Klick hier für die Deutsche Version
Title: Valley of Horses
Author: Jean M. Auel
Publisher: Bantam
ISB N: 0553250531 / 978-0553250534
Price: 8.99 $
Source: bought with my Christmas money
Pages: 592
Previous Book: 1. The Clan of the Cave Bear
Following Books: 3. The Mammoth Hunters, 4. The Plains of Passage, 5. The Shelters of Stone, 6. The Land of Painted Caves
Just like in The Clan of the Cave Bear (see link above to get to my review on that book) this novel is based around the girl Ayla living in the Stone Age. She was thrown out of the Clave's cave at the end of the first book and now has to find her way to 'the Others' - whoever that might be, she only knows that they look like her. After a long time of journeying she finds a huge valley that she decides to stay in for the winter. She calls it "Valley of Horses" because she encounters a flock of horses, plus, she raises a foal called Winnie, who's mother she had killed as a result of hunting. So until the foal has grown up, Ayla can't leave her valley, at a later hunt she also finds a hurt lion baby she names Baby and raises as well.
Parallely the story of brothers Jondhalar and Thonolan is told who are on their way to find the end of the Big-Mother-River (today: Donau). On their way there, they encounter many dangerous adventures and also a couple of other tribes, amongst one of them Thonolan actually finds his big love Jetamio with whom he wants to stay. Also Jondhalar plans to find a companion.
How will the journey end up for them? (Will they ever reach the end of the big river?) Will Ayla ever find 'the Others' and if so, will they accept her?
Own Opinion
To sum it up before I started: I really liked this book. The chapters were alternated between the Ayla-plotline and the Jondhalar and Thonolan-plotline and honestly, I preferred the chapters with the brothers because quite frankly, the Ayla-chapters just lacked direct speech. Sure, Ayla thought a lot and also talked to Baby and Winnie, but there were too many descriptions and too few direct speech (which I can totally understand since there wouldn't bee much talking if you were alone by yourself in a big valley).
I have to admit, during the middle of the book it got veeeeery boring, I actually stopped reading it because I didn't find it appealing anymore. I was even more disappointed because I loved the first book so much.
Half a year later I remembered that I loved the chapters with the brothers so much, so I started reading again. The plot got more interesting and I felt very close to the characters, especially Thonolan who is my favourite character which is why I think it's unfair that it happened to him (you know what I'm talking about if you read the book) instead of Jondhalar (I didn't really like him that much since he always got everything and everyone because of his looks x_x) and I cried. When I was reading that part of the book, I was on my graduation excurse (sailing) a few minutes before dinner: I cried into my rice and chicken and everybody thought that my boyfriend had broken up with me or something xD.
Towards the end of the book, where Winnie grows up to a mare, it gets kind of perverted. Winnie 'says' goodbye to Ayla and finds a stallion (no worries, she comes back later on :)). It gets pretty detailed in the description and you'd nearly think you'd be reading one of those sex stories you can read for free online.
My mum had read the first book and recommended it to me - I'm pretty happy I was the one who read the second book first because if she were the one she probably wouldn't have allowed me to read the Valley of Horses. In fact, I think when she's finished with the book, my mum will tell me "You're not gonna buy the third book if it's as perverted as this one is!"
But I still liked it :)
by Cecile
Saturday, August 20, 2011
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Uglies
Lies dieses Review auf Deutsch
Title: Uglies
Author: Scott Westerfield
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Price: 9.99 $ (paperback)
Source: bought
Pages: 448
Followed by: 2.) Pretties, 3.) Specials, 4.) Extras
The book is set in the future and every person has to endure plastic surgery, the first time at the age of 16, the second time in their early 30s. The kids that did not have a surgery so far are called the "Uglies", all the other people are "Pretties".
Tally, the main character, is an Ugly and can't wait to become a Pretty - especially since her best friend Pretty is one. She decides to visit him in New Pretty Town (the place were the Pretties from age 16-30 live, Uglies are forbidden to enter). On her way back she stages a lot of confusion and meets another Ugly, Shay.
The two girls become best friends and Tally couldn't be any happier because their birthday is on the same date, so their operation will be on the same date aswell.
