Inventive, if not always interesting.

books:


	• The Chronicles of Chrestomanci, Volume 1: Charmed Life / The Lives of Christopher Chant Diana Wynne Jones Eos, 2001 - 608 pages average customer review:based on 67 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Inventive and Fun

I first was introduced to the Chrestomanci chronicles after reading Howl's Moving Castle. I must say though, I instantly liked this series from the beginning. Although the book goes pretty slow in the beginning, which I agree with many of the reviewers- it really picks up. The long introduction to what happens really sets up the world of Chrestomanci and is important to understand the general characters of Gwen and Cat. But, besides it being slow paced in the beginning, it really picked up and I was intrigued chapter by chapter just to see what Gwen would come up with next. Furthermore, The Lives of Chrestomanci is better than Charmed Life. I really enjoyed that one much better, and I believe if you read that one first, you can appreciate Charmed Life more since you understand the context of the world and perhaps have an attachment to Chrestomanci himself. Really good overall. I give it 5/5 for inventiveness and none of that same old fantasy that just seems to be reproduced in masses. Jones is a genius.

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two-and-a-half stars

Gonna have to go with Flying Book Reader here: I agree, it's mostly a snoozer. A friend told me it picks up in the middle. I'm about a third of the way through and calling it quits, and not sorry after reading the rest of the reviews. I just don't have the passion for entering 12 parallel worlds.

Regarding comparisons with HP, don't even go there. The similarity ends with wizardry. Period. I'm mad about HP; it does NOT follow you'll go for Chresto.

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My favorite children's book/s

I sell children's books in a bookstore, and these two books are my favorites to recommend, especially for kids who aren't quite ready for the length and detail of the Potter books. I was therefore very unhappy when Jones's American publisher, in their infinite wisdom, let the books go out of print in the intermediate format. Now they're only available in this mass market 2-to-a-book edition, a format off-putting to the very readers I would most like to read these wonderful novels. As Janet might say, jiminy purple creepers! How dumb can you get?

Grown-ups can enjoy these books too, though. I first read them as an adult, and I re-read them about once a year. More elegant and streamlined than the Potter books, and more genuinely witty, the situations, dialogue, and characters are so delightful that they more than make up for occasional deficiencies in plotting and world-building. And where else can you find a wizard like Christopher Chant, who seems inspired more by Georgette Heyer novels than by the usual Tolkienish fare?

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Inventive, if not always interesting.

I read "charmed life" but decided to wait on "lives of christopher chant" because Garth Nix's "Sabriel" seemed more interesting. "Charmed Life" was admittedly creative with a clever plot and interesting imaginary world, but it was dense and difficult to understand in places and didn't hold my interest as much as I would have liked. As I expected, "Sabriel" proved to be more interesting. I might come back to Jones' series later, because they weren't bad, but I have read better books. Oh and btw I imagined Cat looking like Freddie Highmore from August Rush and Gwendolen/Janet looking like whoever plays Sam on iCarly (a Nickelodeon show), but that's just me.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

In this multiple parallel universes of the Twelve Related Worlds, only an enchanter with nine lives is powerful enough to control the rampant misuse of magic--and to hold the title Chrestomanci...

The Chants are a family strong in magic, but neither Christopher Chant nor Cat Chant can work even the simplest of spells. Who could have dreamed that both Christopher and Cat were born with nine lives--or that they could lose them so quickly?

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