Review: THE TEMPERED STEEL OF ANTIQUITY GREY by Shawn Speakman

Rating: 2.5/5 stars

This book starts out with a bang—I was invested from the very first page. Basically, the image on the amazing cover is what is described in the beginning of the book, so I could already put names and faces to the descriptions. Unfortunately, my interest waned as the story progressed, and I ended up not loving this book as much as I expected and hoped to. 

One day, Antiquity Grey discovers the remains of a giant mech buried in the sand, what she believes is the last of its kind. She wants to unearth it and take it home in an attempt to recover her family’s reputation, but she is thwarted by Manson Dreadth, the son of the enemy family, who tries to claim the mech for himself. What ensues is a battle between enemies who may have to make an uneasy alliance to fight a grander off-world enemy trying to destroy the mech altogether. 

When I discovered that this book features both futuristic technology AND dragons, I was so excited!! Two of my favorite things. This is a coming-of-age story with lots of adventure and big bot battles. Despite the descriptions, however, there were hardly any dragons in this book, which disappointed me. There were mentions of dragons, and they talk about going to the Dragonell Mountains a lot, but none actually made an appearance until over 70% into the story, and even then they were barely present. 

This book features my least favorite trope, which is the coming-back-to-life trope. This book is kind of different because here there’s a hologram of a dead person, but it has that person’s memories and can communicate as if they were alive. So that kind of bugged me, and the fact that this holo-dead person is who gives Antiquity the quest that she spends the book working toward. And then of course the fate of the whole world rests on whether she can accomplish this quest or not. I don’t like when books (or movies) have the protagonist in charge of saving the whole world or the whole galaxy, etc. because that’s too unrealistic to ever be believable. I like when books have smaller stakes, but that’s just a personal preference for me. 

Another issue I had was that Antiquity and her crew spend almost the whole book going on this adventure, and then in the span of a single page, they go back home. That’s just poor writing, in my opinion, and it kind of made the whole adventure feel pointless. 

The dialogue between characters felt stilted and contrived to me, like people wouldn’t really talk like that, and the characters themselves were two-dimensional and needed more depth. I attribute those shortcomings to bad writing as well. I admit that I didn’t love the overall writing style in this book, and I think that was my biggest problem. I liked the story and the setting, but I don’t think it was put together well. 

The pacing is kind of odd in this book. It feels slow-paced during each scene because the dialogue is slow, but then the book will jump between scenes quickly. Like all of a sudden the characters were in a new place and barely any time was spent getting from A to B, but then they will spend forever in that place, talking. It was kind of jarring and not super enjoyable for me.

I would have liked more explanation surrounding the technology, the government structure, the original purpose of the mechs, and the politics surrounding the Imperium and the Celestials and Erth. The setting itself was really neat, but there was not enough world-building done to really make any aspects of the story come to life for me. 

From about the 50% mark to the end, I struggled to maintain focus on the story. I just wanted to be done. This book had so many components that I love in fantasy/sci-fi stories: a dystopian setting, futuristic technology, dragons, giant mechs, a mysterious quest, a female protagonist, enemies to friends trope, and so much more. But I didn’t entirely care for how it was executed. There wasn’t enough substance here, and the writing style wasn’t my favorite. If anyone knows of a book with similar elements but with in-depth descriptions and more sophisticated writing, let me know! 

I don’t know if I’ll be continuing on with this series or not. This first book wrapped up nicely and I don’t feel super inclined to continue the story. If I can find audiobooks for future installments I might give it a go, but I can’t see myself reading more books with my eyes, based on how I struggled so much to get through the second half of the book. I do, however, think The Tempered Steel of Antiquity Grey would make a great tv show, and I would love to watch it if that ever happens. 

Review: THE ANTHROPOCENE REVIEWED by John Green

 

Rating: 5/5 stars

I’ve been a fan of John Green for years. I’ve read and enjoyed all of his fiction books, but this is the first piece of nonfiction of his that I’ve consumed. I haven’t listened to any of his podcasts, and I’ve only seen a handful of the Vlogbrothers videos, so I’m actually not very familiar with him outside of his young adult novels.

