books and cleverness
I read books of all sorts, but mostly kids' lit and young adult literature and speculative fiction for all ages—usually from a feminist perspective.
I've adopted a personalized version of the CHOICE reviews approach to recommendations/star ratings:
***** = Essential, a.k.a. truly love, absolute must-read, buy it now
**** = Highly Recommended, a.k.a. this is a really good book; I would buy it as a gift
*** = Recommended, a.k.a. pretty good; worth reading
** = Optional, a.k.a. meh
* = Not Recommended; a.k.a. this is not a good book
A Confusion of Princes
Not Garth Nix's best work. The first 5 chapters or so were actually pretty tough slogging--so much exposition, and in a voice that sounds like a 19-year-old boy's efforts at science fiction. I don't know if that last bit is a compliment: Nix is obviously capable of writing in other tones, so maybe it's verisimilitude. But it's also not particularly enjoyable writing. Furthermore, there is quite a bit of repetition throughout the book, from Khemri speaking from his present-tense, much-wiser narrating voice rather tiresomely pointing out the arrogance of his former ways and how he's learned so much since then.
Similar To:
Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card
Feed, M.T. Anderson
Not Similar To:
Mister Monday (and the rest of the Keys to the Kingdom series), Garth Nix (which I love)
Sabriel, Lirael, Abhorsen, Garth Nix (which are also pretty great)
What I'm saying is, Garth Nix has some good stuff; this book isn't it, though.
P.S. Not the best copyediting work on display here.
