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About Laura

Mom on the move, always with a book.

Review: After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall by Nancy Kress

29 Mar

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Summary via Goodreads.com:

The year is 2035. After ecological disasters nearly destroyed the Earth, 26 survivors–the last of humanity–are trapped by an alien race in a sterile enclosure known as the Shell. Fifteen-year-old Pete is one of the Six–children who were born deformed or sterile and raised in the Shell. As, one by one, the survivors grow sick and die, Pete and the Six struggle to put aside their anger at the alien Tesslies in order to find the means to rebuild the earth together. Their only hope lies within brief time-portals into the recent past, where they bring back children to replenish their disappearing gene pool. Meanwhile, in 2013, brilliant mathematician Julie Kahn works with the FBI to solve a series of inexplicable kidnappings. Suddenly her predictive algorithms begin to reveal more than just criminal activity. As she begins to realize her role in the impending catastrophe, simultaneously affecting the Earth and the Shell, Julie closes in on the truth. She and Pete are converging in time upon the future of humanity–a future which might never unfold.

This was an interesting little book. Little is a key here, it felt almost more like a detailed short story than a full novel. It’s an exploration of a series of snapshots relating to a future world, with glimpses of how these people got there.

I found the characters secondary to the slow world-building, as I was filled in details of what the characters already knew and what they were just now learning, about what had happened to bring them into this situation.

Our current world was woven into the story in two ways, by the detective work Julie does into the intrusions into our time, and by the verbal history Pete and the other children hear from the original survivors. It’s enough to hook me in.

In the end, it felt complete, for all there was more left to explore. I was left thinking about the world, but not feeling like there should have been more.

Thank you to Tachyon Publications for sending me this book for review.

 
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Posted by on March 29, 2012 in books, reviews

 

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Book Club Nominations

28 Mar

Once again, it’s time to pick book club books.

Here are the books we’re choosing from.  Have you discussed any of these with a reading group? How did it go?  Have you read any on your own?  Do you think it would support a discussion?

 

 
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Posted by on March 28, 2012 in Book Club, L

 

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Review: Hystera by Leora Skolkin-Smith

21 Mar

My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

This is a hard book for me to review, since my feelings about it are full of “almosts” and comparisons to other books.

I think it’s a better book than my feelings for it indicate, and I didn’t think it was at all a bad book. It just never quite clicked for me.

Summary via TLC Book Tours:

Set in the turbulent 1970s when Patty Hearst became Tanya the Revolutionary, Hystera is a timeless story of madness, yearning, and identity. After a fatal accident takes her father away, Lillian Weill blames herself for the family tragedy. Tripping through failed love affairs with men and doomed friendships, all Lilly wants is to be sheltered from reality. She retreats from the outside world into a world of delusion and the private terrors of a New York City Psychiatric Hospital. Unreachable behind her thick wall of fears, the world of hospital corridors and strangers become a vessel of faith. She is a foreigner there until her fellow patients release her from her isolation with the power of human intimacy. How do we know who we really are?  How do we find our true selves under the heavy burden of family and our pasts?  In an unpredictable portrait of mental illness, Hystera penetrates to the pulsing heart of the questions.

I think one of the strengths of Hystera was strong, beautiful, literary language. I don’t read for the language, I read for the story and the characters. The language put a barrier there for me. Some of this was probably deliberate, was a reflection of Lilly’s illness and an indication of the disconnect between her and her world.

I needed to either make an emotional connection with Lilly, to feel the pain of her illness, or I needed to get an intellectual engagement, to get an understanding of the path that led her to where she was and how she was going to get out.

I know this is possible from reading Last Night I Sang to the Monster (which was truly amazing), How I Made It to Eighteen: A Mostly True Story, and even Rowan the Strange, (which was a very different book).

And then we’re back to Hystera, which almost worked for me. I almost connected with Lilly. I almost understood her journey. I almost found her fellow patients interesting, in that I was interested while reading about each one, but when that page was done, I didn’t think of them again.

I wonder whether the time period was part of what got in my way as well, if I would have connected more with a modern setting, or one from when I was that age.

