Warriors

Warriors by Erin Hunter (Kate Cary, Cherith Baldry, Victoria Holmes, and Tui Sutherland)
HarperCollins - January 21, 2003 to present
Around 300 pages for regular, around 500 for Super Edition and 175 for field guide

Fire alone can save our Clan...

For generations, four Clans of wild cats have shared the forest according to the laws laid down by the powerful ancestors. But the warrior code is threatened, and the ThunderClan cats are in grave danger. The sinister ShadowClan grows stronger every day. Noble warriors are dying -- and some deaths are more mysterious than others.
In the midst of this turmoil appears an ordinary housecat named Rusty . . . Who may yet turn out to be the bravest warrior of them all.


I have calculated it, and there are a cumulative fifty-two books in the Warriors series to date (18 April 2013, as of the update), with seven more expected for release by 2014. I have not even read all of them. As a result of this, I am reviewing the series as a whole. The excerpt above is from the first novel of the first arc, Into the Wild.

The idea of having feral cats in the wild that act like cats with the exception of the use of language was rather original at the time, with the only comparative novels being Tailchaser's Song (which I have reviewed) and The Wild Road (which I am currently reading). Warriors is often compared to Redwall, but the Redwall series is much more anthropomorphic.

The authors who make up the pseudonym Erin Hunter have clearly studied cats, and it's evident in their writing. As someone who has a rather active cat who was feral for her first year of life, I know that she acts rather like a ThunderClan warrior. There are also a wide variety of characters with a wide variety of names, and I applaud the Erin Hunters on their creation of so many original names. Some fans boo straying from the original suffixes like -heart, -tail, and -fur in the later books, where -light, -frost, and -flight are used, but I think it allows for a wider amount of Warriors personalities.

Every time I think that the authors of Warriors are going to suffer from reversion to an overdone plot, they find something creative to do. The first arc is much about Fireheart of ThunderClan's struggle against the power of Tigerclaw, a power-hungry tabby with a penchant for revenge. The second arc is about the Clan's journey to a new home after humans attack. The third arc is about an ancient prophecy given to Fireheart about his grandchildren, and the fourth is more religious in a sense, as it deals with Warriors heaven and hell (StarClan and the Place of No Stars). The Super Editions deal with a forgotten Clan, half-warriors, and the older leaders.

Many characters, especially those in ThunderClan, can be highly developed by the authors' allowance to have a minor character take the lead, even if only for a few chapters at a time. The original arc may be devoted to Fireheart, but Cinderpaw is the real star of Fire and Ice, and Brightpaw and Swiftpaw of A Dangerous Path. There is no real star of the later arcs, as it is divided between cats, and Flametail, a formerly minor character, gets a starring role in Night Whispers.

Sometimes the authors may suffer from a bit of a relapse, especially with characters (Heavystep, a ShadowClan warrior, died three times). However, with so many books and characters, they're doing the best that they can.



Cumulative Grade: A-

Animal Farm: A Fairy Story

Animal Farm: A Fairy Story by George Orwell
Secker and Warburg - August 17, 1945
112 pages

This is a classic tale of humanity awash in totalitarianism. A farm is taken over by its overworked, mistreated animals. With flaming idealism and stirring slogans, they set out to create a paradise of progress, justice, and equality. First published during the epoch of Stalinist Russia, today it is clear that wherever and whenever freedom is attacked, and under whatever banner, the cutting clarity and savage comedy of Orwell's masterpiece is a message still ferociously fresh.

(Spoiler level: Minor/nonexistent)

I have read this book more times than I can count. It is my favorite novel. I have done all kinds of projects about this novel. I converted excerpts of this novel into different fonts to see which ones were more readable. I have an Animal Farm t-shirt from Out of Print Clothing (look it up, it's awesome). I quote it frequently. I sing "Beasts of England" when I'm bored. Some people I know think that this obsession is unhealthy, but I don't care.

The first time that I read this book was at a very young age when I thought that it was just a story about animals. The second time I was a few years older and knew that it was supposed to be about Stalinist Russia, but I was still pretty young and ended up overthinking it and searching for a greater meaning that I couldn't find when I was younger. Then I saw the 1959 cartoon animated movie and thought that I really couldn't remember that much about it, so I went back and enjoyed it again, this time being able to make the connections. A time after that I read it to enjoy it as a story, just like when I was six. Now every time I have insomnia I read at least half of it, which really isn't too much when you think about it.

That's what's so great about Animal Farm. You can read it as an animal story and as a metaphor. Not to mention, you can find multiple metaphors in it, as books about the novel show. Yes, it's about Stalinist Russia, but think of the treatment of the female animals on the farm compared to the male animals! You can appreciate Orwell's fiction writing as well as his satire.

As I said, it is truly my favorite novel.


Grade: A+

City of Bones

City of Bones by Cassandra Clare.

Margaret K. McElderry Books - March 27, 2007

496 pages

When fifteen-year-old Clary Fray heads out to the Pandemonium Club in New York City, she hardly expects to witness a murder—much less a murder committed by three teenagers covered with strange tattoos and brandishing bizarre weapons. Then the body disappears into thin air. It’s hard to call the police when the murderers are invisible to everyone else and when there is nothing—not even a smear of blood—to show that a boy has died. Or was he a boy?

This is Clary’s first meeting with the Shadowhunters, warriors dedicated to ridding the earth of demons. It’s also her first encounter with Jace, a Shadowhunter who looks a little like an angel and acts a lot like a jerk. Within twenty-four hours Clary is pulled into Jace’s world with a vengeance, when her mother disappears and Clary herself is attacked by a demon. But why would demons be interested in ordinary mundanes like Clary and her mother? And how did Clary suddenly get the Sight? The Shadowhunters would like to know. . . .

(Spoiler level: Major)

So this is how the story goes. Clary Fray is a normal teenage girl who sees a man getting killed and decides to go and stop it herself, because a wimpy teenage girl can totally solve that on her own without the help of the police. It turns out that these people, called "Shadowhunters", technically don't exist and nobody can see them but other Shadowhunters. The shadows that they hunt are monsters that are now urbanfied to. Meanwhile, there's a former Shadowhunter who turned evil that's on the rise and wants to destroy all goodness. And then there's Jace, who acts horrible, but Clary is in love with.

Sound familiar? That's because it's virtually like every other contemporary fantasy YA book out there with one main difference: the writing is much whinier in this book than in many others. Capitals are used for shouting instead of italics, an amateur move that is very distracting. Every character is a stale archetype. "Twists" are obvious, such as that Clary's father is Valentine and her mother was a Shadowhunter, so she's totally Shadowhunter and related to him, and her older brother is Jace, who she's in love with.

Part of the reason that this is so much taken from the basic mold is because before Clare got a book deal for "her" work, she was a fan fiction writer for Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter. Clare knows how to make her books just like any other: a Mary-Sue who doesn't know she's beautiful even though all the guys are drooling over her that aren't gay, a horrible amount of purple prose, a city of magical creatures hidden in plain view, and some unhealthy female rivalry.

That being said, Bones isn't all horrible. There's enough drive to it that you aren't going to give up halfway and see if Keeping Up With the Kardashians is new, and since it's so familiar it can't be that horrible. Sometimes experimental novels are the worst of all. In fact, this book is kind of like the Kardashians shows: they're not good, but there's something about them that keeps you watching after a few episodes.


Grade: C