Literarily Speaking

Review: The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

2011-10-21T09:47:00.000-05:00

Title: The Kite Runner

Author: Khaled Hosseini

Pages: 400

Source: Personal library

Rating: 8/10

Summary (From Amazon):

Hosseini's stunning debut novel starts as an eloquent Afghan version of the American immigrant experience in the late 20th century, but betrayal and redemption come to the forefront when the narrator, a writer, returns to his ravaged homeland to rescue the son of his childhood friend after the boy's parents are shot during the Taliban takeover in the mid '90s. Amir, the son of a well-to-do Kabul merchant, is the first-person narrator, who marries, moves to California and becomes a successful novelist. But he remains haunted by a childhood incident in which he betrayed the trust of his best friend, a Hazara boy named Hassan, who receives a brutal beating from some local bullies. After establishing himself in America, Amir learns that the Taliban have murdered Hassan and his wife, raising questions about the fate of his son, Sohrab. Spurred on by childhood guilt, Amir makes the difficult journey to Kabul, only to learn the boy has been enslaved by a former childhood bully who has become a prominent Taliban official. The price Amir must pay to recover the boy is just one of several brilliant, startling plot twists that make this book memorable both as a political chronicle and a deeply personal tale about how childhood choices affect our adult lives. The character studies alone would make this a noteworthy debut, from the portrait of the sensitive, insecure Amir to the multilayered development of his father, Baba, whose sacrifices and scandalous behavior are fully revealed only when Amir returns to Afghanistan and learns the true nature of his relationship to Hassan. Add an incisive, perceptive examination of recent Afghan history and its ramifications in both America and the Middle East, and the result is a complete work of literature that succeeds in exploring the culture of a previously obscure nation that has become a pivot point in the global politics of the new millennium.

My Two Cents:

Note: I read this all the way back in May, just before my son was born, so my thoughts aren't as immediate and full as they normally are.

This was one powerful novel. I have heard all the buzz about this over the years, and stayed away from it for a while as a result (I don't like reading a book just because it's the latest thing). I almost didn't read it, but I'm glad I chose to.

I had a hard time figuring out how I felt about Amir. I disliked him early on as a result of his attitude toward Hassan. He was privileged, standoffish and snobby. But I had to remind myself that he was just a child and, let's face it, a lot of children are the same way. As the novel went on and we saw more of the adult Amir and his quest to return to Afghanistan, I liked him much more. Sure, his future actions did not excuse his childhood problems, but it turned him into a well-rounded, real, somewhat sympathetic character.

I have not read a whole lot of Middle Eastern fiction, and honestly I know very little about the region, so Hosseini's ability to open up the customs and everyday life of Afghanistan in the 1970s helped me a lot. His descriptions of the city and the lives of its people prior to the Taliban's takeover made the contrast when Amir returns even more stark. It's difficult to imagine that people could survive in conditions such as Amir encountered, but Hosseini's ability to paint a picture for his reader makes even the most unpalatable of situations believable.

This is a well-written, affecting novel that is not for the faint of heart due to some graphic scenes.

Review: Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier

2011-05-14T06:00:00.001-05:00

Title: Cold Mountain

Author: Charles Frazier

Pages: 449

Source: Personal library

Rating: 8/10

Summary (From back of book):

Sorely wounded and fatally disillusioned in the fighting at Petersburg, Inman, a Confederate soldier, decides to walk back to his home in the Blue Ridge Mountains and to Ada, the woman he loved there years before. His trek across the disintegrating South brings him into intimate and sometimes lethal converse with slaves and marauders, bounty hunters and witches, both helpful and malign. At the same time, Ada is trying to revive her father's derelict farm and learn to survive in a world where the old certainties have been swept away.

My Two Cents:

I really like fiction set during the Civil War. In school, studying the 1860s always was one of my favorite things in history classes, so it would make sense that I enjoy fiction set during that era, even though I haven't read a lot of fiction set during this period.

One of my favorite things about this book was how the narration flips between the experiences of Inman as he attempts to return home from the war and Ada, who is trying to care for her father's failing farm. The dual narrative gave both perspectives of the war (Even though we hardly had any actual battle narration), so it wasn't all war and it wasn't all the struggle to survive. I liked that we got to see both sides of the experience.

I really liked all the main characters, too. It's not often that I like even the unsavory characters, like Stobrod, but even he had his fiddling obsession that kind of endeared him to me. At first, I wasn't sure I was going to like Ada. She seemed like nothing more than a damsel in distress who just kind of said, "Well, I don't know how to do any of this stuff around the farm, and I'm not really going to try." But, when Ruby comes along, Ada changes drastically and I really grew to like her.

My favorite parts of this book were Inman's interactions with various types of people in his travels. No matter what was doled out to him, he didn't become overly vicious or greedy; he simply treated people the way they treated him and he went out of his way to help those who needed the extra assistance. I also thought seeing the imagined experiences of people on the fringes of society added to the richness of the ambiance set out in this book.

I realize I'm probably about the last person on the planet to have read this book (And I haven't seen the movie, either!), but if there's someone out there who likes historical fiction and really interesting narratives who hasn't read this novel yet, give it a try.

Review: 13, rue Therese by Elena Mauli Shapiro

2011-05-12T06:00:00.001-05:00

Title: 13, rue Therese

Author: Elena Mauli Shapiro

Pages: 268 (I have an ARC, so page numbers in finished copies may differ)

Source: Publisher for review

Rating: 7/10

Summary (From back of book):

American academic Trevor Stratton discovers a box full of artifacts as he settles into his new office in Paris. The pictures, letters, and objects in the box relate to the life of Louise Brunet, a Frenchwoman who lived through both world wars.

Trevor begins to piece together the story of Louise's life: her love for a cousin who died in the war, her marriage to a man who works for her father, and her attraction to a neighbor in her building at 13, rue Therese. As Trevor becomes enamored of the charming, feisty Louise of his imagination, he notices another alluring Frenchwoman: his clerk, Josianne, who planted the mysterious box in his office and with whom he finds he is falling in love.

My Two Cents:

The story of how this book came to be and the concept around which Shapiro builds her novel is really interesting. The author acquired a box of artifacts -- letters, pressed flowers, gloves -- that belonged to an upstairs neighbor when she lived in Paris. It is around these real-life things that she builds this book and from which she imagines the life of the real Louise Brunet. She then takes those artifacts and frames them within the story of Trevor, an American who finds the box in his new office in Paris. I think the framework and the real-life story behind all the things we see scanned into the book is what I liked best about this book.

Due to the framework of the novel, I found it difficult to actually get to know Trevor as a character. This was kind of disappointing to me, as I would have liked to know him more since he basically is the one telling the story.

We do, however, get to know Louise very well. I honestly wasn't sure what to think of Louise. There were times when I liked her and times when I did not like her one bit. She was very much a Scarlett O'Hara to me, without the extended periods of complete and total loathing. Overall, though, I think she was a really interesting main character and I enjoyed the fact that, even though she likely was nothing like the real Louise Brunet, she was based somewhat on a real person.

This is an enjoyable, easy read that I would recommend to anyone looking for a fun little mystery to figure out along with their reading.

Review: House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III

2011-05-10T06:00:00.001-05:00

Title: House of Sand and Fog

Author: Andre Dubus III

Pages: 365

Source: Personal library

Rating: 5/10

Summary (From back of book):

In this riveting novel of almost unbearable suspense, three fragile yet determined people become dangerously entangled in a relentlessly escalating crisis. Colonel Behrani, once a wealthy man in Iran, is now a struggling immigrant willing to bet everything he has to restore his family's dignity. Kathy Nicolo is a troubled young woman whose house is all she has left, and who refuses to let her hard-won stability slip away from her. Sheriff Lester Burdon, a married man who finds himself falling in love with Kathy, becomes obsessed with helping her fight for justice.

Drawn by their competing desires to the same small house in the California hills and doomed by their tragic inability to understand one another, the three converge in an explosive collision course.

My Two Cents:

Even though I felt compelled to read this book, even staying up late to read a good chunk of it, I can't say I enjoyed it. I think I really just wanted to know what happened at the end, to see how everything played out.

A lot of my issue with the book was that two of the characters, Kathy and Lester, just made me so mad. I could not find any single shred of sympathy for either of them. I thought they both were terrible, reckless people and reading their sections of the book found me rolling my eyes on nearly every page. I don't know why I hated them so much, but I did. Ugh.

I think another part of my problem with the book was that I only felt any sympathy for Behrani. He not only was truly the one who did no wrong in the whole situation (Yes, you can argue he could have given the house back, but why should he have to pay for someone else's mistake?), but the whole action of the book just comes crashing in on his family. I spent the last 100 or so pages just so mad and sick that, had my desire to find out not won, I would have put the book down. It just angered me something fierce.

Now, I'm no prude, but I also took a lot of issue with the amount and description of the sex in this book. Do I know it happens? Yes. Do I know it's not always as chaste and pure as the driven snow? Uh, yeah. But I don't need to read about it every 30 or so pages. In detail. There are just so many other things that could have been done in those spaces, in my opinion.

Review: The Red Tent by Anita Diamant

2011-05-08T06:00:00.001-05:00

Title: The Red Tent

Author: Anita Diamant

Pages: 321

Source: Personal library

Rating: 9/10

Summary (From back of book):

Her name is Dinah. In the Bible, her life is only hinted at in a brief and violent detour within the more familiar chapters about her father, Jacob, and his dozen sons in the Book of Genesis.

Told in Dinah's voice, this novel reveals the traditions and turmoil of ancient womanhood -- the world of the red tent. It begins with the story of her mothers -- Leah, Rachel, Zilpah, and Bilhah -- the four wives of Jacob. They love Dinah and give her gifts that are to sustain her through a hard-working youth, a calling to midwifery, and a new home in a a foreign land. Dinah's story reaches out from a remarkable period of early history and creates and intimate, immediate connection.

My Two Cents:

I really, really enjoyed this book. I was familiar with the very short story of Dinah from the Bible, and didn't really give it a second thought until reading Diamant's take on the whole ordeal.

Dinah is a fabulous character. Even though she comes from a time so far removed from my own, I could easily visualize her and found Diamant's portrayal completely believable. As the only daughter among 12 sons, it is a given that she would be doted on by the women and pretty much forgotten by the men. There are very few interesting, well-rounded females in the early portions of the Bible, so it was really nice to see one pulled out and given her own story. I really liked that she felt compelled to take care of other women as a midwife, so we got to see her interactions with people of all classes as well as those within her family. From what I know of the time in which Dinah would have lived, every detail of Diamant's narrative makes sense.

There is just so much in this book I hardly can begin to deal with all of it here. I'm usually not one for obviously feminist literature, but this book worked for me. My favorite scenes were those within the red tent, when Dinah and her four mothers spend three days each month talking and enjoying one another's company. It actually made me wish that there still was a tradition such as this in today's world.

For anyone who likes historical fiction, wants to know more about Dinah or who just is interested in a really rich narrative, I would suggest this book.

Review: Salvation City by Sigrid Nunez

2011-05-06T06:00:00.031-05:00

Title: Salvation City

Author: Sigrid Nunez

Pages: 280 (I have an ARC, so page numbers in finished copies may differ)

Source: Publisher for review

Rating: 6/10

Summary (From back of book):

After a flu pandemic has killed large numbers of people worldwide, the United States has grown increasingly anarchic. Orphaned Cole Vining is lucky to have found refuge with an evangelical pastor and his family in sheltered Salvation City, which has been spared much of the devastation.

But it's a starkly different community from the one Cole has known, and he struggles what his changed world means for him. As those around him become increasingly fixated on their vision of utopia -- so different from his own parents' drams -- Cole imagines building a new and different future for himself.

My Two Cents:

I really liked the concept of this book. A ravaged United States, and world, after a pandemic should create a really rich opportunity to explore a lot of deep issues, right? We should be dealing with food shortages and cleanup and broken families and a crumbling government. But, there's really not much of that here in this book. This book, mostly, is about Cole's suddenly different life, going from an atheistic home of free-thinkers to the home of an almost frighteningly evangelical pastor and his tiny little community of believers.

I think the story line that Nunez created would have worked independent of the flu pandemic. But I didn't feel as if it worked as well as it could have the way it was written. I kept waiting for something to really depend upon the pandemic, but besides Cole being tossed in an orphanage, there didn't seem to be any reason for the pandemic to be used as a device here. Nunez's point easily could have been accomplished had Cole's parents died in, say, a car accident. I guess I was just left disappointed by this.

Salvation City is very well-written. It's an easy read with some great, albeit a little startling at times, detail. Nunez also creates some interesting characters, including Cole and Pastor Wyatt. These factors did keep me going through the book despite my disappointment at the plot itself.

Review: Cat's Eye by Margaret Atwood

2011-05-04T06:00:00.002-05:00

Title: Cat's Eye

Author: Margaret Atwood

Pages: 446

Source: Personal library

Rating: 8/10

Summary (From book flap):

Painter Elaine Risley, pushing fifty, returns from Vancouver to Toronto for a retrospective of her work, which has been much celebrated by the women's movement and much attacked from other quarters.

Toronto is the city she fled many years earlier, hoping to leave behind the tyrannical and obsessive memories of her early life there -- from her post-World War II school days and fifties adolescence, through the avant-garde art scene of the sixties, to the advent of feminism in the early seventies.

Now, as she wanders the streets of the city, which are no longer puritanical and dowdy but resplendent with eighties glitz, Elaine confronts the submerged layers of her past -- her unconventional family, her eccentric and brilliant brother, the self-righteous and dangerous Mrs. Smeath, and the two men Elaine later came to love in diverse and sometimes disastrous ways. But it is the enigmatic Cordelia, once her tormentor, then her best friend, whose elusive yet powerful presence in her life Elaine finally comes to understand.

My Two Cents:

At first, I wasn't sure how I was going to like this novel. It didn't capture me right away like the other two Atwood works I've read, but as I continued reading, it had me hooked.

I really liked Elaine as a main character, although I liked her better in her younger form than as the mature, adult narrator. She had an unconventional childhood, especially for the first eight years of her life. She really, to me, seemed like someone I would have liked to have as a friend as a child. With a lot of her interactions with Cordelia, especially, she spoke to me as having a very typical young girl experience with groups of mean girls. Elaine was just a character who was easy to relate to and to see in myself and a lot of people I know.

While much of this book happens in the past and there really isn't a whole lot of action as far as everything in the book is leading up to this huge climax, I was incredibly interested in where Atwood was going to go. I liked that we saw Elaine as an adult, so we know how she turned out, but we were able to see her evolution and how she became the adult she is.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone who likes Margaret Atwood or who just wants an interesting story that will keep you reading much longer than you had planned.

Review: City of Dreams by William Martin

2011-05-02T06:00:00.001-05:00

Title: City of Dreams

Author: William Martin

Pages: 447

Source: Publisher for review

Rating: 7/10

Summary (From book flap):

"Can I interest you in saving America?"

That's the text message Peter Fallon receives from a Wall Street bigwig. It's not a challenge he can turn down, especially since the country is in the midst of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. The stock market is wobbling. The Chinese have stopped buying our T-bills. If we don't get control of our deficit, our economic future looks grim.

But all may not be lost. Hidden somewhere in New York City is a box of 1780s bonds with a face value of ten thousand dollars, part of a series of bonds called New Emission Money. The Supreme Court is about to decide if these bonds still have value. If the decision is yes, those ten thousand dollars, at 5 percent interest, will be worth a very pretty penny. A lot of very pretty pennies.

Peter Fallon and his girlfriend, Evangeline Carrington, must find the box -- and fast. Suddenly, their race against time becomes a race through time as Peter and Evangeline track the stories of New Yorkers whose lives have been changed by the bonds. They'll confront frightened booksellers, heartless businessmen, former flames, renegade treasury agents, and the Russian mafia ... and all while they'll unravel the thrilling and inspiring origins of the City of Dreams.

My Two Cents:

I was pleasantly surprised by this book. I'm not normally one to enjoy the whole suspense/thriller genre, but I do like a book that has a good historical story. So, I gave it a try.

The best thing about this book, in my mind, was how Martin traces the bonds in question through time and how he is able to bring each time in history -- 1770s, 1890s, 1920s, 1980s and present day -- to life. It was also interesting to see that, since these bonds were basically lost in the New York City, each time period's action was centered in New York. As a result, the reader really got to see how the city changed from its earliest roots to what it is today. The whole historical background was most interesting to me.

I did find some of the action and events, especially those in present day, a little hard to believe. I have a hard time believing, for example, that a building could be blown up and a man shot in the middle of the street nearly unnoticed by police. But, although the somewhat outlandish events contributed to the suspense feel of the book, it did not take anything away from my enjoyment of the book or my desire to find out what happened next.

I also found that I really could not connect to any of the characters. They all seemed very one-dimensional. And while that did bother me some, again, it did not cause me to dislike the book or to make me want to put it down.

If you like historical novels or history in general, give this book a try.

Review: The Body Artist by Don Delillo

2011-04-30T06:00:00.000-05:00

Title: The Body Artist

Author: Don Delillo

Pages: 124

Source: Personal library

Rating: 5/10

Summary (From book flap):

In this spare, seductive novel, he inhabits the muted world of Lauren Hartke, an artist whose work defies the limits of the body. Lauren is living on a lonely coast, in a rambling rented house, where she encounters a strange, ageless man, a man with uncanny knowledge of her own life. Together they begin a journey into the wilderness of time -- time, love and human perception.

My Two Cents:

I just need to learn to stay away from Don Delillo's books. I read White Noise in college and thought it was fabulous. So, I gave Underworld a try. I barely made it through that huge tome, and all I remember about it is that it was about baseball. I figured, though, that maybe that was a fluke of a book and I didn't take to it since I dislike baseball so much. That led me to giving The Body Artist a try.

I had the same issue with this book that I had with Franny and Zooey: Nothing happens. I know this is like the hallmark of all those esoteric modern novels that hipsters worship, but it just doesn't work for me. I found myself, even in just 124 pages, spacing out and wishing for it to be over. I know this sounds harsh, but there just wasn't much about this book that I liked.

The one saving grace of this novel is Delillo's writing. He certainly is one of the great craftsman of the English language currently alive. His sentences are varied and complex, and he has a knack for turning a phrase. But, really, that's about all I found to like about this book.

Review: Mr. Toppit by Charles Elton

2011-04-28T06:00:00.002-05:00

Title: Mr. Toppit

Author: Charles Elton

Pages: 387 (I have an ARC, so page numbers in finished copies may differ)

Source: Publisher for review

Rating: 7/10

Summary (From back of book):

When Arthur Hayman, an unsuccessful screenwriter turned children's book author, is accidentally hit by a cement truck in London, his dying moments are spent with a passing American tourist, Laurie Clow, who is fated to bring posthumous fame to his obscure series, The Hayseed Chronicles, and the enigmatic and sinister Mr. Toppit who is at the center of the books. While Arthur doesn't live to reap the benefits of his books' success, his legacy falls to his widow, Martha, and their children -- the fragile Rachel, and Luke, reluctantly immortalized as the fictional Luke Hayseed, hero of his father's books. But others want their share of the Hayseed phenomenon, particularly Laurie, who has a mysterious agenda of her own that changes all their lives as Martha, Rachel, and Luke begin to crumble under the heavy burden of their inheritance.

My Two Cents:

I have very mixed feelings about this book. I thought Elton's writing had a great flow to it and made this book really easy to read. I also thought he created some really solid, vivid characters, especially Laurie and Rachel. Also, he created a really interesting concept with The Hayseed Chronicles. It was so intriguing that I actually found myself often wishing that the series really existed so I could read it.

My big hang-up with this book, though, is that it just didn't seem to feel very cohesive. Sure, all the scenes orbited around Luke and the fame of his father's books, along with the downfall of his family, but it just seemed as if there were episodes thrown in for shock factor alone. The section where Luke is visiting Laurie in Los Angeles is full of these non sequiturs, and the whole portion just kind of hangs together limply. I think maybe it's because we really don't get to know Luke outside of the fact that he really dislikes all the attention paid to him because he is the iconic main character of his father's books. I couldn't tell if things that he did and said while at Laurie's house really were in or out of character for him, so they all just kind of seemed to come out of nowhere.

Generally, though, I did enjoy this book.

Review: The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood

2011-04-26T06:00:00.001-05:00

Title: The Blind Assassin

Author: Margaret Atwood

Pages: 521

Source: Personal library

Rating: 9/10

Summary (From book flap):

The novel opens with these simple, resonant words: "Ten days after the war ended, my sister Laura drove a car off a bridge." They are spoken by Iris, whose terse account of her sister's death in 1945 is followed by an inquest report proclaiming the death accidental. But just as the reader expects to settle into Laura's story, Atwood introduces a novel-within-a-novel. Entitled The Blind Assassin, it is a science fiction story told by two unnamed lovers who meet in dingy backstreet rooms. When we return to Iris, it is through a 1947 newspaper article announcing the discovery of a sailboat carrying the dead body of her husband, a distinguished industrialist.

Told in a style that magnificently captures the colloquialisms of the 1930s and 1940s, The Blind Assassin is a richly layered and uniquely rewarding experience. The novel has many threads and a series of events that follow one another at a breathtaking pace. As everything comes together, readers will discover that the story Atwood is telling is not only what it seems to be -- but is, in fact, much more.

My Two Cents:

I have not read any Atwood for several years, and my only experience with her (Short of following her on Twitter!) is with The Handmaid's Tale, which is still one of my favorite books. I'm glad I expanded my Atwood repertoire, because I truly think she is one of the best modern writers. In my totally unofficial, based-on-two-books opinion, of course.

Atwood weaves a very complicated tale, moving back and forth between Iris' past and present, the text of The Blind Assassin and various news articles. She is able to switch her narrative voice to suit each need while still maintaining a through line and a cohesive feel to the book, which isn't an easy feat.