This was a different kind of mental illness than I’ve encountered, either in literature or in person. I can’t list the diagnosis, a sign of my lack of intellectual understanding of what was happening.

Still, it’s an important subject, and this might be the book that some readers connect with. If you appreciate well crafted language, you may well get much more from this book than I did.

I received this book for review via TLC Book Tours.  For other opinions of Hystera, visit the other tour stops:
TLC Book Tours

You can also check out Leora Skolkin-Smith’s Website and Facebook Page.

 
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Posted by on March 21, 2012 in books, reviews, tour

 

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Review: Cruising Attitude by Heather Poole

17 Mar

Cruising Attitude: Tales of Crashpads, Crew Drama, and Crazy Passengers at 35,000 Feet

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Heather Poole had some great stories, and I’ll never look at flight attendants in quite the same way again.

Description via the Harper Collins website:

Flying the not-so-friendly skies…

In her more than fifteen years as an airline flight attendant, Heather Poole has seen it all. She’s witnessed all manner of bad behavior at 35,000 feet and knows what it takes for a traveler to become the most hated passenger onboard. She’s slept in flight attendant crashpads in “Crew Gardens,” Queens—sharing small bedrooms crammed with bunk beds with a parade of attractive women who come and go at all hours, prompting suspicious neighbors to jump to the very worst conclusions. She’s watched passengers and coworkers alike escorted off the planes by police. She can tell you why it’s a bad idea to fall for a pilot but can be a very good one (in her case) to date a business-class passenger. Heather knows everything about flying in a post-9/11 world—and she knows what goes on behind the scenes, things the passengers would never dream.

This book was a mixture of a behind the scenes look at the logistics of how a flight functions (I’m a sucker for that sort of thing), and personal stories from a young woman who splits her time between flying the world and living in an apartment with many other women.

I admit, I really had never thought about what an airplane looks like from the flight attendants viewpoint– how their schedules and responsibilities work, what the requirements are for life as a flight attendant. It isn’t something that would work for me, but I can see why it would appeal, why some people would put up with the challenges such a life presents.

The funniest bits come from dealing with the challenges of life as a flight attendant, rather than the time spent in flight. Certainly, there were some good in-the-air stories, and the author’s sense of humor permeates the book.

For the first half of the book, I really, really enjoyed hanging out with Heather Poole, and listening to her stories. I thought I’d love to have her work a flight I was on, that I’d enjoy talking to her. She just seemed so friendly!

As the book went on, she got a little cattier, and although I’m certain she would be entirely professional if she worked my flight, I’m far less certain we’d find anything to chat about.

That didn’t make her stories any less entertaining, and I continued to enjoy reading about celebrities, people (particularly pilots) she dated, and other flight attendants.

I’d recommend this as a fun read, with the possibility of learning a little along the way.

I received Cruising Attitude for review from William Morrow Paperbacks.  Thank you!

 
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Posted by on March 17, 2012 in books, reviews

 

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Review: Eyes Like Leaves by Charles de Lint

11 Mar

My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

Eyes Like Leaves started out well, but the book bogged down for me by the end. It didn’t have the rich characters I expect from Charles de Lint, but it did have his usual beautiful writing.

Summary via Goodreads:

Summer magic is waning in the Green Isles, and the evil Icelord is encasing the lands in a permanent frost while coastal towns are pillaged by snake ships. Mounting one last defense against the onslaught, a mysterious old wizard instructs his inexperienced apprentice in the art of shape-changing. Mercilessly pursued by the Icelord’s army, this newfound mage gathers allies—a seemingly ordinary young woman and her protective adoptive family—and they flee north in a desperate race to awaken the Summerlord.

Time is running short for the Summerborn, especially when a treacherous family betrayal is discovered.

For the first half of the book, I was delighting in being in a genre that I used to love, but have visited very infrequently in the last twenty or so years. Wizards, living in a world that once was full of magic, but now is almost bare of it. Good fighting off evil for the sake of the world as a whole. Young people coming into their power. Very old people passing on the lessons they have learned.

