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Monthly Archives: November 2010

Review: Matched by Ally Condie

24 Nov

MatchedMy rating: 4 of 5 stars

Matched is a kinder, gentler dystopian novel.

The society seems like such a nice place to live, with all those difficult decisions like who to marry and what job you should do being decided by those that have all the information to make the right decision. This leaves you free to worry about what dress you’ll wear for your big Matching ceremony and to figure out how to spend your small, precious amounts of recreational time.

Cassia had never really questioned any of this, even when her grandfather encourages her not to use the green pill that all citizens carry, just in case they need a little help to calm themselves. Being Matched with her best fried was unusual, but made perfect sense.

What didn’t make sense was when she fired up the information chip she was given, and instead of seeing Xander, she sees Ky, another boy she knows.

As she attempts to make sense of this, she starts noticing more about the world around her, and her sorting skills point out patterns that have her thinking maybe those in charge don’t always know best.

I liked Matched because it was a good balance: a fun, readable book with some thought provoking themes. I enjoyed seeing Cassia emerge from the sheltered childhood that many adults also share in her world. She was a smart but naive girl, willing to use her brains to explore the limitations of her world, once she was given a reason to do so.

None of the other characters were fully fleshed out, including the love interest that motivates her growth. I was OK with that, since they just needed to provide a framework for Cassia to work within.  It would have been nice to see a little more deeply into Cassia’s friends– why she liked them, what they were thinking at this time of their lives

I’m not quite sure this qualifies as a dystopian novel (although sequels may be more clearly seen as such)– certainly, it is dystopia lite, or dystopia for beginners. Wikipedia isn’t all that helpful on the fine distinctions of literary classifications.

However it is classified, I thought it was an enjoyable, not purely fluffy read.

After I finished, I handed my copy to my 12 year old daughter, thinking she would love it.  She did enjoy it (and also gave it 4 stars out of 5), but not as much as I expected.   She said that after a while, it started to remind her of Pretties, which annoyed her, and that got in the way of her appreciation of Matched.

I picked up Matched while at BEA.  My copy was provided by the publisher, and I appreciate the opportunity to read and review it.

 
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Posted by on November 24, 2010 in books, reviews

 

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Mailbox Monday

22 Nov

My Mailbox looks a little like this one.I’ve really been making an effort to cut down on the incoming books until the TBR piles no longer pose a risk to my family’s physical safety.

On the other hand, I love books, and am easily excited by them.  I don’t want to try for a total ban, because that would make me sad. I just need to show some restraint.

So, I didn’t get any books in the mail this week, but I did succumb to the lure of two ARCs from Chronicle Books when I visited there this week!  Thanks to Lara at Chronicle for hosting us, and to Pam from Bookalicious for setting up this tour of our local publisher.

The two books that I couldn’t say no to were both YA titles.

Spinning Out By David Stahler Jr.

High school senior Frenchy has little ambition beyond hanging out at the smoking rock until his best friend, the ever-witty and conniving Stewart, gets him to try out for Man of la Mancha. To everyone’s surprise, the guys are a hit. But when Stewart’s antics begin to grow more obsessive—he wears his costume 24/7, freaks out about little details, and displays an incessant hatred of the high-tech windmills outside of town—Frenchy worries that there’s something deeper going on. Is Stewart spiraling into madness, just like Don Quixote? And can Frenchy battle through his own demons in time to save his friend from self-destruction before it’s too late?

How I Stole Johnny Depp’s Alien Girlfriend By Gary Ghislain

David Gershwin’s summer is about to take a turn for the weird. When his dad’s new patient Zelda tells him she’s from outer space and on a quest to take Johnny Depp back to her planet, he knows he should run away screaming. But with one look from her mean, green eyes, David’s hooked, and soon he’s leaping across rooftops, running from police, and stealing cars just to stay by her side. He might not be a typical hero, but David’s going to get the girl even if it takes him to the ends of the earth—or beyond.

Mailbox Monday is a weekly post where I talk about the books that have arrived in my house over the last week.

Marcia at The Printed Page hosts the Mailbox Monday Blog Tour. This month’s host is Julie @ Knitting and Sundries.

Leave a note here with what new reads came your way (and any thoughts about mine), then check out some other blogs!

