Book Nook Club: Reviewed by Bee

Showing posts with label Reviewed by Bee. Show all posts

Showing posts with label Reviewed by Bee. Show all posts

May 2, 2012

Heft by Liz Moore

Heft, by Liz Moore, is told from alternating points of views of two very different characters: a 550, shy, shut-in, and a talented high school athlete who takes care of his alcoholic mother.

This book was a very quick read and the two stories flowed naturally together. Moore does an excellent job at distinguishing the voices of the two different characters (although Kel, the teenager, is occasionally written with a higher level of vocabulary and poetic expression than could be expected).

While I did enjoy the book as I read it, the ease of emotional healing that both characters undergo seems too…easy. There was little self reflection and it seemed to take no time at all for the characters to undergo major emotional breakthroughs.

Bottom line—this book was sweet. The characters were quirky and it is worth the read. I think it would be a great read for high school students. 4 stars.

I received a free copy of this book for the purpose of review. These are my honest thoughts and opinions.

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February 20, 2012

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (and other concerns) by Mindy Kaling

I loved this book. I want to be Mindy's BFF. She's funny, she's honest, she's just a bit over-dramatic, and she's a goody-goody at heart who still loves to hang out with her parents--she's just my type of lady.

She has a great chapter on how she had a photo shoot and all of the available dresses were size 0, and how awful she felt that she couldn't fit into any of them. The chapter that made me laugh the most was a short one about how ridiculously long it takes for men to put on shoes. Seriously, it takes my husband forever (I don't even sit down when I put on shoes!)

The biggest negative about the book is that the narrative flow of the chapters isn't the greatest. It tends to jump from one topic to another. But as I enjoyed everything that she had to say, it didn't bother me that much. It's also very much a "girl" book--most of the humor revolves around things that men may not find that funny.

I read Tiny Fey's Bossypants shortly after reading this, and I have to say that I enjoyed this one a little more. Mindy seems like a real person with insecurities and flaws. I can relate to her.

Four and half stars
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February 13, 2012

A Stolen Life: A Memoir by Jaycee Dugard

Unless you don't follow the news at all, you have probably heard about Jaycee Dugard. Kidnapped when she was eleven years old, she was held captive for more than 18 years, giving birth to two daughters during her imprisonment. A Stolen Life: A Memoir by Jaycee Dugard chronicles from the time of her kidnapping to her life in the present.

I don't normally pick up books like this, but I saw it in the library and picked it up on a whim. They usually make me feel uncomfortably voyeuristic but this time I'm glad I did.

While this book was occasionally difficult to read as it serves as a description of some of the vilest things that a person can do to another person, it is also a testimony of Jaycee's great strength and absolute love. The overall positivity of the message made me admire Jaycee's spirit and resilience.

Jaycee apologizes in the beginning that her story isn't perfectly linear because it isn't perfectly linear in her mind. She admits that this book is one way she is working through the awful things that happened to her. And while it isn't perfect, none of these detract from her telling of her life story. The format makes it a quick read and illustrates her remarkable inner strength.

I feel awkward giving something like this a point value--it is such a personal project that it really shouldn't be judged. One thing that seemed oddly left out was Jaycee's relationship with her daughters during her captivity. She discusses her want for privacy for her daughters after the fact, but I would have appreciated her addressing that relationship head-on, even if would have just been something along the lines of, "I do not plan to discuss my relationship with my daughters because I respect their privacy." Not including hardly anything at all seemed like a strange omission.

Four stars

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January 31, 2012

The Briar King

The Briar King by Greg Keyes is the first book of the fantasy series Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone. The plot elements are the usual fantasy fare: the Briar King, a legend from children's tales and folklore, is waking from his slumber and threatening the kingdom (and ultimately the entire world). The host of characters includes but is not limited to a headstrong princess, a quiet but courageous woodsman, and a dedicated priest.

If I had to sum up this book quickly, I would say "good but not great". The story reminds me of a host of other books: Game of Thrones, Jim Butcher's Codex Alera series, and Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time books. A fantasy story with a multi-perspective narrative combined with the end times has been done by many authors, and it really needs to be extraordinary if it's going to stand out.

While Keyes does a great job with world building, there is no rhythm to the flow of the narrative. Sometimes you may hear from one character for a single chapter and never get their perspective again. It jumps around too much. A major new character is even introduced in the last third of the novel--but by then I didn't really care, I just wanted to hear from the few well-established characters.

I enjoyed this book enough that I plan to eventually pick up the second one in the series. But I'm not in any rush.

