Book Rec Time!

I read, a lot.

But, not as much as I wish I could. I visited one branch of my family last summer and read the entire Divergent and The Maze Runner series in about a month, plus one or two of The Mortal Instruments before I had enough. I had to ship a box to myself that was mostly books because they would not come close to fitting in my bags that I was taking on the plane. It cost $50. I have a problem. A problem that won't allow me to not own hard copies of books I enjoy. My husband bought me a Kindle once, I lost it. I know where every single one of my books are.

Like I said, a problem.

I'm also one of those people who will read an entire book even if I get through half of it and don't enjoy it (see: like, three Cassandra Clare books. I just needed to know what the shit was going on, okay?). But, I will not recommend a book to someone if I did not enjoy reading it. Which actually doesn't really matter since the only person who really reads like I do is my bro in law, Little B. We do have similar tastes, however, so that's a plus.

I also have this thing where I like to remember my favorite quotes from all my books, which explains all the tabbed pages in A Clash of Kings. That book has some bomb ass quotes. (Don't yell at me for tabbing my books. I used to put little stickies on them, but I have a toddler, ya'll. That shit is like a beacon.) Combining my love of quotes and my tendency to write lists for everything means I have a lot of random quotes flying around with no place to put them.

Enter the internet and my blog. 

So, here's a book review you didn't ask for! Huzzah!

The Last Dragon Slayer by Jasper Fforde

(Picture from Goliath Merchandising which is also where you can order a copy.)

This book is set in a very different England where magic and things such as foundlings (essentially orphans) and quarkbeasts (crazy huge, magical dog-like creatures) are semi-normal. Magic is running out, however, and 15 (almost 16) year old foundling Jenniffer is left in charge of forty some odd magicians, who have the ability to cause much more havoc than you would think, all while fixing your pluming without touching it. Cue something crazy happening and changing the course of everything and boom! young Jenniffer is now essentially a superstar with a really terrible fate ahead of her.

This book is an easy read, but the author really creates his own world within less than 300 pages, which is awesome. And, when I say "his own world" I mean he creates and entire 400 year old back story complete with an entire different set of characters and situations unique to the time period it is meant to be set in. Yeah, awesome. The characters can be kind of confusing, simply due to the sheer amount of them, but after a while it evens out. 

My favorite part of this book has to be the fact that Jenniffer is a girl, a young teenage girl, but that doesn't seem to factor into anything at all. Well, except one scene where dude is just an ass in general. In every other situation this girl faces, her gender doesn't matter. Now, I love me a good I-am-woman-I-can-do-everything-a-dude-can-do-hear-me-roar moment, or book, it is refreshing to read something that puts little to no stock into gender as a whole. 

Plus, did I mention dragons?

I give this book a 4 out of 5. Read it. Own it. Read the sequel. (I'm working on the last two.)

And, now my favorite quote:

"If you're thinking of somebody and the phone rings and it's them, that's magic. If you get a curious feeling that you been or done something before, then that's magic, too. It's everywhere. It seeps into the fabric of the world and oozes out as coincidence, fate, chance, luck, or what have you..."

 Jenniffer, page 33.

Love it so hard.

xoxo, Scoot