Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by JK Rowling

Rating: WORTHY!

The Prisoner of Azkaban represents the point in this series where Rowling really hit her stride. The novel was - in overall general terms - smart, tight and very active, and also very readable. Having said all that, it was still replete with plot holes and problems. None of that, though, prevented it from contributing to the run-away best-seller aura that Rowling was in process of creating, which would really take off after this edition came out. Again she shows us that you can have a Swiss cheese of a novel plot-wise if you write engagingly and offer enough freshness and action to keep young minds entertained. That and the fact that kids are far less critical and less demanding than are adults about things like this.

The Harry Potter movies recognized this sea-change in ways both intentional and unintentional. There was a major shift between the first two movies which very much had the look and feel of a Home Alone movie, and the third one (and those beyond that), which were far more serious and grown-up in their attitude, and significantly darker. I don't believe that the studio planned it this way, however! It was merely a change in director.

The three main actors were also allowed to be more themselves (while still the characters they portrayed, of course!). It was like the movies had a growth spurt and were now maturing fast. The change was even more marked because, in order to actually match the action in the novels, there had to be some major and very noticeable changes on the layout of Hogwarts grounds, particularly with regard to Hagrid's residence, and the location of the whomping willow.

The first issue here was that once again Harry inadvertently does magic - without a wand, and without the requisite vocalization of two Latin words. This is can a of worms which I'll open when I discuss Harry's learning of the patronus charm. The point for now is that Harry was never censured for this!

And yes, Rowling has an out - she explains it by having the minister of magic himself take charge, and presumably quash all complaints, but the problem with the writing is that none of this showed up. In other instances, there were repercussions almost immediately, with snotty letters from the ministry popping up, yet here, he has the time to go to his room, pack his trunk, drag it downstairs, have an altercation with his uncle and leave, and not a single letter arrives! Inconsistent at best.

The next incident follows immediately afterwards. While he's sitting moping and bemoaning what's to become of him, right before the Knight Bus arrives, he sees Sirius Black. The two of them are alone. This is before Harry comes to believe that Sirius has any beef with him. Sirius is in Padfoot form, but he could have quite simply transformed and told Harry everything right there, yet he did not. Why? Because if he had, that would have been the end of the story - or start of different story (and actually one which might have been more interesting).

Rowling was writing to a formula however, and she couldn't have that up-ended, so instead we get this gigantic failure. The interesting thing is that Rowling could have written this in a different way. She could have had Harry see the dog after he got onto the bus right before it zoomed off, or she could have left the dog out altogether. This was bad writing, and her audience was reaching the age, with this volume, where they would start to notice things like that.

There were several failures of magic in this volume. The first I noticed was when Harry and the Weasleys were clunking their trunks down the stairs of the Leaky Cauldron to head out to catch the train. Why? Why not use the locomotor spell to make them levitate? Another instance is when Harry gets his new Firebolt, courtesy of Sirius, and he has a broom care kit from Hermione. At one point he's left holding the polish for his broom in his hand after McGonagall confiscates the broom to check it for curses.

Let's not even get into the question of exactly how Sirius ordered it and paid for it, because a more interesting question is, why is he manually polishing it when he has magic? Maybe he's obsessed and prefers to do this by hand, but this excuse fails to deflate the bigger question as to why there are broom care kits at all when there's magic?

It makes no sense, but once again it does fit neatly into Rowling's world, where there's all sorts of magic, and wizards appear at a loss to understand the pedestrian ways of Muggles, yet they follow these very ways themselves with great faithfulness! It's not really a magical world, you see, not at its roots. That was simultaneously Rowling's biggest failing and her greatest guarantor of commercial success.

The next issue is on the Hogwarts Express where the three main characters find themselves removed to the very back of the train where the only empty berth is to be found - empty that is except for a shabbily dressed guy who's apparently sleeping. Again this is a world of magic, so why would anyone be shabbily dressed? This goes back to what I was saying about the Weasleys being poor. Why would a magical family be poor? OTOH, why would a magical family value gold when they have magic?

At school we discover that once again the Defense Against the Dark Arts class is in need of a teacher, and once again Snape does not get appointed to the post - for no reason whatsoever. It's going to be two more volumes before he gets the job and then, suddenly, he's the DAtDA teacher and that's it - no explanation for why, at that point after god knows how long, Snape is suddenly perfect for the job whereas he never was before?! Can you say nonsensical plot hole? But it did allow Rowling to introduce a new and interesting character for each volume. In one, it was Quirrell, who was a central character. In two, it was Lockhart, who offered comic relief. In three it was a werewolf. In four it was Alastor "Mad-Eye" Moody, in five, Dolores Umbridge.

The really interesting thing about these teachers is that not a single one of them - aside from Moody (who actually wasn't Moody!) - ever taught a single thing about actual defense against the dark arts! I don't think Rowling ever said what Quirrell taught specifically, but if she did, I'm guessing it didn't amount to much. Lockhart was useless as a wizard, and in the only lesson we read about where he teaches, it's about magical creatures, not about dark arts defense, but out of all the teachers, he is in the end the only one who started the dueling club so wizards and witches could actually learn defense against the dark arts! How ironic is that?!

This magical creature study is a trend which Lupin continues when he teaches about magical creatures, not about dark arts defense. Harry does get privileged lessons about the patronus charm which is, I think the sole time any student gets a lesson about dark arts defense in the entire seven volume series - that is until Harry himself starts teaching (in secret) in volume five, but this is a complete joke, because Hermione is far more qualified in spells than ever Harry is, and Ginny is a more powerful spell caster, but the girls are given a back seat yet again by a female author of a young adult novel! Shame on Rowling!

About that patronus charm! Lupin is hesitant to teach and doubtful of Harry's ability to learn because, as he keeps repeating, this is extraordinarily advanced magic! But how is it advanced? In what way? The only 'secret' to doing magic that we ever learn in Rowling's books is that you need two things: utter a very short Latin phrase, and give a twitch of a stick! What's to learn, exactly?

Now we are told that the swish and flick are important, as is the pronunciation, but the lie to this claim is given repeatedly. Even Harry, even before he had any magical training or even knowledge that he was a wizard, could work magic without saying Latin, and without waving a stick as we saw during his trip to the zoo in volume one, and at the beginning of this volume where he inflates his uncle's sister. For neither of those events did he get a reprimand from the ministry.

In the books, we see wizards repeatedly perform magic without a wand and without vocalization, so clearly neither of those two activities is important. You can argue that pronunciation and focus are important even when the spell is spoken in your own mind, but Harry's experience denies this. It makes it look like anyone can do magic - even a non-magical person - which is what Umbridge seems to be claiming in volume seven when she's examining a Muggle witch right before HRH break into the ministry.

So I don't get what's advanced about the patronus charm. Lupin fails to actually teach Harry anything. He just tells him the almost obligatory two Latin words, reminds him to think of a good memory (but fails to tell him it has to be really good) and doesn't even say a word about how to swish and flick! When Harry fails twice in a row he's ready to give up. He offers no further advice on technique or pronunciation or anything except to urge the need to find a good memory (which begs the question as to which one Lupin uses if he's so miserable).

So I really honestly don't get any idea at all from Rowling as to how this is supposed to be advanced. We're expected to take it on faith, which is poor writing. It's odd, because she does such am amazing job of writing in other regards: such as in setting an atmosphere and in bringing scenes to life, yet when it comes to the central theme of the series - that of magic - she fails utterly to develop her world.

Harry's monkey on the back for this volume is, of course the dementors, which I openly admit are a pretty cool invention and another great name (Dudley Demented is a great chapter title in volume five!). What I don't get is how Harry's fainting on the train got to be school-wide news and an endless source of joking, yet Draco's farcical injury from Buckbeak got to be a real tragedy. Obviously Rowling wrote it that way, but it made no sense and bordered on the usual caricature - too much black and white and nowhere near enough gray.

Who even told the story? The only people in the cabin (in the novel) with Harry were Lupin, Ginny, Neville, Ron, and Hermione. One of them must have blabbed the story in order for it to have got out, but I find it hard to believe that any of those people would do so. And once again neither Dumbledore nor any other teacher came to Harry's rescue by addressing just what the dementors could do and how they did it, and why it affected some people so badly - to head off teasing and bullying. Once again the school staff is bordering on being outright abusive toward its students.

Harry's rule-breaking and sneaking around again pays off as he gets some inside info, and learns that not only is Sirius his godfather, but he's also the man who betrayed his parents to Voldemort - so it's believed. Of course, a simple dose of veritaserum would have cleared all of this up a dozen years ago, yet no one thought to administer it? Sirius cared so little for his godson that he was willing to do ten years in Azkaban rather than fight to gain his freedom so he could take care of Harry? Poor writing, Rowling!

Yet again the stupidity of the wizard world is revealed as they hand down the verdict - Buckbeak must die! How weird is it that no one thought to use the time-turner to go back and witness what actually happened? Instead they have a court case where they give evidence? This was just plainly stupid, yet this is the kind of fly-trap you set up for yourself when you write about these topics, and when you create a world where anything is possible, including time-travel. If you're not extremely careful, it traps you more effectively than any Devil's Snare could do!

