Book Review: Pawn (The Blackcoat Rebellion) by Aimée Carter

Ever since Legend, I’ve been experiencing a huge void due to bland and flat dystopian novels. I mean, sure, Under The Never Sky was good, but nothing that really blew my socks off. So, it was back to browsing Amazon for me again, and I stumbled across a book called Pawn. Caught by its interesting premise and the promise of something similar to Legend, I sat down and read the book. What did I think of it? Sit back, relax, and read on as I review Pawn (The Blackcoat Rebellion) by Aimée Carter.

The Setup:

The book takes place in a dystopian future (no duh, Sherlock) when, at 17, you take a test that determines your place in society by labeling you with a number. With this number system, the lowest “scum” of civilization are labeled with a 1 and are forced to work in unfavorable conditions, while those who are granted a 6 get to be politicians and doctors . Our main character is Kitty Doe, a very intelligent and tough 17 year old who unfortunately got a 3 because she’s dyslexic. Stuck in a very unfavorable position and forced to break up with her boyfriend Benji (they both decided it was best for the moment), she suddenly gets offered a chance to become a 7, a label that only the Hart family owns, as they are the leaders of the country. If Kitty agrees, she’ll live the high life as Lila Hart, the Prime Minister’s niece, but will always live under the fear of being discovered and seeing Benji hurt. It also doesn’t help that the Hart family is really twisted and insane, and that Lila’s death is connected to the fact that she began a rebellion. What I like about the setup is the world building, which is very spot-on for a dystopian. Everything that needs to be in this world is clear-cut and easy to understand in the beginning, allowing you to become intrigued by the setting. It also gives enough leeway for further developments of the setting, characters, story, and basically everything else. For example, the fact that Kitty is moving from the less favorable 3 label to the practically impossible 7 allows for juxtaposition between the two aspects of the world, the rich and the poor. This juxtaposition allows you to learn how different and how similar this society is to ours; the cruelty, the separation, the attitudes, the overall atmosphere…it’s pretty brilliant.

The Characters:

What I like about the characters in this story is the fact that, even though they’re technically archetypes of characters we’ve all seen before, they’re still interesting and entertaining nevertheless. The characters all have motivations and reasons for being the way they are, which allowed for noteworthy interactions and I was able to relate to them. First off, Kitty. She’s not especially original; she’s the strong female protagonist who will do anything and everything to protect those she loves. However, she had a level head and was also very intelligent, so I liked her enough. Benji is also a good love interest; he was kind, smart, and really cared about Kitty. Unfortunately, I kind of felt like he was the “damsel of distress” of the entire book, because Kitty was always saving/protecting him from the Hart family. I’m all for a strong female protagonist, but I’m not exactly fond of making one side of the party’s only purpose being motivation for the stronger side’s actions, and Benji falls into this category more than any male character I’ve seen with the exception of Witch Craft Works. And Witch Craft Works was supposed to basically parody the aspect of a “damsel in distress” gender crossover. Again, it’s just something that bugged me. The Hart family is what really kept this book interesting, though. The combination of Daxton, the prime minister, and Augusta, Daxton’s mother, is one of the best villain combinations that I can think of off the back of my head, at least in recent memory. They’re both twisted and psychotic in their own special ways, and added to the themes and morals of the book. My favorite character, though, would probably be Cecila, Lila’s grieving mother. I don’t think that I’ve ever seen another character like her, and cough SPOILERS cough. I’m sorry, I wasn’t aware that allergy season was over; must be the dust. The side characters were nothing truly special either, which is disappointing.

