Iacopo Bruno

Ted Sanders

the Portal and the Veil

Keepers #3

Christine

11/23/23: LMAOO "probably will write a real review later" no you will not, 13 year old christine, thank you very much. this is not a real review, this is me screaming into the void at 12:30am, yet again. maybe i really should reread aogg.
i freaking love adjectives. it is very apparent. 
once again 5* rating left almost six years ago and will remain untouched. bc i feel insane about this book. of course. 

if i had one question answered about this entire series, it would simply be WHO IS BECK? that's all.

okay. i dont know what i meant to begin this with, but..
oh holy crap okay i guess that about sums it up. I don't have a SINGLE COHERENT THOUGHT about this book and it is going to SHOW so badly here. also i need sleep.
i'd forgotten how utterly INSANE this book is. i remembered it being the "hey help what is going on" book with all the cool fight scenes involving time and space but i'd forgotten SO MUCH. oh man OH MAN OH MAN. 
my notes look completely unreadable for this one. as they should be.
JUST- OKAY. okayokayokay
ISABEL. i want to THROW HANDS WITH HER. so badly. as does everybody apparently lol. well, she got her comeuppance. help that was all so insane. 
SANGUINE HALL. the sa'halvasa are so cool TOO BAD they didn't WORK MEISTER SIDEEYE
joshua and the laithe!! oh man i love joshua. he is so special this eight year old with the weight of the world almost literally. LOVE him. poor kid. the laithe is epic and awesome ayieee the rabbit <33 
huge fan of Jessica Andrews she carries all of this somehow. 
everything just coming to light is wild. because of course secrets must come to light, but .. oh man.. there is so much going on in the middle of unstopping fight scenes. the timeline in these books is geniunely impossible to me because of course horace is lookding forwrda all the itme but at the same time literally only a couple days have passed - what! !!!! love the fihght scenes eheheh i dont care if the multiple POVS are redundant, they're COOL!!!
brian and tunraden !!! !!!!! a YEAR in the find??? without talking to anyone? man i really want to hear more about that lolll also how'd he get to the mothergates w Tunraden without the Laithe back then?
gotta love the animal love in these books im such a huge fan of it.. arthur and baron and loki especially of course. 
H&C&A popped off this book of course they would but AYOO !! esp with the breach fixed Horace was so cool and Chloe is unstoppable as always and April finding herself because she had to in order to deal w Isabel and Joshua - ! i appreciate them more everytime i come back to these books. is chloe super snarky and randomly over the top about it? yes? do i still love her? absolutely. meanwhile H is jus trying to science everything out of curiosity. amazing. and then April's new level sensibility coming into the mix is really funny. 
on that note the April & Isabel & Gabriel bits get me everytime. man what even is going on the way a couple of teenagers are far more mature than a mother of two (questionably)... yeah. A &G really do work together SO well i love their dynamic esp when he stayed back for her like yea!! ofc he would! and then their collective ???about Isabel. they are cool.

freakin love Ka'hokia yeeheeeeee Goth en'Sethra is crazy and fusion is utterly maniacal but super cool the Altari are epic (ngl i always think of the pokemon altaria when i read altari) always been a huge fan of Dailen (:() and Teokas and Ravana and Go'nesh are neat and Brula is dubious but FALO SHOWIN UP!! forgot she even DID that lolol it's been so long. the Ro'ha was awesome too. i just really love learning about tan'ji and their powers. this magic system has been rotating in my head for almost six years man i am allowed to be insane about it. 


HATE AUDITORS TO NO END!!! die die die die die 
the destruction of the Warren gets me. it is So Sad and ad;sgkljwgqowq;gkjdag <- tired keyboard slam. thinking about it too hard just makes me sadder bc all those lost and destroyed tanu... aaaaa.... everything lost in what was supposed to be an impenetrable fortress..ksjfd;fs;ajkdgj also just all the Wardens in thise scenes :( joshua :( 
ravids are cool love how they jus randomly show up out of nowhere 


