Quel dommage. And it tried to hit so many of my favorite things, too. I mean, France, genealogy, and a historical topic that is seldomly represented iQuel dommage. And it tried to hit so many of my favorite things, too. I mean, France, genealogy, and a historical topic that is seldomly represented in English literature. What could wrong?
‘Ah, the blue of the Renaissance. You know there is lapis lazuli in this blue. It was so expensive they could only use it for important things like the Virgin’s robe.’
Here we are again with le bleu. But this is Tracy Chevalier's first novel, so it's not as good as her other novels. There are better books about this famous shade of blue, too, that do better at helping the reader appreciate it, such as Christopher Moore's Sacré Bleu.
An old man appeared on the opposite bank. —Don’t stop here, he said abruptly. Don’t stop at all until you reach Vienne. It is very bad here. And don’t go near St Etienne or Lyons. He disappeared into the woods.
This novel is told through dual timelines, one taking place in the late 1500s that is mostly in the aftermath of the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre, during which prominent Huguenots (French Protestants) were murdered by a Catholic mob when they went to Paris to attend the marriage of Henri de Navarre, who was later King Henri IV of France (he was killed too, as was Henri III before him).
In this timeline, we follow Isabelle, who lives in the Cévannes and...marries a boy who raped and bullied her. Most people around her are abusive religious extremists who had recently converted to Calvinism from Catholicism. Even though I'm not religious, I'm still biased as to which sect I like more, especially if a Jesuit enters the picture. Alas, there are no Jesuits here, just crazed ignorant people, and Isabelle is stuck there unable even to look upon an image of the Virgin Mary because that would distract from God and encourage polytheism.
In any case, things aren't looking good for Isabelle.
‘Because you are basing all your proof on coincidence and your guts rather than on concrete evidence. You are struck by a painting, by a certain blue, and because of that and the painter’s name is yours you decide he is an ancestor? No.
In the present timeline, we have Ella, who leaves a lot to be desired. She just moved to a town outside of Toulouse and decided to do her genealogy (read: have other people do her genealogy).
As someone who worked at a genealogy library for seven years, the idea of a burgeoning romance between a librarian and a helpless genealogist is both preposterous and revolting. But it doesn't stop there. Over the course of the novel, Ella amasses a small army of people whose primary focus seems to be helping her family research. She is even given a ~500-year-old book held by an archive, even though, after so many centuries, there could be hundreds of thousands of other descendants, making Ella far from uniquely suitable to be given this fragile archival material. These are all sentences I should never have had to write.
It so happens that Ella's ancestors, the Tournier family, i.e., the one that produced the rapist whom Isabelle married in the other timeline.
They all know my business, I thought. Even a Tournier across town knows my business.
Both Ella and Isabelle are gossiped about and criticized by the generalized towns they live in. Ella struggles to feel at home with the French, while Isabella is considered a guileless slut for having red hair and asking a traveling merchant for news. The story includes a vague supernatural element that connects the two women (as well as other female Tournier descendants).
Ultimately, there are too many problems that range from an annoying main character (Ella) to plot points that don't ring true (giving archival material to a random American). The present timeline half-reads like a helpless library patron's fantasy trip to France. The thread is even lost in the 1500s timeline, which failed to impact me because of how unbelievable the ending was. I think it might have even tried to imply something like reincarnated lovers as a little side thing. Yeah.
Overall, most readers should focus on Chevalier's other novels, particularly The Lady and the Unicorn, which is also partially set in France. ...more
I wasn’t able to go running through the streets of London. It would be like a llama running through the streets.
Well, gosh. I don't think
I wasn’t able to go running through the streets of London. It would be like a llama running through the streets.
Well, gosh. I don't think I knew what kind of complicated drama I was walking into when I put this on hold at the library. I just thought the title was funny and vaguely knew Harry and Meghan left the royal family. I had forgotten he even came to the US or that Meghan Markle is half black (so clearly I hadn't imagined the role race played in this family rift).
Most of the time Willy and I didn’t have any truck with all that Heir-Spare nonsense. But now and then I’d be brought up short and realize that on some level it really did matter to him. Professionally, personally, he cared where I stood, what I was doing.
This is the story of what happens when the family business is more important than the family. It's common sense for most parents not to have a favorite child, but what about when one of them is more important due to no one's fault but to ancient rules they're helpless to follow?
