Reading Response #3: The Sweet Far Thing

     The Sweet Far Thing is the third book of the Great and Terrible Beauty trilogy. Gemma has just finished her first complete year at Spence Academy, a school for girls and has dealt with many changes in her life. After coming to Spence, she found out a lot more about her mother’s death than she ever knew and discovered another world outside of reality. She suddenly has a lot more to worry about than just becoming the perfect wife.

      In Rebel Angels, Gemma bounded the powers of the realms to herself in an attempt to keep the power away from evil forces. However, the next time they see Pippa she looks mysteriously different. This makes Gemma uneasy because she knows that the evils of the realms can influence a human the longer it stays.

      The Order, a group her mother was a part of, desperately wants control of the realms and will do anything to get Gemma to release the power. Gemma can’t trust anyone, not even her old friend Kartik. As Gemma struggles trying to determine who her real friends are, she has to decide what she will do with all this new found power. Will she give it away? Or will she learn to control it?

 

This photo represents Circe; Gemma’s biggest enemy in the realms. Circe usually appears as dark black smoke, but can sometimes take shape of other things or other people.

Excerpt:

"What would you wish for, Gemma? What do you want?" Felicity asks.

     What do I want? Why is that simple question, four little words, so impossible to answer? I would wish for things that cannot be: my mother alive again, my father well. Would I wish to be shorter, fairer, more lovable, less complicated? The answer, I fear, is yes. I would wish to be a child again, safe and warm, and yet I would also wish for something far more dangerous: a kiss from a certain Indian boy whom I have not seen since Christmas. I am a jumble of passions, misgivings, and wants. It seems that I am always in a state of wishing and rarely in a state of contentment.

     They are waiting for my answer. “I should wish to perfect my curtsy so that I might not scandalize myself before Her Majesty."

This except helps show the inner turmoil Gemma faces trying to decide the ultimate fate for her power and the realms.

      Libba Bray does an amazing job keeping the reader involved. She allows the reader to hear every thought Gemma has and see the realms and reality through her eyes. She takes you back to a time that was so different than it is today, but also to a place that nobody has ever been before.