Books I've Read Since The Night Circus

I've finished quite a few books in the last couple of weeks and wanted to do quick reviews of them. 

The Arrival, by Shaun Tan

This one was totally different from anything I usually read (or anything I've ever read, for that matter). For starters, it's a graphic novel, which usually isn't my thing. Secondly, there are no words. It's that artistic. Now, I realize that I should probably have been more serious and artsy about this book, but when there are no words, then my inner monologue takes over. And my inner monologue is really vulgar and tends to be kind of an idiot (also, it's British, don't even ask), so the reading went something like, "Okay, so this guy's going to buy postage stamps. Oh no wait, that's bread. And wait, there's a little ratf----r. What the eff even is that. What is it doing. It's like a shark-rat with gills. It's a ratf----r. Wait, everyone has a pet. That one's like a cat-fox. It's a cox." And on and on. 

This is actually a really moving story about a man who leaves his wife and child and home in a place that's being taken over by something bad (represented by a spiny dragon tail), and goes someplace new and foreign, tries to make a living over there, and later brings his wife and daughter to live there with him. It's an artistic story about immigration and emigration. He goes. The language is totally new and different (and so the reader experiences it with him, is completely made up and nonexistent). There are strange customs (everyone has some kind of pet, like in the Golden Compass books), strange ways to get food (I still don't get it...the best Inner Monologue and I came up with is that it's some kind of guessing game/vending machine in a wall), and everyone he meets has come from someplace else. It's like AMERICA but fictionalized. I liked it. I like that I was able to have a stupid narration in my head, but later realize what a cool story it is. And top of that, no matter where you're from or where you're going, you can "read" this book, because there's no words! I give major creativity props to Shaun Tan, and highly recommend it. I finished in about 20 minutes. You should at least go and look at the cute animal pictures. 

The Invention of Hugo Cabret, by Brian Selznick

Two things to note about my experience with this book: 

1. I have not seen the movie. 

2. I audiobooked it, and realized AFTERWARD that the actual book has some incredible illustrations that I totally missed by listening to the story, so I feel like I need to go back and actually read the physical book. 

That being said, I can't talk about the illustrations or the feel of the book, and I'm sorry about that. But the story itself was good. The boy, Hugo, works and lives in a train station in Paris. He's an orphan, and his uncle, the station's clock keeper, takes him in until he mysteriously disappears. Hugo continues to operate the station's clocks, because he doesn't want to go to an orphanage if anyone realized his uncle was dead. In the meantime, his deceased father had rescued an automaton (robot, or mechanical man) from a museum fire and was working to repair it. He died, and Hugo took over trying to fix it, certain that it held some kind of message for him about what to do in his life. 

It's a really interesting story in that it has some interesting factors: train stations, clock keeping, mechanics, magic tricks, early film, and Paris. I feel like the story wasn't as magical as I thought it was going to be, but maybe that's just me. It won the Caldecott and the movie is wildly popular, so maybe I'm just broken. But it seemed forgettable to me, if not for those few unforgettable aspects mentioned above. I do recommend it, but not to older readers. I'll keep it mind for the kids at the library, though. If you're an adult and you want to read a great kid's book, READ HARRY EFFING POTTER, ALREADY. 

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie

I'd heard a lot of buzz about this book on YA blogs, and I decided to give it a go myself. It's not usually something I'm into, Native American lit, but this book was actually really, really good. 

There are enough places for you to go read summaries of the story, so I won't summarize it, but it's a really great story about a Spokane boy who is desperate to escape the downward spiral of life on an Indian reservation, and he does this by going to the closest white school off the reservation (which is 22 miles away). It's touching, eye-opening, depressing, darkly comical, and illustrated with comics by the narrator which add a much needed note of levity to an otherwise heavy story. It reminds me a lot of The Perks of Being A Wallflower, but with a racial twist. If you like that kind of stuff, I definitely recommend it. I finished it in one sitting. I just couldn't stop. The narrator hooked me from page one, and I loved every second of it. It's an easy read, but one, I think, that'll stay with me. 

