Inheritance by Christopher Paolini

Title:  Inheritance (Inheritance Cycle #4)
Author: Christopher Paolini

Not so very long ago, Eragon—Shadeslayer, Dragon Rider—was nothing more than a poor farm boy, and his dragon, Saphira, only a blue stone in the forest. Now the fate of an entire civilization rests on their shoulders.

Long months of training and battle have brought victories and hope, but they have also brought heartbreaking loss. And still, the real battle lies ahead: they must confront Galbatorix. When they do, they will have to be strong enough to defeat him. And if they cannot, no one can. There will be no second chances.

The Rider and his dragon have come further than anyone dared to hope. But can they topple the evil king and restore justice to Alagaësia? And if so, at what cost?

This is the much-anticipated, astonishing conclusion to the worldwide bestselling Inheritance cycle

(Warning: this review is likely to contain spoiler from the previous books, but not Inheritance)

 The first thing I thought when I heard that this book had come out was - finally!  I read Eragon, the first in the series, when I was in sixth grade.  I'm now a junior in high school so it's been a long time, but after finishing this huge (860 pgs) book I think it was worth the wait.

Most people I've talked to about this expressed the concern that they wanted to read it but didn't remember the previous books.  I was the same way, but the beginning of Inheritance provides a short summary of everything that happened before, so anyone worrying about that can breath a sigh of relief that they don't have to re-read thousands of pages to be up to date.

The third book, Brisingr, left off with the war to defeat the evil King Galbatorix raging, and Eragon's chances not looking to good.  So upon starting Inheritance I really had no idea what was going to happen, which is refreshing among so many of today's predictable books.  

Inheritance was very similar to the other books.  Paolini's writing style is highly descriptive and meditative at times.  It's simplistic, yet he tends to throw in what I like to call thesaurus-y words, but it works.  One of the most interesting techniques used is slow motion, which I don't think I've ever actually read, but he manages to pull it off which adds a lot to battles and fight scenes.  I know that a lot of people find this kind of writing boring, but for me (probably because I'm a huge fantasy geek) it just works.

Anyway, the best part of Inheritance lies in the plot.  I've heard plenty about how Paolini's supposedly borrowed from other fantasy novels, but I still find his story original enough to capture my attention.  The book starts with the reader having no idea how Eragon's going to overcome a plethora of obstacles, and ends with most of your questions answered which is quite satisfying.  The identity of the green dragon was pretty predictable, but felt right none the less.  And the ending was - interesting.  It incorporated Angela's prophecy from the first book and I can't decide if it was unexpected or not, but it certainly felt rather melancholy.  Both happy and sad.

Overall, if you read the first three books, I would definitely recommend Inheritance.  It answers all most all of the questions, has some great action scenes, and wraps up the series in a satisfying yet unexpected way.

Favorite Female Characters: Katniss

This is the first part in a new series I'm doing for my favorite female and male characters!  I'll be drawing all of the (good practice) and then blogging about why they're my favorite.

Caution:  This will contain spoilers from the Hunger Games series, but if you haven't read the books you can still enjoy the picture!


"I'll tell them how I survive it. I'll tell them that on bad mornings, it feels impossible to take pleasure in anything because I'm afraid it could be taken away. That's when I make a list in my head of every act of goodness I've ever seen someone do. It's like a game. Repetitive. Even a little tedious after more than twenty years.
But there are much worse games to play."
~Katniss, Mockingjay pg. 390





As we all know Katniss Everdeen is that badass main character from the Hunger Games series, by Suzanne Collins.  One of the first things she does in book one is volunteer to take her little sister's place in the sadistic Hunger Games and thereby almost certainly saving her sister's life and risking her own.  If that doesn't set you up to be an awesome character, than I don't know what does.

Katniss isn't really even nice.  Like a normal teenager, she's sometimes angsty and whiny.  Her childhood hardships made her a survivor by necessity; she takes a strategic approach to most things and adopts a cold attitude toward Peeta on multiple occasions.  Yet, you can't say that she doesn't take care of the people she cares about.  She starts providing for her family at age 11.  She helps Peeta and Rue in the Hunger Games even though, strategically she should be killing them.  Ultimately she sacrifices almost everything for the good of everyone in the districts.

