Books 12 & 13
Book 12: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
When I took the day off due to the downpour and the flooding in downtown, I reread Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, what with the movie still in my head. Certain things popped out at me, that were different in the movie - Voldemort's eyes are shown as Ralph Fiennes' pale blue, not red; Harry isn't at all affected by the destruction of the Horcruxes in the book; Harry figures out a lot more things in the book, by himself, whereas in the movie Hermione basically leads Harry through each of his discoveries. Harry in the books is smarter than the boy is in the movies!
I really liked the book. It's diverting, and the final book doesn't have the clunky writing that irritated me so much in the first couple.
Book 13: Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children
I was hoping, from the title, that this would be of the Series of Unfortunate Events ilk, but it's not. It's not quite whimsical enough for me, and it gets very dark and violent and creepy very fast, and I only finished it because it was on audiobook unabridged and I was knitting.
So the 'peculiar' children of the title all have circus freak type powers (levitation, fire creation, invisibility, extreme strength) but our narrator's power is so blah and stupid-seeming. This was the opposite of Harry Potter, where Harry realizes a burgeoning specialness and talent as he discovers this new world. So the Peculiars are hunted by a hideous monster breed that, vampire-like, needs to eat the Peculiar's blood to evolve out of their monster-ness. They have pupil-less humanoid helpers hunt down the Peculiars. Our narrator's power is the capacity to see these monsters, who are otherwise invisible. That's it. He doesn't have the power to defeat them - only to see them. And basically the time-loop maker Peculiar and the very pretty fire-making Peculiar seduce him into being their watchdog and he abandons his parents at around age 16.
I think the thing that sucked all the fun out of this story is that the narrator is so practical and knowing - he knows that they're seducing him to be their watch dog, he knows that if he suddenly disappears his parents will be destroyed, he knows all this, says it out loud, and then does all the adventuresome stuff that heroes of more straightforward fantasies stories do anyway.
When I took the day off due to the downpour and the flooding in downtown, I reread Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, what with the movie still in my head. Certain things popped out at me, that were different in the movie - Voldemort's eyes are shown as Ralph Fiennes' pale blue, not red; Harry isn't at all affected by the destruction of the Horcruxes in the book; Harry figures out a lot more things in the book, by himself, whereas in the movie Hermione basically leads Harry through each of his discoveries. Harry in the books is smarter than the boy is in the movies!
I really liked the book. It's diverting, and the final book doesn't have the clunky writing that irritated me so much in the first couple.
Book 13: Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children
I was hoping, from the title, that this would be of the Series of Unfortunate Events ilk, but it's not. It's not quite whimsical enough for me, and it gets very dark and violent and creepy very fast, and I only finished it because it was on audiobook unabridged and I was knitting.
So the 'peculiar' children of the title all have circus freak type powers (levitation, fire creation, invisibility, extreme strength) but our narrator's power is so blah and stupid-seeming. This was the opposite of Harry Potter, where Harry realizes a burgeoning specialness and talent as he discovers this new world. So the Peculiars are hunted by a hideous monster breed that, vampire-like, needs to eat the Peculiar's blood to evolve out of their monster-ness. They have pupil-less humanoid helpers hunt down the Peculiars. Our narrator's power is the capacity to see these monsters, who are otherwise invisible. That's it. He doesn't have the power to defeat them - only to see them. And basically the time-loop maker Peculiar and the very pretty fire-making Peculiar seduce him into being their watchdog and he abandons his parents at around age 16.
I think the thing that sucked all the fun out of this story is that the narrator is so practical and knowing - he knows that they're seducing him to be their watch dog, he knows that if he suddenly disappears his parents will be destroyed, he knows all this, says it out loud, and then does all the adventuresome stuff that heroes of more straightforward fantasies stories do anyway.