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Title: Lady Knight
Author: Tamora Pierce

Thoughts: This fourth and final book in Tamora Pierce’s “Protector of the Small” quartet. It covers the first year of Keladry’s career as a Lady Knight. Since she is still just newly knighted and is a woman, she still has to earn the respect of both men and women alike when she is put in charge of a refugee camp. This refugee camp, named Haven by Keladry, was built to house refugees from the war taking place on the border of Tortall and Scanra.

Even though Keladry thinks she got assigned there to keep her from the fighting, she still takes her duties as the camp’s commander very seriously. In the end, her job turns out to be an important one. She becomes fiercely protective of her people and because of this she will even go so far as to rescue them from inside enemy territory despite orders not to.

In the end of the book, you learn why the series is called “The Protector of the Small”.

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Title: Squire
Author: Tamora Pierce

Thoughts: This third book of the “Protector of the Small” is my favorite book of the quartet for several reasons. One, you finally get to see Joren and one of his cronies get their own. One thing I must say is that Tamora Pierce knows better than to let annoying blond brats live to reproduce, unlike certain other authors who write for the same age group.

The second reason I like the book is because of the introduction of the Yamani princess to the story. Basically the Yamani is that world’s equivalent to Japan. Their language is basically the same as far as I can tell based on the few words and names in the book. Also similar are the Yamani’s traditions, court behavior, and weapons. Keladry herself had studied the naginata since she was six and she also lived in the Yamani Islands with her parents for several years. I do have to admit that part of the reason that I like this is because I’m a causal anime and manga fan. I also find traditional Japanese culture fascinating as well, which Yamani culture is primarily based on.

Also interesting is Keladry’s experiences throughout the book with the Chamber of Ordeals, which gave her a task after the first time she stepped into the chamber to prove her worth to become a knight of Tortall. This is only the second time Pierce has had a main character enter into the chamber, but in this book, the Chamber of Ordeals makes itself known to Keladry as a sentient being, almost as if it was a god of sorts.

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Title: Page
Author: Tamora Pierce

Thoughts: Page is the second book in Tamora Pierce’s “Protector of the Small” quartet. It covers a longer period than the first book as the events in the book take place during Keladry’s second year to her fourth and final year as a page. The events were condensed in some places for space probably. Her fourth year is covered in just one chapter after all. Most of the focus is placed on her second year and on the final examinations for pages to become squires.

The events surrounding Keladry’s exams were pretty drastic as someone tries to prevent her from going to them, which could set her back up to four years, back to the beginning of her page years. Yet because of her compassion for others, she still risks it all. I won’t go into further detail as that will spoil the ending of the book.

I liked the book as I pretty much like all of Tamora Pierce’s books. Though, right now, I don’t remember a particular moment in this book that I liked the most. I kinda do have to be honest that Keladry not having magic makes her less interesting to me for some reason. I know that it was probably done as a way to do something new and not just create an Alanna clone. Still, I like magic in my novels and this second book does not deal very closely with the magic or the divine beings of that world.

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Title: First Test
Author: Tamora Pierce

Thoughts: This is the first book in Tamora Pierce’s Protector of the Small quartet. Basically, this book is about Keladry of Mindelan’s first year as a page at Tortall’s royal palace. However, unlike the boy pages, she was to be on probation for her first year. This was insisted on by the page’s training master, Lord Wyldon of Cavall, who believed that girls were not fit for combat. The probation period was his compromise to King Jonathan, who had previously proclaimed that girls of the realm could attempt page training. If Wyldon had his way, Keladry would not be able to train as a page at all.

Also introduced in this book is Joren of Stone Mountain, who is a particularly odious blond boy with far too good looks. He reminds me of a certain annoying blond prick from the Harry Potter book series. I highly dislike both characters. I love Keladry in that she stands up against the older Joren’s bullying of the younger pages and that she refuses to back down from him and his cronies.

This is the first series by Tamora Pierce in that the main character does not possess some form of magic. In the book, a lot of emphasis was placed on the fact that many of the more conservative court members thought that Alanna (the first lady knight of the realm in over a century) only became a knight though trickery and her magic. So by having Keladry lacking any sort of magical gift, her knighthood later on would be less contested as the court knew that she had to earn her shield without the aid that Alanna had with her own magic.

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Title: Silk
Author: Caitlín R. Kiernan

Thoughts: This is the second novel that I’ve read by this author and I like it much more than Threshold, the other novel that I had read. The story felt more clearer to me despite the fact that both books were written in the same style and that both had a certain sense of weirdness in them.

What I think the different was, was that I found the world of the characters of Silk to be more fascinating than the one in Threshold. I might be a middle class college going girl, but I have some sort of fascination with the Goth subculture, though I do not look like it. It’s just not something I could break into even if I wanted to. So instead, I settle for being an observer and end up being fascinated by characters such as Sypder and her friends. I also just end up reading dark stories such as this one or watching horror movies.

One thing you have to be careful with while reading this book though is that you need to read carefully and between the lines to get the whole story. Otherwise you’re asking to be confused and lost as to what has happened by the end of the book. I do not consider this as a fault as it is part of Kiernan’s writing style and it is a very effective one for horror novels.

