The Last Battle

This is the final installation of C.S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia. For me it was probably my least favorite. Almost all of the rest was good reading, good stories, good action, good imagination, but I felt, sadly, that this one turned into more of a dogmatic preachy book and less of a good story. I was sad. I was hoping he could hang on to the wonderful imagination and storytelling skills most of the other books have, but I just didn't feel like he did. I feel a little let down, actually, like he dropped the ball of the story on his way to writing out his religious beliefs.

Then again, many people love this whole series and probably love this book too. I enjoyed specific books in the series much more than others, and this was one I didn't particularly enjoy. Too bad.

If You Could See Me Now

This book is by Cecelia Ahern, also the author of the book-turned-sappy-movie P.S. I Love You. It was recommended by a friend after I read the debacle known as Sundays at Tiffany's. This book is also a romance novel about an imaginary friend, and it also, in my opinion, falls flat on its face.

This one was MUCH better than You-Know-Which. There was not a lot of dumb smarmy stereotyping going on. I didn't have to read all about the girl worrying about her weight, or the guy who loves to watch Oprah. (Can you tell that story still gags me?) The plot of this book was actually sensible--it just was NOT developed to its full potential. I felt like the story needed a LOT more fleshing out than it got. There were some characters that could have been part of the story, but instead it felt like they were just thrown in as a device to take the story in a certain direction. The connection between the protagonist and the imaginary friend felt too hurried, unreal in more than an "I'm an imaginary friend" sense. None of the threads the novel presented were eventually tied off or even really taken anywhere. It's sad, too, because it felt like it could've been pretty good. But it wasn't, really. It felt like a first draft and it should have been much more heavily revised.

The Sugar Queen

I love Sarah Addison Allen. I picked up her first book, Garden Spells, about a year ago, because I heard about her locally (she's from Asheville, NC), and my mom said she thought her books sounded interesting. Well, they did not disappoint! That one and this, The Sugar Queen, are both just magical, and I mean that in a literal as well as figurative sense. The writing just draws you in and the world the characters live in is just a little more full of magic than the one you and I might think of. The author's style is "magical realism" so the story is not focused on the magic, but is a well-written story in which you get so caught up in the characters you love and the writing is so good that the extra little bits of magic that happen to be present just enhance the story perfectly, instead of being cheesy or taking the whole thing over. I liked GS better than TSQ but really, they're both great. I can't wait to read another by this author.

Song of the Wanderer; Dark Whispers

These are young adult novels by Bruce Coville, the second and third books of the Into the Land of the Unicorns series.

I read them about a month ago and still haven't reviewed them...crap! I just realized the other day that it's been almost a month since I reviewed ANY books at all...and of course I've read 10 or something, so I have a major backlog. Thus, short reviews! Sorry. What can I say, buying a house is crazy-making!

Anyway. Unicorns. The middle book (Wanderer) was actually better than the third. It just seemed more like a complete book on its own, whereas Whispers was this big huge book where not much really happened. Plus, I'm worried because that one just came out in 2008, I think, which is TEN YEARS after Wanderer was published....Thus, I hope I don't have to wait ten more years to get to finish the story!

They're good fun, though. I bet in a couple more years we'll be reading them with James. I love Bruce Coville. When I was a kid he was one of my idols. And he's still darn good! =)

Prince Caspian; The Magician's Nephew

Obviously, I've been reading more of C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia.

So, I read Prince Caspian, and I was kind of sad, because I didn't remember a bit of it. And because I ultimately didn't connect with it. Maybe I read it too fast; maybe I should have read it aloud to James for a bedtime story or something. But the way things went, it just seemed like the characters didn't have enough time to develop, and I didn't feel like it was a FULL story, whatever that may mean. There was too much going on, the reader was taken in too many directions, so that by the end when the Pevensies are, I think the quote was something like "saying goodbye to their old friends," I sort of thought, wait a minute, what old friends? Oh, I guess the people they've met this time around, but they haven't known them very long or really formed a good friendship. So. Eh. Still a fun story, probably, but at the bottom of the Narnia stories for me so far.

