17 posts tagged “books”
I should probably update more - goodness knows I've read a lot of books and even watched a few movies/television shows since the last time I updated - but I am in the middle of a move, and starting law school. I hope law school won't be so traumatic that it prevents me from any more reading and reviewing! :D
But hey, in short:
- Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (movie): Not as good as the rest, but definitely enjoyable.
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: AWESOME.
- The Tudors, television series: Pretty decent, enjoyable trash.
- Aqua Teen Hunger Force: Movie Film For Theaters: I can't work under these conditions. I want a diet water and my mommy right now. (- Meatwad)
- Smashing Pumpkins @ The Fillmore: HFS! AWESOME.
Have a good one, neighbors. If you're one of my livejournal friends, I'm still posting over there.
I just finished The Stolen Child, which is essentially a fairy tale about changelings. It is beautifully written, but overwhelmingly sad. The Amazon.com synopsis reads:
From Publishers Weekly
Folk legends of the changeling serve as a touchstone for Donohue's haunting debut, set vaguely in the American northeast, about the maturation of a young man troubled by questions of identity. At age seven, Henry Day is kidnapped by hobgoblins and replaced by a look-alike impostor. In alternating chapters, each Henry relates the tale of how he adjusts to his new situation. Human Henry learns to run with his hobgoblin pack, who never age but rarely seem more fey than a gang of runaway teens. Hobgoblin Henry develops his uncanny talent for mimicry into a music career and settles into an otherwise unremarkable human life. Neither Henry feels entirely comfortable with his existence, and the pathos of their losses influences all of their relationships and experiences. Inevitably, their struggles to retrieve their increasingly forgotten pasts put them on paths that intersect decades later. Donohue keeps the fantasy as understated as the emotions of his characters, while they work through their respective growing pains. The result is an impressive novel of outsiders whose feelings of alienation are more natural than supernatural.
This, like The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly, is one of those fairy tales that takes awhile to fully digest. It has several rather haunting themes, the one that stood out to me the most being, how well can a parent ever know their child?. The story is extremely well written and switches back and forth in perspective from the changeling who becomes Henry Day, to the child who becomes a changeling. The changeling Henry Day ages like a normal human, but the original Henry Day, stolen away from his human life, remains eternally seven years old, although he would have been in his thirties at the end of the book. As the changeling settles into life as Henry Day, the seven-year-old child he was becomes remarkably more mature than his now-human counterpart in many ways.
I loved this book. It took me a few chapters to get into it - the changeling who becomes Henry Day starts out as quite a snotty little brat - but the narrative sucks you in, and you can't help but try to figure out how it will be resolved in the end. It was not the ending I expected, and I think the book is richer for that. I would definitely recommend this book - it is dark and poignant, but uplifting in that it is a story extremely well-told.
I haven't read a Christopher Pike book in years, not since his Starlight Crystal era (ten years ago? More?). When I was browsing the new book section at the library, I was surprised to see this on the shelf - I don't know why, he seems to be incredibly prolific - so I picked it up and took it home with me.
As I said, I haven't read anything of his since the Starlight Crystal books, which I never enjoyed, but the description of this book sounded like it was more of a return to his Blood-Guts-Gore-Sex-Revenge roots. It is.
Amazon has this synopsis:
Bestseller Pike's gripping thriller pays homage to Thomas Harris's Hannibal Lecter novels, particularly in the character of FBI agent Kelly Feinman, who fills the Clarice Starling role. An unlikely law-enforcement agent, Kelly was an academic drafted by the bureau as a consultant based on her graduate thesis on mythology. Kelly puts her expertise to use on a particularly savage case, that of a man dubbed "the Acid Killer," who has sent the Feds DVDs of his sadistic murders of women he believes have been unfaithful. Her research leads her to a promising suspect, but her desire to solve the case on her own places her life in jeopardy. Pike (The Cold One) deftly interweaves this plot with the elaborate, Edmund Dantes–like revenge scheme of Matt Connor, a California man who was himself betrayed by the woman he loved. While some of the action sequences involving Kelly strain credibility, the intricate, thoughtful plot offers enough fresh variations on the serial-killer theme to keep readers turning the pages.
