Review of "City of Bones" by Cassandra Clare

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD

Note: I have read the City of Bones a couple of years ago. However, I failed to write a review at the time. Having been fuzzy on some of the details (but of course I remember the ones that are very significant), I decided read the book again; and now I can finally make a review.

A word of caution before I start: I don't think I can make good reviews. This is pretty much more of a reflection of what I have read than the real kind of critique Literature professors produce. Generally, this is just me ranting and rambling. You have been warned.

Immediately after having read the City of Bones some years back, Cassandra Clare became one of my favorite authors. I couldn't get over the book and I read it afterwards for what seemed like endless times. I love her writing style SO MUCH. It's very vivid, plus her descriptions are so detailed, but not to the point of being wordy and tight to read. She inspired me to improve my own writing - I can say that she's one of my ideal writers. We should admit it - these days it's quite difficult to stumble upon a writer who doesn't only have amazing stories, but also have the skill to narrate it perfectly. (That is why most of my favorite authors are Classic writers; they wrote stunningly well.) But Cassandra Clare is different from writers in this age: she is the epitome of what a great story-teller should be (Isn't it still obvious how much I love her?).

The book is thick but I managed to read it in less than a day. One sitting if I didn't have other things to attend to. It is surprising how the whole story occurred only in a span of two weeks. So many events have happened; and yes, some might seem pretty mundane but they actually contributed to making this story more readable and realistic. It isn't like other books which would skip for a succession of days, and then afterwards so many things have happened and you would be left wondering: "How did it become like this?" In the City of Bones you would never ask that question. You would witness how the events unfurl yourself. You would see the process of how things came to be.

Jace swiftly became my fictional crush, that need not be said. But thinking deeply, he isn't really what you would call the kind of guy girls would usually dream for. Sure enough, he's gorgeous, dangerous and hot and goodness knew what else, but he had another side. Sarcastic and witty and talkative? Where do you see those in a girl's fantasy? He is very charming, but his personality at times seems off and undesirable to me for a guy. But then again, that's where the wonder lies. He's different. He doesn't only portray perfection, but he has a "not-quite-hot" side too that makes him realistic.

The romance between Jace and Clary? At the very beginning of the book, it was obvious there would be something between them and they would eventually fall for one another. It was expected, but still, the chapter The Midnight Flower (which is my favorite, by the way) still impressed me a lot. The romance was amazing in the sense that even though you expected it, it still managed to become unexpected. And fortunately, it is not love at first sight or Clary thinking that Jace is so damn sexy she wants him. That would be annoying. The two of them are often together and we readers have seen how they interacted with each other - just normal, with its ups and downs. We wouldn't know when exactly the romance started. It just didn't happen and emerge all of a sudden. It came about gradually, when we are too busy reading through their adventures that we wouldn't be bothering to think how they suit each other very well.

And now.

The revelations.

In some books the authors make a revelation in a really overly dramatic manner, but then the revelation doesn't seem so surprising, thus only rendering me infuriated. Why make a big deal when it's not so unexpected and startling anyway? But again, Cassandra Clare turned the tables. Even if this isn't the first time that I read this, I still have goosebumps while reading those one-sentence revelations usually located at the end of the chapter. I can't imagine how I must felt the first time I read this. It would be superbly astonishing.

Let me cite some for purposes of example:

• Jocelyn Fray is Valentine's wife.
• Hodge is a traitor.
• Luke is a werewolf.
• Clary is Valentine's daughter.
• Valentine is Jace's father.

All right. I was already expecting Valentine to be Clary's father, and while I read, I was feeling so mighty of myself, saying: "Hah! I managed to see through what you're thinking, Cassandra Clare."

But boy was I wrong. I wasn't expecting there to be more surprises. Like, VALENTINE IS ACTUALLY JACE'S FATHER? So they are siblings? (But of course, I know they're not. I feel it. Then it is confirmed after I stumbled upon some spoilers.)

