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Saturday, August 02, 2008
books for July
Look! A books post! TWO IN A ROW! And actually somewhere near the beginning of the month!
- Westmark -- Lloyd Alexander -- 3.5
- I've had this book for ages, and I read in someone's blog -- maybe Toddled Dredge? -- about how this was one of somebody's favorite YA books, so I thought I'd give it a try. I must preface this review by saying that I'm not exactly a diehard fan of the breed of book that involves imaginary countries that are stuck somewhere in the Middle Ages, technology-wise. (Oh, except that whole Narnia thing. Maybe I can enjoy Narnia for the same reason I can enjoy Outlander in spite of the fact that most romance novels that feature 18th-century Scots make me want to remove my eyeballs with my thumbs: because of the addition of modern real-world characters. Hmmm.) That said, this was an above-tolerable story, especially at the beginning. The middle dragged just a wee bit (good overall, though, and I liked the characters more as I went along, especially the ones who appear in the latter two-thirds), and the ending annoyed me. Not that the end was badly done, just that -- OK, spoiler coming -- the characters spend the second half of the book discussing whether a monarchy is a fair form of government, and you kind of get the idea that none of the good people realize it's the ideal, and then the neatly-tied ending has one of the main characters finding out that, wowee! She's a princess! It was just a bit of a letdown for me.
- Over Sea, Under Stone -- Susan Cooper -- 4
- This was another one that I've owned for a while and never read (I collect Newbery books). It concerns a family of British children who vacation in an old house in Wales, where they become engrossed in a mystery having to do with an Arthurian legend, involving some really evil bad guys and some quite decent good guys and oh yeah, a holyish kind of grail sort of thing. I had a bit of a hard time putting the book down long enough to do my chores, because I really did want to find out what happened to the characters, who, OK, aren't the Pevensies, but they were interesting and clever and plucky British children. Low point: Finding out that a Major Character is actually supposed to be Merlin. (BUZZKILL.) High point: The holiday parade near the end of the book. I could see it, hear it, smell it, feel the children's confusion and worry.
- This was another one that I've owned for a while and never read (I collect Newbery books). It concerns a family of British children who vacation in an old house in Wales, where they become engrossed in a mystery having to do with an Arthurian legend, involving some really evil bad guys and some quite decent good guys and oh yeah, a holyish kind of grail sort of thing. I had a bit of a hard time putting the book down long enough to do my chores, because I really did want to find out what happened to the characters, who, OK, aren't the Pevensies, but they were interesting and clever and plucky British children. Low point: Finding out that a Major Character is actually supposed to be Merlin. (BUZZKILL.) High point: The holiday parade near the end of the book. I could see it, hear it, smell it, feel the children's confusion and worry.
- Girls in Pants -- Ann Brashares -- 4 and
- Forever in Blue -- Ann Brashares -- 4
Hello, my name is Rachel and I like the Traveling Pants books.(Hi, Rachel.)
Seriously, I don't know if it's because I remember being a teenaged girl or because I am the mom of a girl who will become one before I know it (PLEASE CAN WE MASTER THAT TIME-PAUSE THING NOW), but these books have resonated with me since I read the first one a few years ago. Not that my teenagerhood was much like that of the four girls in the books: I was neither beautiful nor athletic nor charismatic nor whimsically artistic; both my parents were (are) living and still married to each other; I did not have scalp-tingling relationships with wildly attractive slightly-older guys or geeky-but-sweet video-game champions (oh wait); I did not have a magic pair of pants and if they'd been flare-leg low-rise ones I probably wouldn't have worn them anyway. Also, is it just me or is this group of four friends totally unlike any actual group of four friends in that age bracket, what with the utter lack of jealousy, infighting, favoritism, and drama? Or maybe my friends and I were the weird ones. And yet I really like this series. I cry when I'm reading sometimes. Maybe it's because the author hits the nail right on the head when it comes to things like growing away from your mother (SOB) and then growing back (SNIFF) and looking at yourself and realizing that you've lost the person that is you at some point (CHOKE). Whatever the reason, I am willing to stand up and admit that I'm in my mid-thirties (note: HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?) and yet I truly enjoy this popular, light, young-adult girls' series. I think Ms. Brashares made a wise decision to end the series while we all wanted more, but I'm kind of bummed all the same.