If you've read any Pike books before, you will recognize this plot as nothing particularly new on his part, but I have to say that he is damn good at what he does. The Amazon reviewer is correct: some of the Kelly action sequences do defy the suspension of disbelief, but they are entertaining. Pike never writes anything that isn't intrinsic to his plot, and every twist of the story takes the reader on an even wilder ride. I admire the way he can bring in several completely unrelated plots only to tie them together at the end, and as always, his use of mythology and folklore (well-placed in this book) adds a lot of interest to the story.
I thoroughly enjoyed it. My only (very minor) issue with it is in the last two pages, but to say why would spoil the book. Otherwise - a really well-done thriller that kept me entertained the entire way through.
I love fairy tales, particularly the original versions where the bad children get eaten by monsters in the Black Forest and no one ends up living happily-ever-after. I used to spend hours reading my mother's childhood fairy tale books, which were quite a bit darker than the ones I had, and I used to read my grandmother's 1920's Oz books, which were also surprisingly creepy (one character, I remember, was cut in half lengthwise and had to walk around like that). So this book, which is more or less pitched as a dark fairy tale, sounded good to me.
I would have to say that this is one of the absolute best stories I've ever read. It's extremely dark, and is an allegory for adult life. But most of all, it captures exactly what it's like to be in the "in-between" years of being not quite a child or a teenager. In this case, it is set in 1940's Britain, so there is the added drama of WWII as well as the time period making it believable that a twelve-year-old is still fairly innocent.
Here is the synopsis from Amazon:
High in his attic bedroom, twelve-year-old David mourns the death of his mother. He is angry and alone, with only the books on his shelf for company. But those books have begun to whisper to him in the darkness, and as he takes refuge in his imagination, he finds that reality and fantasy have begun to meld. While his family falls apart around him, David is violently propelled into a land that is a strange reflection of his own world, populated by heroes and monsters, and ruled over by a faded king who keeps his secrets in a mysterious book... The Book of Lost Things.
Although parts of this book were predictable, as all fairy tales can be, it never descended into the trite or sappy. The ending, for example, was absolutely perfect - one of those stories where you shut the book and the story stays with you for days. It is bittersweet, but incredibly well done. I love Connolly's writing style, and I will definitely be checking out his other works now. I highly recommend The Book of Lost Things, and will be putting it on my wishlist to remind myself to pick up my own copy.
The Last Boleyn: A Novel, by Karen Harper, is the story of Mary Boleyn (Bullen), Anne Boleyn's older sister. Much like The Other Boleyn Girl, by Philippa Gregory, this story describes Mary's life as a pawn in elaborate French and English court intrigue. Mary, through her father's political ambitions, is placed in a position where she is pressured to be the mistress of both Francis I and Henry VIII at different times in her life. She is married to William Carey, who is also thoroughly embroiled in court politics, and eventually falls for William Stafford, one of the king's right-hand men. In the story, she watches as Henry puts her aside for her younger sister Anne, and struggles to assert her own independence in a time where that was simply unheard of.
What I liked about this book is that it wasn't depressing. A lot of historical novels, particularly those centering around women, end up with everyone dead and/or brokenhearted. This version of Mary Boleyn's story has her grow from an eight year old child to a thirty-something woman who is able to negotiate her place in the world, long after she was passed around as a sexual pawn and married off. This is not to say that Mary is one of those ridiculously strong, assertive heroines that would be completely out of place in the early 16th century. Instead, Mary is, in my humble opinion, a very realistic person: she has her own mind and desires, but she is also indelibly marked by her training at court. She can be silly and weak and frustrating at times, and she can be independent and bold at others. Mary's character often submits to the men in her life, because that is simply what women did in that era - but that makes the times where she tells everyone to shove off more impressive. I found myself wanting her to find her happiness.