I was like: "CASSANDRA CLARE YOU ARE AMAZING!"

And when Valentine was manipulating their emotions because they loved each other? It was so disturbing and yet very well executed. I might as well say, since in every book there will be one character or so who would strike me as interesting, I'd say Valentine topped the list. (I know it's incorrect for me to think this, but he seems rather hot to me. Badass. But evil, of course.)

I think Magnus Bane is so cool as well. And when I learned that Godfrey Gao would play him in the movie, and when I saw this picture:

I would tell you, I almost fainted. He is perfect to play Magnus Bane and that shot is just so hot!

(All right, I think I'm straying away from my original intention already.)

Aside from those two, Simon is also pretty interesting. He's the kind of person that could be my friend. His sense of humor is epic. He and Jace together will start a war of words. I felt bad for him as well, because it hurt me that he was wounded when he discovered there's a thing between Jace and Clary in The Midnight Flower . . . and yet he is still such a true friend. He's just so amazing.

Some concepts in the book are cliche or are becoming too overused (vampires, werewolves, fallen angels, witches, etc) but Cassandra Clare, being a spectacular author, managed to pull it off. Even though some ideas are not new, she was able to present them in a way that made them seem fresh.

I think this review-slash-rant will never come to an end, so I might as well try to refrain myself from rambling further. For a final word, let us hear a few words from Lucian Graymark:

"Disappointed you didn't get to marry him yourself, Blackwell?"

That, Luke, is amazing. Despite the tension, I found myself laughing at your wit.

Buying books

I love reading books. There is no denying that.

My love for reading started when I was fourteen years old. I engaged myself in the beautiful and wondrous world of classics. Then I started buying other fictional books and fantasies. By the time, I was determined not to read "modern" (which I defined as those that are mainstream romance-fantasy series) books not because I was under the impression that classics were far more superior than them. But that is ages ago. Today I have a pretty vast reading realm - I mostly read anything. And I am up to date with the current books (I belong a multiple fandoms).

My collection of books is, as I've said, mostly classics and unpopular ones I hauled from Booksale. I bought them not only because they are relatively  cheaper, but because of one selfish reason: since they aren't famous, and not to mention that people my age hardly read classics, they won't borrow books from me. I would only have to keep them to myself. After all, I treat my books with especial care. And while I borrow from my friends more popular ones, I treat them as though they are my own. But I doubt there are other people out there who would be as careful as books as I am.

If I am not borrowing books from my friends, I read them in .pdf versions. At the beginning I found the convenience of this situation. With me being a cheapskate, this is perfect, since I don't have to spend a centavo to be able to read a new book. However, I was exposed to reading eBooks in succession, and when I was finally able to read a paperback again, you should have seen my excitement. Pdf files can never elicit that kind of reaction and pure joy.

I don't buy books because they're expensive? I realized how stupid my reason is. Every so often I would buy stuff that are of little importance, anyway, and when accumulated, the money can be spent for a decent book. That is why, from now on, I have vowed myself to buy books, that is, not just classics and those from Booksale. And hey - some of the books that I own are quite expensive in a way even if they aren't all that famous anyway. So why not buy those "modern" ones, making the need for borrowing unnecessary?  And I could read them as much as I want without having to worry of the need to return it afterwards.

I would buy at least a book a month. And I would finish all my unread books. And I would re-read the others.

Review of the "Beautiful Creatures"

I had so much expectation for this book. I really was hoping that I would like it. The cover was fantastic. There are two authors who worked hard for it, so surely it must be something.

Unfortunately, though, it disappointed me. It was a bit okay, but not enough to make me want to read the next book immediately. I don't know whether I'll read the rest still. I might give Beautiful Darkness a try, but the chances are slim.

