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August 2010
Mockingjay – No Spoilers
I’m very tempted to write a long post about Mockingjay. But to do that, I’d have to post spoilers and I am very anti-spoiler. So… I will say that this was an excellent trilogy. Even when I was disappointed in Collins decisions – and I was, at least once, in each book though the biggest disappointment for me did take place in this one. Toward the end. It didn’t make me want to come here and rant about the ending, which is what I often do (particularly with YA fiction) – it just made me wish Collins had taken a few more chances with her characters. I just had moments where I wished she’d let her characters grow, just a little bit more – or a little bit differently. Katniss is an awesome female character but she could have been so much better in the last several chapters of Mockingjay.
Go read it (or read the series) – it’s excellent work, it really is.
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Going in Circles
I am a Pamie fan girl. A big Pamie fan girl. So it’s no surprise that I really loved Going in Circles. (Why Girls are Weird is still my favorite, though.) I loved that Charlotte made miniatures. I loved that she joined Roller Derby. I loved the whole darn thing. (though honestly, I could have done without the John Goodman narrative – but it did feel very Pamie so I get it.)
The Dust of 100 Dogs
Remember when RJ was a pirate-aholic? Remember those good ole days? Before vampires? Sigh. I miss pirates. I had really high hopes for The Dust of 100 Dogs because – Girl Pirate! And I did like it – or parts of it – but I didn’t like the whole boy/girl romance crap. It started in Ireland when Emir was a child and it lingered throughout the entire book. ‘A woman without a man is like wearing one shoe?’ BS.
Other than that, it was a fun story. But what happened to the jewels sewn into the capes? Did “he” rip those out and just replace them in the chest? Or what…? That wasn’t clear to me. I’m guessing he did because he’s a jerk, right?
And for those who might be wondering – there’s a wee bit of a gay (male) side story. Not a lot but it is there. And that’s why I’m going to drop this in the Queer topic… for those who might be wondering. 😉
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Life-Size Zoo
Life-Size Zoo is a fun children’s non-fiction book. Each animal image is displayed full sized which means kids get a really good idea of just how big a giraffe’s tongue really is. It’s really brilliant. The only problem is that because some animals are so large, they can take up to four full pages to display – which makes refolding the pages of the book difficult. My copy came from the library and the pages were all folded incorrectly. And at one point. I had a tough time figuring out just how the pages were intended to be folded. I mean I could put the pictures of the elephant together properly but to refold them back into the book, in a way that properly displays the animals before and after… well that was tough. This is a book that some kids will be frustrated by, for that very reason. It’s also a book that other children will love figuring out – tearing could be a problem for the frustrated child.
Otherwise – I loved it. And not just because there’s a cute photo of a prairie dog – though there is a cute photo of a prairie dog.
Romancing Miss Bronte
The problem with a well written novel about a classic author, particularly when the novel is based on facts, is that it makes you want to go back and re-read those old classics. A book like that might spur you to pick up a never-read book by the classic author. Romancing Miss Bronte caused this over and over again. Because not only did I feel compelled to read (and re-read) the works of Charlotte, I realized I’ve never read Agnes Gray… and I was tempted to dig into Elizabeth Gaskell, too. Thankfully, nothing in the story compelled me to re-read Thackeray (shudder – that’s worse than The Moonstone!)
I tried to fight off the urge, but in those last pages, as Charlotte lay dying, I grabbed the iPad and started downloading. Maybe just the act of downloading Agnes Gray and Shirley and Mary Barton will be enough. Maybe I’ll get off easy… unlike any of the Bronte sisters. Or maybe I should download Vanity Fair and read a few pages – that should knock some sense into me, right?
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Lips Touch Three Times
Really interesting that author Laini Taylor has two books on the Cybils shortlist – a middle grade fantasy/scifi, Dreamdark, and a YA fantasy/scifi, Lips Touch Three Times. I liked Dreamdark a lot, even though it was a sequel and I had not read the first book. I liked Lips Touch Three Times too – though I’m not a big short story fan. Brilliant idea, to write three stories related to kissing. Very very smart idea – and interesting stories, too. And stories that don’t exactly have a happily ever after, woken with a kiss, prince and princess ending. Very smart. I like Laini Taylor.
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Two Nancy Drews
After reading a string of really depressing books, I mentioned to some folks that I needed to read a book where nobody died, where nobody was raped, where there was no heavy emotional abuse or drama. TW attempted to make suggestions, based on books she had recently read but I had not. Each time she would say “Oh how about…” and I’d say “ nobody dies? No rapes? No…?” and she would say “well… there’s just this one part….” Huh.
Thankfully Sassymonkey is a genius (I say this a lot, don’t I?) and remembered my Nancy Drew Challenge. Duh. Why didn’t I think of that? Nancy Drew did the trick!
The Mystery of the Brass Bound Trunk (which reminded me that I did indeed spend some time wishing I could visit Buenos Ares and longing for a cool trunk to store my crap in) and The Quest of the Missing Map (which I reminded me that I did not like this book because my father had models of ships and built models of ships and I kind of thought it was dumb at the time – so a book with models of ships was also dumb.)
Prairie Dogs vs Cardboard
I asked TW to leave the prairie dogs in their cage until after the cleaning crew finished and she agreed. Unfortunately, the prairie dogs do not agree.
Some days, while they obviously want out, they aren’t quite so loud and hyper about it. They look at you a bit. They chew a little bit. They eat some food. They nap off and on. No big deal.
This morning. They were loud. They plucked the cage, they banged on everything they could bang on. They were driving us INSANE.
So TW dropped a piece of IKEA cardboard into the cage to distract them… it was still loud – and messy – but not cage plucking, banging like crazy loud.
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