Thinking that Buckbeak has now joined the headless hunt, the three kids wander off, and arrive at the whomping willow in time for Ron to be grabbed by the dog and launched into the tunnel. Here again, the plot hole is astoundingly large. Why did Sirius do that? Why did he not simply pull a petrificus totalus on Scabbers and then explain everything? Because the drama has to be drawn out! Rowling is nowhere near done making Harry a victim, and making him suffer and feel threatened in this novel yet, but this is an enormous fault in the writing.

Even in the Shrieking Shack, Sirius still fails to identify who it is he's after. Despite having everything to prove Sirius innocent, they manage to still blow it, and Scabbers escapes. Not a one of them seems to be able to pull out the petrificus totalus spell for no other reason than that Rowling chose to write it this way. The same goes for failing to reuse the time-turner to go back and grab the Scab.

The time-travel was fun, though. It's always a good time when people have to avoid themselves. And once again, despite all the holes and problems, Rowling told a gripping story which drew in her audience and locked them in for another four volumes!

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by JK Rowling

Rating: WORTHY!

Volume two removes the contemporary Voldemort completely from the picture, but puts in his place a younger version so we can learn some of Voldemort's history. Plus it adds a pretty cool adventure and a kind of treasure hunt, which I think is why this was so successful. In addition to that, Rowling wisely introduces a host of new and cool ideas and characters, of whom I think Tom Riddle (nicely named!) is the most intriguing and interesting.

Dobby the house elf is a complete disaster in my book. To me he's the Jar-Jar Binks of the Harry Potter series. All he had to do was tell Harry that there's a high risk of a monster being unleashed at Hogwarts which can kill students, but no! I was not glad so much as relieved, I guess you'd say, when he was killed off! But here again is a plot hole. If elf magic is so powerful - as we're repeatedly reminded - how come Dobby died from a mere knife wound? He couldn't save himself? "Reparo" doesn't work on knife wounds?

Dobby is introduced in a way which dumps on poor Harry so Rowling can yet again try to tug on our heart strings. It makes no sense at all, though. Clearly the magic was done by the elf, yet Harry is censured for it? Is the ministry so stupid that it can't tell the difference between elf magic and wizard magic? Once again we have the idea that wizards and witches are really dumb reinforced: they're obviously so stupid that they can't see that Harry doesn't possess the ability to perform such a spell.

The flying car is one more example of how impulsive and stupid Ron and Harry are. They never seem to learn, which is as sad as it's ironic, given that they're students! Flying broomsticks outside of school, fine, flying cars not??? It's also an example of how contrived the plot ideas are. On the other hand, it does introduce yet another cool idea and gives them a bonding adventure, which is what appealed to the readers, especially when the car comes to the rescue of Ron and Harry after that idiot Hagrid yet again puts their lives in jeopardy by sending them to visit Aragog. And that name? It's a great test of your geek index if you can tell the difference between Aragog, Aragorn, and Eragon....

Gilderoy Lockhart was portrayed perfectly by Kenneth Branagh in the movie, but I have to wonder about the whole business hiring of him in the first place. Rowling excuses the choice in the book by telling us that no one wanted to apply for the position, so he was the only option, but this not only a lie, it serves to make Dumbledore look truly incompetent and stupid that he would hire someone who is clearly a poseur and a fraud, to teach such an important subject (and there's more on this particular topic in my review of volume three in this series). If Dumbledore didn't know Lockhart was a fraud, then Dumbledore is stupid and incompetent. If he did and still hired him, then he's incompetent and stupid!

The whole business of the Defense Against the Dark Arts teaching post was a joke which was, in a way, amusing, but which was also a plot hole. There were two eminently qualified people for the job right there at Hogwarts: Dumbledore and Snape. I never saw it explained in any way why Snape wasn't the dark arts teacher. They could have easily hired someone else for potions as volume six proves.

If Dumbledore trusted Snape, as we're told repeatedly, then he was unquestionably the best person for the job. If Dumbledore didn't want Snape there for whatever reason, then why did he not get off his lazy ass and do some teaching himself?! Again, it made no sense whatsoever, but the story was written so amusingly, with so many interesting bits and pieces thrown into the mix that readers, even curmudgeonly ones like me, were drawn in and induced to forgive if not forget!

Soon we begin seeing paralyzed pupils and learn the dark history of Hogwarts. And we get another look at the dangerous if not deadly game of Quidditch. Kudos to Rowling for inventing a cool game (for twelve-year-old readers), but it makes no sense that a school which otherwise claims to have student welfare at heart, to have an inherently violent and dangerous sport for them to play. It's actually insupportable, but Rowling gets away with it because the excitement and danger appeal to the age for which she was writing.

What I resent most about these books is not actually the plot holes I'm detailing, but that we never learn more about how Rowling did it - how she came up with these ideas. I've never seen anything in which Rowling discusses how she even came up with all these characters and nifty items. That, to me, would have been truly interesting. Maybe she does so on Pottermore, to which I've never been, but somehow I doubt it. Maybe she doesn't even remember at this point, but to me, those kinds of things would have been really interesting to read about and very useful to others who want to write successful fiction.

I find it interesting that after screwing up Harry's broken arm, Lockhart pays no penalty. It does allow Harry to be in the right place at the right time to get some more information, of course, which is why this glaring lapse got through. Of course, Dobby, who could have solved the whole problem vanishes before he tells Harry anything of use, but then we get to discover that Colin Creevey has been paralyzed, too.

About that paralysis! It's termed 'petrified' in the novel, but this means, literally, turned to stone. If they cannot revivify a dead wizard using magic, how on Earth is it that they can revivify a stone and turn it back into a healthy, normal human with no harm? This made no sense, but once again it gets a bye because it's a cool kind of an idea and by the time the human petrifications begin, we're already wrapped up on the latest Harry quest. They do have a bit of an out in that none of the students (or the cat) is actually hit by the direct glare of the basilisk, but still, it's a stretch to believe their heart has literally stopped beating, and yet they're not dead and can be revived.

Once again Harry is thrown to the wolves as he speaks Parsel tongue during the duel. If it's so rare and so misunderstood, how come everyone instantly understands what it is and what Harry has done? And how come Dumbledore doesn't come clean with Harry? Well, it's to ramp-up the tension, of course, but it's still a failing, realistically. In fact, the inability of one character to communicate with another is both a problem and a characteristic of this series.

The problem here is that the attacks inexplicably stop. It's supposed to be because Tom Riddle has started focusing on Harry instead of trying to kill off the students, but this fails completely as an explanation. Harry doesn't find the diary immediately, yet the attacks stop. Of course Rowling has to stretch the story to cover the school year, but this is a big and unexplained gap. The diary, again, is a cool idea, though, especially given its importance in light of what we discover in volume six.

Hagrid is arrested as a suspect and sent to Azkaban without trial. No one seems to find this unacceptable! Bizarre. The idiot sends Harry and Ron to meet Aragog, the giant deadly spider who has no regard whatsoever for Hagrid's friends. Fortunately their car rescues them, which was pretty neat. Thus they're led to Moaning Myrtle and to the entrance to the chamber of secrets - a place which the greatest wizard in the world, Dumbledore, failed to find!

The incident with Ron's wand backfiring and rendering Lockhart into even more of a mindless dilettante than he was before is amusing, but the plot hole here is how Ron managed to make it through quite literally the entire school year with no working wand? It's unexplained! This business of the broken wand rendering the wizard useless is also unexplained, and becomes important in volume five where the six students consistently fail to disarm the death eaters and thereby get Sirius Black killed. But once again the result of the spell also leaves Harry alone to face the evil as he did in the previous book.

We learn that Tom Marvolo Riddle is an anagram for "I am Lord Voldemort". I don't get the power of this "Lord" business. It's such a huge trope that people never even think about it anymore. We see it not only in fantasy, but also in sci-fi. In the stories, Lords are always powerful and/or dangerous - and nothing like their real life counterparts, who are typically doddering and pretty much useless. Why did he take the name? Is this something Voldemort would do? Why not King Voldemort or Emperor Voldemort? We never did find out why he chose Voldemort as a name. Was it nothing more than simply using up the remaining letters after Rowling had created "I am Lord" from his name?! Pathetic. Or was it the other way around - "Voldemort" came from Tom Riddle as a childish nickname?

If all it took to reincarnate him was to suck the life out of Ginny, then why wasn't this the first thing he did? Why go through all the bullshit about killing off Muggles (which he did only half-heartedly at best). Obviously it was to create a dramatic climax, but it was perhaps the biggest plot hole in the entire seven novel series. Yet despite this Rowling kept the interest in her stories and got away with it, maintaining her series on an unstoppable roll.

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by JK Rowling

Rating: WORTHY!

It occurred to me that, despite having read all seven of the Potter canon many years ago, that have never reviewed them in this blog! The thing is that it felt stupid reviewing a series of novels which pretty much everyone in the western world (and many a one in the east) has read or at least heard of, so I decided to do a different kind of review for this series.

I always maintain that a writer can get away with pretty much anything with me; as long as they write me a story that's engrossing and has interesting characters, I will overlook plot holes and even a goodly number of spelling or grammar errors. Just entertain me. So the plan here is to look at the plot holes and other problems with this Harry Potter launch vehicle, and later with the other six books. In doing this, we'll see that despite some pathetic problems and hellish holes, and despite her views on transgendered people being less than intelligent, she definitely got the job done with her writing here.

