Wicked Lovely – Book Review

May 112009

Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr

Aislinn sees fairies. No, she’s not crazy, she just has the gift of Sight. There are fairies all around us, often poking, proding, and tripping us for their own amusement. Most of us can’t see them, but Aislinn can. She knows the rules, though: don’t run, don’t attract the attention of fairies, and do not let them know you can see them. After having mastered the rules for so long, things begin changing for Aislinn. There are two fairies, clearly very powerful ones, following her around all the time, even appearing to hear as humans with a glamour. She also begins hearing other fairies talking about her, unaware that she can hear them.

“Wicked Lovely” was a really fun young adult book. I loved all the fairy lore that Marr included in the book, most of which I had never before heard. What really grounded the lore for me were her snippets of old works from the British Isles that referenced fairies, their personalities and their abilities. Aislinn was a great character, although her friend/boyfriend Seth wasn’t hugely fleshed out. The other story thread about the Summer King and Winter Queen was very interesting as well. I’m very interested to see where Marr takes this story in her next two books: “Ink Exchange” and “Fragile Eternity.”

Thoroughly enjoyable young adult fiction.

Buy this book from:
Powell’s.
A local, independent bookstore via Indiebound.
Amazon.

TSS: Happy Mother’s Day and a Week in Review

May 102009

Happy Mother’s Day to all! This is my first year to be recognized on Mother’s Day. My own mom actually sent me a Mother’s Day present (do you think maybe she’s excited about this baby?), although I opened that a couple of weeks ago, because time was running out if I needed to return any of it. As I write this I’m sitting next to two wrapped presents frmo my husband as well. I inadvertantly found out what one of the gifts was because I was in Bed, Bath, and Beyond with him for a few minutes last night while he was looking for a gift for his mom, saw a nifty-looking book light, pointed it out, and got a disappointed look “that was one of the things on my list for you!” However, it is an exciting looking book light.

Edit: The other gift was a shiatsu massage pillow. Fan. Tas. Tic.

This has been a very good week for reading. If I could keep this up until the baby’s born I would be in good shape with reviews and for my goal for the year. Here’s what I finished between Sunday and Saturday:

twilight of avalon picture extras picture brightest moon of the century1 picture wicked lovely picture cutting for stone picture every last cuckoo pb picture last prince picture

And what I’ve reviewed since last Sunday (pictures link to reviews):

Hopefully I can keep reading 1+ book/day because in addition to all the review books I need to finish, I have a huge number of books out from the library, as evidenced by this week’s Library Loot post.

For Mother’s Day, after our brunch, I need to do some cleaning, but I also plan to do a good deal of reading. What are your Mother’s Day plans?

This Week’s Links

May 092009

I hope you’ve all had a fantastic week. Here are a few of the great things that have been happening this past week around the book blogs.

Reviews:

Do you need to run out and get a last minute Mother’s Day gift? Think about checking out Beth’s review of “Not Becoming My Mother” first. Beth describes not only the story of Ruth’s mother, but also how it related to that of her own mother for quite a moving Mother’s Day post.

Other News:

Next week is Children’s Book Week and Shelly is going to be celebrating in style. Be sure to click over and find out what she’ll be doing, you’ll want to be checking back next week.

Carrie is continuing her series of favorites in a genre this week with books about books and writing. There’s some great stuff on this list, you’ll want to make sure you have your wishlist handy when you read it.

Have you been reading Follow the Reader? If not, I highly recommend you start. This week they have a very sweet post about remembering reading mentors.

Discussions

Do you rate your books, or just review? Go over to Lisa’s post and weigh in on whether or not you like to see ratings in book reviews. Just a forewarning, this topic generated a LOT of discussion.

Giveaways

Soooo many giveaways this week! Swapna has a giveaway running right now in honor of Asian-American Heritage Month. Five people will each win five books, so this is a big one. Amy is also giving away the same books to the same number of people - so many opportunities to win!

Do you or someone in your life have Celiac’s or another reason to cut gluten from your diet? If so, you’ll want to check out Alyce’s giveaway of “The G-Free Diet.”

