BOOK / podcast / script reviews

As the beautiful month of May rolls around, the book/podcast/script column is back for another set of reviews from our previous or current reads. Like last month, I only have a set of two script reviews, but once again, they are analyzed to a fairly large extent and have been tackled despite the barrier of time, language, and societal standards that stand between now and then. I hope these plays intrigue you all once again, Scroll readers, and enjoy your time perusing our monthly column.

-Sean Glover; Photojournalist and Writer

Podcast Reviews

If you’ve been reading my column for a while, you ought to know that I am obsessed with true crime. (In fact, both of my reviews from last month were solely true crime podcasts. . .) However, for this month I have stepped slightly out of my comfort zone and tried some new podcast genres! For this month, I first have a scientific podcast called Medical Mysteries, which discusses odd and abnormal--and often undiagnosable--medical phenomena. For my second podcast, I am introducing a new type of podcast: a narrated reading of Pride and Prejudice, as performed by Ballarat National Theater. I hope you all find these as fascinating as I did!

As I mentioned, this book is a fairytale retelling of The 12 Dancing Princesses, written by the Brothers Grimm. Though I knew the general storyline of this fairytale, it turns out I had no idea how close this book is to the original story until I actually looked it up. If you want to check it out, you can find it here.

I’ll admit that when I first picked up this book, I had absolutely no idea how eerie and twisted this tale would be. Author Erin A. Craig basically took the “spook” factor of the original Grimm story, and turned it up to ten. As mentioned earlier, the main character, Annaleigh, is one of twelve total sisters who, one by one, keep dying off due to mysterious circumstances. Though the rest of Annaleigh’s family simply wants to forget about each death as it happens, Annaleigh can’t help feeling like there’s something more at play. And when Annaleigh’s youngest sister begins drawing mysterious and disturbing scenes in her sketchbook, which Annaleigh soon discovers, she realizes that someone--or something--may be targeting the sisters. She begins to realize. . . their family may be cursed.

However, Annaleigh’s sisters begin to step out of their grief-stricken shells when a mysterious cave is discovered on the manor’s grounds that can transport the sisters to a glittering lake-side mansion, where they can dance at balls all night without a care in the world. (If you read the "Brothers Grimm" story. . . are you detecting the similarities?) Annaleigh seems to be the only sister unnerved by the entire spectacle; she watches helplessly as her siblings grow more fatigued by the day, getting no sleep due to their restless nights. And when a mysterious stranger shows up at the manor, Annaleigh seeks his help in solving the mystery of the curse, and how to break it.

I think what I loved most about this story was the atmosphere of the entire novel. (To be fair, that seems to always be my favorite thing about YA books. . .) The book takes place on a small island with towering, rocky cliffs, and small beaches. Within a rowing distance lies another island, where you can stroll through the marketplace. The entire tone of the story can only be described as dark, as I accounted for in last month's partial review. Like, I’m picturing the towering manor as always being shaded by a deep cover of clouds, and ocean waves battering the cliffs through the night. It must be my absolute favorite thing about a novel when it is so easy to picture a story like that. Not only this, but as the story goes on, you can almost construct a sort of map of the enormous manor, which Annaleigh calls her home. I can almost see the picturesque dining room, beautifully decorated Blue Room, and Annaleigh’s neat chambers. Craig artfully created a world that was oh-so-perfectly situated for the basis of a horror story.

Secondly, the characters of this story were amazingly written. While I’ll admit that all 12 sister’s names were a bit difficult to remember at first, I eventually sort of got the hang of who was who. I think a very important thing about these characters was the dynamics between them all. Annaleigh had a unique relationship with every single one of her sisters and, though there were so many characters to keep track of, the special bond between each and every one of them was apparent and a great contribution to the story. Not only this, but every one of them had character development! To see each character change and mature over the story was proof of Craig’s thorough writing. Also, what is a YA fantasy novel without a little romance? I loved how the romance between the main character and love interest was subtle, and didn’t take over the whole plotline. I think many of us can agree that, sometimes, when a romance takes over an entire story, it can ruin the entire plot.

