A Summer Reading Series: There's Always a "Light" at the End of the Tunnel

In three days, I read the final installment of the fast-paced and immensely disturbing Gone series. Light was decidedly faster paced than the rest of the books in the series (except perhaps for the first), so fast that I really did get swept up in the action, unaware of time's passing. It was a brisk, violent, emotional end to the series, but I responded more viscerally to the former than the latter. It seems that even though Light is full of action, death, and thematic resonance, it fell short emotionally, as if the author himself had turned off his emotional capacity to better cope with all the suffering he has caused these characters, just as many of them have done with theirs.

**SPOILERS AHEAD**

Obviously, Gaia lives, and grows, as Sam had not managed to kill her completely. And now that the FAYZ wall is transparent, the whole world can see the suffering and trauma that the kids have endured. But as sound cannot travel through the wall, misunderstandings about the goings-on in the FAYZ abound, and our core characters each consider what lies in wait for them at the end. It's not long, however, before Gaia is strong enough to unleash some bloodshed, and several characters, some named and most not, meet a swift and terrible end.

Light retains all the good stuff from the last five volumes, keeping the tone consistent: a fast-moving plot, complex characterization, and intense action. Additionally, all the loose ends get tied up real nicely, with a quick hint that maybe not everything is back to normal. But even as the story moved quickly, it is the same plot that drags on: the battle with Gaia. A couple kids get to throw some punches at her, she massacres a few more, then there is a rest. So there wasn't a whole lot of variety this time around. The plot with Petey was also grossly underutilized, as we only get precious few glimpses into his disembodied psyche before he possesses Caine, and his final battle with Gaia is laughably brief and almost comical to boot.

Interestingly enough, the last 30 or so pages, which go over the aftermath with all the main characters, was the most intriguing aspect of the emotional psychodrama that took place in this volume. The effect of their experience in the FAYZ would definitely be long-lasting, and adjusting to life in the real world would be difficult. I would almost rather have had another volume that went into a bit more detail about these kids' futures; sure, it would be epilogual, tangential to the overarching story of the FAYZ, but it is just another missed opportunity for a YA series to go in depth with the psychological effects of the trauma that the characters experienced and the cruelty of the real world when it comes to sympathizing with such trauma (see also: Hunger Games). But I applaud that Grant devoted more than 10 pages to it and treated the aftermath with deft realism.

One major weak point in the overall emotional arc came from Edilio's end. Edilio quickly became one of my favorite characters over the course of the series, and he has steadfastedly remained a "better person" than even Sam and Astrid (who basically give in to fear of death towards the middle-end), and there were some nail-biting moments when I thought he wouldn't make it to the end. But his grief for Roger, his supposed lover...I couldn't sense it the way I had with Sam and Astrid, or even Dekka's love for Brianna. Maybe Edilio is just good at holding back his emotions, but I did not get that intense fear and sadness that the other aforementioned characters in love had felt. If Grant really wanted to run with this, we should have gotten more set-up, seen Edilio and Roger interact a few more times than the few scenes we got back in Fear. In the end, I was happy for him, but still didn't buy that it was "true love" in the sense of Sam and Astrid or Dekka's love for Brianna.

Which brings me back to emotionality. This book made me gasp, tense, sigh with relief, and even feel happy for the characters towards the end. But I didn't cry. I was shocked that Brianna was killed so quickly, but I didn't feel sad. I felt sorry for everyone who was there to witness it, and the characters who cared about her, but I wasn't sad. I wasn't sad when any of them were killed. I even got angry with Sam and Caine for acting like such selfish cowards while helpless kids were being slaughtered with their powers. (Yeah, sorry Sam fans, but for a minute there I actually wanted him to die. When will a YA author have the guts to kill off the hero?) It wasn't like I didn't care about any of the characters who died. Perhaps there was just so much death, more then in any of the other volumes, I expected just about everyone to die, and not only wasn't surprised, but was desensistized to it. It stopped being shocking and more like, "Welp, now it's time for more kids to die." The killing was getting out of control.