3.5 stars

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January 25, 2012

World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks

World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks is a narrative of the fictional Zombie War as told by a myriad of survivors—politicians, soldiers, policy makers, doctors, or just regular people who happened to think on their feet or were merely lucky. (The premise is basically Studs Terkel but with zombies).

It begins with the first recorded case of a zombie in China. Each chapter is another person telling a small bit of history from their perspective—the spread, the illusion of safety in the United States, the official policy that governments adopted of creating small safe zone while using the rest of the populace as bait, military strategy.

The amazing thing about this novel is that it seems so incredibly, disturbingly real. Everything that is described, as chilling as it, seems plausible. These stories are tiny little windows into the larger human experience of how mankind might deal with such a calamity such as this—there is terror, ugliness, greed, but also some kindness and hope.

While I occasionally wished for a more linear storyline with reoccurring characters, this format was extremely effective in immersing the reader in the war against the “Z’s”. If you’re a fan of zombies and a multi-perspective narrative style, this is a must-read book.

Five stars

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January 15, 2012

Chain Gang Elementary by Jonathan Grant

Chain Gang Elementary by Jonathan Grant is about Richard Gray, a work-from-home father elected as head of the Parent-Teacher Organization. This novel details his escalating war with the principal aka dictator of Malliford elementary school and Richard's deteriorating marriage. The last quarter of the book is especially gripping, when all of the forces at play finally bubble over into a crazy (but believable!) ending.

I enjoyed the writing style. Despite the occasional grammatical error, it is a breezy, quick read. Richard's relationship with his son is especially well-written, illustrating a great father-son bond.

I'm a former teacher and I chose to read this book because I know that the politics of a school can be crazy. I am not disappointed. Principal Rutherford's heavy-handed rulings are unfortunately very believable. The book also raises issues of race, class and white privilege in a way that is very nuanced and thoughtful. The ending is great--I read the last quarter in one evening because I didn't want to put it down!

There is one small storyline that bothered me, mostly because it seems a bit incongruous with the rest of the very-believable story. I won't spoil anything, but Richard shares a story about a childhood formative experience to his wife in such an off-hand manner that it seems contrived. Most of the follow-up action to this childhood experience also pushes the boundaries of belief.

I also am not a fan of the portrayal of Richard's relationship with his wife. I understand strained relationships but it is hard to see that there was ever any love and communication between them. Lastly, there is quite a roster of characters and it was occasionally difficult to keep track of all of them.

Overall a very enjoyable read, one that will make you feel outraged, sad, and hopeful. 4 stars

I received a free copy of this book for the purpose of this review. These are my honest thoughts and opinions.
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January 5, 2012

The Boy in the Moon: A Father's Journey to Understand His Extraordinary Son by Ian Brown

The Boy in the Moon: A Father's Journey to Understand His Extraordinary Son by Ian Brown is a nonfiction book about Ian’s son, Walker. Walker has cardiofaciocutaneous (CFC) syndrome, an extremely rare genetic mutation. One of only about 300 people worldwide with this diagnosis, he is unable to speak, compulsively harms himself, and will need constant care for the rest of his life.

I liked that this book seemed honest. Ian didn’t wax poetic about how Walker was an angel or had a higher purpose—in fact, he was suspicious of people like that. He didn’t shy away from the hard questions and was honest about how brutally tiring it was to take care of his son. It questioned the roles of responsibility, from the role of society, the government, and the parents.

The first half of the book was chronological and flowed quite fast. The material was both interesting and a little heartbreaking. The second half was a little bit more difficult to get through. It skipped around and ideas weren’t fully articulated or explained. While self-reflection can be fascinating, Brown tended to ramble.

Three stars

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December 28, 2011

11/22/63: A Novel by Stephen King

I'm a fan of Stephen King. He's a talented writer who does a great job with gruesome horror genre books like It but also manages to write suspense and general fiction in an enjoyable way. My favorite books by him are Duma Key and Insomnia while I despised The Dome (really, aliens?). I enjoyed the Dark Tower series in general but hated how he wrote himself into the last book.

All of that said, I am unsure how I feel about 11/22/63. The plot is fairly straight forward: Jake's friend finds a time tunnel to 1958, and recruits Jake to go back in time and stop the assassination of JFK.  In those five years of living in the past, Jake not only shadows Lee Harvey Oswald but also carves out a semi-normal life for himself teaching English in a small town.