I liked the main character, Iris, much more as the narrative unfolded. At first, I felt sorry for her and realized she had gotten into a situation for which she was unprepared. As the novel went on, I continued to feel sorry for her because Atwood made it seem as if she was a totally helpless party in everything: Her marriage, the decline of her family's business, her sister's health. But, there were moments where Iris' strength and defiance shone through, partly in the narrative portions where she is older, but also in events from the past. Even though I could predict the big revelation that came at the end, it did not ruin my experience of the novel as a whole.

I would recommend this book to anyone who likes good, solid writing and character development along with an interesting story (Who doesn't?).

Review: Gilead by Marilynne Robinson

2011-04-24T06:00:00.000-05:00

Title: Gilead

Author: Marilynne Robinson

Pages: 247

Source: Personal library

Rating: 8/10

Summary (From book flap):

In 1956, toward the end of Reverend John Ames's life, he begins a letter to his young son, an account of himself and his forebears. Ames is the son of an Iowa preacher and the grandson of a minister who, as a young man in Maine, saw a vision of Christ bound in chains and came west to Kansas to fight for abolition: He "preached men into the Civil War," then, at age fifty, became a chaplain in the Union Army, losing his right eye in battle. Reverend Ames writes to his son about the tension between his father -- an ardent pacifist -- and his grandfather, whose pistol and bloody shirts, concealed in an army blanket, may be relics from the fight between the abolitionists and those settlers who wanted to vote Kansas into the Union as a slave state. And he tells a story of the sacred bonds between fathers and sons, which are tested in his tender and strained relationship with his namesake, John Ames Boughton, his best friend's wayward son.

This is also the tale of another remarkable vision -- not a corporeal vision of God by the vision of life as a wondrously strange creation. It tells how wisdom was forged in Ames's soul during his solitary life, and how history lives through generations, pervasively present even when betrayed and forgotten.

My Two Cents:

I thought this was a really interesting book. I don't read a whole lot of epistolary fiction, especially epistolary fiction told only by one person. I did start to get a little frustrated (I think part of it was because I was starting in on the latter portion of the 24-hour Read-a-Thon) because, since the book is told through one person's letters and one person's point of view, the plot did not develop in any really linear fashion. As I was reading, I wasn't so fond of that device, but after I had finished the book and reflected on it a bit, I think the device worked better for telling the story than any traditional narrative would have.

Robinson's writing is really easy to read, but still very rich and descriptive. I liked how she was able to bring her own narrative style forward while still keeping the voice believable as coming out of Ames's mouth. I never have read a Robinson book before, but I think I will give some others a try.

Review: Proust's Overcoat by Lorenza Foschini

2011-04-22T06:00:00.000-05:00

Title: Proust's Overcoat: The True Story of One Man's Passion for All Things Proust

Author: Lorenza Foschini

Pages: 120

Source: Publisher for review

Rating: 7/10

Summary (From Amazon):

Jacques GuÉrin was a prominent businessman at the head of his family's successful perfume company, but his real passion was for rare books and literary manuscripts. From the time he was a young man, he frequented the antiquarian bookshops of Paris in search of lost, forgotten treasures. The ultimate prize? Anything from the hands of Marcel Proust.
GuÉrin identified with Proust more deeply than with any other writer, and when illness brought him by chance under the care of Marcel's brother, Dr. Robert Proust, he saw it as a remarkable opportunity. Shamed by Marcel's extravagant writings, embarrassed by his homosexuality, and offended by his disregard for bourgeois respectability, his family had begun to deliberately destroy and sell their inheritance of his notebooks, letters, manuscripts, furni-ture, and personal effects. Horrified by the destruction, and consumed with desire, GuÉrin ingratiated himself with Marcel's heirs, placating them with cash and kindness in exchange for the writer's priceless, rare material remains. After years of relentless persuasion, GuÉrin was at last rewarded with a highly personal prize, one he had never dreamed of possessing, a relic he treasured to the end of his long life: Proust's overcoat.
Proust's Overcoat introduces a cast of intriguing and unforgettable characters, each inspired and tormented by Marcel, his writing, and his orphaned objects. Together they reveal a curious and compelling tale of lost and found, of common things and uncommon desires.

My Two Cents:

I don't read a whole lot of non-fiction, so my expectations for this spare book were pretty low. I was pleasantly surprised by how much this book read like a novel instead of a piece of non-fiction. It moved at a quick pace (Of course, at 120 pages, it's hard not to move quickly) and kept me interested.

Foschini does a great job of painting Jacques Guerin, who you could theoretically call her main character. Sure, he was a real person, but his obsession with Proust and his quest to collect pieces of the author's life. I found Guerin a fascinating person, and could see the source of his eccentricities.

My main problem with this book, however, is that there was so much emphasis placed on Guerin's collection of things such as Proust's manuscripts and his bed that there was very little time left for his overcoat, the title object. Foschini's entire introduction is dedicated to her viewing of the coat, yet the coat only really comes into play for about 20 pages of the book. I would have liked to hear a lot more about the coat, if possible, and think it would have added to this book.

If you like non-fiction about authors and their legacies, or you like reading about people who collect things, you may want to check out this book.

Review: Sons and Lovers by D.H. Lawrence

2011-04-20T06:00:00.001-05:00

Title: Sons and Lovers

Author: D.H. Lawrence

Pages: 436

Source: Personal library

Rating: 9/10

Summary:

This novel tells the story of the Morel family: Father Walter, mother Gertrude, and children William, Annie, Paul and Arthur. Not finding any sort of satisfaction in her marital relationship with drunk, abusive, brash Walter, Gertrude places all her love and devotion onto her sons. Her desire to protect them eventually leads to William's dangerous lifestyle and Paul's inability to move out of his parents' home.

My Two Cents:

I really, really enjoyed this novel. For some reason, Lawrence always has kind of held the same lofty place in English letters of James Joyce and, to an extent, Shakespeare. He just wasn't an author that, going through school, a lot of people read for fun. There was one short story that every English major at my college read, but I think I only knew one or two other people who read him extracurricularly. As a result, Lawrence just gained this kind of aura that I never tried to breech. However, I'm glad I finally did read Lawrence and can't wait to read more by him.

I really oscillated back and forth as to whether or not I liked or even felt sorry for Gertrude. For the first portion of the novel, I absolutely felt sorry for her. She had an absent husband who did not give her enough money to keep the home running each week. Walter constantly was out drinking and, when he came home, he was loud and mean. The only good relationships she had were with her children, who keep multiplying even though she hates her husband. But, as the children grew, I liked her less and less. She became one of those mothers who just cannot cut the apron strings. Her suffocation eventually leads to William leaving the house and going against pretty much everything he ever has been taught, to his detriment. Gertrude's hold on Paul, mostly because of what happened to William, is just frighteningly strong. By the end of the novel, he is in his late 20s, has ruined two potential romantic relationships because of his mother's co-dependency and still living at home. There just was something so wrong and even creepy about Paul's relationship with his mother as an adult that I just could not get over.

While I spent most of the novel wishing that Paul would just cut the cord on his own and leave his parents' house (He nearly does a few times), and I could understand that his care and concern for his mother was the driving force behind his inability to grow up, I still couldn't really feel very sorry for him. I think it's because of the way his worry for his mother manifests itself in his relationships with the women in the book. Instead of making things clear about his relationship with his mother from the start, he leads two women on for long periods of time, coming close to marriage a couple of times, only to turn into a rogue and a rake and treat the women horribly. I just could not feel sorry for Paul, not one bit.

Lawrence's writing is gorgeous. He really had a knack for evoking not only the physical landscape of the industrializing English countryside in which his novel is set, but he is able to render the overall atmosphere of the setting with stunning accuracy. I really felt as if I could picture not only the physical surroundings, but I could feel as downtrodden and low as many of the characters in his novel. This was just a beautiful novel that flowed really easily, and I could sit down to read and, before I knew it, I was 50 pages farther into the book.

Read-a-Thon: Midway Survey!

2011-04-09T18:23:00.000-05:00

1. What are you reading right now? I'm reading Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
2. How many books have you read so far? This is book number three.
3. What book are you most looking forward to for the second half of the Read-a-thon? I'm not sure! I'll be glad to finish this book and then move on to another book.
4. Did you have to make any special arrangements to free up your whole day? Not really. I just told my husband I'm participating in a read-a-thon, so he can't expect my help with much!
5. Have you had many interruptions? How did you deal with those? Sort of. My need to shift positions frequently is oh, so fun, as are the little legs kicking my book off my convenient book rest (My stomach).Of course, I was without a computer for most of the first half of the read-a-thon, which was a severe inconvenience.
6. What surprises you most about the Read-a-thon, so far? Nothing, really. This is my third read-a-thon!
7. Do you have any suggestions for how to improve the Read-a-thon next year? Nope! It's fabulous!
8. What would you do differently, as a Reader or a Cheerleader, if you were to do this again next year? I'd actually set my alarm... Oops.
9. Are you getting tired yet? I'm nearly 34 weeks pregnant. I'm always tired!
10. Do you have any tips for other Readers or Cheerleaders, something you think is working well for you that others may not have discovered? Having a variety of comfortable places to sit is really helpful. Sometimes, a change of scenery can help you regain focus.

Good luck with the rest of the Read-a-Thon, everyone!!

Read-a-Thon Update

2011-04-09T17:01:00.000-05:00

Hello, fellow Read-a-Thon-ers! This is the first I've had my computer back all day!

Here's what my Read-a-Thon has looked like thus far:

Started reading at 9 a.m. CDT. I was really lazy and didn't wake up until three hours into the day!

Finished Sons and Lovers by D.H. Lawrence. Review will come later this week, but I highly recommend it and now consider myself a Lawrence fan.

Started and finished an ARC of Proust's Overcoat, a great little gem of the true story surrounding Proust's infamous overcoat and what happened to many of his personal belongings after his death. Review will come later this week.

I'm now halfway through Gilead by Marilynne Robinson. I'm really liking it thus far. I hope to finish it in the next couple hours here.

This is my third Read-a-Thon and, thus far, my most successful reading-wise!

I haven't yet participated in any mini-challenges (Just getting my computer back from a suddenly projects-oriented husband and all), but I plan to pop a few in while the potatoes for my potato salad are cooling.

Happy reading, everyone!!

Review: The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy

2011-04-06T06:00:00.000-05:00

Title: The Mayor of Casterbridge

Author: Thomas Hardy

Pages: 326

Source: Personal library

Rating: 9/10

Summary (From back of book):

Rooted in an actual case of wife-selling in early nineteenth-century England, the story builds into an awesome Sophoclean drama of guilt and revenge, in which the strong, willful Henchard rises to a position of wealth and power -- only to achieve a most bitter downfall. Proud, obsessed, ultimately committed to his own destruction, Henchard is, as Albert Guerard has said, "Hardy's Lord Jim ... his only tragic hero and one of the greatest tragic heroes in all fiction."

My Two Cents:

It's easy to see why this is considered by many to be Hardy's greatest novel. It blends all the classic qualities of Hardy's work -- fatalism, the plights of the lower classes and rural workers, a rustic setting -- and weaves a story that is compelling for the reader. As usual, Hardy's clear writing style full of stark description makes reading even the unpleasant scenes a joy.

Michael Henchard is probably my favorite Hardy protagonist of the four (Jude, Tess, Bathsheba and Michael) that I have met. He has an unwavering pride and ambition, but also a severe conscience that allows his remorse for his past wrongs to interfere with his plans for the future. As the novel opens, the reader is meant to hate Michael for his deplorable actions. Even as the early action unfolds, I didn't feel sorry for and even wished for Michael's downfall. However, as things really get rolling, I began to wish that things would look up for Michael and that he would stop being so hard on himself.

This change in opinion, I think, is why Michael is my favorite Hardy protagonist. Tess is a pitiable character from day one and there's really no change throughout the novel. Jude is much the same and an obvious victim of nothing but his circumstances. I just wasn't fond of Bathsheba at all, even though she's a unique female protagonist. But Michael is master of his own fortunes and his dynamic character changes make him much more interesting to watch.

If you are a fan of Hardy, fatalism or just want a really good story, I'd suggest picking up The Mayor of Casterbridge.

Review: The Peach Keeper by Sarah Addison Allen

2011-03-31T06:00:00.002-05:00

Title: The Peach Keeper

Author: Sarah Addison Allen

Pages: 273

Source: Personal library

Rating: 9/10

Summary (From book flap):

It's the dubious distinction of thirty-year-old Willa Jackson to hail from a fine old Southern family of means that met with financial ruin generations ago. The Blue Ridge Madam -- built by Willa's great-great-grandfather during Walls of Water's heyday, and once the town's grandest home -- has stood for years as a lonely monument to misfortune and scandal. And Willa herself has long strived to build a life beyond the brooding Jackson family shadow. No easy task in a town shaped by years of tradition and the well-marked boundaries between the haves and the have-nots.

But Willa has lately learned that an old classmate -- socialite do-gooder Paxton Osgood, of the very prominent Osgood family -- has restored the Blue Ridge Madam to her former glory, with plans to open a top-flight inn. Maybe, at last, the troubled past can be laid to rest while something new and wonderful rises from its ashes. But what rises instead is a skeleton, found buried beneath the property's lone peach tree, and certain to drag up dire consequences along with it. For the bones -- those of charismatic traveling salesman Tucker Devlin, who worked his dark charms on Walls of Water seventy-five years ago -- are not all that lay hidden out of sight and mind. Long-kept secrets surrounding the troubling remains have also come to light, seemingly heralded by a spate of sudden strange occurrences throughout the town.

Now, thrust together in an unlikely friendship, united by a full-blooded mystery, Willa and Paxton must confront the dangerous passions and tragic betrayals that once bound their families -- and uncover truths of the long-dead that have transcended time and defied the grave to touch the hearts and souls of the living.

My Two Cents:

I'm going to try really, really hard not to gush completely and be somewhat objective about this. Allen is one of my favorite authors, in case you missed the reviews of her three previous books I did last year, and I wait impatiently until another of her novels comes out. I bought this the day it came out (Thanks to a Barnes and Noble gift card leftover from my birthday!) and read it practically in one sitting. Her books are like that.

This book has all the hallmarks of what I love in Allen's writing -- Great characters for whom you root, magical realism, writing that just seems to float off the page and into your imagination. There really are no surprises here, and I loved that. It's like putting on your favorite pair of jeans and curling up on the couch in front of a fire: Warm and comforting and you know you'll feel good when you're finished.

Although I liked Willa, Allen's central character, a lot, I think my favorite was Paxton. I liked that she was far more than what she appeared to be. Her family pressures led her to lead one particular life, one where she's always put-together and going a million miles per hour. But, deep down, she wants something totally different and she must figure out a way to make that happen. I liked that she had interesting quirks and insecurities (The constant list-making reminded me of a lot of people I knew) that I could picture on any number of people.

If you're a fan of Allen's work, or if you're just looking for a light, feel-good read that blends a little magic into the story, I'd recommend this novel.

Review: Juliet by Anne Fortier

2011-03-29T06:00:00.030-05:00

Title: Juliet

Author: Anne Fortier

Pages: 444 (I have an ARC, so page numbers in finished copies may be different)

Source: Publisher for review

Rating: 9/10

Summary (From back of book):

When Julie Jacobs inherits a key to a safety-deposit box in Siena, Italy, she is told it will lead her to an old family treasure. Soon she is launched on a winding and perilous journey into the history of her ancestor Giulietta, whose legendary love for a young man named Romeo rocked the foundations of medieval Siena. As Julie crosses paths with the descendants of the families involved in Shakespeare's unforgettable blood feud, she begins to realize that the notorious curse -- "A plague on both your houses!" -- is still at work, and that she is the next target. It seems that the only one who can save Julie from her fate is Romeo -- but where is he?

My Two Cents:

Anyone who knows me knows my love for Shakespeare. And anyone who knows me also knows my hatred for Romeo and Juliet. I'm not even going to go into that here except to say that, if there were as awesome a back story in Shakespeare's play as there is in this novel, I might like it a little more.

Fortier uses the famous play as a jumping-off point for her story. She places a modern main character, Julie, right into the thick of an ancient family feud full of blood and death and secrets. When Julie's aunt dies, she has no idea this feud or these families even exist, yet she is left to unravel a 600-year-old mystery on her own. And the mystery just keeps getting deeper and deeper, including not only three families, but an entire town and that town's history. It's a stunning accomplishment, really, the back story that Fortier creates. It unravels bit by bit, and people who once appeared enemies become friends, until it all comes together in the end. I loved how rich that back story was.

Julie was also a fabulous main character. She's sassy enough to get by in another country on little else besides her wits, even when being chased by men with guns, but she's got insecurities for miles. She's not your typical "I'm going to solve this mystery and no one will get in my way or bring me down" kind of character. I found her really easy to relate to.

Honestly, I'm going to stop my review there to keep from gushing too much. This is a fabulous read. I highly, highly recommend it!

Review: Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

2011-03-27T06:00:00.000-05:00

Title: Great Expectations

Author: Charles Dickens

Pages: 468

Source: Personal library

Rating: 8/10

Summary (From back of book):

In an overgrown churchyard, a grizzled convict springs upon an orphan boy named Pip. The convict terrifies Pip and threatens to kill him unless Pip helps further his escape. Later, Pip finds himself in the ruined garden where he meets the embittered and crazy Miss Havisham and her foster child Estella, with whom he immediately falls in love. After a secret benefactor gives him a fortune, Pip moves to London, where he cultivates great expectations for a life which would allow him to discard his impoverished beginnings and socialize with the idle upper class. As Pip struggles to become a gentleman and is tormented endlessly by the beautiful Estella, he slowly learns the truth about himself and his illusions.

My Two Cents:

I've always liked Charles Dickens. I think I get that from my grandma, as he was her favorite author when she was younger. There's just something about sitting down with a Dickens novel, snuggled under a blanket, that makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside, even if the novel is kind of grim.

Pip is just such a poor excuse for a person. I could not like him, nor could I feel sorry for him. Luckily, he started to redeem himself near the end of the book, but I still didn't find him a sympathetic character. When his prospects looked up, he completely turned his back on Joe and Biddy, people who had done nothing but help him. There was no indication that he used his money or new status to help anyone (Outside of helping Herbert advance in business) for any sort of good. And his obsession with Estella. Ugh. I found absolutely zero redeeming qualities in her that would warrant a nearly life-long obsession.

I wish we could have seen more of Joe and Biddy. They were definitely the best characters in this book (Herbert was all right, too). I know that was Dickens' intention: To show how money and a fine upbringing does not always make one a better person. I just wish we could have had more time with them. And I just love how they get their sort of "happily ever after."

Since I've read a few Dickens novels, I shouldn't be surprised by all the coincidence the reader is asked to swallow. I went into this novel knowing there would be some really crazy happenstance, but I still had a hard time dealing with a lot of what I was asked to believe. Really? Every single person in this novel is connected to everyone else, even if it's just by association? That's not how real life is. It certainly makes for some interesting revelations, but I had a difficult time suspending my disbelief after the first few big reveals.

If you're a fan of Dickens and his contemporaries, or you just want a good, large-scale novel, give this book a try.

Review: The Life of Glass by Jillian Cantor

2011-03-25T06:00:00.002-05:00

Title: The Life of Glass

Author: Jillian Cantor

Pages: 340

Source: A signed copy from the author herself!

Rating: 9/10

Summary (From book flap):

Before he died, Melissa's father told her about stars. He told her that the brightest stars weren't always the most beautiful -- that if people took the time to look at the smaller stars, if they looked with a telescope at the true essence of the star, they would find real beauty. But even though Melissa knows that beauty isn't only skin deep, the people around her don't seem to feel that way. There's her gorgeous sister, Ashley, who will barely acknowledge Melissa at school; there's her best friend, Ryan, who may be falling in love with the sophisticated Courtney; and there's Melissa's mother, who's dating someone new, someone Melissa knows will never be able to replace her father.

To make sure she doesn't lose her father completely, Melissa spends her time trying to piece together the last of his secrets and finishing a journal he began -- one about love and relationships and the remarkable ways people find one another. But when tragedy strikes, Melissa has to start living and loving in the present as she realizes that being beautiful on the outside doesn't mean you can't be beautiful on the inside.

My Two Cents:

This is one great young adult novel. It has appeal to younger readers without being overly trendy (Ex: Lots of swearing, sex, etc.) or preachy and is readable by adults without being boring. Cantor does a great job balancing this book for her target audience while also allowing a wider audience to enjoy the novel.

Melissa is a great, well-rounded character. She has a lot of the hallmarks of "typical" teen characters -- Insecurity about her looks, fights with her sister, a feeling of alienation, a little bit of a bratty streak -- without being so overly typical that she becomes a stereotype. She also has a decent amount of maturity, but she's not so "grown up" that teen readers won't be able to relate to her. Cantor's decision to make Melissa her narrator really makes this book.

I really enjoyed that Melissa's relationship with and perception of her deceased father is portrayed in a journal of off-the-wall facts and stories he collected. The journal presents some really great scenes for Melissa and serves as a jumping-off point for her adventures, but the plot isn't so heavily reliant upon the journal's contents that its appearance becomes annoying.

Cantor's writing is really fluid. This book was an easy read for me. She includes enough detail to keep things interesting without being so detailed that it feels like reading Steinbeck. There's a great balance in her writing, as in a lot of the novel, that helps it keep a wide appeal.

If you are looking for a coming-of-age, wholesome young adult novel, check out this book.

Review: Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe

2011-03-23T06:00:00.000-05:00

Title: Robinson Crusoe

Author: Daniel Defoe

Pages: 273 (I have an abridged version)

Source: Personal library

Rating: 7/10

Summary (From back of book):

After surviving a terrible shipwreck, Robinson Crusoe discovers he is the only human on an island far from any shipping routes or rescue. At first he is devastated, but slowly, with patience and imagination, he transforms his island into a tropical paradise. For twenty-four years he lives with no human companionship -- until one fateful day, when he discovers he is not alone...

