“Very well,” said Coll, “if that is all that troubles you, I shall make you something. From this moment, you are Taran, Assistant Pig-Keeper."
“Very well,” said Coll, “if that is all that troubles you, I shall make you something. From this moment, you are Taran, Assistant Pig-Keeper."
Like many people, I knew this story first from the Disney film (titled The Black Cauldron, which is actually the name of the second book in the series).
It follows Taran, a boy...being raised by two old men (I think he was orphaned?). They give him lessons, and he takes care of a pig named Hen Wen. But, it turns out, Hen Wen isn't just any pig. She's an oracular pig. Yes, that's oracular as in oracle. Because of this, some bad dude who likes to wear another person's skull on his face raises an army of dead to retrieve the pig, all for...reasons.
Taran is joined by multiple people/beings along the way. They typically have a specific quirk, like a dwarf who visibly strains to go invisible like the other dwarfs, a creepy-sounded man-hound hybrid named Gurgi (which they opted to make small and cute in the cartoon), and a bard whose harp strings break dramatically when he lies.
"I’m not officially a bard.” “I didn’t know there were unofficial bards,” Eilonwy remarked. “Oh, yes indeed,” said Fflewddur. “At least in my case. I’m also a king.” “A king?” Taran said. “Sire …” He dropped to one knee.
The author drew from Wales and Welsh mythology. In theory I like that, but in practice, my simple memory of the Mabinogion was clearly not enough to fully appreciate it.
I swear I'm not just being mean when I rate this 2 stars ("it was okay"). It's actually hopeful, because I see a lot of reviews that say this is the worst of the series, and I hadn't otherwise planned to continue. So, I'll save the 3 for those if they really are better.
I think my main issue is that I never felt invested, either because it felt too simplistic, or because of the lack of reasons for what was going on. Maybe it's also because it's a travel-adventure narrative, which tend to be episodic (and which I tend not to like).
“She was the head of her—” “Society?” Mika couldn’t resist asking. “I would prefer to use the term group of witches sharing a similar geography,
“She was the head of her—” “Society?” Mika couldn’t resist asking. “I would prefer to use the term group of witches sharing a similar geography,” said Primrose coldly. Mika rolled her eyes. “Yes, that sounds much better.”
As one may ascertain from the title alone, this is a light fantasy and romance novel following a modern witch (named Mika Moon). She's an orphan, just like every other witch, as a result of a curse placed a few centuries ago. Instead, she was raised by the cold and cautious Primrose, who heads the group of witches living in England. They aren't allowed to talk to each other outside of quarterly meetings for fear of outsiders rediscovering their existence.
Despite this, Mika moves to Norfolk to teach three young witches who are quite irregularly being raised together. In secret. Especially from Primrose.
Winding a tendril of magic around her finger, Mika summoned all the tiny pieces of glass and collected them together in a neat, glittering ball that hovered in mid-air and sent reflected light dancing across the room. “Disco or bin?” “I think you know I’m going to say bin.”
My top literary shame is probably that I still haven't read Pride and Prejudice. But regardless, I'm guessing the male romantic interest in Mandanna's novel is supposed to be a Mr. Darcy type due to all the Austen name drops. But maybe he's closer to a brooding Byronic hero.
The book actually changes to his perspective a few times, and I'm not sure if I liked that or not. It made him seem desperately easy to get, but there was also a lot of humor in those chapters. And I'm not sure what the usual convention is for a romcom novel marketed to women, so I was surprised that it was only the man's perspective during the sex scene. I guess because he's been living in that house like an incel for who knows how many years, the author decided to just let him have his time.
It was a bit like that old philosophical question about a tree falling in the woods, wasn’t it? If no one remembered her, and she didn’t matter to anyone, did she really exist?
Ultimately, this book granted me more smiles (sometimes despite myself) than eyerolls. I read this for a book club. It's hard to rate since it's outside the usual genres and vibes I would normally choose, but I have the feeling it's about average for a quirky, wholesome romance.