I read it fast. At 800 pages, the story was compelling enough that I enjoyed it and didn't think about taking a break from the book. Still, it could have benefited from some editing. There are a lot of Easter eggs hidden in the story, references to other Stephen King novels.  The romance aspect was both lovely and authentically tragic.

My enthusiasm waned with the ending.  The chapters that actually occur on the date 11/22/63 drag, and I kept thinking that the surely the universe would throw something more at them. Without going into too much detail, the final part of the book is simply not enough for me. A lot of explanation is skimmed over. I'm not sure how else it could have ended, but some of the conclusions that simply felt forced and hurried, without any supporting explanation.

three stars
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December 20, 2011

A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry

Wow. What a powerful, heartbreaking, amazing book.

A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry is one of the best pieces of literature that I have read in a long time. With 600 pages and covering topics such as abject poverty and every day life in the corrupt regime of Indira Gandhi, this is not light reading.

The first chapter starts off with a chance meeting between two tailors, a woman seeking to hire tailors and find a renter, and a young man looking to rent a room. The first third of the novel or so details each of their histories and backgrounds, sometimes even tracing all the way back to the lives of their grandparents. These beautifully written and often tragic stories provide a rich understanding of who these characters are. The rest of the book deals with the four characters working and living with each other for the next year.

The title could refer to many things, but what I saw as the most prevalent theme was the fine line between hope and despair. At what point do you give up and decide things are hopeless? So much of the book is sad, depressing and upsetting, from violent caste killings to forced sterilizations. As a reader, you keep rooting for the characters even if you know that happily ever after is probably not in their future. You just keep hoping that they find some peace and a small bit of happiness.

The details are rich and the setting of India in the 1970's is compelling and interesting--I didn't know much about it before now. This is definitely not a happy book. It made me keenly aware the privilege in my life, of having a safe and secure place to live and always having enough to eat. I highly recommend this book for anyone with a love of literature (as long as you are okay with bleak stories).

five stars
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December 14, 2011

Ashfall by Mike Mullin

Ashfall is a young adult dystopian novel. The premise is that a "super volcano" in Yellowstone National Park erupts, shrouding the entire United States in ash in a natural disaster of epic porportion. The main character is Alex, a fifteen year old boy who takes to the road to rejoin his parents. He travels through a transformed world, where violence in the norm and everyone is desperate for food and clean water.

There is a lot of action in this book, and Mullin doesn't shy away from more of the gritty details of a natural disaster. I like the romance in it too--it's portrayed in a gradual, natural manner and the female protaganist is both tough and smart.

There were stretches of the book that went very, very slowly. There were parts that didn't seem very realistic--for example, Alex's Taekwondo training actually comes in handy (does that ever really happen?). The ending is a bit unsatisfying to me and hints at a sequel. All in all, I could see this being a popular book for both teenage boys and girls, and it's definitely worth the read if you enjoy the genre.

Three stars
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December 1, 2011

Tolstoy and the Purple Chair: My Year of Magical Reading by Nina Sankovitch

Tolstoy and the Purple Chair: My Year of Magical Reading

This is my mother’s new favorite book, and she recommended it to me. Tolstoy and the Purple Chair: My Year of Magical Reading is a nonfiction book that describes Nina Sankovitch’s project for reading away her grief—after the death of her sister, she reads and reviews one book per day for an entire year. Each chapter focuses on a larger theme: memory, desire, kindness. Nina weaves stories of her life and her sister’s life along with the messages on that specific theme from the books she read.

Tolstoy and the Purple Chair is beautifully written and often touching. I especially enjoyed the chapter on sharing books—I am a book loaner and love sharing books with the ones I love.

I liked the parts where she ties her own life and her own family’s history to the major topics. There were sections of the book that were slower, where she describes several books in a row and what she learned from them with no pause for her own stories. My personal preference is for more narrative, less essay.

One thing that surprised me was that she writes mainly about the message of the book, rarely about their style. I would have loved to hear about her top three favorite books, the ones that moved her the most.

If you love books and are comfortable with a book without a linear progression, I definitely recommend this for you.

Four stars.
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November 28, 2011

The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner

The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner is a young adult fantasy novel that won a Newberry award in 1997. It popped up as suggested in my Goodreads feed and was highly rated, so I thought I would give it a try. It tells the story of a thief named Gen, recruited out of prison to help the king’s scholar steal a mythical treasure.

I enjoyed a lot of the elements of the novel—I like the fantasy genre, trickster-style characters, and a dash of adventure. But I just found this book incredibly slow. At least 75% of the novel describes their journey to get the treasure. I’m not talking about adventure-filled, action-packed travels where they fight evil and meet interesting side characters, I’m talking about a trudging, slow moving, character-development-through-long conversation type of trip.

