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?

More Memes…

1 Comment

Perhaps I should go for a meme week? This one I found over at Bookworm:

What kind of a book are you most comfortable reading?

Fantasy, probably. Specifically, young adult fantasy novels. I have a real soft spot for princesses. Especially ones with sweet love stories and happily-ever-afters. (Swoon.)

What kind of a book do you love to hate?

Pot boilers. Self-help novels. Especially ones that are masquerading as self-help novels. Many Oprah reads. I’m terribly suspicious of bestseller lists…

What was the last book you surprised yourself by liking?

Suite Francaise. It’s not that I thought I’d dislike it, but more that I didn’t have any expectations for it. And I loved the book.

What was the last book you surprised yourself by disliking?

The Book Thief. I thought I would like it. YA, rave reviews from bloggers I respect. I thought it was a shoo-in for sure. But it kind of feel, well, flat.

What would be the worst book to be marooned on a desert island with?

Any Berenstain Bears book. Especially if one of my girls were with me and I was forced to read it out loud five times every night. (Oh, wait…)

What book would you take with you if you suspected you might be marooned in the near future?

I should be practical and have something useful, but I’d probably grab Lord of the Rings or a couple of Robin McKinley books (or even a Harry Potter), just for some light reading.

What forces you to read outside your comfort zone?

Challenges, book groups, and bloggers who write wonderful reviews. I would still be wandering the stacks at the library wondering what’s good if it weren’t for all of you… 🙂

Love, Stargirl

4 Comments

I read Stargirl a while back (pre-blog; the review of it is exactly one sentence long), and remember really liking it. I think what I really liked was Stargirl herself; I remember liking her individuality, her fearlessness in the face of peer pressure. However, it’s been years since I read this, and that was a bit of a mistake in picking this one up. It picks up right after Stargirl ends, and if you don’t remember the end of that one, you’ll be a bit lost in this one. At least for a little while.

It’s not that reading the first is crucial to enjoying Love, Stargirl; it’s not. I enjoyed it. But I did feel like I wasn’t enjoying it as much as I could have, had I read Stargirl more recently.

The book follows Stargirl for a year, presumably, the year following her and Leo’s falling out. She’s moved to Pennsylvania, and she’s back to being homeschooled. It’s written in diary form — the world’s longest letter to Leo — and it follows her daily life with her quirky friends. There’s the boisterous five-year-old, Dootsie; the angry and aggressive 11-year-old, Alvina; Betty Lou, who hasn’t left her house in nine years; Charlie, who spends his days at the gravesite of his dead wife; Arnold, who’s one sentence is “Are you looking for me?”; and last, but not least, Perry. Perry may (or may not be) interested in Stargirl. For herself. But he’s got issues — a deadbeat dad, a stealing habit, and a harem — and Stargirl’s not sure whether or not she’s interested in him. Or in love, since her heart’s still broken because of Leo.

I had different expectations for this book — it’s a cute, sweet little book, but I wanted it to soar. I wanted a different resolution than I got (though the one I got was satisfying in its own way). There were fun antics, but Stargirl wasn’t the strong, independent, trend-bucking person I remembered. Perhaps she wasn’t meant to be — Leo did shake her foundation (at least I gathered that) — but I missed the free-flowing, uniqueness of Stargirl.

I wanted to like this one a whole lot more than I did. Which is too bad. Because I really liked my memory of Stargirl.

I’m Feeling Meme-y

8 Comments

I’ve seen this one around for a while, and toyed with the thought of doing it, but something always got in the way. Today, though, things aligned so that I could spend an hour picking just the right photos. Enjoy.


1. What is your first name? Melissa

2. What is your favorite food? Pulled pork sandwiches, Memphis-style

3. What high school did you go to? Saline High School

4. What is your favorite color? Yellow. Today at least.

5. Who is your celebrity crush? Colin Firth. (Yeah, me and every other woman in the country…) Technically, I like all dark-haired men with accents, but that covers a whole lot of people. He was just the first.

