Mara’s Comments (group member since Sep 28, 2008)

Mara’s comments from the Study Buddies group.

I liked the book, but didn't feel a huge compulsion to finish the series. I guess I was expecting things to go a little further than they did. All in all, I enjoyed the story.

Just wondering if I missed the post somewhere? Have we picked one yet? :-)

This contains SPOILERS:

I liked the book overall. I did have a bit of a hard time getting in to it, but I think that was just because of the book I had read right before it.

Jena would drive me nuts at times. I could understand that she didn't know exactly how do deal with her cousin, but I had a hard time with how she just stood there at times. There were also many times when she wasn't levelheaded at all, which makes her more of a normal person, but I found myself saying "What are you doing? Grr...."

That's why I picked Paula for my favorite sister. She seemed to always be levelheaded. She said that they needed to get Tati home, she helped out with Sorrow, noticed when the other two sisters were struggling and seemed to take over a bit when Jena was all sorts of distracted.

Tati drove me nuts. If you love someone and they love you why would you let yourself almost die. I mean at least wait until you've found out if you're going to see them again. Honestly, what would Sorrow have done if he did all that work and came back to find her dead--it's just silly to me. Maybe I'm too practical though. She just irked me--I wanted to shake sense into her.

Cazer was a good villain. And I thought that Marillier did a good job at painting the scenes. I could see her characters. I will admit that while I knew that Gogu was something special and figured he was the man in the vision--I was surprised to find out who he really was. In hind sight, I see how Marillier prepared the reader for it, but I must have been blind that day because I didn't see it coming.

Overall, I liked the book. It was a good read. And I also like that while all the characters were happy in the end, everything wasn't completely nice and neat. Tati went off with Sorrow and the sisters lost their passage way into the Other Kingdom.

I also enjoyed this book, but found the ending a little rushed. The author moves the story along nicely through out the book--it was very engaging. But when I got to the last section of the book it seemed a little flat compared to the rest of it.

The author's description was wonderful, without being too wordy. I could really visualize what she wrote.

I also had a hard time with how the bride was treated. I understand the importance of not wanting her to leave--she could get hurt, not come back, etc. But he could have taken measures against that. Such as, she could have been bound to him and he could have gone with her. Just because his fathers didn't do that for their queens doesn't mean that he couldn't change the rules a bit. It was obvious that he cared about her, and I would think to watch her suffer would have been just as difficult on him.

All in all, I really liked the book and found I had a hard time putting it down when reading it.

Do we know what we're reading next month? I'd like to pick it up over the week-end if we do. Thanks!

Ah. I remember reading about it, but I guess I missed that he was whipped almost to death. Cool. Thanks!

I finished the book--a while ago actually. Sorry it's take so long to respond--it's been kind of crazy around my house.

I enjoyed the book. It took me a little bit to get into it, but not too long. I found the characters we were suppose to like very likable and the ones we were not to be quite horrible. As well as everything else in between.

My biggest problem with the book was at the very beginning when we were given all of these names of people and places--they were hard to remember where they belonged. I found a map here: http://www.dendarii.com/map.html that helped me a lot.

I also struggled with all the many names that weren't easily pronounced. I know the website has all that info too, but it kind of takes away from the story if I have to look at it every couple of paragraphs or pages depending on the section. I got over that though, and became very interested in the characters. I really enjoyed the story when I got past my hang-ups.

A thought regarding Jason's comment: things didn't end poorly for Caz--because they couldn't. In order to break the curse someone had to lay down his life three times and take it back up. So he had to be alive at the end in order for it to work.

It gets a little complex with the free choice and the predestination. He was given the choices all along the way to do what he needed to in order to break the curse or he could have chosen to walk away, and the gods would have found someone else. It's what Umegat was saying--there may have been many 'Caz's to set out on that same path, but they chose not to follow it through. Caz, on the other hand, did follow through. Does that make sense?

He could have chosen not to go back to Valenda. He could have chosen not to go to the castle with Iselle. He could have chosen to teach Betriz to use a knife. And the list continues, but he didn't. He chose to do what he did, therefore, he stayed on the path that the goddess was leading him down in order to break the curse.

I was thinking about the three times he laid down his life and I can't remember correctly the time when their saying he first laid it down. Did he almost die when he saved Royse Bergon?

When I was reading the story I thought that the first time he laid his life down was the fort when he gave himself up to whichever god would take him and he professed that he didn't care what happened to him, so long as his men made it out alive and he ended up in the galleys. But it wasn't and I wasn't able to recall the time when he saved Bergon well enough to really put it together. I hope that makes sense too....sorry, I've got a bit of a head cold so I feel all muffled.

Anyway, overall I really liked the book and will get around to reading the sequels soon. Wow! sorry all of my post seem to be a novel in and of themselves.

Wow! that was quick! Are you going for the third one? River Secrets and then the fourth one will be coming out this year.

Repunzel's Revenge is cute--they're working on a second one. Shannon Hale's husband co-wrote it. The illustrations are done by Nathan Hale (no relation).

The other Bayern books were good, I think I liked River Secrets a little bit better than Enna Burning--but I enjoyed both stories.