The main character is now so well-known as a heroic figure that it may well have escaped readers what a loser he is. Harry Potter is one of the most selfish, lazy, and stupid main characters ever created, which we shall see as I work through all seven volumes. He has very poor self control, few smarts, and no work ethic whatsoever. He's completely unmotivated and he blithely squanders pretty much every chance he's given.

He will not take advice, will not learn, and flatly refuses to take the golden opportunities to educate himself that are endlessly laid in his lap. He shows little curiosity about the world around him, even though it is quite literally magical. Everything is laid out for him on a platter, yet he does nothing save waste his time and indulge in self-obsessive meanderings. He refuses to follow rules and refuses to ask for help even when it's there for the taking. Yet Rowling turned this guy into a hero!

To be fair to him, he did start out life in one of the most lousy ways imaginable, and we can thank that other loser at Hogwarts, Albus Dumbledore, for that tragedy. Dumbledore and Hogwarts consistently failed students, and Harry in particular, by offering a lousy education which ill-prepared them for the dangers which came crashing down on the school in volumes six and seven.

The first problem with this book is Harry's personal circumstances, and this is two-fold. This whole thing with Harry and his survival is centered around the protection of love - the love of his parents for him, and in particular the love of his mom, to stand in front of Voldemort's wand and take the deadly curse herself. This never made any sense to me. Not that a parent wouldn't do whatever it takes to protect their child - that's a given for any even half-way decent parent. This is a problem in itself, but not one I'm discussing right here. So what is it then? And why am I asking you, when this is my thesis?!

The problem is that Harry was not the only child in the world, and Lily was not the only mom. The story indicates that scores, if not hundreds of parents and children were killed, yet Jo Rowling would have us believe that not a single one of those parents loved any of their children like Lily loved Harry, and therefore not one of those parents could put a protective 'spell' around their child like Lily did. I call bullshit on that one - a big stinking pile of it. It's highly insulting to parents and yet this is the most basic premise of the entire Potter septalogy! Shame on Rowling for her implicit assertion that all parents save Harry's are deadbeat parents.

The corollary to this is that Harry has to be ensconced with his caricature of an aunt and uncle, Vernon and Petunia Dursley, and with their even more caricatured and fat-shamed son, Dudley. Now remember, the core of the story here is the protective love of family, yet these three wretched people thoroughly hate and detest Harry, so where's the protection? And if the protection of these two surrogate parents - who loathe their nephew - is sufficient (because they're family) to provide protection, how come so many others do not get that same protection when Voldemort revivifies himself? Again, it makes no sense and it's insulting! It's insulting to parents and even to the very definition of love!

Rowling herself is rather abusive here in that she's very unkindly equating obesity with evil. Obesity is an evil, health-wise, but overweight people are not automatically cruel and hateful people. Again, it's insultingly bad writing: make the antagonist fat and then you don't have to do the work of writing a realistic villain! It also bespeaks badly for Dumbledore, who was the one who dumped Harry into this predicament. Was he not watching over Harry at all, or did he simply not care that Harry was hurting every single day? Dumbledore was a selfish, clueless and cruel man, and it's entirely understandable how he could treat his sister and the rest of his family in the way that he did because he treated Harry in exactly the same way! No surprises there in this series!

I can't help but draw parallels here between what Harry suffers in this seven-volume series, and what the fictional Job suffered in the misplaced Bible story - misplaced because the book of Job really doesn't belong in the Bible canon at all - and especially not if you want people to think kindly of the Biblical god!

But there are parallels. Harry was bereft of his loved ones, he suffered every day, and he got no reward whatsoever in recompense. And Dumbledore, his god, let him suffer. He never lifted a finger to do anything to ease Harry's suffering, not in the eleven years before he arrived at Hogwarts, nor in the six years he knew Harry as a student.

Actually, if we're drawing Biblical parallels, Harry is more like Jesus Christ, spending his forty days (or in Harry's case, a decade) in the wilderness before he begins his ministry at Hogwarts, leading to his sacrifice to the evil Voldemort, so that evil can be defeated and the people can find salvation in his resurrection. Harry, Ron, and Hermione, became Royalty: HRH!

I found it odd - through amusing - when the letters began arriving. Clearly whoever was sending them knew that Harry wasn't getting them because they kept coming, yet never once did a letter pop into existence in Harry's hands in the privacy of his cupboard under the stairs so he could read it. What was that all about?! This is the first indication we get of how profoundly stupid witches and wizards truly are in Rowling's world (the issue of their absolutely idiotic attempts at "dressing like muggles" I will address later.

Harry's demonstration of magic was also an issue and is a contradiction in the Potter series. The first problem is that Harry can clearly do magic without a wand, so why was a wand even necessary? More on this anon! The second problem is that despite the ministry's restriction on using under-age magic, Harry never once is censured for it before he begins attending Hogwarts. Afterwards, he's censured unreasonably, even psychotically for it, even when it's clearly not his magic - as when Dobby uses it in book two, for example, or when it's for his own defense, as it is in book five. None of this made any sense.

Now you can argue that kids are allowed to get away with it before they attend magic school, but not afterwards, but this makes just as little sense (as we shall see shortly). In the meantime, I have to ask: why is there no magical kindergarten? Why must a child wait until eleven? The answer to that question lies in the British education system.

In Britain there used to be a written exam called the eleven-plus. Each year, kids who had turned eleven in the previous twelve months were tested to determine if they would go to an academically-inclined grammar school, or a vocationally-inclined secondary school. Thankfully that barbaric system has changed now, but Rowling is old enough to have known the older system, and she obviously took it to heart with the launching of a child into a new school at a tender age.

The issue though, is how on Earth do they ever keep this magic from the muggles when kids are randomly performing largely-uncontrolled magical feats for the first decade of their life? Obviously the answer is that it served Rowling's writing and dramatic aims, of course, but rationally, it's a huge hole! Yes, you can try arguing that obliviators went out and fixed things, but seriously? On that scale, and all the time? It's not feasible.

This whole thing is a mess, because we're told that magic isn't allowed outside of Hogwarts, but we're also told how jealous Harry's aunt Petunia became when Harry's mom Lily would come home from school and demonstrate magic to her family. How come she was never censured? And how come magical broom riding was fine outside of school, even for under-aged wizards, yet magical car driving is cause for threats of expulsion?! Plot holes is how!

I have to say I loved Rowling's playfulness and inventiveness with her magical world, silly as it was at times. This is one of the great joys of her stories and what made them seem so inviting and, on a superficial level, so real. I loved her naming conventions in many ways, such as Ron's rat's name, Scabbers, and Sanguini the vampire, and also the names of some of the stores in Diagon Alley - and indeed the name of the alley itself. I especially loved Flourish and Blott's, which I thought was magical for the bookstore. Some of the names fell flat though, and were more like the character names from the Clue game (which used to be called Cluedo in Britain).

One of the first things Harry discovers in Diagon Alley is that he's rich. This sudden acquisition of wealth was weird, to me. First of all, how did James and Lily ever get all that gold in such a short lifetime? Honestly? It seemed like a remarkable amount, and Harry wasn't very generous with it, was he? Yes he bought a bunch of candy on the train that day he traveled with Ron (although a lot less in the book than in the movie), but when Ron had crappy robes for the Yule Ball, Harry never offered to buy him a new set.

Clearly this was done for amusement, and it was funny in a simplistic way, but it really made no sense. These people are wizards, yet neither Ron's family, nor Ron, nor Harry, nor Hermione could swish and flick his robes into something more acceptable? Not credible!

For that matter, this was a wizarding world, so how was it that Ron's family were poor at all? They could turn a rat into a drinking goblet, but not a rock into a golden galleon? How would anyone know? And even if the wizard world knew a real galleon from a transfigured one, no one in the Muggle world would. Why were there no wizards who were making money (literally!) hand over fist?!

In fact, if real gold had a special aura, what was to stop a wizard performing "Accio gold" and extracting the entire world's reserve of real gold from the Earth itself? Again, a huge hole (as indeed it would have been if all that gold were removed!) that everyone was willing to overlook (if they even noticed it) for the sake of enjoying the story. Rowling's novels are shot through with this kind of illogical juxtaposition, yet few questioned it because they were so absorbed in the stories. More credit to Rowling for pulling the wool over people's eyes so expertly!

Now about those bwizard wands: we're told that the wand chooses the wizard, but we're never told how that works, why a wand is necessary, how the wand itself works, or what is the significance of the type of wood, the length of the wand, the flexibility (or otherwise of the wood), or the significance of the magical beast component which is inside it. If a unicorn hair carries the magic, for example, why not have one in your pocket and use that? Why must it be included inside a stick?! Despite the obsession with "wand lore" in volume seven, none of this is ever explained by Rowling - at least, not on the books anyway.

If a wand is necessary, how come some wizards can do magic without one? Some magical stories have got around this by simply saying the wand isn't necessary - it's just a beginner's tool to focus your attention until you can do it without the prop. This was not Rowling's approach, however. In Potter world, wands are important and are said to focus the wizard's spell, but it's really not until the last couple of volumes where Harry's wand becomes central to part of the story line, and even then it's rather overblown! Or just blown.