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, by Alan Bradley

THIS BOOK. OMG, THIS BOOK. This is the book I keep waiting for and it only comes every once in a great while. It's the book I was hoping that Godawful Sherlock Holmes thing would be. I was like:

It's the story of 11 year old Flavia de Luce, who aside from having a spectacular name, is a chemistry genius, prankster, and amateur sleuth. Although I use the word "amateur" loosely, because she's 11 and she basically solved every aspect of the mystery correctly. She, her father, and her two sisters live in a historic country manor home in England. Her mother is deceased. One morning, after a mysterious visitor calls on her father, Flavia finds aforementioned visitor dead on the grounds. She then cunningly pieces together the mystery of his death, using her brilliant knowledge of chemistry, her childhood naivety, and her bicycle called "Gladys" who I think she pretends is a horse. 

Flavia is a brilliant character. I can smell Sherlock Holmes on her, but she's different enough not to be a sad reincarnation. If Sherlock Holmes died and was reincarnated in the 1950's as a little girl, he might have come back as Flavia. Or if he'd fathered an illegitimate daughter with a dramatic actress (and don't even say Irene Adler or I will cut you). Or she could be a distant relative. She's calculating, chemical, and cunning like Holmes, but she has a flair for the dramatic and does, at times, show her emotions. She's just completely unique and I absolutely fell in love with her. 

I also loved the mystery. I GOT IT WRONG. I hate it when I'm reading a mystery, the red herring shows up, and like three chapters in I've solved it already. BORING. This one tricked me, and I love that! And Flavia didn't solve it by being like, "Look, a footprint, let me follow it." She conducted experiments, played on people's emotions, researched, etc. She's awesome. She's only eleven and she's fictional, but she's like my new role model. 

What I also love about this is that, because she's only a kid, she's an extremely unreliable narrator. Half the time I wasn't sure if her theories were childish and therefore, dismissible, or so crazy they just might be true. 

Loved, loved, LOVED this book. Luckily, there are three more in the series, with another two to come. CAN'T WAIT, omg, thank you so much Alan Bradley. I might even change my rule about not trusting people with two first names (or rather, people with a surname that could also be a first name) because you wrote this awesome character and story. Maybe. 

Absolutely recommend to Holmesians or people who love mysteries. 

What the hell-ementary, my dear Watson?

I don't know why I keep torturing myself by reading Sherlock Holmes pastiches and hoping they'll be good. If there were kinks in the reading world (and I'm not saying there aren't, I'm just not into it...or aware of it, thankfully), I'd definitely be some kind of Sherlock Holmes masochist. 

No, but honestly, I just keep hoping I'll stumble upon a book that makes me feel like I'm reading some of Doily's Doyle's work. 

This was not that book.

So basically, this is some author's imagining of 13 year old Sherlock Holmes's first case. Which sounded cool, and it was a good premise (a slash-and-hack murder in Whitechapel, so of course I thought this was going to involve Jack the Ripper. Disappointingly, it didn't.), so I thought I'd give it a try.

Overall, it was a silly book. Crows literally solve the case. I'm not even joking. Like, the black birds. They SOLVE THE CASE. That's the kind of silliness that would've maybe come up in the original stories, but then Holmes would've explained it away and solved the mystery using, I don't know, CLUES, or EVIDENCE, or HIS BRAIN.

I felt like this Holmes was extremely out of character, which I guess you can get away with when it's the young, formative years of a someone. But with a character as iconic as Sherlock Holmes, I don't know...I've always felt that he was born Sherlock Holmes, and didn't grow into him. We hear, once or twice, in the original stories that he didn't have many friends in his school years, which I assumed was because he was a genius and was probably deducing the crap out of everyone, which was cool the first time but then just got annoying. In this book, he's all emotional (albeit, still friendless), and then it shows why he decides to shut off his emotions. Which I think is a little silly. 

Sherlock Holmes is also apparently Jewish, despite celebrating Christmas in "The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle." But I will give him this point as Holmes's religion is never expressly revealed (though he does make mention of his belief in prayer, morality, and a Creator in the original stories). 

We also have child-Irene Adler, which is extremely ridiculous to me, especially considering she was an AMERICAN and probably living in New Jersey at the time the story took place. 

Seriously, Mr. Peacock (terrible nom de plume, too)?? As a self-professed "Holmesian" did you ever actually READ any of the Holmes canon? 

