In order to get your name in the pot for the finisher’s prizes, you have until Saturday, April 4th, midnight to get your finisher’s posts up — link to them in the comments of this post, or here or here, if you’re so inclined. Or, just leave a comment with the three books you’ve read. Drawings for the prizes will be held bright and early Sunday morning!
Author: booknutgirls
The Order of the Odd-Fish
by James Kennedy
ages: 12+
First sentence: “The desert was empty, as though a great drain had sucked the world underground.”
The jacket flap of this delightfully surreal book claims it’s “equal parts Monty Python and Roald Dahl,” which, to my mind, is no laughing matter: that’s some serious humor and oddity that they’re evoking. How could one not approach this book with incredibly high expectations?
Thankfully, Kennedy does not disappoint.
Jo was left in the washing machine of washed-up actress Lily Larouche’s desert palace when she was a baby. Left with her was this note: “This is Jo. Please take care of her. But beware. This is a dangerous baby.” Thirteen years later, Jo has shown no signs of dangerousness; in fact, with Aunt Lily’s heath (and sanity) waning, Jo’s pretty much taken over running the household. Until one Christmas Eve, when things go, well, wacky, and get infinitly more complicated. Jo meets Colonel Anatoly Korsakov and his sidekick Sefino, who just happens to be a 3 1/2 foot all talking cockroach, a black box drops out of the sky, addressed to, and she meets her nemisises (of sorts), Ken Kaing and The Belgian Prankster. They all (somehow) manage to make their way to Eldritch City, where Jo discovers that Lily, Korsakov and Jo’s parents were all part of The Order of the Odd-Fish, and that (just perhaps) Jo really is as dangerous as the note implies.
Actually, while I was in the middle of all the zany action and weirdness that was this book, the thought that popped into my mind was that it’s not so much a Monty Python-Roald Dahl hybrid as it is a weird love child of Douglas Adams and J.K. Rowling. Jo is Arthur Dent/Harry, Lily is Ford Prefect/Hagrid, there a group of friends that Jo meets once she gets to the Odd-Fish that could fill the roles of Ron and Hermione (as well as Ford andTrillian). There’s a couple of delightfully grumpy people who are dead on Marvins… you get the picture. Once I figured that out, though, it the book that much more enjoyable. (For me, once I’ve “pegged” the humor, I can sit back and let it roll over me… I’m weird that way, I guess.)
Laini Taylor, in her review, mentioned that this is the sort of thing that should be shared with someone, to elbow them at the right moments, or read a passage aloud to savor them. And I have to toally and completely agree. Thankfully, M had read this one first, and so I was able to do some of that. But, it’s also much like The Hitchhiker’s Guide in that it’s almost a lot more fun to talk about this book than it is to read it. (Additionally, hearing this book read aloud might be more condusive to the humor in it…) So, in the interest of sharing the laughs, I’ll leave you three of the passages where I actually laughed — hooted, snorted, guffawed — out loud:
Ken Kiang laughed diabolically! Then he stopped, disappointed: no, his laugh wasn’t quite diabolical. He made a mental note to practice his diabolical laughter for fifteen minutes a day. The devil, he knew, was in the details.
Jo threw up her hands. “This is ridiculous! You’re not even trying to be right?” At this rebuke Sir Oort halted, grew grave, and drew himself up; for a moment, he radiated a kind of majesty; then he spoke, in tones both severe and inspiring, and his awkward voice rang out like a bell. “As an Odd-Fish, it is not my job to be right,” said Sir Oort. “It is my job to be wrong in new and exciting ways.”
For the next one, you need the description of the character first: “Oona Looch was a mannish, square-jawed woman, about sixty years old, mammoth but not fat, a stout giant of muscle and bone. Her bald skull was gouged with scars, her nose and ears seemed nailed on, and her smile revealed she had no teeth at all.”
Okay. Now then:
“You disgust me, Fipnit!” shouted Oona Looch. “You don’t do anything for me as a woman. You don’t know how to treat a lady! One of these days, Fipnit, I’m gonnna sit on you! And then I’ll forget about you… Maybe a few weeks later I’ll pick you out of my behind and say, ‘Well! There’s Fipnit! So that’s where he went!’ Then I’ll throw you away. What a tragic end to a beautiful romance!”
“Meep,” said Fipnit.
Wacky, weird, zany, unusual, off-kilter, and, yes, odd. You shouldn’t miss it.