I wasn’t a fan of the mythology in the book. I couldn’t picture a similar time period in my head, it varied from Biblical times, to feudal society, to ancient Greece. Oh, and then there were guns. I understand that fantasy writers pick and choose the elements of their world, but the use of very specific historic words from different time periods (like magus and megaron and dukes juxtaposed with guns) made it feel cobbled together to me.

On the plus side, I do find Turner to be a talented writer, even if I don’t like the way the story unfolded. And the last few chapters are great. Seriously, that’s what I wanted to entire book to be like. But it was just too little too late for me.

Two stars.
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November 27, 2011

The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York by Deborah Blum

While the title The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York doesn't exactly roll off the tongue, it is the perfect description of the content of this nonfiction book.

I don't read a lot of nonfiction but when I do I like them a little edgy. Each chapter of this book tackles a specific poison from arsenic to carbon monoxide. The chapters cover the poison's history, its chemical properties, what exactly it does to the human body, and tells a few cases were the poison was used. It simultaneously describes the efforts of the newly formed forensic pathology office in New York and how these professionals pioneered countless advances in this field.

I really enjoyed this book. While decidedly episodic in nature, it seemed to work because of the over-arching theme of the lives of the medical examiners. I learned a lot reading this, especially about the politics of the Prohibition era. I would have liked to have seen photos from some of the cases described, especially when the author went into great detail about specific photos published in newspapers. Keeping in mind that the book occasionally goes into gory detail, I recommend this book to anyone interested in history, medicine, real crime, or just some of the more macabre parts of New York's past.

Five stars

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November 22, 2011

Land of Mountains by Jinx Schwartz

Land of Mountains by Jinx Schwartz is a young adult novel that chronicles the adventures of Texas born ten-year old Lizbuthann (i.e. Elizabeth Anne) after she and her family move to Haiti. She's a rough and tumble sort of child, always interested in snooping and getting into mischief. The story follows her as she struggles with disease, political unrest, and the occasional zombie.

Unfortunately, the first thing that stands out about this book are the formatting mistakes. Perhaps it is only the Kindle edition but there were copious editing errors--sentences cut off in the middle and starting in the next paragraph, dialogue sometimes having a new paragraph for each speaker and sometimes not, missing quotation marks, and sentences lacking periods. Every time that I as a reader encountered one of these mistakes it took me out of the magic of the story.

I like the main protaganist. She's smart, she's sassy and funny, she's a little too curious for her own good, and she loves adventure. Young adult novels could use more Lizbuthann-style main characters. While this story is billed as a mystery, I feel that it falls more into the historical adventure genre.

Unfortunately, the episodic nature of Lizbuthann's adventures slows the story down. Lizbuthann gets polio--and we hear about it for three pages, and it never really comes up again. There are several interesting elements like that I would have loved to hear more about but are merely mentioned once and dropped.

While I enjoyed the idea of the setting as the lush forests of Haiti, the story was sadly lacking in locale description or setting description in general. While we are treated to step-by-step descriptions of what the heroine actually does, it lacks any sort grounding in the wider surroundings. It makes for a much weaker action scene when Lizbuthann is, for example, fording the river in small dam-building machinery, when I can't picture what the dam looks like, what the machinery looks like or even have a clear idea of what the machinery does.

2 stars (3 without the formatting issues)

I received a free copy of this book for the purpose of this review. These are my honest thoughts and opinions.

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November 15, 2011

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children follows the story of 16 year old Jacob. Jacob grew up dreaming of adventure and listening to his grandfather tell tales of a magical safe haven, levitating and invisible children, and of fighting evil monsters. Although the teenage Jacob no longer believes in such stories, he finds himself questioning everything he thinks he knows after his grandfather's sudden violent death. He embarks on a journey to the remote Welsh island where his grandfather grew up in hopes of finding answers.

The book starts off strong. The first person narration is compelling and fast-paced. The first half of the book does a wonderful job with letting the story unfold in such a way that keeps you wanting more.

What makes this book so extraordinary are the creepy vintage photographs. Whenever the narrator describes a photograph (or occasionally a letter or handwritten note), it is included on the next page. I frequently caught myself peeking ahead in the book, hoping for another photo.

I wasn't quite as impressed with the second half of the book. There was a lot of flat-out of telling the mythology behind the action, rather than building it up organically. The character of Emma was disappointingly two-dimensional. Indeed, most of the Peculiar Children weren't fleshed out enough, both in terms of their personality and their back stories. (There is a particularly eerie photo of two "snacking ballerinas" that could easily give you nightmares--but their characters are never even addressed.)

