Seraphina - Rachel Hartman

I received this book from a friend at a New Years book exchange party we had.  I think I had seen it briefly here and there, but had so much on my reading list that I never got around to picking it up. 

I really enjoyed this book.  It pulled me in immediately.  I kind of like the fact that the author treats the reader like they are part of the universe and instead of using blatant exposition to explain her world, she lets the reader learn as they go.  It was almost as fun when I finally understood the role of the saints played in this world.  I really like when a book doesn't beat one over the head explanations. 

The basic story is a girl who is half dragon and half human.  She doesn't fit in either world, and her heritage is a secret because it is illegal in both the dragon world and the human world.  She sees herself as a monster, and is uncomfortable in her own skin.  It doesn't help that the one person who really loves Seraphina for the person she is, can't show her because he, Orma, is a dragon and the dragons are breathing down his neck about showing excessive emotions.  It is a fascinating struggle, but the love is obvious in the care that he shows Seraphina and the lengths he goes to hide that love just so the dragons won't excise his memories of her and her mother. 

Seraphina struggles to find her place in the world, amidst an uneasy treaty between dragons and humans, and deep horrible prejudice on both sides.  She learns and grows and something I like to see, other character's grow as well.  To many books fall into the trap of having their character's remain stagnant, which makes them just unfleshed out shells of the people the author really wants them to be.  Seraphina and the other cast members are nicely fleshed out, and I look forward to seeing them fleshed out in the coming sequel. 

Replay - Ken Grimwood

That said, this book disappointed me in the end.  It seemed like there was no resolution. As if he learned nothing from his repeated journeys and re-workings of the past.  Also, the main character in this book came off as rather selfish. 

He used people and events to his advantage, but seems to give little in return.  He brushed off his family, which to me, who has lost my mother at an early age is a travesty.  If I were to go back 25 years, I would be 19 years old, and have another year with my mother.  I would treasure that year, and my mother more than I did my first go around. 

Also, there is the implication that major events, such as the Kennedy assassination, can not be changed, but in the book over his several replays of his life, he has made major changes to the world by effecting events, so that was confusing and contradictory. 

But I have to say, despite these flaws, I did enjoy the journey, and it made me think. 

The Blue Sword - Robin McKinley

This is amongst my favorite books of all time.  I rank it up there with Anne McCaffery's The Dragon Riders of Pern and Jane Austin's Pride and Prejudice.  Something about this book draws me. 

Harry is a girl who has often felt alone and out of place in the world, and even more so after the death of her father and her move to the dry, dusty and reddish Darian desert far from the wet and green world she is familiar with.  She feels out of place not because of the Desert which calls to her, but because of who she is.  She feels awkward in her own skin.  No great beauty, taller than fashion permits, and just different from her surroundings.  I think many a teen girl, and I was such a teen girl when I first read this book, can identify with this feeling. 

But more than that I can identify with Harry, I like Harry.  She is different, and although she tries to bridle her difference and be content with her lot, she doesn't surrender to it.  And when she is taken from all that is familiar - kind people who love and care about her, and forced into a foreign world, she doesn't curl up and become useless, she strives to grow and learns to understand her difference.

When duty calls to her, she is not afraid to abandon the person she loves to do what she must.  She is strong and brave, and it shows deeply when she returns to the man she abandoned afr
aid of his rejection, but returning all the same to face the music, so to speak. 

I love this book.  I like the world it is set in.  I like the magic that inhabits this world, and most of all, I like the characters who are flawed, but willing to learn and grow. 

Still after all these years, a favorite of mine.  I have read this book at least a two dozen times over the last 30 years, and like an old, well loved friend, it is there to greet me each and every time, I open its cover.