6. What is your favorite drink? Water. (I’m boring.)

7. What is your dream vacation? Someplace in Ireland or England.

8. What is your favorite dessert? Cake. Doesn’t matter what kind. (Except carrot, maybe.)

9. What did you want to be when you grow up? Sports reporter

10. What do you love most in life? Family

11. What is one word that describes you? Good-hearted

12. What is your flickr name? The Fox Girls

Photo credits:
1. Thirsty Bee!, 2. Pulled Pork Sandwich, 3. Saline High School (Saline, Michigan), 4. Yellow Beauty, 5. Colin Firth revisited, 6. Tall Drink of Water, 7. The Four Courts, 8. One Chocolate Wedding Cake, 9. In the Press Box, 10. The Finger Family, 11. Good Hearted Woman, 12. The kids are alright….

Instructions, if you’d like to do this yourself:
1. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.

2. Using only the first page of results, and pick one image. [I did allow myself to choose between the first pages of the three search options: most relevant, most recent, and most interesting (I think most interesting is the default search]

3. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into Big Huge Lab’s Mosaic Maker to create a mosaic of the picture answers.

A Quirky Meme (and a Bloggy Thank You)

5 Comments

Becky tagged me for the six quirks meme. I swear I’ve done this one before, but Blogger (which does not lie) syas that I haven’t, and since I started no less than three books yesterday, not finishing any, I figured what the heck. Why not. You really want to know more weird stuff about me. Right?

Rules:
1. Link the person(s) who tagged you
2. Mention the rules on your blog
3. Tell about 6 unspectacular quirks of yours
4. Tag 6 fellow bloggers by linking them
5. Leave a comment on each of the tagged blogger’s blogs letting them know they’ve been tagged

1. I cannot read more than one book at a time. It’s not just that I prefer to read one book at a time (which I do), or even that I don’t want to read more than one book. It’s that I’m unable to read more than one book at a time. I’ve tried… and I just can’t. I’m compelled to finish the book I’ve started. Unless it’s really bad. But it has to be REALLY bad.

2. I’m genetically predisposed to have a clean house. People come and admire my house, and ask why it’s so clean, and I can’t come up with anything more than I have to have a clean house because I’m genetically driven to do so. (You should see my grandmother’s house…) Except my pj/sock drawer. That’s really messy.

3. In addition to having a clean house, I’m a compulsive redecorator. This used to involve Hubby pushing around furniture about every 3 or 4 months, but mostly now involves me daydreaming about paint and buying knick-knacks, art, and bedding. Most recently, I redecorated two out of the three girls rooms (one room has two girls), though they’re not “finished”. Incidentally, M has inherited this; she’s rearranged the furniture in her bedroom at least a dozen times in the two years we’ve lived in this house.

4. I get ready for bed in exactly the same way every night. (Take out contacts, wash face, brush teeth, brush hair, put on pjs. Always in that order.) I don’t know if my husband’s noticed this, but several roommates of mine in college commented on it… additionally, I can’t sleep if I don’t have pjs, on. And it can’t be a nightgown either. It has to be pants.

5. I have a fear of heights. Mostly open, but all heights, especially if there are big windows. I freak out when going up the Space Needle, or the Arch (in St. Louis), or even a tall building. I stand in the dead center away from all windows, freaking out that my kids are going to fall to their deaths (not to mention myself). In spite of this, I still get talked into doing that kind of stuff with my family.

6. I’m really mostly normal. How terrible. Sorry.

I would like to know weird stuff about (six people I’ve never tagged before): 3M, softdrink, Em, Sarah, Trish, and Susan.

In other passing-along-news, softdrink has bestowed the Blogging Excellence award on me because I hosted a challenge way back in the winter. Wow. 🙂 (I’ve been playing around with hosting another one, but I think I’ll wait until 2009…) Thanks so much!!

Passing it along:

…all my Nook friends are most excellent for not only challenging me with our reading selections, making me defend and stretch myself, but also because they’re awesome women (and man — I haven’t forgotten you, Kari).

… I’d give it to the entire kidlit community if I could, since they’re a bunch of awesome bloggers with fabulous taste, but I’ll give it to a couple of the newbies: Abby (the) Librarian and Shelf Elf. Thank you so much for your book recommendations. I haven’t been steered wrong by them yet.

… and anyone out there (reading this right now) who hasn’t gotten it. You’re awesome, too. 🙂

The Host

12 Comments

This book has been getting mixed reviews on the book blogs — some people love it, others not so much. I have to admit that I didn’t have much interest in it, aside from reading the jacket flap at the bookstore once. But a friend offered to loan me her copy and I figured if I didn’t have to buy it or wait in a hold line for it, I’d read it.

