Christina FarleyBesprekingen
Auteur van Gilded
Besprekingen
Gilded door Christina Farley
Eighteen-year-old Aria Hale is the daughter of the inventor of the process. She loves her job and is very good at it. So all hopes rest on her to find the cure. But one night the lab is ransacked and her dad is kidnapped, leaving her no other option than traveling in her ennemis’ dreams to find what happened to him.
The Dream Heist is a dangerous adventure full of mystery. If you loved the movie Inception, you will love this novel. I was greatly impressed by the world created by Christina Farley. Aria is a strong female character that has to deal with a lot of unexpected events to try to save her family's life. If you love thrillers with a little bit of science fiction and romance, you will definitely enjoy it.
Eighteen year old Aria loves her job at her father's dream therapy company where she enters dementia patients' dreams to save their memories. But when their lab is ransacked, two technicians are murdered, and her father is kidnapped, everything changes for her. Determined to find her father, Aria and her friends embark on a harrowing hunt across continents using the dreams of their enemies to guide them. But this dangerous journey plunges her into a world she never bargained for: deception, intrigue, even love. As she races to save her father and hunt down her enemies, she soon realizes she's in fact the one being hunted. And her dreams are the greatest danger of all.
I really liked the idea of this book! I mean being able to enter into people's dreams and try to save memories seems pretty cool. I honestly got some Inception vibes with them entering into the Dreamscape as Dream Walkers. The whole point was to guide the dreamer without interfering too much. It was really cool that they started this as a way to try and save the memories of Aria's grandmother who was diagnosed with dementia. The whole concept was just super cool and I liked that it wasn't really heavy on the science aspect. It was more a focus on the dreams and interpreting them.
Aria's dad created the Dreamscape concept off her brain and she becomes important to the ability of the group of Dream Walkers to stay within a dream for more than a few seconds. Aria and her group are on the search for something called the Vault of Memories, and when they get a new client it feels like they may be close to finding the missing piece to connecting memories. Of course everything goes horribly wrong when her dad is kidnapped and the book shifts to a quest to locate her dad with a group of unqualified friends. Which is why I felt some of the journey to be a little unbelievable considering the main characters were only 18 years old.
I was glad that the book had a resolution but I felt like the robbery and kidnapping together caused elements of each story to be overlooked sometimes. A few times the author had some typos with character names that kind of took you out of the moment, but overall these were minimal and seemed to be reserved for the end of the book. The problem of course is this is where all the action was. While I enjoyed that the book didn't end on a massive cliffhanger and I could feel mostly complete with the story, some stuff was left unresolved for sure. My biggest complaint with this book is that we didn't get more of the Dream Walking stuff. Overall, the story was nice, fun, and a really interesting concept.
Brazen finds Jae dealing with those consequences. Her friends have turned against her, and she's forced to carry out work she dislikes. She still hopes to set things to rights, and protect the land she's come to cherish. Jae must also come to terms with the ramifications of defeating Haemosu, both because the Otherworldly lands he ruled are falling to ruin, and because her repeated forays into the spirit realms is affecting her ability to exist in the physical realm.
Go figure, but one of my favourite characters was recurring antagonist Kud. I'm a sucker for darker deities, and through the series you really get to know Kud and his motivations. Sometimes it's easy to see why villains do the things they do. I'd love to see a story of his past, from his perspective! Highly recommended, especially if you enjoy stories inspired by myth, or set in Korea.
In Silvern, Jae just wants to live a normal life, and be done with the Immortals. They aren't done with her though, not by a long shot. Kud, the god of darkness, is seeking the magical orbs that protect Korea. To this end he infiltrates the Guardians, who are attempto find the orbs in order to protect them. Only Jae can see through the facade, but no one believes her. In the end, Jae must make a hard choice with far reaching consequences.
Jae was a likeable enough protagonist, though at times she seemed a bit impulsive, and also a little too skilled relative to age and maturity. Part had to do with her ancestry, I know. She did grow and change as the author grew more polished over the course of the series.
Farley's Gilded series follows Jae Hwa Lee, a young Korean-American girl recently moved to Korea, despite warnings from her strict, traditional grandfather. Jae's father doesn't listen. He isn't interested in the rantings of an old man, spouting fantastical tales. But there's more truth to Grandfather's warnings than Jae could ever imagine.