The Anthropocene, if you weren’t aware, is the name for the current geological era. John Green compiles 44 essays in this book (plus an introduction, postscript, and extensive notes) about human nature and life on our planet in the present day. Because of the number of essays, I won’t be sharing my thoughts on each one individually, but I will give star ratings for each (since the idea of reviewing and giving star ratings is pervasive throughout the book and the whole point of the book) and I’ll share quotes and notes for the essays that stood out to me. 

First off, I’d like to mention that I loved this book. I don’t read very much nonfiction, but I do think The Anthropocene Reviewed is worth a read. Green comments on and analyzes aspects of everyday life that never occurred to me, opening my eyes and giving me a new perspective on many different subjects, and I actually feel like I learned so much. Just read through the titles of the essays to get an idea of what John talks about—and I learned something new in each essay. He writes about how our planet has been affected by humankind over the centuries and how we as a species are impacting the world today. 

This book is highly quotable as well. Even just in the seven-page introduction, there were so many lines I was highlighting because I wanted to share them and remember them. I obviously can’t share them all (that would be the whole book so just go read it for yourself), but I will insert one that really stood out:

“Pay attention to what you pay attention to.” This isn’t even a quotation from John, but it made me stop and think nonetheless: what am I spending my time focusing on? What do I pay attention to? 

I learned so much information while reading this book, and many of the essays inspired me to lookup more about that topic. So often when I’d see the title of a new essay I’d think, “That doesn’t sound interesting. How could I possibly care about ___?” But then John Green would write about the topic in such a way that I genuinely was interested, and he would bring his own experiences in to make it more personal. I was surprised by the sheer number of essays I liked that I didn’t expect to like based on the title alone. 

I love the way John writes and the way his mind works. I really connected with what he had to share in these essays, even though they are all seemingly unconnected. And even though the title tells us so, I found myself surprised that some of the essays are simply reviews of things that John has witnessed, like the reviews of The Great Gatsby, that Beatles song, the Lascaux cave paintings, the salt flats, even sunsets. He reviewed each topic like it was in a blog or something, which I found to be pretty funny but also very unexpected. I expected philosophical essays throughout but the essay topics range widely. Even surprised by it, I still really enjoyed this book and I’m glad that I had the opportunity to read it. 

Even though my individual ratings average out to be 3.59 stars, the overall book was a 5-star experience. I enjoyed my time with it, I learned a lot, and I’ll absolutely be returning to these essays in the future. Therefore the book as a whole gets 5 stars from me. 

Introduction—5 stars

“You’ll Never Walk Alone”—2 stars

Humanity’s Temporal Range—3.5 stars

Halley’s Comet—5 stars
One of my favorite essays. Love the science in it.

Our Capacity for Wonder—4 stars
Very interesting analysis of The Great Gatsby. I don’t like The Great Gatsby but I liked this essay.

Lascaux Cave Paintings—4 stars

Scratch ‘n’ Sniff Stickers—5 stars
A surprisingly fascinating essay about smells. One of the best in the book. 

Diet Dr Pepper—4 stars
I went out and bought Diet Dr Pepper for the very first time after reading this essay.

Velociraptors—2.5 stars

Canada Geese—3 stars

Teddy Bears—2 stars
This essay, I’m pretty certain, has math errors in it. Green claims, “The total combined weight of all living humans currently on Earth is around three hundred and eighty-five million tons.” How can this be possible though when there are over seven billion people on Earth, each person averaging at roughly 150 pounds? That’s at least a trillion pounds, or about 540 billion tons. Someone please explain his math to me because there is no way he’s right.

The Hall of Presidents—1 star
Least favorite. Just don’t care about presidents I guess.

Air-Conditioning—5 stars
“Like an expensive painting or a fragile orchid, I thrive only in extremely specific conditions.” If this isn’t me…

Staphylococcus aureus—5 stars
I weirdly love learning about the history and science behind medicine, so this essay was fascinating to me.

The Internet—4 stars
There couldn’t be a proper book about our time without an essay about the Internet. “When you’re living in the middle of history, you never know what it means. I am living in the middle of the Internet. I have no idea what it means.”

Academic Decathlon—3.5 stars

Sunsets—2 stars
“You cannot see the beauty which is enough unless you make yourself vulnerable to it.”

Jerzy Dudek’s Performance on May 25, 2005—2 stars
Even though the essays about sports were among my least favorite, this one still prompted me to go look up this exact moment and wonder at it. 