As an American, I don't have much of an opinion on the royal family (nor any biases that I know of on this topic that is evidently quite heated and full of busybody, nit-picking extremists on both sides of the Harold vs Willy/Royal Family issue). When looking up some things from the book online, the discussions I'm seeing are even more hateful than the average discussions in partisan politics forums, which seems almost impossible. But it's true.
The semifinal was being held that year in Paris—a city I’d never visited. The World Cup provided me with a driver, and on my first night in the City of Light I asked him if he knew the tunnel where my mother… I watched his eyes in the rearview, growing large. He was Irish, with a kindly, open face, and I could easily discern his thoughts: What the feck? I didn’t sign on for this.
It's difficult to choose the representative quotes for this review. It's well written, which is good for readability, but I also know that it was ghost written. I don't remember reading anything ghost written since Nancy Drew, so I'm not sure what to think of this and came with no knowledge to judge if the writing/personality portrayed in the book matches the way Harry speaks or writes.
Most of us know Prince Harry as the younger son of Princess Diana. His autobiography begins with her death, and it's one of the common threads Harry traces through his life. He remembers being woken up in the middle of the night by his father, told his mother had died, and then being left alone in his room until he heard the bagpipe players his granny (Queen Elizabeth II) liked to use as an alarm clock.
Apparently I’d caused quite a stir by admitting that I’d killed people. In a war. I was criticized up and down for being…a killer? And being blithe about it. I’d mentioned, in passing, that the Apache controls were reminiscent of video-game controls. And thus: Harry compares killing to video game!
Another common thread was the paparazzi. Paps, Harry calls them, which took me a while to stop having to reread sentences to confirm he wasn't talking about pap smears. In many ways, this book is half a response to the stories low-brow journalists have made up or cruelly shared since he was a child. As a royal, he was never allowed to respond, and keeping negative stories about him out of the press wasn't the priority compared to maintaining the images of his father, brother, and even Camilla.
I was beset by all the traditional doubts and fears, asked myself all the basic questions people ask when they get older. Who am I? Where am I going? Normal, I told myself, except that the press was abnormally echoing my self-questioning. Prince Harry…Why Won’t He Marry?
Ultimately, the press's racism towards his wife and his family's refusal to even decry the racism was the last straw. He also gradually realized that many of the stories about him were planted by his own family's publicity teams to distract from any of his father's constant faux pas, and next his brother's. This is probably the most contentious aspect of the book, and regardless of what the other sides of the story may be, I think it's clear that Harry was deeply unhappy with a family business in place of a family.
Writers would flag a photo of me and wonder why my trousers were so long, my shirts so crumpled. (They didn’t dream that I’d dried them on the radiator.)
Beyond the more controversial parts, there is a lot of humor and surprising facts. One thing I can still hardly believe is that Harry never went to college; his family thought he wasn't "scholar material," and though Harry agreed and is content with the decision to serve in the military instead, it still seems shocking given that most students at that level aren't particularly "scholar material," either.
Equally unexpected is the image of a prince getting his clothes from a UK version of TJ Maxx and wearing shoes until they fall apart. In addition to lack of fashion concern, it turns out that he didn't have his own wealth outside of what was in the trust left by his mother, which I think he wasn't supposed to fully touch (or he didn't want to deplete). He relied on money and housing from his father, who is responsible for distributing funds to his sons in exchange for royal duties. Such a system seems destined to grotesquely keep adults in child roles for longer than natural, which has probably been a significant source of family issues throughout history (I'm looking at you, father and son Georges).
I cut him off. I wasn’t about to hear that nonsense again. Also, I wasn’t a boy anymore.
In some ways, this book is Harry's revenge against both the press and his family's rigid culture, which had previously prevented him from telling his own story. Now he's telling it and getting paid his own money for it, too. Meanwhile, we're left in the present, when it's far from clear that Harry and William can ever repair their relationship. William should write Heir next so they get a dialogue going between books.
As a side note... after reading this, I recognized Queen Elizabeth II's mother, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother (Harry's great-grandmother), in a picture by her preference for blue, and I was immediately like "that's Gan-Gan!"...more
I was the kind of child who’d always looked for fairies dancing on the grass. I wanted to believe in witches, wizards, ogres, giants, and ench
I was the kind of child who’d always looked for fairies dancing on the grass. I wanted to believe in witches, wizards, ogres, giants, and enchanted spells. I didn’t want all of the magic taken out of the world by scientific explanation. I didn’t know at that time that I had come to live in what was virtually a strong and dark castle, ruled over by a witch and an ogre.
