2010 June » Birdbrain(ed) Book Blog

Mini-Reviews: Airhead, Jinx, Size 12 is Not Fat by Meg Cabot

Posted by Anastasia on June 7, 2010 No Responses »

Jun 072010

I read these books one right after another, in a 48 hour time period. I love Meg Cabot, but I wouldn’t recommend reading more than one of her books in a row because if you’re finicky like I am you’ll start to notice that they’re all pretty much the same. Awkward female lead, constant misunderstandings between the lead and her romantic interest (who she refuses to be straightforward with and instead spends all her time secretly yearning for him), humorous situations, not overly clever dialogue, and maybe a plot hole or two. One Meg Cabot book at a time is fine, I can handle that and not get really annoyed by the road bumps. But three in a row? Trouble!

You can pretty much see how I started out enthusiastic (Airhead) and ended up frustrated (Size 12 is Not Fat), and partly that’s because of the MC overload. So maybe take my reviews with a grain of salt, m’kay?

101. Airhead by Meg Cabot
Publication: Scholastic Press (June 1, 2008), ebooks, 352pp
Genre: YA, Sci-fi
Rating:
Read: April 18, 2010
Source: Bought

Review

I’ve heard good things about this series, and I can see why. It’s fun, and interesting, and I like the almost sci-fi edge to it. I also like the whole “are you the person you are on the outside or are you the person you are on the inside” thing, and whether how what you look like affects how you act/feel/etc. It sort of reminded me of those makeover shows on TLC and whatnot, except the reason those shows are so successful is because they makeover the person into a better version of themselves, not an entirely new person like what happened to Em. I can understand why she’s so freaked out by her body-switch and why she can’t take advantage of her new body like a regular makeover’d person would. That whole plotline is really good!

However, I didn’t like that Em was basically allowed to infiltrate her old life like she did, all in an effort to win over the guy she had a crush on. That was actually sort of creepy, because a) she can’t tell the dude she’s herself and NOT the supermodel, b) the dude is in mourning for her and probably doesn’t want to date anyone right not anyway, and c) I don’t think it’s conducive to Em’s mental health to be latched on to so much of her past life anyway.

102. Jinx by Meg Cabot
Publication: HarperCollins e-books (July 31, 2007), ebook, 262pp
Genre: Paranormal, Romance
Rating:
Read: April 19, 2010
Source: Bought

Review

Love the premise– accident-prone girl finds love and battles evil magic-wielding cousin in NYC– but here’s where I started to notice the extreme similarities between MC’s characters. Jinx is deluded into thinking no=one could possibly be romantically interested in her, she can’t see her good points, etc.; she’s manipulated into situations by a “stronger” (i.e. villainous) character because of her good heart; blah blah blah. Also, I really didn’t like any of the characters. They were sort of boring and kind of stereotypical, especially Jinx’s cousin when she goes crazy and pulls a Fairuza Balk on Jinx near the end.

Basically I think Jinx is like The Craft mixed with the Carebears. Cute, and sort of intense, but nothing new is in it.

103. Size 12 is Not Fat by Meg Cabot
Publication: HarperCollins e-books (December 27, 2005), ebook, 368pp
Genre: Mystery, Romance
Rating:
Read: April 19, 2010
Source: Bought

Review

At the time when I read this I REALLY didn’t like it, because it’s exactly the same MC character all over again, except she’s in her 20′s (I think?) and she’s not skinny. (But she still acts like she’s 14! Seriously. Same teenage shit all over again.) Looking back on it now I can appreciate it a little bit more because Heather does do more “grown-up” things like drink alcohol and stuff– stuff that MC tends to stay away from doing to her own protagonists, although the baddies can do as much drugs as they want, apparently (see: Jinx).

The plot is actually really cute, and I love the mystery. If Heather wasn’t EXACTLY LIKE EVERY OTHER MEG CABOT CHARACTER I might actually really like her, because she’s spunky and quirky and cute, and her background story is pretty interesting. But she IS like every other MC character and by this point I was just, like, c’mon Meg, get some new personality types in your books. Please. I don’t want to read about the same person all the time!

TSS (June 6): The secret book pile

Posted by Anastasia on June 6, 2010 No Responses »

Jun 062010

Okay! So I hid a few boxes of books in my brother’s old room a few years ago. And then pretty much forgot that I had them until this afternoon. Whoops!