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Title: Sea Glass
Author: Laurence Yep

Thoughts: When I found that Dragonwings by Laurence Yep was considered to be part of a group of books following the same family throughout several generations. I was happy because I wanted to see what else he had wrote as I loved Dragonwings. So when I was wandering through the children’s paperbacks at the library while looking for a different book, I found this book and saw that it was part of the Golden Mountain Chronicles and I figured that I’d give it a chance since the other book I was looking for wasn’t there.

To be honest, I was disappointed. The novel felt unfinished when I came to the end. Things were left unresolved and while actions were indicating that the issues were heading to a resolution, the novel stopped short, leaving me hanging. And the item that the novel’s title is taken from doesn’t even appear until the very end and wasn’t alluded to at all earlier in the book.

In my opinion, this isn’t one of the better of Yep’s books.

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Title: The Freedom Writer’s Diary
Author: The Freedom Writers with Erin Gruwell

Thoughts: I bought this book after seeing the movie Freedom Writers and since I liked the film, I thought I should read this book to see what the real freedom writers wrote.

I knew from the movie that one of the books that the teenagers had read was Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl, so I read that beforehand. I’m glad that I did so, because it helped me understand some of the diary entries better as they referenced back to Anne Frank’s diary.

It was interesting to read the thoughts and feelings of all these kids (all older than I now, but back then they were still kids). All of them were so different than I, yet the same because all are human. I don’t have the same background as most of them nor do I have the same interests (in my Freshman year, I likely knew a lot more history than them as most of them as that was and still is one of my special interests), but several of their diary entries touched me and some of them even made me want to cry. It was nice to see some diversity, though it made me sad that there was no kid that seemed to have trouble making friends at all and was socially awkward in general. I think that would be the one I would identify with the most if there was such a kid.

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Title: Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl
Author: Anne Frank (translated by B. M. Mooyaart-Doubleday)

Thoughts: From what I’ve heard, this is one of the most read books in the world and I can see why. Reading a person’s diary is a very personal thing as you are reading about their deepest and feelings. Anne Frank’s diary shows us her personal self, which I think many people can identify with somehow. She was a teenager who was in the middle of discovering who she was and she dealt with the same issues that teenagers today deal with, especially when it comes to girl issues. She wonders about love and writes about her changing body and what she’s going to do when the war is over and she’s an adult. That’s the part that really hit me the most because she wanted to be a write of some sort and she died before realizing that dream. Yet her writing has had such an impact, even if her diary was never meant to be published and read by the public. I think publishing her personal diary was a way of at least making one of her dreams come true.

I wish that she had not died because she could’ve done great things, yet it is because of her diary (which may have not been published if she lived) that we can see how everyone is human and can have their own hopes and dreams. It also shows how sad that all of that hope can be snugged out by hatred just because of a person’s religion or ethnic background.

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Title: The Shadows of God
Author: J. Gregory Keyes

Thoughts: As I mentioned before on here, my library unfortunately did not have the final book to The Age of Unreason, so I had to get it from another source. I managed to get my hands on the final book of this quartet when I visited my friend as her city’s library system is significantly larger than my county’s library system.

The series didn’t come across as very memorable to me and I’m unlikely to read it again because it just didn’t pull me in like other books that have done so in the past. The only reason I read the book as fast as I did (about one to two days) was the fact that I wanted to finish it before I left my friend’s place so she could return it to the library in time.

It’s been two weeks since I read the book (at the time I originally wrote this in my notebook), so I don’t remember too much in the way of details other than parts of the ending. It was mostly the concept of “changing the tune of the universe” that stands out in my mind and frankly, while it was important to the book, it really wasn’t the book. It was a concept, one that could’ve been paired with any number of plots and I personally would’ve liked a more engaging plot. Yes, there were parts that I found exciting and one or two characters appealed to me, but it just fell flat for me at points.

The conversation between Adrienne and Crecy near the end of the book made me chuckle a bit though because Crecy was wondering if sex was the same in their world with its new laws of nature and if she was a virgin again. I also personally wonder myself what are some of the new natural laws of their “new world” Their scientific laws were different than ours, so I wonder if their new laws were basically now the same as ours such as nuclear reactions being possible or other such things that are associated with our modern age. That is something that I’d like to see explored myself.

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Title: The Sky Village
Authors: Monk & Nigel Ashland

Thoughts: I enjoyed reading this book and I think it’s an okay book for the YA crowd. I can’t fully evaluate the book because it is only the first one in the series.

The ideas of both the Sky Village and the demonsmiths are fascinating ideas. The Sky Village is a very fantastical sort of place that is very focused on its traditions and rituals. This interested me, especially since traditional cultures interest me normally. However, like many other traditional societies, they are wary of strangers, particularly one of the protagonists, Mei. Even though she was born in the village, she is still a stranger to them. This is simply because her mother left the village with her and she was raised on the ground as a land-dweller.

The other main protagonist, Rom, turns out to be a natural demonsmith like his father and is able to summon his demon Spot (named by his sister) without all the required equipment that other demonsmiths need. This makes him much more versatile and valuable than others, which is noted by Diamond Teeth, the man who basically runs everything in the underground gambling scene.

This book certainly isn’t on my list of favorite YA books, but it’s a decent read and I would recommend it in case a person would find it to their liking. After all, I have my own YA series that I love and that I love and that I still love even as a 22 year old. Perhaps this series will mean the same thing to others. I can see the potential for that. As for me, I will likely keep my eye out for the rest of this series as it comes out because I like to finish reading the series that I’ve started on.

(Written for LibraryThing)

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