I thought this book did a great job of telling the Boleyn story without focusing on Anne, although the portrayal of Anne was pretty good - she was that classic neglected little sister who overcompensated, and it became the death of her. I also liked the portrayal of Henry VIII, as Harper was able to subtly negotiate his transformation from hearty young man on top of the world, to panicked king focused on dynastic succession at any cost. All in all, I thought the characters were well done, the story was well-told, and if there were any glaring historical inaccuracies, I was too caught up in the book to notice.
I definitely recommend this book.
Sometimes I think that not everyone shares my macabre sense of humor, and then I feel slightly bad about laughing out loud while reading books like this in public. In my defense, this book is written in a darkly humorous tone, so it's hard not to laugh.
Execution: The Guillotine, the Pendulum, the Thousand Cuts, the Spanish Donkey, and 66 Other Ways of Putting Someone to Death, by Geoffrey Abbott, is broken into 70 small sections, each with a different method of execution. Abbott describes each method, and then gives a short historical background and usually a primary source example. Most of them I'd heard of before, but others, like the Spanish Donkey and the Dry Pan, were new to me.
What I like about this book, other than introductions to new methods of execution, is that it's broken up into convenient, small sections. It's actually the perfect bathroom book - you need to read this one bit at a time to really absorb the information (and picture it, curiously, with the face of someone you can't stand superimposed over the victim). The drawback of this is that it doesn't offer quite as much historical information as I would like, and I was also a bit disappointed that Abbott doesn't seem to use endnotes or footnotes (which is only to be expected by a mass-market publisher). He does provide a select bibliography (some of which the nerd in me is delighted to see that I've already read!) and cool appendices with executioner terminology and even an 1884 application to be an executioner. The tone of the book is humorous, but doesn't necessarily come down on either side of the capital punishment issue, which is refreshing compared to books by, say, Richard J. Evans (scholarly author), who seems to think that his reader needs to be reminded of how! horrible! executions! are! every page or so.
I definitely recommend this book for the macabre goth kid in your family, and the history nerd, but probably not that person you always suspected would suddenly snap and kill their friends or family.
I'm a vampire junkie. I have acquired a well-developed taste of exactly what I like in vampire novels, and it all started pretty early in my youth with Christopher Pike books and the like.
When I was 11 or so, I got into L.J. Smith by reading her Secret Circle trilogy, and then devouring The Vampire Diaries, The Forbidden Game, and the Dark Visions trilogy. Then she came out with the Night World series, which is basically about an underground, world-wide organization of vampires, shapeshifters, and witches, who survive in the human world by being secretive and forbidding emotional interaction between Night People and humans. This is a series of 9 young adult books - the 10th never came out - and all of them are a little over two hundred pages.
Recently, since Brooke and I went to Muir Woods (which is a place Huntress features), I decided to pick these books back up and re-read them - something I haven't done in a few years. They always change when I read them as an adult. Sometimes I think they are better, sometimes I think they are sillier, but I always thoroughly enjoy them.
I'm not going to review them as if they are adult fiction, because they're not. They are clearly meant for a younger audience (I'd say about 10-16).
- The series starts out with Secret Vampire, a story about a girl diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Her best friend (conveniently, also her soulmate) changes her into a vampire against Night World rules; the story details how she and her soulmate fight against the odds, blah blah blah.
- The second book, Daughters of Darkness - and my hands-down favorite - is about a girl who lives in a tiny Oregon town. She notices some weird happenings that coincide with the arrival of three vampire sisters. Mary-Lynnette finds her soulmate in the sisters' older brother, and chaos ensues. She also kicks her soulmate (Ash) in the shins several times, which I find amusing, because that is how I relate to boys I like as well.
- The third book: a witch girl finds her soulmate.
- The fourth book: a lost witch girl has a near-death experience and a ghost-boy makes her into a bitchy popular girl through witchcraft. She finds...her soulmate.