A lot of people who read this when they were young seem desperate to make sure they're seen pronouncing it trash. And to be fair, maybe the rest of the series is, and it sure looks like all the works written by the author's ghost writer are.
But dare I say that I thought this was pretty good? If not from a technical perspective, then at least for the originality of the plot and the exploration of one of the darkest types of villain. It's also not smut; there is no smut in this book.
I probably wouldn't have read it any time soon, but my boyfriend randomly started watching the 80s film; he had never heard of it, and I knew its theme and had been content to leave it to the likes of my mom and other Gen-Xers. I only rarely stop to watch something my boyfriend is watching, but this grabbed me. So, I came into the book knowing what happens (a flagrant breaking of one of my few personal laws).
Secrets? And he said I was given to exaggerations! What was the matter with him? Didn’t he know that we were the secrets?
The four Dollanger kids are grieving the unexpected death of their father while their mother tries to figure out how to survive. Living with their extremely wealthy maternal grandparents seems to make the most sense...but their mother tells them they have to hide in the attic so their grandfather doesn't find out about them--just for a day or two until she can get back on his good side.
Had we suffered? Had we only missed her? Who was she, anyway? Idiot thoughts while I stared at her and listened to how difficult four hidden children made the lives of others.
While I liked this overall, I think a couple of things will stand out to most readers.
The dialogue, especially from the two teens, reads as stilted. It would be interesting to see if this carries over to all of Andrews' work, or if it was only done in this novel to represent the 50s as well as the perfection of these doll-like children. Almost everyone speaks the same way ("Really, Cathy...") until suddenly near the end a servant speaks in a brogue.
Some aspects of the plot are also unbelievable. For example, what kind of teenage boy would put up with all of this? Who would get up before dawn every day to prepare meals for people they hate, and somehow do that in secret?
But none of these complaints overshadow this modern gothic fairy tale. Because a fairy tale, of all things, isn't at its best when too literally overanalyzed with plot holes and reality.
As for the rest of the series, I'm more interested in the prequel about the grandma than the sequels that follow these kids. ...more
I’d sit in bed after Mommy and Daddo tucked me in and I’d look to the closet doors and they would open, just a little bit. I’d see her eyes in
I’d sit in bed after Mommy and Daddo tucked me in and I’d look to the closet doors and they would open, just a little bit. I’d see her eyes in there like she was smiling. Sometimes I thought I saw her teeth, too, but when car headlights came through the window, I’d see she wasn’t smiling.
This book is told from the perspective of Bela, a child who is being visited by a ghost or demon called Other Mommy. I see the description says she is supposed to be 8, but I read it as a much younger child. I think of something closer to a 4 year old saying "Mommy and Daddo." I have a niece this age, so I feel fairly certain that 8 year olds are more sophisticated than this. I've read a few books lately that have kids with adult voices, so I guess I prefer that this errs on the young side, because it at least has a distinct child's voice.
Are we friends? I don’t think so. I don’t think friends are this scared of each other.
At first Bela thought Other Mommy was a friend, probably because her real mom is kind of shit too. But at the beginning of the book, it has recently started asking her if she would let it into her heart. This makes even Bela uncomfortable, but it's in a way she doesn't understand and that conflicts with the lessons on kindness that her Daddo teaches her.
Then Daddo said: Hey, I’m Other Daddo!
I'm left feeling mixed. I could complain about the monologues the adults give to Bela when they think she's sleeping, but I think those have an explanation. I could complain about the contrived meeting on the psychic character right before she's needed.
It's probably my own fault for barely looking into what I read, but I had been expecting and wanting incidents around the house. Not incidents around the state of Michigan. I was groaning every time someone suggested going somewhere else.
On the other hand, the descriptions of Other Mommy are creepy, and I enjoyed the character voice and child-style writing (even if I didn't agree on what age the kid sounded like). I like the ambiguity it leaves us with, to wonder which conversations were real and what was right....more
“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
“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
Geek Love follows the Binewski family magical-realism style. It starts with Al, the soon-to-be father who gets the notion in his head of breeding his Geek Love follows the Binewski family magical-realism style. It starts with Al, the soon-to-be father who gets the notion in his head of breeding his own freak show.
People talk easily to me. They think a bald albino hunchback dwarf can’t hide anything.
The absurdity of this unhinged narrative only ratchets up from there, and it's beautiful and ugly.