Shay teaches Tally hoverboarding (hoverboard= something kinda like a skateboard that kan fly) and together they make a couple of night-time trips to Rusty-ruins even though that's forbidden (Rusties= people like we are today, but they died out since they made so many mistakes).
Shay has a very negative point of view considering the plastic surgeries: she doesn't want her exterior to be changed, but follow her friends who flew. Tally doesn't look at those thoughts seriously since her friend Peris had thought the same way before the operation but had it done as well.
So Tally was even more surprised when Shay presented her plan to run away a week before their birthday. Shay wants to go (together with Tally) to a Rusty-like city called 'Smoke' that had been founded by runaways - and hit the road in that night.
But Tally wants to fulfill her wish and be operated and be with Peris again, so Shay takes off alone, but not before handing her a note with clues on how to get to Smoke.
On her birthday Tally is picked up get to the hospital in order to be operated but there are a few complications with the surgery, so she's brought into another building which is actually the headquarter of the Specials (kinda like the FBI) where they present her a deal she can't say 'no' to: Tally is supposed to follow her friend to Smoke and then tell the Specials where that place is - or they wouldn't do the surgery on her.
After some consideration Tally accepted and made her way to Smoke, provided with a survival backpack, a hoverboard and a GPS-direction finder she has to activate when she arrives at her destination.
After a few days and some solved puzzles Tally gets to Smoke and wants to activate the device but doesn't have any time to. A week later she's so used to the life in the runaway-town that the question rises if she should really betray her new friends and inform the Specials, but what about her surgery...?
Personal Opinion:
That book was awesome!
I liked that it was set in the future. In my opinion, Scott Westerfeld displayed our world as it is today fantastically - we're the Rusties - and what consequences will follow the desicions we have to face. With the Uglies and the Pretties Westerfeld created an utopian city in which everyone has the same chances (looking at their exterior) but he also brings light to the negative aspect of a world like that which is amplified by putting a controlling government into the whole mix.
The story is ass-kicking and actually I'm kinda jealous I didn't think of a plot like that (even though I'm sure I would have ruined the concept with my inability to put my thoughts and ideas into words).
Obviously the story goes on and I'm also gonna buy and review the other 3 books as soon as I have money :).
by Cecile
Author: Scott Westerfield
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Price: 9.99 $ (paperback)
Source: bought
Pages: 448
Followed by: 2.) Pretties, 3.) Specials, 4.) Extras
The book is set in the future and every person has to endure plastic surgery, the first time at the age of 16, the second time in their early 30s. The kids that did not have a surgery so far are called the "Uglies", all the other people are "Pretties".
Tally, the main character, is an Ugly and can't wait to become a Pretty - especially since her best friend Pretty is one. She decides to visit him in New Pretty Town (the place were the Pretties from age 16-30 live, Uglies are forbidden to enter). On her way back she stages a lot of confusion and meets another Ugly, Shay.
The two girls become best friends and Tally couldn't be any happier because their birthday is on the same date, so their operation will be on the same date aswell.
Shay teaches Tally hoverboarding (hoverboard= something kinda like a skateboard that kan fly) and together they make a couple of night-time trips to Rusty-ruins even though that's forbidden (Rusties= people like we are today, but they died out since they made so many mistakes).
Shay has a very negative point of view considering the plastic surgeries: she doesn't want her exterior to be changed, but follow her friends who flew. Tally doesn't look at those thoughts seriously since her friend Peris had thought the same way before the operation but had it done as well.
So Tally was even more surprised when Shay presented her plan to run away a week before their birthday. Shay wants to go (together with Tally) to a Rusty-like city called 'Smoke' that had been founded by runaways - and hit the road in that night.
But Tally wants to fulfill her wish and be operated and be with Peris again, so Shay takes off alone, but not before handing her a note with clues on how to get to Smoke.
On her birthday Tally is picked up get to the hospital in order to be operated but there are a few complications with the surgery, so she's brought into another building which is actually the headquarter of the Specials (kinda like the FBI) where they present her a deal she can't say 'no' to: Tally is supposed to follow her friend to Smoke and then tell the Specials where that place is - or they wouldn't do the surgery on her.