- Tara Road -- Maeve Binchy -- 3.5
- This was the first Maeve Binchy book I read. It's an engaging story which tells (of course, because it's Binchy) of the havoc that is wreaked in one Irish family when it's destroyed by infidelity. The second half of the story takes place both in Connecticut and in Dublin, as the scorned ex-wife swaps houses on a whim with a woman who has some pretty serious troubles of her own. You know what I've just realized about Binchy's books? I always love her children. The kids of this broken marriage are endearing, and seem very real what with their childish hopes and misconceptions. Binchy's dialogue is also, as always, natural and very well-done.
- This was the first Maeve Binchy book I read. It's an engaging story which tells (of course, because it's Binchy) of the havoc that is wreaked in one Irish family when it's destroyed by infidelity. The second half of the story takes place both in Connecticut and in Dublin, as the scorned ex-wife swaps houses on a whim with a woman who has some pretty serious troubles of her own. You know what I've just realized about Binchy's books? I always love her children. The kids of this broken marriage are endearing, and seem very real what with their childish hopes and misconceptions. Binchy's dialogue is also, as always, natural and very well-done.
- Scarlet Feather -- Maeve Binchy -- 4.5
- My favorite Binchy; it's richer than most of hers and the unavoidable marital infidelity (I really sometimes wonder how happy that woman's marriage can possibly be, dedications to her husband at the front of every novel notwithstanding, when she knows so much about unfaithful spouses) does not take center stage. This was a reread, but it had been long enough since I blew through it the first time that I found that I'd forgotten exactly how it ended, and I was pulling for the characters as they followed their mutual dream to start a catering company. (Also, the nine-year-old twins in one of the sub-plots are even better drawn than the children in Tara Road, described above.) This sounds clunky and just weird when I sit here and write about it, but trust me, this is the kind of book in which you live during the time it takes to read it. If you like Binchy at all, please do yourself the favor of trying this book.
- My favorite Binchy; it's richer than most of hers and the unavoidable marital infidelity (I really sometimes wonder how happy that woman's marriage can possibly be, dedications to her husband at the front of every novel notwithstanding, when she knows so much about unfaithful spouses) does not take center stage. This was a reread, but it had been long enough since I blew through it the first time that I found that I'd forgotten exactly how it ended, and I was pulling for the characters as they followed their mutual dream to start a catering company. (Also, the nine-year-old twins in one of the sub-plots are even better drawn than the children in Tara Road, described above.) This sounds clunky and just weird when I sit here and write about it, but trust me, this is the kind of book in which you live during the time it takes to read it. If you like Binchy at all, please do yourself the favor of trying this book.
- While I Was Gone -- Sue Miller -- 3.5
- Intriguing story about the frightening way in which your past can come back to haunt you (at least, it can if you live in a Sue Miller novel). This was a well-done story overall. Miller does an excellent job of drawing you in, with a placid enough opening followed by increasingly intense reminiscences by the main character, all of which revolve around a house shared by a group of hippies in the late 1960's, until what started out as just another literaryish chick book becomes quite a whodunit. And then, well, you find OUT whodunit, in a kind of surreal way. If Maeve Binchy and Scott Turow had a love child who then was raised by Ann Patchett, that child might grow up to write a book like this one. It's an OK book, maybe a tiny bit scattered at times, but worth reading once.
- Intriguing story about the frightening way in which your past can come back to haunt you (at least, it can if you live in a Sue Miller novel). This was a well-done story overall. Miller does an excellent job of drawing you in, with a placid enough opening followed by increasingly intense reminiscences by the main character, all of which revolve around a house shared by a group of hippies in the late 1960's, until what started out as just another literaryish chick book becomes quite a whodunit. And then, well, you find OUT whodunit, in a kind of surreal way. If Maeve Binchy and Scott Turow had a love child who then was raised by Ann Patchett, that child might grow up to write a book like this one. It's an OK book, maybe a tiny bit scattered at times, but worth reading once.
