Ender in Exile by: Orson Scott Card

NOTE: This book is written to take place between Ender's game and Speaker for the Dead, but was written much later, in 2008 in fact. It also takes place during the firs three novels of the Speaker trilogy and can be considered a parallel novel. AKA: I don't know if I read these in order.

After reading Ender's game as an adult(which EVERYONE should read as a young adult) and LOVED it. It's intelligent and thought-provoking, cause these are kids! Kids going off to fight a war against weird alien creatures. And I just ate that book up, absorbed every phrase and war tactic and was pissed when it was over, just because it was so damn good and I could not wait till I read the next one.
Of course it took me around a year to get a hold of the second book (Ender in Exile) (though I was just reading that there are several stories that were written interim. Bummer.) and when finally getting a chance to read it I was sorely disappointed.
The first book was so jam packed with action and wit and this book was DULL. It was honestly a chore to read, which is hard for me to even say because its not that it wasn't well written, it was the fact that NOTHING FUCKING HAPPENED!! Except they traveled through space. a lot. Ender proved that a kid can outwit adults. A LOT.
I mean you read one chapter, you read them all.
I guess that's not entirely fair, at one point (when they finally stop traveling) he meets his old friend's, Bean, son and convinces him to beat the shit out of him to prove that he was lied to about his heritage and that he is, in fact, a good person.
Oh and they find the cocoon (?) of the last of the bugger queens. And he is just going to travel the known worlds until he can find some far and distant place for them to recolonize cause he feels so damn guilty about destroying them.
Essentially this book deals with that: Ender's guilt. And for a character to be portrayed so ENTIRELY as a complex adult like character, it actually makes you realize that he is in fact still a child. A stubborn semi-jackass of a child, but a child nonetheless.
AND in the middle of all of this boringness/ well written stasis, is the whole conflict of the older brother Peter, whom in book 1, was a total evil maniacal little bitch, and now is like running the earth in a way and is actually a good person with a family and all that. I believe that was thrown into try and have Ender turn into a settling down kind of person/one who will learn to forget or move on from the past, but, in honesty, it seemed a half assed attempt.

SIDE NOTE: I am really kind of peeved about the whole way that this series was written and am generally confused about the order in which to read them. I keep trying to figure it out and a lot of sites say to read it in the published order as that will make the more sense as to the others original thought process (etc. etc...) but other sites will say in order of the chronology of the story and others say the same thing but give it a different order! HELP!!

I almost don't want to read the next one.

Favorite Quote:
 “It is easy to say that you can adopt the whole human race as your children, but it is not the same as living in a home with a child and shaping all you do to help him learn to be happy and whole and good. Don't live your life without ever holding a child in your arms, on your lap, in your home, and feeling a child's arms around you and hearing his voice in your ear and seeing his smile, given to you because you put it into your heart.”