In Gilded, Jae must confront the curse on the women of her family. For generations, the demi-god Haemosu has stolen the souls of the eldest daughters of Jae's family, and Jae's next. With the help of her grandfather, her aunt, and a secret group-- the Guardians of Shinshi-- dedicated to protecting Korea from spiritual assault, Jae must confront Haemosu and break the curse once and for all.
I adored this series! I read Gilded several years ago, and finally got the chance to read the whole series together. The first time I read Gilded was, I believe, my first exposure to fiction inspired by Korean myth and I loved it. The mythology behind the orbs, and all the unique creatures prompted me to research more into the actual mythology for myself.
As a deep lover of mythology I have always been drawn to books based in it. Sadly what I mostly come across are books with Greek/Roman mythology settings. Reading Farley's take on South Korean mythology was a breath of fresh air for me an I adored every single word.
Jae Hwa is a strong courageous girl who is willing to do what ever it takes to protect the people she loves, even if it means risking her own life. I developed a lot of respect for Jae while reading this book. She has recently lost her mother, moved to a new country, has to start at a new school as well, but when she learns about Haemosu and his plans she is ready to fight back (all while still trying to keep her grades up and hang out with friends).
It has been a long time since I have felt this way about a book! I cannot wait to see what Farley has in store for her readers. Gilded is simply a work of art and a highly recommended must read!
I listened to this on audiobook. The narrator did an excellent job with different characters voices and accents. The narration was probably the best part of this book for me.
Some of the technical issues with this book were that the dialogue between characters was very simple and awkward sounding. Additionally, there were places where the wrong tense (past and present) are used interchangeably. This book could have benefited from better editing.
The story was also lacking. Our heroine makes the same mistakes over and over again and never seems to grow or change as a character despite, her experiences. The ending was predictable and the at times just plain boring.
Overall this was a poorly written book and I was happy when it was over. If I hadn't been listening to it on audiobook I probably would have stopped reading it. I won't be continuing with the series which is too bad because the Korean setting and mythology were intriguing.
I don't think I've ever rolled my eyes so hard while reading anything. I mean, the storyline is interesting enough but the characterization sis poorly done. I understand if somebody has an adventurous spirit but how can anyone survive with such little sense of self-preservation. Most of the things that went wrong in this book involved the Jae Hwa going off to do something immediately after someone told her not to. I mean:
Grandfather says don't go unto this island alone.
Jae Hwa: oooo! What is this island. I wanna go unto this island. Really?!
Whenever you begin to feel a glimmer of liking for her, she does something that makes you want to pull your hair out.
Her father's character is also really poorly developed. The writer makes hims look like a petulant child who just delights in ruining everything.i feel like this character could have been a lot deeper.
Also, THIS IS FREAKING KOREA and NOBODY SPEAKS KOREAN?! It's absurd! The freaking demons and gumihos speak English. Even the street vendors!
The descriptions are really good and concrete. But they feel rushed so the parts of the book that are meant to be more slow paced end up rushed and you don't get that feeling of buildup. For example a slow description of the landscape etc... Built up to her father and grandfather having a confrontation might make it more explosive.
The end of the book was just.... I don't even know. It was just so rushed and tried to tie up too many loose ends too fast. The result? An extremely dissatisfied reader.
Disclaimer: This book was provided to me by the author in exchange for an honest review as part of a blog tour. Neither the author nor the publisher influenced my opinions on the book.
Welcome to the world of Word Weavers. I have to say, this is one of my favourite worlds that I've read about in a long time. I've read plenty of books about jumping into stories, being pulled into books, reading stories aloud and they come to life but this is the first I've read a book where somebody has the ability to write stories to life. It was a unique world, and one that I was immediately drawn into.
The plot was actually very interesting and while some stuff was a bit predictable, other things like who was the baddie in the end did take me by surprise. I really loved the part where history and story telling really collided. Reading this book really made me want to go back and read Inkheart by Cornelia Funke. I never finished the full trilogy so this could definitely be the opportunity to do so. I would definitely call this book the middle grade Inkheart.
****** SPOILERS AHEAD******
Keira was kind of an odd character for me. She was many different things to different people and I never truly got a sense of who she was. To her mother, Keira was someone who had to be protected and saved, to her best friend she was the writer who won them this trip and the opportunity to have her design the ball, and to the characters in the fairytale she was their Word Weaver, while to herself was part princess, part adventurer/saviour.
