Bad Luck Cadet
Oops, almost forget to post this… I finished Bad Luck Cadet and wrote about it over here: Bad Luck Cadet. I can’t wait for Bad Luck Detective!
2012
The Printmaker’s Daughter
I read The Printmaker’s Daughter because TW told me it was good – interesting. And it was, but it started so slowly that I thought maybe this was another of those weird TW recommendations – the kind that I never quite understand. But no, it was good. Very interesting.
Oi was a real person. Her father, Hokusai, was also a real person – maybe you’ve heard of him? There really is some confusion as to which works were really his – and which were done by someone else – maybe his daughter, Oi? That’s what The Printmaker’s Daughter is about. A fictional tale of what may have been the lives of both Edo painters in the 1800s.
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Double Dexter
We just finished Double Dexter on audio – Jeff Lindsay does a fabulous job of reading Dexter. He really does. I think that might be why I never could get into the TV series, well that and the fact that the TV show is so different from the books. I just plain love the books. It was nice to see Astor get a wee bit of play time in a book, that was excellent.
I have one tiny complaint – Rita is getting worse with each book and Dexter’s ridicule of her is getting a wee bit ugly. Not necessary. It just is not necessary at all.
2 Children’s Picture Books from the Cybils Shortlist
Guess what – I liked them both. One took me by surprise because I started out bored, the second I enjoyed all the way through.
I Want My Hat Back, started slowly for me and I was bored. One of those books where an animal asks a different animal on each page for his hat (we’ve seen this format a zillion times) what we haven’t seen is how the animal whose hat was lost gets his hat back. I won’t spoil it for you but…. I LOVED IT. Some of y’all won’t love it because you won’t want to have to explain what happened to your small children. I, on the otherhand, found it to be refreshing and will be buying this one for Johnny Mac Pippin.
I Had a Favorite Dress was adorable. A little girl whose mom found a way to tweak the girl’s favorite dress each time she grew. Fabulous. Adorable. Great artwork.
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2 Graphic Novels from the Cybils Shortlist
So it begins, my quest to read all of the books on the shortlist and not surprisingly, I’ve got one I really liked and another that was ok but not my favorite.
The one I really liked was Hereville: How Marka Got Her Sword. Great drawings. Good story. Knitting saves the day. How awesome is that?
The one I was disappointed and meh about was the one I thought I’d like the most: Nursery Rhyme Comics. I think I expected the artists to take more liberties than they did – my fault since this is still a nursery rhyme book for kids. I did enjoy seeing Sarah Varon’s work and it was pretty much exactly right. There were some others that I liked but overall – it just fell flat for me. I suspect Elly felt the same way, though she didn’t say anything about it last weekend when she read it (which might also indicate that it fell flat for her, too.)
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The Magician’s Elephant
I found The Magician’s Elephant on my library website – in that carousel of recently reviewed books that shows up before you log into your account. I’m a sucker for elephants, even more so now that my elephant loving child is pregnant, so I reserved it without even knowing what it was. (I didn’t even notice the author was Kim DiCamillo – Tale of Desperaux and Because of Winn Dixie.)
Turns out it’s a middle grade science fiction book about… an elephant, a magician’s elephant that causes all sorts of things to happen and leads everyone to a happily ever after ending.
The book is a wee bit dark and some 10 year olds may not like it for that reason. Oddly enough, I wondered about what kind of movie it might make and what do I find when I take a peek at the Amazon reviews… it’s going to be a movie. (Maybe. There’s no release date and the only news I’ve found indicated someone was hired to write a script based on the book, and that happened 3 years ago. So. There we go. Maybe a movie? Maybe not.)
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Heartless
Gah! I was screaming “No, don’t invite them to Woolsey!” but Alexia did not listen. Sheesh, what was she thinking? Those poor wolves! And, I’m glad I was right about how the threat to the queen really happened, well sort of glad since it was sad it’s hard to be really glad, ya know? You probably don’t know if you haven’t read this series, or haven’t read Heartless – which you should go ahead and do.
Now … to wait for the next book and learn more about the baby… hmm, the next book might be both steampunk and adoption…
Blameless
I have decided… I want a clockwork ladybug and a steampunk parasol. ASAP.
I enjoyed Blameless, though maybe not quite so much as I enjoyed Soulless and Changeless. There was something just a wee bit off – and it wasn’t the lack of nose negativity (of which there was almost none – YAY!)
The biggest question I’m left with is… would I have let Biffy die? Or not? Tough, tough call.
Changeless
OK there was more steampunk in Changeless than there was in Soulless – we’re on the right track here. I also appreciate fewer references to Alexia’s nose. And I obviously LOVE Madame Lefoux. Also – men are asshats, even if they are awesome alpha werewolves. HMPH.
A Sunday at the Pool in Kigali
I can’t figure out why I decided to read A Sunday at the Pool in Kigali. It’s an oldish book, I don’t think there’s any new buzz around it – but somehow it appeared on our library cart and I was pretty sure I’m the one who decided to read it. For awhile, I thought Zandria had read it last year and that’s what pushed me to take the plunge. But no, it wasn’t Zan. So why? Why, why, why would I put myself through that.
Painful.
Not the writing. The horrible, horrible situation in Ruwanda. Genocide is never pretty.
I’m surprised I didn’t have nightmares – the end just about killed me.
*sniff*
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