Library Loot #12
I told myself that I was only going to pick up the holds.
Ha.
For A/K:
The Baby in the Hat, Allan Ahlberg/Andre Amstutz
NO!, David McPhail
South, Patrick McDonnell
Giant Meatball, Robert Weinstock**
Little Lost Puppy, Linda Jennings/Alison Edgson**
Funny Farm, Mark Tegaue
Doctor Meow’s Big Emergency, Sam Lloyd**
Little Star (obligatory Dora book)
For C:
She’s still reading Gregor…
For M:
The Big Game of Everything, Chris Lynch
I am Rembrandt’s Daughter, Lynn Cutler
For M/me:
The Lucky Ones, Stephanie Greene*
Artichoke’s Heart, Suzanne Supplee*
Caddy Ever After, Hilary McKay*
For me:
Fire and Hemlock, Diana Wynne Jones
The roundup is either at Out of the Blue or A Striped Armchair.
*Ones that M eventually read.
**Picture books we really liked.
Well-Seasoned Reader Finsher’s Post
This is a sticky post; scroll down for newer posts.
Post a comment here with a link to your round-up post, or (failing that), the names of the three (or more) books you read. I’d like to know which one you enjoyed most. You have until March 31st, midnight (US Central time…) to finish. After which I’ll draw for the prizes.
There’ll be one grand prize winner… for any book under $20 at Powells.com. There will also be two runners up… for either delicious chocolates from Cero’s Candies, a local chocolatier, or some butter toffee mix nuts from the Nifty Nut House (they are truly divine). Winners’ choice.
Most of all, though, thanks to all for taking this journey with me and for making the dreary winter months pass much more quickly. My TBR list grew by leaps and bounds, and I discovered many lovely blogs by people who participated. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did!
Teaser Tuesday, March 31
From The Diary of Anne Frank, p. 89:
Koophiuis has a clandestine baby set at home that he will let us have to take the place of our big Phillips. It certainly is a shame to have to hand in our lovely set, but in a house where people are hiding, one daren’t, under any circumstances, take wanton risks and so draw the attention of the authorities.
The roundup is as Should Be Reading.
March Jacket Flap-a-thon
I am not coming up with anything witty to say as an introduction: I thought I’d read less because the weather was getting nicer, but I didn’t. I did, however, have the single highest number of posts in a month. (This one will be 48, Teaser Tuesday, which will go up soon will be 49. I should do one more to make it an even 50.) I suppose that should be an accomplishment. Either that, or it means I should be spending more time with my kids…
Graceling (Harcourt, Inc.): “In a world where people born with an extreme skill — called a Grace — are feared and exploited, Katsa carries the burden of a skill even she despises: the Grace of killing. She lives under the command of her uncle Randa, King of the Middluns, and is expected to execute his dirty work, punishing and torturing anyone who displeases him. When she first meets Prince Po, who is Graced with combat skills, Katsa has no hint of how her life is about to change. She never expects to become Po’s friend. She never expects to learn a new truth about her own Grace — or about a terrible secret that lies hidden far away… a secret that could destroy all seven kingdoms with words alone.”
One of the most difficult things to do when writing jacket flaps is to conceal a twist or a big revelation and yet not give a false sense of the book. This one does both admirably.
Bee Season (Doubleday): “Eliza Naumann has no reason to believe she is anything but ordinary, especially after her teachers place her in the class for slow learners. Her father, Saul, dotes on her older brother Aaron’s rabbinical ambitions. Her mother, Miriam, seems fully absorbed by her law career. When a spelling bee threatens to reaffirm her mediocrity, Eliza amazes everyone: she wins. Her new found gift garners an invitation not only to the national competition, but to her father’s sacred study where a new dictionary beckons, Jewish mysticism lurks in leather tomes, and language offers a spiritual awakening. Eliza’s unexpected success sends her off-kilter family into a tailspin, and Eliza comes to depend upon her own divination to hold the family together. With intense imagination and great emotional acuity, Bee Season evokes a child’s desperate longing for praise and acceptances and is a masterful portrayal of modern family life.”