The Story:

The story was probably the best part of Pawn, but before I bring up pacing, there’s something I’d like to bring up: the romance. Unlike most YA books, the romance between Kitty and Benji has already developed and is the sole purpose for all of the events that transpire throughout the book. This means that the story wasn’t bogged down by cliché romance scenes and you smashing your book against the wall because why won’t they just get TOGETHER already?!...which was refreshing, as the book now just serves you straight plot. As for the relationship itself, it’s decent. I liked seeing Benji and Kitty together enough so that I actually cared about the book (if I didn’t, then the book would’ve sucked), but it wasn’t Lux or Clannad worthy. The main thing that kept me addicted to this story, however, was the uncertainty of it. There was always some sort of danger in the air, thanks to Augusta and Daxton, and the book wasn’t very predictable…which is nice. The pacing is also impeccable; it was fast without feeling rushed, and I finished the book very quickly. The story also has some themes concerning morality and how society functions in this dystopian world; should we be free to make our own choices, or let society and some sort of test judge for us? There’re also themes of power, lies, and sincerity that I didn’t expect, so thematically the book is also a success.

The Writing Style/Grammatical Errors:

Don’t have much to say in this section. I liked the writing style; smooth, straight to the point, and has an attitude. No grammatical errors to speak of.

Final Judgment:

Overall, Pawn is an enjoyable read with an exceptional story, good characters, a fantastic world, and a fitting writing style. I’d recommend it if you’re bored of the average, need a good book, or have some extra time to kill. I give Pawn a 3.5 out of 5 stars, and a recommendation to read it, but don’t put it on the top of your reading list. But, like always, it is up to you to decide your own opinions.
ScoreCard: 

Further Recommendations:

Landry Park

This book brings up similar themes and ideologies, but isn’t as fast-paced and is focused more on character. Give it a read if you want a slower but similar book.

Legend

I’ve recommended this book enough times, so you know the drill; this book is amazing, you should read it.

The next review will be on an anime, and it won’t come out until I come back from camp. Here’s the hint: Akiyuki Shimbo’s just being Akiyuki Shimbo. See you then!

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Update 6-23-14: Change in Review

The next review will be on a book called Pawn: The Blackcoat Rebellion. I'm going to work on it tomorrow. See you then!

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Update 6-1-14: Allegiant Parts 1 and 2

According to Rotten Tomatoes, Allegiant, the final book in the Divergent trilogy, will have a movie adaptation that is split into two parts: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/allegiant_part_1/

Oh, Hollywood...you greedy and money-loving people. There is no reason for this at all! IWhy did Breaking Dawn need a second half? Why does Mockingjay need a second half? Why is the Hobbit being elongated into three 3-hour movies? Finally, why do you feel the need to break Allegiant into two parts? I know it's because you want money and want to milk every franchise you can. There are people who are going to willingly buy both halves to the finales of all these franchises. But, I ask you...why is it necessary? There's a reason why the books themselves weren't split into two parts, so why do you feel the need to split the book into two parts? I'm getting sick and tired of being excited for a book adaptation and then discovering that the finale is being split into two parts, and that I'll have to wait even longer to actually continue the darn thing. 

Ah, well. Whatever the case, I guess I'll be watching both parts. 

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Anohana Ending Rant

DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN ANOHANA!

Okay, so now that those who don’t mind spoilers or who have already seen the show are the only ones present, let’s talk about Anohana’s ending. I’m going to be perfectly honest; the ending started off perfectly. You know that scene where Menma left the notes for all of her friends, and they all started crying? That was absolutely fine! It was emotional, didn’t feel contrived or manipulative, and it did have me crying as well.

Then, suddenly, out of the blue, everyone could see Menma and all continually shouted about how much they cared about her. This is where my reaction turned from pure sadness to this:

They ruined it! I’m sorry, but this felt so contrived and out of left field to me! I know that a lot of people view this scene as the pinnacle of sorrow, an ending that pulls at your heartstrings and won’t ever let go. Well, the first part did! Menma should’ve just disappeared after everyone read the notes! It would’ve been a fantastic ending! The fact that everyone could suddenly see Menma right before she disappeared…it didn’t feel natural, it’s clichéd, contrived, and tried so very hard to manipulate your emotions that I felt like smashing my computer’s screen in. Now, normally, this wouldn’t bother me too much, but the reason why it angers me in this case is because it is the ending to a series that consistently dodged clichés, contrived moments, and made everything feel genuine. There were moments in the series where I felt like crying because of the hardships of these characters that I came to care for, and seeing them break down after all this emotional stress did cause me to shed a tear on multiple occasions. This ending, however, didn’t feel natural; it felt like the creators were trying to make the ending as happy as possible, which ironically misses the point of the show entirely.One of the show’s main themes is to accept the deaths of those you love and eventually move on, and forgive yourself for all the mistakes that you’ve made. The entire reason Menma came back in the first place was to help everyone move on by causing him or her to relive those harsh memories and get the group back together to help each other heal. If Menma had left without having everyone see her, then this would’ve made the theme appear a lot stronger and more relevant to the overall story. But, noooooooooooooooo; the show actually decided to take the easy route, which, might I remind you, it never did until now, and sugar coated the entire thing. It also caused the entire anime, which I was going to review as one of my new all-time favorites, to not make it into my top ten because of its unsatisfying ending. Call me a heartless and terrible person, but I just feel like the ending contradicted the entire show.

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Movie Review: The Fault in Our Stars

I always feel anxious whenever I hear that one of my favorite books is receiving a movie adaptation. On one hand, I’m excited about that book getting more popularity due to movies being a more prevalent medium; but on the other hand…I am always afraid that the adaptation will suck, and due to its newfound popularity, the general public will have a low opinion of it. For example, the adaptation of The Mortal Instruments: City of Boneswas admittedly, just an adaptation made for the fans. If you weren’t a fan, then you would be completely lost throughout the entire movie. So, when I heard that The Fault in Our Stars, my second favorite John Green book after Looking For Alaska, was receiving an adaptation, I felt exactly the same way. The trailers didn’t really help my case, either; they honestly looked rather sappy and unappealing. Then I saw the movie. Did it exceed my expectations, or was the fault in this movie’s stars too blatant? Sit back, relax, and read on as I review the movie adaptation of The Fault in Our Stars.

The Setup: The Fault In Our Stars takes place in modern Indianapolis, focusing on a cancer-stricken teen named Hazel. She begins this story as a depressed individual, whose only real concern is the fact that she’s going to die soon and doesn’t view life as valuable anymore. Of course, her concerned parents get her involved in a Cancer Support Group, which she initially despises. Then she meets Augustus Waters, and 18-year-old cancer survivor accompanying his nearly blind friend Isaac in the support group. From there, a romance blooms, and Hazel learns that her own little infinity on this planet is worth living after all.

The story follows two cancer patients that fall in love

The Characters: TFIOS is a character piece, through and through. Luckily, these characters are some of my favorites in existence, and the actors portrayed them rather perfectly. Shailene Woodley was a perfect Hazel, showcasing the character's development from a depressed cancer patient to one who truly cared about making every second matter wonderfully. She did her job, and truly impressed me. Then, Ansel Elgort as Augustus. I'll be honest, I was a little iffy towards his performance at first, but then he grew on me, and wowed me with his portrayal as Augustus. The side characters were also well written, with Hazel's parents being supportive, Isaac being the comic relief character, and the rest feeling genuinely invested into their roles. Yeah, I know that I sound like a fangirl giving blind praise, but there's nothing that bad to say in my opinion. The acting in this movie was just that good, and deserves its praise. Though, I can see someone making the argument that the character motivations and the romance are kind of rushed, and, yeah, they kind of are at times. Though, these moments are few and far between, so I can't complain about them too much. 