After some consideration Tally accepted and made her way to Smoke, provided with a survival backpack, a hoverboard and a GPS-direction finder she has to activate when she arrives at her destination.
After a few days and some solved puzzles Tally gets to Smoke and wants to activate the device but doesn't have any time to. A week later she's so used to the life in the runaway-town that the question rises if she should really betray her new friends and inform the Specials, but what about her surgery...?
Personal Opinion:
That book was awesome!
I liked that it was set in the future. In my opinion, Scott Westerfeld displayed our world as it is today fantastically - we're the Rusties - and what consequences will follow the desicions we have to face. With the Uglies and the Pretties Westerfeld created an utopian city in which everyone has the same chances (looking at their exterior) but he also brings light to the negative aspect of a world like that which is amplified by putting a controlling government into the whole mix.
The story is ass-kicking and actually I'm kinda jealous I didn't think of a plot like that (even though I'm sure I would have ruined the concept with my inability to put my thoughts and ideas into words).
Obviously the story goes on and I'm also gonna buy and review the other 3 books as soon as I have money :).
by Cecile
Friday, February 11, 2011
Book-Haul
Hey y'all!
I know that I haven't been posting lately, but I had exams until the 24th of January and after that I didn't feel like posting or didn't have time to type up any reviews.
But that's over now, I hope I can promise to post more reviews for you - to be quite honest, I already sacrificed my sick day since I stayed home from school today to type one up and I'll either post that one tonight or tomorrow.
But first things first, I have a book-haul for you: so-to-speak books that I purchased and/or read lately or that I'm about to read, so you can expect a few reviews of those:
1.) The "House of Night"-series by P.C. and Kristin Cast, book 1-5:
2.) "Melodien der Finsternis" by Jennifer Jäger, in German
Here's the problem that it's only available in German since it was only published last October and it's written by a student, so I don't really think it's already famous enough to be translated into English, but I'll review it anyways.
3.) "Alex Ryder"-series by Anthony Horowitz, book 1-6:
4.) "The short 2nd life of Bree Tanner" by Stephenie Meyer (bought in German)
I'd also like to mention that lately I haven't read really much since I've been reading "Quatre soeurs: Enid - tombe 1" by Malika Ferdjoukh which was in French, so hands down, I nearly understood nothing. And when I don't really like a book, or in this case, don't understand much, I read soooo sloooowly! But I'd say it was the kind of book that I'd like to read (if I would have had understood it).
But maybe I'll buy or borrow it somewhere in German and we'll see if it'll make a review.
TTYL (talk to y'all later)
Cécile
I know that I haven't been posting lately, but I had exams until the 24th of January and after that I didn't feel like posting or didn't have time to type up any reviews.
But that's over now, I hope I can promise to post more reviews for you - to be quite honest, I already sacrificed my sick day since I stayed home from school today to type one up and I'll either post that one tonight or tomorrow.
But first things first, I have a book-haul for you: so-to-speak books that I purchased and/or read lately or that I'm about to read, so you can expect a few reviews of those:
1.) The "House of Night"-series by P.C. and Kristin Cast, book 1-5:
- Marked
- Betrayed
- Chosen
- Untamed
- Haunted
2.) "Melodien der Finsternis" by Jennifer Jäger, in German
Here's the problem that it's only available in German since it was only published last October and it's written by a student, so I don't really think it's already famous enough to be translated into English, but I'll review it anyways.
3.) "Alex Ryder"-series by Anthony Horowitz, book 1-6:
- Stormbreaker
- Point Blanc
- Skeleton Key
- Eagle Strike
- Scorpia
- Arch Angel
4.) "The short 2nd life of Bree Tanner" by Stephenie Meyer (bought in German)
I'd also like to mention that lately I haven't read really much since I've been reading "Quatre soeurs: Enid - tombe 1" by Malika Ferdjoukh which was in French, so hands down, I nearly understood nothing. And when I don't really like a book, or in this case, don't understand much, I read soooo sloooowly! But I'd say it was the kind of book that I'd like to read (if I would have had understood it).
But maybe I'll buy or borrow it somewhere in German and we'll see if it'll make a review.
TTYL (talk to y'all later)
Cécile
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)