I like to read.

5th book of 2012: Guardians of Ga’hoole #2: The Journey by Kathryn Lasky I read the first Guardians of Ga’hoole series around the same time I began reading Erin Hunter’s Warriors series.  The first book was enjoyable, and by the time I’d finished it, the film adaptation, Legend of the Guardians, had been released.  The film is a condensation of the first three Guardians books, and I do really love it. The series began as our main character, Soren, is brutally pushed from his next by his older brother.  As Soren had yet to learn to fly, he is stranded.  He ends up being capured by rogue owls and brought to St. Aggies, a place they call a school but is really a prison for young owls who are “moonblinked” (brainwashed) and forced to do hard labor.  Eventually Soren and his companion Gylfie successfully break out of St. Aggies.  Their next goal is to find the the Great Ga’hoole Tree, which is usually only ever mentioned in legend and fairy tales.  In The Journey, Soren and his friends quite quickly find the tree and are recruited to become Guardian trainees themselves.  In fact, everything in this book moves quite quickly.  Chapters are short and end abruptly.  Harrowing dangers are averted before you’ve even had a chance to register that they’ve flown to a different place.  The writing feels unhinged and choppy, as if the author was forced to write as quickly as possible to meet a deadline (and as there are now 15 books in the series, 15 written in 5 years, I think that’s probably very likely).  The drama and connection with the characters is completely gone and new characters are introduced so quickly that you don’t have a chance to connect with them at all. I was extremely disappointing in this volume of the Ga’hoole series, and I have no intention of continuing with book number 3.  I have the film on blu-ray, and that’s going to be enough for me with these owls.

5th book of 2012: Guardians of Ga’hoole #2: The Journey by Kathryn Lasky

I read the first Guardians of Ga’hoole series around the same time I began reading Erin Hunter’s Warriors series.  The first book was enjoyable, and by the time I’d finished it, the film adaptation, Legend of the Guardians, had been released.  The film is a condensation of the first three Guardians books, and I do really love it.

The series began as our main character, Soren, is brutally pushed from his next by his older brother.  As Soren had yet to learn to fly, he is stranded.  He ends up being capured by rogue owls and brought to St. Aggies, a place they call a school but is really a prison for young owls who are “moonblinked” (brainwashed) and forced to do hard labor.  Eventually Soren and his companion Gylfie successfully break out of St. Aggies.  Their next goal is to find the the Great Ga’hoole Tree, which is usually only ever mentioned in legend and fairy tales. 

In The Journey, Soren and his friends quite quickly find the tree and are recruited to become Guardian trainees themselves.  In fact, everything in this book moves quite quickly.  Chapters are short and end abruptly.  Harrowing dangers are averted before you’ve even had a chance to register that they’ve flown to a different place.  The writing feels unhinged and choppy, as if the author was forced to write as quickly as possible to meet a deadline (and as there are now 15 books in the series, 15 written in 5 years, I think that’s probably very likely).  The drama and connection with the characters is completely gone and new characters are introduced so quickly that you don’t have a chance to connect with them at all.

I was extremely disappointing in this volume of the Ga’hoole series, and I have no intention of continuing with book number 3.  I have the film on blu-ray, and that’s going to be enough for me with these owls.

1 month ago