Jen wrote: "I loved the book - won't spoil it for anyone - but can't wait to talk about it. I was unsure of Shannon Hale - I wasn't thrilled with Princess Academy - I think this should have won an award befor..."

Shannon Hale has three other 'Books of Bayern':
Enna Burning
River Secrets
Forest Born
'Forest Born' is coming out this year, as well as, all four books in a set.

So I finally finished the book and decided liked it even better the second time. I've visited the author's website: www.shannonhale.com (it's more of a blog) and in one of her past posts she questioned a New York Times article, "Can't a woman be feminine and still be powerful?" Then in another post she continued:

"When I was writing goose girl, I reached a point where I had to make a call--what kind of story do I want to tell here? Should I go high adventure and have Ani learn to use a sword or spear from some kindly palace weapons master? That might've been a cool story. But as I thought about it, I knew I wanted to stay true to the core of the fairy tale, which wasn't about a girl who learns to kick butt in a man's world. It was about a half-girl who becomes a whole girl. And I decided that I didn't want to put a phallic weapon into my heroine's hands in order to make her powerful. I wanted to see how powerful my girls could be without using guns or swords. I love a lot of those girls-on-horses-wielding-swords stories a whole, whole lot. And I am absolutely not criticizing them. But for my own stories, I decided to go another way. For now."

Since I had read this post before I reread the book I kept it in mind to see if she really held true to having her character 'win' by being feminine. Ani does have the wind to help her, but it's not the same as picking up a sword. Enna was a good friend and helped by being there for Ani. She also told the story of why women go to war with the men. It is by being feminine that they are able to help and remind their men what they are fighting for. Also, at the very end the girls are given shields, not javelins. They are there to help protect, but not fight off the hord.

I just thought that was an interesting way of looking at women in Shannon Hale's books. I also think it's an interesting way to take a story for a writer.

My thoughts on Ani being able to communicate with the wind and with animals: She could only talk with birds, Falada being the only exception. Her Aunt explains this in the begining and this is how I understood it. In the begining everyone and everything could talk to each other--animals, people, elements. But eventually that was lost and all that was left was three distinct languages.

There are people born with 'people-speaking' able to influence other people with their words (Selia and Ani's mother).

Others are born with 'animal-speaking' able to talk with animals. Ani's Aunt was one of those, and taught Ani to speak to birds, only birds, (don't know if that was just the Aunt's speciality or what, also don't know if the reason Ani could do it was because she had the ability to talk to wind--similar to learning different language, you know one it sort of makes it easier to learn another).

Knowing how to talk to Falada came from her Aunt as well. She told Ani that she helped birth a foal and heard the first word from his mouth--which was his name. She repeated it and that is how she was able to talk to the horse. Ani did the same--and got Falada. So she couldn't talk to any other horses, unless she followed the same process.

Then there were others that would speak with elements--but there hadn't been any of those in a long time, until Ani was born. She didn't open her eyes for the first 3 days because 'she was trying to figure out what word was on her tongue' (or her ability to talk to the wind). So the Aunt came and sang a song to her, that helped her open her eyes because it basically told her to wait until later to figure out what that word was. So later, when she was older, she was able to figure out wind speech.

Now that I've reread the novel--I agree with everyone else that I think it's probably too graphic for a children's book. And I remember thinking it was a little long when I first read it, but as I was reading it the second time I couldn't really think of many things I would have wanted to be left out.

What bothered me the most was how Ani was so tongue-tied when talking to the King at the end. I wanted her to use the logic she used when she was talking with Enna about the reasons behind the war, but it couldn't be that easy. I had also forgotten about the forged documents.

Sorry about the length of this. I'm looking forward to the next book.

I'd like to be involved. However, my library is rather limited and so are our funds. But please include me on your list and if I'm able to get the book, I will!! Thanks!

The Goose Girl
Princess Academy
Book of a Thousand Days

All by Shannon Hale are great and I wouldn't mind reading any of them again. Shannon doesn't have a fighting heroine, instead she wants to show her female characters being strong by being feminine. They are all YA books.

Hello,

My name is Mara and I'm a book-a-holic (sorry, just had to do it). I'm a stay at home mom of one (a 20 month old little girl), but am hoping to add to the family soon.

I'm 25 and have been a bibliophile most of my life. I think I received more books/gift cards to Barnes and Noble more than anything else last year.

I have a BA in English and my husband is working on his Masters in English. We're originally from Utah, but are living in Montana at the moment, since that is where school is.

I attempted NaNoWriMo (www.nanowrimo.org) this year, but was unable to complete it because of a medical emergency. I hope to still finish my novel soon.

Speaking of novels, I should probably end this one and get back to reading the interesting one (currently it's: Carpe Jugulum by Terry Pratchett).

Glad to be a part of Study Buddies--thanks for the invite!

~Mara

Hello. I've been apart of the Study Buddies for sometime and have finally decided to stop lerking.

I loved reading the Study books and am looking forward to reading more by Maria. I'm also excited to be a part of this group and it's fountain of book recommendations. Unfortuately, it has probably doubled my 'to-read' list and I'm not sure when I'll be able to get to it all (I'm a stay at home mom and my little one keeps me busy).

Thanks to everyone that has made this group! Hopefully, I'll be able to participate more.

~Mara