Despite the creepy photographs, this novel is closer to a fantasy novel than a horror story.

Four stars

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November 13, 2011

Better Off Without Him by Dee Ernst

Better Off Without Him has a lot going for it. While the plot itself is nothing new (husband leaves wife for younger woman, woman has some hilarious dates/hijinks, woman learns to love herself and finds someone she can be happy with), what makes it stand out is the phenomenal tone. It reads like you're talking to your snarky yet hilarious best friend--the one who is perfect at summing up people with a clever phrase.

I also enjoy that the book gives a nod to the tropes of the romance genre. The main character, Mona, is a romance writer. As she's telling her writing group about how her husband left her for a French blond coworker, she points out how tons of romance books start like that. Mona also has hilarious moments where she rewrites what is going on in her head with her hunky plumber into scenes from her historical romances.

I wasn't a big fan of how meta the book got at times. Mona is trying to write a "not-exactly romance" novel that of course seems strangely similar to this book. This "not-exactly romance" category is hard to define, but this novel definitely falls into it. For example, the main character's divorce and dating life follow a much more realistic timeline than the average romance novel. She has bad dates, she has okay dates, and she has this-is-fun-for-now but not forever dates, just as a real person would.

The problem with this slightly more realistic plot is that it's difficult to transition to one week to six weeks to a day passing without it seeming choppy. It also means that the wonderful, funny characters are described, have one or two scenes, and then are rarely heard from during the rest of the book. There is very little sense of growth either with Mona or with the periphery characters. Also, as a personal opinion, I like good sex scenes and this one did the tasteful book equivalent to a fade to black at during those moments.

Overall, three stars.

I received a free copy of this book for the purpose of this review. These are my honest thoughts and opinions.
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November 8, 2011

Graveminder by Melissa Marr

I haven't read any of Marr's other books, but apparently she's rather well known for her young adult "Wicked Lovely" series.

"Graveminder" is about Rebekkah Barrow, who returns to her hometown of Claysville after the murder of her grandmother. Bek grew up helping her grandmother tend graves and watching as she performed an odd ritual at funerals, complete with the words "Sleep well, and stay where I put you." It turns out that these words have special meaning in Claysville as the dead in this town are somehow connected to the living. Rebekkah must learn to fill the role that her grandmother left behind, complete with the help of the current undertaker and her long-ago childhood love, Bryon.

This book was good but not great. I loved the setting and the world-building. The description of the town and the land of the dead were vivid and well done, especially contrasting the way that Bek and Byron viewed them. I liked Daisha's parts too--Marr did a good job of making you care about a character that would be easy to hate.

Overall, the characterization left something to be desired. I felt as if some of the minor characters like Amity or Bek's cousins had a lot of potential to be more interesting, but were rushed. The love story between Byron and Bek left a lot to be desired--it seemed as if there was never any true conflict besides Rebekkah being melodramatic. Plus any scene with Charlie/Mr. D (who really ought to be the most interesting character in the book!) was just kind of slow and didn't tie into the rest of the book very well.

Three and a half stars

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November 1, 2011

The Hum and the Shiver by Alex Bledsoe

Private Bronwyn Hyatt returns from Iraq to her small hometown in Tennessee. A returning hero, she has mixed feelings about coming back to the childhood home she gladly left behind. She is part of an insular community of "Tufa"--a dark-haired mysterious clan with a supernatural affinity to music. Bronwyn's unique heritage comes with certain obligations and she finds, much to her dismay, that she can no longer outrun her past.

Iraq left her wounded, both in body and soul. Her homecoming is marked with omens of impending death and a restless "haint", waiting to speak with her. This story follows her journey of healing and trying to find the place where she fits with her people.

One of the things that I loved about this book is that it doesn't read like the average fantasy novel. The description of the small-town mentality, the well-written dialogue, and the characterization seem more like a modern novel with fantastic and magical elements naturally blended into the book. The third person narrative skips between several characters, giving you a well-rounded view of both the action and the motives of characters.

The only reason it fell short of five stars (and indeed, the first 75% of the book truly earned it) is that certain aspects felt oddly incomplete. There were several moments where the characters, especially Bronwyn's parents, acted in ways that didn't seem genuine and didn't make sense. There were also a couple of loose ends that I feel weren't fully explained. Still, it was overall an amazing novel, and one of my recent favorites!

4 stars
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