twenty-one balloons by william pene du bois
what a charming book. no wonder the man won the newberry with it. filled with fanciful inventions, immense treasure, and high risk adventure, this book might even get bosco reading beyond comic books. even rob remembered this tale from school and was thrilled to see it on our kitchen counter.
my name is mina by david almond
wonderful novel that reads more like poetry - a perfect antidote to that dragging age of confusion and angst: pre-adolescence. mina is part modern day pollyanna, part junior philosopher. there is not only unvalid thing she contemplates, even if her wondering cause huge headaches for her teacher and school. naturally, she must be homeschooled :) but the author has a balanced approach - depicting another school with deeply flawed students but equally gifted human beings there to teach them.
anyhow, this is a book that would have been perfect for pepper when she was 11. or she could have even written it. i wish she's read it, but she doesn't take notice of my recommendations anymore.
YA - tally: 1
under the never sky by veronica rossi
this started out as a pretty good sci-fi but then stalled in the middle and never recovered. i liked the concept of the pods and living thru virtual reality - something done many times - but the character left the pod too soon and we don't get a good sense of the underlying life there. by the time the negative side is described, i'd lost interest.
the outsiders have a good angle too - with many of their kind having their senses heightened - but this was also not developed enough.
there's a romance in there that would readily appeal to teen girls but that arc seems to take over the story. and then nothing is really resolved as you realize this is a (hopeful) trilogy. i won't be reading the rest because i can already predict what will happen.
graphic novels - tally: 4
berlin - city of smoke (book two) by jason lutes
great series of pre-war berlin. with the backdrop of so much unease - between the communists and nationalists, between the gentiles and the jews - people reach out for any and all distractions: the arrival of jazz music, lesbian nightclubs, orgies & drugs. lutes' third, and last book, is out of print and no where to be found. i am distraught.
lliterature by carol lay
lliterature by carol lay
i really enjoyed her 'story minutes' - great concept that allowed for humor, or irony, or commentary. and the one page format reminds me of pepper's style
black hole by charles burns
weird. and sexual. and actually pretty honest.
there's a plague where people are becoming....other. the lucky ones seem to attain animal attributes, the rest of them get disfigured along alien lines. the whole plot occurs inside the confines of a highschool subculture - so the plague (passed through sexual contact) is a way to ostracize the affected students. or maybe. because some plague side effects can be hidden, so then some kids get to pretend they 'belong' when they don't. alot like regular highschool, right?
the big skinny - how i changed my fattitude by carol lay
looking for more carol lay, i stumbled upon this weightloss guide/memoir. i really irked me - turning weight issues (and control of them) into something like a religion. it bothered me so much, i put it aside, but somehow it creeped into my thoughts daily. there were truths in there that i didn't want to admit - that's why it made me so angry. and so this book became my own personal turning point, my own ah-ha moment. 6 weeks later, i'm ten pounds lighter, and half-way to my goal weight. only time will time if these changes are lasting.
the big skinny - how i changed my fattitude by carol lay
looking for more carol lay, i stumbled upon this weightloss guide/memoir. i really irked me - turning weight issues (and control of them) into something like a religion. it bothered me so much, i put it aside, but somehow it creeped into my thoughts daily. there were truths in there that i didn't want to admit - that's why it made me so angry. and so this book became my own personal turning point, my own ah-ha moment. 6 weeks later, i'm ten pounds lighter, and half-way to my goal weight. only time will time if these changes are lasting.
novels & memoirs - tally: 9
tinkers by paul harding
to be honest, this book baffled me. a pulitzer prize winner, it screams 'high quality' but i could not get past it's poetic nature. sentences could fill near a page - thoughts joined by commas and semicolons - but couldn't keep my attention long enough to get the point. a man is dying. his thoughts are to his childhood and his abandonement by his father. mental illness seems to run throughout the story. first person narration switches from son to father... yup. baffled me
the price of salt by patricia highsmith
sorry, but this supposed breakthrough novel was a tedious read. therese is a young lesbian looking for love in an older woman. or is she? the author goes out of her way to tell us how therese was abandoned by the mother at a young age and transfered her affections to the nun that ran her orphanage... so is she looking for a lover or a mother? (and if you were pro-lesbian, why would you confuse the issue by adding details that make someone's love choice one of a psychological (pathological?) nature? the only good thing about the onm-and-on-and-on plot was that therese finally grows a backbone and stops neing inwardly controlled by her older lover, carol.
HHhH by laurent binet
fascinating book; never read anything like it. it's historical fiction, but is it really?
the author features himself in the plot and makes a point of talking about inventing narratives to bring historical figures to life, so you think that is his point too - that he is making a whole bunch of stuff up inside this historical event. he mentions numerous films and books that feature (to his delight as a semi-biographer) heydrich. but surely this man cannot be so spread around; i make an assumption that he is using the author's inventor's licence even as i recognize details from books and films i've seen/read - velodrome d'hiver from sarah's key, terezin from a documentary. finally, i decide to search for the films, for the books, and yes - they are are true. this is an author who is so well versed in his material, he could have easily written a history book but instead he choses fiction, and places his own life inside it. a true reminder that history does inform us and shape us.
