The Story

The last book in The Youngest Templar trilogy starts out where the last one left off – with Tristan, Robard and Maryam trying to cross the channel into England. This book takes us through England, into Scotland, on Tristan’s journey to bring the Holy Grail to the head priest in the order that protects the Grail. On this quest, we don’t only make a detour into Sherwood forest, where we meet Robard’s band of Merry Men in their attempts to survive under the increase of taxes that the Sherif of Nottingham keeps trying to enforce, we also watch as Sir Hugh as he tries to become the possessor of the Holy Grail.

The Response

Okay. So. Seriously? People need to read this trilogy. If you only finish one trilogy this year, it should be this one. It is one of my favourite of YA trilogies I have read in a long time. Now, please excuse me whilst I go an snuggle all three books for a few moments.

I have been waiting for this since I finished the second one back in December – and I’m so so sorry for all of those who have to wait until October to get their hands on this book, and I really wish you could all get it so much sooner, because this final installment is GOOD. Very, very good.

It wraps things up oh-so-nicely, and there’s so much action, and we get to discover what we always suspected about Tristan, and the Merry Men show up, and there’s so much heartbreak, and the good triumphs over evil, and yay! So much good stuff about this that I’m having a hard time knowing exactly where to start.

Okay, maybe I’ll start with the Merry Men. Will Scarlet shows up! And I remember meeting Little John in the series before realizing how much Robin Hood there was in them, so I don’t remember even connecting him to the rest of it. And how did I not see Brother Tuck as Friar Tuck? And the way Robard unites them all to stand up to the wimpy Sheriff, well, it’s just brilliant. May have brought tears to my eyes when all the townsfolk who were sick of the Sheriff just showed up in Sherwood.

In fact, Robard turned out to be one of my fave characters in the book. And when we were at SDCC, Spradlin was one of the authors on the YA angst panel, and he mentioned that Robard was one of his favourite characters to write. I can definitely see why. He’s such a fun character, he has such a fun sense of humour, and is so impetuous… And he’s Robin Hood, who, let’s face it, is awesome.

And the story about Tristan, it was so awesome to see how things ended up working out. I will admit that a couple of times I was surprised by how things turned out. While I had a suspicion about Tristan’s upbringing, it was good to know that I was a little wrong. I like it when authors can surprise me! I don’t want to say too much more, but let’s just say that what Tristan decided to do with his upbringing was definitely the best choice, and wasn’t something I had considered he would do. It was very awesome.

How many times have I used the word “awesome” so far? Hmm. I need a bigger vocabulary.

And once again, I have to say how much I love the fact that there’s a strong kick-arse female in this trilogy. I don’t like wimpy characters, so the fact that Maryam is an assassin who has a tendency to save the boys when they are in trouble. Yes, this trilogy is good for guys because of the action and whatnot, but it provides a strong female character for any girls who would pick it up. And those strong kick-ares females who don’t priss out are always so wonderful to come across.

And look, if you’re waiting with baited breath for the third book, you can read an excerpt here!

The Bottom Line

Yay this was awesome! Loved it! Finished the trilogy so awesomely, what ended up being one of my fave YA trilogies/series/whatever in a long time. If you haven’t started this trilogy yet, why not?! You should. It’s awesome.

Other Reviews

Have you reviewed this book on your blog? Let me know and I’ll add your link.

Ha! I journeyed to SDCC and I survived! I did! I wasn’t sure whether I would come away from there without my brain completely imploding on itself, but it didn’t and I’m still alive!

It was fun! It was brilliant! It was overwhelming and intense and crazy and massive brain-overload! It was awesome fun, especially because I got to meet Lisa, who has been an online friend for about ten years but who I’ve never met before, so yay! A friend and I went down and roomed with Lisa and Lissa, who are both pretty awesome.

Stuff What Got Seen

So I didn’t see any of the big panels because the lines were freaking insane. There were only two non-book ones that I saw: The Cape and the io9.com panels. The Cape looks like it’s going to be awesome – I know a lot of the critics or whatever were disappointed, but I like the fact that the guy who is The Cape doesn’t have superpowers but it’s all more stage-magic. And the io9.com one was about some of the best scifi that came out this year: Warren Ellis’ comics, LXD, etc etc.

Bookish panel wise, I saw one on the Power of Myth (which almost went all crazy-like when one of the panelists mentioned that fanfiction isn’t as well written as published stuff, and half the audience and a portion of the other panelists got up in arms about that), one on Entertaining Your Inner Child (where all of the panelists were male childrens authors and bloody hilarious), one about Teen Angst in YA (which was possibly my favourite one), and two others: what’s new and upcoming at both HarperCollins and Penguin (where they were giving away free books, huzzah).