The Magician's Nephew, which I for some reason thought was going to be boring, turned out to be the one that was my favorite as a child. It's about the beginning of Narnia, Narnia's Creation story, as it were, and it was such a pleasure for me to rediscover it. There is such a joy in reading a book that you read as a child, and LOVED, and forgot, in re-awakening to its joys and remembering the things you loved about it. I'm not sure how good the book really is, though; only that I loved it as a child and love it again now. There is something wonderful about the Wood Between the Worlds and in watching the creation of a world and that whole thing that really captured my imagination. I'm so glad I finally cracked this one open.

The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, and The Horse and His Boy

These, of course, are two of C.S. Lewis' famous Chronicles of Narnia. I picked them up after recently watching the first movie, which was decent enough. My father read me these books when I was a child, and I never read them myself, so decided it was time. I think they're lovely, dashing adventure books, although I wonder a little how I'll feel about the violence and death when my own child reads them.

And of course, as others have pointed out, the second book has some very racist themes in it--all about how the North is so much better than the South, which, in description, sounds suspiciously like the Middle East, and I've heard it was meant to represent Turkey. But the girls in the books tend to be somewhat smarter than the boys, and especially Aravis from the second book is a great lead character.

Generally quite good. Great fantasy and adventure.

Into the Land of the Unicorns

Bruce Coville was one of my favorite authors circa 1992. And when I was pregnant and going through all my old boxes of stuff, which were mostly books, I re-read pretty much everything of his that I had, and still loved it. So I got this book on a lark at the library because I hadn't ever heard of it. And it didn't disappoint--I would've loved it as a young girl, although it doesn't pack very much of a punch now since it took me maybe 20 minutes to read. Good times. I will definitely read the others in the series. I *heart* Bruce Coville.

The Blessing Stone

By Barbara Wood. Most horrible book ever. Doesn't even deserve full sentences. I couldn't even read it head-on. I had to page through different areas at different times.

Some examples of problems I had with this book:

At the beginning, it's about humans 100,000 years ago...about how animal-like and therefore low-down and degraded we were. WHAT? We are animals, people. Deal with it. We are still animals. Living in houses does not change that. And back then? We were also still humans. Therefore, we would have, for example, mourned the death of a child. GAH!

Also, these down-and-dirty animal-humans? They don't know anything about the future. They have no concept of a future. WHAT? How do you think they went freaking hunting then? AAAAHHHH. They were people, people. Humans. They might not have thought like you and me but they certainly THOUGHT with the same BRAINS that we have.

And...the main character in that part of the writing feels a "danger" coming....but can't figure it out since she can't conceive of "the future." Grr enough, but it turns out to be a volcano that's about to erupt. Because this woman senses danger, apparently because the blessing stone helped her, she gets everyone to safety or something. Um...wait a minute....I thought they were animals. Show me animals who don't realize something funky's gonna happen and get the heck out of Dodge when a natural disaster like that happens. Remember the tsunami in December 2004? Remember how animals took off for higher ground? Yep, they knew to get away from there. Since she goes on and on about how they were animals, she should have remembered that they would have trusted their instincts and not need some stupid outer-space stone to save them. It's just so full of stupidity and contradictions that I can't even write down all that I want to criticize of it. I hope I'm making it clear anyway.

Another point I disliked that's a completely different issue. So this stone is supposed to help the people it comes to. One of them is an early Christian woman. The stone "helps" her to "have the courage" to choke herself to death on it. WTF? This is not exactly helpful in my opinion. And the situation wasn't even remotely like the regular Christian martyrs anyway. And then how the heck does this lady end up a saint if no one knows she choked herself on the stone? Just full of crap. Seriously.

So obviously I didn't like this one. You may disagree. God help you.