This one did its purpose: it made me want to read the book. Too bad I liked the summary better than the book itself…
Speak (Farrar Straus Giroux): “From her first moment at Merryweather High, Melinda Sordino knows she’s an outcast. She busted an end-of-summer party by calling the cops — a major infraction of high-school society — so her old friends won’t talk to her, and people she doesn’t know glare at her. She retreats into her head, where the lies and hypocrisies of high school stand in stark relief to her own silence, making her all the more mute. But it’s not so comfortable in her head, either– there’s something banging around in there that she doesn’t want to think about. Try as she might to avoid it, it won’t go away, until there is a painful confrontation. Once that happens, she can’t be silent — she must speak the truth. In this powerful novel, an utterly believable, bitterly ironic heroine speaks for many a disenfranchised teenager while learning that, although it’s hard to speak up for yourself, keeping your mouth shut is worse.”
I liked the straightforwardness of this: it basically tells you what to expect, but there’s still a little sense of mystery that makes you want to find out what happens to Melinda.
Other books read this month:
Stop Me if You’ve Heard This One Before (Hyperion)
The Parliament of Blood (Bloomsbury)
Somewhere in Heaven (Hyperion)
To Catch a Mermaid (Little, Brown)
Permanent Rose (Margaret K. McElderry Books)
Life As We Knew It (Harcourt)
Just One Wish (G.P. Putnam Sons)
So Many Books, So Little Time (Berkley Trade)
Banker to the Poor (PublicAffairs)
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
Rosewater and Soda Bread (Random House)
The Death of Ivan Ilyich
Evernight (HarperTeen)
Flygirl (G.P. Putnam’s Sons)
Stealing Heaven (Harper Teen)
Ranger’s Apprentice: The Ruins of Gorlan (Puffin)
Ranger’s Apprentice: The Ruins of Gorlan
by John Flanagan
ages: 10+
First sentence: “Morgorath, Lord of the Mountains of Rain and Night, former Baron of Gorlan in the Kingdom of Araluen, looked over his bleak, rainswept domain and, for perhaps the thousandth time, cursed.”
After C and I abandoned our last book, we were fishing around for something to read next. M, being the promoter of All Books She Loves, began pushing for us to start the series. I admit that I had little interest in beginning it, even with the buzz it gets, and M’s high recommendation, but she piqued C’s interest, and so Ranger’s Apprentice it was.
Will is one of Baron Arald’s wards living in the Castle Redmont. He doesn’t quite fit in with his other wardmates — Horace, Alyss, Jenny and George: he’s the smallest, he’s the least sure of his future, and (probably most importantly), he doesn’t have any idea who his parents are. (The other ones, although they are orphans, have some knowledge of where they came from.) All Will is really good at is climbing, sneaking and pilfering… not exactly things that are conducive to one of the apprenticeships in the village.
So, when the wards turn 15, and are set to be apprenticed out to the various Craftmasters, Will has no idea where he belongs. That is, until a mysterious Ranger — the super seceret guardians of the Kingdom — decides that he wants an apprentice, and that Will is it.
The beginning of the book — the choosing and training of Will with his master Halt — is actually pretty slow. C would often complain that nothing was going on. Still, we both liked Flannagan’s writing, and his detailed descriptions. That, and the story would switch back and forth between Hoarce (whose training at the battle school was really quite torturous) and Will, which kept us entertained, even if C wanted to know what was going on with Alyss and Jenny. My complaint was that for a Middle Grade book, most of the action, decisions, and plot advancements were being done by someone other than Will or Halt, and I was starting to get in a snit about that. Why bother writing a children’s book where the children aren’t even the protagonists?
But, then, the action picked up. Granted, we had to wait until the final quarter of the book (but then, it’s the first in a series, so maybe the other books won’t be so slow in starting), but we both finally got our wishes (almost): the action picked up and Will did something major. (The only thing that we didn’t get was more on Alyss and Jenny…. but M assures us that they show up in later books.) It was very intense and exciting; we couldn’t wait to get to reading those nights.
And, we’re excited to move on to the next book, which says a whole lot. At least we won’t have to wonder what we’re reading next. For a while, at least.
OCOC Giveaway: All about Jane
Another three-fer this week, the theme is some sort of connection to Jane Austen…
Becky liked it, as did Bookfool. (And, to be completely honest, so did I.) You know you want a chance to read this, too.
The review that made me want the book, and the place where I won it from. Just passing along the love…
There’s another giveaway for this book; here’s another chance to enjoy a book with one of the best titles. (It’s a good book, too…)
Leave me a comment with which book you’d like to be entered in the drawing for (yes, it can be for one, two, or all three). Also, if you feel so inclined, with the name of a “sequel” or modernization or other book connected to Jane Austen that you’ve really liked. Like always, the drawing is open to both US/Canada and international readers, and we’ll pick a name out of the bowl Friday morning at 8 a.m., CDT.
