Friday, May 13, 2016

A tale of two books that made me cry...



Well. That's quite the title for a post! But I just read two different books and they both brought on the extreme FEELS. And, yes, I especially got literally teary eyed towards the end of one of them...

But how to talk about these two stories without massively spoiling them for the people who haven't read them?! I don't quite know how I will achieve this, but here goes.


"Nimona" - Noelle Stevenson

I've had this little graphic novel on my 'to read' list for a while. From the first page, all I could think was of how CUTE it was. Not just the artwork, but the character of Nimona, herself. She is hilarious and every word that comes out of her mouth was so entertaining...

And then the story got dark.. And I got anxious!

But at the heart of it all, it was such a beautiful story about love and friendship and coming to terms with things beyond your control and oh gosh, the FEELS!!!!



"A Gathering of Shadows" (Book 2 - "A Darker Shade of Magic") - V.E. Schwab

TRUE STORY: I tweeted this to V.E. (Victoria) Schwab just last night upon finishing this book and she replied within SECONDS:



 A few other tweets later, I literally FANGIRLED like a dork and thanked her for the books and the characters of Kell and Lila. Honestly, I felt kind of bad because my tweet got a lot of reactions and she seems so stressed over the fact that she is working on so many upcoming books. She told me I was the SEVENTH person to ask just that day.. yikes!! But she's so cool! She was flattered, truly ;)

ahhhhh.. But I can't help losing it. "A Gathering of Shadows" is the sequel to "A Darker Shade of Magic", which I read back in April. I even dubbed it my new favorite.

It's about a magical, (and red headed!), boy named Kell who has special abilities of traveling between parallel worlds, and more specifically, parallel LONDONS. The London, (England, people), we are familiar with on this planet is deemed "Gray London". Kell himself is from "Red" London, and there are also "White" London and the not-quite-existing-anymore "Black" London.

Kell was adopted by the royal family of Red London and raised to be a sort of protector of Prince Rhy, and official royal messenger between the worlds. Long story shot: shenanigans occur. Lots of shenanigans.

Too many shenanigans. Also: Kell wears a fabulous sounding transforming coat. (I want it).

A lot of disobeying/rebelling/rule breaking that, naturally, results in getting into serious trouble. I mentioned in my Goodreads 'review' that I love Kell so much because I feel like I can relate to him: and it's something that only just dawned on me with this second book. I won't get into the details, but basically, his desperation and resentment about the cards he was dealt in life, and wanting to RUN are something that hit kind of close to home. And there's a part towards the end of "A Gathering of Shadows" where it all came bubbling to the surface for him and he more or less erupted, and THAT is what brought tears to my eyes.

I could feel his agony..

Bravo, Victoria Schwab, for your creation of such an emotionally complex character that I've come to care a lot about.

And now to play the waiting-fangirl-game ;)



What's the last book you read that you loved so much it made you cry and/or harass the author on Twitter?!



2 comments:

  1. I've been meaning to get started on A Darker Shade of Magic for so long! I didn't actually read what you just wrote about A Gathering of Shadows, because I was afraid of spoilers for the first book, but I am glad you loved it! Will bump it up on my list. And whoa, SO COOL that you got to chat with the author. I love it when authors engage with their fans on Twitter.

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    1. Aww, well I hope you like it, if you read it! I don't believe I gave any spoilers, but I totally understand not wanting to risk it ;) yes, I felt kind of bad at how frazzled she seems, but she was still appreciative, and it was nice ;)

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