The Red Necklace

Hey all! This next review is on a book I'm not quite done reading yet, but I'm going to give it my best shot. It's on The Red Necklace by Sally Gardner. This book takes place in France, 1789, right before the French Revolution.

To start off, let me just give a quick summary of the story. Yann Morgoza is young Gypsy boy with the gift of reading people's minds and being able to throw his voice. His gifts are put into action while working with a rather foolish magician. This chapter of his life is over when the magician dies. But on the magician's night of death, this is where Yann meets Sido, a shy heiress whose father only cares about himself and strongly dislikes her. A short conversation between these two will influence both their paths. And while a revolution is brewing in France, Sido is being used as a pawn by her father to try to repay his debt to the fearful Count Kalliovski who is not all he appears to be. Yann will be the only one to oppose him, but what change of fate will this bring our young hero?

So, hopefully that gives you all an idea of what the book is about. As I mentioned before, I'm not done with the book yet, but I'm 148 pages in and loving it! So far my favorite character is Sido. But if you choose to read this book: BEWARE OF FEELS! I'm not going to spoil anything, but wow, there's a lot of death! Also, BEWARE OF GORE! I mean, from what I've read, it doesn't go into too much detail, but if you get sick to your stomach easily, I wouldn't suggest reading it. And, as this book takes place in the French Revolution, you ought to know that aristocrats were beheaded, so I'm guessing that is going to appear in the book. Just a warning!

So let me now talk about the author's way of writing. Gardner writes like she was there, at that moment in time! It is so descriptive! Let me just give you the first sentence of the book. "This is Paris: here the winds of change are blowing, whispering their discontent into the very hearts of her citizens."  Wow! That just described the entirety of the years leading up to the French Revolution! Now here is Gardner describing Yann: "Yann had a sharp, intelligent face, olive skin, a mop of jet black hair, and eyes as dark as midnight, with two star shining in them. He was a solitary boy who enjoyed nothing better than being left alone to explore whatever city or town he was in, until it felt to him a second skin." Gardner makes us feel like she really does know him in real life. She sure made me feel like I wanted to be friends with him!

To conclude, I want to thank TheGuardian.com for giving me some inspiration on where to start this rewiew, and to you, the readers of my blog! You're amazing! Please R&R (read and review) my latest post! Thanks!
-Carly

Shiver!

Hey all! So this is my first review in a while, but here it goes!
The book, Shiver, by Maggie Stiefvater is a wonderful tale about family, love, and the supernatural. It shares common traits with Stephenie Meyer's Twilight, such as the romance between a werewolf and a human girl, and the fact that it even has werewolves in it, but that's where the similarities end. It is a lot more violent than the Twilight series, and revolves around only werewolves; no vampires included! This kind of wolf is bitten, and can change between human and wolf for about fifteen times each.

The story starts in the small town of Mercy Falls, Minnesota. Our heroine, seventeen year old Grace Brisbane is the perfect child. She has good grades, cooks for her parents, and tries not to get into trouble. But all is not well in her small town. One of the local boys, Jack Culpeper, has been recently killed by one of the wolves in the area. Everyone is in a state of panic, scared of the wolves. Everyone but Grace. She knows the wolves aren't bad, especially her wolf. The one with the yellow eyes that is always looking at her.

But the rest of the townspeople think the wolves are bad, and want to kill them, including Grace's father. After her father and the rest of his arranged hunting party shoots one of the wolves, she finds Sam, naked and alone in the middle of the woods bleeding. He has the same yellow eyes as her wolf! She brings him to the hospital where she discovers his unnatural healing abilities. Grace soon finds out that he is a werewolf, and they start a relationship.

 But their happy relationship is tested when winter comes. You see, Sam's kind of wolves only shift into their human forms in the summer, while in the winter, they revert back to their wolf forms. Sam's winter is especially hard. He wants to stay with Grace, but the wolf inside him is slowly creeping out. When Sam finally does shift, he knows he can never be human again. Sam is different. For some reason, Sam has fewer changes than a regular wolf.

Shiver is a simple, but powerful love story of two ordinary teenagers who have become extraordinary. I love this story because it is a taste of what is to come for me when I read Twilight next year. Be sure to catch the breath-taking sequels!

 

Thank you to Common Sense Media and Seacoast Blog!

Update!

Hey all! Sorry for the super long wait. I've pretty busy this past year! So look out for new posts!