I wasn’t really looking forward to Return to Tradd Street because I knew there would be a dead baby storyline and I knew Jack and Melanie would end up married.
But, I didn’t dislike it at all. Really. Until the end. It all wrapped up so nicely and neatly, thanks to a pretty far-fetched multimillionaire saving the day. Other than that, I did enjoy it.
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It took me a darn week to read Rocket Girl because it just wasn’t compelling enough to keep me reading when I was so tired each night. It was also disappointing because so much of the narrative was fiction — because Mary Sherman Morgan kept so many secrets.
Super interesting story, too bad her son didn’t try to sort all of this out before she died. I’m glad I read it, I just wish there had been more meat to the story.
I can’t decide whether I’m glad we listened to Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass on audio or not. I LOVED the Spanish in it but my Spanish is bad so I’d have liked to have been able to look some of that stuff up. Not that I didn’t understand the gist of it but still, it would have been more fun to do that (in some ways.)
The book itself, excellent. Very nice change to have great Latina characters. I very much loved that. I really liked Piddy and her mom and Lila. I spent much of today saying “Que lindo!” to myself because Lila said it and it made me laugh (a friend in Panama used to say it a lot) and it was very appropriate at many times today (sarcastically and not sarcastically.)
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I have a love/hate with Maddie On Things. Lord knows I love me a coonhound (hah) and I love people taking road trips and taking photos in unusual places while on road trips. And when people take photos of their coonhound in unusual places on road trips, I’m pretty happy.
Except I did not like many of the things Maddie was standing on. Or the weather she was standing on those things in.
It was cold. And uncomfortable.
And just because your dog can do something doesn’t really mean she should.
So — love/hate. Love/hate.
The Death of the Great Santini wasn’t a great memoir but it was interesting — in places. The beginning and the ending, in particular — the stuff in the middle was a little touch and go. I’ve wondered what happened to the family after The Great Santini was written — now I know.
Reading it made me want to sit through a Conroy movie marathon or re-read his books but who has time for that? I watched Conrack tonight (thank you, youtube – it’s been ages since I’ve seen that movie!) and I think I’ll watch The Great Santini and The Prince of Tides next week and skip The Lords of Discipline because I can only take so much anger and The Lords of Discipline makes me shudder. (Go Bulldogs? ugh.)
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I was born in 1963 and the cover of 1963: The Year of the Revolution is cool so I checked it out. I wasn’t sure I would read it. I thought I might just flip through the photos because my TBR list is long and was this something I really NEEDED or WANTED to read?
I’m not sure I did need or even want to read it but it was a super fast read and kind of interesting. A lot repetitive and a little disjointed since it was really just a whole bunch of superstars (who you may or may not know depending upon your cultural literacy, particularly British cultural literacy, from ’63) talking about 1963. They (too often) said the same things that others said and they (too often) said the same damn thing they’d already said earlier on the page or in the book.
But, it was interesting and amusing enough that I read the whole thing, really quickly and it was interesting.
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Elegy for Eddie was a TOUGH Maisie Dobbs novel. People can do horrible things for good reasons, or reasons that seem good — duh. Poor Eddie. Poor Jimmy Merton. Poor Billy Beale. Gah. The whole book is full of sad.
And damn James Compton, hmph.
Also, damn Hitler!
(I’m also troubling because we’re coming up on the last back, thus far, in the series. What will we do when there’s not another one to reserve and listen to?!)
A Box of Gargoyles is the secret to Cabinet of Earths — a quick fun read, though the beginning was a little sloggy. Maya talking to a pretend Maya (to try and give us background about what happened in Cabinet of Earths) was a little much. There are better ways to give background to those who are entering the story in part two.
I’m also not sure I like the way it ended. Did Maya just throw her unborn sister under the bus? Sort of? I dunno. It felt not quite right to me. Couldn’t she have chosen without chosen THAT WAY? Seemed a little over-wrought, to me.
I love the addition of Pauline and of course the gargoyle egg was wonderfully done. There should be more gargoyle eggs in stories…
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I know you’re shocked that I liked Redefining Girly. Hah.
I didn’t love it, but it was good — particularly for those who are just beginning to sort out the whole marketing of gender issue. It’s probably best for those with young children (or no children at all) — those with older kids (tweens/teens) are going to find the recommendations too young, too basic, and not quite on the mark, particularly if they haven’t already been raising their children to question gender stereotypes.
I’m on an e-Book roll! I have no idea how long Steal Like An Artist has been in my Kindle cloud but it was a fun read during the five and ten minute breaks I took from cleaning my house today.
Super fast read. Nothing really groundbreaking or revolutionary. I did smile a lot about the calendar/log book section — I’ve gone back to paper journaling and filofaxing for all of those reasons.
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