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185 reviews for:
Foretold: 14 Tales of Prophecy and Prediction
Laini Taylor, Richelle Mead, Simone Elkeles, Z Brewer, Saundra Mitchell, Malinda Lo, Michael Grant, Matt de la Peña, Meg Cabot, Diana Peterfreund, Carrie Ryan, Kami Garcia, Lisa McMann, Margaret Stohl
185 reviews for:
Foretold: 14 Tales of Prophecy and Prediction
Laini Taylor, Richelle Mead, Simone Elkeles, Z Brewer, Saundra Mitchell, Malinda Lo, Michael Grant, Matt de la Peña, Meg Cabot, Diana Peterfreund, Carrie Ryan, Kami Garcia, Lisa McMann, Margaret Stohl
I AM IN TEARS THIS IS ALL I EVER WANTED BUT COULND'T IT HAVE BEEN LONGER OMG I WANT MORE ROMITRI I AN SO SAD IT'S OVER
It was wonderful to revisit Dimitri and Rose again, and hear the update on their story. Wish it was longer, though!
[No stars, because I've only read Richelle Mead's short story]
So, no. I'm not going to fangirl. 'Cause, you know, I'm not a fangirl.
Can you hear this noise? It's so NOT me fangirling over Rose and Dimitri's awesomeness.







Nope. Not even a little bit. Not even at all.
So, no. I'm not going to fangirl. 'Cause, you know, I'm not a fangirl.
Can you hear this noise? It's so NOT me fangirling over Rose and Dimitri's awesomeness.
Spoiler








Nope. Not even a little bit. Not even at all.
Collections of novellas are hard to rate for me because some of these short stories were fantastic and others were terrible. So the 4 stars are for the good ones in the bunch.
This was even better than I imagined it would be!!! IT WAS SO PERFECT!! Like I can't put into words how much I adored it!!!
hmmmm, meh!
Aun tengo pendiente leer Bloodlines, que es la razón por la cual leí VA en primer lugar, en fin...algún día, algún día!
Aun tengo pendiente leer Bloodlines, que es la razón por la cual leí VA en primer lugar, en fin...algún día, algún día!
I've always found this sort of collection of short stories by YA authors to be rather hit-and-miss because some stories would inevitably be a letdown whereas others would surprise me with how good they are. Foretold was in the same vein as these other collections that I've read about before, although it is commendable that there's a central theme for all these stories to follow and the works that the different authors have come out with are really very creative and unique.
The basic premise of Foretold is exactly as it says in the title. The authors were challenged to come with a short narrative involving prophecies and predictions and whether or not these predictions eventually came true or what the prophecies contained were left up to the individual author's discretion.
There were some really weird stories, such as Diana Peterfreund's Burned Bright and The Mind Is a Powerful Thing by Matt de la Peñ.
In Burned Bright, our protagonist is brought up by her father in some kind of cult and she's been brainwashed to believe that only those that have been saved by her family would be spared from God's wrath. Sam is the boy who likes her and the story is told from both of their perspectives, so that you can understand how skewed Bright's thinking really is. While there's a nice twist at the end of the story, I never really bought the "love" between Sam and Bright. Sam knew all along that Bright was being deceived and yet did nothing about it, so as to enjoy being the sole centre of her attention. The weird relationship between Bright and Sam meant that I didn't enjoy this story as much.
The Mind is a Powerful Thing is another story that I wished I could've enjoyed more too. I get what the author is trying to do: to show that when you obsess too much over things they could end up like a self-fulfilling prophecy in that what you hoped wouldn't happen has the tendency to actually happen. However, the execution could have been more thought-out. Joanna's a very unreliable narrator with the tendency towards paranoia and while this made the tale more suspenseful, it also meant that I was left a bit confused. Also, the accident that had happened to the boy she liked didn't exactly go a long way to prove that her predictions were wrong because she did guess that her friend's boyfriend would be pissed off and seeking revenge.