My Two Cents:

I can see why this book is considered a classic. It's got a story that, though fairly rooted in a particular time period, allows people in every generation to relate to it. Defoe's writing is also elegant enough and indicative of his time period that it serves as an example of the way books were written for future generations.

The one thing I'm not so sure of, though, is why this book is looked to as an example of the creation of a utopian society. Crusoe's island is utopian for him, sure, because he has ultimate rule and there is no discord unless introduced from the outside. However, with the introduction of Friday, the native who becomes Crusoe's slave (In a way), that utopia is only a utopia for Crusoe. True, Friday willingly puts himself into Crusoe's service for his saving Friday's life, and Crusoe is a fairly benevolent master, but the moment Friday enters the scene, there's disparity and inequality. Crusoe ceases to do a lot of work simply because Friday is there to do it. He becomes an island version of a man of leisure and allows Friday to take everything on his back. This, to me, is not a utopian society.

Short of the small issue with this book being classified as showing a utopian society and my general dislike of Crusoe for allowing Friday to become his servant (He easily could've said no!), I did enjoy this book. I thought it was a great example of how man can survive when he needs to, even if he doesn't seem to have a lot of skill from the outset.

Review: Mothers and Other Liars by Amy Bourret

2011-03-21T06:00:00.002-05:00

Title: Mothers and Other Liars

Author: Amy Bourret

Pages: 288 (I have an ARC, so page numbers might be different in a finished copy)

Source: Publisher for review

Rating: 6/10

Summary (From back of book):

As a runaway teen, Ruby Leander could have never imagined the path that would lead her to an abandoned baby. Fast forward nine years: Ruby and Lark have made a home for themselves in New Mexico with their wonderful community of friends -- life is perfect. Until that one fateful day when Ruby learns the truth about her daughter's past. A truth that will change both of their lives, forever.

My Two Cents:

The thing that shines about this book is Bourret's writing and her ability to develop a character. This book was a very easy read, with some nice, lyrical passages. She also made me care about the characters and what happened to them, which is always the mark of a good writer in my book.

However, I just couldn't get over how coincidental so much of this book was. So many things just happened and were accepted as such. I'm not going to specifically say what, because that would ruin the book for anyone planning to read it, but I just couldn't get past a lot of things. Bourret's dealing with what's probably a big hot-button issue was also a little too Jodi Picoult for me. I guess I should have read the back of the book before diving in, or I would've known she's been compared to Picoult.

The other thing that bugged me, and it's such a little thing I feel kind of silly mentioning it, was that each chapter was only a few pages long. In a 288-page book, there are 117 "chapters." Sure, the short chapters made it easy to put the book down and pick it up again, but I just didn't feel it was necessary to separate every single episode or memory out into its own chapter.

Overall, though, I did enjoy this book, despite my complaints about it. If you are a fan of women's fiction (especially books by Jodi Picoult of Marisa de los Santos), then you'll like this novel.

Review: The Hours by Michael Cunningham

2011-03-19T06:00:00.001-05:00

Title: The Hours

Author: Michael Cunningham

Pages: 226

Source: Personal library

Rating: 9/10

Summary (From back of book):

Passionate, profound, and deeply moving, The Hours is the story of three women: Clarissa Vaughan, who one New York morning goes about planning a party in honor of a beloved friend; Laura Brown, who in a 1950s Los Angeles suburb slowly begins to feel the constraints of a perfect family and home; and Virginia Woolf, recuperating with her husband in a London suburb, and beginning to write Mrs. Dalloway. By the end of the novel, the stories have intertwined, and finally come together in an act of subtle and haunting grace, demonstrating Michael Cunningham's deep empathy for his characters as well as the extraordinary resonance of his prose.

My Two Cents:

I saw the movie based on this book during a college course several years ago, and immediately put the book on my "To-read" list. I adore Virginia Woolf, so this book appealed to me for a lot of reasons.

This is definitely a case in which I would recommend reading the book before seeing the movie (Although I always recommend that). The movie and the book are so similar, there were points where I caught myself skimming because I "knew what happened." Not exactly the way I want to read the book.

Cunningham's prose is just gorgeous. One word flows into the next and, before you know it, you've read 30 pages. I love when books completely sweep me away and make me lose track of time. It's easy to see why he won the Pulitzer Prize for this work.

He also does a fabulous job of accurately rendering three really complex female characters without stooping to stereotypes. And it's especially commendable when you consider he even included one major stereotype: A 1950s housewife unhappy with her place in life. I never felt as if I was reading flat characters. I wanted to get to know these women more deeply, especially Virginia Woolf.

Review: The Comedy of Errors by William Shakespeare

2011-03-17T06:00:00.000-05:00

Title: The Comedy of Errors

Author: William Shakespeare

Pages: 70

Source: Personal library

Rating: 4/10

Summary:

The Comedy of Errors tells the story of two sets of identical twins that were accidentally separated at birth. Antipholus of Syracuse and his servant, Dromio of Syracuse, arrive in Ephesus, which turns out to be the home of their twin brothers, Antipholus of Ephesus and his servant, Dromio of Ephesus. When the Syracusans encounter the friends and families of their twins, a series of wild mishaps based on mistaken identities lead to wrongful beatings, a near-seduction, the arrest of Antipholus of Ephesus, and accusations of infidelity, theft, madness, and demonic possession.

My Two Cents:

Wow. It's obvious this was one of Shakespeare's earliest plays. However, even Shakespeare's worst plays are better than other playwrights' best plays.

Even though this piece is short for a theatrical play (Only about 70 pages), it took me a while to get through. I just couldn't get past all the trite dialogue and crazy coincidences. I remember finding the source for this play, Plautus' The Menaechmi, equally difficult to believe. That complete inability to suspend my disbelief, so crucial in theater, is a lot of the reason why I wasn't able to enjoy this play as much as I possibly could have.

Despite my issues with this play, it still is funny. I think it would be much more humorous seen onstage, which was Shakespeare's original intent.

Review: Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human by Harold Bloom

2011-03-15T06:00:00.002-05:00

Title: Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human

Author: Harold Bloom

Pages: 745

Source: Personal library

Rating: 9/10

Summary (From Barnes & Noble):

Remember the controversy attending the publication of The Western Canon? Well, hold on to your mortarboards -- critic, scholar, and Falstaffian gadfly Harold Bloom returns with his magnum opus, Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human. Whether deriding the tenets of the so-called "School of Resentment" or trumpeting the 39 plays of William Shakespeare as "the fixed center of the Western canon," Bloom is here at his audacious best, offering a passionate analysis of the ways Shakespeare not only represented human nature as we know it today but actually created it. Infusing literary criticism with an unusual narrative force, Bloom helps us to understand ourselves through literature, revealing "not only of how meaning gets started...but also of how new modes of consciousness come into being."

My Two Cents:

As much as I love Shakespeare biography and criticism, I've shied away from reading any Bloom for years simply because I've heard nothing but how arrogant and pompous he is. And, while I do get that from this book (Honestly, what academic publishing a book isn't somewhat arrogant and pompous?), it didn't distract me from my reading at all.

Bloom certainly knows his stuff. He's read all the plays many times over and has looked for through-lines and connections that casual readers normally wouldn't see. He links Shakespeare's earlier characters with their counterparts from later, completely opposite plays. Some of the connections seemed, to me, a bit of a stretch, but most of his observations were incredibly insightful and had me looking at some of the plays in a completely new light.

His writing is, obviously, somewhat hard to decipher at times. He's an academic who is really fond of the million-dollar words. But, all that is just part of the aura that surrounds Bloom and makes the book just a little more fun to read, I thought. Sure, it was difficult to get through sometimes, and I had to put it down and read something much simpler from time to time, but this book wouldn't be what it was without the overblown language.

If you're a fan of Shakespeare, or just want to read a really long, really in-depth discussion of each of his plays, this is the book for you. But, it's not for the faint-of-heart!

Review: Warped by Maurissa Guibord

2011-03-05T06:00:00.001-06:00

Title: Warped

Author: Maurissa Guibord

Pages: 337

Source: Personal library

Challenges: Debut Author Challenge

Rating: 7/10

Summary (From book flap):

Tessa Brody doesn't believe in magic. Or fate.

But there's definitely something weird about the dusty unicorn tapestry that she discovers in a box of old books. The wild, handsome creature enchants Tessa, and frightens her too.

Soon after the tapestry comes into her possession, strange things begin to happen. Tessa experiences vivid dreams of the past filled with images from a brutal hunt -- one that she herself may have played a part in.

When Tessa pulls a loose thread from the tapestry, she releases a terrible secret. She also meets William de Chaucy, a young sixteenth-century nobleman with gorgeous eyes, an odd accent, and haughty attitude to spare. Will's fate is as inextricably tied to the tapestry as Tessa's is. And although Will might be hard to get along with, he's equally hard to resist.

Together, Tessa and Will must correct the wrongs of the past. But time is running out. The Norn sisters, also known as the Fates, have stepped in and begun to make a tangled mess of Tessa's life. Unless she does their bidding and defeats a cruel and crafty ancient enemy, everything, and everyone, she loves will be destroyed.

My Two Cents:

I struggled a bit with how to review this book. Overall, I liked it, but I had some pretty fundamental problems with the book and its characters, so I couldn't give it a really glowing review.

Guibord's writing flows nicely and the concept she chose for her book is very interesting. It weaves together a lot of legend with modern times, and she didn't choose just any legend. She chose a pretty obscure legend surrounding unicorns. The concept definitely intrigued me and kept me in this book.

Tessa was a character on whom my opinion wavered back and forth. At times, I liked her because she just seemed different from the usual teen protagonist. However, there were times when she was just so... typical ... that I wanted to strangle her. I guess I just didn't have a lot of patience for her throwing fits over her father's girlfriend when there were more important things going on.

My biggest problem with this book, and with a lot of young adult literature, is how quickly Tessa and William "fell in love." Guibord gives a background that they've known one another in a legendary way for centuries, so that's supposed to make their "getting-to-know-you" period a little shorter, but still. I guess I just get a little skeeved out by young adult literature modeling these lightning-fast courtships and head-over-heels loves to girls when that's not really the way a lot of the world works. I just feel as if it sets expectations too high and allows girls to get into the mindset that anything short of perfect, immediate love is not enough for them.

Review: Next by James Hynes

2011-03-03T06:00:00.004-06:00

Title: Next

Author: James Hynes

Pages: 308

Source: Twitter win from Little Brown

Rating: 9/10

Summary (From book flap):

Descending on a plane into Austin, Texas, Kevin Quinn is worried about his stifling job, the younger girlfriend he's lucky to have by can't commit to, his rapidly encroaching late middle age, and the terrorist attacks in Europe that rocked the world just days ago. But as the tarmac looms closer, he's really thinking about only one thing: the beautiful young woman in the seat next to him.

Though he should be focused on the job interview that's brought him to Texas in the first place, Kevin can't quite let his luminous seatmate go. He impulsively takes off after her through the city streets in a quixotic and nostalgic journey that evokes scenes from his past: his dodgy love life, recollected in hilariously mortifying detail; the tragicomedy of his youthful idealism; the dysfunctional family he has only ever wanted to escape.

It's a day both common in its anxieties and singular for the fresh possibilities the girl and the interview represent. Then, on the fifty-second floor of an Austin office tower, as he takes the first steps toward what he hopes might be a late-in-life second chance, Kevin is suddenly confronted with a shocking reality about himself, and the age we live in. Perhaps, in the nick of time, he will understand just what happens next.

My Two Cents:

This is one of those books that I went into with interest, but also trepidation. I was worried Kevin would turn into another Rabbit Angstrom, and I didn't know if I could take that. I think it's the fact that the protagonist is so far from my own experience (Male, middle-aged, etc.). But, I was pleasantly surprised.

Hynes' writing had me laughing from the get-go. Kevin's internal monologue as he's sitting on the plane, ruminating about nearly everything under the sun, including the "other Kevin" who perpetrated a terrorist attack in Europe, is solid. It's focused but still has that stream-of-consciousness feel to it, but it's easy enough to follow that you don't feel as if you're reading Joyce or Woolf.

Kevin is just pathetic enough to be a sympathetic character -- He can't find it in himself to settle down with one woman, he hates his current job, he dwells on his past -- but he isn't pathetic enough to be a completely boring character. He's actually really interesting to watch as he moves through an unusual city, wondering why he's doing what he's doing but still continuing on his journey anyway. I liked him more and more as the book progressed, and especially identified with his sense of humor.

While this isn't a big action-packed book, or really a book about a person changing drastically (Until the very end, during a crucial moment), it's still a really interesting read that I'd recommend to anyone who's a fan of modern fiction. I finished it in just a couple days' time because I kept wanting to know what happened.

Review: I Am Number Four (Lorien Legacies #1) by Pittacus Lore

2011-02-26T06:00:00.019-06:00

Title: I Am Number Four (Lorien Legacies #1)

Author: Pittacus Lore

Pages: 440

Source: Borrowed

Rating: 6/10

Summary (From book flap):

Nine of us came here. We look like you. We talk like you. But we are not you. We can do things you dream of doing. We have powers you dream of having. We are stronger and faster than anything you have ever seen. We are the superheroes you worship in movies and comic books -- but we are real.

Our plan was to grow, and train, and become strong, and become one, and fight them. But they found us and started hunting us first. Now all of us are running. Spending our lives in shadows, in places where no one would look, blending in. We have lived among you without you knowing.

But they know.

They caught Number One in Malaysia.
Number Two in England.
And Number Three in Kenya.
They killed them all.

I am Number Four.

I am next.

My Two Cents:

I wanted to like this book a lot. I really did. As a diehard aliens kind of girl, and someone who gets really sick of whiny female narrators in young adult literature, I think maybe the bar was set a little too high for me.

My first major problem was that I just couldn't like John. It wasn't that I hated him or anything, he just didn't seem well-rounded enough for me to get to know well enough to like. Maybe it was because this book focused a lot on his forming relationships, romantic and otherwise, with human teenagers, so he was wandering around in the dark for a while, but he just seemed really one-sided.

As far as the other characters go, I also felt as if I just didn't know enough about them to form any kind of connection to decide whether I liked them or not. I really wanted to like characters like Henri and Sam (But I never wanted to like Sarah for some reason), but just couldn't get a feel for them.

The concept behind this book was great, and, aside from the flat characters, it was pretty well-executed. You've got an alien teen (As if all teens don't feel like aliens at some point) just trying to blend in on Earth, but always running for his life. Then, things start happening that he can't explain, and he's in for the battle of his life. It works really well as a whole concept, and I really did want to know what happened next. I'm just not sure how the author will extend it into the remainder of the series.

This wasn't a bad book, by any means, nor would I dissuade anyone from reading it. It just wasn't the book for me.

Review: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Other Stories by Washington Irving

2011-02-16T07:35:00.001-06:00

Title: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Other Stories

Author: Washington Irving

Pages: 190

Source: Personal library

Rating: 8/10

Summary:

Washington Irving is one of the most read and the most unread of authors. In his own day, of course, he was very widely read both in America and England. His writings caught the current fancy for romanticism, for local color, for sentiment, for nostalgia, for humor. In spite of this past popularity, it is doubtful how much of Irving's writing is still read today. Dust-covered sets of Irving's complete works probably appear in the second-hand bookstores as often as do those of Longfellow of Lowell, or any of the other traditional classics of American literature whose reputations have been revised downwards in recent years. Yet a few of Irving's writings, above all "Rip Van Winkle" and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," are still very widely read. It is a rare general anthology of the short story that does not contain one or both of these stories, but it is an even rarer one that has anything more by Irving. A collection such as this one, which ranges more generously over Irving's whole work, may not only teach us why Irving was once so popular but may suggest that Irving has more to offer a modern reader than just his two most famous stories.

My Two Cents:

I've grown up hearing "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" and "Rip Van Winkle," but never read them in their entirety. It's very obvious that, in the telling and re-telling, things get a little twisted from the originals.

I liked the two most popular stories well enough, but there are several great stories in this short anthology. Irving wove many different types of tales, from suspenseful thrillers to stories of early American life.

My favorite probably was "The Specter Bridegroom," which tells the story of a young woman's plans to marry a soldier who is engaged in battle on his wedding night. I won't give anything away, but, even though the ending is somewhat expected, it is still a suspenseful and well-written story.

I can see why Irving isn't as widely read as he used to be. His language and writing style certainly are archaic and don't appeal to a very broad modern audience. But, once you're able to get past the fact that he wrote nearly 200 years ago, you will find some enjoyable, original stories from one of the first masters of American literature.

Review: How to Raise an Amazing Child the Montessori Way by Tim Seldin

2011-01-28T06:00:00.000-06:00

Title: How To Raise an Amazing Child the Montessori Way

Author: Tim Seldin

Pages: 187

Source: Personal library

Rating: 9/10

Summary:

A practical parenting program to help build a calm and happy home life with your child, from birth through age six.

Based on Montessori school methods that inspired Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page.

Packed with creative activities to help children discover more about their world -- as well as foster independence, concentration, and respect for others.

My Two Cents:

I'll admit, since reading about the Montessori mattress idea in a few blogs a while back, I've been a little obsessed with the Montessori method of educating children. I've found a lot of schooling theories in researching homeschooling techniques, but this one strikes me as the most complete in terms of both academics and home life, as well as working with children from birth.

This book isn't a complete how-to manual for the Montessori theory. If you want that, you'll have to go read some of Maria Montessori's original texts, hook up with a licensed Montessori school, or just do tons and tons of research.

What this book does do, though, is give parents some really practical tools that they can implement in their own homes to either reinforce an already ongoing Montessori education, or as a way to introduce some of the philosophies of Montessori education in the home if a child is not receiving a Montessori education. Sure, our soon-to-be little one is still a few years away from any kind of formal education, but I absolutely plan to implement some of these things in our home.

The thing that struck me most about this book was teaching a child, at a young age, to be independent. Pouring water, fixing snacks, doing household chores and dressing are all covered in Seldin's book, along with real-life ways to teach your child the techniques. Seldin, president of the Montessori Foundation, gives parents step-by-step directions for things such as teaching a young child how to sweep a floor, and often includes serial pictures of the process. I really, really liked that aspect of this book, especially the pictorial illustrations, as sometimes just words don't get the point across well enough.

This is a great book for anyone considering a Montessori education for his or her child, as it's a very basic introduction to a lot of the tenets. It's also great for parents who want to teach their children Montessori methods, but don't have access to a licensed school.

Review: Wither (The Chemical Garden Trilogy #1) by Lauren DeStefano

2011-01-04T06:00:00.000-06:00

Title: Wither (The Chemical Garden Trilogy #1)
Author: Lauren DeStefano
Pages: 358 (I have an ARC, so page numbers may differ in final copies)
Source: Publisher for review
Challenges: Debut Author Challenge

Rating: 10/10

Summary (From back of book):
In the not-too-distant future, because of genetic engineering, every human is a ticking time bomb -- males only live to age twenty-five, and females only live to age twenty. To keep the population from dying out, girls are kidnapped and sold into polygamous marriages.
When sixteen-year-old Rhine is taken, she enters a world of wealth and privilege that both entices and terrifies her. She has everything she ever wanted -- except freedom. With the help of Gabriel, a servant Rhine is growing dangerously attracted to, Rhine attempts to escape before it is too late.

My Two Cents:

Dystopian literature is all the rage these days in the young adult arena, and this trilogy by a debut author (Who just happens to be about my age :)) is poised to take its place among some of the greats of the last couple years.

DeStefano creates a world that, in the way that Brave New World is frightening, is eerily prescient in its possibilities. The human race, in an effort to create "perfect" people, engineered an entire generation of perfectly healthy, long-living people. The one thing they didn't foresee, however, was that their experiments caused the life spans of all future generations to become devastatingly shortened. Humanity currently has much of the technology that could pull of this scenario, if given enough time, and the way that designer babies and life-prolonging measures are headed, it's highly probable that something similar could occur in the future. This is one of those dystopian novels that makes you fear for humanity and, in a way, wish that many of the things we know now had never been discovered. I often found myself chilled by the thought that this could happen in the future, and this could be the way humanity exists. Scary.

Rhine is one of those teen characters that I like best. She's got an innocence about her when she's seduced by the glitter that surrounds her at Linden's mansion, and she wants to trust people, but she's still worldly enough to know that all that glitters is not gold. There's a good, solid head on her shoulders, and she's constantly looking for ways out of the life into which she was forced. Sure, she laments the life she once led, but she doesn't get too whiny and mopey (As many teen characters, regardless of whether they're in dystopian novels, have a tendency to be) and pull the "poor me" card. She's always thinking and always observing and always figuring out ways to play her advantages.

The ending of this installment leaves the whole rest of the series wide open with possibilities. What will happen to Rhine? What will happen to all the other characters (I'm not going to say anything because that would give too much away)? Will anyone find a cure for the mysterious virus that strikes at the fatal birthday?

I would highly recommend this book to any fan of science fiction, fantasy or dystopian literature. It doesn't even read as a young adult novel many times; it's perfect for adults and teens alike.

Debut Author Tour on offer: The Water Wars by Cameron Stracher

2011-01-01T21:37:00.002-06:00

Karen of OCD about Books has graciously offered a finished copy of The Water Wars by Cameron Stracher for the tour!

Here's a little about the book:

Would you risk everything for someone you just met?
What if he had a secret worth killing for?
Welcome to a future where water is more precious than oil or gold...
Hundreds of millions of people have already died, and millions more will soon fall-victims of disease, hunger, and dehydration. It is a time of drought and war. The rivers have dried up, the polar caps have melted, and drinkable water is now in the hands of the powerful few. There are fines for wasting it and prison sentences for exceeding the quotas.
But Kai didn't seem to care about any of this. He stood in the open road drinking water from a plastic cup, then spilled the remaining drops into the dirt. He didn't go to school, and he traveled with armed guards. Kai claimed he knew a secret-something the government is keeping from us...
And then he was gone. Vanished in the middle of the night. Was he kidnapped? Did he flee? Is he alive or dead? There are no clues, only questions. And no one can guess the lengths to which they will go to keep him silent. We have to find him-and the truth-before it is too late for all of us.

