Everything Is Sinister by David Llewellyn

'Violence is the new language. Celebrity is the new currency.'

Written in 2008, this novel is set in 2010 and portrays a realistic bleak viewpoint of a London that is not a million miles away from how we see it now. Our narrator Ed Raynes is a showbiz journalist of The Voice Of The People; a trashy rag that I likened as an equivalent to our The Daily Mail. Ed is told a disturbing secret about one of the contestants of the nation's favourite reality TV shows, Lockdown. As the contestant is also the favourite to win, Ed realises the consequences of what is about to happen and as it is his job to keep the secret under wraps until the show is over, he begins to have a mental breakdown. Becoming a recluse in his flat, he observes the workers of London from his balcony and knows that there is 'something wrong with people'. It becomes his mission to put an end to the madness before it spirals out of control.

A dark witty story that grips the reader throughout, it is in parts reminiscent of Orwell's 1984 and has touches of Bret Easton Ellis and Chuck Palahniuk here and there. It comes complete with a fantastic little twist at the end and showcases how shallow and self-consumed modern society has become (or what direction it is heading to in this case). I will definitely read David Llewellyn's debut novel, Eleven and look forward to keeping on eye out for his new books. [9/10]

15. The Road - Cormac McCarthy
              Bleak, depressing, nothing much happens besides the end of the world and the human race. 
              I loved it.  Such great descriptions.  Some really scary scenes, and honestly, it was scarier for the lack of explanations.  Made it seem more like a nightmare.  

16. Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything in Italy, India, and Indonesia - Elizabeth Gilbert
              I didn't think I'd like this book.  But then I read an interview with the author and she was just so rockin' that I started reading the book right away.  And it was great.  First, she's funny.  Normally, I wouldn't be too interested in someone else's spiritual journey, but it never felt preachy.  Even when she was talking about serious stuff, she made me laugh.  But second, I found her story of depression and recovery to be compelling and true to my experiences.  I recommend it.

Book 14: The Lady in the Tower: the Fall of Anne Boleyn.
Author: Alison Weir, 2009.
Genre: Non-fiction. Biography. History
Other Details: Hardback, 416 pages.

In The Lady in the Tower Alison Weir focuses upon the imprisonment and execution of Queen Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII's second wife, in 1536, an event unprecedented in English history.

Weir has reaccessed the evidence from primary and secondary sources and overall provides a highly researched and richly detailed portrayal of the last days of Queen Anne Boleyn. Obviously a work such as this does have a tight focus, rather than being a full biography.

This was a splendid book and one I'd been looking forward to reading ever since I'd heard it was being published early last year. One of the pleasures of The Lady in the Tower is that Weir's emphasis upon primary sources allows the reader to evaluate these alongside her in almost forensic detail. There were plenty of notes, references and a bibliography to please my inner historian and is written in a style that is scholarly yet highly readable.

Book 2: The Sign of the Four - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Genre: Mystery

Plot: After Mary Morstan's father disappeared, each year a pearl arrived in the mail. Now, she has recieved a letter regarding the mysterious disappearance and "justice" and would like Holmes to assist her in untangling the mystery. Watson is instantly smitten and Holmes jumps at a case that might just relieve the boredom that has sent him back to his old habit.

My thoughts:In this book, we met Watson's Mary. It amused me how terrified he was that she might inherit some money and become "above him". Does this mean that the Hound of the Baskervilles may just be the next Holmes movie? I will have to keep reading to find out.

Rating: 4 stars (out of 5)

Book 3: Guardians of the Keep - Carol Berg

Genre: Fantasy

Plot: After Tomas' death, Seri keeps her promise and goes to tell his son how proud of him his father was. However, she is soon drawn back into residence at Comigor in order to sort out the tangle of affairs left by Tomas' death. Enter Dassine and Aeren...(so hard to write a blurb when anything I say spoils the prev. book)

My thoughts: I couldn't put it down...and read it in an evening. I was disapointed though, by how out of character Exegret seemed based on descriptions in the previous book (Son of Avonar).
Rating: 3.5 stars (out of 5)

( The Read So Far )

I'm thinking of starting a lesbian book blog, because I can't seem to find any. There's some general queer book blogs, but that's only queer girl/lesbian half the time (or, often, less). Does anyone know of any other lesbian book blogs? Also, would anyone be interested in reading one, or is that way too specific? (I'm finding it difficult to find an appropriate place to ask, simply because there's no lesbian book blogs/groups, so I'm sorry if this seems really obscure.)

Late last night (early this morning?), I finished reading the second novel by Toby Frost, the parody of several SF themes/novels, God Emperor of Didcot. Silly, amusing, fun.

Here is book five from my Book List 2010. The link leads to a more detailed review in my journal.

5. Title: Another Faust
Author: Daniel & Dina Nayeri © 2009
Pages: 387
Thoughts: Link
Review in five words or less: Deliciously vicious and engrossing; ambitious.
Personal Rating: «««« out of five.

Five 10-year-old children go missing in homes across Europe. Five years later, they surface in New York City with their mysterious governess, Nicola Vileroy. The five are now gifted students at en elite high school who are driven by their personal ambitions to succeed at all costs. However, success comes with a price. When two discover the secret, they try to convince the rest that the price may be too much to pay. This story is based on the classic German Faust tale about making deals.

I enjoyed this a lot. The relentless and cutthroat pursuit of the protagonists' goals made the story deliciously vicious. However, despite all the scheming and backstabbing, there was solid plot in place that aspired for a more loftier presence. This was well-paced and I liked that the authors took the time to define all of the characters to give them distinct personalities. I also thought the ending was a little bizarre, but it was the right choice for all the characters. Definitely recommended to those who like YA books and this type of story.

5 / 50 books. 10% done!

1633 / 15,000 pages. 11% done!

Fables, Vol. 13: The Great Fables Crossover, by Bill Willingham et al
Still in love with this series though I think I like it better when it isn't QUITE this metatextual... but there was definitely stuff in there I dug. Now, augh, I have to wait another age for the next collected volume...
(30/200)

Shannon, by Campbell McGrath
Haunting poem written from the POV of the youngest member of the Lewis & Clark expedition - he had a tendency to get lost and this tells the story of one of those times. Really set a mood, and kept me there until the poem was over. Powerful, without needing to be lyrical to get there.
(31/200)

Women Who Read Are Dangerous, by Stefan Bollman
There are probably things more pleasant than diverting oneself by flipping through a book of beautiful paintings of women reading books, and enjoying the accompanying text which is stimulating but not particularly demanding - but I am hard pressed to think of any.
(32/200)

7) A Handful of Dust by Evelyn Waugh

My British Lit professor chose very interesting books for us to go over in his class. A Handful of Dust reminded me of a British “The Great Gatsby” but with less eloquence. The ending really surprised me, but the plot line was predictable. I enjoyed reading it though. I think out of all the books that were assigned this semester, this one was my favorite.

Liar, by Justine Larbalestier

You're getting so many of these because I'm in A Mood and am working through my backlog of books I want to review/respond to.

Micah is a compulsive liar. She tells you so on the first page of the book. She also tells you that she's going to tell you the truth in this narrative... but whether she's telling the truth about that is up to you to decide. And that makes it hard to provide even the most basic summary of the book: which of the shifting mosaic of things-Micah-says do I pull out to try to describe the book? Because almost any of them could turn out to be untrue.

Start with this: I'm fairly sure that Micah is telling the truth about being a teenage girl living in New York. I'm fairly sure she had some kind of relationship, perhaps romantic, perhaps not, with Zach. I'm fairly sure that, when Zach disappears and then turns up dead, that it causes a crisis point in Micah's life. And I'm fairly sure that Micah is ill in some way, although whether the illness is the 'family illness' she describes or not is up to debate.

I'm not sure of anything else that happens in the 300+ page book, and that fact will give you a clearer idea of what the book's like than anything else I could say about it, I think.

I liked Micah, although after her introduction I didn't trust a single thing she said. She's completely unreliable, totally, because she's a compluslive liar, and if you're one of the people who are allergic to unreliable narrators, this book is not for you. It doesn't try to sell you on the idea of an unreliable narrator. Instead, it revels in the uncertain. I don't hate unreliable narrators, but I also am not particularly drawn to them, and Micah's story didn't bug me. But that may partly be the way I read it: on page one I decided that I was going to sit back and enjoy the ride, rather than trying to second-guess and predict what was true and what wasn't. I think I enjoyed the book more that way than if I was distracted looking for 'slips,' but mileage may vary.

I think this was a successful book, in that it appeared to be trying to do something tricky—create an at least somewhat sympathetic narrative about a compulsive liar, in which the reader can't ever be sure of anything, and yet still be emotionally satisfying—and, as far as I'm concerned, does so. It was a page-turner, but won't be one of my favorites, I don't think, just because the narrative was very uncomfortable. Of course, it was supposed to be uncomfortable, I think, which is why: successful book. But one I appreciate intellectually more than I enjoy or love.

Larbalestier has said that she deliberately wrote the book so that the ending could be interpreted at least two ways (or possibly three). Actually I can think of a dozen ways to interpret the ending without thinking very hard, and I'm sure I could come up with hundreds more if I tried. But I'm going to talk about that under the cut, because it's necessarily spoilery of a few major plot points to do so, and I think this is a book that ought to be read with as few spoilers as possible. (I was told, in fact, not even to read the jacket copy.)

( Spoilers below the cut )

Title: Shutter Island
Author: Dennis Lehane
Rating: 4/5
Book: 6/50 (12% completed)
Book in personal challenge with niun: 4/50 Fantasy, 4/50 Mystery and 0/25 Classics
Pages: 369 pgs
Total Pages 2,490/15,000 pages (16.60% completed)
Next up: The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

This was a great read! Full of twists and turns and unexpected events, which, as great as that is, I found it a little hard to keep up at times. This book was hard to put down and I can't wait to see the movie. I will be adding the rest of Lehane's books to my to read list!!

xposted to 50bookchallenge, 15000pages and bookworm84

( Book Description from book jacket or back of the book: )

How to Ditch Your Fairy, by Justine Larbalestier

In the city of New Avalon, most people have a fairy—an invisible spirit or power or maybe just a chunk of free-floating luck that gives them a particular ability or advantage. Charlie's best friend Rochelle has a clothes-shopping fairy: when she goes shopping, she can always find something super-flattering that fits perfectly... and that is on extreme markdown. Charlie's mother has a Knowing What Your Kids Are Up To fairy, and always knows intuitively when Charlie's gotten herself into trouble. Charlie's classmate Fiorenze has an All The Boys Like You fairy. And Charlie, Charlie has a parking fairy. Charlie hates her parking fairy and wants to get rid of it, and she also hates the way Fiorenze's fairy is jerking around the boy she likes. But her plan to fix both of those things only makes everything worse.

This was a very fun book, very light. What I think of as a bathtub read. It reads very quickly; I finished it in one sitting. And I found Charlie very likable, even when I had those moments where I-the-reader realized that what Charlie was trying to do was very ill-advised. Like Charlie's envy of the All The Boys Like You fairy. I had enough perspective to realize that that would be more of a nightmare curse than a blessing, but it didn't make me see Charlie as an idiot for not realizing it, since I'm not totally sure I would have realized exactly how bad that could be at age 13 or 14. Similarly, at first I thought Charlie was being kind of whiny for wanting to ditch her fairy (a parking fairy wouldn't be my first choice, but it'd surely be better than no power at all?), but I became more sympathetic when I quickly realized that she kept being dragged along (and, in one case, actually kidnapped) on trips she didn't want to make because people wanted to take advantage of her power.

So, anyway, the book was very character-centric and the plot is almost wholly character-driven. Indeed, the 'external' plot, which involved betting on high school sports, seemed the weakest part to me; its most important influence was the way it affected Charlie, and the parts that didn't involve Charlie directly just seemed to fade off. That didn't bother me too much, because I read much more for character and worldbuilding than for plot, but it felt like that subplot was a bit of scaffolding that could have been excised without much detriment to the book. But that's minor. (Also minor: because I'm a worldbuilding junkie, I wanted more of an idea of what was up with New Avalon, its somewhat-unusual social structures, and why they had fairies when nobody else did? Or perhaps other people did but didn't realize it? But again, the book was so character-centric that I have trouble faulting it for not getting into more worldbuilding geekery.)

Anyway. Fast, fun, light read. Recommended, espeically for plane trips and rainy Saturdays. And bathtubs, if you're a bathtub reader like me.

( Some more thoughts, that are spoilery )

Title: True Confections
Author: Katharine Weber
Themes/Topics: Candy-making, Family Intrigue, Narrative Deposition

I received "True Confections" as a goodreads giveaway and was excited to have it. I mean, who doesn't love free books? The honest reason why I entered the giveaway because the description said that the writer's talent was respected by many authors, one of which was Madeleine L'Engle and I figure if it was good enough for L'Engle, it was CERTAINLY good enough for me!

At first I didn't like this book very much. The style is not linear and the narrator jumps around a lot in the beginning in the present and past and I really just wanted her to get to the meat of the story. Once I became used to this narrative style, I really enjoyed this book. The story has wonderfully amusing bits of vocabulary, my favorite phrase was "intoxicating fermata." This novel is entertaining, confusing, and I'll say mysterious because the reader is never sure if the "facts" are indeed facts, or just the narrators rationalization.

I think this would be a great read for a book club because the author's storytelling allows for different interpretations of events and could be great for discussion. I will definitely be reading more of her novels in the future.

Title: California Dreaming
Author: Zoey Dean
Copyright date: 2008
Publisher: Alloy Entertainment
How many pages: 279 pgs
How long it took me to read: 4 days
Category: Fiction
I learned about this book from: reading the other books

This book was purchased at: it wasn't. Library book.
This book is: a very bad wrap up to the series.
Other books by this/these author(s): Other A-list books, A list Hollywood Royalty series, How to teach filthy rich girls, Hollywood is like high school with money
Favorite characters: Samantha Sharpe, Susan Percy
When and Where the story takes place: California; Los Angeles, Santa Monica, Westwood, Beverly Hills, Venice Boulevard

Plot in a nutshell: Last book in the first A-list series.
Main characters: Anna Percy, Samantha Sharpe, Cammie Sheppard
What I liked best: I get to read about my favorite characters one last time. The recap of past books - it's been a while since I read the last book.
What I liked least: The other airplane passengers comments. Just shut up! The way Zoey lists exactly what piece of clothing was designed by who on everybody in the book, it's long to read and pointless IDC. Cammie's priorities. Brogan? That's a terrible name. Unrealistic ending.

Overall rating: I wasn't too pleased with the way this book ended. It's the last book in the first series and I just felt like there was so much story left to tell about those characters...maybe Zoey will release a prequel or a reunion book like Cecily von Zeigesar did for Gossip girl...this series should have been turned into a tv series instead of How to teach rich girls aka Privileged.

Another graphic novel finished yesterday was Battlefields: Dear Billy; author Garth Ennis. The storyline was about a British military nurse in WWII who'd been shot by the Japanese, saved, and then worked throughout the war in India, but who killed Japanese POWs in the hospital.

6. Charlaine Harris, Dead to the World, 310 pages, Supernatural/Romance/Mystery, Paperback, 2004.

The 4th book of the Southern Vampire Mysteries series featuring telepathic barmaid Sookie Stackhouse finds Eric, the vampire leader, or sheriff, of Area 5 (Louisiana), running down the road clad only in jeans and with his memory wiped. Sookie agrees to hide Eric while he has amnesia, worries about her missing brother, and eventually finds herself in the midst of a vampire/werewolf/witch offensive. This may be my favorite novel of the series with some long awaited Sookie and Eric action, even though Eric isn’t himself.

7. Charlaine Harris, Dead as a Doornail, 310 pages, Supernatural/Romance/Mystery, Paperback, 2005.

Someone is shooting the two-natured – Werewolves, shape-shifters, and other were-animals. Even Sam, Sookie’s boss, has been injured, leading Merlotte’s to request a temporary bartender from Fangtasia, Eric’s Vampire bar. Charles, the pirate vampire, is popular with the locals at Bon Temps, and he’s been there in the nick of time to rescue Sookie from a supposed assassin when her home is set on fire; too bad he’s left no one alive to be questioned about the incidents later. Add in a competition for the next pack leader for the local Werewolves, Tara’s unfortunate choice in vampire boyfriends, and Eric trying to discover what he did during his cursed amnesia, Sookie could use a little help from her friends. I believe this is the first book without actual sex in this series.

1. Generation A by Douglas Coupland. 2 stars

2. City of Bones by Cassandra Clare 4 stars


If you would like to see my extensive reviews I have set up a tumblr blog all about books!

http://cattywhompus.tumblr.com/

I hope it is ok to post that here.

I am slow starting on my challenge this year. Doing 19 credits of school is sucking up all of my reading time!

Fire, by Kristin Cashore

In the Dells, there are two types of animals: normal animals, which behave as animals do in our world, and Monsters, who have the shape of animals but fantastic colors—and power over the human mind. A brown horse is a horse; a turquoise horse with a snow-white mane, that can snare you with its beauty and destroy you for its own purposes if it so chooses, is a Monster. Fire, named for her red-and-magenta-and-yellow-and-gold hair, is the last living human monster, but her exceptional beauty and her power over men causes her considerably more grief than joy. Worse, the troubles in the Dells can be traced directly back to her Monster father, who was beautiful and sociopathic, and Fire's quest is as much about proving that she is not like him as it is about ameliorating the damage he did.

This book is both like and unlike Graceling, Cashore's first novel, a book that I recognized as imperfect but still loved. Both feature a superhuman protagonist, but where Katsa in Graceling was a perfect fighter and survivalist, Fire is perfectly beautiful and has powers over the minds of others. (If you want to be very, very overly simplistic about both the characters and gender stereotypes, you could say that Katsa has a 'masculine' power and Fire a 'feminine' one. But it's a whole hell of a lot more complicated than that.) The reason that I don't believe that Katsa or Fire are Mary Sue characters, though—despite the fact that, on the surface, you could make an argument for either one—is that the challenges they are faced with are proportionate to their skills... and their powers cause them as much difficulty as they do advantage.

(As a side note: I am increasingly frustrated with the label 'Mary Sue,' although I think there was some value to its original definition. I think its definition has slipped to the extent that it's now often leveled at any female character who is attractive, interesting or powerful, and I think that's a shame. But that's a rant for another day.)

In Fire's case, this difficulty is immediately obvious. Because of her beauty and her powers, men tend to find her attractive, often beyond their ability to resist... whether she wants them to or not. Anyone who has ever been the target of persistent unwanted attention can already see why this is a problem, but to spell it out: sometimes, yes, the men want to love and cherish her, or obey her, but sometimes they want to rape her, or hurt her or destroy her for not wanting them in return, or simply because they're angry that she has such power over them. And while some women are Fire's allies, others hate her for the way she attracts attention. There's a particularly poignant bit where Fire is traveling with an army, and the army's commander gives her a guard of about twenty people. Part of the reason for this is to protect her from opposing forces, and part of the reason is to protect her from animal Monsters (Monsters crave the flesh of other Monsters beyond all else, which seems to be the only thing keeping animal Monsters from completely overrunning the ecosystem), but she quickly realizes that her entire guard is made up of straight women and gay men, because their main purpose is to protect her from the very army she's helping.

And the funny thing is, this made me identify with her a great deal. I'm hardly such a raving beauty that I drive men insane and provoke fury in women, and yet I've had that experience, of the uneasy realization that someone has an interest in me that I don't reciprocate, and that I can't tell whether they will mean me harm or not, and that I have to be very careful. While Fire's beauty isn't something I can relate to my personal life, Fire's dilemma is.

The other thing about Fire that I like is that she has agency. The path she will take is not clear, and over the course of the book she decides it, figures out what she wants to do and needs to do, and does it, despite the fact that she has to go against the wishes of the other people in her life to do so.

My criticisms of Graceling were the prose and the worldbuilding; the former I found, not bad exactly, but flat, and the latter I found somewhat generic. They've both improved in Fire, but they're both still her weakest points; the prose is still clunky in places and the setting is still medievaloid. But they're also both improved, which is a good sign. I'm hoping that the trajectory continues and the prose and worldbuilding improve again for her third book, Bitterblue, which I'm very much looking forward to.

( Some spoilery musings under the cut )

I have eight more books to write minireviews after this lot.

#47 Salmon Doubts by Adam Sacks Salmon Doubts

Salmon Doubts follows a school of salmon from hatching through spawning. As they grow up and form friendships one fish decides to question the purpose of life. He follows his own path, constantly questioning the accepted norms of salmon life.

#48 The Electric Church by Jeff Somers

I liked seeing how the series started but the action didn't grip me as much as The Digital Plague did. I want a book that combines the strengths of both books and tosses out the weaknesses of both.

#49 Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel García Márquez

OK I can see why his books are taught in school but I didn't especially like the book. There are some marvelously descriptive scenes but everyone in the book is so detestable. At least the book is short.

#50 D.A. by Connie Willis

One of the funniest science fiction novellas I've ever read.

#51 The Whole Library Handbook 2 by George M. Eberhart

Read it to study for my the library media assistant job I was testing for. Came in handy even if it is out of date in many places.

#52 Keys to the City: Tales of a New York City Locksmith by Joel Kostman

A roman à clef about what it's like to be a locksmith in New York City. It's a delightful and quirky book. You can read it in a few hours.

#53 Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill Heart-Shaped Box

He needs to learn how to get into the heads of his characters better.

#54 Mummies in the Morning by Mary Pope Osborne Mummies in the Morning

Interesting mixture of magic and history but it lacks the grounding in fact that the later books do.

#55 Pirates Past Noon by Mary Pope Osborne

I read this one while my son was playing Tales of Monkey Island. It made for a strange pirate mashup.

#56 How to Host a Killer Party by Penny Warner

It's the debute book of her new series set in and around San Francisco as written by someone who actually knows the area. I loved the book from start to finish.

X-posted to lovethecolorofitall.blogspot.com/

Title: The Ultimate Guide to Choosing a Medical Specialty

Author: Brian Freeman, MD

Year: 1973

Genre: Self-help ;-)

Pages: 460

Rating: 8/10

Summary: The one book medical students must read before they choose their specialty. Here is the first medical-specialty selection guide written by a resident for students. Readers will find an inside look at the issues surrounding medical specialty selection, blending firsthand knowledge with useful facts and statistics. The author includes invaluable insights from his personal experience, candid reports from current residents, and a wealth of research. This unique resource is divided into two sections, the first of which delves into the art of choosing the right specialty and covers personality assessment, considerations for women and couples who are matching, specialty overviews, and the ins and outs of the residency application and match process. The second section comprises 19 chapters, each written by a resident in a particular specialty. These chapters include “The Inside Scoop”—revealing specialty lifestyles, training requirements, and predominant personality types. (from Amazon)

Thoughts: Although I'm pretty much set on pediatrics as my specialty, I felt this would be a good read to set me up for third year. We get lots of choices for services to rotate on during our core rotations, so I thought that I should learn more about the different medical specialties before I had to pick. The book not only has in-depth sections describing each of the specialties one can match into, it also covers the sub-specialties within each specialty. Most importantly, each section is written by a recent resident of that specialty. There is also a lengthy section on how the application works and the special considerations different populations (women, couples) need to take to match successfully and happily. I'm definitely going to make sure that this book makes its way to my friends who are still undecided.

Due to lack of time, I haven't posted the last few books I'd read, so let's catch up, shall we?

First finished was a graphic novel authored by Garth Ennis, called Battlefields: The Tankies about the British advance off the Normandy beaches: not bad.

Second was another novel in David Wishart's Marcus Corvinus mystery series, called White Murder, about skullduggery in the old Roman racing circuit. Long, but interesting read.

Finally, there was another graphic novel, this being Battlefields: The Night Witches about Russian female pilots flying bombing missions against the German invaders in WWII. Author again was Garth Ennis.

BOOK 6 : Time Machines Repaired while u wait by KA Bedford (Sci Fi)

This book ended up very confusing with the time lines. It had a good idea behind it but somehow did not quite deliver.



BOOK 7: Rosemary and Rue by Seanan McGuire (Sci- Fi)

It took me awhile to get into this book as there are so many different type of creatures in it. About half way through I started to enjoy it.

The Catlady, by Dick King-Smith
Cute kid's story set in Edwardian England. Quick read, charming illos.
(27/200)

Three Wise Cats, by Harold Konstantelos and Terri Jenkins-Brady
Meh. I would've liked this better if I read it in my pre-Christmas Christmassy mood... but it was alright. I would have LOVED it when I was nine.
(28/200)

Stain of the Berry, by Anthony Bidulka
Hm. The author took the series to a weird place and I can't decide if I love it or am put off by it. I guess I'll have to see how the next one feels. I would still recommend the series though, just don't read this one out of order.
(29/200)

Title: Once A Witch
Author: Carolyn MacCullough
Pages: 292
Published: 2009
Genre: fantasy, young adult

Synopsis:
Tamsin Greene comes from a long line of witches, and she was supposed to be one of the most Talented among them. But Tamsin's magic never showed up. Now seventeen, Tamsin attends boarding school in Manhattan, far from her family. But when a handsome young professor mistakes her for her very Talented sister, Tamsin agrees to find a lost family heirloom for him. The search—and the stranger—will prove to be more sinister than they first appeared, ultimately sending Tamsin on a treasure hunt through time that will unlock the secret of her true identity, unearth the sins of her family, and unleash a power so vengeful that it could destroy them all. This is a spellbinding display of storytelling that will exhilarate, enthrall, and thoroughly enchant.

My thoughts:
The story of this book was good. I liked the little romance between Tamsin and Gabriel also in this book.



Books read:46books
Pages read:15,824pages

Getting a late start, but I plan to finish within the 2010 calendar year.

1. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo -- Stieg Larsson

Framed as a kind of mystery novel, this book is so much more than that; to me, one of the most captivating things about this story was the way it focused on journalists, and more specifically, gutless financial journalists. Although the book is set in Sweden, this is also a problem in the US, and was probably a contribution to the global financial catastrophe of the last couple years (notably the book was written before any of that began to really take shape). One of the themes I was less enamored with in this book was, supposedly, violence towards women. Each section of the book is prefaced with a statistic on violence committed against women in Sweden. Theoretically this could be a fascinating theme, but Larsson presents it as a series of extremely gruesome sexual assaults which were off-putting and didn't seem to actually say much about the subject besides that rape is bad. This may account for why I didn't care much for Lisbeth Salander, although I loved just about every other character in the book, particularly Blomkvist and Armansky. Despite my misgivings about some parts, I'd give it an 8 out of 10 overall.

2. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland -- Lewis Carroll

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that everybody knows what this book is about, more or less. It's hard for me to believe, but I have never actually read this before. It is a wonderful book, and as far as I can tell is an endless assault on adults, formal schooling, and all the ways in which we oppress children. There is a lot more going on than that, certainly, but this was the general impression that stayed in my head. The serpent bit is definitely my favorite scene. 9/10.

3. Out of the Dust -- Karen Hesse

Another book intended mainly for children/young adults (in case you're wondering, I'm taking a course on children's literature). This was...not so great. Written kind of like a prose poem, it doesn't really use that form to do anything, except perhaps skate around actually having to write out all the details. Despite a supposedly uplifting ending, I found the whole thing depressing and a little on the preachy side. 4/10.

Katsa is Graced. From the time she was a child, her differently-colored eyes made others wary, and her isolation only increased when her Grace's power was revealed: killing. Utilized as a thug by her brutish uncle the king, Katsa grows angrier at the abuses she's compelled to commit. Her undercover missions to do good can't ease her guilt. Everything changes the night she rescues the kidnapped patriarch of a foreign royal family. She encounters another Graced fighter, like her, but he refuses to fight back. When Po trails her back home--asking about the whereabouts of his kidnapped grandfather--a few pieces in the mystery come together, but not all. Who kidnapped Po's grandfather? Why does no one know the truth?

There has been a lot of buzz about this book. However, the first 1/3 was a struggle for me. It moved very slowly, Katsa was rather unlikeable, and there were some awful info dumps. However, once she and Po began to journey together, the story began to click along with their chemistry, and soon enough I was hooked. There is romance, though not of the stereotypical fantasy sort; that was surprising and refreshing. Oh, and I loved Po. Po was the real reason I wanted to keep reading, especially with all the suspense at the end.

In all, I recommend it, but I don't think it will be among my top-rated books for the year. I do think Kristin Cashore will be an author to watch in the coming years.

I started reading Clear and Present Danger in the middle of a discussion with the boyfriend about where marriage might lie in our near future. Although the boyfriend can rattle off a thirty minute rant on anything political or philosophical, he lapses into long periods of contemplative silence when queried about our relationship and, about a half an hour after I asserted that it was high time we wed, I got bored of watching him stare at the ceiling and went and got a book. Clear and Present Danger by Tom Clancy is about a (fictional) war on drugs, wherein the US takes actual action, secretly deploying covert troops to disrupt cocaine production at its source and dispatching planes to shoot down cartel shipments. I found it to be too long, too detailed, too "Let's see what happens to all of the minor fly-by-night characters". It was, I found, rather like lasagna, good at first, but growing more and more tedious every time I returned to it.

After that, as part of a deal with my father, I read All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy. Dad loves McCarthy but had refused to read The Road because it "looked grim". I'd read The Road and loved it, so I promised to read the other McCarthy's if he read that one. The thing about Mr. McCarthy is that he's got something against quotation marks. You can generally figure out who's talking from context, but you really need (or I do, anyway) a long period of quiet undisturbed reading time, because otherwise you might start listening to a conversation next to you and, before you know it, you've missed something important in the book. It's prettily written, the story of two boys with nothing better to do who take their horses and ride to Mexico to find work, but it wasn't really my sort of thing. I liked it pretty well in the end, but not enough to read the second book in the same volume.

Then, and this is something I hope you never have to read, I read something that, while not strictly a book, was 150 pages long. In Good Faith: Navigating the New Federal RESPA Rules, put out by the American Bar Association is really more of a gigantic memo. The attorney I work for, who knows I keep track of the books I read but is a bit foggy as to why, plopped it on my desk and said "Well, you should at least be able to count this as a book" and I agreed. It details the new good faith estimate form for mortgages and the new HUD-1 form for real estate closings and, in general, is very irritating.

And then, because Elizabeth Gilbert had recommended it in Committed, I read Marriage, a History: From Obedience to Intimacy or How Love Conquered Marriage by Stephanie Coontz. The discussions with the boyfriend have made me curious about marriage, so I've been reading up on it. This book, though not as personally useful as Ms. Gilbert's, was heavily informative without being too dense. It focused mostly on Western marriage, which was ok with me since that's the sort that affects me, starting with theories about pre-historic marriage, then moving through Greece, Rome, Europe and into America. My favorite bit was when Ms. Coontz mentions that husbands nowadays tend to claim that they do more housework than they actually do. She points out that, while most women would accuse these men of being insincere in their claims, it shows an important and positive cultural shift because husbands in the 1950's tended to claim LESS housework than they actually did, not wishing to admit to doing any "women's work". She said that this actually shows positive growth, since, while men still, in general, don't do as much around the house as women, they at least feel like they ought to be doing more than they are.

10/105

13. Heracles Mad - Euripides
           After Heracles finished with his labors, he goes down to Hades for some reason, and some dude, Lycus, takes over and decides to cement his kingship by killing Heracles' children, wife, and father.   Heracles eventually shows up to save the day, and then Madness comes along to mess things up again.

14. On the Road - Jack Kerouac
           A classic.  I hated it.  Is it a sign of the current culture in America that I kept thinking, "These people would be better off with a little medication?" 

( 1-9 )

10. Breaking Dawn by Stephanie Meyer - So I read this book with low expectations because I read the previous two thinking they were awful. The first one was good...but that's it, in my opinion, it's all downhill from there. But I got this book as a gift and it's been sitting on my shelf for ages so I was like why not, might as well get it over with. And yup, wasn't good, though I will give it this, it was more interesting and "what's gonna happen next?" than the previous two because this book was just all over the place. But the outcome was so disappointing, all this HUGEEE build-up for what? Nothing. Eh, what can you do?

2. The Stand: Expanded Edition: For the First Time Complete and Uncut (Signet) - (1/24) - Stephen King 1141p

3/5 (and I'm being generous)

This review is LADEN with SPOILERS

A lot of Spoilers

You've been warned....

When I first started reading this book, I LOVED it. Couldn't get enough. Thought about it when I wasn't reading, and talked to anybody who would listen about it. The plague and post-plague world was so vividly drawn.

If you think about a pandemic of that nature, and devastation a survivor would face, you know that only one instinct could keep a person going. Self-preservation. If I was alive in the aftermath of that, I'd be a casualty of the "second plague", if I had the courage. Only something deeply innate could compel people forward. And I loved that aspect of it. Picking themselves up, dusting themselves off and branching out into a world that was a completely unknown.

I loved the book pretty much until everybody ended up in Nebraska. At that point, things fell apart for me and they never came back together.

The supernatural aspect of the book didn't have to ruin it for me. I'm not pre-disposed to disliking such things, but it's the way it was done. Oh, we all had a dream ... OK, I can buy that. Let's go to Nebraska. OK, I can buy that. OK, now we are all in love with this 108 year old woman. I'm out. I found Abigail, as the driving "force" of these people to be neither charismatic, nor endearing. Likewise, Randall Flagg (AKA....) was neither charismatic nor compelling. ALL this insane detail in this book and the two most critical driving forces in this novel were unlikeable, uninteresting, and unbelievable.

The whole book we read about how powerful Flagg was, but the first time we got to spend any amount of time with him, he was outsmarted by an old-man, a woman and a "feeb." Even his "bride" out-witted him. Uh? Where's the beef?

I kept finding myself thinking of TV shows where there's an actor, playing an actor, and looking out to the director and saying "What's my motivation?" The only motivation, to me, again is self-preservation. Yet, after everything these people had been through to get to Boulder, how easily they tossed that aside. Let's send an old man, a woman and a "feeb" to spy on the enemy. And let's hypnotize the "feeb" so he'll not be a "feeb." Sure, I'll go die. No problem. I survived the flu, and a walk across the country. You want me to get on a bike and go 800 miles into enemy camp. I'm in. Oh, and by the way, you don't even need to ask because I already know what you're going to say.

And Nadine the character in the book who probably had the biggest self-preservation drive, tosses herself away ... in basically one paragraph.

The detail was excruciating (and yes, indulgent). The fricken freeways they took were expounded upon, and road conditions, and what kinds of cars were in the way, and what the dead driver was wearing, but major important parts of the book were rushed through. We have 1071 pages of build up for the battle of good and evil and it was over in 2 paragraphs. I. WAS. PISSED.

Ultimately, I didn't care what happened to anybody. Major characters died and I didn't blink. Kojak was my favorite.

If it had ended as great as it began, it absolutely would have been a favorite. And I'm glad I read it. But if I were to ever recommend it to anybody, I would definitely suggest the abridged version.


3. Bite Me: A Love Story - (1/30) - Christopher Moore 320p

5/5 - review behind the link (no spoilers)


4. The Giver - (1/31) - Lois Lowry 208p

5/5

What a great little book. Super fast paced, read it in less than 3 hours. It's amazing how much punch such a little book could have. Brought you right in, and filled you with emotion.

It was so well-written, there were parts when I almost felt like I was experiencing something for the first time.

On a side note: Having recently read Jasper Fforde's "Shades of Grey", it seems to me that some of the ideas for that book, at least conceptually, must have come from this book. Fforde's is very different, but there are some fundamental similarities.



My complete list can be found here