Thursday, February 9, 2012

An Apology and Chime by Franny Billingsley

Hey guys! First of all I want to apologize for overloading everyone's Google Readers unintentionally :/ I'm not going to renew my self hosted blog, so I've been trying to move all of my old book reviews back over to this blog. Of course self hosted wordpress won't let you just import to Blogger....so I'm stuck copying and pasting old posts. Well I back dated all of the reviews for when they were originally published but I noticed they're showing up in feed readers all at once now :/ I am SO sorry everyone!!!! I'm going to try to find a way around it...if I can't though, I'll give everyone advanced warning and maybe you can just unsubscribe to my blog for a day or something while I move everything over? I don't know....

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 In happier news, I read an AMAZING book!!!! Chime by Franny Billingsley! Ana put this one on my radar a while back and then Renay reviewed it the other day which caused me to go out and get it right away! Damn was it ever good!! If you're looking for an amazing female character, here's your book. An amazing male character as well actually. Just great characterization all around.

Set around the turn of the 20th Century in the swamps of England, Chime tells the story of Briony and Rose Larkin, twin sisters, who are living with their father, a minister, shortly after the death of their stepmother. There's a past to this family. The sister's stepmother died under strange circumstances and Briony blames herself. She blames herself for more than that though, often reminding herself that she hates herself and that she's worthless. Briony was told by her stepmother that she was a witch and was to protect her sister who can come off as a bit bizarre at times, but Briony feels that she sometimes uses her powers for the wrong reasons.

Briony doesn't let herself get attached or close to anyone for fear of hurting them, which causes her a problem when she meets Eldric, the new boy in town. I can hear the groans now. I sort of groaned myself...same old trope, right? No, it's not. Eldric was so different. He didn't fit your traditional male role in this type of novel. I loved him so much! He was so three dimensional as was Briony. Billingsley must have said, let me take this standard plot line and just go further with it. It doesn't just have to be a surface story. These characters can be real. They can have emotional complexities. They can CHALLENGE social issues instead of just FITTING into them.

There are many reveals along the way that just make the pacing of this book increase along the way and by the end, your just glued to the pages. And those last few pages....well they're just tear jerkers! Of course you'll have to read it for yourself to see if you'll be crying happy or sad tears ;)

8 comments:

My Gallery of Worlds said...

Oh Yay!! Not your average pnr.....that's a good thing ;) Sounds sequel worthy. Thanks for the heads up Chris :D

Amanda said...

That's so strange that it wont' let you import backwards!

I wonder if the ones that came through were the ones that fit into GR's timeframe. I think GR holds on to posts that are up to 3 months old or something like that. You should see if some that are backdated before November come through. Good luck, and it's okay - I know Jason and I realized what was going on and was able to just mark them as read. No biggie. :)

Unknown said...

No worries here! I might have missed something the first time =)

DesLily said...

no problem with me since I don't subscribe to anyone! I just come by and look everyday so my email is just that... email! what a pita that you can't move it easily.. sorry you are having a problem. :o(

Kailana said...

I am so glad you enjoyed this book! I really enjoyed it, too. :)

chrisa511 said...

Kelly, I would LOVE to see some sort of follow up to this book :D More of Briony and Eldric would be amazing :D

Amanda, I know...it's such a pain in the ass :/ I think it is the three month thing because it doesn't seem to be affecting it now! I'm halfway done...just have 2008 and 2009 to do now...luckily 2007 was already on this blog :p Didn't realize that I'm in my sixth year of blogging now!

Kristina, Well that's a plus that I never thought of the first time ;)

Deslily, Ah, it's no big deal...I just really didn't want to lose all of my book reviews! So I don't mind the work. Plus it's kinda fun to go back and see all of these reviews, lol.

Kelly, Wasn't it awesome!! Glad you liked it too :D

Susan said...

Wonderful review and now I really want to read this book (when I need a break from sci fi, which is taking over my reading life right now!) You are reading some fabulous books at the moment,aren't you?

Bookfool said...

I don't remember crying, but I loved Chime.