 
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Posted by on November 22, 2010 in books, meme

 

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Review: Dangerously Funny by David Bianculli

19 Nov

Dangerously Funny: The Uncensored Story of Dangerously Funny: The Uncensored Story of “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour” by David Bianculli

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I’ve only discovered the Smothers Brothers fairly recently, and I’ve never seen their show (I was 18 months old when it went off the air). After reading this book, I’d really like to fix this.

I knew them as funny folk singers. I’d heard they had a political bent as well, as many folk singers of that era did. I had no idea what they’d accomplished on their show, and how much more they tried to do, but were stopped by CBS and the censors.

I really enjoyed the look at the brothers as people, and I particularly liked finding out about how they influenced the world. Tom Smothers had an eye for talent, featuring writers, comedians and musicians that had never been heard from before, but are well known now.

The late 60s/early 70s were a time of change, and the conflicts within the show were representative of this.

On the one hand, there was a desire (particularly among the younger set) for more openness about sexuality (we’re talking use of the word “breast”, not anything that would be seen as steamy today), about religion (the first skit that caused problems was one that was actually enjoyed by audiences of clergy of multiple denominations), and drugs.

On the other hand, there was a feeling that the airwaves should be safe for everyone– that no one should be offended by what they see on TV, and that the network censors had a responsibility to make that happen.

Then there was the political landscape– the changing views about the Vietnam War, and what was appropriate to say about it was an ongoing issue for the show, and popular opinion underwent a significant change over the three years the show was on the air.

I really only know the big facts about Nixon and his presidency– this book showed me a part of the kind of control he tried to wield over the entire nation, including the world of television.

The book also does a very good job of showing the influence the Smothers Brothers have had on later generations of shows and entertainers.

The content of the book gets 4.5 stars from me. Unfortunately, the writing style did not work quite as well.

I can’t quite describe what bothered me about it– the best I can say is that I was often aware of the narrator over the story being told, and I usually didn’t see the value to this. In addition, the same information was repeated multiple times, perhaps in an effort to make each chapter able to stand on its own.

I didn’t have any major problems with the writing, but it did dampen my enjoyment of the book a little.

Overall, this was a wonderful read, and I’d recommend it for anyone with an interest in television, in politics, or this era. Think holiday present!

I received this book for review from Touchstone Paperback/Simon & Schuster.  Thank you for this opportunity!

 
2 Comments

Posted by on November 19, 2010 in books, reviews

 

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Review: Lydia’s Charm by Wanda E. Brunstetter

18 Nov

Lydia's CharmMy rating: 3 of 5 stars

Summary via Goodreads:

Visit Amish Country during the fall as Lydia King attempts to make Charm, Ohio, feel like home after losing her husband. But is her heart ready to open back up to love when gifts appear on her porch from a mystery source? Could it be from the widowed father of four energetic boys, or is it from the man who has rejected romance to be his family’s caregiver? When life hands Lydia another challenge, will the gift giver be there to support her?

To me, this book had a serious mismatch between the tone and the content.

I was expecting a sweet, gentle romance– and in many ways, the tone matched that. Not much emotion came through, which was particularly surprising considering the events of the book.

The book dealt with parent child relationships; the death of a grandparent; the death of a child; choosing whether to marry for convenience or live alone; unemployment; the long-lasting effects of childhood trauma, and more.

Even with all that, the same gentle tone pervaded the book. Nothing seemed to affect the characters for long. I do understand that the characters had a deep religious belief that comforted them in time of crisis. I just don’t see the reason for including all of these crises if the reader wasn’t going to see a noticeable effect on the characters.

In addition, most of the characters seemed flat and/or unlikeable.

I liked Lydia well enough in the beginning, but I never felt any change from everything she encountered.

Her mother was unlikeable. She probably showed the most growth of any character in Lydia’s Charm, but I never really believed it. Menno (love interest #1) was self centered, and love interest #2 (Levi) was so nice as to be boring, and this from someone that really likes nice guys as characters and in real life. The kids were interchangeably rambunctious.

Everyone in the community was nice and did their best to be helpful. There were no bad guys, no one challenging authority. Even the kids that were briefly mean had a good reason for it.

In the end, I liked many of the parts. I could have really enjoyed the gently love story, I could have appreciated an exploration of the effect of so many problems on a group of people, and how their faith got them through. Unfortunately, this didn’t come together as either of those books for me. I didn’t dislike it, but I was disappointed.

To see other reviews, go to

I received this book for review through Planned Television Arts. Thank you for the opportunity to review this book!

