Fiction

On the Occasion of My Last Afternoon

1 Comment / 2008, Books in Bed, Fiction, From the Stacks Challenge, Women /

For me, Kaye Gibbons is one of those authors I’m supposed to love… but don’t. As I picked up On the Occasion of My Last Afternoon I said… “I hope it’s better than Ellen Foster… or …whatever the short story was that was in The Awakening etc…”

It was but it was still a slow read, I still didn’t really care about any of the characters and I just kept thinking I’ve heard this story before.

Southern father, daughter likes to read, falls for northerner, everyone lives unhappily yet happily ever after… at least those who fought against slavery did, the rest of the folks just died. It was the civil war, after all.

I have finished it and I’m still waiting for a Kaye Gibbons book that I really love, not one that is just “good for me”.

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The Sugar Queen

2 Comments / 2008, Books in Bed, Chick Lit, Favorites, Fiction, Women /

I really enjoyed Garden Spells so I was wary of The Sugar Queen… second novels are often not as good as first novels. Even when Sassymonkey said The Sugar Queen was good, I wasn’t quite ready to believe it.

The Sugar Queen WAS good. It might even be better than Garden Spells, which bodes well for future novels from Sarah Addison Allen.

Loved the titles of the chapters, nice touch. Love the books that “find” Chloe. Love the cab driver who has to keep his promises. Love Helena err Marlena. Love them all.

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Wicked Witch & Curse

1 Comment / 2008, Books in Bed, Fiction, From the Stacks Challenge, Queer, Sci Fi and Fantasy, Women /

Wicked Witch & Curse caused an awful lot of confusion. TW was confused because all she saw on the cover was “Wicked” and she couldn’t figure out why I was reading Wicked for my From the Stacks Challenge – surely I’d read that years ago… (and yes, I had – I was not reading THAT Wicked.)

Then, I got confused because it turns out Wicked Witch & Curse is actually two books, in one. I was only a little more than halfway through the book and hit the “Epilogue” – huh? After the “Epilogue”… the next book started. Aye yi yi.

What’s really confusing (and also troubling) is that the story didn’t end at the end of “Wicked Curse” – there’s got to be at least one more volume and now I’m left wondering if I care enough about the characters or stories to track it down… I’m not sure.

It wasn’t bad but it wasn’t great either. And in the second “book”… the “familiar” incident was pretty troubling to me, which I find totally odd.

I might read more… but I probably won’t unless I just stumble upon another book.

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First Part Last

1 Comment / 2008, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Fiction, Printz Award Challenge, Young Adult /

First Part Last was not the typical black city kids get pregnant story. Yes they’re black and they live in NYC but they’re not into drugs or alcohol, they’re not super poor, they’re smart kids who take classes like “Brit Lit”. And the 16 year old father raises the baby… but it doesn’t happen the way you’d expect.

** gotta close comments, the spammers won this round.**

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Keesha’s House

1 Comment / 2008, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Favorites, Fiction, Printz Award Challenge, Queer, Young Adult /

I was nervous about Keesha’s House. It’s a tiny little book – poetry. Ugh. The Printz poetry selections have not been bad but they haven’t been great. This one… great. One of the best Printz Award books.

These are amazing stories and I’d love Frost to write a book featuring each one of them. An entire series about the kids in (and around) Keesha’s House. Or maybe Joe’s story, that would be good too.

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The Nymphos of Rocky Flats

2008, Books in Bed, Fiction, Sci Fi and Fantasy /

aye yi yi just typing the title of this book leads me to worry about all of the porn spam I’m going to get. Don’t be surprised if you stumble in here and find comments closed on this post…

It was good but maybe not as good as the third book in the series, the Undead Kama Sutra. Once again, there were a lot of characters – I’d hoped that we would get a bit more background on some of the ones who appear in the third book, but we didn’t – we just got the dirt on Odin (which was helpful!) And we got a tiny glimpse of Carmen.

What was confusing to me was Felix’s feelings about “feeding” in this book – they didn’t gel with his behavior in book three. It took a long time to get all of that resolved and explained but that’s the price you pay for reading books in a series out of order.

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Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy

1 Comment / 2008, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Favorites, Fiction, Printz Award Challenge, Young Adult /

I really really liked the characters in Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy. I did not want the book to end the way it did.

I wanted them to live in Mrs Cobbs house.
I wanted them to head off to the territories.
I wanted them to start a great baseball team, the way baseball ought to be played.
I wanted them to hang out with some more whales, but not THAT way.

I wanted a lot of things to happen in this book – but most of those didn’t happen. Still… great book. Probably greater because those things didn’t happen.

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I Am the Messenger

2 Comments / 2008, Books in Bed, Favorites, Fiction, Printz Award Challenge, Young Adult /

I didn’t have very high hopes for I Am the Messenger but it turned out to be one of the more interesting YA books I’ve read in a good long while.

Interesting because it was different. No vampires. Not really one of those typical high school “problem” books, though there were plenty of “problems” to go around.

Really interesting storyline. Over on Amazon, a review or a description or something says “unpretentious” – good description. I like that in a YA book. So many of them are very pretentious…

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