Crossed by Ally Condie

I have to say Crossed was just meh for me. I felt like there was very little progress in the story from where it started to where it ended so it came off like a filler book for sales between the beginning and ending of the story (books 1 and 3). Maybe I'm off base but that is what I thought of it.  The story in this book could have been handled in a few chapters in one of the other books just as well.   You can't very well skip this one if you plan on reading Reached, the third installment in the trilogy.  However, it's not engaging and feels sort of futile when you finish and if you could skip it, that would be my recommendation.

**EDITED to add:
HUH.  I thought for sure I had reviewed Matched, the first book in this series.  I must have dreamed it because I distinctly remember writing a beautiful and detailed review about how much I loved the theme of the power of words in this story.  I love that poetry played an important role in the plot.  I loved the issue of self-determination.  I really liked the book and consider it something more substantial.

I Still Dream About You by Fannie Flagg

I mostly picked this up because I was looking for something light and fluffy after my battle with Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.  I thought, "Fannie Flagg!  Author of Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistlestop Cafe!  Perfect.  Whimsical.  Quirky.  Just what I need."  Not whimsical.  Not quirky.  Boring.  With terrible pacing.  Just terrible.  The first half is kind of a downer and reeeeeeeaallly slow.  Then there is an interesting little section in the middle with what appears to be a mystery but is totally predictable.  Then the end which wraps everything up in about two pages.  And they all live happily ever after the end.  Such a disappointment.  Skip this one.

Traveling With Pomegranates by Sue Monk Kidd and Ann Monk Taylor

Hmm.  Well, it was... interesting.  (That's like saying the girl who showed up for the blind date was... "nice".)  It was fun to read this and get a little of the back story on how The Secret Life of Bees came to be.  For those like myself who weren't sure what to do with the wackadoo religion practiced by the wonderful sisters in that book, this one is even worse.  It's one thing to go, "Oh.  They are worshipping a masthead.  That they named the black Mary.  And they smear honey on it and dance around.  Interesting.  Fiction.  Creative...?"  It's entirely another thing when the people behind the book actually do these things for real in some hippie feminist idol-worship religion of their own making.  The making of that craziness is the essence of this book.  It's pretty touchy-feely and although supposedly a "travel book", it has very little to do with either travel or the destinations and everything to do with what happened there.  In addition to the making of the black Mary religion, it is also a coming of age(s) story.  I liked this aspect of the book.  It explores the becoming women experience at pivotal moments in life such as going to college and becoming an adult, having your child get married, menopause, midlife crisis, grandparenting, and the shift in roles and relationships each time one of these pivot points intersect our lives.  Again, pretty touchy-feely, but a lovely portrayal of mothers and daughters and the ties that bind them.  I would like to note that the authors took turns writing chapters and surprisingly, I enjoyed Ann Kidd Taylor's chapters much more than Sue Monk Kidd's.  I might recommend it for a mother-daughter book group but otherwise I would say you could probably skip this one and find something better to read.

Book of a Thousand Days by Shannon Hale

I've put off getting and reading this for a couple of years.  I wish I hadn't.  Maybe I wouldn't have been so disappointed if I hadn't waited so long to read it.  The story is meticulously rendered like Hale's other fairy tales.  The details are evocative and consistent.  The setting is medieval Mongolia and she paints a believable, breathable picture.  That said, the story was just ho hum for me.  I was bored.  If you're going to read Shannon Hale I would recommend you skip this one and pick up something else she has written.  Not that this book wasn't okay.  It's just that the others are better.

A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving

Sigh.  I didn't even want to review this book after reading it.  In fact, I had decided not to but I just saw that it is one of the books on my A-Z Challenge so I felt like I should.  What to say... what to say...?  My mom recommended it.  When I mentioned to my best friend from 7th grade that I was reading it she got very enthusiastic and went on about how it is her favorite book of all time and how she regularly buys new copies since she is always giving her copies away.  SO-  some people like this book.  I guess.  I suppose they would have to for it to keep being printed and selling copies.  I am not one of those people.  Not even a little bit.  Not even just one part.  I think I'll stop there. 

Some objections:  general lack of reverence for the Divinity of Christ (Owen, we are to understand, is the result of another immaculate conception and is worshipped by the narrator after Owen's death), the politics (but if you hate Republicans it probably won't irritate the crap out of you), the language, and this quote:

"...although the subject of the president's personal (or sexual) morality would not have dampened everyone's enthusiasm for his political ideals and his political goals, Owen Meany was not "everyone"--nor was he sophisticated enough to separate public and private morality."

"...it seems that the only people who are adamant in their claim that public and private morality are inseparable are those creep-evangelists who profess to "know" that God prefers capitalists to communists, and nuclear power to long hair."