 
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Posted by on November 18, 2010 in books, reviews

 

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Review: The House on Olive Street by Robyn Carr

16 Nov

The House on Olive StreetMy rating: 4.5 of 5 stars

This was my first Robyn Carr book, but it won’t be my last.

This is grown up chick lit– fiction that looks at four women, each at a crossroads in her life,drawn together by the unexpected death of the fifth member of their group.

Elly is a college professor. She’s now involved in a relationship that she’s not willing to share with the world (including her friends) because it doesn’t fit with her image of herself.

Beth writes murder mysteries, but she is very shy in her everyday life. Part of this shyness is a need to hide the problems in her marriage– problems that sometimes leave physical signs.

Barbara Ann works hard as a writer of romance novels, but can’t quite make it to the next level of success. She is also mom to young men, and it often seems like she’s mom to her husband as well. The effort of caring for these adults (or close to it) that don’t in any way appreciate it finally gets too much for her.

Sable is a highly successful author, but she’s built a shell around herself, one based on a whole new identity she created in an effort to escape her past, a past that is catching up to her.

I loved meeting all four of these women. They all became very real to me, even if their lives and problems ranged from ones that I see everyday to ones I can only stretch my mind to imagine.

Each woman was a mixture of strength and weaknesses. Their relationships were similar– the group had been held together by Gabby, and when she was gone, they didn’t always know how to deal with one another.

Each woman makes a personal journey over the course of the book. Each of them touched me, and left me wishing I’d see them again.

I received an electronic copy of this book from Harlequin for review purposes.  Thank you for this opportunity!

 
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Posted by on November 16, 2010 in books, reviews

 

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Mailbox Monday

15 Nov

My Mailbox looks a little like this one.It is with considerable relief that I announce that I only received one book in my mailbox last week.

It was in a package of  bookish treats, courtesy of My Friend Amy.  After attending Comic-con in San Diego, she offered several giveaways of goodies she’d acquired there. I was the backup winner when one bundle went unclaimed!

Death's Daughter (Calliope Reaper-Jones, #1)The book was Death’s Daughter by Amber Benson. The package also included a cool Dark Horse Comics tote bag, and a variety of promotional pins, bookmarks and other cool stuff (including a key-chain flashlight!). Thank you Amy!

I also bought two new books last week, but we already own them, and I plan to read them very carefully and then pass them on to The Gift of Reading.

The books are Rick Riordan’s The Sea of Monsters and The Battle of the Labyrinth.   My daughter brought her copies of all the Percy Jackson books  into the classroom, since they were going to read these books (along with other books somehow tying into Greek Mythology) for their lit groups.  I ended up being the adult supervision for the two groups listed above, and there weren’t enough copies for the adults, so we had to find our own.

I’d read The Sea of Monsters, but not recently enough to discuss it. That’s as far as I’d gotten with the series.  It looks like I’ll be skipping Book 3, at least for the moment.

Mailbox Monday is a weekly post where I talk about the books that have arrived in my house over the last week.

Marcia at The Printed Page hosts the Mailbox Monday Blog Tour. This month’s host is Julie @ Knitting and Sundries.

Leave a note here with what new reads came your way (and any thoughts about mine), then check out some other blogs!

 
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Posted by on November 15, 2010 in books, meme

 

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Review: Virals by Kathy Reichs

14 Nov

ViralsOnce I adapted to the teen/comic book style, I quite enjoyed it. After reading Kathy Reichs’ adult books, I was expecting realism, and that’s not what this book is.

Virals features a group of teens that live on an island with a very small population. They commute to school via ferry, and they don’t fit in at their fancy prep school that they attend by arrangement with their parent’s employer.

Their spare time is spent exploring their island, and now, thanks to Ben’s newly acquired boat, neighboring islands.

All the kids are bright but quirky, and Tory has an extra dose of each going on. She’s also a dedicated animal lover, so when a wolf/dog puppy goes missing on the island where her father works, she springs into action.

It’s the kind of action where everything lines up to allow the kids to accomplish the impossible, but they succeed in rescuing the puppy. This has some unforeseen consequences, the kind that take it into science fiction.

It’s all in good fun! The kids explore the changes in themselves while tracking down several different bad guys and trying to survive high school. Not everyone or everything is as it originally appears, but they persevere in resolving most if not all of the questions that confront them.

I liked the touches of forensics that Tory learned from her short amount of time with her Aunt Tempe– the one from Reich’s other books.