Next, let's talk about Erin A Craig’s writing. *slow round of applause*

I can clearly tell that this genre is basically meant for Craig’s writing. The suspense and drama that she was able to craft always made me get the “spooky” feeling when reading (which must mean that her writing is amazing!). Unfortunately, however, I really only had time to read this book right before I went to bed. (Terrible idea, really.) For many of us, watching a scary movie will always frighten us, especially right before bed, though books don’t always have that same effect. I will definitely caution you before reading this, however. The scenes that Craig creates not only develop mystery, but readers can almost sense the feeling that something is off. Without explicitly stating anything, Craig is able to create the feeling of eerie, unsettling, and sinister moods, which were apparent through her writing.

Lastly, I want to talk about the ending. While this is a spoiler-free review, there are some things that I’d like to touch on that affected my overall rating. Now, from reading the Goodreads reviews (linked below), it was apparently quite obvious from the beginning who the antagonist was (AKA the “curse setter”). Well, maybe I’m just clueless, but I honestly cannot say the same for myself. The ending, which revealed the meaning and person/thing behind the curse, seemed to totally come out of the blue for me, which made the ending all the more shocking and dramatic, of course.

The climax of this novel was. . . intense. It was horror-filled, spooktastic, and altogether rattling. There was a total shock factor that really blew me away at the end (which I’m obviously not going to reveal), but it really made me eager to learn more. As a reader, however, the climax was almost frustrating (but in a good way?). I won’t reveal too much, but the entire last couple of chapters were wonderfully written to get the readers more attached to the characters and their means. I think this is how readers begin to really “root” for Annaleigh, and personally want her to break the curse herself, which I think is a great writing strategy on Craig’s part.

My one biggest complaint about this story would have to be the epilogue. As a general rule, I don’t really care for epilogues when they are included in books. They usually try to create an ending that doesn’t fit what I would’ve pictured or, even worse, they try to wrap up big storylines in the last couple of pages of the epilogue. Unfortunately, this book was the latter. In this case, what ruined the ending for me was the sudden and almost random finish to two character’s relationships. I suspect that this was the author’s attempt to create a “happy ending” for her readers, and though I love the happy ending as much as any other person, it felt too rushed. It would have been much better done if it had happened slowly, and not on the literal last page of the book, in my opinion.

All-in-all, however, I definitely recommend this book! If you love atmospheric, dark stories, this certainly would be the YA novel for you. (Though it doesn’t really fit the warm spring weather we’ve been having here lately. . .)

See the Goodreads review here.

Though Laia and Elias live very different lives, it seems as though their destinies are intertwined. They soon begin to realize that the decisions they make may change the future of the Empire itself.

So far, I am in love with this book. It is usually very difficult for authors to world-build in a way that is actually engaging to readers while being still in-depth, but Tahir does this amazingly. The Empire is based on Ancient Rome, with the soldiers governing all citizens’ ways of life. This brutal society along with the harsh leadership makes for an intense and thrilling story, while the main characters attempt at rebelling, with their lives on the line.

Next month, I’ll post the updates with the full review! Stay tuned!

Yeah, sure, it’s still hilarious to make fun of two fourteen-year-olds in the 1500s falling so much in love that they literally die over it, but there is a sense of depth that people don’t look far enough to see into the two teenager’s relationship. Their relationship was one where each of them was happy and not stressed over being with the other, as well as one of bravery, where Romeo was willing to get killed to go back to Verona and see Juliet, and Juliet was willing to fake her own death in order to marry Romeo.

