Ah Francesca Lia Block…. Blood Roses was not your best but it wasn’t bad either.
I pulled it from the shelf at the library just because I miss Michelle Belle and also to remind me that I never sent her the books that I swore I had bought for her for Christmas… and then couldn’t find.
Short stories about a bunch of girls. Typical Block ie fantasy, dark thoughts, deep feelings. TW couldn’t finish it, which is not surprising.
You know what happens when an author writes one book that you really LOVED and another book that let you DOWN? Well I don’t know what happens to you but what happens to me is… I hesitate. Did I really want to read People of the Book? March just wasn’t great. Year of Wonders was great. What will this book be?
It was very good. Ten times better than March though not quite as good as Year of Wonders. I wasn’t sure I was going to like it – such a mishmash of characters but it didn’t take long for me to settle in and begin to like Hannah and all of the “people of the book”.
Excellent ending, I was worried. In fact worried enough that with about 30 pages left, I was tempted to put the book down and not finish it.
People of the Book Read More »
I received a free review copy of Home Girl ages, and ages, and ages ago. While we were still in Florida. TW read it while we were still in Florida which caused much discussion of payday loan stores and beeper stores and high end shoe stores in Chicago and its suburbs. I believe the reason we are not living on Dempster in Evanston is directly related to a payday loan store, a beeper store and this particular book.
So thanks for that, Judith Matloff. (I can’t decide if I mean that thank you seriously or sarcastically. I often wished we lived over there… but am also often very glad that we do not.)
But, since Judith Matloff and her husband are obviously INSANE, I don’t think she cares one way or another whether I blame her for my current living location. I mean really. She must be insane. I don’t think the level of her insanity really hit me until she brought her baby home (oops, spoiler – sorry) to the muchachos… in all of the time they were renovating and dealing with the business, she never seemed to have second thoughts about living there with this potential child she was daydreaming about. That’s the only part of this story that troubled me.
They left Russia because they wanted to have a family – where there was anesthesia and she wasn’t putting her life or her kids’ life in danger – yet throughout all of that madness, she doesn’t mention having second thoughts due to the possible danger to the child she hoped to have. She mentions it later, 200 pages or so later. Weird.
The rest of the book… loved it. I was thrilled to read it. And thank goodness I did read it… it helped me realize that no matter how cool and interesting and fun I might THINK buying a rundown house in a depressed area of Chicago might be… it is so, so, so not something I really am cut out for.
I do wonder what happened to Clarence and Miguel, though.
I don’t have much to say about Loose Girl. It was depressing. It reminded me of another book I read and can’t remember the name of. Same sort of thing – girl gets addicted to X, almost destroys her life, gets her life back on track – also an memoir.
That’s probably all I have to say – except that it’s too bad there are so damn many of these kinds of memoirs written by women. Is there a male equivalent memoir? If there is, could someone give me the name of the book, please.
The Hysterical Alphabet was an impulse purchase gift for Michelle, yesterday at Women and Children. No idea why I got it… just because I thought she’d be amused by it. When I read it, I wanted to color in the pages. No idea why I wanted to color in the pages, I just did.
The Hysterical Alphabet Read More »
Art of Modern Rock: Mini Poster Girls was not quite an impulse purchase but I didn’t go to Women and Children with the intention of buying it. I saw it, I remembered giving someone (The half child?) a book of rock posters that was really cool and as I flipped through it, I realized this was the “Perfect for Michelle” version of that book. And it is.
Art of Modern Rock: Mini Poster Girls Read More »
Thank freaking goodness I am very, very familiar with the work of women like Judy Grahn, Audre Lourde, Adrienne Rich etc etc etc. If I was not familiar with their work, I would still be reading Chloe plus Olivia well into the new year.
800 pages of lesbian lit. Aye yi yi. Text book style lesbian lit. Oy.
This was one hell of a lesbian anthology and if I had it to do all over again, I’d have read an author a day or skipped around a bit based on what my preference of the day might have been. Trying to read it straight through was not a fun experience and reading lesbian lit SHOULD be a fun experience.
By page 500, I was sick of lesbians… sick of masking… sick of the romantic friendship… sick of the man trapped in the womans body… I did not even want to think about the dangerous flowers or the amazons at that point. I just wanted it done. lol
There are some great writers in this anthology, some I’ve never read and a few I’ve never heard of. Great anthology, really. Just don’t try to read it straight through.
I’m a little disappointed that I saved A Northern Light for last book (in paper, the real last book for the challenge is on audio, and in the car CD player now.) for my Printz Challenge. It was good, really good, but it didn’t leave me excited or thrilled about Printz the way some of the other really great books might have.
I struggled a bit with the story being told from two different points in time, I’m not sure it was necessary. I also think it’s one of those things that causes teens to throw up their hands and give up on a book. YA authors should not do it unless it just really really must be done. And in this case, I don’t think it needed to be done.
I liked the “word of the day”, I liked the “word of the day duels”, I liked all of the characters and for a brief moment I wanted to live somewhere with a “pickle boat” – then I regained my senses. I also liked the end, not happy – not sad – just “right”.
Good book… should have read it earlier in the challenge.
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”.
On the Occasion of My Last Afternoon Read More »
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.