 Hi everyone, I'm Philippe Magnus and today I will be talking about reviewing The Girl and the Moon by Marc Lawrence, his third book of the eyes, the epic conclusion of a trilogy, but not only of that, it is also the ending, the culmination of disparate elements woven throughout an entire 15 book over. I can't judge too well on the latter, having only read about half of Lawrence's novels, but gun pressed to my head, I'll tell you right now, I'll say and I will bet money on it, I'm not actually betting money on it, but I can ascertain that The Girl and the Moon is a fine, as fine an ending to a trilogy as any I have read. Why is that? Well, I'm going to tell you, in between taking peeks at the review I've written, which you can find on my blog right after the break. There is no break, no one is sponsoring this video, not even Spider-Man, not even Marvel, why would they be sponsoring this? No one is watching this. Anyway, let's continue. Its greatest weakness is that I wish I could spend more time with this world, with its characters, that I wish I could witness them do more, face more, live true, yet more horrifying trials and tribulations as beset by Lawrence, in yet more unspeakable ways. And that's what an excellent novel does, isn't it? You wish you could keep turning the pages, you wish you could keep following along with the lines, with the threads of these characters' lives. But you can't. Once the covers have closed, hoping beyond hope that the magic will return in a sequel is really a fool's errand, because what can happen except for diminishing returns? The story has been told, and it has been told phenomenally well in, what is it, less than 400 pages? Yes, just under 400 pages. It's a hell of a conclusion. And I think it does a phenomenal job making you want more. Mark Lawrence is proficient at this, you know? I don't know if you've read any of his novels, any of his series before. I myself have finished one, Impossible Times, which is a trilogy of very short, here I mean 192, I think 220 pages a book. Three of them, as I said trilogy. And those were phenomenal. I read through them in three days straight over New Year's Eve. I was late to a party, a New Year's Eve party, because I couldn't stop reading the Impossible Times trilogy, which if you... it sounds a lot like me to be honest. I am something of a nerd. Maybe you have noticed up to this point. Anyway, my point is that having read the Impossible Times, having begun both the Broken Empire trilogy and the Book of the Ancestor, I can tell that Mark Lawrence is really good at always leaving you wanting for more. It's a talent, he's proficient at it, and he often makes me cry my eyes out while I'm wanting for more, which I do not appreciate. I have a severe napkin deficiency after this novel, and I have to be entirely honest with you. I don't like it. I do not appreciate it, Mr Lawrence. No, not at all. But, oh well, let's move on. Let's move on, shall we? Because I swear I am getting lost in the dreads of dolls here. I haven't done this in a long while, you know? And also, it's the Summer of Sequels. Imagine there was a shiny rainbow graphic here. The Summer of Sequels means that I will be reviewing a lot—oh god, I think I'm dying. A lot of sequels is what I was going to say. The Summer of Sequels is an event that I have made up for myself, which will fail horribly. But I will be reviewing so many sequels, you wouldn't even believe it. Oh well. My point is, take the gods I read Red Sister Before the Girl and the Moon, too. Just that first part of the book of the ancestors had me kind of drawing so many connections between the abbot—this is the world that both trilogies take place in—the abbot of the Girl and the Moon's present, which is also the abbot of Red Sister's future. Nope, that doesn't make sense. Oh god, I'm so nervous. I am so nervous. Let's try again, shall we? I think the gods I read Red Sister Before the Girl and the Mountains, too. Just that first part of the ancestor trilogy gave me so much more context to draw from and to understand the changes in the world of abbot, a world which is, well, quite a lot changed. The corridor in particular, the corridor is a 50-mile-wide space in the frozen world of abbot, kept unfrozen by a synthetic artificial moon that focuses the energies of a dying sun in order every night to break through the ice, to warm these 50 miles, to make certain that the last remnants of human civilization do not die out, and this moon is dying, which is not great. Anyway, the prior books in the Book of the Eyes, introduced abbot's vast icy surface, the unforgiving frigid wasteland of a planet's supports life as we would recognize it only across that corridor, and Yas's heart-wrenching beautiful adventure, saw her across the girl and the stars and the girl and the mountain, finally, at long last, reached the corridor. Spoilers, if you haven't read the previous books, sorry about that. And now it sees its climatic finale here. As a struggle against the city-mind Seuss and his servants reaches its mighty conclusion, and before it does, trust me, it's going to turn well and truly desperate. Yas, quinner, Aries, Tears, Ice and Fireboy, Mali and as many delightfully murdery red sisters and nuns of the Ancestor are going to have their hands full, their work is cut out for them, across so many enemies rearing from ruins and cityscapes and magical academies. It's really quite entertaining seeing so many binds that Yas ends up in, in her companions as well, and the ways in which they managed to fear a way out. I'm really a big fan of that. No one is safe, not the Convent of Sweet Mercy, not the Imperial Capital of Varity and its academy, and certainly not the part of the Ark of the Missing, which is the place that Yas and her