I feel like there needs to be a society of people that are Sherlock Holmes experts who have to approve any knock-offs/pastiches before publication, because stuff like this just makes me mad. And if the author doesn't approve of the changes, then they have to delete x-amount of Holmes characteristics from their characters, give them a new name, and pretend none of this ever happened. 

"Pretend none of this ever happened," is, incidentally, what I'm doing now that I'm done reading this watery, disappointing, and highly forgetful book. 

"I am half-sick of shadows," said the Lady of Shalott.

So, I'm obsessed with Elaine of Ascolat, aka: the Lady of Shalott. 

I don't know...I just love the whole story (it's tragic, romantic, and involves water. These usually indicate I'll love it), and especially Tennyson's poem (it's probably my favorite poem, if I had to pick one). 

Naturally, I had to read this book once I discovered it. 

It's a more "historical" take on Elaine's story. Which is stupid, because it honestly reminded me of the King Arthur movie (y'know, the one where they photo shopped suddenly-a-Pict-Guinevere, aka: Keira Knightley's boobs so it looked like she had some?). You know what else is stupid? The cover. This literally has NOTHING to do with the book. At all. There was no ivy. Elaine is never mentioned with ivy in her hair EVER. I mean, show us a lake, a spindle, a mirror...ANYTHING. This is probably the worst cover art I've encountered in a while, but luckily, the whole "judging books by their covers" and how we shouldn't do it thing is true in this case. 

Anyway, the whole book is written in a lyrical, almost poetic style except it doesn't rhyme. It's basically a free verse book.This moves it along really quickly. I finished well over 100 pages in less than an hour. The language wavers between "trying too hard" and "wow, that's actually workable." But I generally really loved the re-telling of Elaine's tale, and how the author wove in classical elements (like the boat, the spindle, the mirror, etc.) into the story but gave it a more realistic edge. She isn't locked up in a tower with a curse. She's part of Arthur's camp during the Saxon wars. She fights when she's not supposed to, is friends with Morgan and Guinevere, and is generally pretty cool. 

But she's not a Mary Sue. She's more like Katniss. You don't totally love or believe her, but she's better than most stock "femme fatale" characters. 

I mostly loved the book because of the aforementioned incorporation of classic elements from Elaine's story. And it's King Arthur. And there are Picts and battles and Merlin, so it's pretty awesome.

Overall, if you can get past the horribly generic cover art, it's worth a read, especially if you're into Arthurian legend or girls who like to ride/die in boats. 

SPOILER ALERT: she doesn't die in this book. But she comes close. 

"She doesn't get eaten by the eels at this time."

Another spoiler alert: apparently everyone underestimated Tristan's ability to get over Isolde. 

What. 

Anyway, it was good. Check it out if it sounds interesting. 

Also, THIS BITCH:

I might be becoming dangerously addicted to Candy Crush. Just so you all know.

What I've been doing and reading.

I started this post out as a book review, but then I was like, "omg, all I do is talk about BOOKS." So now I've decided to give you all a general life update. "You all" being like, the three people who still read my blog. ;)

-My job is going well! I started in October as an associate and by New Year's was the store manager. Yeah, I got promoted again (albeit unintentionally). So now I'm in charge of more stuff. I'm enjoying it, actually. And we (the store) have some exciting news in the not-too-distant future, so stay tuned!
-My grandma is doing pretty well. She's moving out of the nursing facility and into an assisted living/retirement apartment later this week. It's the perfect combination of having help on hand and enabling her to retain some independence, which is exactly what she needs at this point. We're blessed and happy that she seems to be doing better and that she's out of the woods in NC and closer to us. It's been so much fun decorating her new apartment, too! Even though I secretly wish I was decorating an apartment for myself...it's good practice, though!
-Accurate:

-I don't miss school at all. I thought I'd be weeping every morning and like, sniffing the inside of my backpack to jog my schoolish memories, but no. I hear my coworkers talk about parking and registration and I'm like:

-I still haven't really had any luck in the search for a "career job," but see point #1. I'm definitely getting by at this point in my life.
-I miss my friends. Most of them live kind of sizable distances away from me, and I wish I had people I could call up on the fly and be like, "We're hanging out now," and have that be okay.

Friends are just really important, and I miss mine.

