REVIEW: The Giver by Lois Lowry

 Posted by Anastasia on January 27, 2012  11 Responses »
Jan 272012
 
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014. The Giver by Lois Lowry
Publication: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (April 26, 1993), ebook, 210pp / ISBN 0440237688
Genre: YA Sci-fi/Dystopia

Read: January 24, 2012
Source: Bought

Summary from Amazon:

Jonas’s world is perfect. Everything is under control. There is no war or fear of pain. There are no choices. Every person is assigned a role in the community. When Jonas turns 12 he is singled out to receive special training from The Giver. The Giver alone holds the memories of the true pain and pleasure of life. Now, it is time for Jonas to receive the truth. There is no turning back.

Review

I’ve put off reading this book for FOREVER, mainly because I really hate the cover. That old dude? Makes me think of The Cay. And The Cay? Made me cry my eyes out when I was in fifth grade. I hate crying, and I thought The Giver would make me cry, so I stayed away. Simple! Continue reading »

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 3/5, Age Group, Classic Fiction, Dystopia, Fiction, MG, New (Birds), Note, Rating, Reviews, Sci-Fi, YA

MINI-REVIEWS: Jack’s New Power, Villain School, Decline & Fall

 Posted by Anastasia on August 2, 2011  4 Responses »
Aug 022011
 
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Click on a book’s cover to go to its page on Amazon.

50. Jack’s New Power by Jack Gantos
Publication: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (September 30, 1997), Paperback, 214pp / ISBN 0374437157
Genre: MG Fiction

Read: May 30-31, 2011
Source: Library Book sale

Review

This is less like a novel and more like a short story collection of vaguely related events, and unfortunately it’s kind of boring. After the greatness that was Dead End in Norvelt I wanted to really like this one, too, but for the most part I was, well…bored. Oh, it’s got some funny bits in it, and some sad bits and some “oh that was clever” bits, but on the whole, when I think back on it, I remember a sort of bland gray color. I wouldn’t recommend starting with this book if you’ve never read a Jack Gantos book before, although you might like it if you like JG’s other books.

Rating


Just okay.

58. Villain School: Good Curses Evil by Stephanie S. Saunders
Publication: Bloomsbury USA Childrens (August 30, 2011), ARC Paperback, ? pp / ISBN 1599908484
Genre: Children’s/MG Fantasy, Adventure

Read: June ?-25, 2011
Source: BEA 2011

This title will be released on August 30, 2011.

Review

I think if I was younger I’d like this book more. It’s got a magical school where vampires and werewolves and monsters from Scooby-doo movies learn about being “villains,” and there’s a quest and a princess (who is actually pretty wonderful) and it’s kind of funny, but in a way that comes off as trying too hard. It’s not a bad book, it’s just one that severely tests my powers of ignoring things that don’t make sense (why must vampires/werewolves/etc. be villains? Because they just are, apparently). I’m sure if I was younger– more in the range of readers it’s targeted for– I wouldn’t have a problem just going along for the ride. But as an adult reader, I was disappointed.

Rating


It’s not bad for what it is, but I wanted it to be something more.

61. Decline & Fall by Evelyn Waugh
Publication: Dell (1972), originally published 1928, Paperback, ~270pp
Genre: Fiction, Satire

Read: July 1, 2011
Source: Free book box

Review

The bad thing about reading so many books in one month is that one tends to forget things about the books you read at the beginning. Decline & Fall was the first book I finished during my July book-a-day plan, and I’ve almost forgotten everything about it. That’s not a good thing! I can’t remember anyone’s name, I barely remember the plot, and all that’s left is a vague impression that I enjoyed reading it. I had to read the summary on its Wikipedia page to refresh my memory, and even then I was like “oh, did that really happen?” I feel really bad about this, as I do like Waugh’s books and considering that I rated this one 4.5 birds I must have really liked this one. Unfortunately I keep getting bits of it mixed up with A Handful of Dust; I guess it’s a good thing this is a mini-review instead of a full one.