Apart from that last crucial story line, none of the wand business made sense, but everyone bought into it because it seemed to make sense within the wizardly world. This is actually the vital component, and readers accepted it because it just seemed right - a wizard has a wand - of course he does! Maybe the secret to a good magical story isn't to make sense, but to do just the opposite!

One thing which I actually hadn't registered until volume three, was that a pet or familiar was almost a requirement for wizardry, yet we never saw Hermione (nor any other wizard aside from Harry, Ron, Dumbledore, and Neville) with one until 'Prisoner of Azkaban' when Hermione bought Crookshanks, the cat which terrorized Scabbers. Clearly this was nothing more than a smart tool employed to focus attention on Scabbers. Crookshanks all but disappeared after volume three. But the value or utility of a familiar was never actually explained in any of the volumes despite Hagrid telling Harry that he had to have one, and even buying one for him as a birthday gift.

Platform 9¾ was another very cute and neat little device which made for a fun story by bringing the real world into the story so that kids could go there and imagine the magic going on unseen all around them. Practically, however, it made no sense. Why would the wizards gather at a very public and busy place and start walking through walls?! Why were they not given a port-key each? Why were older wizards not allowed to simply apparate to a point outside the Hogwarts grounds and be picked up from there?

The train never stopped on the way to Hogwarts. The only place it picked up passengers was London. The only place it stopped was Hogsmeade station, so did even those living in the north of Britain have to travel south just so they could travel north again? We were never told. Were there other means of travel, or is this yet another example of how stupid wizards and witches are? Plot hole!

Clearly the train was merely a rather ill-conceived if convenient device for furthering the story even as it made no sense in and of itself. In volume one, this purpose was to allow Harry and Ron to bond, and for Hermione and Malfoy to be introduced. And who doesn't enjoy a good train ride with a promise of something new and perhaps adventurous? I love trains, so this appealed directly to me as I am sure it did to others.

What I didn't get was why Malfoy wanted to befriend Harry Potter at the beginning, but then unaccountably became an implacable foe almost immediately afterwards. This took place on the train in the book, but on the stairs of Hogwarts in the movie, and it made no sense at all for me. I mean I understand the hatred. Malfoy was from a Death-Eater family which despised Potter for putting their leader, Voldemort, out of action. Why would their son even consider befriending him? Hole!

The sorting hat is a fun thing. I loved it the one time Harry went into Dumbledore's office and the hat said, "Bee in your bonnet Potter?" I thought that was choice. What I didn't get is the tolerance of Slytherin house at Hogwarts. It was legendary how evil that house was, yet it was permitted to exist and everyone in it was pretty much evil. This made no sense at all, rationally speaking. As a writing device, it did provide for the trope high-school conflict - not only for the quidditch games, but for rivalry between Harry and Draco, who stands in as a surrogate for Voldemort when neither Draco's dad nor Voldemort himself are there to present a threatening figure.

Another issue is Harry's scar. He has this lightning bolt on his forehead, of course, and it acts as a lightning rod for Voldemort, but this doesn't explain why Harry didn't get a jolt when he met Quirrell (another great name) in the Leaky Cauldron when he first came with Hagrid to Diagon Alley. You could argue that Voldemort was absent at the time, drinking unicorn blood in the Forbidden Forest, but if that's the case, why did Quirrell baulk at shaking hands with Harry?

This whole business of Voldemort hiding in Quirrell's head and getting away with it is a complete mystery. I find it hard to believe that Harry wasn't in agony from his scar every time he was anywhere near Quirrell, but his scar really didn't take its place (as almost another character!) until later in the series. For that matter how come Dumbledore, the purported greatest wizard ever, could not detect Voldemort - and neither could ex-Death-eater Snape? Snape (Professor Snape, Harry!) made no sense to me, but more on that anon.

If Dumbledore was sharp enough to detect that a robbery was going to take place at Gringotts and the Philosopher's stone was at risk, he surely ought to have detected Voldemort, but given that he had the "sorcerer's" stone, and knew it was at risk, there were two problems here.

First of all, why not remove the risk by destroying the stone? There was no problem with this later, so why delay? Assuming the delay was necessary, why were the protections which were put in place to safeguard the stone so pathetic that even a first year student could defeat them? Seriously? Obviously this had to be done so their royal highnesses Harry, Ron, and Hermione - could overcome them, but...plot hole! Plus, why could Voldemort not create his own? Wasn't he supposed to be a powerful wizard second only to Dumbledore? Why did Nicholas Flamel even need it to live to a ripe old age? He was a wizard! Could he not magically prolong his life?

The three-headed dog was a problem, I agree. I mean, how often do you run into one of those even if you're in the business? Yet not a single one of the other protective spells was an issue for any experienced wizard, dark or otherwise. Obviously for the sake of the children's story the protections had to be such that Harry, Ron, and Hermione between them could defeat them, but it was pretty sad and transparent!

Another rather clunky effort was when Harry and Ron go after Hermione when Quirrell sets a troll loose in the "dungeons" (how he ever got a fully-grown mountain troll into Hogwarts in the first place is conveniently glossed over, take note!). We can forgive the impropriety of two young kids running around - that's credible - but I don't get Hermione's confession afterwards. All she had to say was that she got stuck in the bathroom and the boys rescued her, which was the truth. I don't get why she came up with a complete lie - or why none of the teachers noticed she was missing from her classes! So much for magic!

And about that quidditch match where Quirrell tries to unseat Harry from his broom? None of that made any sense. Of all the opportunities Quirrell must have had to harm Harry, he availed himself of none of them and then he tries to hurt him in the most public place with scores and scores of wizards watching?! Plot hole!

The business of Voldemort inhabiting Quirrell, and Snape trying to prevent Quirrell getting the philosopher's sorcerer's stone is a complete mystery. Voldemort is right there. How can he possibly think that Snape is still working for him when Snape is defying Quirrell and saving Harry? This made absolutely no sense at all. Rowling herself realized this because she put a long and boring expository speech at the beginning of volume six, where Snape tries and fails to justify his insane and schizophrenic behavior to Bellatrix. Nonsense! Plot hole! You can't talk your way out of this with such cheap excuses! Voldemort killed people for far lesser offenses, yet somehow he fails to see all that Snape has done to protect Harry?

I don't get why Dumbledore chooses to return the invisibility cloak to Harry when he does. Does he not know that Harry will use it to break rules? Does he not care? Clearly it was a plot device to enable Harry to pursue Rowling's aims for the novel with impunity (and invisibility!), but it really made no sense to give an 11-year-old such a thing when he was in potential danger!

That's almost, but not quite, as irresponsible as sending first year students into the Forbidden Forest as detention punishment. How was this even countenanced?! And with Hagrid, too, who thought nothing of splitting up the group (although differently in the movie from in the book). Again this was a significant problem, but it served the writing and plot. I have to say I was never a fan of Hagrid. He was nothing short of a stupid and dangerous oaf.

Rowling never did explain how it was that Voldemort was reduced to an apparition after he turned Harry unintentionally into the seventh horcrux. Maybe seven is one too many? It's just one of many places where the fabric of the novel runs thin. On the other hand, it's also sad that the title of the novel was changed for the American edition because...what? Americans are too stupid to grasp what a philosopher's stone is? Shame on American publishers!

The problem with Rowling's characters is that she all too frequently overdid them and went straight into caricature - to say nothing of the fact that, while I admit she did not invent the trope, she is very much responsible for every novel that comes out these days where the magical orphan child is the main character. Ugh! Rip-off much? Authors are too afraid that if they stray from the path Rowling dictated their novel will fail? I'm sure Rowling didn't invent that path but she sure enshrined it.

You know one thing that I really don't get about Harry (actually there's a lot I don't get about him) is why he wears those eyeglasses. He's a wizard who lives in a wizarding world - yet there's no cure for short-sightedness? Hermione can repair his eyeglasses but not his eyesight? Madame Pomfrey can re-grow entire bones, but not fix short-sightedness - or for that matter, remove or at least disguise scars?! It makes no sense but once again, Rowling gets away with it.

I already mentioned that I was not a fan of Hagrid. He's a dunderhead who definitely shouldn't teach children, let alone be put in charge of them. Plus his history is bullshit. His wand was broken? Because there sure-as-hell isn't any way a wizard can ever get hold of a new wand is there now?! Not that wands are needed as we see repeatedly, and as Hagrid himself proved by using his umbrella - which was pretty much entirely forgotten after volume one.

Hagrid was supposedly expelled for the incident with the original opening of the chamber of secrets. The wizarding world has veritaserum available to it, yet they never used it on Hagrid? They never used it on Tom Riddle? They never used it on Sirius Black? Huge, huge plot holes. I guess the wizarding world isn't actually very much interested in the truth after all! Either that or once again they're abominably stupid people. This is the problem with magical stories. It's the same with time-travel stories! There is always an out and it leaves large holes in stories if they're not written really well.

