Tag Archives: Book Reviews

November 6, 2012

Anna Dressed in Blood

Title: Anna Dressed in Blood
Author: Kendare Blake
Published: Publish mm/yyyy
ISBN:
Rating: 4 out of 5 bloody stars
Acquired: from Barnes & Noble

Introduction:

Cas Lowood kills the dead. Like his father before him, he follows stories, urban legends, folk tales, to their source and deals with the ghost, the murderous dead, and sends them where they belong.

Plot:

Cas, and his kitchen-witch mother, have moved to a new town. They came after hearing the story of a terrible ghost called Anna Dressed in Blood. The story goes that any person who enters the house where she was killed is never seen again. Because she kills them!

Cas doesn’t expect to find anything unusual. He comes in like he usually does. He enrolls in the local high school and gets himself invited to party. What better place to find out the local ghost stories than at a high school kegger? He out what he wants. Anna was murdered in 1958. In the house she haunts, in a white dress, that now drips with her blood. Anyone who crosses her threshold is brutal murdered. No one has been there in years. Until now. The local jocks, jerks, take it upon themselves to give Cas a proper introduction. They knock him out and toss him in with Anna Dressed in Blood. Who is definitely NOT at all what he expected. And who does something completely unexpected.

She spares Cas.

Characters:

The characters are great. I can’t help but love Cas. Like any typical teenager, he’s struggling to find his place in life. He takes up the mantel discarded by his father (since he was murdered doing his work, which was also killing ghosts remember) and, while he’s good at it, you can tell he has an underlying need to prove himself plus he also has this slight confidence problem, which I found endearing and completely understandable. I mean, he’s taken over the “family business” at 17 and the family business is killing ghosts? That seems a hard thing to take over at any age! I thought Blake did a great job of portraying the bravado a 17 year old boy would have, you know, around others (like his mom!), but also giving him this vulnerability and confusion. It really made me fall for Cas quite a bit! Plus, watching Cas make friends for the first time in his life was just priceless.

Anna is, just, wow. What an awesome character. One I feel I can’t say much about, I don’t want to spoil the surprise of her. Cursed in death to kill whomever crosses her threshold; how many characters can you say that about? From her first step onto the pages, Anna is such a lovely conflicted character. She can’t help doing what she’s doing, she’s been doing it for around 50 years, and you can immediately tell what it’s doing to her soul. Of course Cas falls for her. I don’t really think that’s a spoiler either; this IS a YA book. It’s what happens after that event that keeps you reading. Cas is meant to kill her. Will he?

Strengths:

  • The plot was great, very original for the genre I thought
  • The writing was great, very gripping. This book was hard to put down!
  • Strong, well written, and well rounded characters
  • Highlights are/is the blood-thirsty ghost?

Weaknesses:

  • You may not like this if you don’t like gory violence.

Conclusion: 

I was so very surprised by how much I enjoyed this book. I haven’t read much in the paranormal YA genre for awhile, because it felt like it was getting so formulaic and predictable. Anna Dressed in Blood was very much not what I was expecting. Engaging characters, excellent twist…I couldn’t help but immediately download the sequel as soon as I finish. (One thing never changes. Cliffhangers.) If you’ve been looking for something new, with excellent writing, interesting premise, and fantastic characters, look no further!

Favorite Bits:

I’ve seen most of what there is to be afraid of in this world, and to tell you the truth, the worst of them are the ones that make you afraid in the light. The things that your eyes see plainly and can’t forget are worse than huddled black figures left to the imagination. Imagination has a poor memory; it slinks away and goes blurry. Eyes remember for much longer.

I can feel that photo of Anna staring at me from sixty years ago, and I can’t help myself from wanting to protect her, wanting to save her from becoming what she already is.

Over the course of my life I’ve been to lots of places. Shadowed places where things have gone wrong. Sinister places where things still are. I always hate the sunlit towns, full of newly built developments with double-car garages in shades of pale eggshell, surrounded by green lawns and dotted with laughing children. Those towns aren’t any less haunted than the others. They’re just better liars.

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October 2, 2012

Every Day by David Levithan

Every Day
by David Levithan
Published by Alfred A. Knopf Books for Young Readers
Published: August 28, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-307-93188-7
Pages: 336
Ages: 12 & up

Every once in awhile, a novel comes along that defies expectation. I have never read a book by David Levithan. I’ve heard of it. Friends have recommended him. Yet, I remained stubborn (why? I don’t know!) and didn’t read anything by him. Even after he wrote a book with one of my favorite writers; Will Grayson & Will Grayson with John Green.

I am such a fool.

I happened to see Every Day on NetGalley. The premise sounded so unique, so different, and so hard to pull off. A person waking up, every day, in a different body? Irregardless of sex, race, only age? I had to see if he pulled it off.

A, our main character’s name is A, has no one. No friends, no family, nobody. He wakes up every day in a different 16-year-old body and wears it for the day. A different house, a different body, different friends, schools, lives. Every morning he is someone else. Male, female, white, black, Latino, rich, poor, smart, stupid, hooked on drugs, ready to kill themselves. It’s always different. A is used to this, A gets along fine, breezing through different lives, trying not to make too much of an impact, A doesn’t want anyone to notice. No one does notice.

But then A meets a girl.

A’s life will never be the same. It takes less than a day for A to fall in love with Rhiannon. For the first time, A wants to see someone again. A wants to talk to someone again. A wants to be with someone again. A can’t stop thinking about her, can’t stop wanting to see her again, and can’t stop wanting to talk to her again.

Does A find a way? It feels like an impossible situation. How does A convince this girl, every day, that even though the shell is different, A is the same underneath. How does A convince her to take a chance? How do you talk about A without using pronouns?

It’s a mystery, best found out by reading the book.

As I was saying, I was a fool. In the wrong hands, this book could have been a hot mess. But David Levithan obviously knows what he’s doing. There are so many things Levithan deals with in this novel; sex, race, attraction, how you can’t pick who you love, living, dying, hate, love…. This story. It is ambitious. This book made me think, it made me feel, it made me shake my head in wonder. Levithan not only pulls it off, he pulls it off so beautifully. His writing is gorgeous! And addictive. I think I’ll go out and buy everything he’s ever written now and I will never doubt him again.

Favorite bits:

I want to give her a good day. Just one good day. I have wandered for so long without any sense of purpose, and now this ephemeral purpose has been give to me-it feels like it was been give to me. I only have a day to give-so why can’t it be a good one? Why can’t it be a shared one? Why can’t I take the music of the moment and see how long it can last? The rules are erasable. I can’t take this. I can give this.

and

There is a part of childhood that is childish, and a part that is sacred. Suddenly we are touching the sacred part-running to the shoreline, feeling the first cold burst of water on our ankles, reaching into the tide to catch at shells before they ebb away from our fingers. We have returned to a world that is capable of glistening, and we are  wading deeper within it. We stretch our arms wide, as if we are embracing the wind. She splashes me mischievously and I mount a counterattack. Our pants, our shirts get wet, but we don’t care. We are carefree.

also

What is it about the moment you call in love? How can such a small measure of time contain such enormity? I suddenly realize why people believe in deja vu, why people believe they’ve lived past lives, because there is no way the years I’ve spent on this earth could possibly encapsulate what I’m feeling. The moment you fall in love feels like it has centuries behind it, generations-all of them rearranging themselves so that this precise, remarkable intersection could happen. In your heart, in your bones, no matter how silly you know it is, you feel that everything has been leading to this, all the secret arrows were pointing here, the universe and time itself have crafted this long ago, and you are just now realizing it, you are just now arriving at the place you were always meant to be.

I love that last one. I have so many more that I could share. I don’t think I’ve marked up a book like this in a long time. Such a beautiful book. In so many ways. I hope you’ll read it.

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July 31, 2012

The Robber Bridgegroom by Eudora Welty

Oh Eudora, you rascally old broad. You were rewriting fairytales before it was cool, weren’t you. You savvy trendsetter!

I don’t know where to start. Do I tell you about the genius that was Eudora Welty? Do I explain to you the unfamiliar fairytale, The Robber Bridegroom? Or do I just drive right into telling you about this book and hope I intrigue you enough that you will go look up Welty and the fairytale on your own?

Decisions, decisions….

Okay, I figure at this point, you are well acquainted with my tendency to ramble, so I’m going to try to briefly (that made me giggle a bit) touch on Welty and the fairytale, then dive into the book. Is that okay? If not, skim folks.

So, Eudora Welty. Queen of Southern Literature, in my oh so humble opinion, was a downright brilliant author. And what I find the most fascinating about her, is how long she lived. She was born in 1909 and she died in 2001. I kid you not. Think of all the things she saw. She won the Pulitzer (for The Optimists Daughter). She lectured at Harvard. She sat on the New York Times Book Review. Received a Guggenheim Fellowship. And I’m pretty sure you cannot get out of school in the South without reading something written by her. For me, it was her short story A Worn Path and excerpts from her novel Delta Wedding. I don’t remember much about Delta Wedding, probably because we didn’t read the whole thing, but her story A Worn Path stays with me to this day. In reading about her, I’ve found she loved fairytales. A woman after my own heart! Why it took so long, somehow, despite always meaning to read more of her work, it took me 12 years out of college to finally read her again, I’ll never know. Let’s just say I was stupid. Let’s just ask the question, what took me so damn. long? I won’t take me that long again.

The Robber Bridegroom (the fairytale) has several incarnations. I’m going to give you a shortened Grimm version. There was this miller, once upon a time, who had a daughter. When she comes of age, of course he wants to get her married. At least he wants to get her a respectable husband. Wants to. He just doesn’t try very hard. The first man who pops up is by all appearances very rich and finding no fault with him (there is no mention as to how hard he tried, I’m betting not very hard) the father promises his daughter to him. Time passes, and the daughter never visits her intended (do you blame her??). You see, she didn’t like the look of him, didn’t trust him, and the very thought of him, “she felt within her heart a sense of horror.”

Take about gut instinct.

Her intended calls her out on it and she replies that she doesn’t know where he lives. He tells her it is in the dark woods and she returns basically with the reply that there is no way on God’s green Earth that she’s going out there. Undeterred, he tells her to come on Sunday, he’s already invited guests and he will leave a trail of ashes for her to find her way. Ashes. Invokes a wee be of unease, yes? She goes, leaving a trail for herself of peas and lentils and finds her way to his house. His empty house. Empty except for a black bird that tells her “Turn back, turn back, you young bride. You are in a murderer’s house.” Have I got your attention now?

Up to this point, Eudora follows the story mostly. She changes the father, his story is much more, well, more and the groom has a name and an occupation. He’s a handsome scoundrel. The daughter is an idiot, in my opinion, because she acts like a complete airhead. And she has a wicked stepmother now! After she finds the house, things change. In the fairytale, she finds an old woman who hides her from the men who would murder and eat her (yes, eat her) and helps her escape. In Eudora’s story, she does something completely different.

No, I’m not going to tell you what. Although, if you look at the cover verrrry closely, you may get an idea.

In the fairytale, the old woman and the young bride escape and expose the bridegroom at the wedding. He and all his cohorts are put to death for their crimes. In the book, well, again, it’s very different. Again, not going to tell you how. You have to read it people.

And read it you should. I love love love Welty’s way with words. The way she takes the South, the Deep South, and mythologizes just sends me to the moon with love for this book. She takes this fairytale and mixes it with the South and creates something new, something slightly crazy, something slightly manic, something completely fascinating. The only thing I didn’t like was the attitude towards blacks and Indians, which, knowing the time period the story is set… well, I know it’s the way it was, but it doesn’t make it easier. At least I know Phoenix from A Worn Path is out there in Welty’s canon. If you haven’t tried Welty’s work, what are you waiting on? I’m definitely going to be reading more, very soon.

I bought this from Barnes & Noble as an ebook. If I was you, I would avoid this ebook at all costs. It looks like a 3rd grader typed it.

This counts for the Classics Club challenge and also my personal challenge of reading more classics in July.

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June 29, 2012

Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry – Audiobook Review

In honor of audiobook week, I’m rerunning my reviews of some of my favorite audiobooks. Lonesome Dove holds a special place in my heart, as you’ll see below.

  

If there is one story I have grown up with, besides Laura Ingalls Wilder, The Secret Garden, Anne of Green Gables, and Narnia, it is Lonesome Dove.  Which probably sounds strange, to lump Lonesome Dove in with those beloved children’s books, since admittedly it is far from a children’s classic, but it is a classic and a product of my youth, so there it is.  My uncle absolutely loves, no adores, no… something stronger than that… I don’t know how to describe it.  He can quote the movie from beginning to end.  I think he secretly wishes he had been a cowboy.  And he reveres Gus.  So, it goes without saying that I grew up listening to the vast wisdom and wit of Captain Augustus Mcrae, one of the immortal cowboys of Lonesome Dove.  

When I was about 14, and prone to reading long, epic novels of vast scope and ideal, (I’m trying to be witty myself here, can ya tell?), I decided I would read Lonesome Dove.  Get all the details of the story, so to speak, so I could give my uncle all the little details he didn’t get from the movie.  I don’t think I had even watched the movie, I knew most of the story because of my uncle.   I got my hands on a copy and I started the trip.  And my, my, what a trip this book is.  I raced through the book, like 14 years are able to do, and went on to read the rest of the series as it came out.  

Lonesome Dove is about so much. It is more than a western, more than a work of historical fiction, more than romance, more than an epic road trip, more than an adventure.  It comes down to two men and their strange friendship, for two men are less alike than Gus and Call.  The book starts in the dusty little down of Lonesome Dove, Texas down near the borderlands and moves steadily north through prairie, desert, Indian infested land, snakes, buffalo and takes you all up to the wilds of Montana on a cattle drive.  The characters in this novel are unforgettable.  I can rave about Gus all day (and I’m sure any woman who has ever read this book came away a little bit in love with him) but there are other amazing characters living in these pages.  Heroes.  Outlaws.  Indians.  Whores.  Ladies.  Settlers.  This book is the story of the Wild Wild West and is beautifully written, dramatic and unforgettable.  I dare you to read this book and not laugh, cry, and fall in love.  

I just can’t get enough of Gus and Call and all the boys (and girls!) of Lonesome Dove.  

And I still can’t.  When Amy (of My Friend fame) challenged her readers to join in a readalong of Lonesome Dove, I knew I had to join in.  I have since seen the movie, several times, and this story remains near and dear to my heart.  I worried about exactly how I would do it, with RIP going on, and all the other review books that are stacked on my desk (cringe), but then I remembered.  One of the first audiobooks I ever got from Audible was Lonesome Dove!  And I had never listened to it.  Problem solved!  So I decided to listen to the audio, read by actor and western novelist himself, Lee Horsley.  

And what a fantastic journey it was, all over again.  It was even more, for me, reading it again almost 18 years later.   The things that jumped out at me!  The treatment and lives of the women of the old west were especially interesting.  There is so much to this story, I know there is no way I can hit on it all.  You become invested in these characters along their journey.  Gus and Call and all the boys came alive in Lee Horsley’s voice.  Now, this isn’t the best audio production I’ve ever heard.  It was the first time I heard background noise in any audiobook I have ever listened to.  I didn’t care.  Mr. Horsley made these characters live.  And breathe.  And love and hate and kill and walk and talk and more.   I’m sure I have no adequately described this book, but I know I have described how it makes me feel.  Lonesome Dove is on my all time favorites list, will you add it to yours?  As USA Today says:  

“If you read only one western novel in your life, read Lonesome Dove.”  

*Note: Amazingly enough, I cannot find an audio CD of Lonesome Dove anywhere, they only have *gasp* cassette tapes.  I downloaded my copy from Audible.  Either way you read it, I still highly recommend it.  The copy I link to here is a new edition that came out in June of this year.  The edition in my upper picture is from 2000.  The one below is the new edition.  Isn’t the new cover gorgeous?  It looks like all of McMurtry’s books got a similar treatment and I find myself wishing I didn’t own my copies, so I could get the new ones!  Silly me….  

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June 27, 2012

The School of Essential Ingredients by Erika Bauermeister – Audiobook Review

In honor of audiobook week, I’m rerunning my reviews of some of my favorite audiobooks. The School of Essential Ingredients was the first time I heard the magic that is Cassandra Campbell’s voice. This magical book held me captivated to the very end.

I downloaded this from the library on a whim.  I knew it was a food book, which I knew I normally love, but I only kind of knew what it was about.  I’d seen reviews on blogs, but I pretty much just skimmed them (thinking I wanted to read it and didn’t want to ruin anything!) but didn’t retain much of anything about what the book was about.  I knew I liked the cover and I thought “what the heck” and “I need something to listen to” and “well, all the books I really want to listen to are checked out” so “I’ll get this one.”

Let me tell you.  It was the BEST book decision I had made in quite awhile and I think of the main ingredients in pulling me out of my slump.  Pun fully intended.

The first impression I had, as I started up the book on my iPod, was Oh My Goodness where has this narrator been all my life?  Cassandra Campbell has an amazing voice and was perfect for this book.  I would (seriously) put her up there with Neil Gaiman, who I have always said I would gladly love to listen to him read the phone book.  Her voice is wonderful.   But I instantly fell in love with this book because of the story.  Or stories, rather, for The School of Essential Ingredients is, essentially, a collection of stories about a group of people who attend a cooking class in Lillian’s Restaurant, every Monday night.

These people are all searching for something.  The first of these students, Claire, is a young mother searching for the self she lost when her children were born.  Antonia, a beautiful, young Italian woman is searching for away to adapt to life in America.  Tom is a lonely widower, just looking to learn how to survive without the love of his life, his wife, who he lost to breast cancer.  Carl and Helen are looking for each other in the storm-tossed sea of their marriage.  Chloe who is just looking to belong and Ian, looking for love.  Each character’s story is as beautiful and touching as the first one, about Lillian herself and her search for the mother who is there, but not.

And then, there’s the food.  If you can pick up this book and not come away hungry, I’m afraid there is something wrong with you.  The flavors, the aromas, and the textures are all lovingly detailed and mouthwatering.  Each meal sounds sumptuous and delicious; the characters tales the fine wine holding it all together.  I hate that I waited so long to read this book.

And, as I said, Cassandra Campbell’s reading is perfect for this book.  If you love food books, audiobooks, or marvelous character studies, you can’t go wrong with The School of Essential Ingredients.

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June 26, 2012

Audiobook Week – So You Want to Review Audiobooks….

Tuesday: So You Want to Review Audiobooks…
Discuss the essentials of audiobook reviewing. What do you make sure to include? What do you want to see when you read other people’s reviews?

I don’t exactly consider myself any sort of authority on reviewing any kind of book, audio or not, so I am just going to discuss what I appreciate in someone else’s review. I guess these are the sort of things I try to put into my own reviews.

Story

Like all book reviews, I want to know what the book is about. Not too much, of course, just enough to give me a tease, a taste, a hint of what to expect from the book.

Narration

This, is essential. The main thing I look for in an audiobook review. Quite possibly the only reason I’m reading it. It. is. essential. I want to know who the reader is, first thing. Every time I go to my library’s website, I get so ticked off because they NEVER have the reader listed on ANY of their audiobooks. Next, I want to know if they did a good job. Did they use accents? Did their voice change for characters? Could you tell male from female? Did they transport you to another world? Will you listen to another book they read?

That sort of stuff.

Production Value

Production value has become so good that honestly, I don’t even think about it with new books. Older books, however, are another story. I’ve listened to books where I could swear I faintly heard a telephone ring. I’ve listened to books where I could hear every single breath the reader took. While this isn’t always distracting, it’s still something I’d like to know about it.

So, there you have it. The essentials of audiobook reviewing, in my humble opinion. What do you look for in audiobook reviews? What books have you been lead to listen to because of an audiobook review?

See Jen’s blog for more answers to today’s question and more Audiobook Week goodness!

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June 26, 2012

The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck

In honor of Audiobook Week, I’m rerunning a few of my favorite audiobooks. The Good Earth was a very pleasant surprise and showed me that maybe all those classics I’d been wanting to read might be made more manageable if I read them with the audio. I have a couple more Pearl S. Buck books on my iPod and I can’t wait to get to them.

The word epic was created for this book. No, not really… but it could have been. The Good Earth is epic in every sense of the word. The Good Earth tells the story of Wang Lung, a Chinese farmer and his family as they struggle to survive a peasant life in old China. It begins with Wang Lung looking at his old father saying, “I need a woman,” to him getting said woman, to them having lots of children. In between there are times of plenty, times of famine, births, deaths, and the acquiring of more land, more glorious land!  Wang Lung is obsessed with land! Okay, it’s about a whole lot more, but I don’t want to give too much away.

And the writing. The writing is so beautiful. Witness:

“There was only this perfect sympathy of movement, of turning this earth of theirs over and over to the sun, this earth which formed their home and fed their bodies and made their gods…Some time, in some age, bodies of men and women had been buried there, houses had stood there, had fallen, and gone back into the earth. So would also their house, some time, return into the earth, their bodies also. Each had his turn at this earth. They worked on, moving together-together-producing the fruit of this earth.”

and

“Wang Lung sat smoking, thinking of the silver as it had lain upon the table. It had come out of the earth, this silver, out of the earth that he ploughed and turned and spent himself upon. He took his life from the earth; drop by drop by his sweat he wrung food from it and from the food, silver. Each time before this that he had taken the silver out to give to anyone, it had been like taking a piece of his life and giving it to someone carelessly. But not for the first time, such giving was not pain. He saw, not the silver in the alien hand of a merchant in the town; he saw the silver transmuted into something worth even more than life itself – clothes upon the body of his son.”

and

“But Wang Lung thought of his land and pondered this way and that, with the sickened heart of deferred hope, how he could get back to it. He belonged, not to this scum which clung to the walls of a rich man’s house; nor did he belong to the rich man’s house. He belonged to the land and he could not live with any fullness until he felt the land under his feet and followed a plow in the springtime and bore a scythe in his hand at harvest.”

Oh, I could quote the whole book at you. Every word, every sentence, felt so carefully constructed, so lovingly crafted. The main characters were so well written. This book was made for me. Or, rather, I was made for it. Either way you put it, I loved this book. The gardener in me loved the farmer in there. Wang Lung was born into a farming family and he embraced it. To say the land was the blood running through is veins is putting it VERY mildly. I have to say, loving land seems like such a Southern thing to me. That probably sounds narrow-minded, but I grew up hearing things like “Buy land, they won’t make any more of it,” and “Hold on to your land” etc, etc. My grandparents (who raised me) were Irish descendants, so I always assumed it was an Irish thing. Plus, I’ve never read a book set in China where someone was so obsessed with his land. Truthfully, I’ve never read a book where a character was so obsessed with land! I am thrilled to have finally read this book!

Fair warning, we’re probably getting into spoiler territory, but I have to get this off my chest.

The only thing I just couldn’t get over was the treatment of women. Wow, did the Chinese have a low opinion of girls and women. I felt for O-lan. Oh, how I felt for O-lan. Acquired from a great house where she was a kitchen slave, she did not find herself elevated very much upon becoming Wang Lung’s wife. He treated her like a possession. He consistently mistreated her. When she arises from giving birth to their first child, she comes back to the field to help. him. work. And does she get a thank you? No. She gets his silent admiration, which means nothing. He never appreciated her until she was gone. And that made me hate Wang Lung. There were many things I liked about him, but that. That was inexcusable. Makes me glad the revolution happened and I hope the Chinese have improved their attitudes.

Okay, rant over.

I listened to the audio production by Blackstone Audio. Anthony Heald read The Good Earth and did a marvelous job. I have never listened to him read a book before, but I will definitely seek him out in the future. I loved the way he did the old man, Wang Lung’s father. And he was able to feminize his voice for the women, despite having quite a deep voice. All in all, he made it a pleasure to listen to this book.

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June 15, 2012

A Little Bit About: The Snow Child, The Wise Man's Fear, and Mercury

I hate it, but I waited way too long to review these books, PLUS, I’m not feeling the blogging mojo after coming back from vacation. AND I’m still sick. So sick I just typed stick for still sick. Gah. SO, in the spirit of killing two birds with one stone, and giving my befeebled sick brain something to do, I give you MINI REVIEWS!

The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey

I’m not sure why I haven’t reviewed this book yet. It’s fairytale quality, luscious prose, and unique ending were right up my alley. I guess by the time it came to review it, everyone had already said everything I wanted to say! This story of a couple who so desperately want a child that they wish one into being (or do they?) really struck a chord with me, having had a miscarriage (although I was nowhere near as far along) myself.

Also, I adore the cover.

The Wise Man’s Fear by Patrick Rothfuss

You guys, I really really hate hate HATE giving this book a mini-review. Yet, it’s just been too long since I read it to give it a proper review! It’s sad, because honestly, I adored this book as much as the first one (The Name of the Wind; my review) and, my biggest fear is that people will not give these books a chance because of their size. I almost didn’t give them a chance because of their size. But trust me when I say that size, here, does not matter. The pages fly by. Kvothe’s story of magic, bravery, a little bit of foolishness, hardheadedness, the meaning of friendship, love, and growing up is impossible to put down and this newest chapter of his story is just as riveting as the first. I seriously cannot wait for the last (sob!) chunkster of the series. There are very few characters I literally have a die-hard crush on and Kvothe is on that very short list (hello Jamie!). Oh my goodness but Rothfuss is a magician with words. With story. With my brain.

Mercury by Hope Larson

You guys, this graphic novel is cuh-reepy. In a good way. See, there are these two girls. One lives in with her family in 1859 Nova Scotia struggling to scrape out a life for themselves in an unforgiving new world. The other lives in Nova Scotia today, struggling to scrape her way back to normalcy after the loss of everything (but her mother) she holds dear in a tragic house fire. As these two stories slowly unfurl, and come together, things take a…rather…terrifying turn. I sincerely hope Larson (ha, see what I did there?) is planning to continue the story, because it ended with one heck of a cliffhanger! The art is stark and gorgeous, the story engaging and new; I highly recommend this one.

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April 3, 2012

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

This is one of those reviews where I’ve been sitting here going, “um…where do I begin?” And “what do I say?” And “I’ll never be able to make anyone want to read this book.”

It can get kind of ugly when I get like that.

This calls for my trusty standby method, which I rarely use because I feel it is not very effective. Gush and rave. Gush and rave. Because oh my goodness y’all. I am a child of the 80s and I ADORED THIS BOOK. And I completely and totally adored Wil Wheaton, the geek wizard who narrates the book.

Okay. So. The year is 2044 and the world is jacked into the net like never before because WOW the real world? It’s ugly. Very ugly. Thanks to James Halliday, a Steve Jobs like character, there is a place to go. He created a virtual reality world where people work, go to school, play games and basically do all their living except for the bare necessities. Like everyone else, our main geeky geek Wade Wyatt, goes into the OASIS, this virtual world, and spends all his waking hours there. Wade is a, well, a nobody. He goes to school. He lives with his crazy aunt because his mom and dad died a long time ago. He doesn’t have a lot of friends and the ones he does have, he met in the OASIS. As in he’s never met them in real life. He is, by most standards, a loser. But he’s a SMART loser. And he’s just so darn LIKE-ABLE. He has underdog written all over his immersion suit.

Like the rest of the world, Wade hopes to solve the greatest mystery of the times. When James Halliday died, he bequeathed his ENORMOUS fortune to the gamer who beats his game. Obsessed with the 80s and 80s culture (movies, games, music, books, and more are not safe), Halliday created a difficult series of riddles that must be solved to get the keys, open the gates, and win the prize. For years gamers have quested to find the prize, and no one, NO ONE, has made it to the first gate.

Until Wade Wyatt.

If you are a child of the 80s, ever lived in the 80s or no anything ABOUT the 80s, I can’t see how you can’t find something to love in this book. If you’ve played Ms Pac-man, watched a Matthew Broderick movie, listened to Rush, loved everything John Hughes, or played Dungeons and Dragons, or more, you will find something familiar in this book. And that is just. the. tip. of. the. iceberg. And even if you don’t know much about these things, and more, I don’t see how you wouldn’t love this book because at it’s heart, it’s a great story of a boy, and a girl, saving the universe. And, you know, themselves and such.

And Wil Wheaton’s narration? Is masterful. I have found a new favorite narrator. And I loved it when the text referred to him. It was a like a magical Easter Egg (pun all KINDS of intended, if you’ve read the book) of fantastic fun.

So, I’m sure I didn’t really convince you to read it. If I did, please let me know and boost my morale a bit. If you don’t love this book, I’ll eat my hat. If it’s made of Pop Rocks and Hubba Bubba and Tab.

Yuck.

Favorite quotes:

Being human totally sucks most of the time. Videogames are the only thing that make life bearable.

I watched a lot of YouTube videos of cute geeky girls playing ’80s cover tunes on ukuleles. Technically, this wasn’t part of my research, but I had a serious cute-geeky-girls-playing-ukuleles fetish that I can neither explain nor defend.

Whenever I saw the sun, I reminded myself that I was looking at a star. One of over a hundred billion in our galaxy. A galaxy that was just one of billions of other galaxies in the observable universe. This helped me keep things in perspective.

“Continue your quest by taking the test

Yes, but what test? What test was I supposed to take? The Kobayashi Maru? The Pepsi Challenge? Could the clue have been any more vague?”  ME: Do you have any idea how proud I was that I knew what the Kobayashi Maru was???? 

I created the OASIS because I never felt at home in the real world. I didn’t know how to connect with the people there. I was afraid, for all of my life, right up until I knew it was ending. That was when I realized, as terrifying and painful as reality can be, it’s also the only place where you can find true happiness. Because reality is real.

They read it:

eclectic/eccentric (who says reading this made her miss World of Warcraft)

Devourer of Books (who says “Wil Wheaton’s narration lends it that extra oomph, so get ahold of it in audio if you can.”)

The Readventurer (who calls this book nostalgia porn, the best two word description ever)

The 3 R’s Blog (who confesses to not being much of a gamer, but that the book was written in her language anyway)

Other fun stuff:

The Spotify Playlist for Ready Player One

Ready Player One website

Ready Player One Wikipedia entry

Ready Player One Facebook page

And lastly, the trailer:

 

 

 

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February 8, 2012

Mini Reviews – Owly, Goon Squad, Chime

Since I still have a few books left over to review from last year, I thought I’d go the mini review route again this week. I kinda like doing it like this!

Owly Vol 1 & 2
By Andy Runton

These are the first graphic novels I “read” on my Nook Tablet. I say “read” because these lovely little GNs don’t use many words. In the tradition of Pixar, Andy Runton says a lot with his characters actions and facial expressions. Owly is a sweet little owl just looking for a friend. All the other birds are scared of him, they give him a wide berth, and he’s feeling the loneliness. After saving a little worm from drowning and helps him get him, it looks like the same thing is going to happen again. Does he finally make a friend? I’ll leave it to you to decide. These 2 volumes were sweet little diversions that I know I will return to again and again for their uplifting and fun message.

A Visit from the Goon Squad
By Jennifer Egan

Oh my gosh, I have next to nothing to say about this hot mess. *gasp* I know. It’s like sacrilegious to say such a thing, isn’t it? EVERYONE loved this book last year! Well, obviously I missed something. Or maybe I should have read it instead of listening to the audio. I don’t know. What I do no is, I detested this book with every fiber of my being and that rarely happens. No offense to Ms. Egan, I did find her writing, for the most part, quite lovely. It was her characters. I don’t think I found one to simply LIKE. I did enjoy the music references. I found a lot of old punk bands to try out. And seriously, I love the cover. However, I think this is a case of “it’s me, not you” so I think we have to break up, Goon Squad. I just don’t understand you.

Chime
By Franny Billingsley

Chime has all the hallmarks of a great fairy tale. There (was) a stepmother. There are twins. There are spirits. There is magic. Witches. Fear. And the handsome young (princelike) dude who comes for the heroine to fall in love with and help save the day.

Billingsley took all those ingredients and turned them on their head, so to speak. At first, I wasn’t quite sure what she was doing. Briony is hard to read, her narration is just…difficult. Rose is hard to watch. And, as with all YA fiction nowadays, I feared Eldric would merely be a characture of the many other heroes who have come before him. Yet, by the end, I was completely engrossed, grabbed by the nosehairs, could not put it down, had to know what happened right now thank you very much. Ms. Billingsley, I was so wrong and I hope you forgive me because your book is freaking awesome.

Also, excellent cover.

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