Anyway, despite my memory problems, I did really like Decline & Fall. It’s got that same sort of hard-edged satire that AHOD has, only without the downer ending (although I did like AHOD’s ending). It’s also kind of more surreal than AHOD, which was a lot of fun, and though I don’t think I laughed out loud I did smile widely for a large portion of it. After reading three of Waugh’s books I think I’m getting a feel for his type of humor, which is good, and I think also I’m starting to see a pattern with the characters, which is less good. I prefer it when authors mix up their tropes and whatnot, and Waugh doesn’t seem to be doing that. Then again, I’ve only read three of his books– maybe the fourth one will have more variety.

Rating


An excellent book, despite my having almost entirely forgotten it.

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 2/5, 4.5/5, Age Group, Children's, Classic Fiction, Fantasy, Fiction, Humor, MG, New (Birds), Note, Paranormal, Rating, Reviews, Satire, Vampires, Werewolves

MINI-REVIEWS: Walt Disney’s Way, The Boxcar Children’s Mysteries #1, Scrapped Princess: A Tale of Destiny

 Posted by Anastasia on January 31, 2011  4 Responses »
Jan 312011
 
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04. Walt Disney’s Way by New Word City
Publication: FT Press (February 1, 2010), ebook, 139kb / ISBN
Genre: Non-Fiction, Biography

Rating: Bin it
Read: January 14, 2011

Source: Downloaded (when it was free)

Review

So, yeah: this isn’t really a “book,” it’s more like a short pamphlet or something. Also, it’s boring as hell. Good primer for Walt Disney’s life, and if you’re a business person you might be interested by the end where it details how to emulate the good bits of Disney’s business sense, but if you’re looking for an actual biography or, like, anything more detailed than a Wikipedia page, look elsewhere.

05. The Boxcar Children’s Mysteries #1 by Gertrude Chandler Warner
Publication: Albert Whitman & Company (December 14, 2010), ebook, 1552kb / ISBN
Genre: Children’s Fiction

Rating: Borrow it
Read: January 14-15, 2011

Source: Bought

Review

Hey, it’s a reread! Yay! On the other hand, I probably could have picked a better book to reread. My favorite thing about the Boxcar books when I was younger– the last time I read this– was that it’s about kids who live on their own in a boxcar, and they’re all self-sufficient and stuff. That’s good stuff! It’s exciting, and when you’re a kid you might not notice the…er…other stuff. The stuff where all the girls are super happy to do household stuff, know how to make fabulous dinners, and can sew whatever the hell they get their hands on. And the boys (well, the oldest boy, at least), are the providers who get jobs and bring home the bacon and stuff.

WOW. I mean, yes– it’s an old book. It was written originally in 1924, before women’s lib and before people generally started wanting their kids to be kids instead of little versions of adults. But still. How could I not have noticed that when I was younger? I guess I was too busy thinking about how much I wanted to live in a boxcar to worry about the job I’d be stuck with if I actually did live in one with my stupid brother.

Ms Chandler Warner did seem like a sweet lady, though, just one that was stuck in the so-called standard roles for women and men. This bit from the Boxcar Children Wikipedia page is so sweet and cute, I can’t feel overly angry towards her:

As she wrote the story, Warner read it to her classes and rewrote it many times so the words were easy to understand. Some of her pupils spoke other languages at home and were just learning English, so The Boxcar Children gave them a fun story that was easy to read. Warner once wrote that the original book “raised a storm of protest from librarians who thought the children were having too good a time without any parental control! That is exactly why children like it!”

10. Scrapped Princess: A Tale of Destiny by Ichiro Sakaki (translated by Paul Kotta)
Publication: TokyoPop (October 3, 2006), Paperback, 200pp / ISBN 1595329846
Genre: Light Novel, Fantasy/Sci-fi

Rating: Borrow it
Read: January 23, 2011

Source: Bought

Review

This book has a PRINCESS in it, and it’s so awesome. Don’t take too much heart into the fact that I rated it “borrow,” because I’m pretty much going to rate all light novels “borrow.” They’re fun to read and very enjoyable (for the most part) but they aren’t the best written things out there.

