Search

Search only in certain items:

    Fantashooting

    Fantashooting

    Games and Entertainment

    (0 Ratings) Rate It

    App

    No. 1 iPhone game in Hong Kong, No. 1 iPhone game in Taiwan, No. 1 iPhone game in Singapore, No. 1...

The Water Dancer
The Water Dancer
9
9.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
The Water Dancer byTa-Nehisi Coates is a book of contradictions: a book beautifully written about a shameful time in history.

Hiram is taken away from his mother as a child when she is sold to another owner. When his feats of memory are recognised by his owner/ father, he is taken in to the big house and educated. As he gets older, all Hiram wants is to be free to choose his own life and to have his own family.

When Hiram runs away, he eventually finds himself involved with the Underground Railway. And that is where he learns to control his ability to “conduct” himself to different places to help people.

I love magical realism and the way it makes us think about the way the world works in reality, as opposed to how we’d all like it to work. Hiram’s ability to conduct himself immediately to another place takes all the risk out of capture, the miles of struggle and needing to stay hidden. Of course, Hiram only gets to this stage after he experiences the trauma and inhumanity of being caught by the slave catchers himself.

I thoroughly enjoyed this - I listened on audiobook, and the narrator Joe Morton was amazing. Especially his singing - his voice just brought the characters to life.

A fabulous novel.
  
40x40

LucyB (47 KP) rated The Raven Boys in Books

Jul 23, 2017  
The Raven Boys
The Raven Boys
Maggie Stiefvater | 2012 | Paranormal, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Young Adult (YA)
9
7.7 (35 Ratings)
Book Rating
Very entertaining, rich, interesting characters (0 more)
A well-plotted, fresh take on the whole magical realism genre - very entertaining!
To be honest, I wasn't expecting to enjoy this as much as I did. I presumed, judging by the front cover, that it'd be some sort of high fantasy (which isn't normally my thing) and was very pleasantly surprised.

The story focuses on two main characters - Blue, a 16 year old who lives with her witchy mother and who seems to be surrounded by equally spooky aunts, and Gansey, a rich 'Raven boy' from the local public school, who is obsessed with finding the mythical Welsh king Glendower.

So far, so intriguing! And it really was. I found myself propelled through this book, eager to know what was going to happen next, which is the highest praise I can give a book really, I do love a good page-turner. I especially loved that the author so deftly avoided the boring stereotypes. The aunts are all psychic, but are they at all spooky / ethereal? Absolutely not. They're all very practical, down-to-earth, and fairly acerbic to boot. Are public school boys all over-privileged toffs? No! The characters were all impressively well defined, and I LOVED the character of Noah - I saw the twist coming, but wasn't sure how the author would pull it off. She did so, very effectively indeed.

A highly enjoyable read, and I'll be looking out for the next ones in the series.