Now, you must be wondering why I chose this two particular book and why I hadn't bothered with the first book. Well, I was short on cash, and I had low opinion on first-person POV, so I chose to buy the two books that I knew didn't have a first-person narrator: The Queen of Attolia and the King of Attolia. I devoured the first book in a span of four hours, a feat that was unheard of from me. I finished the second one a little slower, reading the first half late until night, and finishing the rest of them the first thing in the morning.
And let me tell you, I was glad I picked up this series. It's everything I expected and more. With an all-knowing third-person narration, you would expect the book to be plain and tame, since as the reader we knew all the twists even if the characters didn't. But no, much like how the titular Thief of Eddis steals belongings, this book hides its secrets that you wouldn't even realize exists until it is revealed oh-so-casually by a line. And what a line indeed! When you read it, you feel like you have to backtrack and read the whole book again because now, with the knowledge imparted by it, everything changes. Every dialogue, every thought, every action; all of them was brought into new light because of one simple line.
These two books held my rapt attention and had me read them all in one sitting, something which doesn't happen very much. I am a skeptic, well-versed in the inner-workings of a novel, and I usually read the general plot of a book before buying it, since I don't want to spend money and then come back disappointed because I don't like the book's ending, or that I think the plot is inane. Owing to this qualities, nothing really fazes me anymore. I am more interested in how the way an author weaves their worlds rather than the twists and turns of the plot.
But Megan Whalen Turner is an expert wordsmith, and her books did not disappoint. She weaves her worlds expertly, breathing them life. When I read this, I am not in the confines of my room, sitting contently in my bed: I am in Attolia, I am in Eddis, and I move between them as swift as Eugenides do in the night. The characters, too, are a treat. They are layered beautifully like a good baklava, doused with a rich personality instead of honey. They calculate their actions carefully, so that everything means something, and no energy is wasted. After spending too much time with too-stupid-to-live YA protagonists obsessed with boys and romance, the Queens of Attolia and Eddis are a breathe of fresh air.
As a future diplomat, I also like the focus on politics and the precarious world of inter-kingdom relations. Not too many YA books discuss these topics, I am afraid, but with a main character roster consisting of kings and queens and members of their courts, it is inevitable that politics will come to play. But the book does not give a black and white approach to politics, like so many YA fantasy books do. I find it tiring when YA books have a "rebellious princess" that is careless and tactless when it comes to politics, insulting nobles left and right, disregarding courtly manners, etc, and yet everyone is awed at her boldness. Politics do not work that way. There is an art to it, and chances are if you're insulting your retainers, or show blatant favouritism to one of them, they would be irked enough to revolt themselves. Wars have been waged for less, and the Queens of the Queen's Thief series knows that. Eugenides acts like a typical rebellious prince--disregarding courtly manners, throwing thinly veiled insults to his nobles, complaining about court functions--but almost everyone agrees he is a buffoon and does not take him seriously or respect him.
Well-written and smart, this series is an underrated gem more people should be into. Five stars to both the Queen of Attolia and the King of Attolia.
Final rating:
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Book information:
Title: The Queen of Attolia
Author: Megan Whalen Turner
Edition: New York: Greenwillow Books. First Eos edition. 2006. (Paperback)
ISBN: 978-0-06-084182-9
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Title: The King of Attolia
Author: Megan Whalen Turner
Edition: New York: Greenwillow Books. 2007. (Paperback)
ISBN: 978-0-06-083579-8
But the book haunts me even as I got home. I agonized about it for days. Should I or should I not buy the book? Am I ready yet? Well, I decided finally, if I'm old enough to go to college I'm old enough to read the book. So I placed an order in one of those online bookshops and wait. When it arrived a week ago, I promptly read it.
You must be wondering why it took me almost a week if I liked it so much? Well, because a book like this is like fine wine; you can't read it all at one but rather savor it slowly. And because this book is depressing as fuck, that's why. There were many times when I have to put the book down, draw a long sigh, then took a rest browsing for cute puppies and kittens pictures. The book gets to you. Its worldbuilding is so good that you can't help but get sucked into its world and feel the helplessness of the character. I was there, with Winston in London, trying to survive under constant censorship and squalor, despite the fact that we are separated by the pages of the book.
Orwell has a vivid writing style. He can make his character and his world come to life with mundane words. Every author who thinks that the only way they can write well is by using the most superfluous words needs to read Orwell. Sure, sometimes his paragraph is long and confusing, but like I said, you need to savor it slowly like fine wine. You can't speed-read an Orwell. I usually felt bored upon encountering a wall of text in a novel, but with Orwell, the wall of text makes me feel excited. It doesn't bore me, not at all.
Wow. I really don't have anything to add anymore. What can I say? Everything that needs to be said has been said in this book. You need to read it. That's all I'm going to say.
Final rating:
Book information:
Title: 1984
Author: George Orwell
Edition: New York: Signet Classics.1950
ISBN: 978-0-451-52493-5
Duolingo is very easy to use, with a simple, user-friendly interface. It doesn't have any instructions in the beginning, but you'll get a hang of it quickly enough since it's so intuitive. You learn language like you play a game. In the upper-right corner, there's several "hearts" and the objective is to go through your course without losing them all. If you complete a course, you get XP points that contributes to you leveling up, and if you manage to complete the course without losing any hearts, you get a Lingot, which is the virtual currency for Duolingo that you can use to buy perks in the shop. Lingots are awarded for other activities too, such as leveling up, adding friends, etc.
The courses made up several skills or lessons. In the beginning, you only have one "skill": the Basic. As you complete the Basic, you can unlock several other skills, and so on. The skills are inter-connected to each other and you have a "Strength" bar that reminds you to revise the skills every now and then. I love that the course's challenges are very varied: there's a listening challenge, writing challenge, and speaking challenge. French being the accent-heavy language that it is, the game is very forgiving at first if you don't write the accents when you first try it, but as you level up and move on to more complex skills, it starts to get stricter.
I love, love, love this app. It doesn't really teach you the ins-and-outs of grammar or structure, but it teaches you enough for you to be quite proficient with it. You explore the grammar structure by yourself, but it provides explanation should you be confused. The learning style is easy and breezy and you don't really feel cooped up or tied down. Of course, since the app is designed to get users to B1 level, I don't think you can learn to read Proust with it, but it's enough to get by for everyday uses. And because it's free, you can use it anytime you want!
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