The Sweet Far Thing (The Gemma Doyle Trilogy) | 
| Author: Libba Bray
Publisher: Delacorte Books for Young Readers
Category: Book
List Price: $17.99
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You Save: $8.01 (45%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  106 reviews
Sales Rank: 1623
Media: Hardcover
Reading Level: Young Adult
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 832
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2
Dimensions (in): 8.4 x 6.1 x 2.1
ISBN: 0385730306
EAN: 9780385730303
ASIN: 0385730306
Publication Date: December 26, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
IT HAS BEEN A YEAR OF CHANGE since Gemma Doyle arrived at the foreboding Spence Academy. Her mother murdered, her father a
laudanum addict, Gemma has relied on an unsuspected strength and has discovered an ability to travel to an enchanted world called the realms, where dark magic runs wild. Despite certain peril, Gemma has bound the magic to herself and forged unlikely new alliances. Now, as Gemma approaches her London debut, the time has come to test these bonds.
The Order - the mysterious group her mother was once part of - is grappling for control of the realms, as is the Rakshana. Spence's burned East Wing is being rebuilt, but why now? Gemma and her friends see Pippa, but she is not the same. And their friendship faces its gravest trial as Gemma must decide once and for all what role she is meant for.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 101 more reviews...
 "The Sweet Far Thing"- has gone sour! July 11, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I bought this book with the first two as recommended by some young adults I know. I was a little entertained with the first. It was a bit slow. The second one sets the scene for the third book. When you read "The Sweet Far Thing" you think everything will be explained and it will all come together. Well it leaves you short. The book is so long, and slow that you would rather not even finish the book, but you expect a great ending so you continue. And then it ends so bad!!! Here she has all this power and no control- ahhh! I was hoping for a little better ending and not so much of my time wasted on reading these. It was torture!! Read Stephenie Meyers books, Twilight series or Shannon Hale. Or for adults read Amanda Quick, Colleen Gleason, or Julie Garwood!
 For The Girls Who Want To Know It All July 11, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I loved all of Libba Bray's books in the Gemma Doyle Trilogy. This one is my true favorite by far. It was long, and to some reviewers that was bad but for me it was good, as it means more pages for me to read! Yay! Anyway, it did drag at parts and I did skip over describing the realms paragraphs because we already knew about them. So with that settled I will begin.
I was a very bad girl. As I was waiting for TSFT to come for me in the mail I sort of read all of the reviews and discussions just to know what it was about, so I got the whole gist about Felicty and Kartik. I did this to prepare myself, in especially Kartik's case, so I wouldn't cry or pass out or anything. But at by the end of the book, I was in a complete daze. So I'll sort my anger and trivial facts by character.
*Big Time Spoilers Ahead*
Gemma- Her leaving England at the end really surprised me. I totally wanted her to stay in England and go to all the parties and such. I was actually quite mad at her, even though I know Libba Bray made the right choice. The high society wasn't Gemma's world. But I wanted her to find love again, because I think there is a good chance when she goes to university she will decide she likes being alone as her love is gone. But otherwise I really liked her narration in the books. She is someone I would like to meet and be my friend. I liked how she and Kartik got together, but they never really professed their love for eachother and so that bothered me a little. But I think them being in the cave together and sharing that dream was enough. That moment of them together will stay in my mind forever.
Kartik- Although I already knew he was going to sacrifice himself to the tree, I still didn't want him to do it. He is one of the most gallant and kind literary men I have read about, and that is what makes his death (or whatever it is) so much more heart-wrenching. He loved Gemma so truly that he gave his life up for her. That is the most sincere kind of devotion. I knew Libba Bray had to do it though. It's too cliche for the love interests to get together at the end, but I wanted it so badly! After I was finished with the book, I still couldn't believe it. He isn't coming back. He will never come back. It felt like I had been hit with a baseball bat. I am hoping that one day Ms.Bray will come out with a sequel and give us what we want to know (i.e the happy ending) for all our characters. Kartik gave up his "job" and life for Gemma, and I think that should deserve some kind of happy ending.
Felicity- Well as I read the reviews before I got the book I knew what was happening between her and Pippa and so started to look for signs in this book and RA too. It wasn't totally out of the blue, but maybe just something Ms.Bray thought of later and was like "Oh, I will put this in!" I have grown to like Fee, regardless of her ambitious and power-hungry nature. I was truly sad to see her go at the end. What she did for Gemma in front of Pippa, how she turned Pippa down, I think that is the greatest form of friendship. She doesn't love Gemma like that, but loves her more like a sister. I think Felicity, despite her faults, is my favorite character (after Kartik of course)
Pippa- She was so out of character. In AGATG she was spoiled but in TSFT she was just insane. I wanted to strangle her after she started pretending she was queen and killed poor Mr.Darcy. Her character was a little flip-floppy; sometimes she was kind and other times evil. And then what they did to Miss McCleethy! Goodness! I was extremely upset with her and was not sorry at all to see her die. She grew even more ambitious than Fee ever was.
Ann- I'm glad she finally became what she dreamed of, took a chance. I especially want to see what happens to her if there is another book one day. She has really changed, and unlike some other characters, into something much better than she was before.
Circe/Miss Moore- I thought she would have been more.....I don't know...evil? Like the whole series she seemed more like a wise woman than a evil sorceress. She really cared about Gemma, and I was sad she was evil in the first place. But she protected and helpful of Gemma, so I was glad to see her finally have her place to belong. And she did it without a fight too. That is true strength.
