Author: booknutgirls

booknutgirls http://thebooknutdotcom.wordpress.com I read. I blog. I sell books. I chauffeur my kids. What more do you need to know?

Gods Behaving Badly

4 Comments

by Marie Phillips
ages: adult
First sentence: “One morning, when Artemis was out walking the dogs, she saw a tree where no tree should be.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!

The gods have a problem. They’ve been stuck in an increasingly run-down house in London for 300 years. They’re bored. They’re losing power. Sure, they’ve tried other occupations — Aphrodite has a bit of a business as a phone sex operator, and Dionysus runs a pretty happening club, not to mention Apollo’s stint as a TV psychic — but it’s just not working for them. Things just aren’t going well.

Enter Alice, the unassuming cleaner and her would-be boyfriend, Neil. She’s pretty shy, as far as mortals go, but after Artemis hires her to clean the absolutely filthy house, she brings some life to the group. (That’s helped along a bit, due to some revenge work by Aphrodite: she gets Eros to hit Apollo with an arrow and he falls for Alice.) This leads to some sticky situations, though, culminating in possibly the end of the world. Interestingly enough, Neil finds a role as a hero, and the gods find a new reason to exists again.

It’s a unique little take on the Greek gods. Sure, I prefer Percy Jackson, but this one deals directly with the gods themselves. They’re dealing with the lack of belief from Mortals (can I say one of my favorite parts was Eros’s devotion to Christianity? Very intriguing.), though they don’t realize that’s what it is until near the end. (Though an observant reader will pick that up, so it’s not really a spoiler.) It’s not as funny or as witty as I would have liked, but it is entertaining. I’m also not sure the overall story is quite what I would have liked it to be: there’s a trip into the Underworld, and the whole “Everyone Believes” at the end seemed a bit forced; but that could just be my devotion to Percy Jackson talking.

There were moments that made me smile, though. And I liked Artemis and Alice and Neil, so there’s at least a couple of characters that I could connect with. So, t’s a not a complete waste of time after all.

The Heart of a Samurai

3 Comments

by Margi Preus
ages: 10+
First sentence: “Manjiro squinted across the expanse of glittering sea at the line of dark clouds forming on the horizon.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!

I wanted to like this one. The cover is pretty, it won a Newebery Honor this year, and the cover calls it a “novel inspired by a true adventure on the high seas.”

Manjiro is a 14-year-old Japanese boy in the mid-1800s. He’s from a small fishing village, and doesn’t have much chance for a future. He signs on with a fishing boat, which gets lost at sea in a storm. Eventually, they get washed up on an island, and a while later are rescued by an American whaling ship. Manjiro spends the next 10 years away from Japan, most of it on a ship, learning English and experiencing everything from the freedom of the open sea, to new technology, to racism, to the opportunities that America offers that Japan doesn’t. He eventually returns to Japan, to a less-than-amiable reception, but eventually helps the Japanese end 250 years of isolationism.

The story is all fine and good, but the book just fell flat. (At least it was a quick read.) All the things I was interested in: being stranded on an island, experiences on a whaling ship, racism in mid-1800s New England all got glossed over. While there was conflict, there wasn’t enough to keep the story interesting enough. And it was basically just a retelling of the years Manjiro was away from Japan, with an epilogue about his time in the government after his return. It would have worked better as non-fiction, if that’s all the author was going to do.

It could have been an interesting book. Disappointing.

The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency

5 Comments

by Alexander McCall Smith
ages: adult
First sentence: “Mma Ramotswe had a detective agency in Africa, at the food of Kgale Hill.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!

People have been telling me for years that I ought to read this book. But as I always figured it was a mystery, I never really gave it much thought. I don’t like mysteries, after all. (Ha! Sometimes it’s true, but other times it’s not.)

The thing is: this really isn’t a mystery. Or at least not in the “traditional” sense. Sure, Mma Ramotswe (I had a hard time thinking of her as Precious, even if that was her name) is a detective, doing investigative work for people in her town in Botswana. But it’s not a mystery.