We follow Olympia/Oly, who is a...bald albino hunchback dwarf. She has several siblings who are more impressive than her from a freak standpoint, but I'll just tell you about one of the dead ones for now:
Leona’s jar was labeled “The Lizard Girl” and she looked the part. Her head was long from front to back and the forehead was compressed and flattened over small features that collapsed into her long throat with no chin to disturb the line. She had a big fleshy tail, as thick as a leg where it sprouted from her spine, but then tapering to a point. There was a faint greenish sheen to her skin but I suspected that Arty was right in claiming that Al had painted it on after Leona died. “She was only seven months old,” Lil would murmur. “We never understood why she died.”
Horror is one of the top tags for this. I'm not sure that I really agree. It's macabre and bursting with dark humor, but I think it would be a mistake to come into it expecting a horror novel. I can definitely see that the Freak Show season of American Horror Story could have been partly inspired by this, however (although that show is barely horror itself tbf).
Most of the "horror" probably comes from Arturo/Arty's storyline.
‘The only liars bigger than the quack are the quack’s patients.’ Arty used to just keep me in stitches. Eleven years old he was then.
Arty...imagine if Artemis Fowl had no hands or legs and pretended not to be super bitter about it, and that's about how Arty, the Aqua Boy, is. Confined to a powerless body, he quickly learns to use his mind as his means of controlling his environment and those around him. He is one of the most important siblings and is the one Oly is closest to.
“I get glimpses of the horror of normalcy. Each of these innocents on the street is engulfed by a terror of their own ordinariness. They would do anything to be unique.”
While I no doubt have a lot of pondering to do before I can fully understand and appreciate this book, one of Dunn's major themes is that deformity can cover the full range of people/personality. They don't have to be nice, and they don't have to pine away the wee hours in dreams of being a "norm." In fact, it's more often the opposite sentiment that drives this story to its wildest peaks.
My only caveat would be that the chapters that happen in the present (most of the book takes place in the past) can be a little off putting when they first appear. I recommend pushing past that to get to the core of the book. Despite that, this is my favorite book of the year....more
When I read The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, I didn't realize the scope of what Reid was doing. Through several of her recent novels, she has buWhen I read The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, I didn't realize the scope of what Reid was doing. Through several of her recent novels, she has built a fictional version of Hollywood/LA. There are a lot of easter eggs and familiar names to be found here, and it made me appreciate Evelyn Hugo more, too.
just as it is in Malibu’s nature to burn, so was it in one particular person’s nature to set fire and walk away.
Malibu Rising follows the four Riva siblings, who are simultaneously locals of Malibu before it was cool and children of the famous Mick Riva. From what I can tell, Mick was inspired by singers like Frank Sinatra. The book takes place on the day of the annual Riva party, which has gotten a lot bigger over the years. The siblings each have their own story and secrets. This part is set in 1983.
But my favorite parts were the flashbacks to when their parents (Mick and June) met and their ensuing marriage. Particularly June's story and perspective. This takes place from the 1950s to 60s.
In both timelines, I appreciate Reid's realistic characters. For better and worse, it feels like they really exist out there somewhere. I think that's the key to how she nailed the ending so thoroughly.
When you fall in love with your manager’s assistant, fire your manager, promote his gorgeous assistant, marry her, and then divorce her, you’re left with no wife or manager.
My favorite quotes all contain spoilers, so I can't use them here. Which is a shame, because they're really good. But this one is pretty much the vibe of Reid's Los Angeles....more
On the first day I lose my sense of time, my dignity and a molar. But I do have two children now and a cat. I’ve forgotten their names apart f
On the first day I lose my sense of time, my dignity and a molar. But I do have two children now and a cat. I’ve forgotten their names apart from the cat’s—Fräulein Tinky.
I haven't read the books I've seen this compared to (Gone Girl and Room), so I can't really say if anything unique is being done here. I suppose there's no beating around the bush to say this follows a woman who escaped an abductor. There are two other perspective characters: the father of a missing or murdered woman, and the 12(?)-year-old child of an abducted woman and her abductor. The kid's perspective is the most interesting, and maybe the one that hasn't been told as often.
This was an easy page turner, but I didn't ultimately like the end. The identity/back story of the abductor just didn't ring true to me. I felt it also made an unfair comparison between characters that was kind of a bummer to be left with.
I miss my family and my little Fräulein Tinky with her sweet, clumsy paws and her soft coat.