a tree grows in brooklyn by betty smith
what a joy to revisit this novel! i listened to it on tape (yes, that long ago!) when my children were young and i loved it to bits. when you love a book, you don't want it to end, but here was an exception. it ended so perfectly, and so poetically, and just like the most natural end bracket; it just fit.
i was happy to read it this time - savoring all the words and pausing to reread the truly wonderful stuff (you don't get that chance when you listen to it). i read all the added stuff too - the introduction, the note from her daughter, the author's own mini-essay asking people to fall in love with life. all of it (the extras) made me nod my head, and smile, and love the book - and francie nolan - even more.
the parabolist by nicholas ruddock
i'm still trying to wrap my head around this book - there's a sense of danger (real or imagined) throughout the story; some of it 'light' - adultery, escaping a locked house, a collison with a moose - and some very dark - suicide, rape, and murder. figures of authority abandon their code of conduct - but not always with a negative result. medical students are elbow deep in the gore of anatomy and dissection, but are also elbow deep in the vulnerability of love and poetry
spooky little girl by laurie notaro
heard that this author was supoosed to be funny, and this book was specifically mentioned - so i put aside the dry memoir i was in the midst of to read this.
i laughed a few times, sure, but overall it was mild crap. it reminded me of other british fluff i've read - like bridget jones's diary, or the shopaholic sries, or those useless novels i read while at the dude ranch 2 summers ago (which were so much fluff, ican't even remember the plots, let alone the titles).
back to the memoir. ho-hum.
you better watch out, a memoir by greg malone
spooky little girl by laurie notaro
heard that this author was supoosed to be funny, and this book was specifically mentioned - so i put aside the dry memoir i was in the midst of to read this.
i laughed a few times, sure, but overall it was mild crap. it reminded me of other british fluff i've read - like bridget jones's diary, or the shopaholic sries, or those useless novels i read while at the dude ranch 2 summers ago (which were so much fluff, ican't even remember the plots, let alone the titles).
back to the memoir. ho-hum.
you better watch out, a memoir by greg malone
it started strong then got bogged down in the too numerous details of his parent's families. about midway, it picked up again, when he was writing about his own experiences as a child and in grade school (and, likely, from the rich perspective of his own memories vs the memories of his father)
the most poignant chapter was about desperately wanting a certain truck for christmas and receiving one that was the utter opposite of all that was desired - and then having to pretend to like it and play with it, continually throughout the year. his last sentence caught my breath with his naked honesty for familial obligation:
my brothers and i, after long years of less-than-perfect pretense, came to be seen by Mom and Dad as ungrateful, a description we had to agree with and accept with guilt and shame, for Christmas moments not lived up to, and for Christmas moments we had not really had.
50 shades of grey by e l james
i'm shocked this book made it to the bestsellers lists and that women were brazen enough to walk up to counters and buy it. take away the first 30 or so pages, and the emails that are clustered in intervals and the whole thing is sex. bad sex at that.
where to start? the main character - anastasia (ok, the names are ridiculous - a kid in grade 5 would name her main character anastasia steele. ugg) - is a twenty-something virgin who is inexplicable attracted to said grey. he's a victim of some type, which is supposed to explain his sadism (and maybe supposed soften our judgement of him?) but no amount of plot reasoning can excuse a guy who list gynelogical equipement, nipple clamping, and various fistings in his contacts.
in many wasy it's like twilight - with it's whole only-with-you theme (in this case, mr grey breaks his usual rules of sexual conduct to act more like a boyfriend than a master). oh, that reminds me of the grossed part - when he meets anastasia's father and mentions he's buying her a car. the dad is all gung-ho about him, his money, and his gifts - all without finding out if his little girl wants any of it. it makes the dad look like a pimp.
left neglected by lisa gen
horrible book with horrible, unlikeable characters. only 8 pages in, and the protagonist is feeding her 5 and 7 year olds sugar cereal and plugging the 9 month old into the tv. she leaves the baby in a running car. i mean, she's supposed to be a highly educated person - pulling in the big bucks with her high profile career - educated women do NOT act this way.
left neglected by lisa gen
horrible book with horrible, unlikeable characters. only 8 pages in, and the protagonist is feeding her 5 and 7 year olds sugar cereal and plugging the 9 month old into the tv. she leaves the baby in a running car. i mean, she's supposed to be a highly educated person - pulling in the big bucks with her high profile career - educated women do NOT act this way.
then there's the money. she and her hubby have voluntarily saddled themselves with a huge mortgage on their mini mansion and a vacation home while they still haven't paid off their student loans! after she has her accident and has to stop working, the issue of money is never properly addressed (what did the insurance cover? did her employer pay her while she was in the hospital? for how long? is long term disability an option?)
after her accident, her mother shows up and that's when the author starts to reveal their past (poor) relationship - something that should have been described when the novel started. then, just as abruptly as her introduction, the mother dies when the protagonist AND the author no longer need her.
there's a side plot with her son being diagnosed with ADHD which is supposed to link her brain injury to his brain problem but c'mon - his problems are heavily linked to his (crap) enviroment, while she had a genuine brain injury. there's no comparison. (now autism - that would be a better plot device)
i read 'still alice' a few years ago and from what i remember, thought i liked it. but this was crap