The obviously cool thing about Katniss is that she's a fighter.  I kind of like to compare her to Batman in some respects, for example:  They both give off "do not mess with me vibes", they are both very adept at fighting (who wouldn't want to be good at archery?), and they both make the decisions that no one else will.  (killing Coin instead of Snow, a move that also shows her superior decision making under pressure)

What I love most of all about Katniss, and a characteristic that shows up in a lot of my favorite characters, is the fact that she's real.  She still gets annoyed and like many girls, sometimes doesn't know what to do with peoples affection.   Despite being brave and strong, she's still affected by the horrors in her life.  Katniss at the end of Mockingjay is a perfect example of this: she was broken, and realistically so, by the trauma she'd been through.   She's a girl who was born into a hard life and learned how to deal with it and live her life the best she could, and I can respect that.

Drawing:  This was drawn by me as my first colored pencil drawing.  It's from this (I think fan-made) poster, and the quality is clearly not great, due to the fact that I took it on my phone.

Anyway, what are everyone else's thoughts on Katniss?

In My Mailbox #1

So this is my exciting, very first ever, IMM!  In My Maibox is hosted at The Story Siren Anyway, the books I got this week were:








The Last Thing I Remember by Andrew Clavan
White Cat by Holly Black
The Duff by Kody Keplinger
Tiger's Curse by Colleen Houck
Leaving Paradise by Simone Elkeles
Return to Paradise by Simone Elkeles

I've already read all of them except The Last Thing I Remember and Return to Paradise, and I quite enjoyed them, except for Tiger's Curse which I didn't like much.  I'm really looking forward to reading Return to Paradise because it's a sequel to Leaving Paradise, and I have no patience for waiting for sequels.

What did everyone else get in their mailboxes?

White Cat by Holly Black

Title:  White Cat
Author:  Holly Black

Cassel comes from a family of curse workers—people who have the power to change your emotions, your memories, your luck, all by the slightest touch of their hands. Since curse work is illegal, they’re all criminals. But not Cassel. He hasn’t got the magic touch, so he’s an outsider—the straight kid in a crooked family—as long as you ignore one small detail: He killed his best friend, Lila. Now he is sleepwalking, propelled into the night by terrifying dreams about a white cat. He also notices that his brothers are keeping secrets from him. As Cassel begins to suspect he’s part of one huge con game, he must unravel his past and his memories. To find out the truth, Cassel will have to outcon the conmen.

I finished this book a couple of days ago.  And it was awesome.  Admittedly, I'm not really on top of the bandwagon in reading it, as it came out a while ago, but I'm just glad I got around to it.

Because it's told in first person point of view by our protagonist Cassel (who has an awesome name btw), the whole world of the curse workers is a little hard to figure out, but the story basically takes place in our world except it's sort of alternate-universey because some people are born curse workers which means that they can do cool magic with their hands.  So everyone wears gloves.  Which for some reason has sort of a romantic notion to it - that you hardly ever touch someones bare hands.

Anyway, the story starts with dear Cassel trying to throw himself off of a roof - so suffice to say that there's plenty of action, and things only get more interesting from there.  While I did guess a major plot twist, there were still plenty of surprises and even if there hadn't been, the characters would more than make up for it.

Speaking of which, Cassel is a pretty cool narrator.  I love a male narrator (probably because I feel like I'm a spy hoarding information on that gender which I often fail to understand), and he didn't disappoint. To describe the other characters would probably lend to spoilers, but suffice to say that they're different, they're flawed, they change (character development anyone?), and they are just swell.

Due to the fact that the basis for the plot is crime and there are lots of powerful mob bosses and such, the book gets pretty dark in places.  The whole conmen atmosphere made me wonder how every character wasn't completely paranoid, but hey, it was a suspenseful read.

To sum up the above in one line:  Holly Black is a fantastic writer.  Besides her cool characters and plots, I can't really put my finger on why this book was so enticing and delicious to read, but it just was.  Previously all I had read from her was the Spiderwick Chronicles (can someone say fourth grade obsession?), but I will definitely be checking out her other books including the sequel Red Glove which I have yet to get my hands on.