Luckily only a few of them are books I haven’t read, but that whole thing only reminded me of all the other books I’ve got hidden away (by “hidden” I mean “books I can’t see unless I open more doors than my bedroom’s”). Earlier this year I made sure to bring out all the unread books I could find and give them priority spacing on my shelves, but to do that I had to move read books into the places the unread books were previously located. I had to move them into my closets, basically, and now I can’t see them unless I make an effort. You know that saying “out of sight, out of mind”? That’s totally me. If I can’t see something I tend to forget I have it, and that’s partly why my room is so freakin’ messy. Things I want to keep track of have to stay somewhere in my line of sight– so for books, that means they need to be on my bookshelves (or in stacks on my floor) because if they aren’t I’ll forget I have them.

This isn’t really as problematic as I’m making it out to be (I don’t forget a book I’ve read, for instance, just where I’m keeping it), especially since nearly all my TBR books aren’t getting lost any time soon. I think mostly it just bugs me because keeping books in my closet(s) means I have to check about three different places if I want a specific book and that’s really annoying.

Okay, so I have no idea where this post is heading. Bottom line: I wish I could keep all my books in the same place, preferably somewhere where I can see them easily, and I hope I don’t have any more TBR books stashed away somewhere!

Books read this week:
124. Eyes Like Stars – Lisa Mantchev [rating: 3.5/5] %
125. Playing With Fire – Derek Landy (read by Rupert Degas) [rating: 4.5/5]
126. Runemarks – Joanne Harris [rating: 4/5] %
127. Evil? – Timothy Carter [rating: 3/5]
128. Magic Under Glass – Jaclyn Delamore [rating: 3.5/5] %

Books reviewed this week:
98. The Picture of Dorian Gray – Oscar Wilde [rating: 3/5] %
108. The Mysterious Edge of the Heroic World – E.L. Konigsburg [rating: 2.5/5]

Mount TBR Stats
3 books conquered
40 books conquered total
0 additions
0 subtractions
310 books remaining

Currently reading:
Star Trek Memories by William Shatner and Chris Kreski. It’s basically a memoir about Star Trek, with extra stuff from the other cast members. The authors aren’t great writers but it’s still fun to read because I’ve suddenly turned into a fledgling Trekkie and want to know everything about the original series as I can. Yay!

How to knock down your TBR pile

Posted by Anastasia on June 4, 2010 16 Responses »

Jun 042010

Step 1: Place all your TBR books in the same location, preferably in wobbly bookcases where the threat of collapse and eventual smothering looms over you each day.

Step 2: Having so many unread books in one place is scary! It’s better to deny, deny, deny. Ignore your TBR pile and go to the library. Check out a million books. Lug them all home in the heat and dust and BUGS flying in your FACE. Put them in neat stacks surrounding your bed, so you can trip over them whenever you try to actually use your sleeping area.

Step 3: Feel guilty to having so many new books when all these old books are still unread. Books that you SPENT MONEY ON. Oh, the guilt. Decide to ignore new library books in favor of old TBR books. Read. Feel accomplished.

Step 4: Refuse to a) read library books or b) lug library books back to library. TBR books have priority, but those mofos took a lot of work to bring home! Leave library books in their stacks around your bed, where you can see them, because it just wouldn’t do to lose a few in the living room somewhere (probably under the couch cushions) WOULD IT. Keep reading TBR books. Lament not being able to read library books, even though they’re RIGHT THERE. RIGHT. THERE.

Step 5: Keep renewing library books until there’s no more renewals left, then drag them all back to the library. Feel sad for not having read library books even though you dragged them around with you and took care of them for weeks. Decide to replace them with other library books. Repeat steps 2-4.

~~Step 6: ?~~

Step 7: Profit!

Follow these steps and soon your TBR pile will be down to 0! So far I am ON TRACK.

