Fiction

A Novel Bookstore

2010, Books in Bed, Favorites, Fiction, Mystery /

I couldn’t resist picking up A Novel Bookstore from the shelf last week and with the dozens of books on my library cart, I felt really compelled to read this one sooner rather than later. Is there a book lover alive who hasn’t thought about owning a bookstore – the perfect bookstore – and what that perfect bookstore would sell? Exactly.

This book was originally written in French and I was a little worried about that. Not all translations really work, ya know. It’s also billed as a mystery, a love story, and a fairy tale which seemed a little overarching. And then the first few chapters left me a little lost and confused – and cold. But, that framework was important. Once we got past that, and into how The Novel Bookstore came to life – it was fascinating.

Picture a bookstore that ignores the latest releases – and the literary awards. Picture a bookstore that sells only novels – only great novels recommended by a committee of great writers. A secret committee of great writers. Is it any wonder bad things began to happen? How dare they?!

Wonderful book. Really.

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Scumble

2010, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Favorites, Fiction /

When I realized Scumble didn’t quite pick up where Savvy left off, I was a little disappointed. I wanted to learn more about Mibs and not about another Savvy family. Once I adjusted to the idea that this was a different sort of story with different sorts of kids – I loved it. I was sad about Grandma’s jars… and happy that Rocket finally figured everything all out. I hope we see SJ at some point in another book, I’d like to know how that whole mess turned out. And, I’m very very interested in Gypsy – though all of these books have needed a problem to solve and I cannot see Gypsy having a problem to solve. I think she fit her Savvy right into herself so what story is there to tell…?

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Recycler

2010, Books in Bed, Favorites, Fiction, Queer, Young Adult /

I loved Cycler and was really looking forward to Recycler… Now that most of my challenges are pretty much finished (I’m glaring at you children’s libraries all over the northern suburbs) I’ve got time to read stuff I’ve really been looking forward to. So – Recycler.

What were Jill & Jack going to do, once their secret was revealed oh so publicly at Prom? That’s what we find out in Recycler… and I’m not sure I really approve, particularly regarding what happened with Ramie. I get it – and I think I get where the story is going (there IS going to be another one, right?) but I didn’t enjoy it nearly as much as I’d hoped. Tie it all up nicely in the next one, please.

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Mirabilis

1 Comment / 2010, Books in Bed, Favorites, Feminism, Fiction, Queer, Women /

After spending several days complaining about the lack of books to choose from, I decided to work on getting my library reserve list back up to speed. I started with my Amazon wish list – it’s not really a wish list, it’s a holding place for books we’re interested in reading but can’t add to the library reserve list because our list is already really long. Then, I looked over the books I’ve read this year and looked for sequels or prequels that I’d like to read and reserved those. Then I looked at the Amazon “best of 2010” lists because I was really hoping to add some quality adult books – or maybe just adult books – or maybe just quality books. I don’t know – something that’s not too chick lit-y and something that’s not to YA-y. Then, I decided to look for some good lesbian literature and that’s where my frustration really began.

I sorted the Amazon lists by bestsellers, lesbian fiction, hardcover (because I was getting too many small publishers/self puplishers in the list and my library won’t have any of those) – only to find… my library has none of the 2010 lesbian fiction hardcover bestsellers… or worse yet, the bestsellers are all old… or lesbian detective mysteries. I like Jane Lawless but please, enough is enough. I wanted something else… something better.

It was late. I gave up for the night and decided I’d approach it from the women’s/lesbian bookstore direction and assumed I’d have more luck. I went to bed, without a book, and complained to TW about the problem. She said, “that book I just read is a library book – and it’s lesbian fiction.” Huh. Who knew?

Mirabilis is lesbian fiction, though it doesn’t really flaunt it and that’s the problem – there are a lot of great lesbian novels out there but for some reason publishers, authors, booksellers don’t want to label a book as lesbian fiction. (I wonder why… hahahaha)

Mirabilis is a story of a 14th century wet nurse who saves a town during a time of famine by feeding them all via her breasts, (well not all of them, she doesn’t allow the truly evil to nurse.) She’s able to do this because a rich pregnant widow is feeding her real, good food to make sure her milk is good enough for the soon to be born heir. A relationship develops between the wet nurse and the rich widow… gasp, a lesbian relationship!

Funny what you stumble upon when you don’t expect it.

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The Girl Who Played Go

2010, Books in Bed, Fiction /

My library cart is kind of boring right now. I was so caught up in trying to finish my challenges that I didn’t keep up with requesting books and I found myself with a cart full of paranormal romance and non-fiction that I didn’t check out. And, a grown woman can only read so much Nancy Drew before her head starts to spin so… I grabbed the only thing that looked interesting, The Girl Who Played Go.

Before I started reading, I had to figure out how to play Go. I could picture the game but I wasn’t sure I knew the rules. TW looked it up for me on her iPhone then I got my iPhone and installed a Go app and played a game. I’m really bad at it… which won’t surprise Michelle since she beats me handily at a similar game on the iPad…

Then, I started to read. At first I thought the young man in the story was the girl who played go’s brother. It took me a minute to realize the chapters alternate between the story of a Manchurian girl and the story of a Japanese soldier  – and then once they meet, their stories are more intertwined.