On the other hand, even though the love is pure between these two, their actions and faults lead them to the downward spiral that is the events of the play. Both Romeo and Juliet are very selfish and do not take their own feelings or other’s feelings into consideration when the world changes around them. All they want in the world is each other. This becomes the cause of Mercutio and Tybalt’s death, which the kids barely bat an eye at. This series of events give us a good lesson regarding what we should consider when we fall in love with someone we want to spend the rest of our lives with. Romeo and Juliet get so caught up in their own small, minuscule bubble together, that they end up pushing away all the problems between their two families and die because of it. What we learn is that we still have to take our circumstances into consideration when all we want to be involved with is someone else.

Now, if Romeo and Juliet’s circumstances were different, and there was no conflict arising from them being in love, this would be the perfect love story. They could spend their whole lives together and be perfectly fine. However, the whole point of this story is to show that they are “star-crossed lovers” and that the world is railing against them. Everything in the world was telling them to not be together, but that gave them even more of a reason to do so.

Now, all signs point to this story having a higher rating than I’ve given it so far; however, even though there is an amazing mantle underneath the story’s crust, the crust itself is not executed as well as some other Shakespearean plays I have read. Every character has a motive, but each time they try to reveal it or progress that certain motive into action, they come off as very one-dimensional and almost as if they are not actual people. Romeo, for example, is depressed and devastated over losing Rosaline, his last girlfriend (this dude is two years younger than me and had two girlfriends in the span of a week? I’m impressed), but then completely forgets Rosaline ever existed once he meets Juliet. Not that it wasn’t good character development for him to move on from something that brought him down, but there didn’t seem to be much inner turmoil going from one situation to the other.

Overall, this play is a very mixed pot-- it has some amazing qualities and life lessons that stay with you forever, but the plot and characters that develop those lessons are not very relatable (except for Benvolio, you go dude!). Whether it is an appealing read or one that makes you want to claw your eyes out, it is a must-read for anyone who studies literature out there. The language in it is a significant part of history, and it is also just funny to bite your thumb at someone instead of flipping them off.

So far, the play has taken off much quicker than I thought it would, but it may just be the illusion from writing on paper to action on the stage, which can be taken into account for any script, since they are primarily made to be shows performed instead of novels read. This show, in particular, is definitely one that I would have to see on stage before I read the script, but I unfortunately already made that mistake, and no theatre company in a thirty-mile radius of me has decided to do it this season. Either way, the story becomes quickly fast-paced, as I can already imagine there will be a lot happening in the second half of the play.

A reason why I may also feel like this is because the characters are quickly developed in order to establish their personality, motives, relationships, and willingness to take a step too far. For example, in the first couple of scenes, you meet Lady Macbeth. You can already tell that she’s the catalyst to all of Macbeth’s inner demons, and she’ll stop at nothing to gain as much power as she can. This connection with Lady Macbeth also makes you realize how easily Macbeth is controlled by fate and how others choose it for him. All the three witches had to do was plant the seed in his mind that he was the rightful heir to the Scottish throne, and Macbeth spiraled out of control from there.

Besides the intensity of the character development and the speed at which the play’s events unfold, something that also caught my interest was the annotated version of my script, due to it being a new copy published by Penguin Books. If you’re not familiar with the specific style of these scripts, it’s formatted in a way where the line number is footnoted at the bottom of the page, listing definitions of old, fancy, Shakespearean terms or simply just suggests a simpler phrase for another old, fancy, Shakespearean saying. This helps the reader (especially if you’re insanely dense like me) comprehend all of the confusing text that a forty-two-year-old poet thought would be necessary to add in order to impress Queen Elizabeth I. Admittedly, I’ve found myself rereading the same line and looking down at the definition three times to find out what one sentence meant.

So far, the Scottish play gets a pretty generous rating in my eyes. I still have yet to read the other third of the story that I know includes some juicy, action-packed scenes, but when it comes to Shakespeare, you definitely have to take your time to read it thoroughly. That is-- unless you have seen the play previously or have been studying it for a class. In that case, you have a nice stepping stone to help you out. Either way, it is definitely a script I recommend reading and analyzing.

Thank you again for tuning in on my monthly script reviews, and enjoy your time on The Scroll.