Fiction

The Secret of Sarah Revere was surprisingly good. I’m not a huge historical fiction fan and I’ve found a lot of young adult historical fiction to be over-simplified BS – just more of the same stuff kids are hand fed in school history classes. Now my appreciation of this book might have something to do with my appreciation for Paul Revere – not the mythical hero from “one if by land, two if by sea” fame but the real man who did an awful lot more for the cause than just that one midnight ride.

I also found the author’s note to be interesting though the reader’s discussion questions were a bit bland. There’s a list of other YA historical fiction in the back of the book, I’m hoping some of those are just as interesting as this one was.

Absurdistan is, well, it’s absurd. Amusingly absurd. Since I enjoy the absurd as long as it isn’t TOO absurd, I enjoyed it and I’m wondering why I never read The Russian Debutante’s Handbook.

Poor Misha wants nothing more than to live in NYC with his g/f and spend his father’s money. Well he’d also like to make a difference in the world. Maybe, as long as he can get to NYC where life is wonderful because that’s where his g/f and a lot of great food lives.

I hope he makes it.

Technorati Tags: absurdistan, fiction, russian, nyc, farce

I reserved Happiness Sold Separately from the library because I really liked Lolly Winston’s Good Grief and then sassymonkey blogged about it and reminded me I hadn’t read it. I liked it but not nearly as much as Good Grief.

I’m lucky, I’ve never had fertility problems or faced infertility. And, I find I can’t relate well to stories about women who do have these issues. Not only couldn’t I relate, none of Elinor’s actions felt right to me – right in the, “that’s how I’d feel” or “that’s how I’d react” sort of way. But then again, you don’t really know how you’d feel or how you’d react ’til you go through it, right?

Anyway, I enjoyed the book but it didn’t grab me the way Good Grief did and I didn’t find the characters as likeable as sassymonkey did. I think the only character I really liked was Kat, the next door neighbor. .

Goodness it took me a long time to finish Black Swan Green and it really shouldn’t have. I liked it. Jason Taylor and his family, his friends and his enemies – all good characters. A British book set during the Falklands and no Thatcher-bashing (except for a brief bit by the gypsies) – my kind of book. No idea why it took so long to read – maybe it was just the whole 12 days of Christmas thing got in the way of my reading?

I never read Cloud Atlas last year when everyone else did. Black Swan Green makes me think maybe I should grab it from the library and give it a go.