The book was good. It was a quick read. The ending was harsh. Very, very harsh. I didn’t expect that, though I should have since war is harsh and soldiers are often cruel.

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Mistress in the Art of Death

2010, Books in Bed, Favorites, Fiction, From the Stacks Challenge, Women /

Yipeee! I finished my From the Stacks (by color) Challenge today, with Mistress of the Art of Death. This was a good book to finish with – a long read, not because of the number of pages, but because of the complexity of the story. There was a lot to follow. I loved the ending. It would have been so easy to tie everything up in a neat and tidy (patriarchal package) – this way was better, much much better.

Long live King Henry II!

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Into the Wild Nerd Yonder

1 Comment / 2010, Books in Bed, Cybil Challenge, Fiction, Young Adult /

I had a hard time getting started with Into the Wild Nerd Yonder. I read the first five words about fifty times before I got anywhere and then I was pretty amused with the whole thing. There’s an awful lot of teen sex talk in this little YA novel. Girls giving blow jobs. Girls contracting STDs from said boys. Lots of trying to fit in with this crowd or that crowd. In the end, it all works out for the best – which often doesn’t happen in high school. And, this story almost made me wish I played D&D… and sewed. Almost.

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Ascendant – Some spoilery things so don’t click it if you don’t want spoilers.

1 Comment / 2010, Books in Bed, Fiction, Sci Fi and Fantasy, Young Adult /

One of the books I was most looking forward to reading this year was Ascendant, sequel to Rampant. Killer unicorns are awesome, even if Rampant has some troubling virginity themes.  It took forever for the book to be ready for me at the library and while I waited, Sassymonkey read it – and wrote about it. Uh oh. So when it arrived, I knew there were some potential problems waiting for me but since I don’t always agree with Sassymonkey – I dove in and tried to ignore what she’d written.

But, it started slowly. I struggled. And I struggled with the pace for the entire book – just as Sassymonkey said.

I also really hated what was going on with Cory (and the clueless Astrid) in the first 50 pages. I think that’s what bugged me most about Ascendant – the clumsy Cory storyline. Either tell us about the problem with lesbian virgin hunters or set it up properly so you can tell us in the next book (the book that you don’t actually have a book deal for…) Clumsy. I like the idea of addressing it but I do not like the manner in which it was addressed (It felt like maybe Peterfreund doesn’t really know what the problem might or might not be with lesbian virgin hunters… thus the clumsy handling of it.)

And Astrid, oh Astrid. Teen girls are not the most mature of creatures but I’m getting a little tired of the warrior making so many poor decisions. I know she has mother issues, who wouldn’t with Lilith as a mother, but good grief – Astrid should have been just a little smarter than that. There were moments when it was worse than reading Bella (Twilight).

None of this means that Ascendant was a bad book – it wasn’t. It’s still an excellent story. The actaeon storyline – brilliant. I do still want book three. Scratch that –  I need book three since this one was so much of a muddled up mess in places.  I hope we see more of Wren and Flayer (who it was nice to see again – they made their first appearance in Zombies vs Unicorns and I really loved that story.) And I hope Peterfreund can fix the Cory problem properly.

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Three More Cybils

1 Comment / 2010, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Cybil Challenge, Favorites, Fiction, Young Adult /

All three of these were pleasant surprises. Very pleasant surprises.

Dinosaur Hunt is a short chapter/easy reader that’s way too easy to be in the short chapter book category – kind of like the Mo Willems books. It can’t compete with Mo, unfortunately, but I liked it an awful lot. A cute little dog heads out to hunt dinosaurs in the yard – and he ends up building a dinosaur out of every day stuff you find in the yard. I liked it. Fun. Cute. I like Max Spaniel.

And then there was Anything But Typical – I was not expecting such an awesome book in that particular package. It’s one of those softcover paperbacks that you see in school book order forms – Scholastic type. I hope a lot of kids read this, expecting it to be lighter and easier than it was. I loved the Storyboard storyline and the Storyboard convention. I liked the online girlfriend twist. I like that all of the characters felt very real to me. I think that’s tough sometimes when you’re writing about autism.

The biggest surprise of all was Heart of a Shepherd. I didn’t remember this being on the Cybils list. When it came out of the library bag, at first I thought it was a Christian fiction large print that we had grabbed for TW’s mom. But no, it wasn’t large print. It also didn’t seem like something TW would have just plucked from the shelf. I shrugged, but it on the cart and forgot about it… until I needed another book, checked my Cybils post and discovered that book was MINE. Huh.

It started on a ranch and felt like some sort of old fashioned “western” story. I thought that’s what it was for a few pages until the boy’s dad was being sent to Iraq.  Then I wasn’t so confused. And I was pretty much hooked. I have no idea why the author had the boys’ mother living in Italy but whatever, it’s a small piece of an otherwise excellent story. And in the end, it could have been a very nice large print Christian fiction for TW’s mom. If it had been in large print. I’m guessing there will be a lot of kids who turn their noses up at this one. Too bad because I liked it.

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