Puzzles Presents: Ultimate Reading Challenge 2015 discussion

Post the title, description, and your opinion of the book you read.

Ruin and Rising by Leigh Bardugo, the final book in the Grisha trilogy.

This book could go under a couple other categories, but I’m using it for the love-triangle category, so that I can avoid seeking out a book with a love triangle, which is a literary device that I detest.

Actually, Ruin and Rising has a love triangle that I can stomach. The protagonist, Alina, is in love with her childhood best friend, but she knows that if they survive the fight ahead of them, he won’t have a place to be happy in her life, and eventually she will far out live him. The prince of her country is promoting a political union between himself and Alina, and all three of them recognize that it such a union is the better choice for the country, even if it means breaking the hearts of Alina and her love. Alina, herself, knows that eventually she could be happy with the prince, although she doesn’t have the same depth of feeling for him. Further complicating matters (and possibly making this some kind of love-quadrangle?) is Alina’s reluctant attraction to the book’s antagonist, with whom she identifies, despite her determination to defeat him.

Beyond the love entanglement, the Grisha trilogy is an entertaining, interesting fantasy trilogy, set in a fictional version of Russia, which adds a breath of fresh air to the fantasy world-building. The trilogy is full of interesting, complex characters, and questions of power and greed, loneliness and connection, and leadership and power dynamics gave the book more depth than a simple good vs evil story (particularly since the book stresses that under the right circumstances, overwhelming light can be just as dangerous as infinite darkness).

(I copied and pasted this comment from the blog I'm keeping track of my Popsugar challenge on: https://librarifan.wordpress.com/ ).

Belzhar is loosely based on Sylvia Plath. After Jam does through a devastating loss, she finds herself attending school at The Wooden Barn- a half-way home between those who cannot attend high school but are not in need of mental facilities.

Here, she is automatically signed-up for a class called Special Topics in English. Her class is required to journal and, as they do, Jam finds her problems coming to life -literally- and discovers she has to deal with her issues or be stuck living in the past.

For readers of We Were Liars, you may find yourself liking this story. Totally different setting, great characters, but a wonderful twist.

Murder at the Brightwell by Ashley Weaver was a book club read. In had a similar tone to an Agatha Christie novel and I really enjoyed reading it.