Dumbledore is the biggest disaster ever. He tells Harry nothing, not even when he gets older and understands what needs to be done and deserves the truth. He lets Harry live for a decade with the most cruel and wretched people imaginable, because the protection of family supposedly works - with people who hate him? Bullshit! The torment doesn't end even when he gets to Hogwarts. Harry is bullied and abused my Malfoy (who wanted to be his friend?!), and is repeatedly the butt of jokes and taunts from other students, yet Dumbledore never once lifts even one finger to put an end to it or to help Harry out - and neither do the other teachers. And this is the same guy who gives a speech at the end of volume four about friendship and trust. Hypocrite!

Harry is inexplicably abused by Snape, who supposedly loved his mother, yet who clearly hates Harry and delights in bullying him every chance he gets, yet Dumbledore never once censures Snape (Professor Snape, Harry) or tries to protect Harry from him. On the contrary! He deliberately forces Harry to take occlumency lessons from Snape so he can be bullied more in volume five. Dumbledore is without question a bastard who is, in many ways, worse than Voldemort.

Draco is allowed to get away with abuse and bullying beyond anything which is even remotely tolerable in any decent school. He gets away with one thing after another, particularly where Harry is concerned, whereas Harry is brought crashing down for even minor or accidental infractions. None of this made sense, and was actually a solid example of really bad writing designed solely to pluck those heartstrings again. I came out of this seven volume series not liking Harry or Dumbledore.

So volume one rife with plot problems and holes and yet it became a run-away best seller. This just goes to show that if you write an engrossing story with endearing characters, you can get away with murder. It doesn't even have to be really original or make a whole lot of sense. A bit of invention, a bit of plotting, a few wild adventures and you'll get your audience. Rowling did and with huge success! Keep that in mind while writing your own stories!

The Dragon Lady by Angelique S Anderson

Rating: WARTY!

This is supposedly a steampunk story, but quite literally the only steampunk element in it was goggles, and there was no reason whatsoever for main character Wylie to even wear them, let alone own them, since she did nothing with her life but muck-out stables for Lord Adrian.

He has zero appreciation for her as a person at all, despite purportedly being in love with her, and he supposedly harbors this love despite his knowing nothing about her or even spending any significant time with her - and despite being engaged to be married very soon to Lady Judith, Wylie's purported best friend. This tells me he's a spineless little weasel. Root for him and Wylie I cannot.

This for me was the biggest problem with this story. Even the ordinary affairs of life - like friendship and love, were of the most flimsy and shallow variety - the worst I've read in a long time. These are typical hallmarks of most YA stories, but they seemed a lot worse than usual in this case.

Another problem for me was that I suspected the author was not British because she used Americanisms where British cuss words or phrases ought to have appeared, and so I read a little about her and discovered I was right. At one point she writes, "Dad blammit it all, Wylie" which is not an English phrase. It's actually not even correct - there's an 'M' too many. Another one was "I'll be gol' darned" which again isn't an English phrase. Perhaps US readers will not notice this or not care, but it stands out like a sore thumb to English readers and spoils the authenticity.

On that score, the main two relationships were inauthentic too. Lady Judith is supposedly Wylie's best friend, but there's nothing shown to support this or to indicate how it even happened, and the two don't behave like best friends. Lady Judith is spoiled rotten and Wylie is living in a near-slum in poverty. Wouldn't Lady Judith have done something about this if she were friends - not even best friends, but just friendly with Wylie? Lord Adrian supposedly loves Wylie, but he does nothing about it either. Wylie has to walk miles to visit his stables each day to muck-out his horses and he's apparently fine with this. That's hardly the approach of someone who loves her.

The story is of Wyle learning that she's a special snowflake, inheriting the 'good dragon' device, which allows her to transmute into a white dragon and fly around doing good deeds. She will have to battle the evil dragon, because of course there always has to be a balance! Who the hell came up with that trope? I know it goes way back in religious fiction, but that doesn't mean we have to perpetuate it in modern fiction. But this novel follows it faithfully. My guess is that Lady Judith is the evil dragon, but I have no idea since I quit this novel at 60% in. It's a very short novel at 160 pages, but not short enough for me to want to read on. It is undoubtedly the start of a series, which I shall not follow.

The author says she hired a book editor on her first novel but was displeased and went into self-publishing. Good for her. Self-publishing brings its own trials and tribulations though, and some of them I list here. I read at one point, "Afar off, the lowing of cattle as they milled about frantically, afraid for their lives." That was the whole sentence, but it's not well formed, is it? And cattle lowing suggests calm. If they were panicked, something ought to have indicated it - like 'panicked lowing' or something to differentiate it from their ordinary noises.

There were other examples of sentences that seemed to have been changed from the original wording, but not quite changed enough, such as this one: "Judith tried her best comforted her when Nicolas Petford passed away." Another read: "Wylie stopped flying mid-hair" I think that should be mid-air, but I have to ask, where else would one stop flying?!

There was one issue regarding the passage of time which was not well thought out. I read, "The sun was once more beginning to set, just as Wylie was arriving." So she gets to the stable, and she spends some time bringing in the horse's feed, distributing it, and brushing one of them down, and then we read: "The day was rapidly turning to night." I have to say that this is one hell of a long sunset!

Of themselves, these were not story-killers for me. If the story had been entertaining enough I could easily have overlooked a few errors like that. These didn't help, but the real problem was that the story seemed so juvenile to me. Maybe there's an audience for this sort of story. For the author's sake I hope there is, but that audience doesn't include me, especially not for a series. I couldn't get with the shallow romance, or the likewise friendship, or the simplicity of the story-telling. I needed more, so while I wish this author all the best in her career, I will not be following it. I can't commend this one as a worthy read.

These Feathered Flames by Alexandra Overy

Rating: WORTHY!

This appears to be the first volume of a series (technically a dilogy, as I discovered later), but I did not know this until I'd finished reading it and it ended on a sort of a cliffhanger. With very few exceptions, I'm not a fan of series since the first volume can only ever be a prologue, and I don't read prologues. Additionally, the other volumes are essentially repeating the same story over and over with a few minor variations. They're boring to me. I respect authors more who bring out new single volumes about different people having different adventures.

That said, this one turned out to be not bad at all. It reminded me in some small ways of my own Femarine, and it kept me engaged. Although there were parts of it that left me yawning a little, for the most part it moved and kept me moving with it. There was a hint here and there of romance, but it was not overdone, and I appreciated that. I found the idea of twin sisters, both fated to have different, but critical futures, quite engaging and the fresh take on the legend of the Firebird proved to be a really good one.

Let me deal with the elephant in the room first: Kindle! It's no revelation to anyone who reads my reviews that I am not a fan at all of Amazon and refuse to publish my books on that platform. I don't like them for a variety of reason, not least of which is the fact that they routinely turn their ebooks into Kindling. The Kindle conversion process will slice and dice anything that's not pretty much plain vanilla text, and even then it's sometimes touch and go as to whether a given book will make it through the process unscathed. This one did not, although it got off lightly.

One oddball thing I noticed, which I've seen before in Kindled books, was that everywhere the letters F and L appeared successively in a word, there was a space between them, so I read, for example, "Asya's hands tightened ref_lexively," and I also read, "warped ref_lections, with points where their images converged." The underscore I've added for clarity indicates where there was a space in the text and it occurred frequently throughout the novel in an assortment of words containing 'fl'. Why Kindle does this I do not know, but I've seen this same thing before in more than one ebook prior to this. Other than that, the text was fine except for the occasional intrusion of the page header into the text itself, such as when I read this about halfway down the screen:

An echoing screech that rattled down to Izaveta's bones.
THESE FEATHERED FLAMES 199
She looked up just in time to see the creature

But these intrusions were quite rare. (I did love that title - just not in the middle of my reading!). This is one reason why I never put page headers in my own novels. Another reason is that I see no point to it, but that's just me!

There was the occasional problem with grammar. We've all been there! The few I noticed were these:
"His gaze were unusually focused when he spoke." Which should read, 'his gaze was', or 'his eyes were'. A common one I've seen in YA books is the confusion of stanch with staunch. I read, "digging the fabric of her shirt into the cut to staunch the blood," which is wrong. The word is 'stanch'. Staunch means something else entirely. This issue was curious because this author with the amazing name of Alexandra Overy, uses the past participle of 'tread' perfectly, where other authors often get that wrong, using 'treaded' instead of 'trod'. At another point I read, "Asya gritted her jaw," but you can't grit your jaw. You can grit your teeth. Gritting teeth means to press or clench teeth together. You cannot therefore grit your jaw. Another curious instance was "trying to grasp on to her fracturing facade of confidence." 'Grasp on' felt wrong. 'Hold on' would have been better, or 'cling to'. I think the author was confusing grasp with grab, but grab wouldn't work there either.

Aside from that, the writing was fine and well done, which I appreciated. There was one oddity which I freely admit is a pet peeve of mine, and which use (or misuse!) seems to be coming more and more common. This is where someone uses a title but instead of saying I am 'so-and-so' they say 'my name is 'so-and-so'. For example, I read in this novel, "My name is Ambassador Täusch." But it really isn't, unless his first name does actually happen to be 'Ambassador'! What he ought to have said was "I'm Ambassador Täusch," but that said, people often misspeak, so maybe this squeaks by as an example of that!