Review: The Mysterious Edge of the Heroic World by E.L. Konigsburg

Posted by Anastasia on June 4, 2010 No Responses »

Jun 042010

108. The Mysterious Edge of the Heroic World by E.L. Konigsburg
Publication: Simon & Schuster Audio; Unabridged edition (September 25, 2007) / ISBN 0743569083
Genre: Fiction, MG
Rating:
Read: April 21-27, 2010
Source: Borrowed
Summary from Amazon:

Amedeo Kaplan seems just like any other new kid who has moved into the town of St. Malo, Florida, a navy town where new faces are the norm. But Amedeo has a secret, a dream: More than anything in the world, he wants to discover something — a place, a process, even a fossil — some treasure that no one realizes is there until he finds it. And he would also like to discover a true friend to share these things with.

William Wilcox seems like an unlikely candidate for friendship: an aloof boy who is all edges and who owns silence the way other people own words. When Amedeo and William find themselves working together on a house sale for Amedeo’s eccentric neighbor, Mrs. Zender, Amedeo has an inkling that both his wishes may come true. For Mrs. Zender’s mansion is crammed with memorabilia of her long life, and there is a story to go with every piece. Soon the boys find themselves caught up in one particular story — a story that links a sketch, a young boy’s life, an old man’s reminiscence, and a painful secret dating back to the outrages of Nazi Germany. It’s a story that will take them to the edge of what they know about heroism and the mystery of the human heart.

Review

I love E.L. Konigsburg’s books– From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler and The View From Saturday are on my Best Books of All Time list for good reason– but The Mysterious Edge of the Heroic World is definitely not on that list. It’s simultaneously the most boring ELK book I’ve ever and, surprisingly, the most heartbreaking, and I’m not sure what went wrong.

I’ve read slightly boring ELK books before (hi, Silent to the Bone), and probably some people think ALL her books are boring because they’re more quietly powerful than outrageously in-your-face about stuff. What I like about her books is that her characters are so real, and how she writes about ordinary things that are made extraordinary by virtue of her excellent writing skills. And I especially like how she slips in these little truths about people and the world we live in, like breadcrumbs on a path to better understanding ourselves. It’s good stuff!

Unfortunately, The Mysterious Edge of the Heroic World feels…half-done. I don’t think the narrator (I read the audiobook) helped, because he didn’t sound like anyone in the story and he made Mrs Zender sound like a drag queen (which she wasn’t, though I really wanted her to be by the end). He did good accents, but it was a lackluster narration and maybe that tipped the scale more towards “bad” than the book actually deserves. (Or maybe it’s just a bad book and I’m trying to make excuses for it. I don’t know.)
Continue reading »

Thursday Tea (June 3): Runemarks

Posted by Anastasia on June 3, 2010 No Responses »

Jun 032010

Thursday Tea is a weekly meme hosted by yours truly. To play along, all you need is some tea, a book, and the answers to these questions: what tea are you drinking (and do you like it)? What book are you reading (and do you like it)? Tell us a little about your tea and your book, and whether or not the two go together.

The book: I’m somewhere in the middle of Joanne Harris’ Runemarks, a YA fantasy with Anglo-Saxon mythology and a firecracker of a protagonist. It’s really fun, although Maddy is driving me insane at the moment because she keeps doing things without thinking things through– but that seems to be a trait of all Saxon mythological characters, especially the sort who go out on quests and stuff. So. Yeah.

Loki’s in Runemarks, of course, and I was surprised at how sympathetic he is in this book. I’m used to a Loki who’s more cruel– in a micheveious way, of course– like the Loki in American Gods or Summerland. But the Loki in Runemarks is much more…human? I guess, and though he’s constantly tricking people into doing stuff (or not doing stuff) and you can’t really trust him and I’m SURE he’s going to do something horrible later on, I can’t help but empathize with him because he’s got EMOTIONS. Like, he’s scared of dying and doesn’t want to, and so that motivates his trickery. The other Lokis seemed to be more about gaining power over everyone else, not simple preservation.

Anyway, I’m looking forward to writing my review for Runemarks. It’ll probably be eons long, but I’ll enjoy doing it!

The tea: Well, I made the blood orange tea, but I think it’s gotten weaker after sitting in my cupboard for over a year. Horrors! I’ll have to use more leaves next time, I guess, because it’s definitely not as strong as I want it to be. Though it is still delicious.

Do they go together? Only in the sense that Runemarks is set in England and tea is one of the things associated with the same! I don’t think any of the characters drank tea, and even the England in Runemarks isn’t the England of today; it’s much more like an AU of what England would have been like if the Vikings stayed all Viking-y instead of becoming more Anglo-y. Kind of.

