honestly still confused by these

The very first book that I read in my teen years that was fantasy was "A Wrinkle in Time". I got hooked. So when I came across this book by Madeleine L'Engle I purchased it. I did not know that it is a quartet of her books that starts out with "A Wrinkle in Time" and carries the same characters through the next three stories. I'm excited to start this series. I hope that I won't be disappointed because what one likes in there youth may change in adulthood. So here goes...

Well, I was disappointed. "A Wrinkle in Time" was ok but "A Wind in the Door" was horrendous. "A Swiftly Tilting Planet" just bounced from here to there and I was bored. The only saving grace was "Many Waters". I like it and it saved the whole book. It was about the twins going back in time. It had a plot that was interesting and it left out all that metaphysics jargon.

Madeleine L'Engle used to be my favorite author until I realized she had passed away before I could send her a letter telling her how much I loved her. She really is (as said on the box) a "master of fantasy". All four of these books (especially A Wrinkle in Time and Many Waters) are genius in the way they are set up, exhibited, and closed. I saw a Ring of Endless light on the Disney channel (yeah, I used to watch those every time a new one came on) and I loved it. She's a lovely writer.

Having finally finished reading this series, I now sit here utterly dumfounded as to how people can straight-facedly refer to them as classics. The first book in the series, A WRINKLE IN TIME, I thought was sort of OK, but that was because I expected the events of the story to be continued and expounded upon in the next book. When I saw that such wasn't the case, my appreciation for it deteriorated to the point that I'm no longer even happy I read it. The rest of the series is hardly even worth mentioning. Sure, they're creative and do a great job of challenging the normal boundaries of YA literature, but...BUT...they are also a big, steaming pile of poorly-written nonsense. For example, in the second book, the main character takes a tour of her brother's mitochondria while riding a magic unicorn and using telepathy to communicate with her school principle. The science in these books is highly suspect, the continuity is near non-existent, and L'Engle's philosophy is...well, in some ways, I'm still trying to get my head around it. L'Engle follows in C.S. Lewis' footsteps by incorporating creatures from pagan mythology into what are, essentially, Christian fantasy stories--only L'Engle's tales also contain a surprising amount of Darwinian ideas, as well. Also, the fourth book in the series reminded me a lot of TWILIGHT for some reason. More specifically, TWILIGHT mixed together with the story of Noah's flood. It featured lots of seductive young men who were half human and half angel and could transform into such things as dragons and lions--whenever they weren't hitting on virginal young maidens, that is. As with the third book in the series, I couldn't even bring myself to finish it.