The other issue connected with this was people referring to the queen incorrectly. If Täusch was truly an ambassador, then he really should know that you don't address a queen or a princess as "My lady." The correct approach is to address her initially as 'Your Majesty' and then subsequently use 'Ma'am'. This is British protocol, and both I and the author are British-born ex-pats as it happens. This novel is set in a Russian fantasy land, yet even there, 'Your Majesty' was used (or whatever the Russian equivalent was) when there used to be a queen. 'Your highness' is no longer used in Britain, but it was employed in Russia in imperial times. Not that I have any respect for the hereditary privilege of royalty or wealth, but for the sake of a story I'd use it.

In that regard, and purely from the perspective of story-telling, I found it inexcusable how disrespectful people were to the queen in this novel, and how little reaction she had to this. I know she was a teen and new to the throne, but everyone spoke to her not like she was the queen, but like she was this little girl. it was not only the queen who failed to react to this: no one else ever corrected people or took umbrage at this lack of deference! If felt wrong, and often jarred me out of my suspension of disbelief. Even Castelle, my young queen from Femarine who - the story makes clear - is shamefully lax in matters of propriety and protocol, was moved to comment on such laxity on occasion. Like I said, in real life I don't care about that nonsense, but in a novel like this I would expect someone to call out a person who wasn't respectful to a monarch. This was a relatively minor irritant, so I was willing to let it go for the sake of a good story though.

Now about that! I know it's taken a while to get here, but I'm nothing if not thorough in my reviews! So this story is of twins of royal blood in a fantasy world based on historical Russia. One of the twins, by tradition, is destined to become the Firebird - exacting a toll for the use of magic when said magic is enacted without paying a price (and they don't take American Express!); the other twin is destined to become the queen, succeeding their mother.

In Britain there used to be an exam called the 'eleven plus', which determined if a child went to a vocational school or to what used to be called a grammar school which was intended for the more academically-inclined. The system was not fair because it judged children and determined a future for them at far too early an age, so it was scrapped many years ago, but it seems the author has adopted this scheme for the twins, who at around that age - ten, eleven - were judged magically, in a ceremony which determined where they would end-up. It turned out that Asya would be the Firebird, and Izaveta the princess. They were separated and Asya sent to live with the queen's sister, who had become the Firebird a generation or more before.

When the queen dies unexpectedly early from a 'fever' Asya returns to the palace where her sister is in process of becoming queen. The two no longer know how to behave in each other's company because it's been so long, and they have both changed so much, and neither is properly ready to wield the power they have come into. The story is of their relationship, which I found intriguing, and of each's relationship to the queendom and the future. There are threats to their positions, both of them, because they are so young, and they neither of them know fully who they can trust - not even each other. I found the politics to be engrossing and entertaining - if on occasion annoying. There were times when the sisters acted foolishly, but they were also very young and inexperienced, so I was willing to let that side.

There were times when, if they'd only talked to each other and been honest, they could have averted a lot of the issues they faced. This is a common problem in YA stories, but it wasn't so bad here and again, the girls were young, so this could be explained away. Overall I loved how they interacted and grew into their roles, especially the firebird. I felt this was an amazing and inventive take on a myth, and done very well for the most part, and I commend this as a worthy read. That said I don't have any real interest in pursuing this story any further, because like I said, I'm not a fan of series - even if it's only two volumes, and I'm just not intrigued enough to read on. Your mileage may differ. I hope it does. because it's nice to find a series that really grips. I just don't find that very often.

Dawn of Dreams by Bronwyn Leroux

Rating: WARTY!

Errata:
the "-
friends" - this was how a line was split - right at the hyphen. I don't know what was doing this but it looked weird!
"Legends take place in a particular time period, and their basis comes from that actually happened" - 'from what actually happened'? or maybe 'from that which actually happened'?
"Jaden squared his shoulders when it the beast overlooked Kayla and targeted him." It the beast?!

This is the first of a series and I'm not much for series, but once in a while one comes along that looks a bit off the beaten path and I try it out to see if maybe this will be one of those rare series openers that draws me in. They are too few and far between though, so I usually don't hold out much hope. This was one of the fails. I made it almost exactly half way through and gave up on it because of the rampant sexism. It read like it was written by a man - or a romance novel writer.

Set in 2073, the story is of Jaden and Kayla, both of whom independently discover that they can see things others can't: or more accurately, one particular thing - a reptilian-looking bird with a scorpion tail which seems to be stalking them. They each of them have a medallion - identical medallions - which have each been passed down through their family. They feel drawn to it and meeting by accident, they become quickly attached to each other because of their shared experiences. Once they have the medallion on their person, the bird seems much more aggressive, yet neither of them thinks to leave the medallion behind when they go out! Not very smart!

For two people who see something no one else can, neither of them seems much interested in pondering it. They're much more interested in how attractive the other is, and this is where the book lost all authenticity for me. I don't mind a romance in books, but it has to feel real and smart in context.

The story grew worse when Jaden started this protective bullshit - like Kayla was somehow inferior to him and must be protected, and she meekly accepted his judgement. This first became apparent when I read, "She had Kayla on edge. So much so Kayla wanted to grab Jaden's hand and hold on for dear life." Seriously? I mean this wasn't even a threatening situation - the women who had Kayla 'on edge' was a librarian. This tells me that Kayla is weak and stupid, and I have no interest in reading any books about weak, stupid women - and sure as hell not a series about one!

There were issues with the quality of the novel in terms of writing gaffs, as shown in the errata, as well as dumb things like, when Kayla first finds the medallion, she thinks it was "Not a currency coin. Or rather, its octagonal shape wouldn't make that very practical." Kayla seems to have no idea that coins come in literally all shapes and sizes. The Brits have a heptagonal one, and they used to have a 12-sided one! Other countries have weird-looking coins too.

Later I read, "Kayla grinned. Only another girl would understand the need to explore new surroundings" Sexist much?! Guys don't explore? This was sheer sexist bullshit! By this point, the novel had really begun to fall apart for me and after Jaden's St-George-Rescuing-the-maiden stunt, I was so nauseated with it that I couldn't continue.

I can't commend this novel at all. It moved too slowly - a real problem with series - and seemed more interested in these two characters' fascination with each other than in dealing with a real and present other-worldly danger. It was unrealistic and it made no sense. People don't behave like that and this lack of realism overwhelmed what might otherwise have been an interesting and entertaining story.

Onward the Search for the Phoenix Gem by Steve Behling

Rating: WARTY!

This book is rooted on the Disney animation (read 'barf fest') of a similar name. I was curious about it because I've paid zero attention to their animated fare of late, and I began reading it, but was turned off it so quickly all I have to say is that it was not for me. It held nothing of interest and really, I wasn't surprised, When has Disney, the most unoriginal animation studio ever to exist, who has bribed congress to extend copyright law to insane levels to protect its animated mouse, really offered anything of interest lately?

The last good thing they did was Frozen (take that however you want), and even that was still hog-tied to tradition in so many ways. They couldn't even leave that alone, going for a sequel to milk another billion out of the punters. That movie was almost a decade ago and ever since then, all they've done is remakes - live action versions of animated movies from their stable. Disney has never been less animated and this book was one more snooze in a blizzard of tired Disney yawns.

Odyssey by Homer

Rating: WARTY!

Another classic bites the dist. This is one of the most stupid, tedious, repetitive, and pointless stories I've ever listened to. I listened to the audiobook version since originally, this was meant to be listened to, not read, but the version I had is not in poetic meter. It's told as a prose story by a narrator who was tedious to listen to, which made things worse. Despite this prose approach, the story still retains the repetitiveness of the poetry, which does not a thing to improve the situation. I grew to honestly and truly detest the phrase 'child of morn, rosy-fingered Dawn' with a passion.

Odysseus is one of the most puffed-up, self-aggrandizing, boorish braggarts I've ever encountered in literature. His son is useless and his wife Penelope is a complete jackass. Odysseus is always the best, the most virile, the strongest, the most upright, the toughest, the most skilled, etc., etc. He never loses, except in his ridiculously haphazard return from Troy after the ten year war.

It takes him another ten years to get home and all this time we're supposed to believe his wife is faithful. Odysseus is nearly always plied with riches by his hosts no matter whose island he fetches up on after another disastrous voyage in which he loses the previous treasure he was given. His various crews are always weeping, or lily-livered, or dishonest, or incompetent, or untrustworthy, while he himself is a paragon.

The thing is that it's really not that far from Troy to Ithaca! This admittedly assumes that the present day Ithaca is remotely close to where the ancient one was, but even if it wasn't, we know it was in Greece, where nowhere is very far from anywhere else. The point is that it's possible to travel the entire distance by land pretty much. He could have almost literally walked the entire distance in a couple of years, so why he repeatedly embarks on voyages given that he knows Poseidon, the fricking god of the ocean, is out to get him, is as much of a mystery as it is a testimony to one thing and one thing only: how profoundly dumb Odysseus truly is. He's a callous jerk, too! Despite his losing crew after crew, Odysseus never mourns a single one of those he traveled with or left behind.