It is, however, a lovely portrait of a woman who loves her country, her people, and finds a niche for her self as an independent woman (after a very violent marriage thankfully failed) in her town. She is an observant woman, which helps in her business: she’s able to think about human nature (this book is quite down on most Botswanian men; they’re mostly no-good) in ways that
help her solve the little cases that come her way.

There is one big case that overshadows the novel; a boy is kidnapped, and they think that he’s been killed to make medicine. Mma Ramotswe doesn’t really want to take on the case, but she does because the police aren’t as reliable as they should be. Thankfully, it doesn’t end as sinister as it began.

It’s a delightful book, full of interesting, quirky characters. And Mma Ramotswe’s story is a good one to spend time with.

Southtown

Leave a comment

by Rick Riordan
ages: adult
First sentence: “Fourth of July morning, Will Stirman woke up with blood on his hands.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!

Two things before I get going: I still adore Rick Riordan. And there are things I just can’t read about. Serial murderers out for revenge are on that list.

I was 70 pages into this very gruesome book before I realized that I had to abandon it. I can handle lots of swearing (at least reading), I can handle dark and gritty. But the opening chapter involving a prison break pushed me almost to my limits. But when the main bad guy tried to kidnap Tres’s boss’s 8-year-old, Jem, I realized that was the end of the line for me. I just don’t do violence against children: it’s one of my secret terrors (secret in that I tend to bury it down deep), and I don’t like being reminded that there are bad people out there, and something could happen to my girls at any moment.

I did flip through the rest of the book, reading a bit near the end to see how it all resolved (thankfully Jem is kept safe; sorry for the spoiler, but it was something I needed to know). I know I missed some things, especially between Tres and his girlfriend Maia Lee. But, I’m not sure my life will be worse off for not finishing this one.

You can’t win them all.

Sunday Salon: Kidlit Con 2011 (Plus Bonus Bookish Quote)

5 Comments

It’s that time of year again: in which I try to figure out a way to get to Kidlit Con. I’ve gone to the past two, and have had a fun and rewarding time connecting with blogging friends and learning how to do this whole thing better. The full information is up at Chasing Ray, but the basics are these:

DATE: September 16 – 17 (the 16th is a “pre conference”, registration for that is $30)

PLACE: Hotel Monaco, Seattle

Before July 1, the registration is $95, after July 1 it’s $100.

Can I tell you that I’m really excited for this, mostly because it’s on my birthday? I can’t think of a better way to spend my birthday this year than with like-minded bookish people! I’d love to see you there!

On a completely unrelated note, Weekly Geeks this week is about our favorite bookish quotes. I try to change mine over there on the sidebar monthly (sometimes I forget), but I do have a couple of absolute favorites:

“A successful book is not made of what is in it, but what is left out of it.” — Mark Twain

“May blessings be upon the head of Cadmus, the Phoenicians, or whoever it was that invented books.” — Thomas Carlyle

“It is what you read when you don’t have to that determines what you will be when you can’t help it.” — Oscar Wilde

“When I discovered libraries, it was like having Christmas every day.” — Jean Fritz

“The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.” — Jane Austen

Also: I’ve been trying to remember/find a quote from John Green’s story in Let It Snow, I think. The one about the happy middles instead of happy endings. Anyone know it?

Twelfth Night

1 Comment

by William Shakespeare
ages: adult
First sentence: “If music be the food of love, play on.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!

This is an insane play.

Girl gets shipwrecked in a town, disguises herself as a boy (probably a good thing, considering the time period), and goes to work for the head guy. Head Guy is in luuuuuv with the most beautiful girl in town (think: Gaston, starting at about 3:15 of this video) who constantly spurns his, um, affections. (At this point, C, who watched the 1980 BBC production with me as I read, said, “He’s SUCH a brat and dork!”) So, Head Guy sends Girl dressed as guy to woo Beautiful for him, and beautiful ends up falling for Girl (whom she thinks is a guy).