The main problem? There were lots of cliches. It wouldn't take a genius to figure that one out. Sure enough, there were a few things that I liked - how it mentioned To Kill a Mockingbird, one of my favorite books, how the narrator is a male, which is quite rare in YA books . . . etc. However, the negatives outweighed the positive sides. Forbidden romance has been done multitudes of times; and needless to say, with its prevalence, only very few can pull it off. Sadly, these two authors didn't manage to do it.

A lot of the parts bored me. There was hardly any excitement or tension that would make you want to flip to the next page at once. The narration seemed to make a big deal out of the problem of the story, but certainly, the conclusion was very obvious. How very ironic, it's just like the way Ethan Wate can swiftly decipher the ending of a movie at the very beginning. It's similar to that. Except for the fact that you don't need to have a special thinking ability or something to figure out how the book would turn out.

Ethan Wate, of courses, had touches of the usual male narrators and protagonists. But despite that, I liked him in a way. He's the sort of person that could be my friend. Macon Ravenwood is rather interesting, but not necessarily original. Perhaps it's just me being impressed by characters who possessed that kind of enigmatic personality.

Overall, I don't really like this book. I am very disappointed. But as I've said, I might give it a try. Who knows? Perhaps the second book or the succeeding installments would be much better. I'm not getting my hopes high though.

Review of "The Serpent's Shadow" by Rick Riordan

NOTE: I don't think I can make good reviews. This is pretty much more of a reflection of what I have read than the real kind of critique Literature professors produce. And I would suggest you continue reading this (assuming you'd actually bother to do so) if you're finished will all the other books of Rick Riordan, because I will make some references. If not, then back off, because I don't suppose you'd want to be spoiled about Percy Jackson and the Olympians or The Heroes of Olympus series. Generally, this is just me ranting and rambling. You have been warned.
 

So. Here goes nothing.

As mentioned earlier, I have read ALL of Rick Riordan's books, except for those under the 39 clues series. His writing style improved tremendously compared to The Lightning Thief. Before, I would honestly say that I was purely driven to continue reading because of the plot and the characters, but his writing? Not so much. But as the Kane Chronicles progressed, I would give him a thumbs-up for his great improvement.

Reading the first page of the Serpent’s Shadow quite surprised me. I couldn’t believe it was only a trilogy. We all know that Riordan’s other series are definitely more than three books. But then again, with his knack of surprises, I won’t be surprise if another book comes out. Though it may not be officially a part of the Kane Chronicles, then perhaps it could be something like The Heroes of Olympus. Or, of course, a crossover between the two worlds.

One of the things that I like about Riordan is his ability to make interesting characters. In this installment, I would say that I have found Setne interesting. The same way Set has managed to amuse me. Admittedly, though, a lot of his characters have striking similarities with his previous ones, but still, he managed to still make them appealing and have their own charms. For instance, Anubis is like a replica of Nico di Angelo. But of course, they also have several differences – Nico di Angelo more immature and more driven by revenge, etc etc. I could go on and on. (But it doesn’t change the fact that I am ALWAYS fangirling for these two gorgeous characters. You should see me squeal with delight and make weird faces while reading. Yep, I just love them both to the deepest pits of Tartarus, or to the deepest layer of Duat.)

In that note, I would like to briefly say something about the romance in this book. This is what is appealing about adventure and fantasy – there’s always a fair dose of romance involved. The Sadie-Walt-Anubis thing is relatively quite complex, especially since I am a girl and I can understand how Sadie feels. Here is where the fandom would ship either Walt and Sadie or Anubis and Sadie. Rick Riordan might not have focused on this aspect, but I would most certainly say that he managed to baffle me with decisions as if I were Sadie Kane myself. Boy, that would require some serious decision-making skills. I love Anubis, of course, but poor Walt is also amazing. (Honestly, I was decided that Anubis and Sadie would be perfect. After all, Anubis had left me starstruck at book 1. I'm pretty sure, though, that Anubis isn't as extraordinary and all that . . . rather, it is Sadie Kane who was able to let me see him in that light because of her internal monologue and beautiful descriptions of him.)