The Calcutta Chromosome

I thought I'd try something a little different from my usual book fare, so I picked up this book by Amitav Ghosh recently. It seemed promising: he's an anthropologist and the book is about malaria--all stuff I'm definitely interested in, having studied medical anthropology and loved it as an undergrad.

Unfortunately...this book did not move me. I found it somewhat impenetrable. I think the fact that an older Indian man wrote it meant that there were many, many references that this young American woman did not understand. It also seemed like it was going to be good, but I kept getting closer and closer to the end without any clearer understanding of the story--and then the ending was just one huge black hole to me.

Well, that's not really true. I sort of get it. And I sort of think the author was trying to make it a mysterious, open-ended ending...but it was not enjoyable for me. Too bad.

Also, I disliked where the author went with the premise of the story. There are so many fascinating things to write about when discussing chromosomes and diseases...but I just did not like this twist on things. Too bad.

Maybe someone who understood where this book was coming from would like it. It didn't seem *bad* exactly. I just really didn't like it. Ah well. Such is book life.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince...and the Deathly Hallows

Yes, I just (re-)read these two books in the last two days.

No, I did not do very much laundry or housecleaning during these days.

Yes, I still like them a lot.

Yes, I still wish there was more information in the epilogue about some of the OTHER people in the series...

Wait a minute, what exactly happened to Griphook? Did I miss something? How did the Thing get into the Place where it ends up and Neville...well, nevermind, just in case you don't know what I'm talking about.

And hey, is it just me or are Harry and Voldemort related? Their families each have a Peverell descendancy...or at least that's what it sounds like in the book. Just sayin'.

And now I can go read The Tales of Beedle the Bard! Yay!

The Graveyard Book

Neil Gaiman's latest. I love him. It was a fun book, but of course not my favorite, because it's a young adult book and one of my favorite things about his adult books is the...intelligence level...? I guess the way the novel engages with your intelligence, a way that most adult books completely miss.

I liked this one, though. Fun, intriguing, and just brilliantly original. Hooray for more Neil Gaiman!

P.S. I forgot to mention that the only problem I had with this book was that it seemed more like a series of short stories....But that's not really necessarily a problem as long as you know not to expect one big plot and nothing else, if that makes sense. And maybe that means more stories about Bod in the future...which is a good thing, I think!

Acheron

Sherrilyn Kenyon is a writer I have trouble with. Her writing is not really wonderful, but her imagination certainly is. And she has a sense of humor that I can appreciate. And she always mentions anthropology-related things in her books. But she does not have an innate sense of punctuation. And the "romance" part of her novels is very Harlequin--which is to say, incredibly cheesy and unreal.

So, this book is sort of the culmination of her Dark-Hunter series, because it's about the mysterious leader of the group, which, by the way, is a group of people who were betrayed and killed in some manner, asked for revenge, and then in return for revenge had to become vampire hunters with special powers, thanks to the Greek goddess Artemis. Needless to say, the series is very involved, and I'm impressed with the author's imagination and the details she includes and the things she things of and the ways she incorporates all these different things together.

But this book made me a little sad. It seems to me like Acheron's book should have been different, maybe even somewhat of an ending for the series, but of course, that can't happen, because she's created this whole world and is taking it in all these different directions, etc. So while I really thought she did a good job with the first half of the book, which is Acheron's history in ancient Greece and Atlantis, the second half, his modern-day romance, was not even remotely special...it was just the same as all the others...which was really disappointing. It irks me when people in novels suddenly decide they're in love with someone and can't live without that person because....why? Because the author said so! There's no development of characters or insight into why these two people were meant for each other. So it's boring and again, cheesy and unreal. Sad.

Then again, the first half was pretty amazing in how effortlessly the author ties all the loose ends of history together to make sense out of the present. Warning: obviously this book has love scenes, but the first half also has a lot of sad ancient stuff, people dying and being tortured and so on. Not for everyone, certainly, and the book was not nearly as good as it could have been. Sigh.

