The Wicked Day is the story of Mordred. In case you’re not familiar with the Arthurian legends, Mordred is typically the villain of the piece. He is King Arthur’s son with his half-sister, and he causes the downfall of Arthur and Camelot. He’s not a character that gets a whole lot of sympathy.

Until you read Mary Stewart’s The Wicked Day. She does an admirable job of turning Mordred into a character you can care about. One who, granted, does have some problematic traits. But overall, his actions have just been misunderstood. We follow Mordred from his childhood on the Isle of Orkney to his final battle with Arthur. Along the way, we see why he acted as he did. And it all seems perfectly reasonable. It’s not an easy feat to turn a villain into a misguided hero, but that’s exactly what Stewart does.

If you have any interest in the stories of King Arthur, you should certainly add this book to your reading list. All the elements of the legend are there, but from an entirely different and fascinating point of view.

So I completely forgot to do an It's Monday! post last week. It was Labor Day, the last day of summer before school started. I spent the day on the front porch reading. It didn't even feel like a Monday, which is probably why I forgot all about whipping up a post. So now I'll share two weeks of reading in one post!

Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter by Mario Vargas Llosa (A book I picked up for a reading challenge. Not my usual fare, but interesting nevertheless.)
A Passion Most Pure by Julie Lessman (Loved this book! Can't wait to get back to the library to check out the next book in the series!)
One Summer: America, 1927 by Bill Bryson (Bryson did it again. This book is amazing.)
The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon (I've heard a lot of raving about this book. I liked it. If there hadn't been so many mentions of the devil, I would have loved it.)
The Xanadu Adventure by Lloyd Alexander (A book title that starts with X! And it's by Lloyd Alexander! What could be better?)

Vienna Nocturne by Vivien Shotwell (I'm a music history geek, so historical fiction about Mozart is right up my alley!)

Jerusalem Vigil by Bodie & Brock Thoene

This summer, my husband and I were blessed to be able to visit Italy. We saw a lot of places while we were there, one of which was Cinque Terre. This was a place we discovered on a National Geographic calendar and decided we must see in person. There are five cities (cinque means five) along the Mediterranean coast. And when I mean along the coast, I mean they pretty much are the coast. For the most part, we traveled by train between the cities (three minute ride, tops), but we also hiked between two of the cities. The day was warm but windy, and the views were absolutely breathtaking!

At one point in my life, fantasy was about all I would read. That point was about fifteen years ago, but I still decided to pick up Auralia’s Colors because of the idea of colors saving the day. In the kingdom of Abascar, the king has declared that all of the colors belong to the palace. None of the “common” people, whether they live inside or outside the city walls, are allowed to wear or own anything with color. Auralia is the abandoned orphan destined to change all of that.

While I enjoyed living in the world of the Expanse for a little while, I can’t say as I fully enjoyed this book. Auralia drove me crazy. She didn’t do anything. She didn’t fight back; she didn’t stand up to anyone, even when it all went wrong. She simply discovered and collected colors. For a title protagonist, she was an extremely passive character. I just couldn’t summon any loyalty for her or even care about her all that much. The ale boy, on the other hand, I’m extremely curious to learn more about. But that would require reading the next three books in the series, and I don’t think I’m up for that. I can tell that there is a lot more to discover in the world that Jeffrey Overstreet has created, but Auralia’s Colors didn’t hook me enough to keep me reading.

This book is strongly reminiscent of Alice in Wonderland. It tells two stories – the real story of Hans Thomas and his journey to find his mother who ran away eight years ago, and the “real” story of a magical island where playing cards come to life as dwarfs. Hans Thomas is given a very small book that tells the story of this magical island, which he reads as he and his father traverse Europe. His father is an amateur philosopher, and they stop frequently along the road to discuss the meaning of life and reasons for existing. These big questions become the theme of the book and the purpose of both the real and “real” stories. The two stories are cleverly interwoven and come to have more in common than the reader might expect. This book provides an interesting way to look at philosophy at the same time as it tells an awfully good and touching story.

The world has flooded, and only a few hundred habitable islands remain. The Earth Mother has moved the remaining population there, and has created rules to keep them in line. Honor’s family moves to Island 365 when Honor is ten. When she enters school, she begins to learn the rules and history that Earth Mother wants her to learn. But her parents aren’t interested in the rules, and they have a different version of history than the one Honor is learning. Suddenly Honor is caught between believing those she loves or those she fears.

I’m not a huge fan of dystopia, but I found The Other Side of the Island better than most. A lot of it takes place when Honor is still young, before the rebellious, independent (drama-filled) teenage years that many dystopias seem to encompass. Goodman did a fabulous job of informing her readers about the world subtly. She truly embodies the old adage, “Show, don’t tell.” My one complaint about the book is that the ending felt rushed. The action had moved so slowly for so many pages, and then suddenly it all comes to a head and is over in fifty pages. It also seems (to me at least) to be left open enough for a sequel, but as far as I could tell, there isn’t one. Despite the loose ends, this is a well-written story with a very compelling main character. If you like dystopias, you should definitely give this one a try!