- The fifth book: a vampire hunter, whose mother was killed by a vampire, kills vampires...and finds her soulmate. In a vampire.
- The sixth book: a vampire's soulmate is a human girl who has been reincarnated a billion times. They are soulmates and oh by the way the name of the book is...Soulmate.
- The seventh book, Huntress, is where it starts getting more interesting again. Apparently the millennium is coming, and with it the apocalypse. The end of the world = the Night World rising. But! There's a way to stop it. Apparently four "Wild Powers" exist and if the human world is to survive, all four kids must be found, awakened, and brought over to the light. This book has the same damn soulmate thing, but it is a little more exciting.
- The eighth book is about a secret vampire kingdom/enclave in Washington. The lead vampire dude is hot. He is a Wild Power. He finds his soulmate.
- The ninth book is about a shapeshifting girl on a mission to find the third Wild Power and secure her. Along the way, she FINDS HER DAMNED SOULMATE.
- The tenth book is supposed to either sum up the whole thing, or at the very least tell the story of the fourth Wild Power, but it was supposed to be published in 2000 - and we're still waiting for it.
However, this is not to say that these books are devoid of originality, entertainment value, or engaging characters. They have all three. I love Smith's dialogue, I love how each character is defined by a particular hobby or interest, like astronomy (and one learns about it while reading), and her plots are very good for the genre. Sure, the soulmate thing gets kind of repetitive, but she does have different characters every time, and by the time you get to the seventh book, the reason she does it starts to make much more sense.
Most importantly, though, Smith always captured my imagination. I would save what little money I had for these books and re-read them constantly, then sit back and imagine that maybe all these paranormal creatures did exist. Maybe soulmates did, too, and maybe there would be someone out there without mommy issues and paranoia, whom I could tolerate for more than five minutes. (Ah yes, these were the well-developed fantasies of my youth.)
If you're a parent who doesn't mind stories of the paranormal, these books are okay for your kids, too. I believe the worst word she ever uses is "damned" or possibly (MAYBE) "shit," and although there are occasional vague references to sex, no one gets it on in full frontal text. I don't think I got them all until I was older, so these books won't exactly destroy your child's innocence. Christopher Pike books, they are not.
I would recommend anything she wrote for a teenager, and I would probably even recommend them as fun books for adults.
Oh, Margaret George. How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I'm happy to report that I picked up this book, expecting a fantastic story, and was not disappointed in the least.
Before this book, George wrote historical fiction based on real people. This book is a bit of a departure, since there's currently no conclusive proof that Troy or Helen ever existed. But the story that we are all familiar with - Helen, Menelaus, Paris, Achilles, and the rest - all come alive under George's retelling. In The Iliad, Helen is either completely absent or portrayed as weak and helpless. In Helen of Troy, she is a completely human woman who lives under the mantle of prophesized doom, but risks everything for love anyway.
What is absolutely remarkable about this book is how George manages to make you feel as though there might be a happy ending after all. Up until the very sentence describing Paris' death, you think the lovers might actually escape to Egypt and live a quiet existence together. You root for them, as obnoxious as both can be, and you understand why they make the choices they do. You want their all-consuming love to continue on, which makes the horrific fall of Troy that much worse.
This is a story that should appeal to men, too: it's not a "chick book" focusing on the love between Paris and Helen. True, the story is told from Helen's point of view, but it explores every aspect of humanity you can imagine: vanity, passion, wrath, war, jealousy, treachery, family, hospitality, choice, and consequence. Best of all, George does it well. It is a 600-page book, so all of these subjects are written about in depth.
I'm also pleased to note that George included a partial bibliography at the very end of the book to describe where she got her information, why she set it in the time period she did, and how she reconciled the inclusion of the gods of Olympus with her realistic approach. This book does not include as much historical information as The Memoirs of Cleopatra did, but it is grounded in research.
