A Midsummer Night's Dream Review

William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream couples Greek myth with English Faeries. Theseus and Hipolyta are due to be married, but there are two couples caught in turmoil because of unrequited love. When the troubled couples take their follies to the forest, they unknowingly wind up in faery territory. Oberon, the king of the invisible faeries, pities one of the unrequited lovers and orders his jester to cast a spell to remedy their troubles. But mistaken identity leads to more trouble than was originally wrought. In the meanwhile, the king and queen of the faeries have troubles of their own. Oberon's solution is to have his jester spell the queen into falling madly in love with anything she lays her eyes on so he may take her ward as his knight and they will no longer have any trouble between them. Robin causes Titania to fall in love with a member of a theater troupe, who Robin had spelled to have the head of an ass. All of the mischief is then corrected in time for the wedding, where it all seems like it was a dream and the reunified Faes dance in celebration of the marriage of three couples.

There are many tropes of Faes that seem to originate or be highlighted by this play. First is the typical connection of Faes to nature. All the faeries reside on the forest and primarily draw their powers from nature. Oberon's love potion and antidote are created from flowers and plants. Also, the lesser faeries are named after animals or plants. Another trope is Robin's mischief. He loves to witness mischief or to cause it. By nature, he misleads people, such as the theater troupe. And when he gets caught in causing more mischief than he was supposed to, he tries to use a misunderstanding of words and technicality to excuse himself from fault.  Which that attributes to Faes being attached to words, such as their inability to lie, their bargaining with words that may mislead, and geases. Finally, the number three seems to play a subtle, yet constant role throughout the play. There are three couples in the play, three main faeries that are given realistic names, and three spells to get Demetrius to fall in love with Helena.

This review is not as well-researched as I would like it to be. It is only a primary review for now and I hope to be able to be able to do more research on this book in the future.

2018 Update

Hi everyone. Just wanted to update you all on my progress so far. I have been keeping up with my Fae reading goal and am currently on my third book of the year. The first month has been pretty rough with work, health issues, and I misplaced my USB drive, which has my draft for my post of "A Midsummer Night's Dream." As soon as I find it, I will post it ASAP. I am also working on finishing up my post for Holly Black's The Cruel Prince. Reading-wise, I am on the second book of Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black's The Spiderwick Chronicles and will write one large post for the whole series once I am finished. Just wanted to let you know that I have not forgotten about keeping up with my posts, I just need to find the proper time for it. I hope to get my first book review posted soon.

In the meanwhile, I thought I would do a non-fiction post to tide everyone over. I recently bought "The Faerie Handbook", which is a book compiled by the editors of Faerie Magazine. Faerie Magazine is classified as a women's culture magazine. Through their works on the magazine, they have compiled a lot of their articles and topics into this consolidated book and have expanded on many things. Firstly, look how pretty the cover and end papers are.

What I love most about this book is that beyond providing me with information about Fae literature and folklore, it also expands the Fae as a culture rather than just a mythical and literary creatures. This book contains wonderful topics, such as fashion, bathing, interior design, baking, and many others related to the Fae culture.

2018 Book Resolution

To end off the year of 2017, I had just finished the classic Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. I will not give a lengthy review of that book because I did not have the time for it and that is not the purpose of this post. Overall, I really enjoyed reading that book, especially since it was my first time reading it and it was the most appropriate time to read it. When it comes to classics, I always have a skepticism that it either lives up to the hype or it is an overrated piece of work that only reflects a culture’s flimsy appeal. But for A Christmas Carol, it was a novel that I really understood why it was so popular. It was short and sweet, which makes for a perfect novel for the bustling holiday seasons, and really touches the heart of those who have forgotten the true meaning of Christmas. The narration was also very enjoyable and reminded me of a novel and a play while reading it. I highly recommend this book to everyone.

Now, in the spirit of the New Year, I have set myself a very specific reading goal, as I have expressed to many of my friends. For the entirety of 2018, I will be dedicating my reading time to only books that contain Fae characters. As most of my close friends know, I dearly love the Fae and am a big advocate for literature that promote the Fae, whether it be Fantasy, Classics, YA, or Middle Grade. I also hope to one day teach Fae literature. *fingers crossed* So I planned out this year to be the start to my Fae studies in literature. I will be including classics, like William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Edmund Spencer’s The Faerie Queen. I will also be reading my favorite genre, YA, with books like Maggie Stiefvater’s The Faerie Queen’s Deception, Sarah J. Maas’ A Court of Thorns and Roses series, Cassandra Clare’s The Dark Artifices series, and many others. I am also going to finally read Holly Black’s young reader series, The Spiderwick Chronicles, after already reading almost all of her YA Fae books. If I have time leftover, I may try to challenge myself to the series that made Faes so famous among adults, The Lord of the Rings. If there are any books anyone would like to recommend for me, please feel free, as long as it contains Faes. Wish me luck!

