dimitris-danos

** spoiler alert ** I found this book a while back at a thrift store for two bucks. The back cover was mildly interesting & it seemed long enough to keep me entertained for a while. I like fantasy books, so I figured I'd get it & give it a shot. Besides, it was only two bucks. There's pretty much 4 parts to this book. Before the school, during the school, after the school, & the adventure. It started out well enough. I liked the way it was written & it kept a good pace. There was a nice little twist which lead into the plot & kept you interested right off of the bat. Warnings! Spoilers spotted below! But then it...plateaued. Flat-lined. Once the school came into play, the book just got boring. There was nothing interesting going on, no school-time adventures, nothing. Granted, the main character is one of those top-of-his-class student types, they all are at this school. Which makes this whole part of the book very, very boring. They do nothing but study. At one point, all of the students get separated into groups based on their abilities. Once that happens, all of the groups just split off & do their own thing. So, now, it's just pages & pages of studying, drinking, & sex. There's only one entertaining part that happens while they're at this school. Time freezes & something from another dimension comes & kills one of the non-important students. But that happens kind of early on & any excitement caused by this quickly vanishes. So ok. I'm gonna take a break & tell you guys something about the characters. They're all different people, but in a way they're all the same. There's nothing exceptional about any of them. There's a slutty girl, a "bad boy", a weird quiet girl, a plain as can be main character, a kind of dumb one, & the guy that everyone wants to get with. So there's nothing special going on there. They're all miserable people. The only one that really has an actual reason to be miserable is the weird quiet girl. Unless I totally missed something in that whole boring-ass chunk of the book where they do nothing but study & drink. But I don't think I did. Anyway. You'd think it would pick up once they're out of the school, right? What are they going to do with their magical skills? What kind of exciting jobs are they going get? Adventures & quests ahead! Right? Nope. Just more drinking & sex. But this time, there's an air of self-loathing thrown in. The main character & the quiet girl have been a couple for a while now. But, that gets all screwed up when the main guy decides to have a threesome with the slutty girl & the man-whore. Which, I thought was hilarious in a way. At least now the main guy has a reason to be miserable. So. After pages & pages of this crap, the "bad boy" shows up with the promise of adventure (finally)! He's got a magical trinket that lets them go to other dimensions, woo! He wants everyone to come with him on this journey, yeah! It'll be awesome! Adventure time, right? Nope. Now there's pages & pages of them getting ready & doing research for the journey & doing more drinking. Only the location has changed. The only thing that really happens is that the quiet girl has sex with the "bad boy" to get back at the main guy, & he walks in on them. I thought that was funny, too. After all of that, you're well over halfway done with the book, & they haven't even gotten to their knock-off Narnia yet. When they finally get there, there's not much going on. The slutty girl gets violently ill whenever they jump dimensions. The main guy calls the "bad boy" a douche bag & that's about it. They eventually get into an adventure, some locals helps them go somewhere. There's fights. Some magic. People get hurt. Main guy & quiet girl start to work things out. There's a huge battle, which really just consists of them trying to run away. They finally get to the "boss battle" & there's a not-so-surprising twist as to who it is they're fighting. The fight that goes on after is mildly entertaining. The guy that their fighting likes to eat human flesh, so he eats the "bad boy's" hands. They all get their asses kicked. Quiet girl dies trying to save them all. Main guy taps into some kind of dormant power & they win. After the adventure, they all get separated. Main guy spends years in knock-off Narnia, finally gets back home, & gets a desk job somewhere. Last chapters end with the remaining characters showing up to his work, with a new not-explained-at-all character asking him to go back with them to knock-off Narnia. He agrees. End. Dear God, after all of that, there's a second book. So. In a nutshell, the characters are nothing special, they're all miserable self-loathing dicks who do nothing but drink & have sex, & that don't develop at all. The school & after school parts are so incredibly boring, I'm surprised that I was able to get through them at all, & those parts consist of over half of the book. That's a lot of crap to get through for a very sub par "adventure" that only lasts a handful of chapters. Maybe I missed the whole point of this book. Maybe the character development was too subtle for me to pick up on. Maybe I just wanted to finish the damn thing so bad, so I could read something else, that I missed all of that. I doubt it. I'm not saying that it's the worst book that I've ever read, 'cause trust me, it's not. I was entertained a parts & I did keep reading it. Though, I don't think it was the story that kept me drawn in. I believe it was the hope that something horrible would happen to the characters that got me through it.

2023-07-30 18:40