So on that depressing note, I thought I'd show you a couple of books I started reading then hated and stopped reading (BECAUSE I CAN DO THAT NOW!!! It's such a novel concept to me that I don't actually have to finish a book if I don't want to!), and then a couple that I actually liked.


Books I Couldn't Bring Myself to Finish


The Girl Who Chased the Moon, by Sarah Addison Allen
To be fair, I'm not sure I gave this book enough of a chance, but it just didn't captivate me in the way Allen's other two books I've read did. With those ones, I couldn't put them down and I didn't want to. This one I was like, thinking of other stuff to do while I was reading it. Which I don't really take as a good sign. I love to be engrossed while I'm reading. So if I get desperate or in a book rut, I may go back and try this one again, but for now, I feel like there are SO MANY THINGS to read!


The Forgotten Beasts of Eld, by Patricia A. McKillip
I love fantasy/fairy tale novels. I always have, and I know I always will. So while I was at the library one day, I saw this book (and another by the same author, The Tower at Stony Wood) and was absolutely convinced I needed to try and read it because the writing seemed "literary." And a lot of fairy tales tend to get a little too childish and I was like, "BEHOLD! I am a literature major! I cannot read riff-raff! My fairy tales must be LITERARY!"

Utter. Crap.

I got like, halfway through this book and I honestly had NO idea what was happening. This was like living in Miracle Max's hut while eating shrooms and sniffing noxious fumes in the 1960's, all set to a soundtrack by the Cocteau Twins. It was just WEIRD. And the story wasn't that good. Nor were the characters. I don't know. I've had enough of having to interpret the words that I'm reading. I'm reading now to be entertained. This felt like hard work dressed up like funtimes. NOT COOL.




The Exploits of Sherlock Holmes, by Arthur Conan Doily's freaking Doily offspring.
I should've known from the title of this book that it was going to be a failure. That and the fact that Doily's son wrote it. *sigh* For those of you who don't know, I have a love/hate relationship with Arthur Conan Doyle. The man wrote Sherlock Holmes, so I can't actually hate him. But he hated Holmes, killed him, BROUGHT HIM BACK, and then wrote him so lackadaisically that it's embarrassing. But without him, Sherlock Holmes wouldn't exist. And I love Sherlock Holmes.

So naturally, I was excited when I saw this book because Watson frequently mentions cases in his narratives of which we don't actually have any record. The whole idea is that Doily's son found the names of all those unwritten cases and made up stories about them. Except he like, didn't make them up. He stole them from his dad. One of the stories I read dealt with a guy smashing every clock he came into contact with. Well, okay, that's fantastic...unless you've read "The Adventure of the Six Napoleons." Which basically had the same premise, same problem, and same resolution. Not cool. Also...it was a shame, because you could tell that he was trying SO HARD to write in the same style as his father. It's so incredibly difficult to emulate someone else's style of writing. It's like doing successful impersonations--it's just hard to do. And Doily Jr. fell short. He tried too hard to be his father as opposed to building off his father's creations and doing it his way. Maybe if he'd tried to write like Adrian instead of Arthur it would've been easier for me to get through. As it is, it was a painful caricature, like reading about wax figures of Holmes and Watson trying to be as clever and vivacious as their original doppelgangers.



I think the problem right now is that I'm not sure what to read. Now that I'm not being told, "You have to read this by Friday and then this book by next Friday," I have no idea what to actually read. So I'm just looking for stuff that is similar to things I've enjoyed before and trying to go from there. Sometimes it's successful, but mostly, I think, it's not.

However:

A Book That I DID Finish

Picture the Dead, by Adele Griffin and Lisa Brown
I got this book because it was supposedly romantic and creepy--both good, right?? I started to read it Saturday night, and I only intended to read like five chapters, but I ended up finishing it. And I'm still not sure if that was because I was intrigued or if it was just a simple read.

This book is a YA book, which is kind of a genre I like to dislike. But I thought, "what the hey, I'll give it a try." It's basically a Civil War ghost story/romance, but it's also part graphic novel. The story is told from the point of view of Jennie Lovell and her scrapbook. But the cool this is that the illustrator actually based all her drawings on actual period photographs. If you go to the book's website, you can see the pictures she based her illustrations on (she's also married to Lemony Snicket, so winning). The story is essentially a southern gothic mystery. However, having read every Sherlock Holmes story and many of the later pastiches, I called the end of the story about a third of the way through. You all probably could, too.