Anyway, what I really liked about Scrapped Princess is that though it’s got the “hidden princess who is secretly the thing upon which the future of the world resides” trope in it, it does some unusual things in the actual story. For instance, Pacifica (that’s the princess) was adopted by some ex-soldiers and raised as there own. When she finds out she’s a princess? She does not immediately abandon her adopted family, nor do they abandon her! In fact, one of the main themes is how even if you’re adopted your adopted family is still your FAMILY, your family who loves you and wants to protect you from insane assassins and the king who wants you dead! I thought that was really wonderful, and pretty unusual in a story where the more standard thing would have been for Pacifica to wander off alone somewhere.

I also liked the blending of fake historical past with almost steampunkish technology– a thing that’s not overly unusual in anime– and I liked the characters, and the action was great! It was a lot of fun, for real.

Unfortunately, there’s 13 volumes in the series (plus some short stories), and TokyoPop only licensed the first three. I’m going to Google around and see if anybody else has licensed (or translated) the rest– but I’m very annoyed by this! Just FYI.

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 Age Group, Alternative History/Earth, Beach Reads, Bin it, Biography, Borrow it, Children's, Classic Fiction, Fantasy, Fiction, Non-fiction, Old, Reviews, Sci-Fi, YA

Classics Circuit: The Odyssey by Homer

 Posted by Anastasia on January 28, 2011  15 Responses »
Jan 282011
 
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Okay, so two things:
1. I feel like an uncultured swine
2. I’m sort of unapologetic about it?

So, yeah: I never did much Classical stuff in ANY of my days at school. I think the most we did was a half-hearted attempt at Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar? So I never got indoctrinated into the Classical camp, and I’ve never read any of the Classical stories, either. I arbitrarily picked The Odyssey because I sort of remembered it had something to do with Odysseus, who I sort of remembered had something to do with maybe the Cyclops or something (I’m not really up on my Greek mythology, either). I didn’t know about how long it was, or really what it was about, and all I knew was that I had to get the Fagles translation because that one was the best one.

I got about 43% into it and then I just got bored. I was bored, y’all! I mean, I wasn’t bored because of the repetition, because I knew why it was there (oral tradition meant needing that sort of thing more than we’d need it today). I wasn’t bored because of the characters, necessarily– they were pretty fleshed-out people, with multiple dimensions and what not. And I wasn’t bored because of the story, either! Well, mostly.

To be honest, if I had been more into the story I would have forced myself to keep reading. But it was just okay.

You know that thing, where you’re sometimes SO saturated with something, with secondary source-somethings, that by the time you get to the original source you’re sort of…wiped-out by it all? And it’s almost like you don’t NEED to read the original source unless you’re super into doing that sort of thing? So, like, that’s what’s going on with me. Even though I don’t know ALL the details re:Greek mythology, enough of it is familiar that, in reading the Odyssey, I just feel like I’m reading stuff I’m already familiar with. And that’s kind of boring.

It’s like eating carrot cake every day for a month, and then the next month switching to red velvet cake. The red velvet may be more expensive and better-made and all-around lovelier, but you’re still stuffed full from cake and the red velvet ends up tasting like carrot.

So there it is. I can’t really get into The Odyssey, at least not enough to make myself finish. Maybe later, when I feel like it, I’ll finish. But for now? It’s a DNF (great translation nonetheless).

Don’t forget to check out my Classics Circuit partner for today, fictional100, who is writing about Oedipus the King!