Wonder Woman: Warbringer Review

So it’s been a while since I’ve done a book review. It does not mean I have not been reading, which I have. I’ve just been really swamped with work and other matters to have had the time to put any thoughts to words. But this book review has been on my mind since I finished it almost a month ago. So I’m finally going to attempt at consolidating my opinions on it into a post.

Leigh Bardugo’s upcoming book was given to me as an ARC at BookCon last June. I didn’t start reading it right away, but it had been sitting on my shelf and luring me in during the entire time I was finishing Cassandra Clare’s Lady Midnight, a fantastic book and series by the way. Out of all my ARCs, it was at the top of my list to read because I really enjoyed the panel I attended at BookCon with Leigh Bardugo, Marie Lu, Sarah J. Maas, and Matt De La Peña speaking about their upcoming DC Icons project together. Now, I am coming into this book and project with probably as blank of a mind as possible. I have not yet read any of Bardugo’s works, though I have two of her books sitting on my TBR pile. I also know very little about the DC universe besides the cartoons I watched as a child and Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy. So Bardugo’s writing and Wonder Woman as a character are being introduced to me with very few prior expectations. That being said, here is my opinion of the book and I will attempt to restrain from spoilers as much as possible.

Upon the first few chapters, Bardugo definitely spends time setting up the details for the exposition that would lead to the conflict. I was certainly impressed by how much research she clearly put into this novel, even as the story goes on. I admit it was a bit of a slow start though with not much intrigue in the beginning. It probably wasn’t until a third into the novel that I started to really feel the characters and their purpose. As much as the premise of Wonder Woman is based on Greek mythology, Bardugo creatively incorporates characters of other races into the novel, both in and out of Themyscira, and I really admire her for doing it so tactfully. Throughout the rest of the novel, I found the characters all very distinctive with their own charm. They are all very believable as really people with their own experiences of life that shape them into who they are and propel them in certain directions in the plot. Without spoiling anything, I must say that Bardugo’s incorporations of plot twists is done excellently. For the YA genre, I feel as though plot twists have become a necessity, but many authors fall into the trap of the typical plot twists that make a good novel into an uninteresting one or try too hard to make unique plot twists that the foundation they paved for the novel has lost its appeal. With Warbringer, there were definitely some plot twists that were predictable, but used only for necessity and others were only slightly unique enough to make it refreshing. Bardugo’s plot twists were more clever than amazing, which makes them impressive and able to carry through. Overall, I really enjoyed the novel and am glad I read it. I look forward to the rest of the DC Icons novels.

Kate DiCamillo's Raymie Nightingale Review

Kate DiCamillo’s upcoming adolescent book, Raymie Nightingale is the first juvenile book I’ve read in a long time. I typically fell in love with her simpler books for younger audiences, such as The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane. Personally, I have not read Because of Winn-Dixie. But from DiCamillo’s introductory letter that accompanied my advanced copy of the book, she seemed to have been aiming for a tone similar to her first book, especially with Raymie’s tale also taking place in a small town in Central Florida.

After reading the book, I found it to be a wonderful story that would be well-suited for any adolescent girl. Although Raymie takes center stage in this tale, her story and life becomes entwined with Louisiana Elefante and Beverly Tapinski. The three girls could not be any more different in their personalities and desires. But somehow, one short-lived common goal brings them all together and as the narrative progresses it shows more and more how perfectly they balance each other as friends. Even from reading it through an adult’s perspective, it rings true with tones of youth and all the complexities that come with it. DiCamillo truly captures the essence of a young girl’s growing pains and all the confusions of life that come with it. She shows an understanding of the distinction between what a growing young girl thinks she wants and what she really wants. This book teaches young readers that life is always far from perfect and that can never be fixed. But it’s the choices and decisions people make for themselves and for others that help us through.

I absolutely recommend this book for any young girl, or even adult, in search of discovering an assuring tale about youth, friendship, and one’s place in life. Look forward to DiCamillo’s upcoming book on April 12^th.