It sat on my nightstand for two months, until Becky decided to use it as her book for her book group this month. I figured this was my reason for actually getting it read (and getting it back to my friend!). I started it, then about 14 chapters in, I realized I had other books due at the library, so I put this one down and read three other books. And I didn’t miss it. I finally picked it back up a few days ago and have been reading it in snatches ever since. I wasn’t gripped by it — not like Twilight, anyway — and it wasn’t until the last 150 or so pages that I actually really liked the book.

The plot is really convoluted to explain (I tried explaining it to Hubby, but it took a long time and a lot of questions for him to ever make sense of it). From the start, I felt like it was a Star Trek rip-off, and thanks to Natasha at Maw Books, I relized that was because Star Trek: The Next Generation actually did an episode fairly similar this. (I even remember watching that episode.) It also has Invasion of the Body Snatcher overtones, as well as other space drama influences. Given that the story itself is not original, the perspective of the book is: the main character is the alien, Wanderer (I hate the nickname they gave her: Wanda. Bleh.), and the events are from her point of view. Like Twilight, the innovation in Meyer’s work isn’t the plot or the characterization, but rather the method of telling the story. We’re made to sympathize (and sympathize I did… I really liked Wanderer) with what is supposed to be the enemy.

As for the whole “science fiction for those who don’t like science fiction”: this is no more science fiction than, well, Star Trek: TNG, which is more space drama than anything. (For back up here, go read Julie’s post on science fiction movies…. I really need to go see Wall-E.) This isn’t science fiction. Not by a long shot. More… paranormal romance. But then, the romance isn’t really romantic (sweet, nice, interesting, but lacking in, well, romance). More like paranormal contemporary drama with a bit of kissing thrown in. (But, as a publisher, how do you market something like that? Then again, it’s Stephenie Meyer. Her name has probably sold a lot on it’s own.) That didn’t bother me; I didn’t expect much else from Meyer. (Definately not science fiction.) I did like the relationships, though — not so much Jared and Melanie, but the other ones. I liked the relationship Wanderer had with her “host” (even though she wasn’t supposed to have one); I liked the people she met once she got to the caves, and the conflict there. But, I felt like she took too long getting where she needed to go; the pacing was very uneven. This book is a huge rock that takes a really long time to get going, but once it gets going it rolls pretty fast. Except it plateaued for me about two-thirds of the way through, and didn’t pick up again until the very end.

Still, I have to admit that Meyer has branched out (some — I think she’s still writing basically the same story, just a different setting) and is trying to broaden her base. I have to give her credit for that.

Geeky Magazine Meme

1 Comment

I haven’t geeked in a few weeks, and I figure I’m past due. That, and this week’s geek is something right up my alley:

This week’s Weekly Geeks theme is to talk about the magazines we read. In order to get you started, I prepared a little magazines meme, but feel free to take it further if you want. I also think it’d be great if you displayed images of the covers of your favorite magazines.

I like magazines, but I don’t do book magazines, preferring to get my book recommendations from less lofty sources. I’ll read a magazine about just about everything else. We used to have more subscriptions (to Atlantic Monthly, Smithsonian, and National Geographic among others, including Time which we let lapse because we read it on-line now) but we’ve cut back in recent years. So… the four magazines that I read (not counting the kids magazines or the gossipy Hollywood magazines I do buy on occasion when there’s some good movie news):

Name of magazine: Better Homes and Gardens

Do you subscribe or just buy it now and then? I subscribe. I ended up with the subscription when a girl came around selling subscriptions for points so she could earn a trip to wherever, and dumped on me a sob story about being knocked up by her boyfriend who then dumped her which is why she was out selling magazines. I couldn’t find a polite way to say no. (That’s kind of how I ended up with Smithsonian… MADD called with a magazine drive, and I tried to think of an obscure magazine that I actually wanted to read, hoping they wouldn’t have it, but dang it, they did.)

What’s your favorite regular feature in the magazine? Um… I don’t know. They have started doing this paint thing, where they pick a color and then do all sorts of shades in that color.

What do you think your interest in this magazine says about you? That I have a home and I like to decorate?? Either that, or I’m a sucker who can’t say no.

How long have you been reading this magazine? On and off my whole marriage, so 15 years.

Is there any unique or quirky aspect to the magazine that keeps you reading? Not really… in fact, I’m letting my subscription lapse because I get too many ideas and then I get depressed because I don’t have the money to do all the things I think of. Better not to get the ideas in the first place.