With me so far?

Then, Girls twin brother (whom she thought was dead at sea) arrives in town and suddenly everything become really, really confusing. People think Brother is Girl, including Beautiful, who up and marries him the first time she comes across him (thinking he’s Girl (dressed as a guy)). And Girl, who’s fallen for Head Guy, is trying to sort things out and get out of Beautiful’s obsession with her, and something else happens that involves a really, really, really bad joke gotten way out of hand, and suddenly everyone is happily ever after.

Huh?

Like many of Shakespeare’s comedies, this one balances right between insanity and tragedy. There’s so much that could go wrong, if people’s attitudes had gone a completely different way. Malvolio — the guy who the really bad joke was played on — was given a sop at the end, and sent off though his parting words are “I’ll be reveng’d on the whole pack of you.” so who knows what could happen next. Besides, all these romances are built upon love at first sight, so who knows how any of them will turn out? I mean, Orsino is all pining for Olivia, but then he realizes she’s
married and Violet is a girl and he’s all of a sudden “Oh, I love you now, how about we hook up”?

Seriously?

I do wonder if Shakespeare was poking fun at something: love at first sight? Stupid nobles with nothing else to do? It wasn’t as funny as some of his other comedies. It was confusing, but lacked the inane hilarity of Midsummer Night’s Dream. And the wit of Much Ado About Nothing. It was a lot of silly people running around falling in luuuv.

But, I suppose, that’s not a bad thing on a hot summer day.

Runemarks

2 Comments

by Joanne Harris
ages: 14+
First sentence: “Seven o’clock on a Monday morning, five hundred years after the End of the World, and goblins had been at the cellar again.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!

Maddy Smith is basically a nondescript resident of the small village of Malbry in the Middle Worlds. Except for the runemark on her hand, which brands her a bit of an outcast, but she doesn’t pay that much attention. She has no friends, except for a wandering traveler that goes by the name of One-Eye whom she only sees once a year at Harvest time.

Then, one day when she’s fourteen, her world shifts: all the things she’s been taught to believe about the Order and the Word — the religious organization that rules the Middle World — are put into question. The End of the World was just a new beginning, and there are powers she has that she never knew. One-Eye sends Maddy on an adventure that will lead to a new end and a new beginning for everyone.

If that sounds really confusing, don’t worry: it is really confusing to summarize this huge, 521 page, fantasy. It’s based on Norse mythology, something which I found fascinating, and is quite impossible to summarize. It’s a sprawling fantasy, in the Grand High Fantasy style: adventure, twists, turns, multi-perspectives, and even a somewhat confusing ending. It’s got it all. Maddy is an interesting main character to follow through the world; she ends up being a very powerful character, but because of her age and innocence, she’s not quite in tune with all the subtleties of the world. It helps guide the reader through some complex mythology and relationships between the old gods which helps with the flow of the book. It takes a while to sink into the rhythm of the world, and the pacing of the novel, but once the adventure truly gets underway it’s enough to keep you involved and interested.

It also felt very Neil Gaiman-esque. I can’t quite pinpoint why: perhaps it’s because it’s so sprawling, or perhaps because it’s just got that dark, gritty undertone that Gaiman is known far. Whatever the reason, it reminded me of Gaiman’s work, which is never a bad thing.

That said, I don’t think I truly loved it. It was interesting, and I’m glad I read it, but it was lacking that spark to make it truly great.

48 Hour Book Challenge: Finish Line

7 Comments

So, shall we do stats, this lovely Sunday morning?

Start time: 7:30 a.m. Friday

Finish time: 7:30 a.m. Sunday (yes, I know this is later than that, but I had to get A breakfast.)

Hours spent reading: 20.5

Hours spent blogging/social media: 3 (my husband took the laptop in for some repairs during the middle, and I loathe the dinosaur downstairs. That really cut into computer time.)