But even through all of this, Sam gets through it all, coming out of the experience amazingly well-adjusted (if more stubborn and headstrong than before) while many others hadn't. As he's been in the thick of the action, you would think that he would leave the FAYZ just a teeny bit more scarred than he had. Ironically, in the end, the big hero of the FAYZ wasn't much of a hero, his life preserved thanks to others and his own selfish instincts, and yet retains that title for his past actions and doesn't seem to suffer a major guilt complex. (Though one would hope that Astrid would give credit where it was due regarding the end of the FAYZ) It was pretty obvious that the author was making it so that he and his closest friends would live...surprise, surprise.

So ends this thrilling ride of a series. Worth checking out, but, like the vast majority of critics say, it could've been better. 3 stars out of 5.

A Summer Reading Series: "Game of Thrones," and Why I Hate George RR Martin

I have never been a big reader of epic fantasy. It's not that I dislike the genre, necessarily; I'm just not that interested in it. I have never read the Lord of the Rings books (though I have seen the movies) and do not care to. It wasn't until I heard a lot of my friends talking about Game of Thrones--and raving about it--that I decided to give it a shot. More on that in a minute.

Reading Game of Thrones made me think about why I don't read epic fantasy. It's not because those stories are relegated to the genre ghetto (I still read some genre books)--though that factors into it a bit. But typical epic fantasy takes place in other realms modeled after Medieval Europe--a period of time in that place to which I'd rather not return. The notion of absolute monarchs and nobility is so outdated, and both sexes are allowed so little flexibility in their predetermined roles. And the focus on the higher classes, while a decent escapist route for other people, does not appeal to me in the least. What about all the people they allegedly rule over? And why are the Middle Ages so intriguing? I don't even want to pretend about it. It was a terrible, shameful period in the history of Europe. The promise of magic isn't really enough for me--I can get plenty of magic in Harry Potter-like fare. Even more socially conscious epic fantasy stories don't especially intrigue me--I guess any Medieval trappings in general are bound to turn me off.

So then why, you ask, did I decide to read Game of Thrones? This fantasy world resembles Medieval Europe even more closely than other epic fantasy stories, and even more blatantly racist and misogynistic--to a point teetering on the brink of problematic. And though I found a lot of such content in the first volume, I was nevertheless enthralled in the characters and ever-evolving intrigue as the story progressed.

A brief synopsis, for those who don't know: Game of Thrones follows the Stark family as each member gets pulled into national politics (in modern terms) and uncover a plot to kill the king and secure the cunning Lannister family into greater power. Each chapter follows a different point of view, most of them members of the Stark family, with the exception of the dwarf Lannister son Tyrion and the tangential story of the last Targeryen (the family that had been deposed by the current king) Daenerys, who at 14 is married to a Dothraki khal by her brother and whose experiences compel her to help bring back the age of magic and monsters.

Game of Thrones is obviously meticulously constructed (fyi, I'm obviously just referring to this first book, of course), with each chapter advancing the plot and pov character's arc in some way. Even the seemingly pointless deaths, for which many claim are pervasive in the book, serve the greater narrative in one way or another. And with each event (or almost every event) serving such a purpose, the tension rapidly rises and the stakes raised. And as I got to know each of the p.o.v characters, I came to like them more, or else my feelings toward them changed over the course of the narrative. By the middle of the 800-page tome, I had characters I was rooting for, characters I loathed, and characters I felt pity for.

But George RR Martin seems especially cruel, not just with the grim portrait of a Medieval-esque land, but also in how he constantly beats down his characters the second they have something to hope for. Whether it's murdering characters they care about, allowing them to be tricked or make mistakes for an inordinate amount of time, have them lose, and lose again, or laying bare the misogynistic culture that seems to respect women as much as cattle, Martin is one cruel god. This is not necessarily a bad thing, as it sustains narrative tension, but all the hardship makes me want to put down the book after a while. Sometimes, it gets to be too much.

Another reason to put down the book? It's too long. Now, it's not that the book is uninteresting, but there were moments later in the book where something that happened earlier is referenced and for a second I'd thought it was a previous book. Too much happens--and I'm sure the overall word count could have been reduced in other ways. I can certainly appreciate a lengthy novel that meanders slowly through the plot and soaks itself in details and character studies, but this is epic fantasy we're talking about here. It's meant to be consumed quickly--and for that it was too damn long.

So, while Game of Thrones may not be the best that epic fantasy has to offer, or even my particular cup of tea, but it is an entertaining and often thrilling read. 3.5 stars out of 5.