#charmed life

Head empty, only Charmed Life thoughts when I sketch. Some Janet and Gwendolen sketches.

Gwendolen and Janet are such interesting characters. At first, I thought Janet was supposed to come off as “not like other girls” but it’s just that she’s so overwhelmed by trying to pass for Gwendolen and absorb the facts of an alternate universe (e.g., says she doesn’t know where Atlantis is in geography class, “How was I supposed to know it’s what people in my world call America??”). So we don’t get to see much of Janet’s personality except her problem-solving skills, because that’s chiefly what has her attention. She’s really grounded and practical! And that’s also how Gwendolen is, except Gwendolen is in her element and can come up with some pretty ambitious plans with more confidence.

I wonder what Janet and the alternate Gwendolens would have been like if they had had their own versions of Eric.

I’ll let you all decide which is Janet and which is Gwendolen. It seems more fun to make them hard to distinguish.

bookishnerdhero:

Since it’s taking me forever to start a proper Review, I’ll just write down reasons why I liked the book with long explanations why. I promised myself I would be more bookish this year, and somehow I did manage to finish Charmed Life and Lives of Christopher Chant on January! I brought the Volume 1 of the Chrestomanci series that had both stories in them! On to the list then!

Why I liked Charmed Life

- The narration was witty, engaging and as magical as the characters.

- I loved how they live in an obviously different world from ours, but DWJ refrains from making grand explanations why this particular world is so. She never goes out of the way and let’s the story breathe and come to life on its own, in a natural way. 

- Cat Chant’s character is interesting. The narration gives enough of Cat’s perspective for us to know that he’s a “clinger”, he doesn’t think he can handle it being left alone without his sister and is quite a fearful character. I found it kind of endearing and interesting because at the start he’s sort of fumbling about, like you could imagine big scared little eyes (which I could right now thanks to a fanart of him I remember seeing. I might reblog it here).

 I love that he underwent a change not because of knowing he was to be Chrestomanci really, but because that thing he had been clinging on had left him and some issues came about and he was forced due to circumstances to deal with it. I noticed that this time the tables have turned and from his fumbling about he seemed to have learned the ways in the Castle and learned to adapt to situations, thinking quickly when necessary. 

It brings the fact that because Cat’s character is this way, he’s not only relate-able but you sympathize with him. I read Charmed Life when I was undergoing an internship in a city a couple of hours ride away from home, and I guess Cat’s ability to learn from routine and adapt to what he’d learned is reminding me now about what I had undergone myself. 

- I love how I don’t love Gwendolen…but I like her character! I know this is funny, but I love the fact that someone was able to make a character I seriously found annoying. She was so full of herself at some extent, I guess it’s why I like her. She’s different and so caught up in her own pride and selfishness that her personality had depth even though it’s somehow plain simple that she’s just wicked. 

-I LOVE CHRESTOMANCI. Ugh! SERIOUSLY! THAT MAN! Halfway into finishing the book I’ve convinced myself I wanted to marry Chrestomanci (probably in the same way DWJ described some girls wanted to Marry Howl Pendragon). I’ve read Conrad’s Fate before this since it was the first Chrestomanci book that I’ve brought and caught my interest. I already liked Christopher subtle sassy personality and because of Conrad’s Fate I did research and found out more about this series. I love how he turned out and the feeling that you could say “CHRESTOMANCI” and he comes. I was freaking out stupidly (since I knew it doesn’t end bad anyway) at the drama at the near end of the book. 

- This reason is why I LOVE DWJ’s books (the ones I’ve read so far) - THE PLOTS ARE ALWAYS PURE GENIUS! You just go ahead reading her book and it always seems to drag on the whole process of a life, like the actual living part, and would seem like you’re just walking leisurely through when BAM! Here’s where the story is rising in action and you start realizing that that thing mentioned before is connected to something in a larger scale, and that random supposedly boring side character is actually gonna be some help. Everything fits in that breathtaking way that reminds me of life. Y’know? Everything just falls into place somehow and then it all makes sense. 