Her best friend Bella, is actually quite the selfish character. She pushes Keira to write the story in the first place even knowing it could possibly get her in trouble. She may of had good intentions, but she also had the selfish desires behind Keira doing it since she wanted to come along on the trip. Also when she was designing everything for the ball she pushes everything Keira says to the side and her design works takes precedence over even zkerias safety.
Chet was kind of a weird character for me. I don't really know why he was there, I feel like he didn't especially move the plot along that much. I did love the fact that he's French Canadian though. I didn't really feel his betrayal that harshly when we found out he was spying on the girls. To me, his only value was in the other skills he had like rock climbing that helped Keira expand her horizons and gave her the skill she needed to defeat the evil in the end.
The tips, small pieces of knowledge and the little quips that were at the beginning of each chapter were adorable, hilarious and had me looking forward to seeing how they were incorporated into the chapter that they were the header of. I was also really intrigued at the beginning of the book why the date was also included in French, but once the girls won the trip to France it all started to make sense. It was little touches like those that really made the book for me.
Reading this book as an adult, it was a little bit too faced paced for my liking. It started off with a bang and then just never stopped. I would've liked more of a calm beginning and lead in into the full story arc. I know it is really hard to find a balance in middle grade books. You have to be able to fit in the full plot into a shorter book since the can't be super long in this genre. But I would've liked so many more things to be explored within the book. It would've given us more of a chance to breathe instead of it just being bang, bang, bang with big plot. Also, I found everything to be a little over the top; everything from outrageous things happening one after the other, to the way Keira and her parents reacted to their situation, to the way Keira felt within the situation.
Reading this book as a middle grader, it has everything that one could want in a story. It has action, adventure, magic, and mystery. Middle graders will be spellbound and looking for their own magical pen to start writing their own stories. I feel like in a world like today fantasy and magic are sort of seen as a waste of time. What I love most about the book is the very fact that it has so much magic and fantasy within while stimulating kids' imaginations.
To be honest I feel like all authors are Word Weavers. They all create these worlds and adventures that suck us in and which we experience inside of our own imaginations and which we truly wish we could jump inside the pages. I certainly wish that I had a magic pen that I could write stories and then jump inside them. Hopefully this book can definitely inspire some young people to pick up the pen and start creating their own worlds to share with everyone. So come join the world of Word Weavers and read the Princess and the Page!
The overall impact of the series is excellent. This ticks a number of boxes for me that are not often ticked. For example, it's no secret that I enjoy strong female heroines, and so I tend to read a lot of books that check that box. But even within that category, I don't often find a female that is particularly physically strong, let alone such a skilled fighter (in this case, a tae kwan do black belt) that she holds her own in fights. In fact, we can go one step further: freuqently the male characters stand in the background and watch her fight, which is a nice role-reversal. Jae, the female protagonist, worries an awful lot about needing to (physically) protect her boyfriend and her family, again a traditionally masculine concern.
And in the world of YA female-centered fantasy, I think it's also pretty unusual to get a lot of history lessons. The Hunger Games may have made us reflect somewhat on the effects of war on children, but Panem didn't have any direct correlation to current events, and the history of tributes didn't have its roots in an actual country's mythology. So one of the things I appreciated most about this series was its constant reference to Korean mythology, a subject about which I was entirely ignorant when I began. On top of that, the mythological world is tied directly to modern-day Korea, with the gods' actions in the Spirit World having direct impacts in the real world. I loved seeing the North Korea/South Korea dichotomy explored that way.
Best of all, I think #3 is actually the best book of the three. Farley really got a handle on the cast of characters, and then stretched herself by briefly involving the deities and history of China as a contrast. The educational aspect, though, never overshadows the plot-driven world-building that keeps you glued to the page.
And it promised to be based in mythology! I'm a big mythology nerd and have been since I was a kid (my mom got me this book called Greek Myths for Young Children and it was my favorite thing and I still remember it fondly to this day), but I've never been exposed to the Korean mythology background indicated as a basis for the story, so I thought it would be a good chance to learn about that too.