(i had many thoughts about the purpose of this series being middle grade and i mean yeah i get it but also there's a part of me that thinks it would've worked just as a YA series too simply if it would have made the characters more real somehow. sanders can certainly write adults in my 19 year oldopinion which is probably not very useful)


sigh


okay. here is the bulk of my actual insanity about this book: NEPTUNE AND GABRIEL!!! I really do love the main characters they're AMAZING but i am me and i am violently attached to side characters w like, zero background all the time it's a problem and it annoys me to no end. but when i was 13 i kinda latched onto those two just because they were so .. side character-y. and full disclosure because i could ship them. because i had to do SOMETHING when i was 13. "i don't like romance" you little fool you LOVED shipping characters
im going to be so for real the awkward teenage drama that is Ingrid and those two is. Bro you've gotta be kidding me. i mean ofc there had to be drama of some sort but help it is SO AWKWARD jsfw;qotuwtoujl;avksdgjw wuiejeeeeeeeeee it is barely there but also it is very there especially when it's just starkly like. well N likes G and G and I were once really close and N particularly hates I et cetera HELP! it is simultaneously funny adn also just.... i have got to stop talking i am really stupid and have no words lol. anyway i get the purpose of it but also i'm just mad because there's no actual resolution to any of these characters aside from H&C and all of it seems redundant and pointless by the end of TSL simply bc we just dont know anything about them. it sorta does add a flavor of "well. these are teens, after all" which is fine and normal and kind of interesting actually but just the way Ingrid is a PLOT POINT and really nothing more (freeing G in bk1? acting as the Lostling foil to Joshua? The Traitor(tm) of the Wardens? she just serves to further the plot and add a bit of Spice into certain scenes) and then N also becoming one in bk4. And then Gabriel literally is just. He's held apart from them in the first place, anyway. His role is - well, his namesake, Gabriel, the guardian angel. He plays the part of the far too responsible one (aintnoway bro is 17), burdened w/ the staff and information and everythin else and always there all the time bc he has to be bc of the humour and sticking it through everything and it really geniunely does feel like he simply isnt in the drama at all even tho it technically centers on him LMAOO also as i said, almost backstory-less. Neptune has ~some~ as a legacy (ayo her dad throwing her off the building is c r a z y) but G has ZERO BACKSTORY quite literally none even Brian has more helppp??? epitome of w great power comes great responsibility but absolutely not a SHRED of backstory. whered he come from how'd he go through the Find et cetera all teh usual questions and then also just what in the absolute heck man. and yea, sure, Ingrid's a Lostling who turned who held no particular liking for anything except Gabriel apparently (lmao) but that doesn't really... sigh. oh well. did she evn know about the existence of Brian?? when did she turn? how long was she with the Wardens? how long with the Riven? it sounde like it must've been more recent eh? but also sometimes it feels like it wasn't. meister said he played a part in creating a Lsotling - was it her? her tan'ji would've been super useful for them, and now it's working against them. i also want to know more about her tan'ji - it's one of the only ones never named. even Dr Jericho's Raka has a name. she has to have a spitestone in the warren, but they also take her straight into it - what's going on there i wonder. also i wonder what her color is idk what category the flute would fit into aaaa. what even truly caused her to turn? it must've been bc the riven are trying to save the mothergates bc she does talk about it, but also it has to run deeper than that - "better a riven nest of brimstone than one night in a tinker prison stinking of surrender" girliepop WHAT!!! you are SEVENTEEN!!!!!! what in the HECK HAPPENED?? 
also i wonder why Mrs Hapstead is Mrs
also i wonder so much about Meister. mysterious to the end. egads. 
i am just insatiably curious and spoiled on tolkien so it becomes a real problem when i read other books because i just want to Know Everything and obviously that is impossible. but oh man if it WERE! aaaa

lmaoofsooooo the scene of Neptune and Joshua has been unforgotten by me for all tihs time because the first time i read it i went so red in the face (partly from laughter) my dad asked me if i was ok. i was not ok at all. it is AWESOME i LOVE their interactions there lolll tfw you're 15 and trying to help this precocious 8 year old out but you don't really know how and he out of nowhere accuses you of having a crush on your friend. so yea. but also those two, in that brief scene, was simply just enjoyable. not really in the same way A & G work together, but kinda like .. both are odd and sorta lost and awkward somehow. love that scene sm. FINALLY some neptune personality esp as she promptly gets shanked the next book pretty much. 

(the parallel that is "We are all fond of Gabriel, aren't we?" and "Everybody likes Zeke" from 100 Cupboards is genuinely making me laugh. btw. hello mg novels i love you so much)


--
Jan 2018: AGHHHH <3333
*probably will write a real review later*

Keepers #3 the Portal and the Veil

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