I'm opening this first round up to SIX participants in the US and Canada.

Once I get six people signed up, I'll cut off comments. If the book makes it back to me in a reasonable amount of time, I'll open it up to others!

If you're interested, leave a comment with:
1. Your name
2. Your e-mail address
3. Your state or province

Remember: If you participate, you are responsible for shipping the book to the next person on the list.

Debut Author Tour on offer: The Water Wars by Cameron Stracher

2011-01-01T21:35:00.002-06:00

Kristie of Text and Java has graciously offered a finished copy of The Water Wars by Cameron Stracher for the tour!

Here's a little about the book:

Would you risk everything for someone you just met?
What if he had a secret worth killing for?
Welcome to a future where water is more precious than oil or gold...
Hundreds of millions of people have already died, and millions more will soon fall-victims of disease, hunger, and dehydration. It is a time of drought and war. The rivers have dried up, the polar caps have melted, and drinkable water is now in the hands of the powerful few. There are fines for wasting it and prison sentences for exceeding the quotas.
But Kai didn't seem to care about any of this. He stood in the open road drinking water from a plastic cup, then spilled the remaining drops into the dirt. He didn't go to school, and he traveled with armed guards. Kai claimed he knew a secret-something the government is keeping from us...
And then he was gone. Vanished in the middle of the night. Was he kidnapped? Did he flee? Is he alive or dead? There are no clues, only questions. And no one can guess the lengths to which they will go to keep him silent. We have to find him-and the truth-before it is too late for all of us.

Debut Author Tour on offer: Warped by Maurissa Guibord

2011-01-01T21:31:00.002-06:00

Kristie of Text and Java has graciously offered a finished copy of Warped by Maurissa Guibord for the tour!

Here's a little about the book:

Tessa doesn't believe in magic. Or Fate. But there's something weird about the dusty unicorn tapestry she discovers in a box of old books. She finds the creature woven within it compelling and frightening. After the tapestry comes into her possession, Tessa experiences dreams of the past and scenes from a brutal hunt that she herself participated in. When she accidentally pulls a thread from the tapestry, Tessa releases a terrible centuries old secret. She also meets William de Chaucy, an irresistible 16th-century nobleman. His fate is as inextricably tied to the tapestry as Tessa's own. Together, they must correct the wrongs of the past. But then the Fates step in, making a tangled mess of Tessa's life. Now everyone she loves will be destroyed unless Tessa does their bidding and defeats a cruel and crafty ancient enemy.

Debut Author Tour on offer: Latte Rebellion by Sarah Jamila Stevenson

2011-01-01T21:26:00.001-06:00

Kristie from Text and Java has graciously offered a finished copy of Latte Rebellion by Sarah Jamila Stevenson for the tour!

Here's a little about the book:

Hoping to raise money for a post-graduation trip to London, Asha Jamison and her best friend Carey decide to sell T-shirts promoting the Latte Rebellion, a club that raises awareness of mixed-race students.

But seemingly overnight, their "cause" goes viral and the T-shirts become a nationwide social movement. As new chapters spring up from coast to coast, Asha realizes that her simple marketing plan has taken on a life of its own—and it's starting to ruin hers. Asha's once-stellar grades begin to slip, threatening her Ivy League dreams, while her friendship with Carey hangs by a thread. And when the peaceful underground movement spins out of control, Asha's school launches a disciplinary hearing. Facing expulsion, Asha must decide how much she's willing to risk for something she truly believes in.

Debut Author Tour on offer: ARC of Wither by Lauren DeStefano

2011-01-01T21:18:00.002-06:00

I'm offering my personal ARC of Wither by Lauren DeStefano for the Debut Author Challenge Tour.

Here's a little about the book:

In the not-too-distant future, because of genetic engineering, every human is a ticking time bomb -- males only live to age twenty-five, and females only live to age twenty. To keep the population from dying out, girls are kidnapped and sold into polygamous marriages.
When sixteen-year-old Rhine is taken, she enters a world of wealth and privilege that both entices and terrifies her. She has everything she ever wanted -- except freedom. With the help of Gabriel, a servant Rhine is growing dangerously attracted to, Rhine attempts to escape before it is too late.

This book is set to release March 22.

I'm opening this first round up to SIX participants in the US and Canada. I will also consider international shipping on a case-by-case basis, so e-mail me if you're interested!

Once I get six people signed up, I'll cut off comments. If the book makes it back to me in a reasonable amount of time, I'll open it up to others!

If you're interested, leave a comment with:
1. Your name
2. Your e-mail address
3. Your state or province

Remember: If you participate, you are responsible for shipping the book to the next person on the list.

Compare/Contrast Review: Hamlet by William Shakespeare and Ophelia by Lisa Klein

2010-12-31T13:00:00.004-06:00

Title: Hamlet

Author: William Shakespeare

Pages: 400 (Depending on edition and annotations)

Source: Personal library

Rating: 10/10

Challenges: Take Another Chance Challenge #8 - Real and Inspired

Title: Ophelia

Author: Lisa Klein

Pages: 328

Source: Personal library

Rating: 7/10

Challenges: Read 'n' Review Challenge; Take Another Chance Challenge #8 - Real and Inspired

I'm taking a different approach to my usual reviews with these two. We all know Hamlet is a fabulous read, there's no denying that (Unless you're a hater), and I have some very definite opinions of the version that Klein presents in Ophelia. So, non-traditional, compare-and-contrast-type review it is!

Oh, and if you really want to read this book, I'd suggest not reading this review. It's kind of spoiler-y.

Ophelia: I've never been an Ophelia fan in the original. She was just kind of lame to me (I much prefer Desdemona). Klein's whole purpose for writing this book was to give Ophelia a voice and a better character. I think she did a great job doing this. I actually really liked the Ophelia she painted in this novel.

However, I don't think her version of Ophelia lines up well enough with the original. There's no real precedent or hint of the Ophelia we get in Klein's version.

Horatio: I like Horatio in the original, and I like him in this version. Klein gives him much more space to stretch out and develop, and his development is really in line with what we see in the original. He's probably the best-preserved character from the original to this spin-off. I'm not so sure about his feelings for/relationship with Ophelia, though. I just don't get the sense, from the original, that Horatio had too many dealings with Ophelia other than possibly delivering some messages to and from Hamlet.

Gertrude: While I'm not a fan of Klein's expansion of Ophelia, I think she takes the strangest turn with Gertrude. The Gertrude in the original is very much a background character, and one we're left wondering about. We don't know how she really felt about old Hamlet's death, or why she married Claudius so soon after the death. We don't know, really, how she treats and views Hamlet as a son. She just seems to hang out in the background of most of the scenes, not really saying much.

Klein's Gertrude is a little too knowing for my interpretation, though. If she was so knowing, she wouldn't have done a lot of the things she did and she wouldn't have let a lot of the things happen that happened. Klein's Gertrude is too complicit but still too "innocent" in the whole situation. It just didn't sit well with me.

Events: I'm not going to go into details here, but Klein builds nearly an entire book out of things that happen outside the realm of Shakespeare's play. And, looking at Shakespeare's other plays and many of the conventions of the time period in which it's vaguely set, Klein's events are incredibly plausible. It's a whole book of the what-might-have-beens, and (almost) all of them make sense.

Overall, this is a really interesting read for any fans of Shakespeare, the original version of Hamlet and spin-offs in general.

Short Reviews: End-of-the-Year-Catch-up

2010-12-30T12:35:00.000-06:00

In an attempt to fit in all the books I've read this year, seeing as I've spent the last three months as a horrible blogging slacker, I'm mashing in three shorter reviews today. I won't include synopses of the books, so click on the book cover if you want to read more about the story! Makes my life a little easier!

Title: The Distant Hours

Author: Kate Morton

Pages: 672 (I have an ARC, so page numbers in finished copies might be different)

Source: Publisher for review

Rating: 10/10

Challenges: Read 'n' Review Challenge

My Two Cents:

I just love Kate Morton's work, and I'm sad I was so horrible at reviewing that I can't give this book it's own post.

Although I love all of Morton's characters for one reason or another, this whole cast of characters is by far my favorite as a whole. Edie is great as a narrator: She's likable and curious enough to pursue the family mystery, but loves her mother and her privacy enough that she doesn't openly pry too often. The three Blythe sisters are the perfect picture of old spinsters harboring dark secrets. Edie's mother, Meredith, is probably my favorite, though. She changes, at least in Edie's perception, from a slightly standoffish, rather typical British woman of her era to someone with a layered, emotional past.

Morton's writing is, as always, beautiful, but there's more here than in her other two novels. There's a much deeper mystery to unravel, and Morton's writing takes on a darker, more Gothic character. Sure, the book's kind of a slog at times (At over 600 pages, what book isn't?), but it's well worth it in the end.

Title: Torment (Fallen #2)

Author: Lauren Kate

Pages: 452

Source: Friend

Rating: 7/10

Challenges: Read 'n' Review Challenge

My Two Cents:

While not quite as enthralling as the first book (But really, what sequel is?), this is by far one of the better follow-ups in young adult literature this year. I was worried after a spate of really disappointing sequels (I'm looking at you, Burned, Spirit Bound, Linger and Crescendo) that this would be much the same. However, I was really pleasantly surprised in many ways.

The novel does lose some of its charm when Daniel is off doing his own thing and Luce turns into a whiny teenager. But, Luce's new friends and her attempts to figure out what the shadows are saying to her propel the novel through the slower times. And, it picks right back up once Daniel comes back into the picture.

The ending definitely leaves this series open for the next book, Passion, not due out until next summer. I really want to find out what happens!

Title: Last Sacrifice (Vampire Academy #6)

Author: Richelle Mead

Pages: 594

Source: Borrowed

Rating: 8/10

Challenges: Read 'n' Review Challenge

My Two Cents:

I'm a little mixed in my reaction to this one. For the most part, I loved it and thought it was a great way to wrap up the series. On the other hand, though, some things (Including the ending) seemed a little too neat and tidy for me.

The best part about this book, I think, is that we see very little of Rose and Lissa actually together. We see what Lissa's doing through Rose's eyes, but we don't actually see them together, and I think that really helps Lissa evolve a lot as a character. I only wish it had happened a little sooner in the series.

One of my big disappointments in this book, though, was Dimitri. We got a lot more face time with him than we did in Spirit Bound, which was nice, but he just wasn't as intriguing and engaging as he was in the previous books in the series. Of course, a lot of that has to do with his battling with the things he did as a Strigoi, but I just really, really missed the Dimitri of the first few books of the series.

All in all, though, this was a solid and satisfying ending to this series.

Show Me 5 Saturday: Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

2010-12-25T06:00:00.023-06:00

From That's A Novel Idea and Find Your Next Book Here

1 book I read: Fahrenheit 451

2 words that describe the book: Dystopian literature

3 settings where it took place or characters you met:

Guy Montag - The main character, a firefighter in the future whose job it is to set fires, not put them out. He spends most of his life going along with the sentiment that books are evil and should be burnt, but meeting a young girl who moves in next door begins to change his perspective.

Captain Beatty - The ultimate government patsy, he enforces the rules to a T. He suspects Montag's leanings almost before Montag knows them himself, and he executes his orders.

Clarisse McClellan - A 17-year-old free-thinker who moves in next door to Montag. Her conversations with Montag, centering around thinking and talking instead of passively having things fed to you, are what gets Montag to rethink his way of life.

4 Things you liked and/or disliked about it:

I liked how I could actually (frighteningly) picture this world coming into existence. We're really not that far off from this possibility, which is scary.

I didn't like how it seemed to take a long time for Montag to make his mental "switch," but once he did, it all went lightning-fast. It just seemed like a big build-up for a super-quick payoff.

I liked Captain Beatty, as reprehensible a character as he is. He's the personification of censorship, and he does a good job putting the fear of God into those around him.

I liked (No, LOVED) the ending. Such an amazing concept. I think more people need to put this into practice right now, because it almost seems like we're losing a lot of crucial books to a lack of readership.

5 Stars or less for your rating?

I'm giving the book 5 stars. An absolute must-read.

The Whys and Wheres: Personal library

Challenges: Read 'n' Review Challenge; 451 Challenge

Short Reviews: Radiance and Infinite Days

2010-12-22T06:00:00.024-06:00

In an attempt to fit in all the books I've read this year, seeing as I've spent the last three months as a horrible blogging slacker, I'm mashing in two shorter reviews today. I won't include synopses of the books, so click on the book cover if you want to read more about the story! Makes my life a little easier!

Title: Radiance

Author: Alyson Noel

Pages: 183 (I have an ARC, so page counts in final copies may be different)

Source: Publisher for review

Rating: 6/10

Challenges: Read 'n' Review Challenge

My Two Cents:

The concept to this book is great: Riley (Little sister to Ever from Noel's young adult Immortals series) is in the other life, but finds it really pretty boring. Until she starts at an afterlife school, where she learns that she's been chosen for an interesting mission. And the concept holds up, but Riley is just one of those kids you want to hit upside the head. She's bratty and bossy and doesn't listen to anyone. She only wants to do what she wants to do, regardless of consequences. Yes, I know this is how a lot of preteens act, but it really took away from my enjoyment of the book.

This book will be enjoyed by fans of the Immortals series and readers in the middle grade levels.

Title: Infinite Days (Vampire Queen #1)

Author: Rebecca Maizel

Pages: 308 (I have an ARC, so page counts in final copies may be different)

Source: Publisher for review

Rating: 6/10

Challenges: Read 'n' Review Challenge

My Two Cents:

This was a tough one to get through. It started out really interesting, especially seeing how Lenah adjusts to her new human life, but then kind of fell off the wagon. The entire middle was just random days in Lenah's life and her relationship with Justin, which would have been fine in a non-paranormal young adult book, but it didn't work well here. There was just a lot that didn't get explained, and maybe that will be touched more in later books in the series, but I was just left with a kind of lukewarm feeling altogether about this one.

2011 Debut Authors Challenge

2010-12-18T16:06:00.000-06:00

In reading Kristi's blog all year, I've seen a lot about the Debut Author Challenge. I thought it looked cool, but didn't have the time to commit to another challenge for 2010. Heck, I barely finished some of the challenges I signed up for!

Anyway, I'm jumping in this year. It looks like an AWESOME list of books, and I can't wait to pick some out!

I ended up reading a lot more MG/YA this year than I thought I did, and I've discovered that YA has really stepped it up a notch from when I was younger. It's not all Lurlene McDaniel and Fear Street. There's some seriously awesome stuff being written for teens now, and I'd be remiss to not give as much of it a go as possible.

I haven't picked out my books yet, but I plan to spend a LOT of time looking through the list and cross-referencing synopses with Amazon and Goodreads.

Show Me 5 Saturday: Push by Sapphire

2010-12-18T06:00:00.000-06:00

From That's A Novel Idea and Find Your Next Book Here

1 book I read: Push

2 words that describe the book: Overcoming boundaries

3 settings where it took place or characters you met:

Claireece "Precious" Jones - A 16-year-old severely overweight black girl living in Harlem, Precious is pregnant with her second child by her father. When she gets kicked out of her public school, Precious enrolls in an alternative program that teaches her how to read and write, and gives her a way out of the abusive, poverty-stricken life she has always known.

Blue Rain - Precious' teacher at Each One Teach One, she pushes the young women in the program to write something every day, no matter what it is or how incoherent it may seem. She becomes Precious' champion and her daily conversations with Precious, through a journal, help get the young girl moving in the right direction.

Abdul Jones - Precious' infant son and her motivation for learning to read and write, moving out of her mother's apartment, and working toward a better life for both of them.

4 Things you liked and/or disliked about it:

I liked that, although Precious' life up to the beginning of the novel is absolutely horrible and she seems to be caught in a cycle that will never end, Precious still maintains some hope that she'll be able to find a better life for herself. She just needs someone who cares about her (Which she finds) and who knows how to move Precious in the right direction.

I disliked how the entire novel was written in dialect. I know it's Precious' story, and that's how she speaks and thinks, but it just made parts of the book really difficult to read through because I had to figure out what was being said.

I liked the Each One Teach One class's stories written out at the end of the book. We got allusions to where the other girls in the class came from background-wise through Precious' story, but hearing their lives in their own words was interesting.

I liked that the book ends with a lot of hope. It's often easy to write about people in dire situations and leave the book with there being very little hope that the characters will crawl out of it, but not here. Precious has a better life on the horizon, and you know it.

5 Stars or less for your rating?

I'm giving the book 4 stars.

The Whys and Wheres: Personal library

Challenges: Read 'n' Review Challenge; Take Another Chance Challenge (Challenge 2 - Blogroll Roulette)

Short Reviews: The King's Mistress and The Vanishing of Katharina Linden

2010-12-15T06:00:00.001-06:00

In an attempt to fit in all the books I've read this year, seeing as I've spent the last three months as a horrible blogging slacker, I'm mashing in two shorter reviews today. I won't include synopses of the books, so click on the book cover if you want to read more about the story! Makes my life a little easier!

Title: The King's Mistress

Author: Emma Campion

Pages: 442 (I have an ARC, so page counts in final copies may be different)

Source: Publisher for review

Rating: 7/10

Challenges: Read 'n' Review Challenge

My Two Cents:

This book has an interesting, enigmatic main character, the mistress of an English king about whom we don't really hear much. Alice Perrers, the mistress of King Edward III, begins the book young and unsure, married to a wealthy merchant. She changes considerably over the course of the book's 20-plus years of events, but still remains an interesting and relevant narrator.

My main criticism of this book is that it just seemed to try and cram too much into one novel. There's enough material here for a short series, one I would've read happily. We get more than 20 years of happenings in one book, from Alice as a young teenager all the way past Edward's death, and it just seems rushed, especially at the end. I really would have liked to see a lot more about what happened at court and to Alice and her family following Edward's death, but the last couple years of time are crammed into so short a page span it's nearly impossible.

This book is great for any fans of historical fiction, especially English royalty historical fiction.

Title: The Vanishing of Katharina Linden

Author: Helen Grant

Pages: 281 (I have an ARC, so page counts in final copies may be different)

Source: Publisher for review

Rating: 9/10

Challenges: Read 'n' Review Challenge

My Two Cents:

This novel's plucky, curious young narrator is what pilots this intriguing story over the top into a great novel. Pia, whose grandmother burst into flames at Christmas dinner at the beginning of the novel, uses her recent status as a schoolyard outsider to try and solve the mystery of why young girls suddenly disappear in her small German town. With the help of StinkStefan, a fellow outcast and another great character, she befriends a gregarious old storyteller and delves into the disappearances. When the reader thinks the mystery will be solved one way, the story takes surprising turns, leading the the final conclusion.

Grant's writing is another thing that makes this book so solid. She seamlessly weaves in words and traditions from Pia's German town, making the somewhat exotic setting seem familiar. And her choice of subject matter, child disappearance, is a timely one that is sure to capture the interest of any reader.

For fans of The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie and other Flavia de Luce mysteries, this is a must-read book.

Show Me 5 Saturday: To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

2010-12-11T06:00:00.000-06:00

From That's A Novel Idea and Find Your Next Book Here

1 book I read: To the Lighthouse

2 words that describe the book: Modern fiction

3 settings where it took place or characters you met:

The Hebrides, on the Isle of Skye - This is the location of the Ramsay family's summer home and the place where the entire novel unfolds over the course of several years. There's really not much else to say about the Hebrides besides showing you a picture:

Source

Gorgeous, isn't it? Sigh...

Lily Briscoe - Not a member of the Ramsay family, Lily really is the main character in this novel. She begins a shy young painter who takes too much to heart the ramblings of Charles Tansley that women shouldn't be painters. She spends most of the novel doubting various things, most often her abilities. There's an idea for a painting bouncing around in her head for a decade, and the painting finally is finished at the end of the novel.

Mr. Ramsay - A rude, self-centered man, he worries too much of his legacy and his impact in the world. He takes out his insecurities on his wife and children, bullying them into submission. He also is very much a modern character who questions Victorian practices and ideals, but only when they serve him.

4 Things you liked and/or disliked about it:

I liked, as always, Woolf's writing. She's one of those writers who could compose a sketch on grass growing and make it beautiful. There's no one that compares to her in my book.

I liked Mrs. Ramsay's character. She's kind and hopeful, buoying up her husband and children when necessary, and protective of the children's innocence. She has a very Romantic view of the world, appreciating beauty and believing it should be preserved.

I liked Woolf's experiment with the second section, showing the passing of a decade. It's a tough section to slog through if you're not paying attention, but the payoff is great.

I greatly disliked Mr. Ramsay's character. He reminds me of all those overbearing, chauvinistic patriarchs that are represented in history and literature. He really had no redeeming qualities to him, in my opinion.

5 Stars or less for your rating?

I'm giving the book 5 stars. This is a classic everyone should read.

The Whys and Wheres: Personal library

Challenges: Read 'n' Review Challenge; Take Another Chance Challenge #3 - 100 Best Books

Review: Mockingjay (The Hunger Games #3) by Suzanne Collins

2010-12-08T06:00:00.000-06:00

Title: Mockingjay (The Hunger Games #3)

Author: Suzanne Collins

Pages: 390

Source: Personal library

Rating: 8/10

Challenges: Read 'n' Review Challenge

Summary (From book flap):

Katniss Everdeen, girl on fire, has survived, even though her home has been destroyed. Gale has escaped. Katniss's family is safe. Peeta has been captured by the Capitol. District 13 really does exist. There are rebels. There are new leaders. A revolution is unfolding.

It is by design that Katniss was rescued from the arena in the cruel and haunting Quarter Quell, and it is by design that she has long been part of the revolution without knowing it. District 13 has come out of the shadows and is plotting to overthrow the Capitol. Everyone, it seems, has had a hand in the carefully laid plans -- except Katniss.

