So with Kingdom Hearts 3 finally coming out this year I’ve decided that it was time to get back into the series and start everything over from the beginning. At this point with the game only days away from release I know there is no way I will finish all the other games in time but I like taking my time with games and series even if that means I’m late to the party.
Currently I’m 25, and I’m going to be 26 in April but I’ve been a fan of Kingdom Hearts since 2006 when I was 13. I had gotten a PlayStation 2 either in 2002 or 2003 but didn’t really get into gaming until a couple of years later. At the time I was really into Final Fantasy and I still am but I had gone to Best Buy to pick up a copy of Final Fantasy 7: Advent Children and one of the employees suggest Kingdom Hearts which I also bought. But the thing is when I was younger I very bad a video games though I loved playing them. I had this bad habit of starting a game and either not understanding something or not leveling properly so I would get stuck and stop playing. A month would go by and I would attempt the game again and sometimes I would just restart from the beginning. So I had this tendency to never really finish any games (though in high school I broke this habit).
In Kingdom Hearts you play as Sora, a kid from Destiny Island, who wants to go on an adventure with his friends Kairi and Riku. When the Islands get attacked by the heartless Sora is separated from his friends but meets up with Donald and Goofy who are tasked with traveling to different Disney worlds to defeat the heartless and save/find Kairi and Riku.
I know when I was a kid that I got to Halloween Town but never finished the game. I also played the first two hours of Kingdom Hearts 2 but that was it until recently. However, I followed the information about all the games coming out but could never play most of them because of how they seemed to be on different consoles each time. At this point I have only gotten through Kingdom Hearts and Kingdom Hearts Re:Chain of Memories.
I love the first game. Its simple in its story telling but the emotional core is very strong. I want Sora to find his friends, I want King Mickey to be found and I want the heartless to be defeated. As the first game in the series its very easy to get into and overall the game play is not overly hard. There’s only a handful of things I don’t like with the game play but I also don’t think I’m very good at games so these might not be issues for many. The big problem is the jumping is not very good which makes any platforming sections even worse and there is no map on the screen so you have no idea where you are most of the time. I only other issue is the final boss is multiple fights in a row with no check point/ save or anything which the boss is not all that hard for the end of the game but if you mess up or your timing is off just enough you have to do it all over again.
With Kingdom Hearts Re:Chain of Memories I only played the first couple of hours before deciding that I absolutely can not stand the card battle system. So I ended up watching a play though for the plot information and just leaving it at that. I do feel that games are better played than watched but watching it is bettering than skipping the game outright when each game adds to the plot. In Chain of Memories Sora, Donald, and Goofy are trapped in Castle Oblivion and travel through the memories they have of visiting all of the worlds from the first game to find the truth while also dealing with the new villains, the Nobodies of Organization XIII.
I’m in the Kingdom Hearts pain train now as people call it and plan to continue playing the rest of the series and Kingdom Hearts 3 when I get around to it.
The bookish items this month included a Queen Levana inspired candle from Flick the Wick. Queen Levana is a character from the Lunar Chronicles by Marrisa Meyer and the candle is described as blackberries, vanilla, and fresh greenery. When I smell it I get a berry and a light vanilla scent but not any of the fresh greenery. Candles are very personal so I can see some subscribers not liking the scent. It’s a 2 oz candle which seems a little small to me.
The big item for the box besides the book is a custom reading planner which I don’t like and probably won’t use. I like idea of including a reading planer and I’m not sure if anyone else is like this but I have a very specific way I like planners to be laid out which this is not. Personally, I prefer planners to already have the dates and months included because I won’t bother to do it myself though it is good if you don’t start using the planner at the beginning of the year. The other thing that bugs me is that all of the monthly planner sections are at the front and the weekly at the back so that more troublesome to use both than it needs to be. I completely understand that Owl Crate can’t cater to every subscriber but I surprised that they didn’t used a more traditional set up for the planner. If I use it at all it will be supplemental to my main planner.
Every Heart a Doorway follows Nancy a new student at Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children who traveled to the Halls of the Dead, is now back home and her parents want her to be the way she was before she left. Shortly after Nancy arrives at the school another student is murdered and the plot revolves around who is killing the students and why. This book introduces multiple characters that we gain more information about both in this book as well through out the series and how these other worlds work on a scale of Nonsense/Logic and Virtue/Wickedness though it becomes clear that world can present themselves one way while their rules don’t seem the same. One of the things I love about Seanan McGuire’s books is the fact that many of the characters are diverse such as different religions, sexuality and identities but this diversity is not the main focus of the plot. The characters are diverse because the real world is diverse. Every Heart a Doorway so far is my favorite book in the series.
