I love this series ! Picture a certain crazed actor jumping on the couch of TV Talk Queen professing his love, that's how I feel about this series. Each book has taken me to my ultimate dark dank putrid happy place. Oh the characters, they are so real, complete and sometimes nuttier than a fruit cake, it's fantastic ! Lilly, sweet little Lilly, what have you turned into ?    I admit to wishing her dead back in the early books. She was so pitiful, weak and stupid back then. I really am too quick to judge, shame on me.  So Lilly is the unexpected MC of this book, she leads several of her groupies from the clean comfort of a Swedish mega store and back to Woodbury.  She misses her old sweet home. What ? You'd have to drag my Swedish Meatball Stuffed body out by the ankles. So they leave comfort heaven to head back to the past, and the past is really rancid and mad.  

We have a new ultra level of nutter join or crew of unhappy red shirt travelers. Yup, there are a lot of red shirts, dying all over the place. It's TWD and so much better than the TV show. 

The ending was a shocker, I never saw that coming. I cried  like a baby, ugly tears, you know scrunched up face, twisted and pained snorts coming from a dark deep pain.  Now where is the next book ?

When it is a YA series, I usually read the first book only, no matter if it was good or not. If it was good, I don't wanna be disappointed. In this case... like hell I won't read the sequel! This book was so good, so exciting. I did not care for the team as much at first. They were all too suspicious. Glum. I saw it as a bit of a joke that they were all between 15 and 18 years old. Too young for having such a mission. And be so bad-ass. And sometimes cold-hearted. And looking like a devil with a cane, and be the perfect thief, and planning always the best and impossible plans (ok, all of these are mostly about Kaz, the least realistic character among the 6 of them. And also the least likeable) Anyway... First I started to respect them, then to love them. 4 boys and 2 girls. Kaz, the chief, with his genius mind and quick hands. Has a dark past, made him hard and cold. Seems like he is at least 29/30-years-old (but he is 17... ha!) Jesper, his right hand. Excellent with guns, also a Grisha-in-hidden. I don't remember his age, but is around 18 but is written like he is 28. Inej, The Wraith. The only one who Kaz truly trusts. She is 17, but is written like she is at least, 23. Nina, beautiful Nina, with an amazing power. She is around 17 too, i guess, but she is written like she is 25. Matthias, the one who had a grudge against Nina and her kind, but can't really hate her. He is 18, but he is written like he is 27. And finally Wylan, good at drawing and son of a powerful man. He is the youngest at 15, but he could have been 18. They form this team to make an "Ocean Eleven" mission; get into Ice Court and take an important scientist from there. The whole adventure was excellent, no slow pace, full action, and all 6 of them were indispensable for the break-in. Not one of them was more-or-less; certainly not the girls. The girls not only are resourceful but strong and intelligent. I love the bond between the team. I like the friendship between the girls. The distrust between the guys, but remaining loyal to the end. I love all 3 couples. Kaz' and Inej's is kinda painful; Nina's and Matthias' kind of doomed; Jesper's and Wylan's just beginning to bloom. The weak part for me were: 1) the beginning. I wasn't really hooked until they start their mission. 2) many flashbacks, although I get that they were important for the story, for us readers to understand their past and what motivated them. 3) the main one: their ages. It seemed a bit ridiculous that a bunch of kids between 15 and 19 were so lethal and bad-asses and calculators and excellent at such a dangerous mission. It would have been a lot better if this wasn't a YA book and the characters were all between 25 and 30. I guess that age is old for a bigger audience, but still, it didn't make sense. Now, for the sequel.

So good... stories about pregnant women, about women who did not want a baby, women who wanted a baby more than anything in the world. The art is funny, original, unpleasant to the eyes at first, but it gets unnoticed as the story progress because you get involved with what is going to happen with the mother, what is going to happen with the premature baby... I loved it. To think I wouldn't have known about it if it wasn't for the dorama (I was looking for what to watch next, and the plot looked nice. I decided to read the manga first, so glad I did!). I also loved the little drawings the author posted that his son did when he was a little boy, so cute XD

"Not even a devil can save you from yourself."

What if the familiar young peasant boy (think Kvothe, Fitz, insert-male-fantasy-lead-here), destined to become a hero and bring vengeance down on those responsible for the deaths of everyone he’s ever known and loved, the one of humble beginnings and wild potential, dies without any fanfare, and with only an old woman to bear witness? What if she isn’t just any old woman?

Turns out she’s Cold Zosia, the Stricken Queen, who 30 years prior bound six devils and tore up the empire with her Five Villains, took the throne herself and then supposedly died a deserved death in a coup. Except she didn’t, and the murder of her adopted village seems like the long-awaited comeuppance for dirty deeds and good intentions gone sour. So what now does she have to lose? Maybe the hero should’ve been the young boy that her devil dog drags up the mountain on the cusp of death, young and full of potential, but only Zosia remains when the smoke clears, and she realizes she’s going to have to do what she does best --- raze it all to the ground.

"'Mercy. Now there's a devil I won't have any truck with, not from here until my dying day,' she said."

I loved so much about this book. I loved Zosia and her devil, Choplicker, I loved the Villains (especially Maroto and Hoartrap) and the world Marshall built. I loved its handling of race and sexuality and age, and I loved its creeptastic little-v villains and scary major religion. I cannot WAIT for the second installment. In the meantime, I recommend this to anyone and everyone, there’s something here for all.

 

Let's Discuss!

I'd love you to share your thoughts on the book or my review  below. I'm also dying for book recs that feature old(er) women saving the world (or destroying it?) and generally doing important or interesting things, so rec away!

I think this might be one of the most important books I've ever read. Forget that "genre fiction" disclaimer, this is the real deal. I don't even know what to say. Anything I do say may be too telling.

Okay, I'll say this: this is a story we are, on some level, all familiar with. We know the history of the world. It's written by the winners, and what have the winners, the venerated winners, always done? They've dominated and pillaged in the name of civilizing, saying as they outlaw the customs and dress and language of the Celts, the Aborigines, the Native Americans, insert-a-colonized-people here, that they bring roads, medicine, law, God, correct and decent behavior, and so-on. They've changed the names of mountains, cities, continents. They've played at eugenics, taken children away from parents to be "educated" out of their own customs, culture, their own minds. They've made internment camps, death camps. They've sterilized, enslaved. I could go on.

"And her mother's answering disdain: Go, then. Learn all their secrets. Cover yourself in them. You will return with a steel mask instead of a face."

Baru is someone who grows up in a place where these things are happening, and her story is full of intrigue, rebellion, hope, devastation, love, betrayal, victory and defeat and something in between. She is a glimpse into the divided loyalties and motivations of a person forced to join 'em in order to beat 'em. Maybe. Maybe that's part of what she is, I'm not entirely sure I know. Baru makes my heart and my brain hurt if I think about her too long.

This book is about all that, but it's about so much more. I won't lie, this will knock the wind right out of you. But you won't regret it. It might change something inside of you though, the best books always do. So be prepared for that.

"I will write your name in the ruin of them. I will paint you across history in the color of their blood."

Let's Discuss!

What are your thoughts? Am I over-extolling the virtues here? I'd love to know if any of you had the same gut-punch feeling at the end.