One night, we went to Can’t Stop the Serenity – yay! Serenity on the big screen! Haven’t seen that since opening night when the movie was originally in theatres! (Definitely worthwhile to see on the big screen if you never have!)

And the Exhibition Hall – oh my! So much stuff! I will be posting some of the pics I took in the exhibition hall on facebook at some point later, but there was just so much cool and awesome and fangirl-worthy stuff that made me want to squeal.

Books!

And, since this is my book blog, I should probably make this slightly relevant and mention what books (and comics) I ended up picking up. So here’s the massive list:

• Runaways: Dead Wrong, Terry Moore. LT
• Torchwood comic, John Barrowman. LT
• Zombies: A Record of the Year of Infection, Don Roff. LT
• Shift: A Novel (Gate of Orpheus Trilogy), Tim Kring. LT
• Brain Candy: Science, Paradoxes, Puzzles, Logic, and Illogic to Nourish Your Neurons, Garth Sundem. LT
• The Graphic Design Exercise Book, Jessica Glaser. LT
• Princess Alyss of Wonderland, Frank Beddor. LT
• Doubleblind (Sirantha Jax, Book 3), Ann Aguirre. LT
• A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 1), George R.R. Martin. LT
• Frankenstein’s Monster: A Novel, Susan Heyboer O’Keefe. LT
• Delivery-Boy Man: A Comic Book by Philip J. Fry (Futurama Comic), Matt Groening. LT
• Guardian of the Gate (Prophecy of the Sisters, Book 2), Michelle Zink. LT
• Darkfever (Fever Series, Book 1), Karen Marie Moning. LT
• Afterlife: The Resurrection Chronicles, Merrie Destefano. LT
• His Majesty’s Dragon (Temeraire, Book 1), Naomi Novik. LT
• Total Eclipse (Weather Warden, Book 9), Rachel Caine. LT
• The Youngest Templar, Book 3: Orphan of Destiny Michael Spradlin. LT
• The Cape: Graphic Novel (TV Tie-In), Tom Wheeler. LT

The book I was most excited about? Michael Spradlin’s Orphan of Destiny. LOOOOOOVED the first two in the trilogy. Read this one on the flight home. Will post about it over the weekend, have much to rave about!

Of course, there were many more that I SAW that I didn’t end up getting, but have made note of them and added them to the TBR list. Will be on the lookout for them, that’s for sure. And I’ll also need to be on the lookout for the books where I got one that was later in the series.

So yay fun!

But… OH SO HAPPY to have my own bed back!

The Story

One of the most iconic comic series to date, a series that helped set the standards of graphic novels as a medium to be taken seriously by the general public, The Watchmen tells the story of a group of masked heroes in the mid-eighties in an alternate universe USA.

And I don’t even know how to start talking about what Watchmen is about, so if you have no idea, rent the movie. Or read this article on Wikipedia.

The Response

Okay. So, this is supposed to be great. Fabulous. All that stuff. It’s got critical acclaim, and any number of comic book fans would tell me that it’s the greatest thing ever…

But this was a little smidgeon boring. Actually, it was all kinds of extremely boring.

I couldn’t get into it at all.

I loved the movie based on this graphic novel so much. So so SO much. Loved the story, loved the cinematography, loved it all. And so many people say that it was such an awesome adaptation of the book – but if I had read the book first, I would not have wanted to see the movie. Yes, I saw how they kept most of it so true to the novel, to the point where you could have a screencap and compare it to a panel in the graphic novel, and it would be almost exactly the same, and that was cool. But it wasn’t enough to get me really really super excited about actually reading the book.

The characters? Yes, it’s realistic in that they all have major issues, and none of them are the perfect hero, blah blah blah, but oh gosh, NONE of them are likable. Or even empathizable. You’ve got the psycho, the super-smart genius who only relates to Alexander the Great (even though I have an historical crush on Alexander the Great, this did not endear him to me), the guy who underwent so much radiation that he turned blue and waltzes around naked all the time, a really boring dude, and some chick that a bunch of people are in love with. And they’re all main characters and they’re all not likable. And I’m sure if the Comedian, Hollis and what’s-her-name’s mother had more page-time, they would’ve been just as bad.

And so now I’m wondering why I liked the movie so much. I think it was the effects and the cinematography and some other stuff that distracted me from the characters.

The Bottom Line

Meh. Not really caring too much about this book on a whole. Perhaps too hyped up. Need to move on to other more exciting reading materials.

Other Reviews

Things Mean A Lot, Dear Author, Look at that Book, Fyrefly’s Book Blog. Have you reviewed this book on your blog? Let me know and I’ll add your link.