July 2011
16 posts
Fahrenheit 451: Ray Bradbury
So technically I have been participating in the Classics Challenge 2011 hosted by Stiletto Storytime, but for some reason I keep forgetting to link my posts. So many posts later I will finally participate in this challenge properly!
It was a pleasure to burn. It was a special pleasure to see things eaten, to see things blackened and changed…
This year is the first time I have ever read...
Saturday Shorts; Souvenirs: Aimee Loiselle
This weeks story is about Lana and Victor and their fight to keep it all together while holding on to their children. Victor is war vet who has come back from Iraq injured. In Lana’s attempt to deal with her husband’s psychological and physical damage that he has inherited from the war, things start to fall apart and she becomes dependent on her brother Darren and her parents to look out for her...
The Wizard of Oz: L. Frank Baum
Today’s great classic is The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum. I hope it inspires the same feelings of nostalgia that it inspired in me.
This was the first time I’ve ever read the Wizard of Oz, although my first and most lasting impression of the characters would always be shaped by the movie, I could accept that the book could change how I imagined them as well as the fact that different people...
Voyeuse: Cary Groner
Diana and Brian are an ordinary married couple. She is a writer and is responsible for a teen advice column called ‘Gen-Z’. He works in disaster planning at Public Health. He is also a hardcore cyclist and because she was not always able to keep up with him she buys him a helmet with a camera hooked up to her computer, so she could see what he sees when he is cycling. One day Brian is out riding...
The Paris Secret: Angela Henry
The Paris Secret is a true romantic thriller: love, passion and people who want to kill you. Yep. That’s it. This is a book that I’ve had a hard time reviewing. I enjoyed reading it, I liked the idea and how it was expressed, I even liked the characters and the setting but at the end of the book I just felt like, “Oh, well that was nice.” So I’m going to say that, for me, it’s not really a book...
With Just One Click...: Amanda Strong
This was such an interesting concept for a novel. It’s something a lot of us think about everyday, how much is sensible to expose through social networking? I, like a lot of other people, am on pretty much every network. Facebook, twitter, tumblr and now Google +. With the exception of Facebook, which I really dislike, I love each and every network for the unique communities that have...
The Mimic Men: V.S. Naipaul
V.S. Naipaul is probably one of the most controversial and offensive Caribbean writers that literary fiction has to offer. In fact, just last month he declared to the Guardian that there are no women writers that he considers his match.
The author, who was born in Trinidad, said this was because of women’s “sentimentality, the narrow view of the world”. “And inevitably for...
Stickmen: Andrew C. Gottlieb
Saturday Shorts is our attempt to plough through the many (many) collections of short stories that are lingering on our bookshelves. Because it’s pretty much impossible to look at a whole book of stories, it seemed easier to look at a random story every week. This way, we might kind of sound like we know what we are talking about…
Jimmy draws little rudimentary stick figures that seem to be...
Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children:...
Another BEA seen drool worthy book! I have a new favorite publisher, Quirk Books. These guys are so completely and utterly random that I just want to give their whole catalogue a hug and then run away with it before any one notices that they are suddenly missing 50 books… Anyways, the point of this paragraph was to say: I saw this on a sign at BEA and was intrigued. So I ordered it. And it came...
Lisa and Kwame take on Graveminder by Melissa Marr
Lisa: This is one of those books that I was really looking forward to. I missed out (by 1 person *argh*) at BEA but was lucky enough to have a snazzy gift card available for my shopping pleasure. But I’m still not really sure how I feel about it. I loved it…. sort of.
K: This is a book that started off with sooooo much promise, I had such high hopes. And then I was kind of...
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Long Way Home: Joss...
While I am no expert on Buffy or comics, I have to say that I think this whole transforming a television series into a comic thing was a pretty good idea. One of the reasons is already stated in the final sentence of the publishers blurb, ‘…without the limitations of a small screen budget’. For me, it is always interesting to see characters from novels and comic books being brought to life on the...
Tris & Izzie by Mette Ivie Harrison {DNF}
Egads. Another flop. This was one of the most anticipated books on my Net Galley July list. When I sat down and tried to read it though, it became instantly clear that my expectations would not be met. I wasn’t able to quite make it to the end (75% was plenty…) but here are my thoughts.
It’s easy to tell straight away that there is a lot missing from this book, but it took a while for me to...
Manifest: Artist Arthur
This is a book that just fell flat for me. While the premise was interesting enough, many of the ideas and their execution just came off of cheesy and eye roll inducing, including the basic idea of the Mystyx. The reasoning behind their abilities wasn’t really working for me and, while I assume that the author will be explaining this later in the series, this first book hasn’t made me want to...
The Old Romantic: Louise Dean
Well, it’s like so many things. It’s all about keeping up the illusion. For the living.
This book was absolutely hilarious, sometimes bordering on absurd. It is also a heart warming story dripping with nostalgia. The story is centered around a rather dysfunctional family. A man who has changed his name to escape his past. A woman obsessed with beauty and the potential development of crows’ feet....
Minis: Other Words For Love, The Sweetest Thing,...
In this mini review series we have a book I didn’t like at all, a book that was OK and one I loved. A spiffy balance. First up…
I wanted to love this. I’ve heard so many people gushing over the story and the characters but I personally didn’t enjoy either. While the setting (1980’s Brooklyn) was a nice change, the first half of the book left me baffled as to why people loved this story. I...
What’s That Funny Thing: Chris Wade
What’s That Funny Thing is a collection a nonsense poems and short stories and each one is complimented by some bizarre illustrations that, to me, are vaguely reminiscent of Dr. Seuss…at least I think the dinosaur is from the title story. I found the illustrations were rudimentary but effective. If I had a favourite illustration it would be the image of The Little Cleaner Men, who the narrative...