Now I return to my world of nightmares and children's historical fiction....more
PIP: But they were serious? CHLOE: I guess so. Define “serious”? PIP: Well, I…Were they sleeping together? CHLOE: Wow, school projects have chang
PIP: But they were serious? CHLOE: I guess so. Define “serious”? PIP: Well, I…Were they sleeping together? CHLOE: Wow, school projects have changed since I left. Why on earth would you need to know that?
A Good Girl's Guide to Murder is a fun detective-style murder mystery. Our detective is Pip, a highschooler who boldly choses a recent local murder as her capstone project. It's partially told through interviews and other documentation kept by Pip, which help make this a speedy read.
I lied slightly, told them I was a reporter for CNN named Penny.
While the murder is a charged topic for many, it's personal for Pip, too. She knew the boy who was accused of the murder, and her gut told her it wasn't him. Most of the rest of the small town shuns the boy's family.
“Well, that was fun. Thanks for the invite to my first blackmailing.”
There's not much I can say about this one without getting into spoiler territory. All the little reveals and advances are part of the fun of reading it. But I'll say two things:
1. Pip gets a fun sidekick who always has the best lines.
2. Jackson skillfully wove a lot of different threads together that create many possibilities for the reader to ponder. Even better, I think half the mystery is solvable by readers who follow Pip's lead and trust their own gut.
One last thing to note is that the location of the story was changed from England to Connecticut for the American version. The text was also partially rewritten for American audiences. I find this kind of thing really unnecessary, and it can rob a story of any atmosphere. Indeed, this gave me no sense of Connecticut, and it was easier to pretend it was an English town anyway; I don't know how you could get any more British than the nickname Pip....more
“For a hundred generations he slept, curled like a fetus in the earth’s mysterious womb, digested by roots, fermenting in the dark, summer fruits c
“For a hundred generations he slept, curled like a fetus in the earth’s mysterious womb, digested by roots, fermenting in the dark, summer fruits canned and forgotten in the larder until a farmer’s spade bore him out, rough midwife to a strange harvest.” Plaque beneath a bog body found on the Isle of Cairnholm, Wales
This book has an interesting gimmick, since the author chose strange antique photographs to go along with the story. A Florida teen named Jacob recalls the weird photographs his grandpa used to show him. No, not those kinds of photos, but photos of a levitating girl, an invisible boy, and others.
I held off on reading this book for years because a lot of reviews made it sound as if it were arbitrary randomness to force the inclusion of the photographs, but I didn't get that sense, nor do I feel that any inspiration the author took from the photographs was a detriment to the story. In fact, my edition includes an interview with the author on his process, and he says he looked through hundreds of thousands of photos to decide which to include, which hardly seems like force.
It would be a lot easier to figure out what the hell was going on without a roomful of drunks threatening to lynch me.
When Jake's grandfather dies, he leave him with some cryptic last words, which prove to be the first clues to big mysteries. Due to a couple of lucky coincidences, Jake is able to convince his dad to take him to Cairnholm Isle, where his grandfather grew up in an orphanage after his family was killed by Nazis.
She was heartbroken for someone else, and I was merely a stand-in for my grandfather. That’s enough to give anyone pause, I don’t care how horny you are.
I had mistakenly believed this to be a middle-grade/children's novel. Well, it's not. But Ransom Riggs is pretty funny, and he gave his teen protagonist just enough angst.
I'm just really impressed because from what I read, the author hadn't been planning to write a novel at all, but all the elements lined up so that both the idea and talent were there to produce lightning in a bottle. I actually liked it more than the Percy Jackson books that I read a couple of recently; Miss Peregrine, however, seems to be written for a bit older audience than the Percy Jackson books, since I don't remember any flamingo orgies or ornithology boners in those.
I laughed. “Then why aren’t you out there?” I said, then immediately wished I hadn’t.
“Same reason my book probably won’t happen. There’s always someone more dedicated than I am.”
I saw how many books are in this series before I started. I figured I would just see what the first was about and never read the sequel. Instead, I'm looking forward to continuing the next book at some soonish point. At the same time, I worry that a lot of the mystery that drove this book has been solved (enough), so I wonder if the follow-ups would hook me to the same extent....more
This makes The Dead Girls Club look like a masterpiece. The two books have a lot of parallels (old friends and a crime, a wife with terrible commuThis makes The Dead Girls Club look like a masterpiece. The two books have a lot of parallels (old friends and a crime, a wife with terrible communication skills), and I think The Lying Game has a lot of the same annoyances without being as interesting. The flashback scenes in Dead Girls in particular make that the clear winner in this impromptu contest between the two.