Total time 23.5 (and that included getting K’s pictures taken and going downtown Friday evening to watch the Riverfest fireworks. Hooray for Hubby’s help!)

Books read: 9 (I wanted a dent, I got a dent. It’s still a big pile on the shelf, though.)

Favorite reads: Waiting for Normal, Dragonfly and A Thousand Days in Tuscany

Things learned: It really does help to take breaks every couple of hours. That, and getting outside helps for me. I thoroughly enjoyed taking Friday evening off and watching the fireworks with my family, and my total time didn’t suffer for that. That, and eating an entire box of Oreos, while good, is not something I really should do anymore.

I always look forward to this weekend: it’s so nice to get away (maybe someday I’ll actually get away away; we were talking yesterday about things I’d like to do for my 40th birthday if we had the money…) and do nothing but focus on the books for a couple of days. However, I always enjoy coming back to real life when I’m done. I guess extremes are good for appreciation.

As always, thanks Pam! It was a blast.

Sean Griswold’s Head

3 Comments

by Lindsey Leavett
ages: 12+
First sentence: “Nothing creates a buzz like an Executive Deluxe day planner.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Review copy provided by the publisher.

Payton Gritas has been sitting behind Sean Griswold pretty much every day since third grade (it’s an alphabetical order thing), but has never really noticed him. Then, she’s thrown a bombshell at home: her dad has had MS for the last six months, and they’ve not bothered to tell Payton. No, he’s not dying, but his life is going to change, and she’s not happy that they excluded her from the loop.

Her parents insist upon her going to counseling when she gets sullen around them (completely understandable, though), and the counselor (it really is just the high school counselor) suggests Payton pick a Focus Object to write about as a way to work through her feelings. Payton, for lack of a better thing (well, there were probably better things, but there wouldn’t be a book if she chose a pencil sharpener), she picks Sean Griswold’s head. At first it’s just an exercise, but with a little pushing from her friend Jac, soon an exercise becomes a crush. And it turns out that Sean Griswold may just be as interested in Payton as she’s becoming in him.

This is a sweet little book. There are some laugh-out-loud moments, the romance is sweet, and the crisis is, thankfully, not cancer. It’s interesting to see a different disease tackled, one that changes lives as much as cancer does, but in a different way. It’s refreshing to have a good, positive family dynamic, one in which they’re dealing with mistakes, sure, but for the most part, the family is healthy and intact. It’s nice to see first love blossoming, and to deal with Payton’s awkwardness. She’s not fat, she’s not anorexic, she’s smart but not nerdy: she’s just a good half-Latina girl who’s trying to adjust to the fact that her dad has MS, there’s nothing she can do about it, and by the way the boy who’s sat in front of her for years is actually really pretty cute. And nice. And fun.

Sweet without being cloying, a disease book without being issuey. Gotta love that.

Scones and Sensibility

6 Comments

by Linday Eland
ages: 10+
First sentence: “It was upon turning the last delicate page of my leather-bound copy of Pride and Prejudice that my transformation into a delicate lady of quality was complete.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Review copy sent to me for the Cybils (2010, I think.)

Polly is a twelve year old girl, with aspirations to live in the nineteenth century, stuck in the twenty first. She is also a bit of a budding matchmaker. And a lover of All Things Austin.

My thought process as I read this book went something like this:

“Oh, Polly’s talking like she’s in an Austin book. Though maybe it’s more like Anne Shirley. I loved Anne Shirley. Maybe this will be cute.”

(reads about 30 pages)

“Okay, this stilted dialogue out of a 12-year-old’s mouth, even one who’s going through an Anne Shirley phase sounds a bit, well, forced.”

(reads about 30 more pages)

“No, not forced. Dang annoying.”

(reads about 30 more pages)

“I wish Polly would just shut up now. And stop trying to set everyone else up. This is just like Emma but not nearly as well written.”

(reads about 2o more pages)

“GAH! She’s driving me INSANE! I quit.”

(Reads the end to figure out if what I thought would happen, happens. It does.)

The end.