As the rating shows, though, it was a huge disappointment. The book follows the story of teenage Jae Hwa, a Korean girl raised for most of her life in the United States and recently returned to Korea after the death of her mother. Her grandfather is very unhappy to see her, which she assumes to be because he doesn't like his Americanized granddaughter, but turns out to be because as a female born into her father's family, she will be ruthlessly pursued by a demigod until he can pull her into his dimension and imprison her for all eternity.
There's good stuff to work with her: grief for her mother, being torn between cultures, an exciting adventure in another world...and that's on top of the usual high-school plotlines (first love, friendships, coming of age, etc ) that have driven plenty of YA novels for ages. But nothing really works. The loss of her mother and her dual cultural identities are referenced often, but without any real exploration of them...she just notes that she's sad, or that she's confused, and it completely vanishes until she sees fit to mention it again. Her love interest has two identifying traits: he's cute, and he's really smart/education/good at everything. Of course he likes her too, so their only stumbling block is that she's constantly shoving him away because she wants to protect him from getting caught up in her destiny. Which is noble enough the first time, but gets tiresome long before the end of the book. As do her constant interactions with her divine pursuer, who keeps pulling her into his world to remind her he's going to do so permanently...and then she escapes. Again. And again. I was relieved when I got to the end. The book feels like a first draft of something better.
I gave this page turning, young adult book five stars. The heroine is sixteen-year-old Jae Hwa Lee who is a Korean-American girl. She is multi-talented & advanced in her schooling. After her mother dies, her father returns them to Korea, where Jae Hwa's life changes irrevocably.
The characters are beautifully drawn. The Korean demi-god, Haemosu is evil personified. I cheered for Jae Hwa to defeat him, but that victory was uncertain.
"The Samjoko amulet is on display there. The Guardians of Shinshi have recently uncovered information that leads us to believe that it acts as a key to the Spirit World." Jae Hwa will need this information in her odyssey.
"'Take control of your mind; harness your strength.' 'I can't', I whisper. 'You can,' she says." This is an exchange between Jae Hwa's aunt 'Komo'.
I highly recommend this fascinating book.
"Or maybe it's that I'm completely socially incompetent in the dating department. Like when Nick Casablanca tried to kiss me, and I used a pressure-point defense on his hand. It wasn't my fault he moved in before I was ready."
"If only he knew. Like when the third-grade class bully, Jacob Cantor, Strutted up to me,pulled my long braid, and called me a worthless immi. Short for immigrant. If he'd been smart he would have picked on some other immi. But unlucky jacob picked me. I stood and knocked him a blow that sent him tumbling into the trash can. Where he probably felt right at home."
Firstly, this is a YA novel so the criteria I apply differ from those of a standard adult novel. The first thing I look at is whether I'd want my own children to read this book from a moral standpoint. Joyfully, I report that this book contains nothing really sexual in nature, unless you count some occasional kissing. Further there are no drug references or anything else untoward. It should be noted that this is pretty standard youth escapism fiction though so the usual defiance of parental authority is in evidence. In short though, I have no concerns. This is good clean stuff.
The second question I look at is whether this book teach the reader anything. Again, in this case I would reply strongly to the affirmative. The narrative is deeply entwined with Korean mythology and culture. It even goes so far as to include a lengthy glossary in the back so you know this is outside the standard dragons, elves and dwarves motif. Further, for the first time I've seen in a book of this sort, the protagonist faces and problem and actually has the help of her extended family. This isn't the usual situation in which a problem arises and the kids have to go it alone. The whole family is involved and working together. That in itself is a great lesson.
Lastly, I ask whether the reader will be entertained. To that I say, simply, that even as an adult I was entertained. The action is fast-paced and moves along brilliantly and has enough complexity to keep the reader thinking.
So in summary, this is another fine example YA literature that not only entertains but educates at the same time. Highly recommended from a reviewer who almost always finds something to complain about. In this case... I got nothing. Absolutely brilliant.
PS: It is always my endeavor to provide helpful reviews. If you find my review helpful please vote appropriately. If you do not, then please leave me a comment indicating what you want to know and I'll be sure to do better next time.
PPS: There is a short technical fault in the Kindle edition; in the first 10 pages or so the text is a bit garbled as different versions of the first few pages got interleaved with the actual text. This is initially annoying but will probably be fixed shortly by Amazon. Someone leave a comment please if they get a corrected version so I can remove this postscript."
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