My favorite was the cat, Fräulein Tinky. I was basically having a conniption fit half the book over when someone was going to go look for this poor cat. And then... :)...more
As summer wheat came ripe, so did I, born at home, on the kitchen floor. Ma crouched, barefoot, bare bottomed over the swept boards, because that’s
As summer wheat came ripe, so did I, born at home, on the kitchen floor. Ma crouched, barefoot, bare bottomed over the swept boards, because that’s where Daddy said it’d be best.
I remember reading this as a kid, and I thought I was so cool, sitting in school, because it's written in free verse.
They promised through rain, heat, snow, and gloom but they never said anything about dust. And so the mail got stuck for hours, for days, on the Santa Fe
Billie Joe lives in the Oklahoma panhandle during the 1930s Dust Bowl and Depression.
Her story is sad, but it ends in hope. She can't stop the dust from covering every surface, but she can use her hands for the arts, for verse and piano.
The author read old Boise newspapers, which informed her writing and inspired the life and events that Billie Joe describes.
I am thinking that a dinosaur is getting out of Joyce City a hundred million years too late to appreciate the trip, and that I ought to get out before my own bones turn to stone.
Bless Karen Hesse for teaching me about the Dionne quintuplets who were stolen from their family by the Prime Minister of Ontario, Mitchell Hepburn, who displayed them in a zoo as an official act. Fuck that guy in particular.
Most of the time reading this, I just wanted to flip a table. I would have rated this a 1 or 2 up to the last act, but it somehow ended up surpassing Most of the time reading this, I just wanted to flip a table. I would have rated this a 1 or 2 up to the last act, but it somehow ended up surpassing my wildest expectations for what it could be. Part of the story relies on a pretty unlikely coincidence in the way that is pretty common in 18th- and 19th-century storytelling, so you kind of have to suspend your disbelief about a certain relationship.
The main character is Nora, an adult woman who is treated like a child or a pet.
Incidentally, I recently finished a book (Delicate Condition that was decent until its ending (imo obviously) ruined the whole book and undermined its point. Both are about women. This has really nothing to do with A Doll's House, but it's pretty rare that an ending influences my overall view of a book that much....more
I don’t consider myself to be a squeamish person—I’m a mother, after all, and the walls of my bedroom bleed regularly.
This was an ideal ha
I don’t consider myself to be a squeamish person—I’m a mother, after all, and the walls of my bedroom bleed regularly.
This was an ideal haunted house story to me. But I was always more interested in the who, why, how backstory than needing to be scared. The ghosts are very reminiscent of Murder House, the first season of American Horror Story. For example, the ghost of a murdered maid who continues to carryout her job. For the most part, they're constantly present in a way that is not horror so much as creepy. My favorite is the little boy who makes a "jet engine" sound as he unhinges his jaw to viciously bite you.
Neither of us was going anywhere, least of all me. It was endearing. I chose to find it endearing.
Margaret certainly doesn't find it too scary. Not even after her husband fled. What really scares Margaret is the sudden visit of her semi-estranged daughter, who has been frustrated by her parents acting weird and then not being able to contact her father. And it's September of all months, when the hauntings reached a fever pitch each year.
I think Katherine was a low point for a lot of readers, including myself. She has the petulance of someone closers to a teenager than a 30ish-year-old successful businesswoman.. However, I know people can slip back into a parent-child dynamic to some extent, and it's also pretty easy to see why anyone would be frustrated by Margaret. So. What I don't like is that she seems awfully on top of her parents for someone who supposedly hasn't had a relationship with them since she was a teenager. This makes her place in the story seem a bit incongruous.
“This is all . . . silly,” I said, fully aware that it wasn’t particularly silly but unable to think of anything else to say.
Anyway, I liked it. I also liked the ending and how the twists turned out. I would have liked Margaret to have done a little more library research and Nancy Drewing, though. While Margaret's choice to find unpleasant things endearing can clearly be a metaphor for a lot of things, it's still specifically relatable to the connection people have with their homes, warts and all....more
I am pretty sure I read this as a kid, and now I'm damn sure I read it as an adult. At some point around 50 to 75 percent through, I got bored with itI am pretty sure I read this as a kid, and now I'm damn sure I read it as an adult. At some point around 50 to 75 percent through, I got bored with it and only came back a year later to finally finish. I think it may have been a combination of the climatic events happening a bit early and the fact that I'm not the intended audience anymore. Yet on the other hand, I have no problem still enjoying the Dear America series. *shrug*
...for weeks I lived in fear of what Mama would do, for our small Massachusetts town fitted her like a shoe two sizes too small.