So was it mysterious? Not exactly. Creepy? Yes, but not as scary as I thought it would be or as it could have been. However, when it comes to scariness, I'd rather be left wanting. Romantic? NO. NOT AT ALL. It really bothers me! The protagonist came off as shallow and flighty and I didn't like that at all. In fact, my favorite characters were dead, if that tells you anything. Overall, I think it was a highly forgettable novel, but if you're into any of the aforementioned stuff, yes, I'd recommend it.


I also read Ron Paul's book, Liberty Defined. I don't like being overly political, but if you're not sure who to vote for and you don't want to vote Obama, I suggest you check it out. Just do it.


This has gone on long enough, now. Just like, yeah. That's what I do.

May the odds be ever in your favor.

I just finished this on Thursday. It was quite good; probably the best thing I read on my short summer break (apart from The Deathly Hallows). You can read a summary here, because I feel like if I tried to summarize it, it would sound terrible. "And then that girl did the stuff with the thing in that one place." Yeah, no. It was definitely better than that.

My initial reaction to this book was that it's a cross between 1984, "The Most Dangerous Game" and Lord of the Flies. It deals with a dystopian future set in a post-nuclear apocalypse world. My second reaction to this book was that it's one of those genre-benders. It's sold in bookstores under Young Adult lit, but I feel like there's so much stuff going on between the lines that it could really be for anyone, adults included. Just because the main characters are teenagers doesn't mean it should only be marketed towards teens. I think a lot of adult readers would enjoy it, too. Anyway, I always love a good anti-government dystopia story (V for Vendetta, anyone?). And like Lord of the Flies it explores human nature (specifically, the baser nature of children) untamed and uninhibited. The games are designed by the Capitol (aka: government) to remind the districts who's in charge. And the object of the game is simple: outlive everyone else, and kill whoever stands in your way. It's an extremely fascinating subject, and I feel that Collins does a really good job of sucking you in to this universe where this is the norm; The Hunger Games just exist, are played, and then life moves on.

I like the characters too. Peeta turns out to be unexpectedly likeable, while Katniss, the protagonist, is that perfect mix of realistic and ideal. She's not a total Mary-Sue, but she's not unlikeable either. Unfortunately, my only complaint is that The Hunger Games is just the first in a trilogy, so the ending was a total cliffhanger, and I'm not entirely sure where this story could go to fill two more books. I feel like maybe five more chapters and an epilogue would have satisfactorily ended the story. However, I'm probably wrong. Collins writes so wonderfully that I'm not complaining about having to read two more of her books.

Anyway, this is a gritty, fascinating, and addictive read. I read it in about three hours and couldn't stop. Definitely for fans of sci-fi, dystopian fic, and psychological stuff. It's a thrilling read, and I very much enjoyed it.

Reaction:




So, in other news, I start school tomorrow.

WAYY too short of a summer. I am DYING to go on a cruise, so if any of my generous, adoring readers wants to hook me up... ;)
And that's about all that's new with me. Hope you guys are enjoying whatever summer loveliness you're up to!



Also, PS: Remus Lupin as a "gay junkie?" Brb, loling forever.

"I find television to be very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go in the other room and read a book. "

Sorry this happened so fast. Apparently, I'm a quick reader when I don't have to sit and dissect the language and analyze the text from a scholarly point of view. Who knew?

This is the book I just finished:

The Luxe is basically Gossip Girl at the turn of the century. No kidding. Like, down to the number of boys and girls and their physical descriptions and everything. If you know nothing about Gossip Girl, I'm not sure if that would improve or lessen your chance of liking this book. For me, it was helpful in that I could visualize all the characters quite easily. And there are a lot of characters.

I think I actually liked this book, despite its cliffhanger ending and three sequels. It was predictable, capitalizing on the shamefully overdone "marriage for love vs. marriage for money" theme. This is what makes the Victorian setting work. I can honestly say that if this novel had taken place in the present day I would've stopped after Chapter 5 or so. But I'm an absolute sucker for lush and lavish descriptions of the upper crust of times gone by. So I stuck it out, and I don't regret it.