Wicked Lovely and Ink Exchange

I read these two books, by Melissa Marr, over the course of about three hours. So they're not exactly heavy. Rather, they're young adult fantasy novels about the world of Faery and the mortals who become involved in that world.

The first in the series, Wicked Lovely, was really pretty good. I was interested in the characters and the story. I liked the plotline and the ending (unsurprising though they were). It felt complete. It stopped at a good place and a happy place.

The second, Ink Exchange, not so much. It felt like the awkward middle book in the series. It didn't seem to really have an ending. It didn't resolve anything. And the relationships between the main characters was less satisfying because it felt like there was so much the author wasn't telling you. So that was sort of frustrating.

I WILL probably read the next in the series, although I hope it's the last. Not because I don't like the concept, but just because I'd fear the same awkward not-full-book-ness for another middle chapter.

Fragile Things: short fictions and wonders

I am in LOVE with Neil Gaiman's writing. Oh sure, sometimes it's a little strange and disturbing, but MAN, it is GOOD STUFF.

Apparently I can't write a Gaiman review without resorting to LOTS OF SHOUTING!!! He's the only writer I can think of whose books I truly want to review with multiple exclamation marks. That should let you know how serious I am about his stuff.

So. This is a group of short stories and poems of his. LOVED IT. Obviously. Although there are a couple of stories that weren't my absolute favorite, there were plenty that practically made me cry, they were so good. (Favorite example? Locks, page 177, a poem about storytelling and his young daughter. Sigh. Beautiful.) But I can't describe too many things without giving away certain plotlines. So just trust me: Neil Gaiman is amazing. The End.

Breaking Dawn

This is the last book of the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer, and thank God it was good. If it wasn't I think I would've been devastated to have read all the other books. And I was actually worried, because I could tell that the guy and girl I wanted to be together never would be--not in this series. Luckily, the author showed that she understood that that's how it was supposed to be if this wasn't a supernatural series. And the direction this book took resolved the issues I had with the storyline, although of course I still wish it would've turned out the way that it couldn't.

Wow, that was confusing. When I finished reading this book last week, I had a great review written in my head, but the stress of moving in two weeks is taking its toll. Here's the bottom line: this was a great ending to this series, and I can now pronounce that I approve. =)

Sorry for the crappy reviewishness around here lately. Give me a month or so to get through this moving thing and my writing might start to make more sense! Cheers~

Neverwhere

This is the latest Neil Gaiman book I've read, but I think it might've been the first one he wrote. It's still very good, but I would have to say not my favorite, because I LOVE LOVE LOVED the others I read, whereas I just really enjoyed this one. It's quite beautiful writing, and it's imaginative, but I think my big complaint (which, of course, is nothing like a complaint since I really liked the book) is that it reminded me of a certain movie I saw a couple of years ago...which I shan't reveal because that would give the ending away. It also is a little more like a movie than the other books of his I've read. This makes me wonder if that's related to this author's ability to write graphic novels and such. I'm not sure exactly how to explain what I mean by that movie comment, but the other books I read (American Gods, Anansi Boys, Stardust) were so fantastic and fantastical that I didn't once imagine what they would look like in a movie or relate the images in my head to something easily translatable to a movie screen....but this book, Neverwhere, sort of reminded me of the graphics that have been done in recent fantasy-type movies. And I'm interested to hear if some of the plot characteristics of this movie, and some of the scenes, seemed somewhat familiar to you, and if so, did anyone think of the same movie I did? I'll give you a clue...it starts with C. ;)

Anyway. I love Gaiman books and I can't wait to get to read the new one that's coming out soon. OOH OOH OOH, just checked his site and it came out TODAY. HOORAY! =)

Eclipse

This is the third book in the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer, and I can't really do full review of it without giving away a lot of the plot. So, suffice it to say that I was happy with the author's abilities but not necessarily happy with the plot itself.