The book follows Lucy, who is forced by her mother to move from Massachusetts to California during the gold rush. Lucy hates it--there's not even a library. I think I would have hated it too, which perhaps made it hard for me to get into the town of Lucky Diggins.
I took the opportunity to see what book I had saved [...]. It was The Little Christian’s Book of Pious Thoughts. Then I cried.
I like that Lucy isn't a goody two-shoes. She's a good character. Her mother and family situation are pretty interesting. I found the other characters pretty weird, though. There's a lot of talk about the men in town, but the book never made me care about them....more
It was as if, by trying to work out the problem between them, he and Donna were burying their own body by moonlight.
I've been reading Step
It was as if, by trying to work out the problem between them, he and Donna were burying their own body by moonlight.
I've been reading Stephen King's books in order, so I wasn't sure if I'd like this one; I hadn't liked the previous three books (Roadwork, Firestarter, and The Dead Zone). Plus, I mean, it's a dog, which can be scary but not spooky, and to top it off I remembered King saying that he couldn't even remember writing this.
Well, after a leisurely opening, Cujo brought me right back to some of my favorite King novels. I don't know what that says about his drug use. I appreciated the dual villains, with Cujo basically being a different medium for Kemp's rage, doing the things that go too far for a man to do.
Doors slipped shut with a faint locking click that was only heard clearly in the dreams of later years.
It's hard to put down in the last half, and the ending was executed well because it catches you off guard even if you guess it. But we didn't get an ending for at least one character I would have liked to have heard about....more
I think this book represents the most connection to history we'll reach with Josefina. It's disappointing, but it follows the pattern from the FelicitI think this book represents the most connection to history we'll reach with Josefina. It's disappointing, but it follows the pattern from the Felicity books that this series can't or won't breach the real issues. I can't understand how slavery, colonial-era imperialism, and native peoples were so controversial to talk about in the 90s.
This one is set at Josefina's grandparents' house in Santa Fe. Famous sites like the San Miguel (the oldest church in the US) are mentioned and visited in the story. Josefina's family is attempting to complete a deal with an American trader in order to replace the animals they lost. The story revolves around the question of trust, as the family would have little or no recourse if they were scammed.
I finished this book while in Santa Fe. I even visited El Rancho de las Golondrinas, which Valerie Tripp mentioned in the history at the end of the first Josefina book. I think she based the family's rancho outside of Santa Fe on this. It was huge, and there was even a village (one was mentioned in the books), but I didn't have time to see that part....more
Halfway through this book, I wondered why I was even reading it. While all the parts seemed to be there, some mysterious element from the Preston & ChHalfway through this book, I wondered why I was even reading it. While all the parts seemed to be there, some mysterious element from the Preston & Child co-authored books was missing in this solo effort. During the first half, I couldn't decide if I was reading a thriller/adventure or a bad comedy of one. It was relying a lot on taking the piss out of natives in remote areas (Honduras) for humor, but for me that just fell on its face since I've already read the much funnier Christopher Moore novel called Island of the Sequined Love Nun.
Most characters are too underwhelming to talk about. Three rich boys (the Broadbents) find out their dad has had their inheritance of artwork and pillaged treasures buried with him in a remote part of Honduras, and he challenges them to retrieve it. The book is led by Tom, one of the sons, and Sally, who I think is the only woman in the whole book besides an elderly native woman who makes a brief appearance. Tom and Sally are the typical perfect protagonists of uncomplicated books.
But magically, around halfway through, Borabay enters the scene, and he is the only reason I would rate this a 3/5 instead of 2/5. But I feel the story as a whole is better in the second half compared to the first, and I came to enjoy the dynamics and idea of the Broadbent family despite the lack of individual depth. One of the sons, Vernon, is easily taken in by spiritual scams (which results in some decent humor), but he can hardly get a word in, what with Tom taking over the whole book.
Another possible point of interest worth mentioning is the connection (the legendary White City/La Ciudad Blanca) between this book and Preston's non-fiction The Lost City of the Monkey God, although he wrote The Codex much earlier....more
The third in a sad but relatively uneventful children's historical fiction series. The main point of interest in this one would be learning about Las The third in a sad but relatively uneventful children's historical fiction series. The main point of interest in this one would be learning about Las Posadas, a nice Christmas tradition that involved the whole community to act and sing out Mary and Joseph (Marie & José) being repeatedly denied a place to stay. It is still practiced today, but probably not in the way depicted in this book that included the whole village.
The main story is still about the girls coping with their mother's death. That's not the most exciting story, but it could be invaluable to kids in similar circumstances....more