The ending was simple and yet there was that calm to it, like all is well and you may go on with your day as if that didn’t just totally whacked you in the face with Epic-ness. 

I’m getting ahead of myself now, thinking about Lives of Christopher Chant and how DWJ has the ability to make everything seem calm and routine for the character and you, but then she throws in circumstance after circumstance and the character grows as the plot thickens. But that’s for another entry. 

TO GOD BE THE GLORY :D

books-and-whatever:

I LOVE Christopher being a total dork about cricket when he’s a kid, and you will never convince me that he outgrew it. But Millie didn’t care and I’m sure Roger & Julia were like “daddy this is SO BORING” to his great disappointment, so he dragged Conrad (who also didn’t care but was a pushover) to matches and it just wasn’t the same as having a REAL fan along. (Mordecai was excellent company but he was busy  with Gabriel half the time, and besides he and Rosalie usually went together because Rosalie was also a huge dork about cricket, and they’d dork out together and Christopher would always end up being the third wheel, not that he would ever admit that)

BUT THEN JANET COMES ALONG

And Janet mentions one day that back in her world her dad used to watch cricket on the telly, and Christopher is like WAIT. YOU KNOW CRICKET? (but obviously much more posh about it) And Janet starts talking about her favourite players and how she had a poster in her room but she never got the chance to play and now she’s in a world with no telly so there’s no cricket to watch anymore. And she gets kind of sad about it because she probably didn’t realize until she mentioned it, it snuck up on her like all those little things she misses from her world, that she doesn’t know she misses until they come up in day to day life and suddenly they’re just not there. Christopher will always feel guilty about taking her away from her world, and he sees her remember these things and it just makes him feel a thousand times guiltier.

BUT CRICKET. Cricket he can fix!! You never learned to play?? What a travesty! And thus starts Janet’s cricket lessons, and he takes her to the local pitch where the villages compete in a little tournament, and sometimes Mordecai and Rosalie come along and Rosalie points out all the mistakes these amateurs are making and Janet is delighted to learn that Miss Rosalie used to whoop every villager in the area when the castle team played. And Janet shows she’s a pretty darn fine bowler, and she starts playing in the local matches, and then Christopher gets to insist on the whole family going to matches because we have to support Janet, really, she’s awfully nice about all of your interests including your godawful charming horse Cat. And so Christopher finally gets his kids to cricket, even if only ¼ of them are interested, and sometimes even Millie comes, although she always brings a book because really Christopher cricket takes far too long.

And when Janet’s an adult and a doctor she has to fight her way on to the university cricket team because “girls can’t play” but oops she’s 10x better than any other bowler they have. Once she’s out of school she pulls together an all-ladies cricket team, made up of professional ladies who managed to become lawyers and politicians and professors despite the old boys’ network, and still like to crack a cricket ball on the weekend (it’s not easy and she has to force Julia to join because they can’t get quite enough people, and Julia sucks but she sticks it out because Janet). And they play in a local league and they lose a lot, but they win some and no one can say they’re terrible. And people laugh and jeer and some idiots even protest, but the jeering reporters change their tune when Chrestomanci himself shows up to as many matches as possible, and when he can’t make it Lady Chant is there because Millie doesn’t give a damn about cricket but no one is going to protest her Janet over some outdated ideals (the protesters always go quiet when Millie is there because she gives them a look that could melt glass).

When Janet visits the castle, Christopher argues strategy with her over dinner, and did you see the latest match, England was such a disgrace, and everyone else rolls their eyes but it doesn’t matter because Christopher finally has someone to dork out about cricket with. And Janet, who grew up without her mom and dad but with Millie keeping their library stocked and teaching her how to drive and Christopher congratulating her on making the rest of the villagers look totally incompetent with her bowling skills, has found her place in this world.