Unfortunately, after I reached the halfway point, my joy in this beautifully written, new to me yet familiar world started to fade, and I began to realize I wanted more from my characters.

Certainly, there were the seeds of interesting characters. They had intriguing roles to play, hints of back stories with details to come… but I didn’t feel like I made the connections for these to be delivered.

As the story continued in interesting directions, I was less and less connected with the people that were being swept along.

The book was an epic tale of good and evil, with elements of the story and the setting that were familiar yet unique in how they were used.  It was a world that used to be ours, with more magic than we ever knew.

It’s a great story, beautifully told. I’m just greedy, wanting even more than that.

I received this book for review from Tachyon Publications.  Thank you!

 
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Posted by on March 11, 2012 in books, reviews

 

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Review: The Gap Year by Sarah Bird

05 Mar

With Book Club Notes (at the end)

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Oh dear.

The characters and situations seemed so plausible that they have me looking at my daughter’s upcoming high school years with immense terror.

None the less, I very much enjoyed reading this book.

Summary via Goodreads.com:

From the widely praised author of The Yokota Officers Club and The Flamenco Academy, a novel as hilarious as it is heartbreaking about a single mom and her seventeen-year-old daughter learning how to let go in that precarious moment before college empties the nest.

In The Gap Year, told with perfect pitch from both points of view, we meet Cam Lightsey, lactation consultant extraordinaire, a divorcée still secretly carrying a torch for the ex who dumped her, a suburban misfit who’s given up her rebel dreams so her only child can get a good education.

We also learn the secrets of Aubrey Lightsey, tired of being the dutiful, grade-grubbing band geek, ready to explode from wanting her “real” life to begin, trying to figure out love with boys weaned on Internet porn.

When Aubrey meets Tyler Moldenhauer, football idol–sex god with a dangerous past, the fuse is lit. Late-bloomer Aubrey metastasizes into Cam’s worst silent, sullen teen nightmare, a girl with zero interest in college. Worse, on the sly Aubrey’s in touch with her father, who left when she was two to join a celebrity-ridden nutball cult.

As the novel unfolds—with humor, edge-of-your-seat suspense, and penetrating insights about love in the twenty-first century—the dreams of daughter, mother, and father chart an inevitable, but perhaps not fatal, collision . . .

The keys to this book were the characters, particularly the main mother daughter pair, and the intricate weaving of their stories.

I genuinely liked both Cam and Aubrey, even if I wanted to grab each of them and point out exactly what they were doing to screw up their lives. There were plenty of those times, but in almost every case, I understood where they were coming from. Cam wanted Aubrey to have a better life than she had, and was prepared to pave the path without quite connecting that Aubrey’s ideal situation could be different than her own. Aubrey wanted to break out and make her own decisions, but didn’t know how to go partway. When she rebelled, it was complete.

Both of them were fully well intentioned, as were all the secondary characters, some of which were even more screwed up than Aubrey and Cam. While there were a few tertiary characters this may not be true of, but other than the cult Aubrey’s dad is involved with, there are no real bad guys, just flawed human beings. That’s something I liked about the book.

The depth of the confusion between Cam and Aubrey is pointed out in their alternating chapters. Cam’s chapters are set in the book’s present; Aubrey’s are almost a year earlier. The author does an amazing job of interweaving the two narratives. I could see the situation as it is through Cam’s eyes, I saw how it got that way through Aubrey’s. Neither of them has a full understanding of the situation, and with the dual narration, it’s easy to see why.

All in all, this was an interesting and thought provoking read.

Book Club Notes

All of us enjoyed the book.  Some of us related to it more than the rest. I could see echoes of my own relationship with my daughter, others have children about ready to head for college.  Even those that didn’t feel a personal connection to the characters still appreciated the book.

We discussed the characters, the situations, and how real they seemed.  We talked about the construction of the story, and how that contributed to our understanding.  I think we all admired the writing.  We spent some time trying to nail down the setting.

All in all, it was a good discussion, and I’d recommend this book.