The characters are drawn brightly but not deeply– there isn’t a lot of depth to the book, and it never tries to claim otherwise.  I’ll pass my copy on to my daughter.  I don’t think it will become a favorite, but I think she’ll enjoy it like I did.

I read an Advance Review Copy passed on by another blogger, Pam of Bookalicious, since I missed out on getting a copy at BEA. Thanks to Pam and to Penguin Books!

 
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Posted by on November 14, 2010 in books, reviews

 

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Rant: Blackout/All Clear by Connie Willis

10 Nov

Blackout (All Clear, #1)All Clear (All Clear, #2)This is less of a review than a rant, although there is a short review once I’m done griping.

Blackout and All Clear contain one story, split into two volumes.  There isn’t any real arc to each volume, there isn’t an end of one story with a cliffhanger leading into another.  At a total of  1150 or so pages, it was evidently too long to be contained in one book.

Blackout and All Clear should have been two of my favorite books this year.   I’m pretty sure that if I sat down to read them both now, they’d easily make that list.

Unfortunately, I read Blackout last April, not too long after it came out.   Connie Willis is one of my favorite authors.  I hadn’t heard much about it, and I didn’t bother tracking down any information about it, but just took it as a given that I’d read it.

Blackout is a time travel book, set in the same universe as Doomsday Book and To Say Nothing of the Dog (one of my favorite books!).    The time traveling researchers are trying to learn more about World War II.    All does not go smoothly, and they find themselves unable to return to their own time.  They must balance worries about why this has happened with those of surviving this time in history, all while trying to accomplish their original mission and find a way to return home.

I didn’t realize until about 20 pages before the end of Blackout that there was no possible way to wrap up the book before reaching the back cover.  I had no idea there was another book planned in the universe, let alone that this story was continued in it.

If I could have acquired All Clear immediately, everything would have been fine, but I had a six month wait for its publication.  My memory for names and other details isn’t all that great to start with, and in this case I had time travel and characters using multiple aliases to contend with.  My picking audio for All Clear after having read Blackout on paper probably didn’t help either.

Unfortunately, I spent the first half of All Clear trying to remember that Mary was another name for which other character? why was one character so concerned about a deadline?, and other such details that really, really mattered to following the plot.

I did figure it all out, and settled in to the second part of the book, but by then I felt that my enjoyment of the first half of All Clear had been stolen from me.  That probably isn’t fair, but it is how I felt.

Do I recommend the books?  Absolutely.  Just make sure you are prepared to read the whole thing, both volumes.  The characters are great, I love the view into the day to day life of WWII in England, the reflections on time travel (the usual concerns about altering the space time continuum) are particularly well done.  There’s drama, there’s daily life,  there’s heroic behavior there’s bits of humor.

Do I think the book needed to be that long?  I’m not sure, since I lost track of many of the plot intricacies that the length allowed.  I do know that I had been planning to recommend it to my book club.  We’ve actually read other books that were in the vicinity of 1000 pages, but we’ve been having enough trouble getting people to finish normal length books.

I’d really like to reread both, and maybe I’ll find the time at some point. Right now, I just have too many other books to read.

 
10 Comments

Posted by on November 10, 2010 in books, reviews

 

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Audio review and book club notes: Claude and Camille by Stephanie Cowell

10 Nov

Claude and CamilleClaude & Camille: A Novel of Monet

My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

I enjoyed reading Claude and Camille, and yet found myself wishing for something a little more, or maybe a little different.

Summary via Stephanie Cowell’s website:

In his early twenties, Claude Monet came to Paris, determined to make a success in painting. He quickly found poverty, obscurity and a beautiful upper-class girl Camille who threw away a life of privilege to be with him. He also made friends with a group of likewise unknown painters, often as poor as he was: Renoir, Pissarro, Degas, Bazille, Manet and Cezanne and somehow through every obstacle in the world kept them together until they began to be known as impressionists. But the years of struggle and life in wretched rooms with little food began to wear on his patience and Camille’s endurance until even as he was beginning to sell his work, their passionate love was descending into tragedy and he was beginning to understand that he had never completely known her.

I never really connected with the character of Monet. Through the book, I got to know him as a person, but I’m not sure he was a person I would have particularly liked. He was driven by his art, and this left him feeling entitled to support from his family well into his 20s, and led him to live beyond his means at several different points in his life. I got something of a feeling for him as a painter, but not as a genius. I never saw through his eyes as an artist who changed the artistic world.