Truly there are no words.

In addition to my general objections, the pacing is too slow.  We spend hundreds of pages building up to something we're supposed to care about and by the time you get there you are so sick of waiting for the moment that the feeling is more one of "FINALLY!" instead of "Oh NO!  Poor OWEN!". 

Skip this one.  And if after reading this you really feel you must experience it, rent Simon Birch from Netflix instead.  I understand Ashley Judd is lovely as usual.

AACK! Has It REALLY Been THAT Long?!!

I was chatting with a friend from high school the other day and mentioned this blog. She jumped right on here and said something about "The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society...". I thought, wait- what? I asked her if that was the last thing I had posted and she said yes. My, how time and books have slipped by. :) Here are some of the ones you missed:

P.S., I Love You by Cecelia Ahern
I had a hard time with this one. I kept comparing it to the movie (which I love) and trying to decide which I liked better. I never really came to a clear conclusion. I think the writing is great. I absolutely love the characters- they are all much more likable in the book. There is a much stronger family dynamic and the characters seem to have a much more firm footing on higher moral ground. I thought the ending was a little anti-climatic. (This is the main thing I liked better about the movie.) Overall, I was glad that I read it and I look forward to reading more Cecelia Ahern so I think it deserves to be called something more substantial.


Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
LOVED this. It wasn't nearly as violent as the first one. It was a little more political and had shades of 1984. Katniss Everdeen faces the fallout of her decision to rebel (in the previous book, The Hunger Games) and finds herself torn between the two men who love her. I thoroughly enjoyed this and it was not too predictable for the most part. (There were a couple obvious things but they did not detract in any way.) I can't wait for the third book of this trilogy to come out. The series makes for some great book discussions and is a great choice for book groups. For this reason I think Catching Fire is something more substantial.


Stones From the River by Ursula Hegi
A very dear friend recommended this to me. She said it was her favorite book and so I delved in with high expectations. The metaphors are wonderful; truly excellent craftsmanship. No matter how hard I tried though, I just could not get into the story. It is so, SO sad. The book is told from the perspective of a Little Person in Pre-WWII/Nazi Germany. It starts when she is a tiny little girl and tells how her mother believed that the baby girl's condition was a punishment from God. The mother could not bond with her, most likely due to postpartum depression, and shuts down completely for years. When the mother becomes pregnant again, the little girl is so afraid that the new baby will be normal and that her mother will not love her anymore, that she eats the sugarcubes left on the windowsill for the stork. She hopes that if she does this, the stork will not leave a baby. The baby is stillborn and the girl believes that she has killed him. Her mother sinks into a depression so deep that she has to be sent to an asylum for shock therapy and eventually dies. The girl believes she has killed her mother. Mixed in with all this are the everyday challenges of being a Little Person, being discriminated against, etc. The father and the Jewish lady across the street are the only bright spot in her life. They show her kindness and love. I only got about halfway through the book when I could force myself to go no farther. I can only assume something horrible happens to the Jewish woman and I couldn't take the sadness anymore. I am sorry that Little People have the struggles they do, but surely there must be a slightly less slit-your-wrists book about it than Stones From the River. Skip this one.

Remembering Isaac by Ben Behunin
Groan. I have this thing. I HATE not knowing how things end. I cannot walk out of a movie, I can't turn off a t.v. program in the middle, and I certainly have a difficult time putting a book down once I've started it. So I REALLY hate it when I read to the last page and the story doesn't end. I'm not talking like Harry Potter where there is an arc and a plotline resolves but other questions are unanswered to keep you hooked for the next one. I'm fine with that. It is what makes reading a series fun. No, what I'm talking about here is when you turn the page expecting at least another chapter- even another sentence- and lo, and behold the book is TO BE CONTINUED. It's a cheap trick and it makes me really mad at author, editor, and publisher alike. Such is Remembering Isaac. It is not a book. It is HALF a book. There was not enough resolution for this to be worth my while. It makes me grumpy every time I remember the day and a half I spent reading it. The writing is stilted and preachy. I agree with the tenets Mr. Behunin is trying so skill -lessly to weave into the book, but I think the way he did it smacks of a public library puppet show for preschoolers. Mr. Squirrel needs to find out where the magical nut stash is and he goes to Mr. Owl, Mr. Bunny, and Mr. Frog, each in turn to ask them if they know where it is. Bleagh. Skip this one.- On the other hand,