Name of magazine: Family Fun

Do you subscribe or just buy it now and then? Subscribe.

What’s your favorite regular feature in the magazine? I like the crafts, I like the family traditions that they spotlight, I like the recipes.

What do you think your interest in this magazine says about you? I have kids and I like to have fun with them.

How long have you been reading this magazine? I first noticed it when M was little, but I didn’t start subscribing until 5 or 6 years ago.

Is there any unique or quirky aspect to the magazine that keeps you reading? It’s really heavily Disney- and big-money-vacation oriented, which bugs me to a certain extent. But they really do have fun craft ideas.

Name of magazine: Bon Appetit

Do you subscribe or just buy it now and then? I subscribe. It was a gift from my parents. (I chose it over Gourmet, but I have to admit, it was an arbitrary choice…)

What’s your favorite regular feature in the magazine? I haven’t been reading it long enough to really have a favorite. I do like the pictures of food, though… they have some good photographers working for them.

What do you think your interest in this magazine says about you? That I like to eat. Good food, especially. 🙂

How long have you been reading this magazine? I think my subscription started in April. Or maybe May. Either way, not long.

Is there any unique or quirky aspect to the magazine that keeps you reading? I don’t know if I’ll keep this one up after my gift subscription runs out. I do like looking at the food, and there have been some helpful cooking tips, but I’m thinking it’s a bit too high end for my family.

Name of magazine: Ensign

Do you subscribe or just buy it now and then? I subscribe.

What’s your favorite regular feature in the magazine? It’s a magazine for the members of my church, and so it’s mostly doctrinal and inspirational articles. One of the things I do like, though, are the stories — of miracles, conversions and experiences — sent in by members around the world.

What do you think your interest in this magazine says about you? That I’m a good Mormon. 🙂

How long have you been reading this magazine? 15 years. But I’ve been reading the church magazines (they have ones for kids and teens) my whole life.

Is there any unique or quirky aspect to the magazine that keeps you reading? Not really. I read it because I should, but also because it helps my faith, and it gives me ideas and courage and strength to keep going every day. (Granted, I usually only read it on Sundays, but better once a week then never. Right?)

The Juliet Club

4 Comments

It seems that I’m having a books-recommended-by-Leila week….

Kate is: Organized. Smart. Determined. Rational.
Kate has: recently been dumped by her boyfriend. And been accepted to the first-ever Shakespeare Seminar in Vernoa, Italy.
Kate needs: to fall in love again. Most likely with a dark-haired man with a foreign accent. (They’re the best kind, after all.)
Kate thinks: that love is stupid. And that she can avoid it. (HA!)

Giacomo is: Dark Haired. Italian. Impetuous. A Flirt. A Heartbreaker.
Giacomo has: recently dumped his girlfriend. And is forced to attend the first-ever Shakespeare Seminar, since his mother is the one who organized it.
Giacomo needs: to fall in love. Most likely with a stubborn American who turns out to be irresistible.
Giacomo thinks: that Americans, this Shakespeare Seminar and everything else is stupid. And that he’ll manage to flirt with everyone and never fall in love. (HA!)

My rational, critical brain thought the whole time I was reading this book: “These are stereotypical characters, doing predictable romantic plot things, without much emotion, and without much suspense or innovation.” My non-rational, romance-loving, July-fluff brain thought the whole time I was reading this book: “I LOVE this! This is so TOTALLY perfect! YAY for Kate and Giacomo — GREAT chemistry by the way — and everyone else. Love RULES!”

The July-fluff side won. I loved this book.

Because I like Lists

10 Comments

And because I’m much better read on this one. Found at Sarah Miller’s.

According to The Big Read, the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books on this list.

The instructions:
Look at the list and:
Bold those you have read.
Italicize those you intend to read.
Underline the books you LOVE.

1. Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
2. The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien
3. Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
4. Harry Potter series – JK Rowling
5. To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
6. The Bible
7. Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
8. 1984 – George Orwell
9. His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman
10. Great Expectations – Charles Dickens

11. Little Women – Louisa M Alcott
12. Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
13. Catch 22 – Joseph Heller
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare
15. Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier
16. The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien
17. Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks
18. Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger
19. The Time Traveller’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
20. Middlemarch – George Eliot

21. Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald
23. Bleak House – Charles Dickens
24. War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy (maybe someday….)
25. The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
26. Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
29. Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
30. The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame

31. Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
32. David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
33. Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis
34. Emma – Jane Austen
35. Persuasion – Jane Austen
36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis (Why is this one here? It’s part of the Chronicles of Narnia, right?)
37. The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
38. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Bernieres
39. Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
40. Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne

41. Animal Farm – George Orwell
42. The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown (Why is this on these sorts of lists?? I don’t get it.)
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving
45. The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
46. Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery
47. Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
48. The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
49. Lord of the Flies – William Golding
50. Atonement – Ian McEwan

51. Life of Pi – Yann Martel
52. Dune – Frank Herbert
53. Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
54. Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
55. A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
56. The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57. A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
58. Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon
60. Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez

61. Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
62. Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
63. The Secret History – Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold
65. Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
66. On The Road – Jack Kerouac
67. Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
68. Bridget Jones’ Diary – Helen Fielding
69. Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
70. Moby Dick – Herman Melville

71. Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
72. Dracula – Bram Stoker
73. The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett
74. Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson (A Walk in the Woods is better!)
75. Ulysses – James Joyce
76. The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
77. Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal – Emile Zola
79. Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
80. Possession – AS Byatt

81. A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
82. Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
83. The Color Purple – Alice Walker
84. The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
85. Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
86. A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
87. Charlotte’s Web – EB White
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom (Blech.)
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Though I like the Jeremy Brett series better.)
90. The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton

91. Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
92.The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93. The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
94. Watership Down – Richard Adams
95. A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
96. A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas
98. Hamlet – William Shakespeare (Again, it’s a double posting. Isn’t it covered in “complete works of Shakespeare”?)
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl
100. Les Miserables – Victor Hugo

I’ve read 47; that’s nearly half. I’m quite proud of myself. 🙂

The Exiles in Love

1 Comment

It’s not very often that I like the sequel better than the original, but I have to say that enjoyed The Exiles in Love so much more than I did The Exiles. I didn’t need the tissue at the end, like the blurb from Horn Book said I would, but I did laugh, quite a bit (and manage to pick up on the satire this time!), at the escapades of the Conroy sisters.

The girls — most of them, anyway — are in love. Ruth is in love with no less than four men/boys: the bus driver, the Temporary English teacher, Alan Adair (the butcher’s son), and Philippe, the grandson of Big Grandma’s French friend who comes to say with the Conroys for a few weeks. Naomi and Rachel, in comparison, are only in love with one each: the Temporary English teacher for Naomi, and Phillipe for Rachel. (Though Rachel is very level-headed about it all, asking Philippe to marry her the second he walks into the house.) Phoebe, on the other hand, is mildly disgusted by this business with the “family failing” (aka, falling in love), preferring to devote herself to John le Carre, and becoming an international spy. To cure the girls of their failing, Big Grandma proposes an escapade to France, staying in a cottage on the property of her friend, and the girls manage to have a few adventures, as well as manage to fall out of love. All is well, of course, in the end.

I loved the trip to France. Having spent a summer in Germany, without knowing German, I completely empathized with the girl’s frustrations and insecurities about being in France. The part where they went shopping in the villa had me in tears, I was laughing so hard. And I thought they were all very cute and sweet and silly about falling in love… Ruth especially was good at pining. And I did catch this time around that McKay was satirizing parents who expect perfection from their kids. Mrs. Conroy is always moaning that her girls aren’t normal little girls, that they read too much, and aren’t normal enough, and get much too dirty for their own good. And when Rachel goes up for May Queen at her school, finally, Mrs. Conroy thinks, she’s acting like a “normal little girl”. Puh-lease. (Maybe I just needed the satire spelled out more blatantly; it was there in the first book, but I just found it annoying there. Here, I was amused by it.)

The book was told in flashbacks by Naomi and Ruth, each chapter beginning with a little conversation between the two of them. At first, I found that annoying, but eventually, it grew on me. And I have to admit, I did like the ending.

But the absolute best thing, the only thing I really marked because I liked it so much, was this quote, when they’re in France:

“And speaking of food,” said Big Grandma, “we’d better make a list. You girls will have to go shopping after breakfast.”
“Aren’t you coming?”
“With my ankle?” [she twisted it at the beginning of their vacation, and spent the week lounging in the orchards]
“What will you do then?”
“I shall sit quietly in the orchard with A Tale of Two Cities. I always enjoy books much more when I read them on location.”

Indeed.