- The Collected Short Stories of Dorothy Parker -- Dorothy Parker -- 4.5
- (The high rating above is for the stories themselves. It wasn't Ms. Parker's fault that I read them all in a row and got a wee bit tired of her by the time I was done. I recommend spreading them out a bit if you can.)
Dorothy Parker certainly didn't get her reputation for genius out of a crackerjack box. The woman knew her way around relationships and the human psyche, and her felicitous skill with words (if you've read her poems, you know what I'm talking about; the woman was brilliant) makes each story in this collection a gem. Parker, if your brain can handle having both women in it at one time without exploding, was the twentieth century's answer to Jane Austen, in my opinion: wry, scalding wit used to expose the ludicrous and simply silly, taking particular aim at the lives and habits of those in high society. If you were forced to read Parker as a teenager and didn't like her, please give her another try. If you like her poetry, you'll probably love her stories. If you've never heard of her, give yourself forty lashes with a wet reticule and get thee to the library pronto.
- (The high rating above is for the stories themselves. It wasn't Ms. Parker's fault that I read them all in a row and got a wee bit tired of her by the time I was done. I recommend spreading them out a bit if you can.)
- Me and Mr. Darcy -- I can't remember -- urgggh
- Seven-word review: An interesting premise done very, very badly. I made a list on the back of my library-receipt-turned-bookmark of the things that annoyed me as I read this book, but I don't have the energy to inflict the list on you. A bare bones summary (of the part I read, because I couldn't make myself keep going after a while and I skipped to the end to see if what I thought would happen happened, and it did): Foul-mouthed Darcy-obsessed woman who runs bookstore takes Jane Austen-related vacation in Britain, meets pompous jerk who OH SO COINCIDENTALLY behaves in a Darcy-ish manner to her just as she happens to be reading the pertinent parts of P&P (example: woman overhears jerk bad-mouthing her to a friend JUST as she's reading the public-ball scene when Darcy calls Elizabeth 'tolerable'. WOW, THAT'S SUBTLE. I wonder if they're going to get together at the end. YA THINK? Answer: they do.) The characters are wooden, the clichés are thick on the page (the paragraphs about the main character's first few minutes in London were especially painful), there's a bizarre time-travelish element, and the male love interest is utterly unlikeable. You know, I can see the compulsion to write a book like this; it must be fun to set classic works in the modern era (and it worked really well for Clueless and Bridget Jones, right?), and you've got a guaranteed audience. But this book fails in so, so many ways. The author (whose name I'm glad I can't remember because I don't want her to Google herself and find this review, because I'm not being very nice and after all she did give it the old college try) simply doesn't trust us to be intelligent enough to pick up subtle clues, and she treats readers like imbeciles, not to mention the fact that she continually has her characters reference Mr. Darcy-related scenes that were created for FILMS (Colin Firth may have stridden [I hate this word] across a meadow wearing a wet shirt, but Fitzwilliam Darcy did not). AND her characters love the Keira Knightley adaptation, which shows how much she knows.
- Seven-word review: An interesting premise done very, very badly. I made a list on the back of my library-receipt-turned-bookmark of the things that annoyed me as I read this book, but I don't have the energy to inflict the list on you. A bare bones summary (of the part I read, because I couldn't make myself keep going after a while and I skipped to the end to see if what I thought would happen happened, and it did): Foul-mouthed Darcy-obsessed woman who runs bookstore takes Jane Austen-related vacation in Britain, meets pompous jerk who OH SO COINCIDENTALLY behaves in a Darcy-ish manner to her just as she happens to be reading the pertinent parts of P&P (example: woman overhears jerk bad-mouthing her to a friend JUST as she's reading the public-ball scene when Darcy calls Elizabeth 'tolerable'. WOW, THAT'S SUBTLE. I wonder if they're going to get together at the end. YA THINK? Answer: they do.) The characters are wooden, the clichés are thick on the page (the paragraphs about the main character's first few minutes in London were especially painful), there's a bizarre time-travelish element, and the male love interest is utterly unlikeable. You know, I can see the compulsion to write a book like this; it must be fun to set classic works in the modern era (and it worked really well for Clueless and Bridget Jones, right?), and you've got a guaranteed audience. But this book fails in so, so many ways. The author (whose name I'm glad I can't remember because I don't want her to Google herself and find this review, because I'm not being very nice and after all she did give it the old college try) simply doesn't trust us to be intelligent enough to pick up subtle clues, and she treats readers like imbeciles, not to mention the fact that she continually has her characters reference Mr. Darcy-related scenes that were created for FILMS (Colin Firth may have stridden [I hate this word] across a meadow wearing a wet shirt, but Fitzwilliam Darcy did not). AND her characters love the Keira Knightley adaptation, which shows how much she knows.
