Currently reading
Soulless: The Manga Vol. 2 (The Parasol Protectorate Manga #2)
Asymmetry (Twelve Planets)
Mullumbimby Madness #1: Never Trust a Book with a Colour Cover
The Walking Dead, Vol. 18: What Comes After
Sunburnt Country
Bark at the Moon: Bert Rokey's Letters from the South Pacific, 1942-1945: How a Soldier and Sabetha, His Kansas Farm Community, Survived World War II
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Girl Defective
Midnight Blue-Light Special
My Policeman
Five stars for world-building and for Hurley's pugnacious approach to showing-not telling. Everyone was fighting each other, but I found myself not really caring, not having anyone to barrack for. The gore, torture, bugs and lack of emotional weight made this not the book for me.
This was pretty amazing. Be aware that there are very graphic descriptions of whaling and whale processing in the book.
Difficult to rate on content, because I found large portions of the book completely unreadable. This was due to a combination of technical errors - the middle portion of the book was all blurred - and poor choices in lettering and font size.
, Steve Niles)
This book was, in large part, enjoyable. I think Young hits her stride really well when writing about flying, and I could feel that unique spark returning toward the end of the book when Ellie got into the pilot's seat. More flying, please!My big disappointment was my intense dislike for the romantic lead. This made it difficult for me to be swept up in the story. [weak spoilers ahead] I know we were supposed to be suspicious of him at first, but even when we were supposed to start liking him, he came out with this clunker: "No, no. You misunderstand me. You were never meant to get caught up in this. Never. O’Sullivan mentioned a little troublemaker trying to organise a protest against the sale. From the way he spoke, I expected to find a hairy, bra-less, ball-breaking feminist, and instead discovered a fascinating, headstrong goddess."
And I just switched off. Ugh.
Maybe this was edited between ARC and final version, though? Maybe?
This was, like the first volume, a delight. Froud's art is beautiful, and over and over I found panels which made me say to my partner "You must look at this!" I don't think the story would work as a standalone, and each volume has made me say to myself, "I really must watch that movie again." I think that knowing how the world ends up is fairly essential to understanding and caring about this creation tale.
Mostly written for the USAn market and not terribly practical, but some good background information.
Anais has lived her life in foster care, bounced from homes and institutions dozens of times in her short life. She knows all about rooms without any windows or doors, and she knows about a lot of other things she shouldn't have to know. She has been in trouble with the law over and over and over. Caught with her skirt covered in blood and a police officer down, it is assumed that she is responsible, and she is put in yet another institution, The Panopticon, pending charges and trial. But what is her reality? This was an amazing, powerful piece of work. The unreliable narration was deft and very effective: I was left at the end of the book still with many questions about what was reality, fantasy, mental illness, drug-induced, or deliberate misdirection. Somehow, this initially unlikeable, abrasive, impenetrable character becomes comprehensible and highly sympathetic over the course of the book, and I found myself barracking for her.
I did feel slightly let down at first as some of the buzz and the title led me to believe that there was a strong science fictional element. But viewing this book purely as a literary novel, I felt it was compelling, gut-punching, and a definite page-turner.
It is not for everyone, and it's not YA either. Content notes for, oh, everything. Abuse of all kinds, bad language of all kinds, lots of vivid drug use. Happy to expand by PM if anyone needs details.
Bonus: lots of queer characters and content.
Was this really created by Tove? It seems to lack all of the charm and quirk of the original books. Sadly disappointed.
If I Stay
I find myself at complete odds with my favourite YA bloggers on this book!I picked up If I Stay because I heard it had a sequel, and I was really looking forward to a rehab book in the voice of a young woman with disabilities. I ended up really liking If I Stay, but had avoided spoilers assiduously for Where I Went. Unfortunately, too assiduously. When I picked it up, I found that instead of being in Mia's clear, powerful, insightful, vulnerable, resonant voice, I found that the book was to be all about Adam's pain. I thought he was a bit of an arse in the first book, and he just became a giant arse in this one, meaning the ending made even less sense. And when he started comparing his pain at being dumped and becoming a bigtime rock star to Mia's pain at her entire family dying in front of her and having to recover from critical injuries, I just about threw it against the wall. This book was just a giant posturing waaahh for me. I really hope that Forman (or a good fanficcer!) decides to write Mia's story.