Questions:
1. Is Kartik now evil since he is in the tree? Will he become like Eugenia was?
2. Why couldn't Fowlson give himself up? Then he could be with Miss McCleethy forever!
So I really don't have any more to say, only that I wish there will be a sequel. Please Ms. Bray, humor us all! We want to see the happy ending, even if it is for a moment. Or we could always imagine I guess :)
 Spinning out of control... July 7, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I really enjoyed the first two books in this series, but things started going downhill fast in this one. In fact, I started to worry when I read the acknowledgments page at the beginning of the book, because it hinted strongly at a book that had gotten out of the control of its author. And sadly, that's what we get.
Part of the problem is that the central villian was defeated in Rebel Angels. So the story needs some excuse to continue. And the excuse Bray comes up with--a dangerous magical tree in the Winterlands that we'd never heard a hint of before--does not seem like a natural outgrowth of what has come before. There's a definite disconnect between this novel and the two before it, and much of what we see in The Sweet, Far Thing is at odds with what came before. Pippa's relatively "normal" appearance at the beginning, for instance, which doesn't jive with what we saw of her at the end of Rebel Angels. And we never get a satisfactory explanation of why Gemma is suddenly unable to enter the Realms under her own power (despite having *all* the power now). The answer, so far as I can tell, is authorial expedience: it makes the story more interesting, gives it more tension. So throw it in, regardless of whether it makes sense or not.
Then there's the problem of corruption. The extent to which any given character is corrupted seems terribly arbitrary. Why do Eugenia and Amar fall, while Gemma and Kartik do not? Bray even uses the quote "Absolute power corrupts absolutely" in one of the section headings, and yet we see very little evidence that this is really the case. Again, things seem to happen the way they do mainly because the author wishes them to, not as a consequence of the internal logic of the story.
Bray is certainly not the first really good writer to have a book escape from control, and much of what makes her writing appealing is still present in The Sweet, Far Thing. But don't expect the storyline to make a great deal of sense, or the story developments to be anything but arbitrary.
A Changing World July 6, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
I loved the first two novels in the "Gemma Doyle trilogy" but I wasn't sure if Libba Bray would be able to write a satisfying conclusion. The Sweet Far thing is over 800 pages long, and structured similar to a Shakespearian tragedy (for reasons that don't become apparent until the end of the book) but leaves the reader with a feeling of completion. As Gemma Doyle and her friends Felicity and Ann prepare for their graduation from the Spence Academy for Young Ladies the pressure of the impending future is fealt. Felicity needs sponsorship in order to make her debut in society and come into her inheritance. She needs that money in order to take her abusive father's ward, Polly, away from him, and live in freedon somewhere. Unless Ann can make it as an actress she faces a future as a governess to her cousin's bratty children. Gemma holds the power of the Realms which she needs to figure out how to distribute fairly. She has the Rakshana- a patricharcal organization after her to give them the power, and the Order- the Rakshana's Matriarchal counterpart after the power for themselves, and the various mythical creatures of the realms all after their fair share. At the same time, Gemma must cope with her father, who is an opium addict, and her seemingly impossible love for Kartik- an Indian boy who has his own stake in the future of the Realms.
With the pressures of Victorian society weighing on them, Gemma, Felicity and Ann are tempted to escape to the Realm to visit Pippa- their friend who escaped into the Realms to avoid a loveless marriage but refused to "cross over" as the dead are supposed to, opting instead to remain in the Boarderlands with several girls who were killed in a recent factory fire. But Gemma has her doubts about Pippa too, who seems to have become corrupted by her refusal to cross over. Unsure of who to trust Gemma must find a way to secure the future for herself and her friends in a rapidly changing world while learning that sometimes the hardest person to know and to trust is yourself.
This book is twice as long as the others in the series and about three times as complicated. But that's because the heroines are learning some hard lessons about the nature of power, friendship, sex, and politics: no easy answers and no black and white. They're distinguishing between various shades of gray and learning that sometimes people do the wrong thind for the right reason and vice versa. Everyone has secrets and their own agenda. There ia no easy solution to the dilemmas that Bray sets up, so we see her characters stumble again and again as they try to find their own answers.
***Spoilers***
Many have complained that Kartik's death was too depressing and they wanted a happier ending etc. But the series is deeply rooted in the real world, in Victorian society. Where would there be a place for a British debutant and an Indian boy? Victorian society didn't go easy on biracial couples. And by making his sacrifice Kartik gives Gemma the courage to make her life her own and the seek out her own future in a new country, according to her own rules: that decision is what Gemma has been struggling with from the very first book when Gemma first realized that her corset was a bit too tight so to speak. She wouldn't have had the courage to do it without witnessing Kartik's sacrifice and wanting to honor him by living the best life possible.
***End of Spoilers***
This is a great read for teenage girls. In the era of Gossip Girl, and nurmerous cheap teenage romance heroines Gemma and her friends are an intelligent breath of fresh air, struggling for independance, and the freedom to pursue their dreams. For the first time they are truely questioning the values of their society, one where wealthy white men rule and people get rich off the suffering of others. They that they can make the world a different, and hopefully a better place. Despite being rooted in the Victorian era many of the girl's struggles are applicanble to today.
The end July 6, 2008
I was incredibly impressed with the final book in the trilogy. The start is slow, as Gemma does nothing exciting but soon the pace picks up and the reader will be swept away, as I was. Gemma explores her dark corners and passions and becomes her own person. This final book closes many loose ends but also leaves the reader wondering. The mysterious manner of Libba Bray also follows the plot line as Gemma tries to understand her visions. This book is a thrilling page turner full of magic, history, passon, and person. It is like a Harry Potter book but for teenage girls. I know it would seem pathetic but I was as heartbroken that the series had ended as I was the day I finished the seventh Harry Potter. I recomend this to teenage grils who love mystery, romance, magic, history, and books. I loved it and I know others will too.
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