(herein begins the embarrassing part.)
Comments
First and most important: you know how you rated Over Sea, Under Stone a 4? It's by far the *weakest* of the five-book Dark is Rising series, so much so that I have a boxed set containing only the latter four. (Not my choice, I'd have preferred all five.) The second is my favorite, I think it was the fourth that actually won the Newberry Prize, and the last is pretty strong too (one disappointing aspect, but I can't go into detail without spoilers). In the second one, Cooper does something unusual and brave: she specifically discusses how the magic in her world relates to religion. And she doesn't come to a neat packaged conclusion -I'll be curious to hear your opinion about that. It's the scene in the church and particularly the vicar's comment at the end.
As for Mr and Mr Darcy, I liked it as cotton candy. Left a bad sticky taste in my mouth. You didn't even mention the two things that bugged me most. For one, she gets some of the American dialect just wrong: someone who makes such a big deal of being oh-so-English whenever she talks about fancying a guy is not going to say "he was just winding me up" without further comment. More importantly, her hero never alters. The whole point of P&P is that Elizabeth and Darcy both have to change, overcoming his pride and her prejudice (and vice versa) before they can come together. In Me and Mr. Darcy, he never has to bend at all, which doesn't augur well for their relationship.
Posted by: Paula at August 3, 2008 06:53 PM
Like Paula said, I liked "Me and Mr Darcy" as cotton candy. I didn't notice that she got the American/English dialect wrong (my knowledge of English doesn't stretch quite that far ;) ) and therefore wasn't bothered by it. It DID annoy me too that her hero never changed though.
I loved the Travelling Pants series, so no need for you to feel embarrassed there. I may be younger than you, but still WAY over the target age for those books ;)
Scarlet Feather is my favourite Binchy too - closely followed by Evening Class and Quentins. She just always makes me so HUNGRY from all the good eating in Scarlet Feather :-)
I have to contradict Paula though and say I thought "Over Sea Under Stone" was better than "Dark is Rising" (the only two in the series I've read so far), but I know I'm very much in the minority here, so you probably shouldn't listen to me ;)
Posted by: Maria at August 3, 2008 11:28 PM
I LOVE the Traveling Pants books too. Try the Peaches series - they're not quite as good, but okay reads, and similar. The author is Anderson and the first one is just called Peaches. The third is coming out in October.
I happened to get Tara Road from the library tonight. I'll have to try Scarlet Feather next. And I cannot fathom why I've never read Dorothy Parker's stories.
Posted by: Kat with a K at August 4, 2008 06:40 PM
Binchy -- I've been wondering for a while now if there are any happy marriages in Ireland. I mean, seriously, there are infidelities in all of her books. I finished Whitethorn Woods recently and there it was again. Of course.
I liked the Traveling Pants books too. I also recently read "The Last Summer (Of You and Me)". Couldn't put it down.
I recently got back from a trip and read "We Are All Welcome Here" by Elizabeth Berg. Another one I couldn't put down BUT ... the ending. Grrr. Have any of you read it?
Posted by: mary at August 4, 2008 07:50 PM
Just a couple suggestions...
The Ten Best Days of My Life
by Adena Halpern
Quick read...but cute.
Family Tree: A Novel....Barbara Delinsky This is an incredible book.
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