Lagniappe Literature

Read from September 18 to 24, 2014

The Midnight Queen is a book that is entirely different from my normal genre but something caught my attention when I first discovered this book on offer at Penguin's First-to-Read. Perhaps it was the beautiful cover and the fact that I love owls a little obsessively. After reading the blurb, which described a fantastical world of Merlin-magic and a promise of historical fiction, I requested the DRC. Afterall, I do love fantasy, owls, queens, and I LOVED The Hobbit. Isn't that one of the best fantasy books of all time?! I really thought I would devour this book. I could have devoured this book because the beginning lured me in, but there were some very lengthy descriptions that made me scream, 

"GET ON WITH IT ALREADY!!!" (and THIS went on for many, many pages.)

However, when the story of Gray, a talented student of magic at Merlin College, and Sophie Callender, the sheltered daughter of Gray's professor, actually picks up the pace, it is really good. It just takes so long to get to the good parts and I found myself losing interest quick. A hundred more pages and BAM! It's good again. You get the gist. In a perfect world of perfect books I would take out the really unnecessary parts of a story, parts that just don't add anything to the tale. Skip right to the good stuff. In a perfect world, I would have really, really liked this book.