And if you want another old friend novel, it would also be better to just read Ware's first novel, In a Dark, Dark Wood, instead of this, too.
I don't even know that it's worth getting into the details of the story or characters. But it's a group of four girls, now women, who spent less than one school year together at a boarding school and are somehow best friends for life because of that (except they don't usually talk to each other though). Or are they really just tied together by this boring crime? They reconvene at their old stomping grounds after some lady finds a bone in the marshy Reach, where one still lives in a dangerous tide mill that's slipping into the sea.
Why didn’t I realize that a lie can outlast any truth, and that in this place people remember? It is not like London, where the past is written over again and again until nothing is left.
The concept of the lying game isn't all that important to the book. Maybe Ware had a more impressive idea with that at some point, but it comes off as if a game only existed so the rules could function as a skimpy foreshadowing device.
There isn't much I can say about this without spoiling the plot.
He’s wearing clean clothes and new shoes and for the first time since he died
There isn't much I can say about this without spoiling the plot.
He’s wearing clean clothes and new shoes and for the first time since he died, he feels almost human.
So I'll start and end with saying it's about Seth, a gay teenage boy who dies in the rough waves of the Pacific Northwest only to wake up at his dust-covered childhood home in England. And no one else is there.
It switches between the past and present. At first, I was afraid it was going to be one of those books that have you spend most of your time in flashbacks instead of getting into the mystery at hand. But thankfully, the flashbacks here were short and sweet, adding to the story instead of...avoiding it lol.
A world made of words, Seth thinks, where you live for a while.
I was split between 3 and 4 stars on this. Its YA-ness comes out in some ways, such as not going into depth or explaining things I'd want to know. I also felt like I knew what was going on a couple of times before the narrative intended, such as about Seth's brother and something called "the Driver," so I was frustrated/impotently shaking my head instead of surprised and emotional.
But Ness also deals with serious topics in a way that doesn't feel ham fisted or make you roll your eyes. Plus, the story is pretty interesting and compulsively readable. So while I may have wanted more depth in some things and couldn't quite shed the skepticism of an adult who knows how things work, this is definitely a quality YA novel....more
The wood is all flicker and murmur and illusion. Its silence is a pointillist conspiracy of a million tiny noises—rustles, flurries, nameless
The wood is all flicker and murmur and illusion. Its silence is a pointillist conspiracy of a million tiny noises—rustles, flurries, nameless truncated shrieks; its emptiness teems with secret life, scurrying just beyond the corner of your eye.
I was a little split between 3 and 4 stars for this one. On one hand, I was reaching unbearable levels of cringe due to my association, as the reader, with the main character. On the other, this novel felt strangely elevated and literary for a mystery novel, especially for a series with the words "murder squad" in its name.
The premise is that two mysteries took place in the same patch of woods in Ireland, just adjacent to a housing development near Dublin. The first resulted in the disappearance of two children in the 1980s that was never solved. The second is a modern-day murder of a child, whose body was left at the archaeological site that now occupies the wood.
And I suppose, if I’m being honest, it appealed both to my ego and to my sense of the picturesque, the idea of carrying this strange, charged secret through the case unsuspected.
The catch is that one of the detectives on the modern case is secretly the third child involved in the 80s case, the one who was found alive with blood in his shoes and no memory of whatever happened to his friends.
And so this whole book is narrated in first person by that guy.
He's a different kind of unreliable narrator compared to most mystery novels that use that technique. Balancing him out is his partner, Cassie, who is friends with him for some reason....more
Eh. The title and cover caught my eye, but it seems so focused on hammering in a point that it forgets to tell an actual story. This is just a series Eh. The title and cover caught my eye, but it seems so focused on hammering in a point that it forgets to tell an actual story. This is just a series of events. Seriously, I already forgot the main character's name (Robin, evidently, who is left unable to walk following an illness) since he's not a character, just an unlucky pawn to serve the hammering of the point.
