In Captivity

“Please let me go home. Please take me home!” I wailed  but my entreaty echoed only within myself. Outside I had begun to look like a corpse, stiff and still. It wasn’t my mind that shut off first after all. I sobbed, screamed, begged, prayed but not even the birds that perhaps flew over me, heard me. Then there was a break. Through my shut lids I saw something glowering from a distance. The dull point of light grew sharper and wider until it was so close to me that my eyeballs burnt behind my lids and the warmth from it melted the layer of frost on my face. I was being carried was the last message my mind conveyed. Then darkness and silence descended over me making me forget myself.

The End of the Drive

“He possesses me.” he uttered with a detached seriousness, his voice echoing in the darkness. Something snapped within me when I heard him say those words. A feeling of not being met by an anticipated surprise took over me and instead I was surprised that I wasn’t shocked by this new revelation. Instead it was like small bits of puzzles slowly falling together making it look more like a whole picture. It was now clear that the bird-man had not disappeared into thin air. The man within had been stronger. But how? I wondered for an instance before I spoke to him again.

Breaking the Ice
I felt my hip bone crunch as I fell on the ground with a muffled thud. Not finding time to cushion my fall with my hands, I thought I died from the pain. Red and silvery blotches danced before my eyes and I felt my pants getting warm from my buttocks downwards. The shock of the fall had caused me to urinate. “I-I- only meant to pull myself up,” came a familiar voice. A face began to break through the red and silvery mosaic pattern still dancing in front of my eyes. It was him. The black hood had fallen off his head and disheveled hair stood haphazardly about. His pupils had constricted into pinholes as the torchlight still intact in my hand, fell on his face. A pair of pale blue eyes were searching my face with what I interpreted as a tiny bit of concern. However I wasn’t sure if it was that. There was caked blood around his nose. “How did you get here?” I asked as I took my own fingers to my own nose to see if I was bleeding from the fall. I wasn’t, and I remembered that I had wet my pants instead and quickly twined my legs together that as if by twining my legs I could evade the sour smell that had begun to emanate from me. However he seemed oblivious. “You have blood on your nose,” I said quickly killing the awkward silence and he instantly rubbed it with the back of his hand. We got into the vehicle and shut the darkness and the raw wind out.

Author: Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Young Adult Paranormal Romance
Pages: 416
Published by: Scholastic
Year of Publication: 2010
Edition I read: UK edition, Paperback
Verdict: 4 Stars out of 5

A personal note:

Although I found Shiver better than Linger, it does not mean that Linger was not interesting. Besides, first book is always the best because they are always the real ice breakers. I enjoy Maggie Stiefvater’s writing in away that it reminds me of lucid poetry. It is very unfortunate that both Shiver and Linger should receive such brutal reviews on Goodreads. Don’t people like poetry anymore? I also don’t understand why people have to take a bitter stance and direct their antipathy directly towards the author who spent days, weeks, months even years to give birth to the novel. There is a difference between bad reviews and negative ones and the latter is much more worse because unknowingly it stifles the creativity of a sensitive author. Constructive criticism is what we are here for aren’t we? To help the author take better steps? It is very sad that such is not the case. I find that some people have no notion about how book reviews are written.

“ Her eye rolled up towards me, black and bottomless, and one of her front legs twitched, a memory of running. There was something awful about terror trapped behind silence. About latent emotions that couldn’t be acted out…
…She screamed, this high scream that was neither human nor animal but something terrible in between, the sort of sound that you never forget no matter how many beautiful things you hear afterwards. Then she was silent, because her punctured lungs were empty. She was dead, and I wanted to be. I was going to find out ho to keep myself a wolf. Or I just couldn’t do this any more.” (Page 249)

Authors: Mats Strandberg & Sara Bergmark Elfgren
Genre: Young Adult Supernatural
Series: Trilogy
Published by: Rabén & Sjögren
Date: April 2011
Pages: 516
Primary language: Swedish
ISBN:  9129676053
5 out of 5 Stars

Engelsfors, an inconspicuous little town in the Hedemora municipality of central Sweden has more than meets the eye. The town is like all Swedish small towns, beautiful, but for a dark and eerie forest that fringes it, where people could get lost or go missing.  It is here that the eternal battle with the darkest of evil is about to take place. But before that, the ones fated to fight this battle must be chosen to give birth to the  perfect circle within which an affiliated force of supernatural power will ultimately destroy the evil. The circle cannot be completed without the allegiance of each one of the chosen ones.