The success of the rebellion hinges on Katniss's willingness to be a pawn, to accept responsibility for countless lives, and to change the course of the future of Panem. To do this, she must put aside her feelings of anger and distrust. She must become the rebels' Mockingjay -- no matter what the personal cost.

My Two Cents:

I know a lot of people were disappointed in this book as an ending to the trilogy, and I can see where they're coming from, but I quite liked it. Sure, it wasn't perfect and there were things that had me scratching my head, but for the most part, I thought it was a good ending.

I'm not going to give this a traditional review (In my normal style) simply because my thoughts on it are a little scattered still. So, I'll start with the things I liked, then end with the things I disliked.

First, the good

I'm glad there wasn't a third set of Games in this book. First, it wouldn't have fit what with portions of Panem totally falling apart and all, but a third Games would have been repetitive. We just would have seen Katniss fight for her life, again, and maintain her humanity and compassion in the face of evil, again. It was refreshing to have a change from that.

I also liked how you're never quite sure how to feel about Haymitch. He's kind of the Snape character of this series - Is he good and helping Katniss out, or is he bad and serving the Capitol's interests? He's a great character that has a lot of shading to him, and I enjoyed that.

I was glad that Katniss and Peeta spent most of the book apart from one another. Katniss needed Peeta to be elsewhere and in trouble of his own in order to grow up and realize that the world does not revolve around her. I think the loss of Peeta is really what catalyzed Katniss into becoming the leader she needed to be to help out the revolution.

I also was glad the revolution wasn't all sunshine and rainbows (What revolution is?). If there had been no snags within the group, it would have been an unrealistic portrayal. But, Collins has been faithful thus far in making even the most desolate situations realistic, so I don't know why I would have thought maybe she would have slipped up on this one. Either way, it was good to see that even people fighting for a good cause can have their own personal desires and can put those desires before the good of everyone.

The not-so-good

First, what the heck was up with Gale in this book?!?! He suddenly became super angry and violent and just really, really savage, and I didn't like it. He wasn't exactly my favorite character in the first place, but the turn he took in the third book was kind of out of left field. I didn't like it one bit, and I was always glad when the scene would shift and Gale was gone.

To me, Katniss still seemed a little self-absorbed, especially in the beginning of the book. "I don't want to be the face of all this, find someone else" doesn't really work when the people will rally around YOU. Even though you're a teenager and, well, teenagers tend to be a little self-involved, if there's a revolution going on and the lives of everyone you know are at stake, you suck it up and do what has to be done.

The revolution seemed to move a little more quickly than I would have expected, and I think that kind of diluted the effect. There were some big scenes, and some major uprisings in the Districts, but it just seemed as if the whole thing just got started and then it was over. Revolutions are usually protracted and much, much messier than this one appeared to be (Minus the loss of pretty much all of District 12). I think the story would have been a bit stronger if we could have seen some more of the struggling and fighting of the other areas of Panem before the revolution just suddenly ended.

The epilogue just seemed kind of tacked on there. Katniss spends the entire series thinking one thing and saying one thing and, all of a sudden (To us), she totally does a 180 and has this completely different life? I know the epilogue takes place many years after the rest of the series, but it just seemed a little too neat and tidy a way to end the whole thing to me.

If you're thinking at all about reading this series, I would absolutely recommend doing so. It is well worth the investment and will have you thinking and talking about it long after you close the final book.

Where I've been: An explanation

2010-11-26T13:00:00.013-06:00

I'm still alive!

Even though I haven't been posting frequently (I have about nine reviews to write...), commenting on other blogs, hanging out on Twitter or even reading, I am still around. I've just been having an interesting few months, and hopefully I'll be able to get back to my regular schedule here in the near future.

Where have I been, you ask?

Well, at the end of August, I officially became an ex-librarian and went to work at Starbucks. I work super-early hours (I have to be there at 5 a.m.) and have a 30-minute-plus drive each way to work. Not to mention the fact that I haven't had an on-my-feet-all-day job in about three years, so I'm absolutely beat by the time I get home from work.

Doesn't really leave much energy for blogging or tweeting.

But, the new job is nothing compared to the REALLY BIG NEWS.

Ready for it?

That's right, there's a new addition on the way to our household! I've had a major case of the first-trimester lazies, but I'm hoping that eases up a bit so I can actually do things besides hold down the couch.

This is a super-old sonogram (This was only at a little over 7 weeks, but I'm now 14 1/2 weeks), but I think this kid looks like me already! :)

We'll find out whether it's a boy or girl after the first of the year, and we're planning a homebirth (I have an AWESOME midwife) for sometime around May 24, 2011.

Show Me 5 Saturday: Catching Fire (The Hunger Games #2) by Suzanne Collins

2010-11-13T06:00:00.000-06:00

From That's A Novel Idea and Find Your Next Book Here

1 book I read: Catching Fire (The Hunger Games #2)

2 words that describe the book: Young adult dystopian (Three, but it works!)

3 settings where it took place or characters you met:

Finnick Odair - One of the former tributes from District 4, Finnick initially comes off as pompous and confident, qualities which make Katniss dislike him. Eventually, during the Quarter Quell Games, he shows that outside appearances aren't all they seem to be.

President Snow - Although we heard of him in the first book, we never actually met the man at the head of the Capitol. He's just as cruel and sadistic as he's portrayed from afar, and the worst of him is yet to come.

Mags - Another victor from District 4, Katniss takes pity on her advanced age and teams up with her early in the Quarter Quell Games. She proves to be much more useful, and incredibly self-sacrificing, than Katniss originally thought she was, once again proving to Katniss that she can't always trust first impressions.

4 Things you liked and/or disliked about it:

I liked that, even though things seemed horrible and bleak in the first book, they just keep getting worse. I know this sounds really terrible of me, but it's the whole "The night is darkest before the dawn" thing: Things can only get worse before they get better, and people have to be tested to their absolute limits to find out what they're made of.

I liked that, in the midst of all the horrible things brought on by the Capitol, Katniss still has time to worry about "typical" teenage things such as love. It made the horrors of Panem seem a little less relentless.

I liked that there are hints of what's going to happen in the final book of the trilogy, but you don't actually piece together the puzzle until you've read it all. That thread of the story is what makes other series, such as Harry Potter, so appealing.

I liked that Katniss evolved as a character, even though less than a year elapses between the end of the first book and the start of this one. She's even more jaded and angry than before because of what she witnessed during the Games, but her experience also taught her to hold her loved ones a little bit more close.

5 Stars or less for your rating?

I'm giving the book 5 stars. Although I can't put it exactly into words, this was my favorite book of the trilogy.

The Whys and Wheres: Personal library

Challenges: Read 'n' Review Challenge

Review: The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games #1) by Suzanne Collins

2010-11-10T06:00:00.002-06:00

Title: The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games #1)

Author: Suzanne Collins

Pages: 384

Source: Library

Rating: 10/10

Challenges: Read 'n' Review Challenge

Summary (From back of book):

In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts. The Capitol is harsh and cruel and keeps the districts in line by forcing them all to send one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen to participate in the annual Hunger Games, a fight to the death on live TV.

Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen regards it as a death sentence when she steps forward to take her sister's place in the Games. But Katniss has been close to dead before -- and survival, for her, is second nature. Without really meaning to, she becomes a contender. But if she is to win, she will have to start making choices that weigh survival against humanity and life against love.

My Two Cents:

I was pretty late to the Hunger Games train, but I'd read the buzz about it on Twitter for months before I picked up the series. I'm big into dystopian literature, but I was a bit hesitant as to a young adult series involving a fight to the death. Just seemed a little too brutal for me.

Boy, I'm glad I finally picked up this trilogy.

Collins creates a world where people have just enough freedom to talk about how much they despise their government, but not enough that they can actually do anything about it. They all hate the Hunger Games and the controls the government puts on them. They all try to find small ways around the controls. But, they can't (Or don't) actively fight the Powers That Be. It's all pretty classic dystopian, but for some reason the people of Panem seem a little less settled into their world than the people of, say, 1984 or Brave New World.

Katniss was a great choice for a main character. She's got just enough fear of the Capitol to keep her in line, but she's openly rebellious (Which sets her up for later in the series), so her defiance during the Games doesn't come from nowhere. And while she's had to take care of her family for many years, she's still naive enough in a lot of ways to be a believable teenager. Collins strikes the right balance between making Katniss a strong hero and an inexperienced young girl.

A lot has been made by critics of the trilogy that it's too violent and disturbing to be marketed at young adults. They feel the concept of a people oppressed by their government is valuable, but that pitting teens against one another in a fight to the death is barbaric. I say it's a ridiculous criticism.

Literature's job is to make its readers think. In this case, Collins wants the reader to think about what life could be like if we allow the government to have too much control. While much of the traditional dystopian canon isn't so violent (1984, Brave New World), Collins shows that humans can resort to terrible things in order to keep control. These are important issues that a lot of adults don't even think about, and I believe that using young adult literature to get kids thinking about these possibilities early is commendable. I'd much prefer my teen reading a book that raises incredibly important, disturbing questions that lead to family discussion than if he or she read nothing but books about sports teams or mean girl cliques (Not saying these type of books are all bad, but there's a difference between books that are just there for entertainment and books that actually make a person think). The issues Collins brings up are ones that a lot of adult authors are afraid to broach, and I laud her for being gutsy enough to make her readers uncomfortable.

This is a book (Series, actually) that kept me up at night and held the need to do laundry at bay. I couldn't stop reading even though I felt sick to my stomach much of the time at the sheer barbarity of the words on the page. It got me thinking and talking, and one co-worker and a customer of mine have since read the trilogy and we still talk about it from time to time. This is, I think, one of those enduring works of young adult literature that everyone, young or old, needs to read at some point.

Show Me 5 Saturday: The Final Solution by Michael Chabon

2010-10-23T06:00:00.000-05:00

From That's A Novel Idea and Find Your Next Book Here

1 book I read: The Final Solution: A Story of Detection

2 words that describe the book: Detective fiction

3 settings where it took place or characters you met:

Setting: England

The 89-year-old Detective: It's never fully said, but it's very obvious that this once-famous detective-turned-beekeeper is the Sherlock Holmes of legend. He still retains much of his mental acuity and deductive reasoning, but loses a lot of the quirks that made him so interesting in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's canonical works.

Linus Steinman: A 9-year-old mute whose past includes seeing some hideous things. When his parrot pet disappears, it's up to the Detective to find out what happened and what's made Linus lose his speech.

4 Things you liked and/or disliked about it:

I liked Chabon's writing. I've never read anything by this Pulitzer Prize-winner, but his prose is the stuff of legends. He's a master of the clever turns of phrase and immense vocabulary.

I liked that the mystery centers around a set of numbers that could be anything: A code, a math problem, a phone number. I don't know why this was so intriguing to me, but I think I enjoy it most when the mysteries in books are a little more brainy and a little less whodunit.

I didn't like the way Chabon basically ruined all that was good about Sherlock Holmes. This may sound harsh, but I have a HUGE fond spot in my heart for the eccentric detective (I'm also not a fan of Robert Downey Jr.'s portrayal of him, but that's another story for another day) and I don't like seeing the things that once made him so interesting just gone. Sure, he's older and retired, but he should not lose the ability for witty repartee that made him so intriguing in the past.

I liked that Chabon wrote an entire section of the book from the parrot's point of view. It was, in my opinion, the most charming part of the book. I wish there would have been more of it!

5 Stars or less for your rating?

I'm giving the book 3 stars. I was just disappointed in this one. It would've rated higher if Sherlock Holmes hadn't been so lame.

The Whys and Wheres: Library

Challenges: Read 'n' Review Challenge; Take Another Chance Challenge (Challenge 11: All in the Family)

Review: Red Hook Road by Ayelet Waldman

2010-10-20T06:00:00.000-05:00

Title: Red Hook Road

Author: Ayelet Waldman

Pages: 335 (I have an ARC, so page numbers in the final version may differ)

Source: Publisher

Rating: 6/10

Challenges: Read 'n' Review Challenge; Take Another Chance Challenge (Challenge 11: All in the Family)

Summary (From back of book):

Set on the coast of Maine over the course of four summers, Red Hook Road tells the story of two families, the Tetherleys and the Copakens, and of the ways in which their lives are unraveled and stitched together by misfortune, by good intentions and failure, and by love and calamity.

My Two Cents:

I really didn't have many expectations going into this book, so I can't say I was as "disappointed" as a lot of the reviews I've read are saying. Overall, I liked this book and enjoyed Waldman's writing, but I can't say I loved this book.

Waldman is a fabulous writer. She has a gift for conveying the varied perspectives of different characters on one event. She's also great at describing her setting. In fact, the picture she painted of the area of the Maine coast in which this book is set was probably my favorite part; it made me want to go visit Maine in the summer.

She also has the ability to create some pretty vivid, memorable characters, whether you ultimately like them or not. My favorite character was Mr. Kimmelbrod, the virtuoso violinist and grandfather of the Copaken family. He was devoted to his students and their music, and at times standoffish with his family, but you could tell that deep down, he loved them. I think maybe it was his emotional detachment to the situations presented in the book that allowed me to like him so much, as every other character spent the entire novel so overwrought with emotion and the ghosts of the past.

As much as I enjoyed Waldman's writing and her characters, I felt as if a lot of the plot was just too contrived. There was just too much happenstance in everything going on surrounding the accident that it started to become unbelievable. Also, (nearly all) the characters' unwillingness to move on and dig themselves out of the pit of despair was maddening. I just wanted to scream, "Get on with your lives already!" sometimes.

Show Me 5 Saturday: The Bad Beginning (A Series of Unfortunate Events #1) by Lemony Snicket

2010-10-16T06:00:00.000-05:00

From That's A Novel Idea and Find Your Next Book Here

1 book I read: The Bad Beginning (A Series of Unfortunate Events #1)

2 words that describe the book: Juvenile suspense

3 settings where it took place or characters you met:

Violet Baudelaire - A 14-year-old who, along with her two younger siblings, is suddenly orphaned by a house fire. But, that's not the worst thing to happen to the Baudelaires in this book. Violet is smart and cares deeply for her siblings, something you don't often see in juvenile or young adult literature.

Count Olaf - The Baudelaires' mysterious distant relative, Count Olaf is an eccentric, mean man who wants only the children's money. He forces them to cook and clean his house, and even attempts to trick Violet into marrying him. He's one of the biggest creeps I've ever met in literature.

Justice Strauss - Count Olaf's next door neighbor, she has a gorgeous library to which she allows the children access. She cares for the Baudelaires, but she's just another oblivious adult who only does what the law says is right.

4 Things you liked and/or disliked about it:

I liked that Snicket didn't talk down to the readers in this book. He didn't simplify the language, yet he offered up explanations and definitions when he used a larger word. I think it's important for children's literature to challenge the readers instead of just being a breezy good story.

I liked the Baudelaire children. They are great characters who I just wanted to spend the entire book rooting for.

I didn't like that nothing really good seems to happen to the Baudelaires. I know that's the premise of the book, as this is a "series of unfortunate events," but it was just one bad, depressing thing after another. I don't think I can read the rest of this series if it's just all going to be this way.

I didn't like how creepy Count Olaf was. I'm sorry, but in a book aimed at older juveniles (Ages 8-12), I don't think it's appropriate to have an old man try to trick a young girl into marrying him, no matter that it doesn't really happen. Just a little too disturbing for me.

5 Stars or less for your rating?

I'm giving the book 3 stars. It was well-written, but there were just too many things I didn't like about this book for me to rate it higher.

The Whys and Wheres: Library

Challenges: Read 'n' Review Challenge

Read-a-Thon Mini-Challenge: Armchair Traveling

2010-10-09T15:59:00.000-05:00

Marg over at The Adventures of an Intrepid Reader asks us to write a post sharing some of the sites and places from the books we're reading. These can be books read for the read-a-thon, or they can be books we've read in the past.

Here's my answer:

My favorite books to read are books set in the United Kingdom. England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, I'll take it all. I'm such an Anglophile that I just love imagining the rolling hills and misty mornings right along with the characters' experiences.

My all-time favorite place to read about, though, is Oxford. I think this stems from my living there for a semester in college. It's such a beautiful city with so much amazing history that you could study the buildings and places until you're blue in the face and still not know everything about it!

My favorite Oxford books (And I've got more on my bookshelves to read!) that you should read, also, are:

Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh - This book tells the story of two friends who meet at Oxford and, let me tell you, there are some pretty accurate depictions of the residential Oxford colleges (although fictionalized) and the Isis.

The His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman - In this series, we get both a realistic and an alternate version of Oxford that is at once true-to-life and engaging. Pullman does a great job making the real Oxford recognizable in the alternate Oxford, and I can't tell you how much I wanted to run along the city walls right alongside Lyra.

Dewey's 24-Hour Read-a-Thon

2010-10-09T11:02:00.000-05:00

Well, I'm getting a horribly late start today, mostly because I COMPLETELY forgot that today was the Read-a-Thon!! I happened to look at Twitter yesterday and saw all sorts of people talking about the Read-a-Thon and thought, "Wait, it's October 9 already?!?!?!"

So, here I am, starting 4 hours into this shindig. And, sadly, I don't have a whole free day to devote to the fun. :(

Instead, I will be reading for 45 minutes, then participating in mini-challenges, then cleaning my house for 45 minutes (Whee!!), then doing some more mini-challenges, and starting the whole process over again. Hopefully, I'll be able to get my house cleaned in just a few of these time blocks so I'll have more time to devote to reading! Of course, I also have to be at work at 6 a.m. tomorrow morning, so I can't stay up too late. Sad...

Anyway, here are a few of the books I plan to/might tackle this read-a-thon:

1. Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human by Harold Bloom
2. Ulysses by James Joyce
3. Infinite Days by Rebecca Maizel
4. The Distant Hours by Kate Morton

So far, I've read a bit of the Bloom book. Now, it's onto dishes. When I return, I'll crack open the next section of Ulysses.

See you all around!

Review: The Lovers by Vendela Vida

2010-09-15T06:00:00.000-05:00

Title: The Lovers

Author: Vendela Vida

Pages: 225 (I have an ARC, so page numbers in the final copy may be different)

Source: Publisher

Rating: 8/10

Challenges: Read 'n' Review Challenge

First Sentence: "When half an hour had passed and there was still no sign of a white Renault, Yvonne began to fear she'd been scammed."

Summary (From back of book):

Yvonne, recently widowed and the mother of grown twins, returns to Datca, the coastal village in Turkey where she and her husband honeymooned twenty-eight years ago. She hopes to immerse herself in the warm sand and sea, and in memories of a better time in her life. But her plans are quickly complicated. Her Turkish landlord and his bold and intriguing wife have a curious marital agreement and are constant visitors to the home. And rather than being comforted by her memories, they begin to trouble her.

Overwhelmed by her past and her environment, Yvonne clings to her new-found friendship with Ahmet, a young Turkish boy who sells shells at the local beach. With the boy as her guide, Yvonne gains new insight into her own grown children and begins to enjoy the shimmering sea and the relaxed pace of the Turkish coast. But a terrible accident throws her life into chaos, and her own sense of self into turmoil.

With the crystalline voice, mordant humor, and depth of feeling for which her work has been so celebrated, Vendela Vida has crafted another unforgettable heroine in a beautiful and mysterious landscape.

My Two Cents:

I have never read any of Vida's other work, but I think after this experience I will try to track some down. I really enjoyed this book.

Several people who've reviewed this book on other sites have said the constant depressive feeling (Over Yvonne's husband's death, over the way her children act, over her surroundings, etc.) turned them off this book. However, I think it works well here. Yvonne's wounds are pretty fresh, and her husband's death was so sudden. Hoping to find some kind of healing, she returns to the site of her honeymoon, but instead of finding what she's looking for, she's constantly reminded of how things have changed and the absence of her husband.

Yvonne is a great main character. She's interesting enough to carry the whole novel, but she's relatable enough that most readers will find some way to identify with her. She's broken without being so down-in-the-dumps that she just sits on the couch all day. Instead, she does what most of us would have to do in her situation: Force herself to go out and do things in an unfamiliar country. She could have been a little more dynamic, but her reserve worked well for her situation.

Vida's writing is most evocative when she's describing the landscapes and customs of Turkey. She really helps bring this country, a place I've wanted to visit for a long time, alive, and it adds so much to the story. She's also good at creating memorable characters -- Even though we only met the owner of the house in which Yvonne stays briefly, we hear so many interesting details from other characters that we are left with the impression of a very ... ummm ... interesting man.

This is a great story of a woman in mourning trying to find out who she is without her husband in the picture. If you like stories like this, I would recommend giving this book a go.

Ulysses Read-Along, Week 3: Episodes 8 and 9

2010-09-13T06:00:00.000-05:00

I really liked this section of the read-along, for many reasons. I just sailed through these two episodes!

Episode 8: Lestrygonians

This is, at least in my opinion, the most fully visceral episode thus far in the book. There's food everywhere, and Leopold connects the food he sees in person with memories and ruminations on food the entire time. Leopold recalls a sensual day with Molly where she fed him seedcake from her mouth. He thinks about food as it relates to politics and religion. And, in a segment that almost made my stomach turn, he watches a roomful of men shove meat into their mouths and masticate it with disgusting detail, causing Leopold to move on to another pub and eat a light, vegetarian lunch.

I think this episode is one of the most easily accessible of the book so far simply because it is so vivid and visceral. Sure, Joyce turns Leopold's thoughts on food into several symbolic and allusive episodes, but nearly anyone reading this episode could get something out of it.

Episode 9: Scylla and Charybdis

I enjoyed this episode because there's so much in here about Stephen's theory of Shakespeare's Hamlet. Being the incredible Shakespeare fan that I am, I loved reading about his theory and putting the pieces together and seeing how it actually is a somewhat workable theory.

Inherent in Stephen's theory, and the others' reaction to his theory, is Stephen's poetic mind and heart. He develops his Hamlet theory because of a poetic connection he feels and assumes with Shakespeare. This rankles the men at the National Library, who prefer their theories to be based upon literary criticism and scholarship. Sometimes, though, the most interesting and best theories when it comes to literary figures about which little is truly known come from the gut reactions and feelings of others. Stephen's theory makes an amount of sense despite it not being based upon any actual facts, and that's what makes it so intriguing.

Running alongside Stephen's Hamlet theory is his paternity crisis again (Convenient that his theory revolves around one of the most intense father-son relationships (From beyond the grave) in literary history, isn't it??). Stephen theorizes that, not only was Shakespeare the literal father to his son Hamnet (The possible source of the name Hamlet), but that through his literary creation, he was a father to the entire world. It would seem, then, that much of Stephen's Hamlet theory is developed based upon his own insecurities regarding his own father (And even his mother).

What did you think about this section? Was it a little easier/harder than the last section? What did you like/dislike? What stuck out to you?

Ulysses Read-along, Week 2: Episodes 5-7

2010-09-06T06:00:00.001-05:00

Perhaps it was because I read these episodes so far apart from one another, but this section was a slog for me, especially Episode 7. I really had to heavily rely on the annotation this time around.

Episode 5: The Lotus Eaters

The big thing in this episode is the parallel with The Odyssey, in which Odysseus' men eat lotus blossoms and fall into a state of lazy intoxication. In this episode, Leopold wanders aimlessly, pondering all sorts of things, as he kills time before Dignam's funeral.

We also see another side to Leopold and Molly's marriage with Leopold's picking up the letter from his erotic pen pal, Martha. Instead of simply seeing Molly as the adulterous one and blaming the decline of the Blooms' marriage solely on her, we now learn that Leopold likely had a hand in the marriage's degradation, as well. While Leopold resolves never to meet Martha in person, even though she asks, which shows some sort of moral restraint, he also says he plans to use stronger, more erotic language in his next letter to her.

Episode 6: Hades

There's a lot about Leopold's status as an outsider in this episode, mainly connected to his Jewishness. He gets into the funeral carriage last, he doesn't have the easy conversation the other men have, and he's not even called by his first name by the men. Part of this is simply because he is an outsider: These men all have known one another longer than they've known Leopold. But, I also got the sense that the other men hold Leopold at arms' length because he is Jewish. If he weren't Jewish, he may be more on the inside than he is now.

We also see a major return to the fathers and sons theme in this episode, especially when the conversation turns to death and suicide and it becomes known that Leopold's father committed suicide. There is a certain sadness in Leopold's thoughts regarding his father's death, but there isn't the heavy guilt and depression that surrounded Stephen's thoughts of his mother's death earlier in the novel. Perhaps this is because Leopold's father's death is at a farther remove in time than Stephen's mother's death, or it could be because Leopold doesn't hold the guilt that Stephen does.

Episode 7: Aeolus

I have to admit, this was the most daunting episode for me. Maybe my attention span was wandering, but the intrusion of the constant newspaper-like headlines just threw me off track and I had to go back and re-read several sections.

There was a lot of back-and-forth conversation in this episode, a lot of which just seemed to be a bunch of men one-upping one another. If this episode is cross-referenced with the Aeolus episode in The Odyssey, the seemingly random conversations make much more sense (Of course, I didn't look up the parallels until after I had read the episode). In the Aeolus episode, one of Odysseus' men disobeys him and opens up a bag of winds which blows the group off course. In Ulysses, the Aeolus episode is full of puffed-up, arrogant men whose life's work is to write long-winded, sometimes incomprehensible, prose for newspapers.

So, what did you think of this section of the novel? Are you still with me? Did you like this part, or hate it?

Show Me 5 Saturday: The Red Queen by Philippa Gregory (The Cousins' War #2)

2010-09-04T06:00:00.001-05:00

From That's A Novel Idea and Find Your Next Book Here

1 book I read: The Red Queen (The Cousins' War #2)

2 words that describe the book: Historical fiction

3 settings where it took place or characters you met:

Setting: England

Margaret Beaufort - Henry VIII's grandmother knows that she has one main purpose in life: To bear a son to assume the throne of England. And, she's not letting anyone or anything stand in the way of her ultimate goal. Although much of the book is fabricated, Gregory did a lot of research into Margaret and her court, and you can almost see the hunger in her eyes as she preens her son for the throne.

Henry VII - Margaret's son who is (If other competitors can be eliminated) next in line for the throne of England. He's young when the main battles start, but with the help of his uncle, he steps ably into the role of military commander.

4 Things you liked and/or disliked about it:

I liked Gregory's writing and everything that goes into it. Not just is her writing mechanically fabulous and easy-to-read, but she so thoroughly researches her subjects that you can't imagine that they lived any other way. She really knows how to re-create historical periods and figures.

I liked that Gregory is filling a need, of sorts, in historical fiction with this new series. She and many authors like her have tackled the Tudors and the Elizabethan era, but it's nice to see some historical fiction about this family's predecessors (Yes, I know there's other historical fiction about the Yorks and Lancasters out there, I just haven't seen as much of it as Tudor and Elizabethan historical fiction).

I didn't like that I didn't like Margaret. This is, however, a credit to Gregory's skill. Even though I found Margaret conniving and cold-hearted for the vast majority of the book (I liked Elizabeth Woodville from The White Queen much better), I still overall loved this book. That she was able to make such a repellent character the center of her novel and still make the novel enjoyable on the whole is an achievement.

I liked that, even though a lot of it is fabricated, we get to see some of the more minor, but still crucial, players in history. I'm thinking mostly about Jasper Tudor, Margaret's brother-in-law and Henry's uncle. I knew he was part of the real events, but have never looked closely enough at him as a person. Now, I want to do more research on him!

5 Stars or less for your rating?

I'm giving the book 5 stars. As always, Gregory pulls out a fabulous work of historical fiction.

The Whys and Wheres: Library

Challenges: Read 'n' Review Challenge

Review: Still Missing by Chevy Stevens

2010-09-01T06:00:00.000-05:00

Title: Still Missing

Author: Chevy Stevens

Pages: 340 (I have an ARC, so page numbers in the final version might be different)

Source: Publisher

Rating: 10/10

Challenges: Read 'n' Review Challenge

First Sentence: "You know, Doc, you're not the first shrink I've seen since I got back."

Summary (From back of book):

On the day she was abducted, Annie O'Sullivan, a thirty-two-year-old realtor, has three goals -- sell a house, forget about a recent argument with her mother, and be on time for dinner with her ever-patient boyfriend. The open house is slow, but when her last visitor pulls up in a van as she's about to leave, Annie thinks it just might be her lucky day after all.

But nothing could be further from the truth.

Through sessions with her psychiatrist, Annie retells the terrifying story of the year she spent captive in a remote mountain cabin. Interwoven is a second narrative recounting the aftermath of her escape and her struggle to piece her life back together.

My Two Cents:

This book came totally out of nowhere and surprised me with how much I liked it. I started the book unsure of how I would feel about it, mostly put off by the obvious attitude of the narrator (The entire book is told in first-person narrations during Annie's sessions with her psychiatrist). But, the story quickly drew me in and I finished the book in less than a day.

Stevens weaves an amazingly tense story with so many twists and turns you never know who to trust. Just when you think you have one person pegged as the bad guy, something else happens to make you look at someone else in a different light. And, when the final revelation comes, it just hits like a ton of bricks. I couldn't put this book down because I just had to find out what happened.

Annie is, not just because of the plight in which she finds herself after being kidnapped, one of those characters you root for. You want to see good things happen to Annie because, despite her rough edges, she's a likable person. I kept my fingers crossed the whole time, hoping that Annie would get a happy ending. In a way, she did, but it's definitely not a storybook ending by any means.

At times, Stevens' writing seems a little rough, but I just chalked that up to the type of narrator she had created. It wasn't distracting to the point of drawing me out of the story, but there were times when I had to re-read some sentences to get what was being said because of the way they were constructed.

This is a fabulous book that you won't believe is the author's debut. I would recommend it to anyone wanting a thrill ride or who wants a book exploring the darker side of the human condition. I will warn you, though: This book is intense in every sense of the word. There's rough language, scenes of horrible abuse and violence, and just bad situations all around. If you're at all sensitive to this type of thing, you may want to steer clear of this book.

Ulysses Read-along, Week 1: Episodes 1-4

2010-08-30T06:00:00.000-05:00

Congratulations! You've survived your first week/experience with Ulysses!! How was it? Did you make it all the way through the first four episodes?

First, some notes on the novel as a whole.

The action of Ulysses follows Leopold Bloom through one day in Dublin - June 16, 1904. The novel begins around 8 a.m. and concludes later that night. Fans of Ulysses and Joyce celebrate Bloomsday on June 16 each year.

Joyce based this novel off Homer's The Odyssey, the story of Odysseus' journey, wanting to show life as a journey. Whereas Odysseus runs into all sorts of epic dangers and intrigues - gods, monsters, massive storms - Bloom's "journey" is full of the dreariness and humdrum events of the everyday - eating lunch, getting drunk, etc.

A few things to think about throughout the novel:

1) Parallels to The Odyssey
2) Mocking of religion - Joyce was raised Catholic and educated by Jesuits, but he gave up the faith once he reached adulthood
3) The Irish identity - The late-19th and early-20th centuries brought a renewal of interest in Irish nationalism, folklore and history
4) The search for a father/son
5) Remorse
6) Compassion as a heroic quality

There are many, many more themes and motifs and things to think about throughout this novel, but these are some of the biggies that I've run into in both my reading thus far and my research on this novel. Any others that you think should be added to the list?

Now, I'll give some of my thoughts on the episodes individually. Feel free to chime in with your own thoughts!

Episode 1: Telemachus

The first thing I noticed when stepping into this novel was how different the Stephen Dedalus we meet here is from the Stephen Dedalus we've left at the end of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. That Stephen is overconfident, bohemian, and atheistic. We left him ready to take on the art world in Paris, but he has apparently failed to do just that in the two years between the close of Portrait and the opening of Ulysses, leaving him feeling a failure. In addition, Stephen has been rocked by the death of his mother, who asked him to pray over her deathbed. Stephen, no longer adhering to the church or any religious tendencies, refuses, leaving him with guilt that he still carries into the action of Ulysses.

There are a lot of references to Shakespeare's Hamlet in this episode, with direct parallels between Stephen and Hamlet. I just love any kind of Shakespeare references in literature. But where Hamlet broods over his uncle's murder of his father, Stephen broods over the loss of his mother. His mood isn't helped any by the cajoling of Buck Mulligan, who jokes that Stephen killed his mother by refusing to pray over her.

Perhaps the thing I noticed the most in this episode was the constant references to Irishness and Irish poets/history/folklore. Yeats is referenced constantly (Another thing that makes my geeky heart glad!), and Buck sings or quotes a few Irish folk songs. The Irish nationalism movement was big around the turn of the century, with Yeats leading the way trying to create a national literature. Sometimes, the constant referencing makes the narrative a little inaccessible, especially for anyone completely unfamiliar with Ireland, but a good annotation, and even an Internet search, helps a lot!

Episode 2: Nestor

Whew. Talk about an overload of things to think about! Two pages in, and I sat back in my chair and contemplated a little Aristotelian theory for a few minutes, mostly brought on by passages such as this:

It must be a movement then, an actuality of the possible as possible. Aristotle's phrase formed itself within the gabbled verses and floated out into the studious silence of the library of Saint Genevieve where he had read, sheltered from the sin of Paris, night by night. By his elbow a delicate Siamese conned a handbook of strategy. Fed and feeding brains about me: under glowlamps, impaled, with faintly beating feelers: and in my mind's darkness a sloth of the underworld, reluctant, shy of brightness, shifting her dragon scaly folds. Thought is the thought of thought. Tranquil brightness. The soul is in a manner all that is: the soul is the form of forms.

In the course of Stephen's lesson to his students, he thinks a bit about whether or not Pyrrhus and Julius Caesar were destined for greater things had they not been cut down in the prime of their lives. Was their destiny (and the destiny of others like them) just to become quickly rising stars snuffed out at the peak, or did one happenstance rob the world of the potential great things that could have happened?

There was a repeat of the near-constant focus on Irishness and maintaining and Irish identity in this episode, especially as Stephen talks with Deasy. Deasy babbles endlessly about historical events, blaming all the wrongs in the world on two major groups -- Jews and women. Instead of looking and moving forward, Deasy is stuck in the past (Not somewhere Stephen wants to be), remembering the famine and blaming everyone under the sun. I know that the anti-Semitism is going to come back to haunt us later on in the book (Leopold Bloom is a Jew, after all), so I'll have to get used to it, but I just could not wait for Deasy to get out of the picture. He just strikes me as one of those people that I don't like to be around in real life: Everything's everyone else's fault, never their own.

Episode 3: Proteus

Wow, was there ever a massive focus on death and decay in this episode, mostly because we're getting the entire episode (With the exception of one line of dialogue) through Stephen's mind. There's brown and decay and death and drowning men all over the place, which speaks a lot to Stephen's mindset. As I said before, this is a very different Stephen from the one we saw in Portrait: He's downtrodden and feeling like a failure, and he's watched his mother die. It's no wonder, then, that his thoughts while walking down the beach turn toward death.

There's also a lot of shifting in this episode, which is convenient since Proteus was a shape-shifting god (See what I did there? All nice and neat!). One of the major shifts is in Stephen's perception of his surroundings. The episode begins with Stephen contemplating his own reactions and perceptions of his surroundings. Since we're getting all of this through Stephen's interior monologue, we only get Stephen's perceptions as well. However, as the episode progresses, Stephen begins to perceive his surroundings in a much more real fashion, leading up to actual physical actions -- urination, picking his nose, etc. Stephen then uses this shift in perspective to actually create something: A poem inspired by the cocklepickers.

Episode 4: Calypso

Finally, Leopold Bloom arrives on the scene. We've returned again to the beginning of the day, and Joyce has Stephen and Leopold both observe the same cloud to give the reader a clue that Episodes 4 and 1 are taking place simultaneously. There are also a few other correlations between Stephen's and Leopold's narratives, including that both men fix breakfast for others, both are dressed in mourning, and both leave the house without their keys.

However, for all the similarities Joyce creates between the two episodes, there also are some striking differences. For one, Leopold is obviously a much more sympathetic, likable character than Stephen: He prepares Molly's and the cat's breakfasts before he makes his own without complaining, whereas Stephen almost angrily helps serve Haines his breakfast. There's also much more focus on Leopold's physical movements than there is on Stephen's -- Most of Stephen's narration is thought-driven. The two men's perceptions of things also differ. Where Stephen's perception of an object leads him to ponder some abstraction, such as the observation of the passing cloud leading Stephen to think of death, and that abstraction tends to lead right back to Stephen, Leopold's perception of an object causes him to ponder much larger concepts outside himself. In other words, even the way that Leopold thinks about things shows that he's a much more sympathetic, other-centered character than Stephen.

So, that's the end of the first section. How are you feeling? Are you still in this to win this?

What was your favorite/least favorite part of this first section? Did anything completely stump you? What are your thoughts overall about Joyce's writing?

Show Me 5 Saturday: Shalimar the Clown by Salman Rushdie

2010-08-28T06:00:00.000-05:00

From That's A Novel Idea and Find Your Next Book Here

1 book I read: Shalimar the Clown

2 words that describe the book: Literary fiction (I don't have much insight beyond that!)

3 settings where it took place or characters you met:

Settings: Kashmir, India and Los Angeles, California

Max Ophuls - The former ambassador to India is murdered, in broad daylight, on the front steps of his daughter's apartment building by his new limousine driver. Ophuls, a larger-than-life man who holds the secrets of the underground intelligence world, isn't exactly as gregarious and innocent as he first appears. Throughout the novel, we learn the long series of events spanning nearly three decades that led to his murder.

Shalimar the Clown - A native of the Kashmir region of India, Shalimar mysteriously appears at Ophuls' door one day, looking for work as a chauffeur. We know from the beginning that he is Ophuls' murderer, but it's not until we are taken back through a story of deep love and devastating loss do we understand why.

4 Things you liked and/or disliked about it:

I liked, as always, Rushdie's writing. It's disjointed enough to make his books a challenge, but has a fluidity and a beauty that is unparalleled. There's a reason I've been leading a (joking) Facebook campaign for nearly five years to get the man a Nobel Prize for Literature.

I liked the character of Shalimar, even though he is a murderer. I didn't like him right at the beginning of the novel, but he was pretty quickly thereafter established as a sympathetic character whose plight we were meant to understand.

I liked the glimpse we get of a world I've never seen. Sure, Rushdie's portrayal of Kashmir may not be totally faithful to reality, but he makes the region and its people come alive.

I didn't like (and this is probably a failing of myself as a reader) that the book is blurbed as a work of magical realism. I didn't really get that part of the story, even though I was looking for it!

5 Stars or less for your rating?

I'm giving the book 4 stars. I would recommend this book to any fan of Rushdie, those who like literature set in India, or anyone looking for something interesting and complex.

The Whys and Wheres: My bookshelves

Challenges: Read 'n' Review Challenge

Come Join the Really Old Classics Challenge!

2010-08-27T11:19:00.001-05:00

Waaaaay back in March, I decided to get really ambitious and volunteered to help out with the Really Old Classics Challenge. Last year, it was run by Rebecca and Heather. This year, Heather's still on board, joined by me and Ryan.

We've got lots of fun in store, along with lots of great books! The challenge runs from September 1 to December 31, so you have plenty of time to participate!

Even though the challenge starts on Wednesday (Eek!), we're still working out a few of the finer details (Including how to navigate around Wordpress since the three of us are on Blogger). But, go visit the challenge blog, check it out, and start gathering up your Really Old Classics in preparation for this year's challenge!

Review and Blog Tour: Licensed for Trouble (PJ Sugar #3) by Susan May Warren

2010-08-24T11:09:00.001-05:00

Title: Licensed for Trouble (PJ Sugar #3)

Author: Susan May Warren

Pages: 369

Rating: 10/10

Source: LitFuse Publicity Group

Challenges: Read 'n' Review Challenge

Summary (From LitFuse):

PJ Sugar receives shocking news that she's inherited the Kellogg family mansion. Though she has no idea why, the timing is perfect-PJ has clearly worn out her welcome at her sister's house. Unfortunately, the mansion is in shambles, and PJ is short on cash. Rescue comes in the form of Max Smith, a mysterious handyman willing to trade his services for PJ's investigative skills. But PJ already has a full docket with cramming for her PI license and nurturing a growing romance with her boss, Jeremy Kane. Can she take on Max's case without dropping the ball?

Find out more about book one, Nothing But Trouble and book two, Double Trouble.

My Two Cents:

I was absolutely pleasantly surprised and enchanted with this book. I don't know what I was expecting, but I just adored this book.

PJ is one of my favorite characters in a long time. She's fun, smart, and sassy, and she has just enough flaws to make her realistic. I loved that she somehow always manages to get herself into trouble, but there's always someone to help her out of the problem. Sure, that may not be absolutely "real life" (Honestly, how many times do people fall into a river and have a friend who just happens to be driving by just in time to save them?), but I liked that little detail.

I've not read any of the other PJ Sugar books, so it took me a little bit to get into all the back story, but I understood what was going on just fine without knowing any of that. So, if you haven't read the first two PJ Sugars, you can still read this one, but just because these are so much fun, I'd recommend reading the first two! :)

This was a nice, clean, quick read that I would recommend to anyone looking for a little fun mixed in with a tad bit of mystery.

Enter PJ Sugar's "Sweet" Giveaway

Licensed for Trouble, Susan's brand new PJ Sugar novel, is in stores now! To celebrate the release, we’re giving away a Kindle!! You can enter using Twitter, Facebook, or e-mail using the icons below.

One Grand Prize winner will receive a A SWEET Kindle prize package that includes:

A brand new Kindle (Free 3G, 6”, Latest Generation)
The entire PJ Sugar series by Susan May Warren

About Susan May Warren: Susan May Warren is the RITA award-winning author of twenty-four novels with Tyndale, Barbour and Steeple Hill. A four-time Christy award finalist, a two-time RITA Finalist, she’s also a multi-winner of the Inspirational Readers Choice award, and the ACFW Book of the Year.

Susan's larger than life characters and layered plots have won her acclaim with readers and reviewers alike. A seasoned women’s events and retreats speaker, she’s a popular writing teacher at conferences around the nation and the author of the beginning writer’s workbook: From the Inside-Out: discover, create and publish the novel in you!. She is also the founder of www.MyBookTherapy.com, a story-crafting service that helps authors discover their voice.

Susan makes her home in northern Minnesota, where she is busy cheering on her two sons in football, and her daughter in local theater productions (and desperately missing her college-age son!) A full listing of her titles, reviews and awards can be found at: www.susanmaywarren.com.

Buy the book

Blog tour schedule

Show Me 5 Saturday: Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare by Stephen Greenblatt

2010-08-21T06:00:00.000-05:00

From That's A Novel Idea and Find Your Next Book Here

1 book I read: Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare

2 words that describe the book: Speculative biography

3 settings where it took place or characters you met:

Well, this is nonfiction, so I'm going to tell you about some people we met.

William Shakespeare - The man who inspired this whole book. His story of going from glove-maker's son to the greatest playwright in history is one that has fascinated generations.

Anne Hathaway - Shakespeare's wife who was several years his senior. No one knows whether their marriage was a happy one, but they had three children and she spent most of their marriage in Stratford-upon-Avon while he lived in London. If what Shakespeare bequeathed her in his will is any indication -- his second-best bed -- then the marriage wasn't all roses and sunshine.

Christopher Marlowe - Nearly the exact same age as Shakespeare, Marlowe hit his play-writing stride earlier in life, finding great success. There are indications that Shakespeare admired and even envied Marlowe's success -- There are several allusions to his work in Shakespeare's plays -- but no real evidence the two had any direct contact. Marlowe's unfortunate early death (Barfight? Political murder?) cleared the way for Shakespeare to become the preeminent playwright of his generation.

4 Things you liked and/or disliked about it:

I liked that, since no one really knows any of the details, some of this biography reads like a novel. You're never really sure what's real and what's not, which you usually don't want in a work of nonfiction, but somehow the uncertainty works for a Shakespeare biography.

I liked that, even though Greenblatt used Shakespeare's work to inform his biography, and even though there are very few real records to go on, this whole biography wasn't just speculation drawn from Shakespeare's works. I've seen biographies that say, "Shakespeare's relationship with his mother must have been bad because he writes X in Y play." Uh, no. Not necessarily. Greenblatt didn't do that, which was refreshing, to me.

I didn't like how some of the chapters were laid out. Greenblatt would start a chapter talking about a historical event or social construct of Shakespeare's times, then move on to talking about one or a few of the plays. Then, he would go back to the historical event. I know this book is supposed to be about Shakespeare's life and not a historical criticism of his work, but I would have liked to see some of the history tied in a little better with the reading of the plays. Sometimes, I forgot what historical event I was supposed to be connecting to the plays.

I liked that I got to learn a little more about several of the other playwrights who were contemporaries of Shakespeare, but we don't really hear much about. Sure, we all hear about playwrights such as Marlowe and Ben Jonson, but I never really knew much about the minor players such as Thomas Dekker and Thomas Heywood.

5 Stars or less for your rating?

I'm giving the book 5 stars. I would recommend this book to any fan of Shakespeare and his plays.

The Whys and Wheres: Borrowed from my dad

Challenges: Read 'n' Review Challenge

Review: Crescendo by Becca Fitzpatrick

2010-08-18T06:00:00.035-05:00

Title: Crescendo (Hush, hush Book 2)

Author: Becca Fitzpatrick

Pages: 427 (I have an ARC, so page numbers in the final copy, due out Oct. 19, could be different)

Source: Publisher

Rating: 5/10

Challenges: Read 'n' Review Challenge

First Sentence: "The fingers of the thorn-apple tree clawed at the windowpane behind Harrison Grey, and he dog-eared his page, no longer able to read through the racket."

Summary (From back of book):

Nora Grey should have known her life was far from perfect. Even though her boyfriend, Patch, also happens to be her literal guardian angel (who, despite the title, is far from angelic), things are not looking up. First there is summer school and facing the nightmare of her enemy Marcie Millar as her lab partner. Then Patch starts to pull away with no explanation. And finally, she is having nightmares and visions about her father's murder.

As Nora chooses to ignore her better instincts and delves deeper into the mystery of her father's death, she also begins to question whether her Nephilim bloodline had something to do with it, which casts more doubt on her relationship (or lack thereof) with Patch. Does he know more than he lets on? Why does he always seem to be standing in front of the answers she is looking for? And if he really is her guardian angel, why is her life always in danger?

My Two Cents:

I should have prepared myself better for the letdown after liking Hush, hush so well. There's just something about sequels that just doesn't always live up to the first book in a series (There are some notable exceptions).

Now, Crescendo wasn't bad by any normal standards. It just wasn't as good as Hush, hush. And, it was kind of boring. And, there was very little Patch (You know how all the Twihards complain because New Moon has very little Edward? Yeah, this is the same concept). This series without Patch is like, well, peanut butter without jelly. Nora spends so much of this book being whiny and complaining all the time, that I almost didn't want to finish the book. She complained about things that were her own doing, such as the state of her relationship with Patch, but did nothing to correct them to the way she wanted them to be. Ugh.

I've seen people say that this book allowed them to get to know Nora and Patch more than Hush, hush did, but I just don't see that. I don't see how we got to know more about Nora other than she makes really stupid decisions and she likes to whine a lot. She just kind of exists in this book and doesn't really change.

On the other hand, Vee, who you will all remember I couldn't stand in Hush, hush, actually redeemed herself this time around. In fact, it's almost as if Vee's poor decision-making and air-headedness from Hush, hush is transferred to Nora this time around. I actually liked Vee.

I'm not meaning to be all Debbie Downer on this book, but I was just really disappointed by it. That's not to say that my experience with Crescendo will keep me from reading any further books in this series. Quite the contrary, actually; I plan to read any other books Fitzpatrick writes, as long as Patch is in them. :)

Perhaps I read the two books too close together?

Show Me 5 Saturday: Linger by Maggie Stiefvater

2010-08-14T06:00:00.000-05:00

From That's A Novel Idea and Find Your Next Book Here

1 book I read: Linger (Wolves of Mercy Falls book 2)

2 words that describe the book: Paranormal romance

3 settings where it took place or characters you met:

Setting: Mercy Falls, Minnesota

Cole St. Clair is a new member of the pack of wolves in Mercy Falls. Unlike many of the others in the pack, he chose this new life in order to escape what he thought of as a horrible past. He spends much of his time wishing he could shift back into wolf form because that way, he won't remember anything about being human. Although he seems a little standoffish at first, he pulls through at a crucial moment to help others.

Grace Brisbane finally has her wish -- The wolf with the intense yellow eyes who has spent many winters staring at her from the woods behind her house is now her sensitive full-time-human boyfriend, Sam. But her parents, always hands-off in their dealings with Grace, suddenly decide to become involved parents and try to separate her and Sam. And there's the little problem of Grace running a mysterious fever and suddenly feeling as if she should be shifting into a wolf.

4 Things you liked and/or disliked about it:

I liked Stiefvater's writing. It's smooth and fluid, making this book an easy read, but it's got a lyricism behind it not often found in young adult literature even today.

I liked Sam, as always. He's the teenage boy every teenage girl wishes she could date -- sensitive, caring, attentive, creative. Oh, and he plays the guitar and writes songs about Grace. Who wouldn't swoon for that?

I didn't like this book as well as Shiver, which is definitely among my top reads for this year. I think we had to spend so much time in this book getting to know Cole and watching Grace's problems with her parents that the action just seemed secondary. There's a lot of stuff packed into the last 60 pages, but I think it could've been spread out a little more.

I didn't like that we could pretty much see the ending coming from a million miles away. The second Grace began complaining of a headache, pretty early in the book, I knew where the book would end up. Makes for a less-than-exciting read.

5 Stars or less for your rating?

I'm giving the book 3 stars. It's definitely not nearly as good as the first book in this series, which left me wanting more of Sam and Grace right now, but it's above par for a lot of the genre.

The Whys and Wheres: The library

Challenges: Read 'n' Review Challenge

Review: The Outer Banks House by Diann Ducharme

2010-08-11T06:00:00.000-05:00

Title: The Outer Banks House

Author: Diann Ducharme

Pages: 291 (I have an ARC, so page numbers in the finished book may be different)

Source: Publisher

Rating: 9/10

Challenges: Read 'n' Review Challenge

First Sentence: "I was the first passenger off the steamboat."

Summary (From back of book):

When my daddy decided we should have a cottage on the ocean side of the Outer Banks, he hired some of our former slaves to build it. While overseeing part of the construction, Daddy hired a local, a "Banker" as they call themselves, to show him the best places to hunt and fish. This Banker, Benjamin Whimble, really impressed Daddy; so much so that Daddy volunteered my teaching services, telling him that I'd be more than happy to teach him how to read and write. As you can imagine, a seventeen-year-old lady like myself was none too thrilled at the prospect of endless summer days of sitting near such a dirty man -- a man who doesn't even own a single pair of shoes.

But there's something about his eyes -- blue like the ocean -- shining out from his sun-browned skin. And then there's the way he listens as I read him Robinson Crusoe; and how he questions many of my core beliefs, challenges me to think differently than my parents.

And come to think of it, pasty Hector Newman, with his top hat and gloves, doesn't seem like such a perfect match for me anymore, even though my parents would likely disown me if I refused his imminent proposal.

But there's something dangerous going on, something that's had Ben on edge lately, something involving my daddy, and I'm not sure if what will transpire will drive me to make a choice between a life on the Outer Banks with Ben or the eager arms of Hector back in Edenton.

My Two Cents:

At first, I wasn't so sure about this book. I think the tone of the summary on the back of the book kind of put me off, making me think that Abigail was a goody-two-shoes Scarlett O'Hara. But, as I read farther into the book, I grew to like it more and more.

It's obvious that Ducharme knows her setting intimately, even if she's seen it in another time. The descriptions of the ocean and landmarks of the Outer Banks area are rich with detail and make the reader feel the ocean breeze on his or her face. I often longed to jump into the water just as Abigail did!

Abigail makes a solid main character. She's quietly rebelling against the conventions of her social milieu even before we meet her by reading every book she can get her hands on. When she meets Benjamin, though, her rebellion kicks up a notch and takes a much more potentially dangerous turn. She questions the life in which she's been brought up and doesn't silently accept the path her parents have chosen for her.

I wish we could have seen a little more from the perspective of Abigail's father. We hardly ever saw him (He worked back at home during the week and visited the family on the weekends), and usually only heard about his nefarious dealings from other characters. I didn't get the sense of impending danger and doom that Ducharme wanted, especially since Benjamin seemed so afraid of Abigail's father, mostly because I never really saw what he was like until one major event fairly late in the book. I think the book would have been a little stronger had we seen more of Abigail's father and his plans.

This was a great book for those interested in post-Civil War literature and life in the South following the freeing of the slaves.

Ulysses Read-Along: The Schedule

2010-08-10T11:22:00.000-05:00

Anyone remember this post from (*ahem*) May?

The one where I proposed a read-along of Ulysses beginning August 1 and promised to have a schedule by the end of July?

Well, uh... I'm a slacker. No other excuse except that.

However, I have finally managed to break down the book into 9 chunks (There are only a couple longer than 100 pages, and not by much) for the read-along, if anyone is still interested.

So, starting August 30, we'll discuss one section of Ulysses each Monday, commiserate about our collective Joycean headaches and try to make it through this monster of a book.

All page numbers are based on my version of the book, which is this one:

You may have to do as I did and flip through your book (With the help of this Wikipedia article) and label each section. Mine always start with a line of all-caps, but not all the episodes are easily distinguishable. I have more than a few crossed-out episode names in my book.

I also have this annotation, which I think will be helpful in getting through this. You could borrow it from your library, buy it or e-mail me with questions that I can try to answer.

Without further ado, here's the schedule:

August 30: Part I: The Telemachiad in full (Episode 1: Telemachus; Episode 2: Nestor; Episode 3: Proteus) and Part II: The Odyssey, Episode 4: Calypso -- Approximately 67 pages

September 6: Part II: The Odyssey, Episode 5: Lotus Eaters; Episode 6: Hades; Episode 7: Aeolus -- Approximately 80 pages

September 13: Part II: The Odyssey, Episode 8: Lestrygonians; Episode 9: Scylla and Charybdis -- Approximately 68 pages

September 20: Part II: The Odyssey, Episode 10: Wandering Rocks; Episode 11: Sirens -- Approximately 73 pages

September 27: Part II: The Odyssey, Episode 12: Cyclops -- Approximately 54 pages

October 4: Part II: The Odyssey, Episode 13: Nausicaa; Episode 14: Oxen of the Sun -- Approximately 82 pages

October 11: Part II: The Odyssey, Episode 15: Circe -- Approximately 180 pages (OK, I lied... This is a loooong one!)

October 18: Part III: The Nostos, Episode 16: Eumaeus; Episode 17: Ithaca -- Approximately 125 pages

October 25: Part III: The Nostos, Episode 18: Penelope -- Approximately 45 pages

Whew! I'd suggest getting started on the first couple parts ASAP to stay ahead of the game!

If you plan to join, just leave a comment on this post. You're not at all obligated to post on your blog about this, but feel free to do so. I think handling the read-along in comments is just fine!

Show Me 5 Saturday: The House at Riverton by Kate Morton

2010-07-31T06:00:00.000-05:00

From That's A Novel Idea and Find Your Next Book Here

1 book I read: The House at Riverton by Kate Morton

2 words that describe the book: Family mystery

3 settings where it took place or characters you met:

Setting: Riverton House, England

Grace Bradley began her life in domestic service at Riverton House, the same place where her mother worked until becoming pregnant with Grace, when she was 14. At 98, Grace is visited by a film director making a movie about Riverton and who takes Grace back to the now-restored house, reawakening her memories of a terrible tragedy. Through memories, Grace relives the events leading up to and following the death of a bright young poet during a party in 1924.

Hannah Hartford is the oldest daughter of the family occupying Riverton House. She is a young woman who wants nothing to do with society -- She would prefer to run off to London to become a secretary than marry and spend her days running house and planning parties. Hannah finds a kindred spirit in Grace, but it isn't enough to save her from her eventual downfall.

4 Things you liked and/or disliked about it:

I liked, as always, Morton's writing. It's evocative without being flowery, and it's easy-to-read without being simplistic.

I liked how this book gives the reader a glimpse into the life of a servant, a group that's often relegated to the background of a story.

I didn't like that not all the secrets were explicitly revealed. Yes, I know that's the whole point, that some secrets are taken to the grave, but I would have liked to know everything. I guess I'm nosy like that.

I liked the main setting of Riverton House. Even when the estate was in disrepair, I wanted to live there. Morton's descriptions of the beautiful, sprawling grounds and the stately home almost made the house a character in itself.

5 Stars or less for your rating?

I'm giving the book 5 stars. I read this book nearly three years ago, before it was published in the United States, and I loved it then, too. This is a really rich book that has something for pretty much everyone.

The Whys and Wheres: I received my copy through the Barnes & Noble First Look program back in February 2008

Challenges: Read 'n' Review Challenge

Review: Hush, Hush by Becca Fitzpatrick

2010-07-29T06:00:00.000-05:00

Title: Hush, hush

Author: Becca Fitzpatrick

Pages: 391

Source: Library

Rating: 8/10

Challenges: Read 'n' Review Challenge

First Sentence: "Chauncey was with a farmer's daughter on the grassy banks of the Loire River when the storm rolled in, and having let his gelding wander in the meadow, was left to his own two feet to carry him back to the chateau."

Summary (From book flap):

Romance was not part of Nora Grey's plan. She's never been particularly attracted to the boys at her school, no matter how hard her best friend, Vee, pushes them at her. Not until Patch comes along. With his easy smile and eyes that seem to see inside her, Patch draws Nora to him against her better judgment.

But after a series of terrifying encounters, Nora's not sure whom to trust. Patch seems to be everywhere she is and seems to know more about her than her closest friends. She can't decide whether she should fall into his arms or run and hide. And when she tries to seek some answers, she finds herself near a truth that is way more unsettling than anything Patch makes her feel.

For she is right in the middle of an ancient battle between the immortal and those who have fallen -- and, when it comes to choosing sides, the wrong choice will cost Nora her life.

My Two Cents:

Sometimes, I'm such a sucker for a paranormal teen romance. I just get drawn in by all the mystery and the tension and the hormones and, well, just everything. That happened to me with Hush, hush.

Oh, and I'm also a sucker for a gorgeous cover. Have you seen this thing? Go ahead, scroll back up and stare for a few moments. I'll wait.

Fitzpatrick has created a great story that unfolds slowly enough to not leave the reader feeling as if she's guessing everything well in advance but quickly enough that the story isn't plodding. Sure, there were things that I knew pretty much from the beginning (Like who the bad guys were in the story), but that didn't ruin my desire to find out what was going to happen and make me not want to finish the story. Her writing also helps propel the story along. It's easy enough to read that you don't have to go back and ponder too much, though it's not so simple that it bores you.

Nora's one of the better characters in the teen paranormal romance genre. She's got some strength and sass to her, so she's not boring like Bella (Ick. I'm not going to go on another Twilight rant again), but she's still naive enough that her wrong choices make sense.

Much has been made in some reviews about Patch and how he's "mean." I can say I'm not of that camp. I really, really liked him from the beginning. Maybe it was a subconscious thing because I knew that he was the hero of the story from the get-go, but I thought he was a great pairing for Nora. Of course, it doesn't hurt that he's supposed to be smoking hot, too. Here I go, again, developing a lit-crush on a supernatural being whose age would get me arrested in real life.

There were a couple of things that bothered me about this book. One of them is particular to Hush, hush alone, and the other is sort of a trend.

First, I could not stand Vee. Every time she walked into a scene, I wanted to claw her annoying eyes out. She's so flighty and stupid, getting into all sorts of ridiculous situations and making lots of excuses (Like how Elliot showing up at Nora's door drunk and getting violent could have been him "blowing off some steam") for stupid behavior. She was the girl in high school whose neck you wanted to ring; the loud one that tried to be funny and sassy in class but just made people roll their eyes. Did. Not. Like.

I'm also not a big fan of this good-girl-good-student-gets-involved-with-supernatural-creature trend in teen paranormal romances. The main characters all seem to be (In the books I've read, which are of fairly limited scope) good students, quiet, uninterested in boys until that mysterious someone comes along, etc. Sure, there probably are a whole lot more of those types of girls out there reading these books, so it's a way to appeal to the audience, but why do all the heroines have to fall into the same mold? Can't some heroine, for once, be the bad girl?

Hush, hush is definitely at the top of the teen paranormal romance ladder, in my opinion. I can't wait to read the sequel, Crescendo (It's sitting on my bookshelf, but I haven't gotten to it yet)! If you like this genre, check this book out.

Show Me 5 Saturday: Discord's Apple by Carrie Vaughn

2010-07-24T06:00:00.000-05:00

From That's A Novel Idea and Find Your Next Book Here

1 book I read: Discord's Apple by Carrie Vaughn

2 words that describe the book: Mixed fantasy

3 settings where it took place or characters you met:

Setting: Hope's Fort, Colorado

Evie Walker is a comic book writer who returns to her hometown to take care of her dying father. Little does she know, she's coming back to take care of much more than just that: She's meant to keep safe all the magical treasures from legend and history.

Alex is a mysterious man who shows up at Evie's father's door one day, rescuing her from a woman demanding to be let inside. When he rescues her once again from a frightening situation, Alex becomes a part of Evie's quest to protect the magical treasures in the basement.

4 Things you liked and/or disliked about it:

I liked that this was a fantasy book more about legends and myths than about supernatural beings. Don't get me wrong, I love a good vampire/angel/werewolf/other creature story, too, but there are just so many of those books out there now that this was a refreshing subject for a fantasy novel.

I didn't like that Robin (Puck from A Midsummer Night's Dream) was a really horrible character in this book. Not really a criticism of the author or anything, but I like to think of Puck as an innocent little scamp running around making lovers all confused or turning a man into an ass, not doing the things he did in this story.

I thought the concept for this book was really interesting. There's a storeroom in someone's basement for all the magical relics of the world, and one family is charged with keeping them safe until their owners come back for them. How cool would that be to have Cinderella's slippers next to Jason's golden fleece and Arthur's Excalibur (Yes, Arthur's in this book, too!)?? Way cool is the correct answer.

I liked that the world in which Evie lived was not our own; it had a very near-apocalyptic, 1984-esque feel to it. The one thing I didn't like, though (Yes, a criticism within a praise!), was that we never really got an explanation as to how or why the world was the way it was. We got hints, such as constant checkpoints and random terrorist attacks, but we never got an explanation.

5 Stars or less for your rating?

I'm giving the book 4 stars. This was a really quick, enjoyable read with a really intriguing concept. Anyone who's read his or her share of myth and legend is likely to recognize someone in this book.

The Whys and Wheres: I received a copy from the publisher for review

Challenges: Read 'n' Review Challenge

Review and Giveaway: Ni'il, the Awakening by James Boyle

2010-07-23T06:00:00.040-05:00

Title: Ni'il, the Awakening

Author: James Boyle

Pages: 202

Source: Author

Rating: 6/10

Challenges: Read 'n' Review Challenge

First Sentence: The banks of a small creek in Oregon's Coast Range Mountains."

Summary (From back of book):

When several people are brutally killed in the town of Placerton, on the isolated Oregon coast, most locals think a rogue bear or cougar is roaming the forested hills near town. Police Chief Dan Connor is not so sure. He has witnessed some very strange things lately, such as disembodied voices, muttering a strange foreign language and an old Indian man who seems to be near every crime scene, but disappears before he can be questioned.

Dan's investigation takes him to the local Sihketunnai Indians and their legend of the Ni'il, magical shamans charged with maintaining the balance between humans and the natural world. According to the elders, one of the Ni'il is responsible for the murders and intends to kill everyone in the community. It is Dan's job to stop it.

It sounded unbelievable, but was the only explanation that fit the facts.

As a violent Pacific storm crashes ashore, cutting off power and washing out roads -- cutting the town off from the outside world -- Dan finds himself entering a strange world of myth and magic that was not covered in his police training. He must use all his wits and new-found powers to save himself and his community from the Ni'il.

My Two Cents:

This was a really easy read. I read it in two sittings, but it could've been finished in just one.

The story was intriguing. I didn't find myself sucked totally in, per se, but I did want to find out what would happen. I liked that there was enough mystery surrounding the murders that most people could attribute them to wild animals, at least at first, but that those who looked closely enough and who asked enough questions saw that there was something more going on. The main problem, though, is that the summary from the back of the book pretty much tells me a lot of what I find out later in the book. I wish people wouldn't do that!

The characters were likable enough, but I didn't really feel intensely connected to any of them. The main character, Dan, is pretty much your typical police chief -- He puts the good of his town and the people in it before his own well-being, often running around with a severely injured shoulder just to check on things. It was hard to tell how old Dan was supposed to be. Sometimes I got the impression that he was in his 30s, but other times he felt as if he was in his 40s. Not really a significant detail, but something I wondered about while reading the book.

Boyle's writing is easy-to-read and accessible. He does a good job with giving detail and painting a scene. Sometimes, in the case of describing crime scenes, a little too much detail for my taste. There were several places, though, that could have benefited from an editor. The tenses of verbs changed from time to time, and there were a lot of extra commas, which got a little distracting.

This book was an enjoyable, easy read. Boyle released the second book in this planned trilogy, Ni'il: The War Within, in late 2008. I'd be interested in reading it to see what happens because Boyle left us hanging at the end.

Giveaway

I've found myself with an extra copy of this book (I'm still not quite sure how that happened...), so I'm offering it to one of you, my dear readers.

Just leave a comment with your e-mail address by 8 p.m. CST Friday, August 6, and this book can be yours!

This contest is even open internationally, since I've got some lovely readers across the globe!

What Makes a "Favorite" Author?

2010-07-19T17:54:00.000-05:00

We all have them. The authors to whom we return time and time again; whose work has the same effect on our souls as "comfort food."

They're our favorites.

We campaign for them, extolling their literary virtues at every given opportunity. We line our shelves with their collected works and wait anxiously for their latest release.

But how did we choose those authors as our favorites? What makes one person's writing appeal to someone more than another?

Personally, I've always had a difficult time when I'm asked, "Who's your favorite author?" Sure, I easily blurt out, "Shakespeare!" but as far as novelists go, I've always had a long list to choose from. F. Scott Fitzgerald. Jane Austen. Virginia Woolf. Salman Rushdie. Thomas Hardy. C.S. Lewis. J.R.R. Tolkien. Kate Morton. Haruki Murakami. James Joyce. And if you add poets into the mix, that increases the number to include the likes of John Keats, Seamus Heaney, T.S. Eliot, W.B. Yeats, etc., etc., etc. I can rattle off the list for ages, but I always feel, when I'm asked that question, as if I'm forgetting someone crucial. But, outside of Shakespeare, to pick a "favorite" is virtually impossible for me.

There are some things that all the authors on my list have in common. They're all fabulous storytellers with a gift for language. They all appeal to my mind and my heart in some way or another. But they're all so, so different. If you take a passage from Jane Austen, for example, and put it up next to one straight out of Salman Rushdie's latest work, you're not going to be able to draw a lot of specific parallels. In a lot of cases, fans of Austen and Rushdie probably don't overlap. But there's something essential to both authors' works that makes them enduring and appealing.

So, what is it that causes an author to make your "favorites" list? Is it the stories he or she tells? The way the author plays with language? Does this author tug at your heartstrings or appeal to your cerebellum? What is it that makes you want to devour everything ever written by an author?

Review: The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell

2010-07-14T07:04:00.000-05:00

Title: The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet

Author: David Mitchell

Pages: 469 (I have an ARC -- Page numbers may be different in the final copy)

Source: Publisher

Rating: 9/10

Challenges: Read 'n' Review Challenge

First Sentence: "'Miss Kawasemi?' Orito kneels on a stale and sticky futon. 'Can you hear me?'"

Summary (From back of book):

In the summer of 1799 a devout young clerk, Jacob de Zoet, disembarks at Dejima in hopes of making his fortune and then winning his wealthy fiancee back in Holland. But after a chance encounter with Orito Aibagawa, midwife to the city's powerful magistrate, the borders between propriety, profit, and pleasure begin to blur, and Jacob finds himself embroiled in a fateful game of duplicity, abduction, and murder. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to the foreigners on Dejima, the axis of global power is turning.

My Two Cents:

This was my first David Mitchell novel, so it took me a while to get used to his style. At first, I didn't think I was going to like this book because it just seemed to crawl; there were so many conversations about little things that took up so much time. But, once the ball got rolling, I really enjoyed this book.

Mitchell's writing is great, once you get used to it. He has a gift for moving from the description of a place or thing right into the random thoughts going through a character's mind. He also has the a way with voices; he can move from one character's mind to another and you almost think it's a different writer because the narrative shifts just enough.

Jacob is a solid main character. He's got his flaws, sure, but he's very honest and devout most of the time. He doesn't change a whole lot throughout the novel, at least not until we see some bigger changes at the end, but that setup actually works well for him. Reading Jacob's character wasn't so much a matter of empathizing with him, but it more was a matter of being able to tolerate reading from his point of view, and Mitchell did that.

The most empathetic character in the book, though, and my favorite character, was Orito Aibagawa. We first meet her as she is in training on Dejima to be a doctor, something completely unheard of for a woman in Japan at that time. But, she was given the opportunity because she saved the magistrate's son, and we are able to see what kind of doctor she could become. Her situation takes a major turn for the worse once her father dies, though, and the empathy with the place in which she finds herself trapped is major.

The only real criticism I have of the book is that I would have liked to see a richer portrayal of Japan during the time. Mitchell did give a lot of different portraits, from the ruling system to the religion, but because most of the novel is set on a small, isolated area of Japan, we don't get to see a lot of things that I thought would be really interesting.

If you like historical fiction, interesting narratives, and rich, complicated plots, this book is for you.

SM5S: Riddle of Berlin by Cym Lowell

2010-07-10T06:00:00.000-05:00

From That's A Novel Idea and Find Your Next Book Here

1 book I read: Riddle of Berlin by Cym Lowell

2 words that describe the book: International thriller (Conveniently listed in the subtitle!)

3 settings where it took place or characters you met:

Setting: Paris, France

John C. Jaegerman is a former military man spending his middle years as an investigator. He fought in Vietnam and was offered the Medal of Honor, but declined it because he felt he didn't deserve it. We first meet him as he jumps off a bridge while jogging in Paris, convinced his life is over. But Jaegerman's story certainly doesn't end there. He is given another chance to right all the wrongs others have ignored, and a chance to have one more heart-pounding, life-threatening adventure.

The Lion goes by many names and is not only a secret arms trader, but also a master of disguise. He has his hands in many, many pots, most of which have very dangerous consequences that reach all over the world.

4 Things you liked and/or disliked about it:

I liked that the main plot in the book reaches a whole bunch of seemingly (at first) unconnected people who are all drawn into the danger. I'm not usually one for thrillers, but I like when a mastermind seems to be able to see the big picture when everyone else can only see small things.

I liked how easy of a read this one was. When I first started the book, I wasn't really in the mode to read a thriller, so it was a little bit of a slow start, but once I hit about page 40, I really wanted to find out what happened!

I didn't like how Jaegerman was called "Del" in narration even after the reader knows who he really is. I get that he's Del to the people he interacts with throughout most of the book, but I didn't think that name needed to be carried into the narration (Ex: "Del said" "Del did this") once we knew he was really Jaegerman.

I liked that, even in a book about an international plot involving murder, theft, etc., there were far more characters that I liked than characters I didn't like. I don't know why this fact struck me, but it did. Maybe it's because I was almost expecting to dislike more people than I did.

5 Stars or less for your rating?

I'm giving the book 3 stars. It was a well-crafted plot that kept me going, especially since thrillers aren't really my thing, but I think the writing could have used just a little more proofing before the book went to print. There were a lot of glaring grammatical and spelling errors that took me right out of the narrative.

The Whys and Wheres: I won a signed hardcover copy from Cym's blog a few months back. Thanks, Cym!

Challenges: Read 'n' Review Challenge

Review: Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult

2010-07-07T07:23:00.000-05:00

Title: Nineteen Minutes

Author: Jodi Picoult

Pages: 455

Source: Library

Rating: 7/10

Challenges: Read 'n' Review Challenge

First Sentence: "In nineteen minutes, you can mow the front lawn, color your hair, watch a third of a hockey game."

Summary (From book flap):

Sterling is a small, ordinary New Hampshire town where nothing ever happens -- until the day its complacency is shattered by a shocking act of violence. In the aftermath, the town's residents must not only seek justice in order to begin healing but also come to terms with the role they played in the tragedy. For them, the lines between truth and fiction, right and wrong, insider and outsider have been obscured forever. Josie Cormier, the teenage daughter of the judge sitting on the case, could be the state's best witness, but she can't remember what happened in front of her own eyes. And as the trial progresses, fault lines between the high school and the adult community begin to show, destroying the closest of friendships and families.

My Two Cents:

I'm not at all a Jodi Picoult fan. I read another book of hers last year, The Pact, and found the ending predictable and the writing less than impressive. I was a little reluctant to pick this one up, but I chose it for the first book for a book club at my library because it's readily available. I have to admit I was (mostly) pleasantly surprised.

Picoult's writing obviously evolved quite a bit from the earlier work of hers that I'd read. I wouldn't say it was spectacular, but it was clear and easy-to-read. If I had been able to sit down and read this book all at once, I easily could have finished it in a few hours because her writing was uncomplicated and the plot did draw me in.

I wouldn't say there was a "favorite" character for me, except maybe (Gasp!) Peter, the school shooter. He was the most sympathetic character because I knew kids who were treated the way he was in school, and I even was subjected to some of the same ridicule. Sure, none of the kids I knew went so far as to get revenge by killing people, but I could see where that impulse came from, especially if Peter had the dissociative condition the defense tries to claim.

There was something about Josie and Alex that just ground on me from the first page. I'm not sure what it was, but I just really didn't feel too much toward either of them and got kind of annoyed when I read their sections of the book.

While I overall liked the book, there were a couple things that I wasn't too fond of.

One thing I didn't like was how Picoult made the situation in Sterling mirror that of Columbine a little too much. She had a mother commit suicide in a pawn shop after her daughter was killed in the shooting (Although with Columbine, the daughter was paralyzed). There was a lone teacher who was killed, and he bled out in his classroom with a Boy Scout student trying to help him. She had an outsider who placed remembrance crosses for the dead also place a controversial cross for the shooter. I just felt that she should not have parroted these details, especially since her characters refer to Columbine as a real event. It was a little unoriginal for me.

I also didn't like the ending. People comment to me all the time that they can't stand the way Picoult ends some of her books, and I can see where they're coming from. I thought that the "twist" at the end was a pretty unnecessary one; it could have been done a totally different way and actually made more sense with the rest of the story. This ending left me with a bad taste in my mouth.

Overall, though, I thought this was a good book which looks at a fictionalized school shooting not only from the perspective of the survivors and the rest of town, but also from that of the shooter. I would recommend this book to others.

Review: The English American by Alison Larkin

2010-06-30T07:20:00.000-05:00

Title: The English American

Author: Alison Larkin

Pages: 336

Source: Library

Rating: 7/10

Challenges: Read 'n' Review Challenge

First Sentence: "I think everyone should be adopted."

Summary (From back of book):

Twenty-eight-year-old Pippa Dunn is a cheerfully awkward fish out of water -- an untidy redheaded bundle of energy in a posh, buttoned-up London neighborhood. She has always loved her adoptive English parents and sister, Charlotte, while knowing that she was adopted -- or, as her parents tell her, "You were chosen, darling." But not knowing where she truly comes from, Pippa starts to wonder ... who are her birth parents? Are they ebullient and creative, like Pippa? Are they rich and charismatic? Is she a long-lost Kennedy daughter?

When she learns that her mother is a free-spirited redhead (like Pippa!) living in Georgia and that her father is a politically inclined businessman in Washington, D.C., Pippa takes the plunge and crosses the pond to discover her roots. She is soon caught between two opposing cultures, two sets of parents, and two completely different men. Pippa is about to learn the real meaning of "nature versus nurture," of "culture clash" -- and of the full richness (and chaos) of her identity as an English American.

My Two Cents:

This book started out a little worrisome to me. There was just something about it that didn't catch me quite right, and I was worried that that would be the case for the book's entirety. Luckily, something just seemed to click into place about 40 pages in, and then I finished the book rather quickly.

I absolutely adored Pippa. She was smart, funny and entirely herself, regardless of the way others thought she should act. She reminded me a lot of a grown-up Anne of Green Gables or Pippi Longstocking (Not just because of the red hair!) because she just did and said whatever she felt like doing or saying instead of conforming to the conventions that everyone else did. I felt very connected to her as a character, also, and I cared about what happened to her.

Larkin's writing is good, but there's nothing really special about it. It's clear and easy-to-read. This is a book that could be powered through in a few hours, if the reader were so inclined.

The one thing I wasn't very fond of in this book was that Pippa's birth parents were just so out there it was almost a little hard to believe them. I know that Larkin was trying to show that Pippa realizes that her "real" parents are the ones who raised her for 28 years, so there had to be something "wrong" with the birth parents, but there was just a little too much villainization (Is that a word?) of the birth parents for my liking. I almost would've preferred to see that the birth parents were just *normal* people who welcomed Pippa into the fold of their lives.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book. I think anyone who likes books about the "odd duck" child in a family, or who was the "odd duck" in a family, could relate to and enjoy this book.

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?: June 28, 2010

2010-06-28T07:41:00.000-05:00

Hosted by Sheila at One Person's Journey Through a World of Books, It's Monday! What Are You Reading? is a weekly bookish meme whereby bloggers share their reading for the past week.

This week, I read:
The English American by Alison Larkin
Riddle of Berlin by Cym Lowell

This week, I reviewed (Click on the title to read my review):
Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
Spirit Bound (Vampire Academy #5) by Richelle Mead
Don't Die, My Love by Lurlene McDaniel

This week, I'm reading:
Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell

This week, I hope to begin reading:
Shalimar the Clown by Salman Rushdie
Ni'il, the Awakening by James Boyle
Glimmerglass (Faeriewalker #1) by Jenna Black

What are you reading this week?

Show Me 5 Saturday: Don't Die, My Love by Lurlene McDaniel

2010-06-26T06:00:00.001-05:00

From That's A Novel Idea and Find Your Next Book Here

1 book I read: Don't Die, My Love by Lurlene

2 words that describe the book: Teen drama

3 settings where it took place or characters you met:

Setting: Waterton, Indiana

Julie Ellis is a teenager who is desperately in love with the star of the football team and who sees nothing but great things ahead of her. She has problems with her mom trying to get her to look at colleges when all she wants to do is find out where her boyfriend plans to go and then make her decision. When Luke finds out he has leukemia, though, her world is turned upside-down.

Luke Muldenhower is the star of the Waterton Warriors football team with a promising college career and a great girlfriend. He's been in love with Julie since they were kids, and he loves reminding her in little ways how much he loves her. After finishing a season that has left him with a flu he can't really shake, Luke goes to the doctor, expecting to be given a prescription and sent on his way to prepare for his senior year and a bid at the championships. It's not that simple, though, and Luke must come to terms with his own fate.

4 Things you liked and/or disliked about it:

I liked that this book was a lot like slipping on a well-worn pair of jeans: I remembered it from the moment I opened the front cover. McDaniel's books stick with you well past adolescence because they pack that emotional punch that's so memorable.

I didn't like how stereotypical a teenager Julie was. Sure, she had to be universal and appeal to her readers, but Julie was just too snippy with her mom a lot of the time for my liking.

I liked how quick of a read this was. It's only 250 pages and a really easy read, so I was able to finish it in a couple of hours. It gave me a nice feeling of accomplishment even though I was a little less than satisfied with how the book lived up to my memories of it.

I disliked that this book was all about packing an emotional punch and not really about drawing any sort of believable characters. I just didn't really feel that much for anyone in the book. Perhaps it's because I'm remembering basically bawling my eyes out when I first read this book (When I was about 10 years old, I believe), and my re-read will never live up to that feeling. But, I've run into some really great young adult literature recently that packs an emotional punch while still appealing to the adult readers. Young adult literature really has come a long way since the mid-90s.

5 Stars or less for your rating?

I'm giving the book 3 stars. It just didn't sit well with me this time around, and part of that could be because I've got about 15 years between my first read and this one. That's a lot of living and emotional maturity. I can see where young girls would still be affected by this one, but I think it may not be as well-received by today's readers as it was when it first was published because of the increase in sophistication of young adult literature.

The Whys and Wheres: Library - I picked it up because I read it so many years ago and still think of it from time to time, so I wanted to see if it lives up to my expectations.

Challenges: Read 'n' Review Challenge

Review: Spirit Bound (Vampire Academy #5) by Richelle Mead

2010-06-24T06:00:00.000-05:00

Title: Spirit Bound (Vampire Academy #5)

Author: Richelle Mead

Pages: 489

Source: Library

Rating: 8/10

Challenges: Read 'n' Review Challenge

First Sentence: "There's a big difference between death threats and love letters -- even if the person writing the death threats still claims to actually love you."

Summary (From book flap):

After a long and heartbreaking journey to Siberia, Dimitri's birthplace, Rose Hathaway has finally returned to St. Vladimir's -- and to her best friend, Lissa Dragomir. It's graduation, and the girls can't wait for their real lives outside of the academy's cold iron gates to finally begin. But even with the intrigue and excitement of court life looming, Rose's heart still aches for Dimitri. He's out there, somewhere.

She failed to kill him when she had the chance, and now her worst fears are about to come true. Dimitri has tasted her blood, and she knows in her heart that he is hunting her. And if Rose won't join him, he won't rest until he has silenced her ... forever.

But Rose can't forget what she learned on her journey -- whispers of a magic too impossible and terrifying to comprehend. A magic inextricably tied to Lissa that could hold the answer to all of Rose's prayers, but not without devastating consequences. Now Rose will have to decide what -- and who -- matters most to her. And in the end, is true love really worth the price?

My Two Cents:

This is, overall, the best young adult vampire series I have read. It's well-written, the world is rich and the characters aren't just a bunch of spoiled, whiny teenagers. However, this is my least favorite book in the series so far.

When last we left Rose, she thought she had killed her love Dimitri, who was turned Strigoi (The worst kind of vampire). But, he wasn't dead. This book picks back up at St. Vladimir's with Rose reading another of Dimitri's notes to her in which he tells her she is fair game as soon as she leaves the academy's gates.

The main action of this book really takes place within the first 150 pages. After that, it's just a lot of walking around and talking and a lot of Rose getting upset. It's still a pretty solid book, but it just does not live up to the other four books in the series. Sure, there's a pretty good twist at the end that leaves plenty of material for the final book, but it just wasn't what I had hoped it would be.

Even though this installment was a bit disappointing, I still would recommend this series to anyone who likes vampire literature. If you've read Twilight and think it's the greatest thing since sliced bread, please, do yourself a favor and read this series instead. You'll never know what hit you.

Review: Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy

2010-06-23T07:35:00.001-05:00

Title: Jude the Obscure

Author: Thomas Hardy

Pages: 444

Source: Personal copy

Rating: 8/10

Challenges: Read 'n' Review Challenge

First Sentence: "The schoolmaster was leaving the village, and everybody seemed sorry."

Summary (From back of book):

Jude Fawley, the stone-mason, whose academic ambitions are thwarted by poverty and the indifference of the authorities at Christminster, appears to find fulfillment in his relationship with Sue Bridehead. Both of them have fled from previous marriages, and together they share a 'two-in-oneness' rarely matched. Ironically, when tragedy strikes it is Sue, the modern, emancipated thinker -- the last and greatest of Hardy's heroines, ranking with Emma Bovary and Anna Karenin -- who is unequal to the challenge.

Its literary qualities apart, Jude the Obscure is also a rich source of social history, accurately reflecting within its pages the encroachment of the modern, developing world on the rural traditions of England.

My Two Cents:

While this book was still good, it is my least-favorite Hardy to-date (I've read all the major Hardy's except The Mayor of Casterbridge). I think a lot of the problem I had with this was that it was so meandering most of the time -- It covered such a HUGE span of time and it took forever for Hardy to really get down to the meat of the matter. I think it would have been better if he had just focused on Jude's bid for Christminster and then showed a little of what happened after his rejection or something.

I really liked Jude as a character. I felt sorry for him through the entire book, mostly because I knew that his big dreams could come to no positive end. You have to expect, when reading Hardy, that anyone who has a dream but no money will come within sight of achieving that goal, but never quite make it. And Jude works hard, independently, to gain entry to Christminster (A fictionalized Oxford), but fails because he has neither the money or the social standing to recommend him to the dons.

I wasn't, actually, terribly fond of Sue, nor was I really impressed with her as the heroine. Sure, she bucks the tradition of rural England and runs off with Jude while she's still technically married -- One source of all the "scandal" when this book was first published -- but she just seemed kind of blah to me. She had no real spark or life that I could grab onto and say, "Yes, this is a great heroine."

Even though Hardy was a pretty critical social writer in his time and often dealt with the plight of the lower classes, this is his most socially critical work that I've read. This book, although slow at times, never failed to provide me with a rich commentary on the social mores of Jude's world. If nothing else, this book is important for that picture of a world gone by.

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?: June 21, 2010

2010-06-21T07:29:00.000-05:00

Hosted by Sheila at One Person's Journey Through a World of Books, It's Monday! What Are You Reading? is a weekly bookish meme whereby bloggers share their reading for the past week.

It was a slow reading week for me this week between work and getting my house ready for a cook-out on Sunday. I still managed to finish a book, though!

This week, I read:
Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy

This week, I reviewed (Click on the title to read my review):
Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay

This week, I'm reading:
The English American by Alison Larkin

This week, I hope to begin reading:
The Essays: A Selection by Michel de Montaigne
The Riddle of Berlin by Cym Lowell

What are you reading this week?

BBAW: My Nomination Post

2010-06-18T21:46:00.001-05:00

I've seen a lot of posts over the last several months talking about Book Blogger Appreciation Week, so when I saw Jenners' post about how she's joining up, I was intrigued.

BBAW is one of those things that, I think, every book blogger needs to tackle at least once, much like Dewey's 24-Hour Read-a-Thon. Of course, having never experienced a BBAW myself, I can't really tell anyone why they should participate, other than I see a lot of people talking positively about it.

In looking through the posts on the BBAW site, I saw that bloggers are being asked to nominate themselves for awards this year, and link up to the post which condenses their five nomination entries.

Since I started my blog back in December, I decided to nominate myself for Best New Book Blog, a category which I'm sure will be full of awesome new bloggers. But, nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?

So, here are my five posts for my entry, which I think best represent what I've done with my blog thus far:

1. A post most of you probably haven't read (From when my blog was a wee, itty-bitty tadpole) where I try to figure out which War and Peace character I loathed the least

2. A review of one of my favorite reads of 2010, complete with a Twilight rant, Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater

3. My favorite read of all time: The Great Gatsby

4. How Eric Van Lustbader's Last Snow sort of helped me overcome James Patterson Syndrome

5. One of my longest reviews (It should be, it took me seven weeks to read the book!), Gone With the Wind