Down Among the Sticks and Bones follows Jack and Jill, twin sisters that we met in book one, and tells the story of before they arrived at school and the world that they went to. Jack and Jill’s parents treated their daughters as one being a tomboy and the other a girly girl regardless of how they felt about it and that caused them to resent each other. When they arrive at the Moors, a world much like Universal’s classic horror movies, they finally chose who they were for them selves with Jack working for a mad scientist and Jill becoming the favorite of the Vampire that ruled the town which changes everything forever. Technically, books one and two of this series can be read with either working as book one however, I feel like Every Heart should be read first because of what happens to Jack and Jill at the end of book one which shows what they become where Down is their back story and why they are the way they are.
Beneath the Sugar Sky follows Rini the daughter of Sumi, who was killed the beginning of book one. Rini has traveled from the world of Confection to Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children to save her mother’s life and her world. Because of Rini’s quest several other students join her in traveling through different world to put Sumi back together again and help her save Confection which allows the readers to see different worlds than have been shown in the other books and see some of the previous main characters. Though the plot of Beneath revolves around Rini and her quest to save her mother a new student, Cora, is the main narrator/character for the book.
OwlCrate is a young adult book subscription box where every month you receive one new hardcover book and an assortment of bookish goodies connected to the monthly theme. November’s theme was Rise from the Ashes. So far I’ve been loving OwlCrate but this box didn’t feel as curated to me, some of the items it felt like they were added because the creators didn’t know what else to add to the box. 
Girls of Paper and Fire is a book that I have been hearing great things about and was interested in pickup at some point. Though OwlCrate doesn’t always have the best stuff I do intend to keep my subscription for a while as I love the surprise at the end of every month. December’s them is the Power of Illusions.
The Silver Eyes starts out in 1995 when our main protagonist Charlotte “Charlie” returns to her home town of Hurricane, Utah to attend a ceremony about a scholarship created in the honor of her childhood friend Michael who along with four others were murdered at Freddy’s, the business that Charlie’s father helped run. Charlie with her friends Jon, Jessica, and Carlton decide to visit the old pizzeria and find that an abandoned shopping mall was built around it. From there its murderous animatronics and finding out what really happened at Freddy’s all those years ago. Overall, book one is not the best written book but the story is solid and it can be read as a stand alone. It would be a good introduction to kids or younger teens that are interested in both the books and the games without the jump scares and horror more prevalent in the games.
Five Nights at Freddy’s: The Twisted Ones starts a year after the end of book one with Charlie now at college and taking classes on artificial intelligence and robotics. After the events of the previous year that happened at the old pizzeria and the death of William Afton, Charlie is experiencing nightmares about the animatronics and the kidnapping of her twin brother, Sammy. When a body shows up with the same attach marks as previous victims of the animatronics Charlie, Jon, and their friends are drawn back into the world of Freddy’s. It turns out that Afton Robotics created other animatronics that were not the same as the originals from Freddy’s and they can change one’s perception of them. While finding out what is going on with these different robotics companies it turns out that William Afton is not as dead as everyone thought he was and confesses that he didn’t take Sammy but Charlie. The book ends with Jon believing Charlie is dead but then she shows back up on the very last page.
Finally, book three Five Nights at Freddy’s: The Fourth Closet. Book three is much more Jon’s story than Charlie’s as we start off a few months from the end of book two with Jon still believing that he witnessed Charlie die that night but there’s someone who looks like Charlie and isn’t really acting like her is around. The entire story focuses on Jon and the others attempting to find out what really happen to Charlie and putting to rest everything about Freddy’s. It become very clear early on that Charlie is not really Charlie and we are given more of her families back story. Somehow, once again Afton is not actually dead and he mainly wants to find out how Henry, Charlie’s father, was able to essentially give a soul to an animatronic. The plot twist, which is very predictable, is that Afton killed Charlie years ago and that the Charlie in the story is a robot. The ending creates a clean slate as all the animatronics are destroyed and Afton is finally, truly killed but the story is very confusing and looses any emotional connection. I only finished these books because I like the lore of the games.
OwlCrate is a young adult book subscription box where every month you receive one new hardcover book and an assortment of bookish goodies connected to the monthly theme. October’s theme was Lost in the Bookstore and was the first time two books were included in the box.