It's basically the story of socialite, Elizabeth Holland (aka: Serena van der Woodsen). Her life is seemingly perfect, that is, until her family is suddenly on the brink of being (brace yourselves) POOR. Then it's up to her to marry New York's most eligible (and wealthy) bachelor, Henry Schoonmaker (aka: Chuck Bass). Well, luckily for her, Henry's father wants him to put an end to his playboy lifestyle and threatens him with (brace yourselves again!) POVERTY, and his answer to this is to propose to Elizabeth, who's the picture of elegance and Christian goodness. Both kids, spurred by their obvious desire to avoid destitution, enter into a loveless engagement. Here's where it gets sticky. Elizabeth is routinely shacking up with the stable boy who she loves (he's kinda like Dan Humphrey). Henry is in love with Elizabeth's rule-flouting sister, Diana (Jenny Humphrey). And Elizabeth's drama queen best frenemy, Penelope Hayes (Blair Waldorf TO A T), is in love with Henry. So it's this very tangled web. Well, the book opens with Elizabeth's funeral, and it's up to the reader to piece together how she died. I won't spoil anything, but it was just 400 pages of a LOT of stuff. And not all of it particularly necessary.

Like I said, predictable and enjoyable enough. If I had absolutely nothing else to read, I'd read the sequels. As it stands, I've got about 6 more books I'm DYING to finish before May 16th, and the rest of this series isn't on that list. However, it's definitely something I'll tuck away for future reference if I'm in a reading dry spell. I'd recommend it, but if you don't like period fic, this is absolutely not gonna be your cup of tea.

My reaction:


I promise this blog isn't becoming solely book reviews! This is just what I like to do with my free time and naturally, you guys are the captive audience to all my whims and whimsies.

"Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read." -Groucho Marx

So I've finished two books since Monday and wanted to review them so you guys don't waste your time.

The first book was rec'd to me for its snarky tone and no-nonsense approach to the topic of healthy eating and whatever.

This book is such a waste of paper. First of all, yes, the tone is very in-your-face and brutally honest, which I usually love. But on the touchy topic of weight, nutrition, and self-worth, there are only so many times you can be called a "sloppy fat pig" or "fat ass" by the authors, who happen to be former models. Also, the plan for getting skinny? Eating vegan, drinking nothing but water, and working out 5 days a week or more. Um, hello. I don't need a book to freakin' tell me that if I lived THAT kind of life I'd be skinny. And a bitch. A MAJOR bitch. So for those of us who actually like to eat something other than bok choy and tofu, this book is a complete waste of time and don't even bother.

My reactions:






The second book I tried because I never read books that take place in the modern day, and Young Adult fic is always so sketchy and entertaining to me. It's like watching Jerry Springer. You know you have better things to be doing, but once they introduce cakes and trailer trash people, you simply can't look away.


(This book had no cake, but it did have some white trash. But it was not entertaining.)

Okay, so I the reason I chose this book is because the cover was pretty. NO LIE. And it looked nice sitting on my bed when I wasn't reading it. I have to give Dessen props for moving her story along quickly. I probably would've given up if she'd dragged it on too long. Also, she does this thing where she talks about what happened in the past, kind of like a flashback but not as hokey, and blends this seamlessly with events in the present, which is quite a feat so props.

Apart from that, I have nothing to say about this book. The characters were very bland and stock-ish to me: pretty jock boy with a troubled home life, runaway mom, uptight sister, and the main character, who is a teenaged girl who's given up on her future and is just trying to make it through the world. Nothing we haven't heard before. I can't even really summarize the plot: Ruby, the lead girl, has this druggie alcoholic mother who just disappears. Social services get involved and she has to go live with her estranged older sister and brother-in-law, who is the CEO of the book's version of Facebook. So she basically finds herself going from trailer trash to private school princess overnight. And then she angsts about it for like 200 pages.

This story could have been greatly improved with the inclusion of some corsets, carriages, and the 1800's.

I guess I liked it? I honestly have no feelings about. I read it, and by next month will have forgotten it entirely. I have no idea why I even read it. It wasn't important. It wasn't a story I felt any connection to and it had zero significance. I think that about sums up my foray into Young Adult lit.

My reaction:


So there you go. I'm about a quarter of the way through my next book and I'll let you know how that one goes. Overall though, avoid these two. Y'know how Jimmy Fallon does "Do Not Read" lists? Consider this mine.