My book club won copies of this book via a TLC Book Tours Book Club giveaway.

 
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Posted by on March 5, 2012 in Book Club, books, M, reviews

 

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February Wrap Up

04 Mar

I’m still in a blogging slump, but at least I’m reading!  Or at least, listening to audio books.  February was no where near as fabulous as January, as far as books go, but I did watch some fantastic movies!

I’m hoping for a better March!

Meanwhile here’s what I read:

Paper Books

  1. Eyes Like Leaves by Charles de Lint
  2. Great Escapes of World War II by George Sullivan
  3. The Garden Intrigue (Pink Carnation #8) by Lauren Willig

Nook Books

  1. 11/22/63 by Stephen King

Audio Books

  1. The Descendants by Kaui Hart Hemmings
  2. First Grave on the Right (Charley Davidson #1) by Darynda Jones
  3. 16 Lighthouse Road (Cedar Cove #1) by Debbie Macomber
  4. A Jane Austen Education: How Six Novels Taught Me About Love, Friendship, and the Things That Really Matter by William Deresiewicz
  5. Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi
  6. The Name of the Star (Shades of London #1) by Maureen Johnson

Nothing I read this month is likely to make my top books of the year, My top reads were The Garden Intrigue, The Descendants, and First Grave on the Right.

Total books read for the year is now 22: 7 print books, 3 Nook Books, and 12 Audio Books.

How is your reading going?

 
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Posted by on March 4, 2012 in books, summary

 

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Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss!

02 Mar

In celebration, some words to live by!

Dr. Seuss Quotes
[Via: 30 Dr. Seuss Quotes to Live By]

 
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Posted by on March 2, 2012 in books

 

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And the best picture of 2011 is…

21 Feb

I’ve now succeeded in my goal to see all nine of this year’s Oscar Best Picture nominees!

I’m happy to have been able to see so many good movies this past year.  It was fun to make the effort to see all the nominees.  The AMC Best Picture Showcase was a big help, allowing me to pick one day to see four of the movies (three of which I hadn’t yet seen), and concentrate on catching the rest.

I thought I’d share my thoughts (no spoilers) on the nominees. I actually think most of them were somewhere between pretty good and very good, and I’d be OK with most of them being chosen for Best Picture. Here are my choices, ranked from last to first.

9. The Tree of Life.  (viewed Saturday) This may or may not be good Art (Capital A intended), but I don’t think it made a particularly good movie.  There were some amazingly stunning visual sequences, and a few of these even made sense.  There were a few emotionally effective scenes.  I can see college students staying up late debating the meaning of this movie, in parts and as a whole.  But overall, this is the movie (of the nominees)  that I would be the least likely to pick for Best Picture.  I really don’t think this one should win.

8.  I have a tie:  Does a not-quite-successful ambitious movie or a well executed, fairly lightweight one rate higher?

Warhorse:  (viewed Saturday) It wasn’t a bad movie, but I don’t think it quite made Best Picture material.  What it came down to for me was too much war for a feel good movie, to many unlikely events for a war movie.   It was very ambitious in what it tried to do, and it didn’t quite succeed.

Midnight In Paris:  (viewed in June) This is one of my favorite movies out of the nominees.   That doesn’t mean I think it deserves to win.  It was fun and fluffy, and I adored the literary references.

I’d actually be OK with any of the movies after this winning for Best Picture.  Positions 6 through 2 are fairly close to tied, as far as my vote goes.

6. The Artist: (viewed Feb. 2)  I doubt I would have gone to see this if it wasn’t for its Best Picture nomination. I enjoyed and appreciated it much more than expected. The story of a silent movie star left behind by changing technology was both interesting and relevant. The use of the silent movie model, with the occasional use of sound was very well done, pulling attention exactly where it was wanted.  Emotionally, the dog was the key to the movie.  The main characters were somewhat inaccessible, largely due to their silence, but the dog bridged this gap.  All in all, it was an interesting viewing experience, which I very much enjoyed.