However, Claude and Camille wasn’t the story of a painter, it was the story of a relationship. With that perspective, I was much more interested in the character of Camille. I didn’t understand or agree with her decisions either, but somehow I found her more accessible, and I think I would have loved the book if it was told from her viewpoint.

Camille was a young woman so swept away by her love for her young man that she ran off with him, living with him and bearing his child in a day when women of her class just didn’t do such things. She also suffered from very dark periods, where even getting out of bed was difficult, and living the life of an artist’s wife was nearly impossible.

I loved the look into a setting that I wasn’t particularly familiar with. I also was unfamiliar with Claude Monet’s background, so I can’t speak at all to how closely the book sticks to the commonly known story.

Book Club Notes:

I read Claude & Camille for my Book Club M.  There were five of us at the meeting, and although no one disliked the book, we varied widely in how much we liked it.  There was one member that couldn’t put it down, one that was disappointed, and the rest of us were somewhere in between.

We had a really good discussion of the book, starting with what we were looking for and didn’t find.  As I mentioned above, I would have preferred Camille’s viewpoint.  The member that was the most disappointed wanted more of the painting, wanted to feel what it was like to touch the brushes and see the world. Others wanted more insight into the artistic vision of Monet and his contemporaries.

We also enjoyed talking about the motivations of the characters, and about the cost of genius (and why there always seems to be a tradeoff– there don’t seem to be well balanced, personable geniuses in life or literature).

Stephanie Cowell will e-mail you book club discussion questions, her e-mail is available on her website.  I didn’t realize this, and didn’t ask until I was on the way to our discussion, but I received them before we finished and they brought us back on topic when we started wandering on to other subjects.

Audio Notes:

Narrator: Christopher Cazenove has a very nice voice, and I had no problems with his narration.

Production: No issues with it.

Audio or print? Honestly, when I think back on this book, I’m hard pressed to remember that I listened to it– I just remember  the story.  I then wonder if there is any point to having this section of my review, if I don’t have anything to say about the audio aspects.  I decided that fact was worth pointing out.  So no, I don’t have any recommendations on audio vs. print.  Choose the delivery mechanism that works best for you.

 
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Posted by on November 10, 2010 in Book Club, books, M, reviews

 

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Review: Outside the Ordinary World by Dori Ostermiller

09 Nov

Outside the Ordinary WorldMy rating: 4 of 5 stars

I was intrigued by the description of this book, but was also worried about reading it– I often react badly to books about infidelity.

In this case, a coincidence cemented my bond with Sylvia very early on.  I started reading this book on my 42nd birthday.  The modern day sections of the book start on her 42nd birthday– a day that for her (as me) went entirely unacknowledged by family.  My birthday was saved by on-line well wishes, hers by an encounter with the father of one of her students.

I identified with where Sylvia was in her life, even if (outside of birthdays) the details our lives are completely different.  I’m not an artist, and I don’t have anyone in my life to provide the kind of temptation she faced.  However, this is an age that seems to lead to changes– children are getting older, activities that were satisfying when younger aren’t as compelling anymore.  Marriages have lost their initial spark, and shifting priorities make it hard to establish a new common ground.

Sylvia is having a lot of trouble figuring out who she is. She was an artist, but that isn’t really working for her right now. Her role as mom isn’t feeling fulfilling, and her wife role isn’t going so well either– she and her husband aren’t really communicating about their immediate schedules and the plans for the house they’ve been renovating for years, let alone the hopes and dreams that brought them together in the first place, and that they need to keep their future together.

When she meets someone that appreciates her as an artist, as a person, and as a woman, the temptation is overwhelming. However, she knows all to well what a toll parental infidelity can take on a family.

I appreciated the insight she had into her actions, even while she denied and failed to apply what she knew.

I liked the looks at the dynamics of her various families– the family of her childhood, her husband and daughters, and her current relationship with her mother, sister and extended family.

The books jumps between Sylvia’s present and past, as she deals with her own temptations and we see the effects that her parent’s bad marriage and her mother’s affair had on her life. She often refuses to see the parallels, but we do. It increased my frustration with her, but also increased my sympathy as well.

Outside the Ordinary World is about more than infidelity.   It’s about family, and it’s about how we define who we are and who we will be.

I think this book would make for interesting discussion for a book club with members that include women in this age range.

TLC Book ToursI read Outside the Ordinary World for a tour with TLC Book Tours. For other views of the book, check out the other tour stops:

 
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Posted by on November 9, 2010 in books, reviews, tour

 

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