Discovering Isaac by Ben Behunin
is much, much better. I read it because, as previously stated, I can't stand not to know how it ends. It's a compulsion. Even if it's a Lifetime Original Movie from the 80's, if I see more than 5 minutes of it, I have to see it through to the end. Probably I could take medication...? I digress. The book is still TO BE CONTINUED (ARGGGHHHHH!), but the writing is leaps and bounds over the first one. The little moral lessons are much more subtly woven into the story and the love story picks up enough that you really want to find out what happens to their relationship. Maybe the last book in the trilogy will actually be good. Since it is still not a finished story, I am going to say skip this one too.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid series by Jeff Kinney
In an effort to connect with my boy, I picked these up to see what he was reading. They are funny, irreverent, and made me feel guilty for laughing out loud at things that I shouldn't laugh about. (e.g.- Greg's friend Rowley gets blamed for something Greg does and Greg is trying to decide what the right thing to do is. He comes to the conclusion that the right thing to do is to let Rowley "take one for the team on this". Then when his mom asks him if he did the right thing or not and he answers Yes, she takes him out for ice cream.) The stories are a little mean-spirited, but I think the point is to teach right and wrong through irony. This might be great for middle schoolers, who deal almost exclusively in sarcasm, but for my 3rd grader I am afraid that all the implied lessons on virtues may be a little lost. I enjoyed this very much and it got my son to read four books in three days so I'm going to say it's refined sugar.

My Best Friend's Girl by Dorothy Koomson
Another in an endless supply of airplane books, My Best Friend's Girl is sweet but a little ho hum. The story is about Kamryn, a woman whose best friend dies of leukemia leaving her five year old daughter to be raised. Kamryn takes her in and the book is sort of the story of the adjustment she makes to the new life of being a mom and falling in love with both the girl and a would-be father. I was in love with the love interest by the end and I liked the main character, but this book isn't going to stick with me. I would be surprised if I even remember reading it a year or two down the road. It's not substantial but I did enjoy it so if you have nothing better to do or you're looking for that perfect weekend on the beach book, this is good refined sugar.

The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan
This was another book that my son was reading and I had been recommended it several times in the last couple years. The story was a fun romp through Greek mythology, set in modern times in NYC. I liked it as much as the first Harry Potter book and I can't wait to read the next one in the series (Percy Jackson and the Olympians). Because it drew me in and because it makes Greek mythology so accessible to young adults, I feel this is something more substantial.



The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
Another book that I read because I loved the movie so much. The characters were more loveable in the movie, more realistic in the book. Even though I knew what was coming, I bawled my eyes out at the end and when I closed the book I marched upstairs and made love to my husband. It was really good. The book is peppered with strong profanity and there is mention of illicit drug use several times. Overall I liked it though and because I really had to concentrate to wrap my mind around and make sense of the paradoxes intrinsic in time travel, I feel like this is something more substantial- profanity notwithstanding.

Pretties by Scott Westerfeld

Eh. Color me nonplussed. This was disappointing after the excitement of the first one. The writing was consistent throughout the book but because the setting was among the light-minded "pretties", it was consistently annoying. I read this book beacuse I loved the first one so much and I am hoping/expecting the next one ("Specials") to be better, but on it's own I'd say skip this one. Except you can't. Oh well. : )

Enchantment by Orson Scott Card

I was a little impatient with this book. It is a real-life fairy tale set in the present and in the past; in the United States and in Russia; in reality and in fantasy. I grew frustrated with waiting for the setting to be where I wanted it to be; with the characters interacting how I wanted them to act; and for the plot to get to the good part. The ending was thoroughly predictable- not in a lovely fairytale sort of way but in a poorly executed fashion that was glib and cliche. My impatience was probably due in part to the frazzled state of affairs here at the NotQuiteTheBradys household. (I was throwing three kid's birthday parties in three days.) Mostly though, I was simply not very impressed with story. It had so much potential but I just felt Mr. Card was a little off his game when he wrote this one. I would say it was just o.k. so probably you could skip this one.

Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

I knew I was forgetting one! Lovely Bones is an interesting story because it is told from the point of view of a murder victim. A girl is raped and brutally killed. She then watches all the people in her former life as they struggle to put the pieces of their world back together without her in it. This means that the book focuses on a lot of pain and dysfunction in many various relationships. The afterlife in this book reminded me of the Robin Williams/Cuba Gooding Jr. movie, What Dreams May Come. It was interesting but strange. I thought the book was depressing and I didn't find any uplifting themes at the end. I think I would say skip this one.