5.  Hugo: (Viewed in late December) Before seeing Tree of Life, my thought was that this was by far the most visually stunning nominee.  Now I’ll say that it is the best looking movie where the visuals actually make sense.  Every aspect of this movie is brilliantly crafted, from the script to the performances to all the details of the set.  This is one of my personal favorites out of the nominees.

4. The Descendants: (Viewed Saturday)  My book club is reading the novel this is based on, and I’m eager to see how much it is like the movie (or rather, the movie is like it).  This is one of the most character based of the nominees, dealing with a man whose family is in crisis. I found it to be emotionally engaging, and I enjoyed the gorgeous scenery along the way.

3. The Help: (Viewed twice in August)  I loved the book (and recommend the audiobook) and I think this was an excellent job of adapting it for the screen. These actresses were wonderful as they told the story of a small piece of the struggle for civil rights.

2. Moneyball: (Viewed in September, last Saturday)  I’m not a baseball fan, but I love math!  This movie shows what can happen when you think outside the box.

1.  Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close: (Viewed in late January)  This movie just blew me away.  I went in knowing very little about it, and was astounded at how well I was able to see the world through the eyes of this very quirky young boy, staggering from the death of his father in the World Trade Center.

Again, any of my top 6 would be fine with me– they each have different strengths.  Each is worth seeing, if you have the chance.

Which movie gets your vote?

 
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Posted by on February 21, 2012 in movie

 

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Review: The Garden Intrigue by Lauren Willig

17 Feb

My rating: 4.5 of 5 stars

I love this series, and this book is an example of what Lauren Willig always does so well.

Summary via Lauren Willig’s website:

As Napoleon pursues his plans for the invasion of England, English operative Augustus Whittlesby gets wind of a top secret device, to be demonstrated over the course of a house party at Malmaison. The catch? The only way in is to join forces with that annoying American socialite, Emma Morris Delagardie, who has been commissioned to write a masque for the weekend’s entertainment. Even so, it should leave plenty of alone time with Augustus’ colleague (and goddess), Jane Wooliston, who has been tapped to play the heroine. Or so Augustus tells himself. In this complicated masque within a masque, nothing seems to go quite as scripted… especially Emma.

What the cover blurb (and description above) miss is the framing contemporary story line, which continues through the series. American graduate student Eloise is living in England researching spies in Napoleon’s time. She discovers that this is harder than she expects, gets tied up in some intrigue of her own, and along the way, finds her own romance, one that doesn’t wrap up quite as tidily as those in the spy stories she’s encountering in her research.

I admit that as of the last installment, I thought the contemporary storyline was getting pushed further and further into the shadow of the historical. As the historical stories were becoming even stronger, I didn’t exactly mind, but I was happy to see it back with some real oomph here. It had real relationship questions mixed in with an absolutely goofy movie set plot, and I found it delightful.  It’s a bit more chck-lit than romance, and Eloise is far from perfect, and all in all, it worked for me.

I didn’t like the historical story quite as well as the last few, but that’s a high standard to hold. Certainly, it still stands up well to the genre as a whole.

As is typical for a Lauren Willig heroine, Emma is not your run of the mill society miss, and isn’t afraid to stand out in society. Her links to the Bonaparte family put her in an situation of interest to the network of spies these books center around, but her flirty personality and interest in her late husband’s mechanical endeavors make her interesting to read about.

I wasn’t enamored with her love interest, but he didn’t pose a problem for me either. Between the fun and frivolity of the masque the two teamed up to put on, the excitement of the spy story, and the interesting historical details, I was well entertained.

I always appreciate Lauren Willig’s notes from her historical research– the most unlikely seeming characters and events turn out to be those pulled from the past.

The big question when reviewing book 9 of a series is whether this one is a good place to start reading. This book would be fine as a standalone, but the series is worth starting at the beginning, and watching the plot build and the characters come and go.

I read this book as part of a TLC Book Tour. Thank you to TLC and Dutton Adult books for providing my copy of the book and the chance to participate. For more thoughts on Garden Intrigue, check out the other tour stops:

TLC Book Tours

 
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Posted by on February 17, 2012 in books, reviews, tour

 

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