When I think of The Memoirs of Helen of Troy, a book I read earlier this year by Amanda Elyot, there is simply no comparison. Helen of Troy is far superior in every way--in particular, I was relieved that George didn't make Helen a martyr and deprived her of all friendships, as Elyot did. George's characters are unflinchingly human, good or bad; Elyot's are simply unlikeable.
I cannot recommend this book highly enough. Read it!
Hey, look! I read something that was NOT set more than 10 years ago! Aren't you impressed? I know I am, because when I glanced at the summary I read the word "Puritan," knew that Gregory writes historical fiction, and thought I was picking up English Reformation fiction. Whoops.
My experience with Philippa Gregory's books have, so far, been hit or miss. The Other Boleyn Girl was fantastic, but I picked up Earthly Joys and couldn't, for the life of me, get into it.
I'm not really sure how I feel about this book. I certainly can't rave about it, but it wasn't a bad book. It was just odd.
The summary of this book on amazon goes like this:
Masquerading as a trashy novelist may solve English writer Isobel Latimer's financial problems, but it also plunges her into a full-fledged identity crisis in Gregory's flighty, overplotted novel. Isobel needs money to support her ailing husband, Philip, and his newfound interest in pool building, so when her agent, Troy Cartwright, informs her that her literary novels are earning less and less, she tells him, "If they won't pay me to write good books, then I'll just have to write bad." She and Troy invent the persona of Zelda Vere, a heavily made-up, well-dressed blonde bombshell, the opposite of 52-year-old country matron Isobel. Zelda's "survivor fiction," The Devil's Disciple, is a major hit that earns Isobel all the money she could ever need, but she finds herself increasingly caught between superego and id, between an unfulfilling loyal marriage and sexual experimentation with Troy. When Isobel sets off on her book tour with Troy, Gregory's plot takes an exotic and erotic turn, depicting a world of cross-dressing, cocaine and champagne. Returning to her home in Kent, Isobel finds Philip miraculously recovered and expending all his energy on the construction of an expensive new pool. Philip has also decided to invest (with Isobel's money) in the handsome pool man's business. Backstabbers reveal themselves, to no one's surprise, and Isobel's deliberations--should she stay or should she go?--are prolonged until an abrupt, bewildering denouement puts a stop to the runaway narrative.
Yeah. That sums it up pretty well. It's a book about the trashiness of trash fiction, but the entire book is unwieldy and trashy itself. That's not to say that I don't enjoy trash, but give me either plain trash or a "real" novel, please--I don't enjoy being preached to on one page and then reading a cross-dressing sex scene on the next. (I'm not exaggerating in the least, here.)
It did occur to me that I didn't "get" this book, but I'm pretty sure that I do get where Gregory was going with this book - she just didn't do it very well. It had a lot of potential, but the ending comes very oddly and abruptly, with very little regard for the plotline she had established in the previous 300 pages. I came away from this feeling a bit cheated.
I can't recommend this book.
I've had a lot to review lately (always a good thing!), so here's some of what I want to talk about in the next few days:
Helen of Troy by Margaret George(I'm so excited that she put out a new book!)- Through a Glass Darkly and Dark Angels by Karleen Koen
- Sony 30GB HDD Handycam
- Adobe Premiere Elements vs. Windows Movie Maker, for web-publishing
- MAC Select Cover-up Concealer (as opposed to L'Oreal True Match)
Zelda's Cut by Philippa Gregory
I just started Helen of Troy last night, which, frankly, seeing as I love Margaret George's work to death, is orgasmic. I want to savor it, but I also want to plow through it and see how she tells the story. I've also started Through a Glass Darkly, but that was put aside when my request for Helen of Troy came in at the library.
As an aside, Margaret George has written several other excellent historical novels with such attention to historical detail that it would (and did) make a history major weep:
- The Memoirs of Cleopatra
- Mary, Called Magdalene
- Mary, Queen of Scotland and the Isles
- The Autobiography of Henry VII (With Notes From Will Somers, His Fool)
I highly recommend the first two - the others I haven't had a chance to thoroughly read yet. Does anyone want to buy them for me? :D
