Hello everyone. Welcome back to Bibliophilia Book Reviews. In this post, I will be doing a wrap up of all the books I read in June. This month I read a lot more books that I did not like. I read six books this month. These reviews have spoilers:
1. The Land Beyond The Sea by Sharon Kay Penman
This book is very long, and it has very small font. It took me more than two weeks to finish it. Set in the Holy Land or Outremer, this book relates the events leading up to the Third Crusade. That is, the reign of the leper king Baldwin IV and the fall of Jerusalem to Saladin. It also took me a little while to get into it, honestly. I’ve read books from this author before, but this is her first standalone novel, and it tries to cram in more than 10 years of human history and warfare in less than 700 pages; it is a lot. I don’t know why the author changed the format of her books with this new release, but I think it would have been better to space out the events it wanted to tell throughout several books, like in her previous series’. This would have allowed us to get to know some important characters a little bit more, that, as is, show up in one chapter and then are dead a couple chapters later. This was possible because each chapter has time jumps, sometimes of a couple months and at other times several years. This, however, made it feel like the author handpicked the most relevant events in history that led to the fall of Jerusalem in 1187 and just crammed them all together to make the book.
Nonetheless, I did like the book and its characters. Particularly Baldwin IV, who was just a boy when he found out he had leprosy and the author does a very good job at portraying the fears a boy of his age would feel knowing he was doomed to die at a young age and not be able to fulfill his responsibilities to his kingdom, which literally died when he did. I also liked Balian d’Ibelin, who is the main character of the book, and the one who surrendered Jerusalem to Saladin. There are other characters also worth reading about, and I think this is one of the best things about this book; the characters. However, I don’t think this is the author’s best work. I gave this book an I Liked It And Will Probably Read It Again rating only because I love history, and enjoy historical fiction.
2. The Last Kingdom by Bernard Cornwell
This is the third time I read this book, and this time around I liked it as much as I did before. The first time I read it, there were no plans to make it a TV show at all. The second, it had already been picked up to compete with the popularity of Game of Thrones. However, in neither one of those times did I finish the series. The furthest I got was Book 7. Now, I want to finish the series and then watch the corresponding season thereafter. That is, watch Season 1 after I finish Book 2, since each season corresponds to two books (at least that was the idea at first), and so on. Now, let’s see how they end the series.
The book, however, is fast-paced; this is a signature of Cornwell’s writing in this series, and it creates the illusion of time passing by quickly, which works out very well too in telling Uhtred’s story. Ultimately, however, this is Alfred’s story and how he saved England, from Uhtred’s point of view. Uhtred is a great character. And his personal struggle of not knowing who he is—an Englishman or a Dane—is one that we can all easily identify with; many of us are born in one place but belong to another in our hearts. This makes Uhtred utterly human, and we connect with him instantly. His love for his Danish family is always in conflict with his love for Bebbanburg. He never loved his English family, true, but he loves his home. Yet, his Danish family is also home.
This first installment of The Saxon Series is about Uhtred’s childhood and how he is first captured by the Vikings after they raid Northumbria and how he later becomes the son of Ragnar the Fearless. Ragnar and the other Viking war lords—Ivar, Ubba, Halfdan, and Guthrum—conquer Northumbria, (Northern) Mercia, and East Anglia whilst Wessex remains the last Saxon kingdom. The King of Wessex, Aelthered, and his brother, Alfred, however, repel the Vikings in all of their of their attempts to conquer Wessex.
In the meantime, Uthred has enemies of his own, among them his uncle Aelfric, who usurped Bebbanburg from him after Uthred’s father died in the Battle of Ewoferic, and now wants to kill him. And Sven the One-Eyed, whose father, the shipmaster Kjartan, was dismissed from Ragnar’s service when Sven corners Thyra, Ragnar’s daughter, and strips her naked. In revenge, Kjartan kills Ragnar and takes Thyra for his son. Uhtred, however, survives the killing and finds himself with no more friends among the Danes, so he is forced to go south and offer his sword to Wessex.
I have always wanted to know how Uthred story ends, so I will continue on with the series. I gave this book an I Really Liked It rating.
3. Infinite Country by Patricia Engel
This book is about an immigrant family in the United States and how the immigration laws of the country separated them and forced them to live in two different countries—the US and Colombia. This book is relevant to our present in that immigration is currently a huge problem in the US. A lot of people want to give their children a better life, and they are lured to the United States by the idea of the American Dream, and so they risk their lives to find work here and cross the border.
This book caught my attention because I was interested in seeing how the author portrayed this reality, and unfortunately it did not meet my expectations. It does touch upon issues that immigrants have to face on a daily basis, like moving from one place to another trying to stay one step ahead of the authorities, or not being able to defend yourself when you are the victim of a crime because you risk deportation, and other issues, but I was not fond of the main character. There was no depth to her. She was just a teenage girl who escaped prison wanting to get to Bogotá and board the next plane to the US. I think that if the story had been told from the point of view of the entire family, it would have added much more depth to the plot and characters. And the author tried to do this, a bit, in giving a perspective to the other two kids in the family, the ones living in the United States, but it fell a bit short. This book could have been a lot better. I gave this an I Did Not Like It rating.
4. An Enchantment of Ravens by Margaret Rogerson
This book is the second book I read for my YA standalone reading challenge and unfortunately I did not like it. I will say that this book had a lot going for it, I just didn’t like the execution. Isobel’s point of view was boring. And I honestly think that it would have served the book better if we’d had had the chance to get into Rook’s, Gladfly’s or the Alder King’s heads as well. Even Hemlock. The faerie world in this book seemed so interesting but we never got a chance to see it because the book centered on Isobel and Rook’s insta-love relationship. The only thing I liked about this book is that she became queen of the faerie courts at the end. I gave this book an I Did Not Like It rating.
5. Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond
I read this book as my monthly book club pick and found that it proposed an interesting theory as to why Western civilizations are so much more technologically advanced than Eastern civilizations, particularly those living in Papua New Guinea. The book is well-researched, and reading it was also a learning experience. However, what the author proposes is just a theory and the book focuses primarily in explaining that theory extensively. And I think that the book would have gained much more depth if it also compared this theory to other theories proposed by other sciences and disciplines. The author was just so focused on answering Yali’s question that it felt like he didn’t see beyond that. I gave this book an I Liked It But Will Probably Never Read It Again rating.
6. Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
This book is about a young girl, Casiopea, who helps the Mayan god of Death recover his throne in Xibalba. Unfortunately, I did not like this book. For starters, I did not like the main character Casiopea at all, and though I enjoyed reading a book set in Mexico that delved into Mayan mythology, I think I would have enjoyed this much more if it hadn’t been a YA novel. I wanted so much more from the Mayan gods and from the magical world they lived in, from Xibalba and from all of its unknowns but that is not the direction the book goes in; instead, it focuses on Casiopea’s and Hun-Kamé’s growing—and potential romantic—relationship as they travel throughout the country in search of his missing body parts, and this is shown in Hun-Kame’s changes within himself and towards Casiopea throughout their journey. The problem was, I was just not into the romance. Both Casiopea and Hun-Kame felt lifeless. There was no emotion coming out through the pages from them, and they both felt rather more like cardboard characters on center stage. I mean, I expected a romantic relationship of some sort, I won’t deny this, but I did not like the execution. I gave this book an I Did Not Like It rating, and I will not be reading any more books from this author.