Stories from Shakespeare
I'm currently doing a read-aloud Stories from Shakespeare with my eight-year-old, and it's bloody marvellous! Apart from smallish text on dark-coloured ground on some pages, that is.He is loving it, so long as I do plenty of funny voices, with hilarious lovestruck swains and scary ghosts and imperious kings. The stories are engaging, short enough, and well-written, distilling the essence of the story without losing unnecessarily much in the modern-language rewriting.As soon as we'd finished Romeo and Juliet, he turned to me and said, "You know what would be cool? Romeo and Juliet, with guns."So guess what we're in the middle of watching now?(His first comment, shortly into the movie: "Everyone's a poet in this, aren't they?")
Undine
I just love the way Russon writes. For the first half in particular, the rhythm was electric, was corporeal - I found myself somehow breathing along with the book, and whenever I put it down for a moment, I felt a physical reorganisation, a hitch as my breathing rearranged itself. I was put off for a little while by the sexualised compulsion scene [magically-coerced kissing, no rape, but this is because the characters were interrupted, not because they stopped willingly. The compulsion is semi-inadvertent, as this magic is entirely new to the character involved]. I think my difficulty was because of being in the head of the character perpetrating the compulsion. However, it was treated as horrible within the narrative, though I detected a certain ambivalence at first - I'm assuming this was the ambivalence of the POV character coming through. This character grew to take a look at herself and at the problematic nature of that behaviour, and to learn that it was essential to control her magic to avoid harming others. As some other reviews opine, it may have wrapped it a little too quickly and neatly; but overall the book was a glorious allegory for the feelings and changes of adolescence, and a delightful fantasy tale in its own right. I'm looking forward to reading the next book, Breathe.
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (Dover Thrift Editions)
The Good: A great modern Chinese-Australian YA ghost story that's also a homage - almost a love letter - to the 80s! Great for all us YA readers in our forties *whistles* The Bad: The lack of Valley Girl references. The weird five-minute counsellor appointment - this was not believable, and I'm not sure what the point of it was.The Ugly (but no different to most other YA, and hot damn I wish this would change real soon now): Multiple (and unchallenged) references to "spazzing out". The Bonus: Labyrinth dialogue. *hearts* Lots of other eighties Easter Eggs.My Question: Is the ghost's last name a homage to a Corey, by any chance?
The Universe Versus Alex Woods
Content Note: assisted suicide, bullyingI ended up really disappointed in this book. Two-thirds of the way through, it was running around five stars for me. Quirky in the ways I like, well-handled disability stuff with the MC, book clubs! and science! and all sorts of fun stuff. Unfortunately, I found the final quarter of the book lost all of its former charm and devolved into a plodding, step-by-step paean to assisted suicide. Not my cup of tea at all.
Liar Bird
One day, one day, I'll read a chick lit book without fat-hate. 'Till then, however, this was heaps of fun. Not your average chick lit, and not your average city-slicker rural romance, this is a jolly romp, featuring a 'quirky' country town and a dishy ranger who aren't quite what they seem. Amongst the humour and lurrve, this book also has a bit to say about PR and about wildlife conservation. Enjoy.
Run to Me: A Novel
Content Notes: children in danger, some child neglect/abuse, vivid description of PTSD symptomsThis is an excellent nailbiter set in the woods of northern Maine. The shifting point-of-view was a bit confusing for me in the galley, but with proper scene breaks it should work well. I liked the moxie of the child protagonist a lot. What I particularly admire was the way Shyler's spirit and courage shone through while she was struggling with severe PTSD. The PTSD rang true to me, which is a tricky thing to pull off. It didn't suddenly evaporate conveniently when it needed to - it caused very significant problems - but she fought on. What I didn't like much was the romantic subplot. I don't think it was necessary to the story, except as a means to the Happy Family endgame, and I was really very squicked by the fact that the doctor's romantic pursuit arose from a meeting within a medical consultation in which Shyler, a very ill woman, had come to the doctor for help. The ethical issues of that situation are decidedly non-trivial, and these issues were completely ignored in the book. I can imagine many readers might be able to overlook this, but as a doctor myself this problem just kept screaming at me.Otherwise, though, this is a very competent debut, and I'd definitely pick up Hester's next book.