That said, it doesn't make a bad point: the idea that we need to learn to find enjoyment and satisfaction even if/when our bodies fail us. That's practical advice, and I'm sure I will never forget this metaphor of a door in the wall (an opportunity). However, I also happen to know that there are much better written children's books....more
I found this after looking for books with stories similar to that of the TV show From. It mostly only starts somewhat similarly, and The Watchers didnI found this after looking for books with stories similar to that of the TV show From. It mostly only starts somewhat similarly, and The Watchers didn't really delve into itself the way I would have wanted or focus on the specific aspects I was looking for. Regardless, it is a pretty unique plot for a horror novel.
It was exciting enough to blast through. I just wanted more build up, more of a sense of the situation, more lore, more of a sense of history. In both a good and a bad way, I wanted more.
I guessed the end, though it wasn't poorly done. It was guessable in a fair way. The very end, though, is not something I can say I cared for, and I don't think it made much sense. Maybe it would have made sense if we had gotten more lore/background.
As with most "spooky" stuff, I listened to the audiobook with my boyfriend, while I also read along to the book due to poor aural attention span. The reader, Jacqueline Milne, did a great job....more
I don't think this book needed to exist. The first was better until it suddenly turned into a fantasy novel. And the romantic interest from the first I don't think this book needed to exist. The first was better until it suddenly turned into a fantasy novel. And the romantic interest from the first had become completely (as opposed to just mostly) grotesque to me in this book. Ew. I mean, probably it's because I'm like twice his age though.
I was also not a fan of the author changing the death year of a historical figure to fit the story. The antagonist and other major aspects weren't all that well developed.
I liked some of the characterizations of the secret society members, but they weren't given much attention, either. And while I felt the author made the historical setting come to life (and I've listened to a good amount of her non-fiction Noble Blood podcast), the knowledge that basic facts/dates were being changed to suit the relatively poor story made it feel less authentic....more
While I enjoyed the writing itself, I really hated the "solution" to this mystery for various reasons that would be spoilers.
I read this with a work bWhile I enjoyed the writing itself, I really hated the "solution" to this mystery for various reasons that would be spoilers.
I read this with a work book club. I think we unanimously agreed the main character is annoying and cringey.
I thought the occasional epistolary items (emails, news reports) foreshadowed effectively and left readers something to puzzle over and reevaluate their theories despite an otherwise bland and mostly obvious mystery.
I liked another Ruth Ware novel more, so I look forward to trying more despite this one causing me to roll my eyes....more
I love the combo of historical fiction and ghosts/horror, so Susan Hill is a natural choice. After reading her better-known The Woman in Black a couplI love the combo of historical fiction and ghosts/horror, so Susan Hill is a natural choice. After reading her better-known The Woman in Black a couple of Halloweens or Christmas Eves ago, I decided to try The Mist in the Mirror this year. For the record, this is better suited as a Christmas Eve ghost story, as had been the tradition in Victorian England.
It follows an English man who was orphaned and raised in Africa and Asia. He became fascinated with the travel writing of one Conrad Vayne and repeated all of his adventures. Upon reaching middle age and having no one, he returns to England with plans to settle down and grow roots. Yet something in England seems to remember him more than he remembers it.
“Leave be, Mr. James Monmouth. That is my advice to you. Leave be.”
I was interested throughout but didn't care for the dénouement. It's rushed, with a single short paragraph throwing all kinds of nonsense out. It took me to a point where I could no longer suspend my disbelief, and it brought more questions than answers in a bad way. Then, as now, all I can think is, "There are property laws." The book is better if you pretend that paragraph isn't there--better to leave some things a mystery than to get half-assed answers.
As in Hill's other novels I've read, the ghost story is framed within a mini-story in which a lesser character reads a written account of a true ghost story. This seems to be an imitation of the framing used in Henry James's The Turn of the Screw and likely other ghost stories of the period. I've seen some reviews that call this framing unnecessary, but I appreciate how it lets us see a "future" view of the main character from an objective outsider's perspective....more