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 ! DNF, Classic Fiction, Classics Circuit, Events, Fiction, Reviews

REVIEW: Heidi by Johanna Spyri

 Posted by Anastasia on January 21, 2011  10 Responses »
Jan 212011
 
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06. Heidi by Johanna Spyri
Publication: originally published 1880, ebook published
Genre: Children’s fiction

Rating: Borrow it
Read: January 14-15, 2011

Source: Girlebooks

Summary from Girlebooks:

Written in 1880 by Swiss author Johanna Spyri, the Heidi books are the best known works of Swiss literature. The story focuses on events in the life a young orphan sent to live with her grumpy grandfather in the Swiss Alps. Just as she is beginning to get used to her surroundings, Heidi is sent away from the tranquility of the mountains to tend to a sick cousin in the city. Much more than a children’s story, the story is also a lesson on the nature of freedom.

Review

The first time I read Heidi I was about 9 years old. My copy was that abridged version with lots of illustrations– part of that series that introduced kids to lots of classics, including Dracula and Charles Dickens. You know the ones I’m talking about? They’ve got huge fonts! Anyway, I don’t remember much about that experience, but I suppose I must have been bored out of my mind because otherwise I would have retained some stronger emotion (as I tend to do with books). I don’t even know if I should count this as a reread or not, since technically I haven’t read this complete version before…eh, whatever.

Heidi is, I guess, one of the most famous books to do two things. 1. It’s got the “happy child heals a grumpy person’s broken heart” thing which pops up in Annie and A Christmas Carol (does Tiny Tim count?), etc. 2. It’s got the “living in the country is best for children” thing hardcore. Even more hardcore than The Secret Garden or the Trixie Belden books! It’s not exactly subtle about, like, anything, including the importance of saying your prayers and being cheerful. All stuff that seems par for course in the time it was written– which makes for both a good and bad reading experience.

The good: it shows how people thought about things like health and children and religion back then (or at least how Johanna Spyri thought about them). Also it’s got really nice descriptions of the Alps, and of how people lived in the Swiss countryside, and of how children process things compared to adults (hint: very differently). Plus there’s some really charming characterizations of goats! (I like goats. I think they’re cute; I fed one at the petting zoo last Fall. Anyway.)

The author

The bad: it IS so unsubtle it basically smacks you in the face with everything Johanna Spyri believed in. I don’t think kids need ideas and themes and whatnot to smack them in the face so they’ll notice them; kids already notice a lot of stuff. Plus, it really did feel like JS was preaching to me to be and do a lot of things, and I have never liked being preached at. I don’t mind having an author’s opinion in their book (it’s kind of hard NOT to have an author’s opinion of something in their book), but I’d prefer it if they expressed those opinions without hitting me upside the head with them.*

If I ignore the preaching, though, it is a very sweet little book. I like the characters, and I like the character growth of the grandfather and the doctor through their contact with Heidi. I like that Heidi wasn’t just always cheerful– she had sad moments, too, and that gave her some depth. I loved the language used to describe the locations! And maybe if I was a late Victorian child I’d love the rest of it, too. Who knows?

I don’t think I’ll be reading another Johanna Spyri book, but this one wasn’t all bad, even considering the face-smacking. I’m glad I finally read the complete version, although I can see why my younger self wasn’t wowed with the original experience.**

* For example: The Secret Garden, Harriet the Spy, John Green’s books.
* Especially when I was reading books like Harriet the Spy, Little House on the Prarie and Pippi Longstocking! Those were way more exciting than Heidi.

And

Get your own paper copy @ Amazon and support Birdbrain(ed) Book Blog!

Other reviews: Life Wordsmith | My Writing Archive

There’s a Shirley Temple Heidi movie! I completely forgot about that.

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 Age Group, Borrow it, Children's, Classic Fiction, Fiction, Old, Reviews

Mini-Reviews: A Christmas Carol, Agnes Grey, Mike & Psmith

 Posted by Anastasia on December 22, 2010  11 Responses »
Dec 222010
 
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230. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
Publication: originally published 1843, ebook published 2006
Genre: Fiction

Rating: Buy it
Read: December 2-3, 2010

Source: Project Gutenberg

Summary from Amazon:

The story of miserly Ebenezer Scrooge, and the ghosts who show him the true spirit of Christmas.