And while I didn't enjoy these two stories as much, I did find Laini Taylor's Gentleman Send Phantoms and Carrie Ryan's The Killing Garden to be really fascinating tales.
Taylor's Gentleman Send Phantoms is a really sweet romance between Matthew Blackgrace and Catherine. In their world, girls can find out who their intended are through baking a cake on St. Faith's Day and the boy who's interested in them would appear to them in the form of a phantom at night. The sweetness of their relationship and their shyness with each other was absolutely adorable. And although the story isn't very long, I found Laini Taylor's world-building to have been done very well and I could suspend my disbelief about how cake-baking is linked to finding a husband and enjoy the story that she's woven here.
The Killing Garden is a darker story, with Tanci being the Gardener's daughter and destined to take over his role. The Gardener is the Emperor's executioner and carries out the Emperor's orders, where each criminal is allowed to race the Gardener and if he loses, he will be brutally murdered by the Gardener. Tanci's been told that girls aren't as good as boys when it comes to this job, because they don't have the heart for it and she's determined to prove that wrong. And although she eventually does become Gardener, what happens when she meets someone that she doesn't want to kill?
Foretold is a mixed bag of goods but there's enough here to keep you reading and to keep you engaged.
The basic premise of Foretold is exactly as it says in the title. The authors were challenged to come with a short narrative involving prophecies and predictions and whether or not these predictions eventually came true or what the prophecies contained were left up to the individual author's discretion.
There were some really weird stories, such as Diana Peterfreund's Burned Bright and The Mind Is a Powerful Thing by Matt de la Peñ.
In Burned Bright, our protagonist is brought up by her father in some kind of cult and she's been brainwashed to believe that only those that have been saved by her family would be spared from God's wrath. Sam is the boy who likes her and the story is told from both of their perspectives, so that you can understand how skewed Bright's thinking really is. While there's a nice twist at the end of the story, I never really bought the "love" between Sam and Bright. Sam knew all along that Bright was being deceived and yet did nothing about it, so as to enjoy being the sole centre of her attention. The weird relationship between Bright and Sam meant that I didn't enjoy this story as much.
The Mind is a Powerful Thing is another story that I wished I could've enjoyed more too. I get what the author is trying to do: to show that when you obsess too much over things they could end up like a self-fulfilling prophecy in that what you hoped wouldn't happen has the tendency to actually happen. However, the execution could have been more thought-out. Joanna's a very unreliable narrator with the tendency towards paranoia and while this made the tale more suspenseful, it also meant that I was left a bit confused. Also, the accident that had happened to the boy she liked didn't exactly go a long way to prove that her predictions were wrong because she did guess that her friend's boyfriend would be pissed off and seeking revenge.
And while I didn't enjoy these two stories as much, I did find Laini Taylor's Gentleman Send Phantoms and Carrie Ryan's The Killing Garden to be really fascinating tales.
Taylor's Gentleman Send Phantoms is a really sweet romance between Matthew Blackgrace and Catherine. In their world, girls can find out who their intended are through baking a cake on St. Faith's Day and the boy who's interested in them would appear to them in the form of a phantom at night. The sweetness of their relationship and their shyness with each other was absolutely adorable. And although the story isn't very long, I found Laini Taylor's world-building to have been done very well and I could suspend my disbelief about how cake-baking is linked to finding a husband and enjoy the story that she's woven here.
The Killing Garden is a darker story, with Tanci being the Gardener's daughter and destined to take over his role. The Gardener is the Emperor's executioner and carries out the Emperor's orders, where each criminal is allowed to race the Gardener and if he loses, he will be brutally murdered by the Gardener. Tanci's been told that girls aren't as good as boys when it comes to this job, because they don't have the heart for it and she's determined to prove that wrong. And although she eventually does become Gardener, what happens when she meets someone that she doesn't want to kill?
Foretold is a mixed bag of goods but there's enough here to keep you reading and to keep you engaged.