I also have two historical fiction giveaways to tell you about. Amy has a copy of “Royal Harlot” to give away by May 19th and All Things Royal has a copy of “In The Shadow of Lady Jane” to give away by the 15th.

Have a great week, and good blog reading!

Library Loot – May 8th

May 082009

library loot picture Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Eva and Alessandra that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library. So last night I went and picked up 16 things from the library. Yes, I’ve already got 10 things out, many of which are due in a week and can’t be renewed any longer. Yes, I’ve got a fairly heavy review schedule between now and when my baby is born that I REALLY don’t want to get behind on, because I have doubts about how many reviews I’ll be able to write once the baby comes; at least my husband will be home all summer to help, the benefits of being married to a teacher – oh, and my mother and mother-in-law are teachers too, so there will be LOTS of help this summer. Okay, so there’s clearly no way that all of these books are actually going to get read. I’ve been reading just over 20 books a month, and this is at least 30-40 between library books and review copies, and unfortunately the library books just can’t take too much precedence, although I will try to return unread as few books as possible. Let’s just acknowledge now that I won’t be reading anything from my TBR pile(s) for awhile. Even though I’m a bit overwhelmed by the number of library and review books that I have at the moment, I’m pretty happy to be picking up 12 things off of my holds list. I’ve been at the ceiling with 35 holds pretty much all week so I haven’t been able to add anything, everything I’ve wanted to add has had to be saved as a preferred search so I won’t forget to put it on hold. Of course, there’s a good chance I’ll be BACK at the limit once I actually sit down and do that.

In order to get in some good reading time, I actually stayed at the library last night after picking up my books until just before they closed. Much easier to get some reading done when my computer isn’t there to distract me (although I did occasionally check email on my blackberry). I love my library. I was sitting in a chair on the second floor next to a huge window overlooking a little river and a bike path that run behind the library. Before it got dark I was taking full advantage of the wonderful natural light that comes in the windows at both ends of the building and the windows up at the ceiling:

library window 300x225 picture library 300x227 picture

Anyway, enough jibber jabber, I know what you really want is to see what I took out this time, and what all I have out period.

Fiction:
The Lost Hours by Karen White
Bad Girls Don’t Die by Katie Alender
Nefertiti: a novel by Michelle Moran
The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
House and Home by Kathleen McCleary
The Luxe by Anna Godbersen
Admission by Jean Hanff Korelitz

the lost hours picture bad girls dont die picture nefertiti picture shadow of the wind picture house and home picture luxe picture admission picture

Nonfiction:
Edward VI: The Lost King of England by Chris Skidmore
Finding Oz: How Frank L. Baum Discovered the Great American Story by Evan I. Schwartz
Gardening Eden: How Creation Care Will Change Your Faith, Your Life, and Our World by Michael Abbate
Work Hard. Be Nice: How Two Inspired Teachers Created the Most Promising Schools in America by JayMathews (I actually own a copy of this, but my husband is reading it and we’re going to do a co-review I think, so I’m getting a second copy from the library

edward vi picture finding oz picture gardening eden picture work hard be nice picture

DVDs:
The Business of Being Born
Ratatouille
A Day Without A Mexican
Daily Show Indecision 2004 – RNC
Daily Show Indecision 2004 – DNC

The Help – Book Review

May 082009

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

Young, white junior league member Skeeter Phelan and black maids Aibileen and Minny seem an unlikely grouping in 1962 Jackson, Mississippi. Skeeter is newly graduated from college and starting to question the way things happen in her conservative town. The more time she spends with Aibileen and Minny, the more she realizes everything that is wrong in her society and the dehumanizing way in which many of her friends treat their maids. As Skeeter’s social awareness grows, she enlists Aibileen and Minny in a project that will change all of their lives, and maybe even Jackson.

“The Help” is an absolutely incredible book about race relations in the South during the Civil Rights Era. Now, I did not personally live through that time period, but each of the characters just rang so true. Aibileen, Skeeter, and Minny take turns narrating sections. Each of them is such a rich character that, whenever it is her turn to narrate, I’m sure she’s my favorite. Then the next character would take her turn and I would love her just as much. The writing and character development was all so lovely that I could scarcely believe this was a debut novel.

