked witch who turns Sophie into a very old lady. Because of this, Sophie decides to go out on a journey of her own, and ends up finding herself in a castle, living with the wizard Howl, his apprentice Michael and a fire demon, Calcifer.

Ah, I laughed so hard at parts of this book. My particular favourite was when Howl was described as being “really quite old, well into his twenties.” I didn’t realize that I was “really quite old,” but I suppose that coming from a young person’s point of view, I might be. ;)

On a slightly different note, I always find books where people from our world (or one very similar) enter into another world that is full of magic so charming and exciting. It’s part of the reason why I love Narnia so much, why I love L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time, and now it’s part of the reason why I love Howl.