Meanwhile back at home, we have the comedy duo of Telemachus, Odysseus's 20-year-old son, and Odysseus's wife, Penelope. His son is purportedly the head of the household, yet he has not an iota of wherewithal to throw out these suitors to his mom who number about a hundred or so. I know there was a tradition of hospitality in that era, but they're the worst guests imaginable, eating him out of house and home and he can't dispatch even one of them? How Odysseus was even supposed to have anything left of his holdings after ten years of this is a joke. Penelope, were she not such a limp rag and a waste of skin, could simply have told any number of these suitors she wasn't interested, but she keeps them hanging on: all five score of them, while making cheap excuses as to why she can't make up her mind. She's an asshole, period.

The suitors are utter morons. They're dumb-asses for hanging around for ten years when they're clearly getting clearly nowhere with Penelope. They're imbeciles in that they cannot see through her ridiculous ruse of un-weaving Laertes's burial shroud each night so she can re-weave it the next day. Despite all this, Telemachus can't seem to handle them and it takes Odysseus's heroic return of course, before they're summarily dispatched. Here's the last ridiculous thing: he arrives in disguise instead of striding proudly up to his home. Why? No good reason at all. Yet we're supposed to believe he has littered his way home with rejected lovers because he loved his wife so much? Bullshit.

This story is awful and not worth the time to read or listen to it.

Hook by Melissa Snark

Rating: WARTY!

This was yet another attempt to wring some value from the antique and ridiculous Peter Pan story. About the only one I've read so far that was worth reading was Tiger Lily by Jodi Lynn Anderson which I reviewed several years ago. Note that in an experiment, I review the audiobook for this same volume in October 2020.

This one is in first person which is an irritating voice to read and it makes little sense in a novel like this one. And who is she telling this tedious story to anyway? It takes forever to get going and in the end, never really does. The captain is informed that Peter Pan's ship Ariel is spied on the horizon - a ship that's faster than the Revenge, and so they have to sneak up on it over several chapters to liberate the children Pan is abducting with the aid of Tinker Bell. I smelled a trap, but apparently it was just the writing that had gone off.

The plot sounded interesting on the surface, but it never seemed to have any depth in the bits that I read. The captain seems to debate her plans and commands with the crew in town hall meetings rather than actually captain the ship so I couldn't take her seriously from the outset. And she rambles interminably. I managed about fifty pages before I tired of this, and then I skimmed to about a third of the way through and found no reason to read any more of it, so I ditched it, neither knowing nor caring what would happen next. I cannot commend this at all.

Geist by Philippa Ballantine

Rating: WARTY!

I could not get into this. I made it through three chapters and it was unfurling so painfully slowly that I looked at it and the thought of suffering three hundred pages of this was too much. The author seems to be channeling Stephen King, but the fact is that if the only way you have to make your characters pop is to detail their life history even unto the third and fourth generation, then I'm sorry but you're doing it pedantically wrong.

The book description tells us that "The undead are here and only the Deacons stand in their way," but it really doesn't tell us a damned thing about who or what deacons are, how they get to be in such a position, and what they actually do. Everything is so unnecessarily mysterious and after three chapters of that, I was tired of not knowing anything./p>

These deacons are supposed to be "guardians against ghost possession," but the author never showed us what a deacon would do with one of these ghosts, or undead or whatever-the-hell-they-are. Instead we're introduced to the anomaly of a host of them without ever being shown what the norm is, so it really means nothing because we have nothing with which to compare it! This is the first book in a series, naturally, and that's the first problem because it means the author thinks she has four books at least to tell this story.

She really doesn't. If she fails to tell an engaging story in volume one, no one in their right mind is going to want to read further. So it sure doesn't mean that she can coast through the first volume without doing any work. I can't commend this based on what I suffered through.

The Time of Green Magic by Hilary McKay

Rating: WARTY!

From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

This is a middle-grade novel set in Britain. I'm normally a bit biased toward such novels, and this one started out for me in great style, with Abi from one family, and Louis and Max from another being brought together into one big family when Abi's father Theo marries the boys' mother Polly. They move into a larger house, which has a lot of character and Abi finds that her immersion in novels becomes a little too literal. She'd be reading Kon-Tiki and the book would end up wet, with the water tasting of salt. She'd be reading about an Arctic adventure and almost get frostbite.

That would have been adventure enough, but there was also other stuff going on that seemed unconnected with Abi's experiences - like the large cat that young Louis encounters, or the paranoia that Max experiences, alongside his interest in this French art student who occasionally babysits. On top of that, Polly's work calls her away from home for a couple of weeks (I'm not sure why the author wanted her out of the way), and Theo it seems is hardly home, so the kids are left to their own devices a lot. At once there seemed to be both too much going on and not enough.

The story was going in so many different directions that things were becoming confused, and also being skipped: like how these kids were getting along given that one of them was entirely unrelated to the other two, and how little information is imparted about the books they're reading. The kids seemed to have no inner life, and the novel reached a stagnation point about halfway in. I began quickly to lose interest in it. It did not improve and I gave up on it at seventy percent out of sheer boredom.

Again, it wasn't written for me, and middle-graders might get more out of it than did I, but I've read and enjoyed many middle-grade level books and found them highly entertaining. This one wasn't in that category, and while I wish the author all the best in her career, I can't commend this particular novel as a worthy read.

The Truth-Teller's Tale by Sharon Shinn

Rating: WARTY!

You know there was nothing outright bad about this novel, but there was nothing great about it either, and in the end, that was the problem. It was bland to the point of pointlessness. I read it very nearly all the way through - all except for the last few pages and by then I had begun to seriously resent the time I'd wasted on this when I could have been reading something more memorable and engaging. As it was, it was not even really a story; it was just a meandering ramble that really had nowhere to go, but downhill.

The problem was that it so quickly became perfectly obvious exactly what was going to happen, who the mysterious visitors were, and where everyone would end up. If you're going to tell such an obvious story, then you at least need to spice it up a bit with some misdirection and red herrings. The author never did. I don't know if she was foolish enough to believe that no-one could see the glaringly obvious truth (in a novel where 'truth teller' is part of the title!), or if she understood that and simply didn't care, but the fact that it was so painfully obvious to the reader, and yet not a single one of the three main female characters even had a clue, tells me that this author evidently delights in writing about truly stupid female characters. Why female authors do this to their characters I do not know, but it happens a lot and it always pisses me off.

The story is set in a sort of medieval world where there are three kinds of gifted people, all of whom seem to be female for some reason. One of these kinds is the wish-granter. She has the power (so-called) to grant any wish, but since we later learn that she has no power to choose which wishes are granted and which are not, it rather neuters her power, and renders it completely random.

The other two kinds of people are represented by the mirror twins who are the main characters. That is, they are identical if one is seen directly, and the other seen in a mirror reflection. The have the palindromic names of Adele and Eleda - something that was again obvious from the start, and while the reader has the advantage of seeing the names in print which makes it a bit easier than if we'd simply heard them, it's not impossible to figure it out. Yet no one ever does! Maybe it's just that the whole city is stupid?

One of the twins is compelled always to tell the truth. She has the power to discern truth about a person and typically cannot prevent herself from speaking it. The other has the seemingly pointless power of never revealing a secret. It's quite literally impossible for her to tell a secret that's been shared with her Again, that power seems a bit dumb, but because she is so similar to her sister, there is the quirk that sometimes someone who thinks they're sharing a secret that will never be passed on, makes a mistake and speaks it to the truth-teller. This plays such a small part in the story that it seems pointless, but it does again illustrate how dumb these people are.

That was the whole problem with this: the pointlessness of it. There really wasn't a story here to tell. There was never any adventure, never anything at risk, never any great revelation, never anything unpredictable, never any thrill or danger, and never any real romance or heartbreak for that matter. It was bland to the point of being tasteless and I cannot commend it as a worthy read. It's the middle book in a trilogy. I hadn't read the first, and it's not necessary; they're stand-alones it would seem, but I'm done. I have no desire to read any more of this trilogy or or any other Sharon Shinn novel. This is the second work of hers that I've been disappointed with and the thought of reading anything else by her now just leaves me cold.

The Dragon Choker by Stephanie Alexander

Rating: WARTY!

From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

Errata:
"...the more likely her husband would give up and returned to his own chamber." Returned need the -ed suffix removed.
"He must think thusly at times" - 'thusly' isn't really a word. The 'ly' needs to be omitted.
"...and since they both knew the way they let themselves in." - this needed a comma after 'way'.
"She lit on the muddy ground..." - unless she shone a flashlight on it or set fire to it, lit is the wrong word. It needed to be alit or alighted. Either is acceptable.

This is volume two of a series based on the Cinderella fairy-tale. There are several quite varying "Cinderella" stories though history, originating from as far and wide as Greece and China, but most people tend to think of Cinderella as the version written by Charles Perrault in 1697, titled Cendrillon ou la petite pantoufle de verre ("Cinderella or the little glass slipper"), which is where the Disney Fairytale Mining Corporation™ lifted the premise for the animated version it put out in 1950. That's the version that introduced the two evil stepsisters, the glass slipper, the pumpkin and all that, and upon which this novel is loosely-based.

I haven't read volume one of this series, and I'm far from convinced I'd like it if I did, so I wasn't about to try reading that before I started on this one. Since I'm not very much into series, whether I'd end up liking this one was the question. I started out quite happy that it wasn't written in first-person voice - which I despise, and which would have decidedly turned me off it, so I commend the author for that wise choice.