The Ride to Oblivion

It was not like I didn’t panic. I did. Anyone would. Once I came around my senses, I realized that I was being thrown wildly about in the back of a speeding vehicle which appeared quite roomy but I couldn’t really see the details of the vehicle. My pupils were perhaps dilated enormously and the results they gave, was something like looking through a foggy window. My hands were tied but luckily my mouth wasn’t taped. The heart within did a sudden flip and then it started knocking against my ribs with such great force that I gasped for air. It was perhaps because of the chemical I had inhaled earlier, my mind wasn’t going along with the rest of my body. While my heart somersaulted away inside, trying to warn me, my brain went into slow motion. I couldn’t really understand the crux of the situation. Sweat broke out profusely tickling my face as it ran down from the forehead. “Hello? Where are you taking me? Who are you?” was what I meant to cry out. Instead, a series of jumbled words tumbled out of my mouth and I realized that my tongue had gone into slow motion too.

The Day Before

The big old house on the extreme left  from ours was the last one on our street. It seemed like it  had been standing there in silence forever. Ever since we moved to Brick Bend, and that was five years ago, I have no recollection of ever seeing anyone enter or leave the house. It had just stood there with moss growing on its dark facade. It was a bleak brown wooden house that perhaps had too many staircases leading to too many rooms.

A Revelation on the Highway

The Beginning

Don’t do that! He snapped as I tried to roll the window down to let in some air. The inside of the vehicle was stifling but he wouldn’t let me roll the window down. He didn’t look intimidating for a kidnapper. He looked like any other average young man, and I was exceptionally calm. “What are you staring at?” he said between casting a side glance at me and keeping his eyes on the road. Outside the open fields that were fringed with trees at a distance all turned into a blur as he put pressure on the accelerator.
“Do you think I am going to jump if I roll down the window?” I murmured.

Author: Libba Bray
Genre: Young Adult Fantasy
Published by: Random House
Year of Publication: December 9th 2003
Series: Gemma Doyle Trilogy
Pages: 403
Verdict: 3 1/2 out of 5 stars

Synopsis:
Gemma Doyle is an outright teenage rebel with an attitude that is unforgivable in the Victorian Era. Hating her existence in the dusty and grueling plains of India, she harbours a great deal of dislike for her mother mainly because she does not comply to Gemma’s wish of moving back to London and attending a finishing school for proper young ladies.
Under very mysterious circumstances, Gemma’s mother loses her life shunning her husband, Gemma’s father into an oblivion where his life is ruled by alcohol consumption. Thus suddenly Gemma’s wish comes true when she is transported to London where she is admitted into Spence Academy, a finishing school where proper young ladies are honed to make perfect dutiful wives to their husbands. Wracked by guilt for being ruthlessly sarcastic and intolerable towards her mother, Gemma deeply blames herself for her mother’s untimely demise and is unable to celebrate her admittance to London’s society.

Book: Spartan Heart Part Two
Author: Kristine Cheney
Published by: Astraea Press
Year of Publication: 2011
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Warning: Contains Spoilers

“he liked the way her copper stare flashed perdition and venom. The little spitfire had reeled his head back good when she dared to punch his face. Philip liked her sass. Calculated thoughts gave away the brilliance of her intelligence. She was smart as she was beautiful. Her mind never ceased plotting. This woman came fully stocked with an impressive arsenal of mutiny.” (Chapter One)

Philip, another Spartan warrior is brought back to life from his statued existence by Demona. To materialize her antipathy towards Dorien and Evangeline, she uses Philip to destroy Evangeline. Upon probing Evangeline’s thought, Philip realizes that she is innocent but before he discerns that she  is pregnant with twins and that she belongs to Dorien, an accident occurs while she tries to run away from Philip. Evangeline slips and falls putting her pregnancy in jeopardy. Dorien is embittered with rage upon  seeing the danger his lady love is exposed to, and not recognizing his fellow warrior, he tries to make Philip pay for putting Evangeline’s life at risk but little does he know that Evangeline is carrying his babies. However, fate would have it otherwise, as Philip regrets his callousness and his contrition allows him and Dorien to reunite as long lost brothers. Dorien is taken aback when he realizes that Evangeline has kept the truth about her pregnancy from him, and he feel offended deeply, but he forgives her nonetheless. After all she is his raison d’etre.