This month's CSFF Blog Tour features The Realms Thereunder, the new fantasy novel by Ross Lawhead, and first in The Ancient Earth trilogy.
Niece #1, fourteen years old this week, got to the book first after it arrived in the mail, and she devoured it inside of twenty-four hours. I thought she composed a pretty good outline in her notes, so she has the privilege of essentially writing my first post of the tour. These notes were composed as she read:
1) Three parallel storylines--three people (Daniel Tully, Freya Reynolds, Alex Simpson) that know a very strange, unusual secret no one can know because no one would believe.When I asked her if she would like to expand on her original thoughts, she said, "I know my notes are pretty general, but I was just writing the basic feeling the book gave me, not noting the structure or grammar or anything like that. Just my general impressions. Basically, I'm reading from the perspective of a 14-year-old kid, not from someone reviewing the book, just as a form of entertainment for me. And it is an excellent story!"
2) Story goes back and forth, past and present, sometimes that can be confusing, but in this case it's just plain good storytelling.
3) Vocab is a bit confusing at moments (casual dialogue; "toilet" means "bathroom" -- took me a minute), but the setting is Great Britain.
4) Fourth storyline -- (Robin Ploughwright) pretty sure he's a bad guy?
5) Some funny parts -- good!
6) Names are a little weird, but cool, and (they) fit the story.
7) Adventurous and interesting
8) A little confusing in the parts that deal with Freya
9) The description of the days Daniel spends at the wood-burner's hut is a little dull
10) Overall, though, an interesting read. I'd like to read the next two (books) as well.
So, folks, there ya have it. More about my grownup but no less enthusiastic response in the following two days.
Meantime, check out these stops of the tour for other perspectives:
Gillian Adams
Red Bissell
Keanan Brand
Beckie Burnham
Melissa Carswell
Jeff Chapman
CSFF Blog Tour
Theresa Dunlap
Emmalyn Edwards
April Erwin
Victor Gentile
Tori Greene
Nikole Hahn
Ryan Heart
Bruce Hennigan
Timothy Hicks
Christopher Hopper
Jason Joyner
Carol Keen
Krystine Kercher
Rebekah Loper
Marzabeth
Shannon McDermott
Rebecca LuElla Miller
Mirriam Neal
Eve Nielsen
Nissa
John W. Otte
Donita K. Paul
Joan Nienhuis
Crista Richey
Sarah Sawyer
Chawna Schroeder
Kathleen Smith
Donna Swanson
Rachel Starr Thomson
Steve Trower
Fred Warren
Dona Watson
Nicole White
Rachel Wyant
11 comments:
Very good assessment of the book by your niece. (Wish I could get one of my nieces to do that for me.)
I'm visiting on the blog tour and in accordance with something I wrote on my blog post, I am hiding an armadillo named Samwise on your blog.
Nice post. I like the list.
Nissa -- (putting on my hunting cap) Where's that wascally wabbit? I mean, awmadillo? (laugh) I'll be heading over to your blog sometime today.
Bruce -- I thought it was a good list, too, especially handy since my own notes weren't coming together in a coherent post. Gotta get more sleep!
I think it's great you got a different perspective on this since the author wanted this to be young adult/teen genre and it's nice to get their idea on things.
Love and Hugs ~ Kat
Keanan, you might get the most out of CSFF books of anyone on the tour. Love the fact that you involve your family. I thought your niece made some astute observations.
And I think we're going to have to wait a day to find out about all these little hidden creatures Nissa is spreading around. Yes, I've stumbled upon others in my tour of the tour participants. Yours is the only armadillo, though--so far.
What fun!
Becky
Great list! I love that you involve younger people in writing your blog posts! Keep inspiring them! :)
Kat and Becky -- it helps that we're a family of bibliophiles, and have more books stacked in boxes that we haven't yet unpacked some folks will read in a lifetime!
Julie -- That's my job! :)
Great outline! It put my feelings of the book in concise order. :)
Glad to have a teenage perspective! Good thought to include her!
That pesky British English! (Or as we like to call it, 'English') ;)
Welcome to my world, Keenan's niece!
I had to put off my husband reading it, so that I could get it for the tour... but now I wish I had him read it first so that I could share his thoughts. He's really looking forward to it.
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