I don't know if this is good news or bad news for me, but I wholly realized what was about to happen to Walt on chapter 14. Suddenly, an "Aha!" moment occurred to me and I knew what Rick Riordan was intending to do. That is, make Walt the host of the gorgeous death god. I would have enjoyed that shocking revelation if I weren't able to see through the author's plans. It was quite obvious, if you ask me. With the growing impossibility of Sadie's relationships, it was not unexpected something like that would happen. After all, as I have mentioned, romance is not clearly Riordan's thing. He wouldn't dare fiddle with it too intricately, such as making a tragic end to the relationship. There has to be a way. There has to be a safer option.

But despite that expected "happy ending" theme, somehow this book managed to be realistic. (Of course, there's magic all over and that's definitely not a sign of realistic , but let me explain first.) It's realistic in a sense that it managed to surpass expectations from the cliche events that happened in epic stories. For one, the battle of Carter and Bloodstained Blood was not on the side of our protagonist, and he surely suffered a lot from that encounter. Normally, what would happen was Carter would amazingly defeat the enemy almost unscathed. Also, the fact that he has been tempted several times by the Chaos god Apophis illustrated that Carter is human.

The other seemingly realistic event is the betrayal of Setne. Of course, this is quite expected, him being a treacherous magician and all that. But with the most interesting nature of Setne, it was hard to say. Even Carter thought a lot of times that the ghost was quite harmless. The reader would be inclined to believe so too. I don't like betrayals, of course, but it fitted very well in the story. Because if everything went well from there, then there won't be much of a thrill.

The trick that Sadie pulled off with Neith reminded me of The Mark of Athena when Annabeth Chase intelligently tricked Arachne. Aside from that particular one, several other instances in this book reminded me of Riordan's other works. Towards the end, the romance between Carter and Zia resembled that of Percy and Annabeth. And needless to say, Carter is quite similar to Percy in some ways as well.

Let us wrap things up.

In a way, I think this is even better than The Throne of Fire, but it is really hard to declare that. They are remarkable in their own ways. This book had less drama than the second installment. The tear-jerking kind of drama, if I may correct myself. But other than that, this has enough internal turmoil to confuse and baffle you as if you were the one making the decisions rather than Carter or Sadie. I would also like to commend Rick Riordan for effectively making this a page-turner. Most of the chapters ended in a cliff hanger, urging the readers to go on or else they would be torturing themselves in imagining what could plausibly happen next.

I rate this five stars. And I think Rick Riordan was right in making this a trilogy. It already stands amazingly well in its own shadow.

Sonnet: Brain folds

How do Remollo-brand students differ from others?

We have the precision of scientists;

We possess the persuasiveness of lawyers;

We are imbibed with the creativity of artists;

Armed with multitudinous readings,

Students shall first be struck with panic while glimpsing those papers,

But then the manner in which we compose our writings

Are the fruits of analysis of us students who became thinkers—

Intuitive and perceptive, as trained by our professor;

His activities and requirements are for us necessary practices.

Those two, along with his lectures, provide us impetus for labor,

Enabling us to acquire brain-folds molded through tests—

All of these things make Remollo-brand unique,

Not only are we intuitive but also quite analytic.  

Busy. Preoccupied.

Almost two months have elapsed since I posted my last entry. Somehow, I couldn't believe that I lasted long enough to be able to bear not posting anything online. And even in my personal diary. I am so much stressed and preoccupied these days that I have little time for self expression.

In this entry, I will enumerate the things that I have been doing or I have accomplished.