Review

I have a bad history with Charles Dickens. I was forced to read at least one of his books in school– Great Expectations– and it had left a great stain of anti-Dickens sentiment upon my soul. I hate Dickens! I hate his dour stories, his depressing characters, and the whole dank coating of gloom that hovers over his books. I don’t even watch the TV show versions, and I can only enjoy Oliver Twist if it’s in the musical format. So it was with some surprise that last month I found myself somewhat willing to give Dickens another shot. I didn’t want to start off ambitiously– I wasn’t about to read Nicholas Nickleby or, heaven forbid, A Tale of Two Cities, not when I still felt MOSTLY anti-Dickens– but I thought I might make it through a shorter Dickens work. And as it’s coming up on Christmas: I chose A Christmas Carol. Continue reading »

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 Borrow it, Buy it, Classic Fiction, Fiction, Old, Rating, Reviews

Classics Circuit Review: Mr Scarborough’s Family by Anthony Trollope

 Posted by Anastasia on December 6, 2010  9 Responses »
Dec 062010
 
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Not Mr Scarborough

228. Mr Scarborough’s Family by Anthony Trollope
Publication: originally published 1883, ebook published 2004
Genre: Fiction, Romance
Rating: Borrow it
Read: September 8-December 3, 2010
Source: Project Gutenberg
Summary from VictorianWeb:
“MR SCARBOROUGH, WEALTHY owner of Tretton Park in Staffordshire, is dying. His eldest son and heir Mountjoy has gambled away his inheritance to avaricious money-lenders who hold post-obits to the entire value of the estate. As the story opens, Mr Scarborough astonishes Society by declaring Mountjoy illegitimate. He claims that he only married his wife shortly before the birth of his second (remarkably unattractive) son Augustus, thus making him the real heir. Mountjoy’s creditors threaten vain law suits against the estate; and the odious Augustus assumes his place as heir.”

Today’s fellow Circuiters: Things Mean a Lot | 2,606 Books and counting……

Review

I’ve been wanting to do a Classics Circuit for a while, but nothing ever worked out until this one, the Anthony Trollope circuit. I’ll admit I’m not overly familiar with Anthony Trollope. I read Rebecca’s review of Can You Forgive Her? and thought he sounded like a boring old fart, but he’s written SO many books that I thought I’d give him a chance and try at least one of his books. I decided on trying one of his lesser-known books for the Circuit because a) I assumed everyone else would be reading some of his more famous books anyway and b) I have a soft spot for forgotten books (it’s why I like Girlebooks and Persephone Books so much) and wanted to try highlighting something somewhat unknown.

Anyway. Instead of a boring old fart, Trollope’s really a money-obsessed, repetitive, prejudiced and possibly bigoted old fart. Or at least that’s how he comes across based on the two books I’ve read– this one I’m reviewing here and Miss Mackenzie! And I honestly don’t know if I can work up the stamina to get through another. I mean there’s only so many times I can read about how much someone got a year and why that makes him better than the other fellow who only gets this much a year, and will he marry that lady who has a small inheritance but is hella shrewish or will he marry the nice but poor lady, etc etc. It’s tiring, especially because I really don’t give a crap how much someone has (or makes) a year, at least not to the extent that Trollope blathers on about it.

Mr Scarborough’s Family was actually the lesser of two evils, by which I mean I enjoyed it more although it was miles too long. So:

On the one hand, the characters are quite a lot of fun. The characters are, I think, the best part of Mr Scarborough’s Family. They’re why I kept reading it even when everything else was annoying me, because I wanted to see what would happen to Harry and Florence, and whether Augustus would get his comeuppance and whether Mountjoy would finally break his gambling habit.
Continue reading »

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