Sarah J. Maas’ Throne of Glass Review

Sarah J. Maas’ Throne of Glass definitely deserves the hype and fandom it has garnered. I had stopped reading YA novels years ago because I became swamped with college work and had to spend all my time reading course materials. But now that I have graduated, I decided to kill some of my spare time with some reading. Before picking up this book, I had considered between genres such as Children’s and Classics. But I wanted something that would provide an adequately long read yet wouldn’t be too heavy. My coworker and friend, Carina, had updated her reading progress on the latest book in the series through her Goodreads account. When I saw it, I had flashbacked to memories of seeing that series around whenever I browsed through bookstores. It had been an on-and-off consideration on my ever-growing list of books to read. So I sent Carina a message asking her opinion on if I should pick up the series. She replied back, “Get it!!! It’s so good.” So now, here I am, sitting at my computer writing a review because I was not disappointed at all.

The book truly deserved to be shelved in the Teen Adventure section, which was also fortunate for me because I’m not particularly fond of heavy romance. Even though the majority of the novel takes place within the castle walls, it still provides plenty of adventure. Since the castle is a new environment for Celaena, it also allows the reader to explore everything with her mentality of seeing every place and every person for the first time. Her adventure is further added by the deadly tournament she must fight in to ensure her freedom. But in YA novels, things are never as they seem. Although she is already Adarlan’s most famous assassin, it’s never fun without a challenge and that comes in the form of a mysterious evil power that is killing off the champions one by one. But furthermore, she is commissioned by the long-dead first Queen to find that evil. As the first novel of an adventure series, Maas does an excellent job of setting up this new world, convincing characters, and intriguing plots. The use of Fae and Pagan references are truly the extra whipped cream and cherry on top for me, as I am personally fascinated and connected to both. As I am already in the midst of reading the second novel, I look back and appreciate so many devices set up from the first book that continue on their importance as the series progresses.

In terms of characters, Maas truly does an amazing job, especially when shifting between the three protagonists and not just focusing solely on Celaena. It is very difficult to gender-swap and although Dorian and Chaol’s accounts aren’t as compelling as Celaena’s they still captivate readers nonetheless. Every perspective made me laugh, sigh, and pity each of them individually. They all have strong and well-rounded personalities and deep pasts that draw them together and make them the perfect trio, even in their love triangle. I enjoy that the love lines contain just enough romance to be there, but not take away the spotlight from the adventure, which is the true genre of this series. The love lines are also complimentary on each of their characters and become more about their abilities to love and their histories with love rather than just their attraction for each other.

I give this book a 5/5 because it is a wonderful book for the YA genre and has great craftsmanship in the storylines. I look forward to continuing the series.

Music Review: Amber's Beautiful

Hi everyone. I'm back and this time for another K-Pop music review. Usually I listen to music releases and don't know what to say about them. But this time, I really found an album that I am loving, which is rare. That album is F(x)'s Amber's debut mini-album, "Beautiful."

For all those who are unfamiliar with F(x)'s Amber, she is portrayed as a tomboy and can be seen as such from her clothing choices, husky voice, and boyish personality. She is also in charge of the raps in her group. Trust me when I say that it is rare to hear her vocal voice, as I have heard every F(x) promotional song since their debut. That is why when she was first announced to be doing a solo project, especially a mini-album, I was worried for if she would have the vocal capabilities to make a good debut. But I also had hopes for her because I'm sure she wouldn't throw herself out there as a solo artist unless she felt she would be strong enough to hold her own. Especially in such a competitive industry where so many idols are developing solo careers separately from their groups, such as SHINee's Taemin, CNBlue's Yonghwa, and After School/Orange Caramel's Lizzy.

I was pleasantly surprised when I listened to Amber's debut songs. At first, I tested out the promotional song, "Shake That Brass," when it was pre-released on the SuperStar SMTown game. The sound definitely fit Amber's image perfectly with its fun beats and cool mix between her rapping and Taeyeon's sweet vocals. Then when I saw the music video, it only complemented the song even more with a quirky-styled video of Amber having fun dancing in serious environments and featuring various K-Pop idols, who are close friends of her. They really showcased her extremely social personality and amazing networking within her industry. However, "Shake That Brass" did not showcase the best of her vocal abilities. When I delved further into her album and listened in on the rest of the songs, I especially fell in love with "Heights" and the title track, "Beautiful." I was really shocked to hear how well her vocals have improved, so much that I barely could recognize they were hers because of how soft they were, compared to her usual husky rapping. Although her voice is not amazing in comparison to her fellow singers, she definitely possesses a charming singing voice that balances her strong rapping perfectly. The songs on her mini-album showcase her different colors, hence why the album cover is so bright and colorful without betraying her tomboy image or her hidden potential as a singer. One of the final lines in her title track states, "I'm happy to be myself." I feel like that line truly captivates her entire message of this album, by slamming any criticism that she faces about being caught between the line of being a tomboy with feminine aspects. You rock your brand, Amber!

Check out Amber's amazing debut album on iTunes:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/1st-mini-album-beautiful-ep/id965780780