Well-Seasoned Reader Challenge Roundup #12
I’ve decided, for the sake of continuity, to extend the deadline for the challenge to April 4th, so I can keep with my Sunday roundup posts. The final reviews, finishers, and winner(s) will be announced on Sunday, April 5th.
This week’s quote is by Ruth Reichl, because Amira reminded me how much I like her writing.
Every restaurant is a theater, and the truly great ones allow us to indulge in the fantasy that we are rich and powerful. When restaurants hold up their end of the bargain, they give us the illusion of being surrounded by servants intent on ensuring our happiness and offering extraordinary food. But even modest restaurants offer the opportunity to become someone else, at least for a little while. Restaurants free us from mundane reality; that is part of their charm. When you walk through the door, you are entering neutral territory where you are free to be whoever you choose for the duration of the meal.
This week’s finishers are: Llhen, Becky, Lucia, Lilly, Nicole, Beth, and Nise. Congrats!
And… reviews this week; go here to see them all:
Nicole finished off with Drink, Play, F@#k, by Andrew Gottleib. She writes, “If you read Eat, Pray, Love and didn’t like it (like me and a few of my friends) then this book is your answer. Without spelling it out for the reader, the author presumes to be the ex-husband of the woman in EPL and tells you of his post-divorce adventure.”
Amira‘s picked up her reading again… checking in with three more books: And There Was Light, by Jacques Lusseyran; Garlic and Sapphires, by Ruth Reichl; and Spice: Flavors of the Eastern Medditerranean, by Ana Sortun. Garlic and Sapphires was her favorite, hands down. She writes, “I loved everything about it, the stories, the food, the wit, what she learned, everything. What a great book.”
Lizzy read The Big Over Easy, by Jasper Fforde, and loved it. She writes, “So much more than a simple whodunnit, this is a piece of postmodern brilliance, imaginatively executed …. just like Humpty Dumpty.”
Happy reading!
Stealing Heaven
by Elizabeth Scott
ages: 14+
First sentence: “My first memory is staring through a window into a house that isn’t mine.”
Met Danielle. She’s eighteen, and she has been stealing things her whole life. Lest you think this is because she’s some miscreant (there’s some satisfaction that comes with using that word in a sentence), it’s because this is what her parents — first together, and now just her and her mom — do. They break into homes and steal things. And then leave.
The latest town that Danielle and her mom have targeted is Heaven, a resort town in New England (I’m sure it said where, but I never quite got it…). The idea is to set up shop for a couple of weeks, target a rich house, steal the silver, and get out. Except… Danielle’s tired of the lifestyle that her mother’s inflicted on her. She wants a house. A pet. A friend. The normal things life has. She doesn’t get the rush her mother does when she steals; she just feels sad, and lonely. Really lonely. And in Heaven, she meets a friend. And attracts the attention of a guy (who just happens to be cop), so what started out as a simple job, ends up being much, much more complicated.
I decided a while back that I needed to read some Elizabeth Scott; but there was no way I was going to read Living Dead Girl. (Sorry; powerful it may be, but I just can’t read books about kidnapping/abuse victims. Especially with daughters.) I randomly picked this one, just to wet my feet. And I’m glad I did.
Aside from the abusive mom (not physically, but she has Dani pretty emotionally dependent on her, and I was pretty furious with her for pretty much all of the book), I really liked this story. I loved Dani as a character, as someone who wanted more for her life than what her mother was giving her, or what her mother thought she needed. Yet, she had no idea how to go about getting it. Sure, it took a man — a friend, really — to help her figure that out, but it was the act of trusting him, believing him, and accepting that she was who he saw her to be, that was something I really enjoyed. I liked Dani’s internal conflicts with trying to please her mother and to not rock the boat, and to keep things the way it always had been and with the stretching, reaching, metamorphosis that happens when you need to reach out and try something new.
And Scott’s a good writer, which was something I expected from all the glowing reviews and fans she has out there. I was caught up in her storytelling, and found the characters to be vivid and believable. Sure, the situations may be a little fairytale-like, and the ending a tad melodramatic, but I didn’t mind. I liked the story, and I liked the journey. Which is really all that matters.
The Book Nut 