From left to right: Augustus, Isaac, Hazel

The Story: What I especially like about the story of TFIOS is the realism it provides. The book isn’t some sappy love story wish-fulfillment paranormal romance novel; it tackles depression and cancer, and shows how it affects the lives of everyone who cares about the patient. The story could’ve easily gone the easy route and just used the cancer aspect as a backdrop for drama when the plot chose it to be, but it doesn’t. The story always acknowledges the fact that cancer is something that never truly leaves you, at least not physically; emotionally, you have been scarred, your family members have been scarred and always fear the worst, and finally, your friends either abandon you because they “can’t deal with the pain” or stay by your side through the end. Each of these topics are explored and play their own part in the movie, which in all honesty is what the movie truly needed to nail as hard as the book did. I would also like to point out that the title of the movie, “The Fault In Our Stars”, also has to do with cancer. The “Stars” represents the perfect life that Hazel and Augustus would’ve lived together, but the “Fault” represents the cancer that is a detriment to their happiness.

The movie tackles issues concerning cancer and its impact on those around the patient

The Presentation: The movie is fairly standard when it comes to presentation. Everything looks warm and "watered-down" to an extent; the colors mostly consist of browns, yellows, mellow greens, and  lighter blues. It gives the film a bit of a rustic feel, which in all honestly I thought fit the tone well. My favorite part about the presentation, however, is how the movie displays text messages. I couldn't find any pictures of it online (curse you, Google Images), but it's noticeable and a nice quirk. The music was average; I don't really remember it.

The presentation is fairly average

Final Judgment: Watching TFIOS reminded me of why I love good romance stories, and how those stories can come to life through multiple mediums. While I still think that the book is better, the movie shines bright among a slew of mediocre YA adaptations, with a sense of wit and a true soul. It may also make you cry your eyes out, but that depends on the strength of your heart. I give the TFIOS movie adaptation a 4 out of 5 stars, and a recommendation to watch it. But, like always, it is up to you to decide your own opinions.

ScoreCard: 

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Anime Review: Anohana - The Flower That We Saw That Day

As I stated in my Waiting In The Summer review, every once in a while I like to take a break and watch a nice, heartwarming/heartbreaking anime instead of a fast-paced action show. Anohana is a rather famous anime within the “emotional” genre of anime, so I knew that I would have to check it out eventually; also, considering how much I liked Waiting In The Summer (both anime were directed by Tatsuyuki Nagai), I went into Anohana with some relatively high expectations. Okay, I wasn’t expecting it to be a masterpiece, but I did expect it to somehow move me emotionally. So, in the end, did Anohana do its job? Sit back, relax, and read on as I review Anohana - The Flower We Saw That Day.

The Setup:

There was once a group of friends called the “Super Peace Busters!”, consisting of all of our main characters (their nicknames are within parenthesis): Jinta (Jintan), Meiko (Menma), Naruko (Anaru), Astumu (Yukiatsu), Chiriko (Tsuruko), and Tetsudo (Poppo). This group of friends seemed inseparable until one friend, Menma, died tragically by falling into a river, hitting her head, and drowning. This event caused the group to drift apart, with each person dealing with their grief in different fashions. The main character focused on is Jinta, who became a withdrawn hikikomori (a reclusive person who seeks isolation from others, sometimes going to the extremes of never leaving their rooms) following the death of Menma. One day, an older ghost of Menma visits him and asks him to grant her wish, and that the Super Peace Busters had to get back together in order to do so. The only problem is the fact that Menma doesn’t remember her wish; so the characters spend the anime trying to figure out what it is.

In Anohana, the ghost of Menma comes back from the dead, asking Jinta to grant her wish

The Characters:

The characters are hands-down the best part of the entire show, which is fantastic because the character section is what this show really needed to nail; if the show hadn’t, then Anohana would’ve been awful. Firstly, Jinta is a great main character. He was one of the only characters that I liked straight away, because he seemed the most tragic and the easiest to sympathize with. I mean, he was so distraught by Menma’s death that he became withdrawn and isolated himself from the rest of the world. I’m sure that there are some people out there who would criticize him for being weak in this case, but this trait just made him all the more likable to me because it showed how much he truly cares about those close to him, which is an admirable trait. Next, we have the ghost girl herself, Menma. She was a little irritating at first, but by the end of the first episode I grew to like her for her innocent nature and naïve attitude. I did feel like she was a little too moe for my tastes, but considering that she died as a child, there’s actually a pretty good reason for this cute and childlike persona (which is more than I can say than for most moe characters). Next, there’s Naruko, the trademark tsundere of the group. I didn’t like her very much at first; but she grew on me and I came to care for her by the end of the second episode. Next, there’s Yukiatsu, my least favorite character of the bunch. I don’t want to spoil anything, but let’s just say that he’s…disturbed…but honestly, his reasoning is understandable and while I didn’t particularly care for him, I didn’t hate him. Next, there’s Tsuruko, a quiet intellect whose attitude I didn’t like at first, but again, she grew on me. Finally, there’s Poppo, who is the other character that I liked straight away. I just really liked his passion for practically everything, and seemed to be the only upbeat character that was actually alive, and got quite a few laughs out of me. Something I would like to point out about this entire cast is the fact that they all felt human to me, and the way that most were initially presented as unlikable further solidifies this statement. The show makes it clear that these characters are flawed human beings, with selfish desires that sometimes get in the way of their actions, and the different ways that they dealt with the death of Menma. This further ties into how the characters have each grown up since their “Super Peace Busters!” days, but in reality they haven’t truly changed; the only aspect that truly changed about each of them were the ways that Menma’s death affected them, and those changes lead them to grow apart and find different ways to cope. The side characters are also fantastic, from Menma’s mother to Jinta’s father to Naruko’s friends (who I wanted to punch in the face every time they came on screen).

From left to right to left again: Tsuruko (girl with glasses), Jinta (red shirt), Naruko (pigtails), Menma (gray hair), Yukiatsu (shirt and tie), Poppo (hawaiian shirt)

The Story:

Normally in slice of life shows like this, there is no prevalent story that ties everything together to create a flowing narrative. This applies to Clannad, Waiting In The Summer, Kanon 2006, Nisekoi (though to a much lesser extent in this particular show), and most others. Anohana, on the other hand, does have a story: finding and granting Menma’s wish. This made room for a lot of emotional development on the character front, as it allowed each character to interact with each other and learn more about the various ways that they reacted to Menma’s death. The pacing was also pretty top notch, but the show did seem to favor some characters over others. While that’s not technically a flaw it did leave me slightly disappointed. Speaking of disappointing, the ending. I unfortunately can’t go into detail about the ending in this review, so in order to express my true thoughts on it, I created a separate blog post that you can read if you’ve already seen the show or just don’t care about spoilers. To read that post, click here.

The story allows us to look into each character's past and how they dealt with the death of Menma

The Animation/Sound:

The presentation of Anohana is overall above average. The animation is pretty standard A-1 Pictures fare, with great coloring, beautiful backgrounds, fluid animation, and nice character designs. There were some moments where you could see that the animators cut some corners, like some weird shots of characters and the fact that the characters aren’t very detailed. Also, and this can be considered nitpicking, but sometimes the character’s hair looked rather unnatural to me. For example, whenever Naruko’s pigtails moved, it looked kind of like chunks of color rather than actual hair, and it bugged me. This is something that I would normally overlook except for the fact that Waiting In The Summer had this exact same animation quirk, and it didn’t bother me nearly as much as it did in Anohana. Maybe it’s just because, despite all their other faults, J.C. Staff really knows how to animate. I don’t know, sometimes I’m a little picky, and it probably won’t bother people as much as it did me. As for the soundtrack, the pieces were nice to listen to during the show, with the standout songs being the ending theme “Secret Base”, and a song called “Last Train Home”, which both played when the feels hit the hardest. Finally, there is no English dub, but fear not, young grasshoppers; Sensei approves of the Japanese dub, as all the performances are spot-on with the best being Menma’s voice actress.

Last Train Home: