Katie Bee Reads

Review - Fire

2009-11-02T07:22:00.000-08:00

Fire
Author: Karen Cashore
Rating: 4.0/5.0

So I've not been reviewing much because life has been complicated, in a good way. I didn't stop reading books this year, but I did run out of time and energy for posting about them. And back-reviewing is too much to think about at this point so I'll just start off with the book I just finished.

Fair enough? On to the review.

To summarize the plot, Fire is the name of the main character, a girl who is not human by definition, but rather a monster of the human type. The story is set in a place called the Dells, and in this land there are monster animals, that look like everyday animals except that they are crazy colors, like fuschia and apple green, etc... As the story sets out, Fire is the last living human monster, and her monsterness gives her both impossible beauty and the ability to read and sometimes control minds. In an unstable kingdom that is about to go to war she becomes a sought after tool.

When I read Graceling, Cashore's first novel, in September, I felt it had a strong resemblance to a few books by Robin McKinley that I really loved, and that is mostly what made me want to pick up this prequel. I loved Graceling's Po, and hoped we'd see someone similar in this novel.

My initial reaction to introduction of monsters in this book was What? Monsters? And I still am not thrilled by the unoriginal name choice. But getting past that, the world is fairly solid as long as you don't expect a whole lot of explanations. We never find out why, for example, human monsters are pretty much extinct.

Fire is young but she has a past which makes her lonely and we discover, bit by bit, that even the most beautiful girl in the kingdom can have serious problems. And you get to liking her and her people more and more as the story progresses. Most of the characters all have a certain depth, and this, along with their interactions, was to me, the strength this book has over Graceling. The writing overall is a little better in this novel also.

Fire's beauty brings out the good and the bad in others, especially men, which is a strong theme of the book. The author seems to make almost every male character act like an ass at some point, which got a little irritating to me by the end. When it serves no purpose for the plot, why?

Along the same lines, Fire definitely has a feminist air about it, and to me, a weird emphasis on womens' reproduction issues. I'm trying to remember the last time I read about a woman's monthly cycle in a fiction book, and it may be The Clan of the Cave Bear series which I can hardly remember now.

It's hard to discuss some parts of the book without spoiling the plot, but I did have a sneaking suspicion/worry that after love interest A had been resolved there would be a plot twist where love interest B would be a star-crossed lover and maybe blood-related somehow. If that had happened I would have definitely called foul and maybe suggest the book should have been titled Fire: A tragedy.

Book Review - The Hunger Games

2009-03-10T14:13:00.001-07:00

The Hunger Games
Author: Suzanne Collins
Rating: 4.75/5.0

The second half of last year there were many new books being talked about that I wanted to read. Of course, new, so in hardcover. Ugh. Who wants a big hardcover book taking up space when you don't know for certain whether you will even want to think about reading it a second time? I of course am still dreaming of the day when I have the perfect e-Reader and where I will keep or toss with careless abandon or careful consideration, depending on the day. We'll get there eventually.

The Hunger Games was one of the books I kept hearing about, but oddly not really anything about the plot, but that it was great. Then it won the Cybils 2008-2009 award for YA literature.

So finally I bought the book on Amazon.co.uk last month. The UK version has a different look than the USA version - it's a "choose your own cover", where the reader can fold the front cover to have either Katniss, the main character, or Peeta, the supporting character, peeking out. Cute.

But then I realize, someone has made a mistake, when you fold it so Peeta peeks out - he's not centered! Not even close.

So the story line, in brief because I think it's better going into this book without knowing what is going to happen, is about a future world where the United States is defunct. There exists a big brother government called "The Capitol", shiny and modern, and twelve districts that exist mainly to produce goods/services to be used in The Capitol. Every year there is a competition, where teens either volunteer or (more usually) get picked, to participate in something called the Hunger Games. It's a televised fight to the death between 24 twelve to eighteen year olds. Katniss volunteers, even though she's small and probably doesn't stand a chance. You should definitely pick this novel up to read about why she does and what happens after.

Right, so what a great novel! It's not a fancy word book, or overly shocking (some may argue that point considering some of the brutality and death), but it's full of well-paced action, great characters, and an intriguing plot. You hear all the time about books that are so good and fast that you can't put them down. Well I usually can. I read this book in one weekend. I would also say that this book potentially has a very broad audience and is easily recommendable.

I want to re-read it again sometime, and there's no way I'm missing the sequel, which has a September 2009 release date.

The question: Will I be able to hold out for sequel to be released in paperback?

Book Review - Inkheart

2009-02-28T10:13:00.000-08:00

Inkheart
Author: Cornelia Funke
Rating: 3.0/5.0

So I read this book way back in 2008, but I have been off reading for a bit, I'm a phase reader I suppose. I love reading but it takes time, and it takes solitary time, both of which seem to be in short supply sometimes. When I read too much I start feeling guilty about neglecting other things in my life. Strange? Perhaps, but that has nothing to do with Inkheart, so let's get at it.

I'll admit, I had some hesitance for this book, especially after my sister told me she had gotten annoyed with them. She has, to my knowledge, only read the first two, at the time the third was not released yet, but it is now.

Inkheart follows the life of Meggie and her father Mo. Both Meggie, Mo, and it seems almost every character in the book, have a deep-seated love of books and literature. This aspect is entertaining to most readers because references to many classic childrens stories are sprinkled throughout the story, and even play integral parts.

At the beginning we're a bit confused because the reader is kept in the dark about the past, just as Meggie is, but we know that bad guys are after Mo and that they want a certain book, the book being Inkheart. It turns out Mo has a magic talent, that so far is uncontrollable, but which allows him to read characters out of books and into reality. Whoa. That's a fun thought, especially if you think back to all the fun or interesting or terrible characters you've encountered in books.

Sadly, I didn't enjoy this book as much as I had hoped I would. The book is big, 535 pages thick, and it felt like the story was being dragged out at numerous points. It seemed like the main characters were chased too many times and that the lulls between the action didn't really make sense.

I also felt like the writing was very much on the young side, which is maybe why I didn't love it as much. It certainly has outstanding reviews on Amazon so maybe this one just didn't hit me in the right place.

Book Review - The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau

2009-02-28T09:48:00.001-08:00

The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks
Author: E. Lockhart
Rating: 4.0/5.0

Frankie starts the novel as a sophmore at Alabaster Preparatory school, an exclusive boarding school. The reader finds out right away that Frankie has "filled out" over the summer and now has curves in all the right places. During a minor bicycle accident Frankie gets rescued and boyfriended by most beautiful and popular boy at school and from there is ushered into the elite group at her elite school. All of the sudden she's sitting at the senior's table and she feels happier than she's ever felt. But Frankie's a smart girl, and she doesn't take her new status as many girls might.

She realizes that Matthew and his friends, hers only by association, are part of a secret boys only club that has existed at this school for generations, one that her father has made passing references towards from when he attended the school.

During this time, though, many a thoughts are brewing, not just about the lies all "her friends" are telling, but about her place in her family, at this school, in this society:

At home she's called Bunny.

Just because she's a girl she can't walk by herself in an unknown area.

There are no women in high positions at the school, past or present.

So Frankie decides to crash the secret fraternity. She's testing the limits of what she can do, who she can manipulate, and isn't caring much at all if she has to be cruel, lie, or hide her feelings in the process.

The results are an entertaining read. The pacing is perfect. It's just long enough and the climax and resolution are fitting. The themes provide much to think about, especially for those who are still trying to figure out what they want from relationships and from themselves, isn't that all of us? For example, here's one section I found intriguing, from early in the novel where Frankie gets invited to a late night party:

"Most young women, when confronted with the peculiarly male nature of certain events - usually those incorporating beer or other substances guaranteed to kill off a few brain cells, and often involving either freezing-cold outdoors or the near-suffocating heat of a filthy dorm room, but which can also in more intellectual circles, include the watching of boring Russian films - will reach in one of three ways.

Some, like Trish, will wonder what the point is, figure there is probably no point and never was one, and opt for typically feminine or domestic activities such as (apple) crumble-making, leaving
whatever boyfriends they have to "hang with the guys."

Others, like Star, will be bored most of the time but will continue attending such events because they are the girlfriends [...] and they don't want to seem like killjoys or harpies [...] The girls will chatter among themselves and generally make a quiet display of being interested in whatever the boys think is interesting.

The third group aggresively embraces the activity at hand. These girls dislike the marginalized position such events naturally put them in, and they are determined not to stay on those margins. They do what the boys do wholeheartedly, if sometimes a little falsely. Whether their enthusiasm is forced or entirely genuine, these girls gain respect from the boys. [...]

Although Frankie went home that night feeling happier than she had ever been in her short life, she did not confuse the golf course party with a good party, and she didn not tell herself that she had had a pleasant time. It had been, she felt, a dumb event preceded by excellent invitations. What Frankie did that was unusual was to imagine herself in control. [...] She asked herself: If I were in charge, how could I have done it better?"

So true. Of course we want to hear more about what Frankie will do!

I enjoyed this book for many reasons, like picking up some trivia about Robert Louis Stevenson and the SF Suicide club, but I'm still conflicted by it. Probably the biggest problem I had was with the characters. While I found the boarding school to be completely believable, I didn't completely buy many of the main characters. The supposedly witty banter between the boys, that Frankie found so enthralling, felt forced. And then there is Frankie herself. She is supposed to be completely ordinary and a mastermind at the same time, but in the end I didn't find her fitting either role satisfyingly. If she had single-handedly orchestrated the events in the second half of the book, I think her reactions might have been more critical, more obsessed. More complex. If she had just been ordinary, then I don't know, there wouldn't be much story here.

The geek in me wanted time stamps on email exchanges. I don't know about anyone else but I read significance, imaginary or not, into the delays between heated email arguments.

Breaking Dawn 3/4

2008-08-24T04:11:00.001-07:00

Seems like I feel like writing reviews at the three-quarter marks lately.

Okay, here we go. My opinion of Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer in one word would be:

Fun.

I mean, from a fan perspective it's everything you could want and then some. It's not perfect, but it's pretty much an attempt to make everyone happy. Lucky for the die-hard fans - it's quite lengthy. At a few points I felt it being overly long-winded. For example, Bella's condition sequences seem to take forever. And then there are recaps after the experience. Oh boy.

At the point I'm at now, I see one more big event in the book, and I'm not sure it's not going to be anticlimatic. I'm kind of wondering why the Jacob twist wasn't saved for later. I think that rolled in with this last event would have been more satisfying. That would have also given some salt to a very sugary book.

I can definitely see why some people didn't like the turn this novel brought, though it wasn't upsetting to me. Edward and Bella go from the brink of unimaginable possibilities to a very normal seeming life. Almost traditional. Post-happily-ever-after. It's not a bad thing, but it's not really romantic per say. Also, some of the Cullens have lost their mystique for me. Alice seems less refreshing (though I'm still a fan) and Jasper has never quite felt real to me. I cannot figure out why Alice and Jasper are together. Is it just me?

Even so, it's been exciting. I liked the second section of this novel told from Jacob's perspective. I really like Jacob and his world. It was interesting to see things from his side, especially with the shared thoughts dynamic. Good to see Jacob take a stand. Loved the Jacob-Edward mental sparring. Didn't love the Jacob-Rosalie verbal sparring.

I'm definitely interested in Edward's version of the story. Edward is still my favorite and there still seems to be some mystery left there. It would be nice if Edward's story had more of an adult depth to it, especially since he's lived so much longer.

More Twilight Mania

2008-08-13T12:38:00.000-07:00

So, there's no denying it. I get like this sometimes... a little overboard in love with a song or a book or a movie... it's probably not healthy. Meh. What do they say, you aren't crazy if you are asking if you are?

So, I just finished book 3, Eclipse, part of the Twilight series. The series has generated quite the stir this month with the release of the 4th book, and the final from Bella's perspective. Anyway, call it good or bad, all I know is that the characters got me going. I can't say exactly why, but I've got a crush at the moment, and I don't think that is a bad thing. And I'm not alone, there are literally hundreds of new reports and posts about a similar reaction.

I don't have book 4 in my possession so I was looking for it on Amazon.de, since I can't seem to find it in town. I originally didn't want to pre-order it because sometimes pre-orders take longer than just buying the book when you catch sight of it, for example Harry Potter 7 last year. I was half way through a borrowed copy of the novel when mine showed up. Ahh well. Anyway, I found the German translated version of the first three on Amazon and I think the covers are nice, maybe you will too:

Bis(s) zum Morgengrauen (Until Dawn) [aka Twilight]:

Bis(s) zur Mittagstunde (Until Midday) [aka New Moon]:

Bis zum Abendrot (Until Sunset) [aka Eclipse]:

And yes, I think I will order Breaking Dawn now. Thank you very much. tee hee.

3/4 Review of Eclipse

2008-08-11T04:31:00.001-07:00

I am about 3/4 way through Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer. This is supposed to be the book in the Twilight series that everyone hates. The one where Bella is annoying and Jacob is irritating, or the other way around.

I don't hate it. In fact, I like it.

Sure, parts of the book aren't quite necessary. Bella is immature. Jacob is immature. Edward occasionally feels like an over-zealous security guard. A couple of the conversations(ok maybe ALOT) feel a little awkard to me. Some of the control issues could be concerning. It doesn't seem to matter.

I forgive it's awkward moments because I like being Bella. No, I don't have her personality, and honestly, she doesn't do anything that would make Edward and Jacob fall so madly in love. What does she do? She goes to school. She cooks her father spaghetti. She's semi-antisocial. She doesn't like parties (neither do I for that matter). She seems to do most things because of a sense of obligation. She does have a "magic" ability that so far hasn't been developed. I'm sometimes very critical with books, especially ones with questionable character development, but for some reason I just like reading these. Why?

I've thought about it, and what makes it such a fun read (in part), is the fantasy world building. Who doesn't want to go spend an afternoon at the beach, followed by Native American stories by the campfire, your boyfriend waiting to pick you up? Or the graduation party set in the big mansion in the woods.

The suburban nowheres-ville that happens to be full of extra special people. The Cullen family somehow remind me of the family out of the Tuck Everlasting novel. And Jacob's family, well, they seem exotic in just the opposite kind of way. All of this set in a quiet town where, if you can put yourself in Bella's shoes, you fit in but don't. My parents moved at the beginning of highschool for me, so I totally understand this aspect of Bella's life. I love all of this. Call me a cheeseball, but this is a really comfortable place to escape.

I do reserve the right to change my opinion of book 3 if the last 100 pages take a drastic turn, but overall I think it's a good addition to the series.

Nothern Lights or The Golden Compass

2008-07-16T14:43:00.001-07:00

Northern Lights / The Golden Compass
Author: Phillip Pullman
Rating: 3.75/5.0

So as I told my friends as I read this book over the last week or so, I do believe I'm the last person who wanted to read this book, but still had not. I think I went into it with high expectations - of either fantasy like I've never read, or some kind crazy anti-religion zealousness. It wasn't really either, but it was still an interesting read.

So the main character is a 12-year old girl named Lyra, and she and everyone else in this parallel world wear their souls on the outside of their bodies in the shape of an animal.

An animal that doesn't eat or drink from what I can tell, but does like to sleep.

As a child, a person's daemon (as they are called) can change forms and this is quite fun to read about - bird, dolphin, cat, insect, for whatever the situation or mood requests.

So there are politics in this world, influenced heavily by religious groups, perhaps more or less than our world, but definitely more obviously. But the bigger story is following Lyra. A couple of her friends have gone missing so she's trying to rescue them, while simultaneously escaping from some baddies, stumbling into some science experiments, befriending bears, and generally venturing into the Northern lights area above central Europe.

My sister said something that I definitely agree with about this book:

"It reads like a movie script"

There is action without pause really, for the entire length of this first novel (first of three). In some ways this is good, but I do think it misses some of the magical pauses that let the imagination go where it will. The example that comes to mind is Harry Potter (I think it's a fair comparison for this novel). There are points in the Harry Potter series where you are presented with something fantastic to think about, and given enough time to enjoy the experience - like the sorting hat in the great hall, or the candy shop in the wintery village, or Ronald Weasley's crazy lop-sided house. Anyway, this book does give you some great chances to escape, wondering what type of daemon you'd want for yourself. At least I know I had that thought once or twice while I was reading it.

So as I said, this was the book everyone was talking about at the end of last year because it was turned into a movie. The controversy was the theme of the book which was supposed to have an atheist undertone. Book 1 at least is mild in this respect, maybe later in the trilogy the more anti-Christianity themes get more page-time. I didn't feel bogged down by this, there is only one point towards the end of the novel where it feels like we've somehow stumbled into two people talking about philosophy on their coffee break. It felt a bit strange in this book that rarely slowed down for idle chat, but not creepy.

All in all, I will be wanting to follow up with the next two in the series. It's an interesting book and I am curious if we ever find out what Lyra's adult daemon form will be.

By the way, I did just watch the movie over last weekend too - didn't enjoy it much though. It could have been just me (since I literally finished the book and an hour later was watching the movie) but the story felt disjointed in its movie form. I thought Lyra would be pronounced (Leer-ah, not Lie-rah) but I did enjoy Nicole Kidman as Ms. Coulter.

Big Read, meme (whatever meme means)

2008-07-11T13:03:00.000-07:00

The instructions are as follows

Look at the list and:

Bold those you have read.

Italicize those you intend to read.

Underline the books you LOVE.

1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen

2. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien

3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte

4. Harry Potter series - JK Rowling

5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee

6. The Bible

7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte

8. 1984 - George Orwell

9. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman

10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

11. Little Women - Louisa M Alcott

12. Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy

13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller

14. Complete Works of Shakespeare

15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier

16. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien

17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks

18. Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger

19. The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger

20. Middlemarch - George Eliot

21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchel

22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald

23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens

24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy

25. The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams

26. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh

27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck

29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll

30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame

31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy

32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens

33. Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis

34. Emma - Jane Austen

35. Persuasion - Jane Austen

36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis

37. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini

38. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres

39. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden

40. Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne

41. Animal Farm - George Orwell

42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown

43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving

45. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins

46. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery

47. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy

48. The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood

49. Lord of the Flies - William Golding

50. Atonement - Ian McEwan

51. Life of Pi - Yann Martel

52. Dune - Frank Herbert

53. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons

54. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen

55. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth

56. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon

57. A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens

58. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley

59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon

60. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

61. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck

62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov

63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt

64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold

65. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas

66. On The Road - Jack Kerouac

67. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy

68. Bridget Jones’ Diary - Helen Fielding

69. Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie

70. Moby Dick - Herman Melville

71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens

72. Dracula - Bram Stoker

73. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett

74. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson

75. Ulysses - James Joyce

76. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath

77. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome

78. Germinal - Emile Zola

79. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray

80. Possession - AS Byatt

81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens

82. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell

83. The Color Purple - Alice Walker

84. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro

85. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert

86. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry

87. Charlotte’s Web - EB White

88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom

89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

90. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton

91. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad

92.The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery

93. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks

94. Watership Down - Richard Adams

95. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole

96. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute

97. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas

98. Hamlet - William Shakespeare

99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl

100. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

So 35 total. Curious though, isn't the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe part of the Chronicles of Narnia?

Looking at this list, esp the underlined ones makes for a little heartache. Some books really are like good friends. Also fun because there are some (undoubtedly) really good books on that list that I want to read!

Half way through

2008-07-10T12:55:00.000-07:00

The Golden Compass (as know as Northern Lights here in Europe). Okay, yes, I think I am one of the last people on the planet to read this book. My non-big-reader friends have read this book in front of me.

So, it's good. It's not got me spell-bound, but I like it. So far the only things I find lacking is that this alethiometer meter seems to be too powerful. Lyra knows how to use it and it will answer any question? What now??

The other thing I find a little odd is that the girl seems relatively unphased at being lied to her whole life, running away from her mother, and finding out her uncle turned father is being held captive. That's a pretty big burden, even for super woman, or whatever it is she is supposed to be.

Anyway, I'm still intrigued. This daemon concept is interesting. I'll write a more complete review when I'm finished.

Also, I'm counting the Dark Materials series even though I'm reading it now. Looking at the list, the underlined ones really do my heart do ache. Some books are soooo great. They are like friends.

The Book Thief

2008-07-06T13:56:00.001-07:00

The Book Thief
Author: Markus Zusak
Rating: 4.0/5.0

So I've been hearing about this book for some time now. I got it for my sister Liz for Christmas and she said she really enjoyed it. Of course this further fueled my desire to read it.

So, from Amazon, this is the synopsis:

The story of a young German girl who steals books, of her family and the Jewish boxer hidden in their basement as they struggle to survive in Nazi Germany when the bombs begin to fall.

For some reason, I never found this description when I was reading books blogs. I was either skipping lines, or was gravitating more to the fact that the main character has a thing for books and that the narrator is Death. I was curious how that would work out.

When I got the book in my hands, I realized this book was set in WWII. I must admit I went into the story with my arms stretched long. I tried to guess who was going to live until the end of the story. Who was going to break my heart, you know?

For anyone else who is a fready-cat like me but also interested in this part of history, I do recommend it. You won't need a tissue box (at least I didn't!)

This is the kind of book where the characters grow on you. It's interesting, at least to me, who has read only a few books on this topic, The Diary of Anne Frank and Sophie's Choice come to mind immediately, that the book is told from the perspective of Germans in Germany. People who don't have much choice in the goings on prior and during the war. They are just making do, with less and less. There's a Jew in the basement no one can speak about. He's becoming part of the family.

The book becomes a thing you love for all things that have nothing to do with the war, but the interaction of the characters.

As for Death as the narrator? I don't think he makes or breaks this novel. It does give the author a chance to discuss the nature of war and how confusing humans can be.

I have a bit of interest in World War II of late, as my boyfriend and I took a tour of eastern Europe in May and even got the opportunity to visit Auschwitz in Poland. It's a tough subject to approach without feeling a like a heel. I admire authors who take the chance.

Nobody's Princess

2008-06-15T11:52:00.001-07:00

Nobody's Princess

Author: Esther Friesner
Rating: 3.75/5.0

I selected this book to be part of the Once Upon a Time II book challenge I started back in March. This book was my "mythology" pick. And it fits pretty well into the theme since this book is fictional account of the childhood of the beautiful Helen of Troy (or Helen of Sparta), a character from both the Iliad and the Odyssey.

So we first meet Helen in Friesner's retelling, when she is 5 years old and her father is dedicating a shrine to Aphrodite, who becomes Helen's preferred goddess. The story continues a bit later, where she becomes a tomboy and wants to learn combat and hunting skills like her brothers even though she is destined (as the oldest Spartan female daughter of the King) to be queen of Sparta one day.

I enjoyed the way the author added Greek Bronze Age culture to the story without it getting too detailed or feeling like a textbook. I especially liked the way she showed how everyday people and royalty felt about the gods, for example all the young men want to make sacrifices to Apollo so that they might have this god's grace and become heroes, or how Helen asks Hermes, the trickster god, for help when she is dressing like a boy to come and go from the palace without being stopped.

I must admit I'm feeling a little cheated. The book ends with Helen at age 14, and she's embarking on another adventure, i.e. book two, called Nobody's Prize . I might pick this one up when it comes out in paperback.

The Blue Castle

2008-06-15T11:25:00.001-07:00

The Blue Castle

Author: L.M. Montgomery
Rating: 4.75/5.0

This is my first ever read of a L.M. Montgomery novel, you know the Anne of Green Gables author. I think this could be categorized as blasphemy in some circles! And really, when thinking of how this could have happened (since I think I've seen Anne books in every Children's section of every library or bookstore I've ever been in), I think perhaps the flowers and bonnets book covers kept me away. Thankfully, this is no more.

So, back to The Blue Castle. This is a stand-alone novel from what I can tell; it's about a young woman named Valancy who is a bit of a plain Jane living in a small town where everyone knows everyone. She's been cowed her whole life by her mother and circumstance (and bored out of her mind) until she gets the news that she has roughly one year to live. Well, at this point she decides to have a little fun, and it's here that the novel gets interesting. Plain Jane no more!

It ends in a fairy tale type way and since I picked this book for the Once Upon a Time II Challenge for the fairy tale category, it fit perfectly for that. I think I would have liked the novel a teensy bit more if had ended a little less fairy-tale-ish even, but I understand why it ended how it did.

But I did think about this book and the characters long after I finished the novel. Isn't falling in love with a book a great feeling?

Dreams Underfoot

2008-06-15T09:24:00.001-07:00

Dreams Underfoot
Author: Charles de Lint
Rating: 4.0/5.0

This novel is a collection of short stories by Charles de Lint. All of the stories are a taking places at different points in time (with no emphasis on the passage of time really) but all are set in a town called Newford. Newford seems to be a medium to large sized city least in a world that is very near to ours. I pictured the city to be set in Canada (the author is from Ottawa) so I decided to try to find out for this post. I found the answer in an online interview
with the author, to which he answered a question about Newford by saying:

"Interestingly, Canadian readers tend to think of Newford as an American city, while Americans usually think of it as Canadian. No surprise really, I suppose, since it has elements of both."

So there were many different stories here, different even in how I would categorize them. A couple are a little creepy to me, some tend toward romance, some towards adventure, and some are re-telling of old folk tales. One thing they all have in common though, is the running theme:

there is magic in the world, you just have to know where/how to look for it

De Lint really drives this point home numerous times, especially in the stories in the first half of the novel. I was wondering if I was going to get annoyed by the preachiness of this mantra, but it evens out after the halfway mark, and I enjoyed the last half, and the whole novel really. And I did get into his mindset by the end. I think reading a second De Lint book will be easier, I find I need a little time to get into sync with some authors.

The short stories I enjoyed the most:

Romano Drom - punks, gypsies, destinies and folklore
Winter was Hard - violet-eyed strangers, winter snow, and frying bacon - if that isn't an interesting setting I don't know what would be
Our Lady of the Harbour - a re-telling of the The Little Mermaid
But for the Grace Go I - a more serious fictional person who lives on the streets.

Another thing I liked while was I reading is that most of the stories are littered with references to terms, artists, authors, musicians, cultures, etc... Some of these I had heard of before but others I got to look up, which is always interesting (but not necessary to appreciate the stories).

Here's a sampling:

Holograms in the Haunted Mansion Disney World
Bigfoot
Gypsies
Natalie Merchant, musician
Mucha, artist/art style
Pre-Raphaelite, art style
Norwegian Sami people
Cicely Mary Barker, artist famous for "flower fairies"
Terri Windling, artist, essayist
O.B. Hardison, poet, teacher, essayist, and author
Jaws
Mendelssohn "Concert in E Minor", composer, musician
The Jolly Green Giant
Monet, artist
Botticelli, artist
Andrew Lang, poet, novelist
Busking - playing in public for tips
Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream

As a first look into the works of Charles de Lint, I'm definitely ready to check out some others. This novel is part of my Once Upon a Time II challenge, for my folklore category novel.

For a Few Demons More

2008-04-12T11:03:00.000-07:00

For a Few Demons More
Author: Kim Harrison

Rating: 4.0/5.0

Review:
This is the fifth installment in the Hollows series, and once again we are in the midst of life and death situations that surround Rachel Morgan and her circle of friends and enemies. Yes, Rachel's enemies stick around, like any good comic series; they provide too much personality, plot development, and entertainment to simply die.

Just a short introduction for those who haven't read any of this series yet - the setting behind this urban fantasy is that a genetically-engineered catastrophe wiped out a large population of humans. The humans are still around and kicking but the vampires, witches, pixies, elves, werewolves, fairies, etc... felt free to show themselves to the modern world. Rachel, the main character, is a witch that lives in an old church with her vampire and pixy partners (Ivy and Jenks) doing consulting (private investigation) work for a living.

What I liked:

Action - vampire scrapping, magic spelling, pixie pixing fun
Female protagonist - with her bad fashion sense and too many references to coffee and desserts
World building - this fantasy is firmly-rooted in any readers mind - the Hollows do exist (in our imagination at least)
A little romance - to me, every good story needs a little romance

A few things about this particular book bothered me enough for me to try to figure out why. Overall it's a great series but this and the last two novels were definitely darker. I find that Rachel's reasoning for doing certain things differ greatly from what I would do in the same situation. She also seems to be attracted to almost every living creature she meets - no problem that she has a boyfriend who she supposedly loves but that we don't really see until the climatic end. These factors don't make it un-enjoyable, but it does distract me from time to time. I'm still whole-heartedly rooting for Rachel though, and the details about her successes and failures is entertaining reading. Kim Harrison is good at creating support characters that become very important to the reader. All in all, good fantasy, I recommend it!

P.S. This is my first book completed for my Once II challenge, my choice for the fantasy category.

Too much work

2008-04-10T14:10:00.000-07:00

leaves less time for reading. I did receive a notice that my latest order of books is at the post office though, so maybe this weekend I can get started on another book of my reading challenge!

Why not?

2008-03-30T13:00:00.000-07:00

Why not start out my new blog with a Spring book challenge?

It's called Once Upon a Time II, aptly named because this is the second year for the challenge. This year it runs from March 21st to June 20. So during that time I have challenged myself to read books meeting these requirements:

In this quest you will be reading 4 books total: one fantasy, one folklore, one fairy tale, and one mythology.

I must admit, this is my first ever book challenge. I hope I don't mess it up!

Here are my choices:

Fantasy: For a Few Demons More, Kim Harrison
Folklore: Dreams Underfoot, Charles de Lint
Fairy tale: The Blue Castle, L.M. Montgomery
Mythology: Nobody's Princess, Esther Friesner

I think this is going to be lots of fun.

Officially here

2008-03-30T08:51:00.000-07:00

Moving all my book reviews and book rants here. Hooray. Didn't think I blogged enough before to set up a separate book blog but I decided it will be more rounded out this way. Organization is generally a good thing (right?!?!) and hopefully I'll make some more online book friends this way.

So thanks for stopping by, and look out for more book-ish-ness coming this way soon.