Penguins of Madagascar—2.5 stars

Piggy Wiggly—5 stars
This was one of the most interesting essays in the book. It was about the advent of modern grocery stores, which doesn’t sound exciting but it really was, and I knew nothing about this beforehand.

The Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest—3 stars

CNN—4 stars

Harvey—3.5 stars
I genuinely want to go watch Harvey now.

The Yips—2 stars
I have never heard of the “yips” before now. What an interesting phenomenon.

Auld Lang Syne—4 stars

Googling Strangers—4 stars

Indianapolis—3 stars

Kentucky Bluegrass—4 stars
This essay made me realize how much I do NOT want a yard in front of my house.

The Indianapolis 500—3.5 stars

Monopoly—5 stars
A very interesting history of Monopoly. I hate the game, but I loved the essay.

Super Mario Kart—4 stars

Bonneville Salt Flats—4 stars
“One of the strange things about adulthood is that you are your current self, but you are also all the selves you used to be, the ones you grew out of but can’t ever quite get rid of.”

Hiroyuki Doi’s Circle Drawing—5 stars
This was so fascinating! I seriously love the way John Green writes. I also loved the circle drawings, which I just discovered and spent ten minutes looking at pictures of online. 

Whispering—4.5 stars

Viral Meningitis—4 stars

Plague—3 stars

Wintry Mix—5 stars
I really enjoyed that parts of this essay were told in future-tense. This was one of the best essays, in my opinion, based just on John Green’s writing style alone, but the story he tells is also very interesting.

The Hot Dogs of Bæjarins Beztu Pylsur—5 stars

The Notes App—4.5 stars
“It occurs to me that technology often brags about solving problems it created.”

The Mountain Goats—3 stars
I looked up the band after reading this essay and . . . 1.5 stars. Not my jam at all.

The QWERTY Keyboard—4.5 stars

The World’s Largest Ball of Paint—4 stars

Sycamore Trees—3.5 stars

“New Partner”—3 stars

Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance—2 stars

Postscript—4 stars

Review: THE SEVENTH QUEEN by Greta Kelly

 

Rating: 2.5/5 stars

Askia starts this book in the same position she was in at the end of the first book (spoilers for The Frozen Crown ahead): she’s been captured by Radovan and imprisoned in his castle, wearing a necklace that will steal her magical power within thirty days and transfer it to him. Not a good situation to be in. Luckily, because she’s a death witch, she can see the ghosts of his six late wives, who provide her support and counsel her on how to get out of Radovan’s clutches.

I really enjoyed The Frozen Crown when I read it last year, but when I started The Seventh Queen, I quickly realized that I had forgotten so much of the first book, even though it has only been about seven months since I read it. This book reads more like a “Part Two” to the first book rather than a sequel, picking up at the exact spot, both mid-action and mid-dialogue, that the first book ended on.

The further I read, the more I remembered about the story, naturally. I love Askia’s fierce nature and how she’s not willing to compromise her morals or beliefs to get what she wants. I think she’s a great protagonist to look up to. 

I felt like a lot of this book was preamble. At 20% of the way through, I felt like I was still waiting for the story to get going. Askia runs her mouth and is given a tour of the castle grounds and learns about the social hierarchy in Roven. The whole book is about how she is gallivanting around Roven without dying, but we forget that the plot of the first book is that she was trying to save her kingdom and people from her cousin who is currently trying to rule. I feel like that original plotline kind of got forgotten about in The Seventh Queen. 

This book almost feels like it’s part of a different series from the first book because of the change in direction of the plot. It feels like Askia’s intentions have changed and the point of the novels has shifted. I honestly didn’t care as much for Askia’s story in this book as I did in The Frozen Crown, and I missed the romance aspect with Illya, which was very minor in this book. We get one chapter from Illya’s POV in the beginning and one chapter in the middle, but I really would have liked more. It feels like his two short chapters were only included to help foreshadow the reveal of a specific detail at the end of the book, and they also felt like they were included as an afterthought. 

I sadly found my mind wandering quite a bit during The Seventh Queen and I struggled to stay focused on the story. I loved The Frozen Crown, but its sequel didn’t live up to the hype for me. I still liked it a bit and would recommend the duology as a whole, but I’m disappointed the second book wasn’t a five-star read for me like the first book was. I enjoy Greta Kelly’s writing style though and I look forward to checking out more stories from her in the future.