Ender's Shadow by Orson Scott Card

Read for: Leisure
Rating: 4

Ender's Game has been one of my favorite books since I read it a few years ago in high school and ever since then I have slowly but surely been making my way through the rest of the books in the "Enderverse" series. Ender's Shadow tells pretty much the same story as Game, except from the perspective of the character Bean. It's nice to get a different perspective on Battle School, Ender, and the Bugger War. Also, it's nice to have another book devoted to kids, as the other books in the series that I have read have focused on Ender when he is an adult.

What concerns me most about this book is that through it I started to dislike Bean. I know exactly where it happened, too: page 217. Bean is quite the analytical Machiavellian character, which usually I enjoy--in a minor character. However, I felt that since this book is all about Bean, the Machiavellian concepts were overkill, instead of being a useful perspective on how the Bugger war could have turned out. I got a little bit sick of reading all about how Bean would do things differently if he were the commander and him comparing himself to Ender. Of course, I must admit that I have a bias because, like so many characters in the book, I nurse a fierce loyalty and devotion to Ender.

This novel is the first in the parallel "Shadow" series. For more information about the order of the books and timeline of events, I found this Wikipedia entry very useful. I'm excited to read the rest of the books in the "Shadow" series, but first I think I am going to go back and re-read Ender's Game, since it has been awhile. It's always nice to revisit a favorite, right?

Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers

Read for: Leisure
Rating: 2.5

Fallen Angels is a Vietnam war story following Richard Perry, a young African American boy in the army. Myers is, of course, an excellent writer, but I just don't think this story was for me. It took me a lot longer to get through than a young adult novel usually would, mainly because whenever I took a break from reading I had to convince myself to pick it up again. Towards the end--the last 100 pages or so--the story became more interesting and held my attention better. There was a lot more action in the last 100 pages, which is what I think I liked better. In the first 200 pages, there was a lot of sitting around and talking, and when the talk is about war it just doesn't interest me that much.

I do, however, think that this novel is an apt representation of what soldiers had to face in Vietnam. I probably wouldn't use it in the classroom because there is a lot of violence and a lot of swearing, but if a student was looking for something about the Vietnam War, I might recommend it to them. The violence isn't gratuitous, and I think the swearing is suitable for what Myers is trying to portray. However, if I did use it in the classroom I would probably meet a lot of censorship problems, and the book just didn't interest me enough to be willing to fight for it.