Heightening my enjoyment of “The Help” was the fact that I listened to it as an audiobook. Aibileen, Minny, and Skeeter’s sections were each narrated by a different woman and all of them were amazing. They infused so much emotion into their words. Particularly interesting was hearing how one character (say Skeeter, for example) was ‘done’ by a different character’s narrator (perhaps Minny’s), or the different ways each of them did the voices for the periphery characters. I felt as if I was getting an insight into how each of the characters saw the others, it really made the book that much better.

Absolutely fantastic book, I completely recommend it. And if you are wanting to try your hand at listening to audiobooks, this is a wonderful choice.

Buy this book from:
Powell’s.
A local independent bookstore via Indiebound.
Amazon.

Extras – Book Review

May 072009

Extras by Scott Westerfeld

Just a few years ago, Tally Youngblood freed the world from pretty-mindedness with what has become known as the ‘mind-rain.’ Since then, cities all over the world have been experimenting in different societies. In Japan, one city has become a reputation-based economy, where merits and faceranks make things happen. Aya Fuse is pretty mediocre, as these things go, with a face rank pretty squarely in the center of the city. Although only 15, she has big dreams and longs to be famous. Her main mode of trying for fame is as a ‘kicker,’ someone who ‘kicks’ stories to the city’s feed. If others pick up her story and start talking about it and her, her fame will increase (yes, it ‘kickers’ are basically bloggers, take from that what you will).

Aya has stumbled across what she is sure will be her big story, a group called the Sly Girls for whom the reputation economy is anathema. They spend their nights doing outrageous tricks, things that would make them completely famous, but do their best not to get caught. In the middle of gathering footage for her story, though, Aya uncovers something far larger and more dangerous. Something that could impact the entire world.

Although Tally and the other characters of the “Uglies” trilogy do make an appearance in this book, they are not the main focus of this story. If you go in thinking they will be, you are likely to be rather disappointed. I even knew the story wasn’t about Tally and was still mildly disappointed for the first hundred pages or so, until Aya grew on me. Since this story isn’t even about the same city from which Tally came, many fans of the trilogy may be annoyed with it.

However, I think it is still a story worth reading. Again, Westerfeld’s social commentary is fabulous, if focused a little differently this time. The adventure portion of the story was still good too, although it may have lost a little something for readers who had become very invested in Tally. Even when she does show up it is a very different feel for her not to be the main character and the reader to be in someone else’s head instead of hers.

If you were into the “Uglies” series, go ahead and read this one. If you don’t go into it expecting a lot of Tally and the rest I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.

Buy this book from:
Powell’s.
A local independent bookstore via Indiebound.
Amazon.

BTT: Not Too Graphic

May 072009

Last Saturday (May 2nd) was Free Comic Book Day! In celebration of comics and graphic novels, some suggestions:

- Do you read graphic novels/comics? Why do/don’t you enjoy them?
- How would you describe the difference between “graphic novel” and “comic”? Is there a difference at all?
- Say you have a friend who’s never encountered graphic novels. Recommend some titles you consider landmark/”canonical”.

As you might be able to guess by the title I decided to give today’s post, I have not really read a ton of graphic novels. In fact, I’m fairly certain that the only one I’ve ever read is “The Shiniest Jewel” (see my review), which was actually a graphic memoir. This isn’t because I’m opposed to the genre, or think that it isn’t really reading or anything like that. I don’t even have a personal dislike for it, as I did really enjoy “The Shiniest Jewel,” it simply just isn’t what I gravitate towards. I do have “Maus” on my TBR pile and am dying to read “Persepolis,” but I can’t think of any other graphic novels or memoirs that I have any particular desire to read.

I’m sure this stems from the fact that I was never much into comic books (other than perhaps the occasional Archie). While comic books and graphic novels clearly aren’t quite the same thing, I’m not sure exactly where the difference lies. I would assume that graphic novels tend to have more sophisticated, involved plots and are generally without the serialized nature of comic books.

