Fiction

Black Pearls (and The Woman in White)

1 Comment / 2009, Books in Bed, Fiction, Kindle, Sci Fi and Fantasy, Young Adult /

Black Pearls: A Faerie Strand was an impulse pick up from the YA shelf at the library. Liz and I were waiting for the Prince to find his way to the audio books and while she looked at graphic novels, I looked at the new arrivals. The cover caught my eye first. The faerie tales retold theme sold me.

Unfortunately, it didn’t live up to my hopes. It wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t great. But it’s hard to re-tell classic fairy tales in a way that pleases me, I like the originals and expect an awful lot from a fairy tale re-told.

I liked Hansel & Gretel the best. I really disliked Snow White. Rapunzel wasn’t bad. Jack & the Beanstalk pretty much put me to sleep.

Also, while I’m here… I finished The Woman in White on the Kindle. Still love it.

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Grand Sophy

3 Comments / 2009, Books in Bed, Chick Lit, Favorites, Fiction, Women /

When sassymonkey blogged about Georgette Heyer, I thought surely I’ve read some of her books and clicked over to Amazon to look. Hmm Some of them look familiar but maybe I haven’t read any?

I put a few of her books, the ones very specifically blogged by sassymonkey, onto the to be read list for TW’s mom to read and figured I could read them too. When I was in between books, with nothing I really wanted to read sitting on my shelf, I made TW sneak The Grand Sophy off of her mom’s TBR stack so I could read it.

And I loved it.

It made me laugh. It reminded me very much of “Bringing up Baby” – that crazy woman overwhelms the uptight guy sort of storyline with everything going hog wild nuts at the end. And yes, a happy ending.

Loved it.

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The last of the Cybil fiction picture books

1 Comment / 2009, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Cybil Challenge, Fiction /

TW will be happy to hear that I’ve gone through the whole Cybil short list of fiction picture books. For some reason it really troubles her that I read these. Shrug.

My favorites of this last batch were Wabi Sabi and Katie Loves the Kittens. Wabi Sabi’s collages, haiku, and Japanese made it interesting. I’m not sure a picture book age child would love it, but I sure did. Katie Loves the Kittens was just amusing, poor kittens – poor dog.

Didn’t like A Visitor for Bear at all, boring (and I feel like I’ve already read it) and Sea Serpent and Me just made me nervous. I’ve never had a child afraid of the water in the bathtub or the drain but I’ve heard horror stories – who in their right mind would read this book to a pre-schooler?

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The Story of Edgar Sawtelle

1 Comment / 2009, Books in Bed, Fiction /

I had planned to read Edgar Sawtelle ages ago but then Oprah selected it for her book club and I am so anti-Oprah, I put off reserving the book. Then we moved and I just kept putting it off.

I saw it on the just returned shelf at the library and picked it up only to have TW take it away from me because it was a rental. She put it back and ran to the large print area and pulled the LP copy for me instead. She’s a good woman. Why pay for a book when you can read it for free?

I put it off again once it was in the house. And then when I picked it up, I found it incredibly slow and almost put it down again. But I didn’t. I stuck with it and found myself enjoying it. Until the end. I hated the end. Hated it, hated it, hated it. I saw a review on Amazon that says the author just “burned it all down” rather than tie up the loose strings and the story lines. And yea, that’s pretty much how I felt about it.

I don’t need a happy ending. I like a good tragedy. But that ending must go. When someone makes this into a movie, and they will – they must improve the ending.

**side note, for book tracking purposes at the end of the year** finished The Red Tent on the Kindle for iPhone. Next up, The Woman in White. Heh.

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Some more Cybils

1 Comment / 2009, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Comics & Graphic Novels, Cybil Challenge, Favorites, Fiction, Poetry, Young Adult /

First, graphic novel Emiko Superstar, by the author of Skim. Loved Emiko, more than I loved Skim. I’m looking forward to Liz reading it. I think she’ll like it. Also hoping there’s an Emiko sequel.

Next, On the Farm, listed in the Cybils under poetry. Errr, well yea it is, I guess. Mostly I really liked the woodcuts and ink (TW did not like them at ALL – she said the animals were creepy.)

After that, How to Heal a Broken Wing – didn’t expect to love it. Loved it. Great story. Great drawings. But, if I had a small child I would be worried that my small child would find it perfectly acceptable to pick up a dead (or injured) pigeon and eww. no. those things are dirty!

Last, but not least, a book I loved and hated. More than Friends, a YA poetry anthology written by a man and a woman, from his perspective and hers. Really interesting and pretty stereotypical – which was what I both loved and hated about it. I can’t decide if my teen girls (or young adult girls) should read it or if I should hope they never see it.

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Savvy

1 Comment / 2009, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Cybil Challenge, Fiction, Sci Fi and Fantasy, Young Adult /

I think Savvy was maybe mis-categorized in The Cybils. I think it should have simply been a middle grade fiction book because then it might have had a chance to win. Or, probably not but I’d like to think it would.

The writing isn’t exceptional. A good bit of gratuitous use of silly words and descriptors but I get why it’s written that way. It’s a fantastic story. Really excellent. Wouldn’t it be awesome if we all got our “savvy” at 13?

I love, love, love Mibs’ “savvy” (but I do NOT want to have that “savvy” for myself. I’d never be able to spend time with my big kids!) Brilliant. I don’t think there are many children’s authors who’d have taken that direction.

I think Liz will love this one, if I can convince her to read it.

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Jellicoe Road

2 Comments / 2009, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Cybil Challenge, Fiction, Young Adult /

Another good Cybil YA book, Jellicoe Road but there are a couple of problems with it.

First, it’s Australian. And while I like Australian books, the more modern of them can be difficult to wrap my head around. The characters confuse me – they some times seem American and other times seem European and I need them to seem Australian, whatever that means.

Second, it’s a YA problem book, which is enough to make you crazy. And the damn problems are all related to just how stupid adults can be when it comes to raising children.

OK another problem, the confusion of the characters makes for confusion in the book which causes confusion for the reader.

Once I settled into the confusion, got my bearings a little bit – I liked the story, though it was a wee bit predictable. I liked all of the characters from the beginning – except maybe the original five (which makes sense because they are the adults who screwed up the main characters in the story…)

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2 more Cybils

1 Comment / 2009, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Comics & Graphic Novels, Cybil Challenge, Fiction, Non-Fiction, Young Adult /

I finished Duel! a few days ago but didn’t feel like blogging it by itself. It’s ok but boring. In fact, I cannot figure out how you can make a duel between Burr and Hamilton boring – but after reading this… well it’s possible. Yes indeedy.

And then there was graphic novel Three Shadows. Oy. Liz read this and she really liked it. I had high hopes. And then I read it and OY! She liked this? I mean I get why a 10 year old would like a story about a father who turns into a Golem but… man… this thing was deep. And depressing. And drawn in dark dark colors, not pretty at all. And not really a happy ending, in the sense that 10 year olds generally understand happy endings.

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