Thoughts on starting the next book

I'm done being in between books, so, evidently, I've just started another. I'm only a few pages in, but that's still enough to determine whether or not this is going to be worth the read.

We're not supposed to judge a book by its cover, but we all do it anyway. This book is called The Amulet of Samarkand by Jonathan Stroud. It's the first book in The Bartimaeus Trilogy. Its got a shiny cover with a smirking goblin-like creature holding a gold amulet, in case you were wondering. Obviously, it's a fantasy. I could tell from first glance it was going to be high fantasy, but had no idea about the plot.

It's about an eleven year old magician's apprentice who was humiliated by this awesome magician who's apparently ruthless and ambitious. The boy teaches himself spells way beyond his years because he seeks revenge. (Already feeling inclined to find out what this guy did to this poor kid.) So the eleven year old, Nathaniel, summons Bartimaeus, a five thousand year old djinni, to assist him.

I didn't really know what to expect. After reading the first few pages, I found out pretty quickly that the book takes a action-now-explain-magical-stuff-and-reasons-behind-everything-that-is-happening-that-would-be-really-helpful-to-know-later kind of approach. I couldn't decided whether to give up and call it a night after I went through pages having no idea what was going on or continue to read to find out why it feels like the author skipped the exposition and went to the beginning of climbing action immediately then back to exposition(read it and you'll know what I mean).

Overall, It seems a little intimidating at first; you're placed in a high-action situation with magic spells and little explanation as to what's going on. However, Once you read further, you start to see how the pieces fit together and everything becomes slightly less confusing. So I've decided to let curiosity get the best of me and continue to read the book. Hopefully things will be explained in the next chapter.

So Far Not Impressed

I decided to go out of my typical reading bubble and venture into some romance. I decided to read the bestselling book The Fault In Our Stars by John Green. This was a big step for me, given I typically read fantasy adventure books with magic and epic battle. I grew tired of normal fiction long ago, (Sorry Cami, but I have no idea why you love fluffy romance novels, I mean, where is the magic and epic journey?) and I never was one for romance. They weren't my thing.

But  just had to read The Fault In Our Stars. So many people read it and loved it, and there was a movie made about it, so why not? It's bound to be good.

That was an overstatement.

Now, 'm not hating on the book or anything, I'm not saying it's utterly terrible. I'm just saying I'm done reading it. I believe I'm on chapter four? I'm sure that's too soon to make a proper judgment, but I'm so far not impressed. I honestly do not know what makes this story so appealing to young adults like myself.

I like conflict, especially being a fan of action-packed fantasy novels, and , well, after reading the first couple chapters, I couldn't find any. I saw room for potential conflict, but that was as close as I got to being interested. Overall, the book had a slow start in my opinion. I had to force myself past the second chapter.

The dialogue was pretty good, I'll admit. But I can't see much of a plot developing. I know that problems do occur, given the spoilers explained by some of my friends, but in the second chapter it's just a date used for character development. I don't know about you, but some pretty nice character development happens during conflict. I know I'm probably being a bit nit-picky here, but I'm done reading. I want conflict.

There are some interesting ideas and new perspectives on life introduced, which I thought was cool. Don't get me wrong, the book isn't bad, I just don't think it has enough action. It's very slow paced in my opinion, and, in conclusion, wasn't exactly what I expected.