Terry Pratchett, The Light Fantastic (readathon!) #review

Feels great to be BAAAACCCCKKKK!!!!!  It’s been a hell of a break from reality (A Sort of Vacation)  I haven’t even even logged onto this blog for nearly two weeks. I’ve had the longest unplug ever, and the loooonnnngggest camping trip of my life. Even though I made the four hour trek back home a couple of times to run a hundred thousand errands and to wash everything dirty (because wow), I didn’t have much time to catch up on anything in the virtual world other than emails. But, here I am. Back to life, reality, and the grind!

One bitter sweet thing about being back, is that today I sent my son off to his very first day of Kindergarten AKA ALL DAY SCHOOL!  I wrote a post about my stressing this a while back Cry Baby Mom Day  and honestly, it’s just as stressful as I thought it would be. I dropped him off about a half an hour ago and I’m still bawling my eyes out. I’m sure I will be all day! How do you mommies deal with this!???!!!!??  If I live through this week, I’ll be lucky!

Also, I have some reviews coming your way after the break. For the next few days I’ll bombard ya’ll with them, exciting right?!

As for now…. lets get to the second installment of this lovely Terry Pratchett readathon! (which I’ll be continuing on with next month as well BTW, Nicole. lol if that’s alright with you?! *wink *wink*)

I came across the challenge of this wonderful Read-a-Thon over on  The Bookworm Drinkith Blog. Nicole, said drinkith(ing) bookworm, has teamed up with Kathy @ Pages Below the Vaulted Sky. Together they have started a sort of Terry Pratchett reading group. If you’d like to join then DO!! See HERE for more details! For this month, the book was The Light Fantastic. Here is a purchase link as well as my review:

My Review:

I liked this book equally as much as the first. No more, no less. Sometimes I thought it was better and sometimes I found myself comparing certain phrasing and scenarios finding it to come up short… So I’m settling for a paralleled adoration all around as book one. It picked up right where book one left off. The snarky wit and sarcastic banter between Rincewood, Twoflower, and the not so talkative yet oh so very talkative luggage was just as wonderful.

I love the luggage… I love every one of it’s tinny legs, it’s weird abilities to hold an impossible amount of baggage (all sizes, mind you), turning dirty stuff to clean and oh so much more, and I especially love how so much personality can be shoved into an obedient pet-of-a-box. My favorite part of this book as far as the luggage is concerned is when it busted through a brick wall in order to reveal the secret magic shop inside with no door or windows or exit. I also loved when all the people tried to get it open, with clearly no success only to have it walk away once they were all asleep and pop it’s top upon Twoflowers request as if it was just another regular ol’ day.

Beyond the main characters which I obviously think are cream of the crop, The Light Fantastic also brought to light some amazing and unique qualities. There’s this magical forest with talking trees and unimaginably special creatures, all of which seem to bring out the hilarious banter in Rincewood, along with his witty logic. There’s a group of wizards looking for Rincewood, as the one spell that he has stuck in his head is the key to saving everything. The things they do are silly, and abstract, and make complete sense in an utterly nonsense place.

The only thing I found that was a little bit bitter sweet was that the ending was a tad bid morbid. I was actually reading this book aloud to my kids at bedtime for the second night in a row (they’re small and mostly just tune me out usually) Night one I was able to skip a few words here and there. Examble: I don’t ever actually say “death” when the character of Death is about, I just say “it” and so on. But, as my kids we’re dozing off, and the ending was approaching I had to put it down and read them something else. I personally loved the ending, yes it’s perturbed and not for younger children, there’s a quite a bit of violence and fighting and dark chaos… however, I wouldn’t recommend this one for readers that are mid-teen or younger. This is only bitter sweet because I think books with the writing style of Terry Pratchett are a must for kids because they really make you think and concentrate in order to process and comprehend it all.

After reading only two Discworld books (so far) I can tell already that although the stories are very odd and quirky, the writing style is insanely intelligent. Kids need to indulge themselves in this style of writing, and unfortunately this particular book #2 isn’t something I’d want my kids reading as they reached a level of comprehension. We’ll see what the next book in the Discword series bring about, as I’ll most definitely be reading them! (all 32168965132131696532165989851 of them, I’m sure.)