It was decently-written for the most part (subject to occasional grammatical and word-choice errors, some examples of which I'll list below. It did keep me engaged for a while, but as time passed I started losing faith in the author and consequently my interest in the story waned considerably. I also had problems with some of the plot choices and with the portrayal of Eleanor, which I think belied the book description - or more accurately the book description misrepresented the novel.

It was from that description though, that I had become intrigued by this story, being led to believe that the novel was something bit different from the usual premise. The not-so-happily-ever-after induced me to request it for review. The description began, "Eleanor Brice Desmarais, she of the cracked glass slipper and unladylike intellectual propensities" and that caught my attention. 'Desmarais' is French for 'of the swamp' so maybe there's some history related to that in volume one. Or maybe not! I can't speak to that. Character names are important to me so I tend to have them mean something which may not always be apparent to the reader, but maybe I read more into other authors' choices than I ought.

This promise of 'unladylike intellectual propensities' however, failed to materialize unless all that the person writing that description meant was that Eleanor had a sexual appetite. Oh how scandalous - a woman enjoys sex! Who knew?! Seriously? But if that's the case, then the writer of the description needs to get an education regarding the difference between intellectual and sexual.

The really sad thing about Eleanor though, and the tragic paradox of this story is that she's purported to be the people's princess, and yet she was risking bringing down shame on herself and the royal family by her uncontrolled behavior. This is hardly how a great princess behaves. She seems to have been modeled on Princess Diana, but unlike in that real life case, Eleanor starts her affair long before she's ever built-up any credibility by demonstrating a generosity of spirit, a warmth, and a caring attitude that the real life Diana did before she embarked on her affair. There's a huge difference between the two.

I think intellectual is sexy, but if it was merely used as a euphemism for sexual propensities, then it was a cheap shot. If it actually meant intellectual, then it missed the mark because Eleanor did not come across as any such thing. Quite the opposite. She spent all her time pining for Dorian, the best friend of her husband, Prince Gregory. At one point Eleanor mentions Dorian's "girth" and from that I could conclude only that her 'intellect' seemed decidedly low and her interest in him had nothing to do with love since they never seemed to have any conversation that didn't revolve around their physical trysting.

The story was boring because this was all she ever did. There was one brief interlude where she was visiting the poor and talking about opening school for girls, but that was a bump in an otherwise featureless romp, or unending talk of romping, or unending wishful thinking of romping, with Dorian. She didn't even spend any significant time with her child - not according to how this was written up to the point where I quit reading it, about a quarter the way through. Maybe things changed later, but I had zero faith, given what I'd read thus far, that it would improve. Eleanor was a one-trick pony (interpret 'trick' however you like), and she wasn't remotely interesting to read about.

I can understand that a woman who is unhappy in her marriage may seek solace elsewhere. I don't have a problem with that, and missing the first volume may well skew my perception, but did Eleanor even try to resolve things with Gregory or did she just leap right onto Dorian's girth? I know Gregory could be a bit of a jerk at times, but overall he did not seem to be a bad person, yet Eleanor was willing to spend all kinds of time on sexual technique with Dorian. Could she not spend any time at all working on her marriage with Gregory?

This perception diminished her in my eyes, and led me to the conviction that she's not much deserving of sympathy or support. Like I said, without having the first volume under my belt, maybe I'm misjudging her, but frankly she seems like a bit of a sleaze here. It's not a good look on her! If once in a while she'd expressed some regret or harked back to earlier times when she'd tried to work with her husband to make their marriage a good one and been rejected by him, that would have changed my perception of her, but in this story she's all Dorian all the time and it's tedious.

This book seriously failed to pass the Bechdel-Wallace test (after a fashion) because all Eleanor could think of was how to get with her lover. She had a one-track mind. Talking of Disney, it's like she had no life that wasn't animated by Dorian. After I'd read that book description, what I'd been hoping for was someone like the princess in my own novel, Femarine which really did have a different mindset from your usual princess story.

The very reason I wrote that was to offer readers some sort of an antidote to the disturbing plethora of stories about simpering, compliant princesses and their wilting addiction to princes charming, and it seemed I was not wrong because there is a readership for the road less taken. I just wish publishers and other authors would embrace that more, but it seems all they want to do it retread this old story, and even when a slightly different direction is taken - like this one attempted, the original prince is merely replaced by a new 'prince' and off we go, stuck on the same old rutted road - or rutting road in this case!

This is why I tend not to believe book descriptions much, because I've seen so many misleading ones, and it bothers me that they often seem to have been written by people who haven't read the novel, or in the case of YA stories, by people who seem to have completely missed the point of the #MeToo movement. But moving on: Eleanor is the Cinders of this story, having the slipper and the requisite two stepsisters, although as in the Drew Barrymore Ever After movie which I enjoyed, one of the sisters is friendly toward Eleanor. The other, Sylvia, is very much antagonistic and deceitful. Fortunately, she does not know that Eleanor has the hots for her husband's best friend Dorian, for that would be a disaster she'd dearly love to exploit.

I have to say a word about poor Sylvia. I was not a fan of hers, but she's after Prince Gregory. In her pursuit, she's doing nothing worse than Eleanor is doing, and arguably better since, unlike Eleanor, Sylvia isn't married! The problem is that she's portrayed as some sort of marriage wrecker or trouble-maker! When Dorian sees what she's up to he makes a mental note to tell Eleanor. The thing is that Gregory is known for quite literally whoring around, and Eleanor is already getting down to it with Dorian, so why slut-shame Sylvia? It was inappropriate at best, and it wasn't the only case where a woman is demeaned in this book.

On another occasion I read, "Pandra was twelve years his senior, but she was amazingly well preserved for all her years of use." What? That means she was only 38, not old by any means. Saying she was amazingly well preserved is ageism without a doubt. It's one thing to have a character say something like that about another person; it's an entirely different thing to have the author say it - and that comment wasn't in a character's speech - it was in the narrative! Now you can argue that it was intended as the thought of either Prince Gregory or Dorian, but that wasn't indicated as such, and if it was indeed Dorian's thinking, what does that say about his attitude toward women?

At a ball, Eleanor is recommending Dorian ask this one girl who'd shown an interest in him, to dance with him. This was not because she wanted Dorian to, but because it would be a diversion from their mutual horniness. After that I read, again not as speech, but as narration, "In truth, Patience had been an obvious dingbat." It's like if you're not part of the small specific set of people of whom Eleanor approves, then all you merit is insult. It really turned me off her. This was not the 'intellectual propensity' girl I'd been promised - someone deep and interesting, strong and motivated, fun to read about. She was just the opposite and I didn't like her.

And 'dingbat'? The term has been around for a century, but it's hardly terminology from the Cinderella era! I know you can't write a novel in ancient English - it would be tedious to read, if not impossible! - but you can write it with a bit of an atmosphere, ans a nod and a wink to the period in which it's supposedly set. This one was written with such a modern outlook that for me, it kept tripping up the narrative, making it seem like it couldn't decide if it wanted to be ancient or modern.

In this world, it is, of course, a capital offense for the princess bride to have an affair, even with the prince's best friend, so one has to wonder about Dorian's love for Eleanor when he willingly puts her life at risk by continuing to see her for sex. She's obviously so weak-willed that she can't help herself, but you'd think he'd be strong for her, if he cared. On the other hand, he's reported as someone who's been lucky to avoid sexually-transmitted diseases since he cannot for the life of him keep his junk in his pantaloons. He's had sex with so many women, he's lost count, so maybe his integrity is as poor as hers and his backbone just as flimsy. At any rate Eleanor has no reason to believe she's not just another conquest. Not from what I read anyway.

I began reading this with interest and quickly encountered an unintentionally amusing scene which brought the novel some credit by putting me in a good mood. That was sadly dissipated with disturbing velocity by further reading, and in truth it was another writing issue. An exasperated Eleanor is mucking-out the stable where her unicorn is housed. She's not doing this because she has to, but because she needs something to take her mind off her frustrations. While she's thus engaged, her husband and Dorian come down to take out the prince's horse, Vigor, for a ride.

In what I consider to be an amusingly unfortunate juxtaposition of ideas, I read, "Gregory kissed her again. This time she felt the flick of his tongue. He mounted and she held Vigor's bridle." Now, who or what exactly is he mounting - his horse or his bride? LOL! I assume it's his horse, but it just goes to show that one needs to be careful when writing narrative! There really needed to be something between "his tongue" and "He mounted" to distance the two actions. On a more adolescent note, it also struck me that the very title of this novel is rather unfortunate. To be clear: the Dragon Choker isn't a teenage boy's slang term for masturbation. It refers to a beautiful necklace that Prince Gregory buys for Eleanor and for which she shows little gratitude. Again, unlike the necklace, she came off in a bad light.

So, in short, I did not finish this novel. I gave up on it because the more I read the more I disliked Eleanor and the more I disliked the story. It felt like there were problems with the plot that could have been avoided with more sensitive writing, and with a better portrayal of Eleanor (and maybe a somewhat worse portrayal of Gregory). Eleanor comes across not only as having no character, she doesn't even have any depth - and certainly no intellect, let alone any sort of propensity at all to growing one. She wasn't interesting and I did not want to read any more about her. I wish the author all the best in her writing career, but I can't commend this one as a worthy read.