Funnily enough, although I am not really into comic BOOKS (or even so much their cousin the graphic novel), I do have a few select comic strips that I make a point to read every morning over my breakfast. My favorites are those that are smart and through a little satire my way, get my brain functioning in a fun way. An example of one of my favorites (along with Pearls Before Swine, Get Fuzzy, and Rudy Park):

candorville picture

The Brightest Moon of the Century – Book Review

May 062009

The Brightest Moon of the Century by Christopher Meeks

About a year ago there was a collection of short stories called “Months and Season” making its way enthusiastically around the book blogging community. Luckily for author Christopher Meeks, since he sent his book out to so many bloggers, it was really good, as you can see from my review. It was a refreshing collection with characters you felt you’d known for a long time.

Not all authors can successfully make the jump from short stories to novels, but with “The Brightest Moon of the Century,” Meeks succeeds. ”The Brightest Moon of the Century” is somewhat structured as a novel in stories, as we follow the main character, Edward, from ages 14 to 45 in nine chapters. Unlike some books I’ve read in this format, though, the story flowed logically from one chapter/period of life to another.

I really liked Edward, he was an overall good and sympathetic person, but he inadvertently had a pretty interesting life. Other than his brief sojourn in a trailer park in Alabama I’m not actually sure what Edward did that was so interesting, but he never seemed like some boring schmoe, probably a testament to Meeks’ writing. Edward was just such a patently real, human character that I could not help but becoming involved and invested in his life. Yes, he had hardships and no, he didn’t always make the best decisions, but he was someone I could like and root for, which I always appreciate.

This is really a good read. In fact, if you’re ever considering picking up some of Meeks’ work, you can expect solid writing and an enjoyable story, so go ahead and give him a try.

Buy this book from:
Powell’s.
A local independent bookstore via Indiebound.
Amazon.

Specials – Book Review

May 052009

Specials by Scott Westerfeld

Just a caution: it is pretty much impossible for this review NOT to be a spoiler for “Uglies” and “Pretties” (which I have also reviewed). If you haven’t read Uglies and are concerned about knowing the ending, please do skip this review.

When Tally is captured at the end of “Pretties,” she is approached by her former friend Shay, who has become one of the Special Circumstances, aka Specials – an elite group who are modified far beyond normal pretties to be stronger, faster, and fiercer than the rest of the populace. At the beginning of “Specials,” we find that Tally has been put under the knife yet again and transformed into a Special. Actually she is a special Special, one of Shay’s band of Cutters whose main purpose is to wipe out New Smoke forever.

In some ways this was my favorite book in the series (which I read over the course of 5 or 6 days, by the way). In addition to the themes Westerfeld broaches in “Uglies” and “Pretties,” “Specials” also addresses the issues of giving up power and freedom in return for security. I simply love that you can read this as a young adult fantasy novel, a dystopian novel, or as thinly veiled social commentary, it works no matter what. Yes, I am aware that dytopian works by their nature must include social commentary, but the “Uglies” trilogy looks not only at where we might go if things continue to progress, but where we are right now.

Seriously, this is some of the best young adult literature I’ve read in awhile. I know it is popular, but this is much more deserving than Twilight to be the runaway blockbuster series. It is engaging, smart, and doesn’t include borderline-abusive relationships with shimmery vampires. Go ahead. Start with Uglies. If you aren’t sure about it, get the books from the library, but I would recommend getting all of them at once because once you finish one, you won’t want to wait for the next one.

Buy “Uglies” from:
Powell’s.
IndieBound.
Amazon.

Buy “Pretties” from:
Powell’s.
IndieBound.
Amazon.

Buy “Specials” from:
Powell’s.
IndieBound.
Amazon.

Teaser Tuesday – The Brightest Moon of the Century

May 052009

TEASER TUESDAYS asks you to:

Grab your current read.

Let the book fall open to a random page.

Share with us two (2) “teaser” sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.

You also need to share the title of the book that you’re getting your “teaser” from … that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you’ve given!

Please avoid spoilers!

brightest moon of the century picture “The lights flickered and smothered out, the floor seemed to shake, and the sounds of glass breaking filled the air. Edward imagined the whole building caving in on itself, and he’d be either crushed by steel beams and concrete or else sucked into the tornado and spit off toward the ground.”
- The Brightest Moon of the Century by Christopher Meeks, p. 218