A Great and Terrible Beatuy by Libba Bray

This book is one of my all time favorite books. I have read it, and it's sequels several times. It's that book that I revert to when I want to fall in love with reading again.
The book is about a girl named Gemma Doyle who finds she has visions, and then learns she can enter these realms where magic dwells. Of course, there are people fighting against her, and wanting to get the magic for themselves. There is also a tall dark and hadsom man who Gemma finds herself attracted to. Of course their love is forbidden, not only by the society in which they live, but also by the magic society. She's a London school girl and he is a gypsy.
The book is intense, but enjoyable. It is a light read, I finished the first and second while my family was camping for a weekend.
This book is so good, I have a hard time putting it down, no matter how many times I read it. The characters are engaging, the setting is awesome. The writing is clean, but there are some darker aspects to the book.
It is definitely catagorized as a YA fiction book, but I feel it's a great read for anyone looking for some magic and romance all wrapped up into one.
I think one of my favorite things about this book, is how the characters are written. I've grown to love certain characters, but also detest others. Gemma is a great heroine, and her flaws are relateable. She's a teenage girl who is trying deparately trying to fit in. She's lost someone very close to her, and then begins to discover this unknown world of magic, that is both dangerous and exciting.
Then there's Felicity.
I remember hating Felicity when I first read these books. BUT I find that the more I read the books, I grow a little more understanding of her as well. She is detestable at the beginning, but even Gemma grows to love her.
Ann, and Pippa are also thrown into the mix.
Then There is Kartik. Oh boy do I love Kartik. I think I love the romance between Kartik and Gemma becuase it feels real....well as real as fictional romance can be. Neither one of them falls for each other, right at first. If anything, Gemma is scared of him, but as they discover more abour magic and the realms together, and Kartik comes to her rescue (swoon)...they begin to recognize positive traits in eachother. Of course Gemma fantasizes about Kartik, but what girl wouldn't swoon and daydream about a hot hunk of man?
Along with the characters, the story line is engaging and easy to follow.
I easily give this book at 10/10. It has been my favorite, and will probably continue to be one of my favorites. I really can't think of a bad thing to say about this book, or it's sequels, except that they are too short.

The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova

This was a book I picked up at the library because it was sitting in a pile called "books that might scare you." I'm not sure about you, but I like scary books.

So anyway, this book. I picked it up and thought "This should keep me busy awhile, it's like 800 pages!" 

(As a side note, I usually can get through a book within a matter of days... like two days.) 

I checked it out, and when I got home, I cracked it open and started reading. 

While I was making my way through the first few chapters, I started to recognize the story. I'm not sure where I heard about this book, but I remember someone telling me about this book they were reading, and how awesome it was. That was when I really got excited, because, now I had a reccomendation....sort of. 

But, I found that I was disapointed with the first part of the book. I felt like it was moving really slowly, and that the author kept throwing in irrelevent details. I just couldn't get into the story. But, I kept reading. At this point I had had several people say how good the book was, and so I figured it oughta get better eventually, right?

Sort of. 

So the book is set in three different time periods. It follows, through a series of letters and stories, three separate historian's quest to find the truth about Vlad the Impaler, Aka Dracula. 

What was weird to me, was that because the book was set up the way it was, following three different people, in different time periods, I, as a reader, knew that certain characters were obviously okay. This was frustrating, because it took out part of the unknown...the part that is scary. 

On the other hand, following three separate stories was a great way to set up this book, in the historical sense. I really like history, but sometimes it can drag on. I felt like the author did a really great job of switching between the stories, so that when one was getting really deep into the history of something (and I was starting to get bored) a new chapter would bring a breath of fresh air. 

Having said that, however, I feel as though this book could have been cut by 100 pages or more, and still have been engaging and informative. There were times that the book seemed to drag on, and then other times when it was simplified WAY too much. I feel that the pacing of a book is important, and I'll be honest, there were times I felt like the author got bored with her writing. 

For example, the historians were on a quest, right? They would discover artificats and documents, and even people to help them on this quest. I felt like there were times that we really got to tour the whole artifact, or be invited into a new character's life for awhile, and other times, I felt like the author got tired of discovering the new characters, and so it was just "And then they met this person and they were cool and it helped a lot".

The descriptions, for the most part, were really great, and it was nice because I have never been to most of the places described, so reading in so much detail about them was helpful. 

The characters were well-developed and I really enjoyed watching them grow and learn, as I was. I appreciated though, that even though most of the characters were WAY more educated than I was, I didn't feel stupid reading the book. I felt like I was learning all about history too...I just didn't have to write a disseratation like they did. 

My last point, and probably biggest point of frustration with this book was about the ending. 

The ending of this book, for probably the last three chapters, and epilogue, sucked. And I mean sucked like Dracula. 

To preface this, I should explain that I think the ending is one of the two most important pieces of a story. The beginning is THE most important, but the ending is a very close second.  

The ending for this story was SO disapointing to me. It felt like there wasn't a climax at the end, and that it just was. It just ended. It wouldn't have been so bad, except that after reading that much, and investing so much, the ending didn't live up to the rest of the book. If there was anywhere I would have fixed the pacing...if I could only pick one place, it would have been there. 

Over all, I would give this book a 5/10. It was entertaining enough to finish, and it had engaging characters, but I wouldn't read it again, and I would be careful to reccomend this to people. 

If you are looking to a book written at an easy to follow pace, with a little mystery, and a LOT of history, then this is the book for you. If not, well, stick with me, I am reading like a madwoman now. 

Read on. 

H.