In the last book, I was worried that I would get to this one and really hate where the author went with everything, but I was happy to discover that's not the case. Even though my personal preferences mean that I wish the story had taken a different turn, the plot isn't aggravating and stupid like I feared.

And reading this book showed me a lot about myself through the characters, which sounds cheesy to say, but it's true anyway. I have values and standards about love and relationships that I am really glad I have and I am so blessed to have a partner who feels the same way.

Wow, that came out really un-like a book review, but that's the best I can do without using lots of names and giving away lots of plotlines. And I'm saving that for the finale!

On a related note...I do have to say that I feel a little bit let down by some of the plot structure. Things were revealed in this book that really made me feel like the end is going to be really predictable. I can see a lot of details coming, and I don't always like that. But we'll see.

Carpe Demon

I read this book, by Julie Kenner, at least a week ago. And I have at least three other book reviews to do. I get so behind! Anyway.

So, Carpe Demon was exactly what you'd expect if you read the teaser from the front cover: "Carpools. Crabgrass. Creatures from the depths of hell. Suburbia has its problems too..." It's what one reviewer said is like a grown-up Buffy who never told any of her adult friends what her high school years were like. It's total and complete fluff, but generally decent enough for fluff. I have to say that I didn't really enjoy the ending, because I feel like she just yanked it abruptly out of the laundry pile of storylines she'd introduced, but that's probably because I don't like so many loose threads left hanging. I'm starting to get the feeling this might be a series. But I have no idea and I'm not particularly motivated to go find out. It was just a fun and incredibly quick read.

Oh, and one other small nitpicky detail I didn't like: on page 55 the main character is reminiscing about "Me, laid up with the flu, propped up in my dorm-room bed with a box of tissue..." and then on page 98 she says, "I didn't even finish high school." This confused me for a little while, but eventually I decided that when she said "dorm-room," she was referring to some arrangement where she'd grown up at the Vatican. However, not very clear, never explained anywhere in the whole book, and when you hear "dorm-room," it seems reasonable to assume that means college, especially without any kind of qualifier, doesn't it? Oh well. Just thought I'd point that out so you can avoid the confusion and have your mind free to grapple with the fact that plotlines involving demons almost NEVER make any sense. =)

M is for Magic

I found this children's book by Neil Gaiman in the library recently, and I was really excited because I've been enjoying his books so much lately. This was enjoyable but not nearly as good for me as the others (American Gods, Anansi Boys, Stardust), I think because one of my favorite things about the adult books was how well and enjoyably they engaged my intellect. This, obviously, is directed at children, and is therefore somewhat "easier," and thus, for me, less enjoyable. But it's always fun to read short stories and it was an overall decent book.

New Moon

This is the second book in the popular Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer. I wasn't particularly wowed by the first book, but it was good enough that I held out hope for the rest of the series to get better as it went on.

Unfortunately...

There was one major flaw in this book that has really turned me off of them. You see, one big criticism I had in the first book was that I didn't see why Bella (the main character) was so in love with Edward. There's supposedly this magical connection between them, but no solid reasons for love, ya know? And in this installment, the author introduced a character who HAS those good characteristics, who she likes to laugh with, who makes her feel good, who is her "best friend," but of course she's not in love with him. And the plot is structured in a way that makes it all very complicated but suggests that it's practically impossible for her to end up with the good guy.

So if she ends up with the good guy I'll be very impressed and it will have all been worth it, but if not, then I will be supremely disgusted. And of course I'm already disgusted because she's soooooo in looooooove with this guy but oh, could just never feel that way about the good guy. ARGH! Stupid teenagers.

In sum, it took me a day to read 563 pages, so it's both easy and compelling reading, but I'm not actually much of a fan, yet. The whole conflict just irritates me. However, I'm going to continue reading because I want to see what happens so I can get mad about it if it doesn't turn out how I want it to. =)