What are you drinking/reading this Thursday?

Monthly Review: May 2010

Posted by Anastasia on June 2, 2010 No Responses »

Jun 022010

I’m not sure what to say about May. Bookwise, I think I did pretty good. I didn’t read as many as I did in April (haha! finals.), but I feel like I read better books, more overall enjoyable ones. Plus, despite constantly raiding the library shelves, I’ve somehow managed to read 10 books from my TBR pile, which is pretty freakin’ awesome. Also, I sold some of my old books! I think I made around $15? Not bad.

My favorite May book: Meeting Faith: The Forest Journals of a Black Buddhist Nun (which I have yet to write a review for).

Last month I said I wanted to catch up on reviews, revamp my layout, and start on my summer reading list. I kind of caught up on reviews, but not really; I didn’t do anything to my layout and in fact haven’t changed my “currently reading” book for about two weeks; and I haven’t started my summer reading list, either. So my goals for June are to actually do the stuff I meant to do in May!

Besides that, I’m going to be judging in the Nerds Heart YA thingy with Danielle of Opinionated? Me?. We’re going to do a split review (or two, maybe), so that should be fun. Are there are bookish events going on in June besides NHY? I feel like I’ve been missing out on blogger stuff lately because I haven’t been on Twitter as much– so what summer events do you think I should know about?

Reading Stats
14 total books read
8 total books reviewed
0 ebooks
0 audiobooks
14 pbooks

9 were by authors new to me
0 were rereads!
Continue reading »

Review: The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

Posted by Anastasia on June 2, 2010 No Responses »

Jun 022010

98. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
Publication: Penguin Classics, Paperback, 304pp / ISBN 9780141439570
Genre: Horror
Rating:
Read: March 12, 2010
Source: Bought
Summary from Indiebound:

Enthralled by a portrait of himself, young Dorian Gray makes a Faustian bargain to exchange his soul for eternal youth and beauty. Thus he is able to indulge in his desires, as only the portrait bears the traces of his decadence and becomes a nightmarish picture of his soul.

Review

I’ve seriously had to restart this review about five times, because I don’t know exactly how I want to write it. I was disappointed with Dorian Gray because it wasn’t what I was expecting and it was (mostly) boring besides, but at the same time I can see its literary and social value and I do like a lot of what was there. So I’m going to do a list.

What I liked

the creepy way Lord Henry lured Dorian into a downward spiral of immorality
the ending, because I like it when the villain is punished
the whole thing with Dorian’s first love and her tragic story that then affects her brother’s life, etc. Very gothic and sad.

What I didn’t like

how Dorian was supposedly so evil but he basically seemed to be the same person in the second half of the book as he was in the first. It’s like I was more told of his evilness than allowed to watch it evolve firsthand, and that was annoying. Like a whole big chunk of Dorian’s story got cut out because Mr Wilde couldn’t be bothered to expand his narrative.
Lord Henry’s various speeches about beauty and art and blah blah blah. Interesting social commentary, to be sure, and probably very autobiographical, but it was still like having to wade around great big rocks in the river (if the river is the story and the rocks are Lord Henry).
how besides the ending and the bit with the painting, the story was mostly boring
how I don’t understand that if Mr Wilde was all for art and beauty and stuff then WHY does his narrative read like he’s trying to warn me away from art/beauty/etc? Dorian is corrupted by beauty! Lord Henry makes me never want to go to a witty dinner party EVER and yet surely that’s the sort of thing Mr Wilde enjoyed, so, so. What? (Maybe Mr Wilde is trying to say “all in moderation” or “don’t get full of yourself” or something?)

My problem with reviewing classic literature is that I always feel if I don’t like a book for its narrative I don’t “understand” it, or something, and I’m pretty sure I’m missing something with this book. I get the importance of its social context and whatever, but the actual story– or the writing, maybe– is weirdly uninteresting. And I didn’t overly enjoy reading it! And it’s like if I understand the book I should enjoy reading it, too, because those things have always gone hand-in-hand before, like with The Sound and the Fury and any of Virginia Woolf’s books, etc. So right now I’m suffering from feelings of confusion and it’s made this review all wonky. Ugh.