"Bold, bad man. Does everyone hate you?"
And woman. (Just for inclusiveness).
Josh and Sophie Newman have been living it up for the past week...not. [spoiler] They've actually been to Europe and back, running from Dark Elders whose cronies range--I kid you not--from flesh-eating dudes to a 500-year-old magician to Billy the Kid, all while trying to learn magic so that they can save the world [/spoiler]. Not the best week, especially when the priority of their summer was saving for a car.
Dr. John Dee hasn't been having the best week, either, though. [spoiler] When you almost succeeded in your plan, but failed, and the Elders who made you immortal now want to curse you to eternal old-age, and they're setting all your crony buddies on you, and you're on the run with only your ex-fiancé for company [/spoiler]...I think you can write the week off as a crappy one.
And guess what?! They're not the only ones having bad weeks! What about the Flamels?--
[spoiler] last week they owned a bookshop, had the secret to immortality, and were parading around as awesome hippie folks; now they're almost literally falling apart at the seams [/spoiler]. Or the Saint-Germains?--[spoiler] newly renovated house: gone; honeymoon phase of the marriage: interrupted; now Joan's stuck in the Pleistocene Era and Saint-Germain's trying to figure out how to convince an angry Elder who hates him to help him [/spoiler]. Or Shakespeare and Palamedes?--[spoiler] bye-bye junkyard, bye-bye anonymity, bye-bye chilling in disreputable London areas with the puppies; now it's to trekking over to Sherwood Forest to see a group of not-so-merry women and the Elder who certainly isn't Robin Hood [/spoiler].
Jiminy cricket. Pity parties all around.
The Necromancer is a very excellent instalment in "The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel" series; please disregard the fact that it took me nearly a month to read--personal excuses aside, *coughIwassuperbusyandbehindonallmyreadingbecauseI'maMLSstudentandIwaskindaworkingonstuffcough*.
Anyway.
The Necromancer features the same stellar cast of lovable (and not so lovable) characters, and Michael Scott knows just when to give a little break from the soul searching and plunge you back into the roller coaster ride that is everyone's lives at this point. If you want to go all English major on this book, you can totally find a message, but The Necromancer honestly reads very much like The Alchemyst, which means that it's a fast-paced hurly burly that leaves you a tad winded afterwards. And that's fantastic. After the deep conversations of The Magician and The Sorceress, it's sort of nice to just get back to people running around like chickens with their heads cut off...which is certainly what is happening in this book.
Just a warning for you all: what with everyone in this book having such a crappy week, tempers are rising, and there's more than a little bit of this going around:
Don't take it personally.
If your week was looking like some of these guys', you'd be a bit snappish too.
As always, if Anakin's mood is something you'd like to share (NOT RECOMMENDED: turns out yelling that at people doesn't endear you to the world), you can find this hateful little GIF right here.
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