1. I have improved a lot on my CSS skills, and I am further developing my javascript capability.

2. I finished reading Stories in Rocks by Henry Lionel Williams.

3. I started reading The Great Gatsby a few days ago, and I'm past halfway.

4. I began watching the anime adaptation of Mirai Nikki and I am already on episode 17.

5. I was able to write the first few chapters of my new romantic novella.

6. After what seemed like a long time, I wrote poetry again, a requirement for my ENG 2 class.

7. These days I have become more appreciative of OPM.

8. I was able to meet and correspond with new people on Twitter.

9. I was finally finished with the first draft of my Library Research Paper, and I am on the process of revising now.

A Symposium to Empower the Youth

LOS BAÑOS, PHILIPPINES – Hundreds of students flocked to the DL Umali Auditorium this morning to attend the symposium entitled, “Youth Republic IV: Youth Empowerment” where three people—Alex Castro, Lourd de Veyra and Ramon Bautista—would talk about various timely concerns for the youth.

For the opening message, Arthur Kent Holt, the second-time USC councilor, went to the stage and gave an inspiring speech to the students. He first defined what the Youth Republic is. “It is a form of organization, government affirmation governed by the youth,” he explained.

He specified the three important points which are very integral to Youth Empowerment: leadership, service, and standard. Leadership, he said, was the “capacity to translate vision into reality.” Later on in his message, he added, “You not just lead people; you lead people with a standard. [...] As an Iskolar Para sa Bayan, you are a vital part, a vital power part, of the society.” 

Alex Castro, a BS Psychology graduate of the University of the Philippines Diliman and the vice chair of its University Student Council, was the first speaker for the symposium. A bisexual woman, she thoroughly discussed about the topic of gender equality. She tackled the “thirteen un-empowering statements” that we use most of the time, without the slightest idea that they are actually considered “oppressive” for the LGBT community. 

Majority of what she mentioned might seem relatively harmless in the surface, but she reiterated that they are actually oppressive statements. It’s wrong to pattern all relationships in heterogeneous ones and to label other people’s sexuality, Alex Castro emphasized, among many other things.

“What we want is that at the end of the day, you treat us equally,” she said.

The second speaker is Lourd de Veyra – a musician, journalist, and broadcaster – focusing on the topic of “non-apathy.” He said that the part of Alex Castro was the only serious one the audience would be hearing in that symposium, pertaining to the laughter and cheer of the students because of his humor and wit.

He voiced his concern about service and excellence, and how the former is being more exemplified in UP, when excellence is the one that should be attended to first. 

“Nagbago na ba ang mukha ng pakikibaka?” he asked. Then he cited some cases that were serious in nature and showcased the reality. Lourd inquired: when you turned your display picture to black, were you able to feed people in Somalia? 

While his speech was humorous in some parts, it was very serious in nature. Again, he made an interrogation that would make one pause and ponder: What are we doing with the internet? He said how it became what it is now because of the industrial revolution and constant struggles, but people nowadays would only use it to google Justin Bieber, who, he went on, was the most searched person in the history of search engine.

He also mentioned the concept of “nosebleed” for us Filipinos, and asked why we would make fun of someone when he or she is saying intelligent things, or perhaps uttering unfamiliar words with deep meaning.

“Kailan pa naging masama ang katalinuhan?” asked Lourd. Then, to put a closure to his brief lecture, he said: “Bago natin palayain ang bayan, palayain muna natin ang kamangmangan.”

The last speaker was Ramon Bautista, who was met with wild cheers by the students as his name was being announced. His topic was all about “literacy.” He discussed the social media, and how it is characterized by his modification of the 3Gs: guts, glory, and gold.

He compared this with his own experience. Because he had the necessary guts and self-esteem, he was able to make videos of himself together with his friend. Soon enough, it transformed into glory when he started to become famous. Lastly, it was turned into gold once sponsors poured in and bought his videos, and when he finally became a celebrity. 

Ramon Bautista played some of his videos, particularly: Dan Michael Master Magician and his music video. Later on, he stated three very important things needed for one to be empowered: to study hard, to build relationships, and to steer clear of love.

As a parting message, he gave this advice to the students: “Huwag umibig.”