2018

Full of Beans

2018, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Cybil Challenge, Favorites, Fiction /

I really loved Full of Beans. It’s a Cybil from last year that explains how Key West went from being a dead, bankrupt town during the depression to a must visit tourist destination — and a 10 (?) year old boy tells the story. It event touches on the leper colony that was in Key West at the time, and handles it beautifully.

(TW was not quite as thrilled with the book as I was. I don’t know what her problem is, except that she doesn’t like children’s fiction. Speaking of which, I think it’s categorized as middle grade fiction but it feels pretty young, to me. So better for younger good readers or older reluctant readers.)

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In the Footsteps of Crazy Horse

1 Comment / 2018, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Cybil Challenge /

Another Cybil from last year, In the Footsteps of Crazy Horse was good. It read younger than I expected it to, so if you have struggling readers – this would work for them.

I liked the relationship between Jimmy and his grandfather and the journey they took together. I wish there’d been more connecting the dots between Jimmy’s situation at school before the journey and his growth after the journey but that would have made the book more complex and I think the author wanted to keep it an easy read.

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Rebel of the Sands

2018, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Sci Fi and Fantasy /

I thought Rebel of the Sands was a Cybil. Turns out, it isn’t. If I’d known that, I probably wouldn’t have read it. Not that I didn’t enjoy it — it was fine. The problem was that I didn’t really like Amani until close to the end. I also found it a little repetitive in places — the book needed a better/different editor, I think.

This is the first book in a series, I doubt I’ll read the next one.

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The Last of August

2018, Books in Bed, Fiction, Young Adult /

I did not like The Last of August anywhere near as much as I liked A Study in Charlotte. It didn’t even feel like the normal book two set up for book three, well part of it did but not enough of it. I just didn’t like either Charlotte OR Jamie in this book and I definitely didn’t like them together. I preferred the brief bits with Jamie’s father and Charlotte’s uncle — maybe they need a series of their own, instead. I’m going to give the next book a chance but if I don’t love it and there’s a fourth, I’m not going to bother.

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The Wrong Dead Guy

2018, Books in Bed, Favorites, Sci Fi and Fantasy /

Speaking of coincidences (yesterday’s book post) I had just been thinking that I need to see how far behind I am on the Sandman Slim books when TW came home from the library with a book by Richard Kadrey. It wasn’t a Sandman Slim book – but still, what a coincidence! She also said that it didn’t seem to be part of another series or if it was maybe it was the first book.

TW read it first and chuckled her way through much of The Wrong Dead Guy. I took that as a good sign but when I started reading it, I thought for sure it was not the first book in a series but definitely part of a series. We were given an awful lot of backstory types of info but not enough backstory for a stand alone book full of weird random characters that have some connection that was murky, at best. I stopped reading and asked her if she was SURE it wasn’t part of a series. She said she didn’t think so and since I was enjoying it and feeling too lazy to look for myself, I just kept reading.

Almost half-way through the book, I couldn’t take it any more because this REALLY felt like a book in a series and I was beginning to get annoyed by that. Sure enough, it’s the sequel to The Everything Box, which I have not read. I was annoyed – I hate not reading the first book. But, I was so far into it by then that it didn’t make a lot of sense to stop reading it until I can get the first book, so I just carried on.

It was very amusing, as you’d expect if you have read Kadrey’s other books. I’m looking forward to backtracking and reading The Everything Box – that’s going to clear up a lot of questions for me, I’m sure. (I’m also never going to make the mistake of NOT checking on a book if it feels like part of a series again!)

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The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane

2018, Books in Bed, Fiction, Women /

It’s been awhile since we read a Lisa See novel and I’m glad TW mentioned Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane. It was a good story, as See’s books generally are, and its take on overseas adoptions by white parents of Chinese children was a far cry from other books that include this topic.

No coincidence = no story — that’s the theme here, and it’s an interesting one. Very useful in making the coincidences seem less like coincidences that you’d never believe and more like a life of coincidences. I bought it (most of it, ok a lot of it and what I didn’t buy, I forgave because the writing and the characters were wonderful.)

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The Inquisitor’s Tale: Or, The Three Magical Children and Their Holy Dog

2018, Audiobooks, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Cybil Challenge /

The Inquistor’s Tale was on last year’s Cybils Shortlist in the audiobook category and I see why.

It was Canterbury Tale-like and there were some “ass” jokes, which kids would find very amusing. It was also a story with serious themes that were presented in some pretty kid-friendly ways without minimizing those serious issues. Well done.

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The Gender Game

2018, Books in Bed, Feminism, Fiction, Women /

Almost a year ago (?) I spotted a couple of interesting books on the new arrivals shelf at the library but I quickly realized they were books two and three of a series and I hate starting a series on anything other than the first book. So, I wandered back to the shelves looking for the first book, only to discover a whole bunch of books in the series but not the first one. So I took a photo of one of the covers and went home to reserve the first book.

Time passed and I wasn’t really moving up on the reserve list. More time passed and I started moving slowly up the list. Finally, it was ready to pick up — except I was out of town and I couldn’t get to the library in time to pick it up, so it went back to the stacks and I lost my hold.

I re-did the hold and was careful to always pause my holds when I went out of town after that and FINALLY The Gender Game arrived last week! Woot!

I enjoyed it but good grief, why is it so hard to get this book from the library? Also, why didn’t I realize I could have just grabbed the Kindle version for free and moved on to the other books that are much easier to get at the library? (Not that TW would have read it, because she hates e-books but this is about me, not her.)

Anyway Matrus and Patrus – post-apocalyptic fiction. I’ll read the next book and see how it goes from there.

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