companions need to reach in order to save the aforementioned eponymous moon. Now, how they do it, and if they even succeed, I will leave to the book to reveal, but I am willing to bet that you will be enchanted, entertained to no end by what goes on. No, so before I move on, let me just say, this cover, I love the previous ones, and I don't mind the UK covers, but this US cover is so freaking amazing and I love it, and I want a poster of it. I do. So give me one, please, someone send me a poster, I'm not giving you my address, you will just have to figure it out for yourself. When you do, you know what to do. Anyway, Spider-Water makes a superhero out of you, here's your art. Characters are drawn together, torn apart by cruel fate and faced with some remarkable tests of their skills and wits, seeing as they overcome so much. Her final confrontations, the losses along the way and the suffering she had to endure, only an ictor tribeswoman could do it all. I was thrilled by the connective tissue between Moon and Red Sister, for example, between those elements as well that reminded me, oh yeah, I really need to go back and finish the Broken Empire trilogy because I read Prince of Thorns some five, six years ago and I just, I need to read the rest, because I see so much connecting, so many clever threads and if I had finished that whole trilogy, I'm sure, if I had finished the Book of the Ancestors for that matter, so much would make even more sense and that is kind of what I love. This drawing of information from Yaz and her friends' perspectives that is helping along with a smorgasbord of interesting ideas which I will share with you, or want, some far-off day when I have finished every single one of these novels, these 15 novels that Lawrence has written, that's a lot of reading left, just halfway there, unbelievable. Anyway, I love the Girl and the Moon, I finished it a few weeks ago and having holding on from writing this review because past experience with the finishing of a trilogy have left me a little bit embittered. They've taught me caution, sometimes you get overexcited because the journey is over, you get a good fat dose of catharsis and then sometimes maybe you go back after you've written a shining review and you realise that book had issues, that book had some issues that I did not reflect on the way I should have. Yeah, you get overexcited, you end up singing the praises of a book without accounting for its weaknesses, so no, I told, not going to let myself make that mistake here. Took those few weeks and I have to tell you, oh and by the way, I do a lot of internal monologuing like this, it's, my head is not a nice place to be in, a lot of self-doubt and self-deprecation and also so much arrogance, just the pure seeding arrogance that I could be doing, this YouTube thing, despite not, I'm getting distracted aren't I, it's a tangent, I see what you're doing me, well, I'm not gonna stand for it, I was about to say, despite having waited a few weeks to review The Girl in the Moon, I think, I think back on it and can find no flaws in it, nothing that took away from my enjoyment of a journey finished alongside characters who are as real as any that I've read about, more so even a stellar example of Mark Lawrence's capacity to stick a landing, this one, The Girl in the Moon, Simmons, for me and I'm sure for many others, the Book of the Eyes is another must read fantasy trilogy, hell, put it in the canon, get a few nerds like me to write textbooks and teach courses, all about it and I'd love to, if only I could get past my stage fright, oh well, at any point, this review was weird and fragmentary, did you like it, you did, didn't you, come on, there's only you and me here, all the rest of my audience have left, so tell me, did you enjoy this, we like more meandering chaotic reviews of this sort in the future, stick around, don't forget to press like and subscribe and smash buttons or whatever it is that YouTube people tell you to do, because that's what you should be doing, right, you should be feeding that algorithm instead of reading books, well, maybe you don't have to, maybe you can just pick up the Book of the Eyes, pick up another of Mark Lawrence's trilogies and chill out, my dude, it's gonna be fine, you don't have to like everything, you don't have to share this with your friends, even though I would appreciate it, but you don't gotta, what you gotta do is sit back, relax and read books, it's fun, I've been doing it a lot and I haven't been reviewing any of them, so if you would like to see more reviews, or even if you wouldn't, you are probably going to get them here on this channel, I've got a review for Eyes of the Void by Adrian Tchaikovsky, I reviewed the previous book, oh, wait a second, my camera is about to shut down, ah, there we are, so I was saying I reviewed the previous book in Adrian Tchaikovsky's Final Architecture series, was that the name, whatever, Shards of the Earth, you can click somewhere around here and you will be taken to the review, it's less chaotic than this one, but that shouldn't stop you, it's still probably informative, anyway, you'll see that on Wednesday, if all goes according to plan, after that you will see my, well, you will see some other video about Eyes in the Void of the Void, oh god, how did I feel, Eyes of the Void, the Final Architecture, that's the name, what's going on with me, I'm insane, I'm absolutely mental, it doesn't matter, it does not matter at all, the point is, you will be getting some content, because I'm trying to get back to it, savvy, that's what pirates say, right, and I'm a pirate, not a book pirate, unless it's academic textbooks, but those are very expensive, so sometimes I have pirates at those, sorry, you know what, read books, bye!