The Confession of Fitzwilliam Darcy by Mary Street

Let me start by saying that I have always shunned books like these, written about an author's characters after the author's death. It has always seemed to me conceitedly presumptuous to write such a book. That said, when I saw this book on the bargain table at Barnes & Noble, I found it irresistable. The Confession of Fitzwilliam Darcy is the story of Pride and Prejudice as told from Mr. Darcy's point of view. All I can say is that once again I have been shown that sticking to your principles is always the wisest course of action. I did not think it would be possible to take a story I love and turn it into pure drudgery. The story was choppy, and completely lacked imagination. I was sorely disappointed, particularly at the lack of introspection. Here is a character who clearly is both extremely intelligent and very reserved. This would suggest that he spends a lot of time with his own thoughts. You won't find them in this book. I almost feel like saying it is unnecessary since many of you probably accept this as a no-brainer, but skip this one.

Jemima J by Jane Green

Jemima J is a book about being fat and being thin. Actually, it's about being fat and becoming thin. I didn't feel that the author really had any true idea of what it was like to be fat, just that she was spewing psychobabble she had heard on Oprah or whatever is the British equivalent. I thought that the author tried too hard- especially all the passages centered on fate bringing two people together. The writing was on par with a gifted 10th grader, often tedious/redundant. The plot was ridiculous in places, particularly one part of the book where the author tries really hard to imcorporate the literary technique of irony. This involves a rather nauseating description of "chubby chaser"-porn which I found unnecessary.

The book was difficult to relate to because one of the themes in the story is the emergence of this thing they have now called the "internet". The material being so dated was a little distracting. Maybe in 50 or 60 years that part would be interesting for another generation to read. I found it annoying.

There was a LOT of sex- some of it described in detail, and quite a bit of profanity.

SPOILER:

Jemima J is a Cinderella story and the fat girl gets the prince (but only when she's thin). I didn't like that she loses the weight by becoming simultaneously unhealthily obsessed with exercise and very nearly anorexic. Then, in spite of this, she is able to keep the weight off when she starts eating again. Even though it is a romantic happily ever after, I didn't like the story, the writing, or the people except for the prince and (most of the time-) Jemima.

I would have to say skip this one.

Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen

Northanger Abbey was Jane Austen's first book ever written and last ever published. I believe is was published posthumously and I'm not sure she ever intended for it to be read by an audience (although I have not read anything one way or the other). The book seemed to me to be a study in writing novels. She asked and answered a lot of questions in this book. What makes a heroine or a plot worthy of reading? Which works to take inspiration from, which to completely diverge from? Are novels worthy endeavors? Can one be written about normal people? Will doing so make novels more socially acceptable? Do popular opinions matter on the subject of novels anyway? Jane makes many asides to the audience which I felt were more of a stream of consciousness creative writing exercise than anything else. I especially felt that the book was not intended to be published at the end when she essentially said, "and then they all lived happily ever after, etc., etc. You know all the rest and I can fill it all in later without giving it much thought." It is possible that this was an underdeveloped stylistic choice, especially considering the similar though less abrupt ending of Emma. I think however, that Northanger Abbey was just a practice to help the author decide more precisely on a direction to take her work.

I didn't particularly like this book and I found the asides to the audience on par with political lobbyist soapboxes, of which I am not a fan. I am quite glad I had read a number of other Jane Austens before reading this one. I fear that I would not have picked up any of the much more worthy ones, had I read this one first. I don't think anyone should miss out on Austen but in this case I am going to have to say skip this one, at least until you have read some of her other more wonderful books.

Wicked by Gregory Maguire

I read this book cover to cover and for the first two days afterwards I couldn't even tell if I liked it or not.

The book is interesting, creative, and well thought out. I was intrigued by the histories, cultures, religion, and politics of the different ethnicities in Maguire's Oz. I particularly appreciated the way their many folktales offered an explanation for the various and incongruous accounts of the events and characters portrayed in the Baum books. I did not like the people of Maguire's Oz, however. I found them to be a morally bankrupt society on an apocalyptic level. The story was fraught with murder, intrigue, and sexual perversions of every sort. I found it offensive on many levels. It also took me a very long time to get into the story.

Elphaba, a.k.a.- the Wicked Witch of the West- goes through most of her life just trying to do what is right in spite of the wicked world in which she lives. She is constantly helping others and receives only the smallest portion of love from others in return. She is a tragic character and you hope that in the end she will go to some afterlife prepared for the inhabitants of Oz. This is not to be however, since there is no "After" for witches. Perhaps this is best, since it is her hope to cease a painful existance.

If this book were a movie, it would receive an "R"-rating at the very least. I understand that the musical is quite family friendly, so if you are interested in hearing the twist on the tale, I would buy tickets to a production and skip this one altogether.

First Two Book Reviews

I posted these first two book reviews on my other blog.

The first was "The Jane Austen Book Club". The short story is that I hated it. For the long story you can go here.

The second was "Love Walked In". Yes it did. I loved this book. Here is my review.

More to come soon!