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?

The Queen of Attolia

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I’ll try to do this without giving anything away from The Thief. Though it may be hard.

As befits the middle book in a trilogy, The Queen of Attolia is a long, dark book. It begins oh, so pleasantly with Gen getting a hand cut off in punishment. While the plot doesn’t exactly go down the proverbial hill from there, that one event sets the rest of the book in motion. You can surmise the mood for yourself.

While it’s a war book, a political book — and couldn’t be otherwise, since Attolia’s queen isn’t exactly the nicest person around — it’s also a growing story, a learning story, and even a love story.

It’s not as captivating as The Thief was (I would say I was just tired, but M — who’s read all these already… sigh — agrees with me), it has it’s delightful moments, lots of thrilling adventure, as well as expert manipulation (which I saw coming, but didn’t mind). And I really loved the love story. Thought that, while it wasn’t a beautiful, soaring one, it was honest and sweet.

Just like the characters I’ve come to love.

The Thief

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I have a problem with this book. More specifically, I have a problem with reviewing this book. The problem is that the ending of the book is so good, so perfect, so right, and so marvelous, and yet it’s so crucial that I not tell you what it is that I really have no idea what to write.

Gen is a thief. One that landed in the king’s prison, with no way out. Until the king’s magus — his highest advisor — decides that Gen is the person he needs, for only Gen can steal the item the magus wants. They’re off on an adventure of the highest proportions, full of daring deeds, grand myths, and wonderful wit.

I loved it, almost from page one (though it was probably more like page 7). Well-written, engaging — I even loved the stories of the gods, something I have a tendency to skip over — and winning. And, as I already said, one of the best endings I’ve read in a long time.

I can’t wait to see what happens to Gen next.

Update….

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So, I’ve had a weird day. We biked to get our free donuts, and after that I settled down to read. Got an hour or so in, and then a friend called offering to drive us (Hubby has the car) to go bowling… and the girls wouldn’t let me say no. So, I spent a good 2 hours at the bowling alley getting a headache from noise and second-hand smoke and putting out jealousy and insecurity fires and chasing a 2 year old all over the place. Sigh.

I did get a good three hours in this afternoon… finished The Thief. Excellent. We’re off to dinner and Shakespeare in the park… I’ll put up the review when I get back.

So. So far:
Read 4 hours 50 minutes
Finished 2 books
For a total of 463 pages.

Pathetic.

the mysterious edge of the heroic world

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There is something about E.L. Konigsburg’s writing that simultaneously entertains, enlightens, and even mildly annoys me. I enjoy her books, sometimes immensely– as in this case– but am usually left with a sense of not-quite-getting it, of not entirely being in on the joke.

I felt that way after finishing this book, but I’m not sure it mattered.

The basic story is about Amadeo — a precocious boy who is looking for friends and the chance to discover something that has been lost. He falls in with William, whose mother (Dora Ellen Wilcox) supervises estate sales, and ends up helping with the categorization when his next-door-neighbor, Mrs. Zender — former opera singer and diva supreme– decides that she needs to put the contents of her house up for sale. There ensues a mystery, a discovery, and a bonding.

Sounds pretentious, and in some ways it is. Yet, I liked the story a lot. Possibly because Konigsburg’s writing is so wonderful. A passage early on in the book:

Mrs. Zender swept her arm in the direction of the back of the house. The hallway was wide enough to allow them to walk side by side, but Mrs. Zender walked ahead. She was tall, and she was zaftig. Definitely zaftig. She was also majestic. She moved forward like a queen vessel plowing still waters. Her kimono corrugated as she moved. There as a thin stripe of purple that winked as it appeared and then disappeared in a fold of fabric at her waist.

And later — though taken out of context, it sounds like it could be from a self-help book:

Friendship is a combination of art and craft. The craft part is knowing how to give and how to take. The art part is knowing when, and the whole process only works when no one is keeping track.

The other reason I enjoyed this book so much, in spite of is precociousness, is because I really loved the precocious and mildly irritating characters. Especially Mrs. Zender. She was a hoot. A dignified, respectable hoot, but one nonetheless. From near the end:

“I haven’t read a book in years. Every now and then I read a review in a magazine at the beauty parlor, and sometimes I think I would enjoy reading an entire book, but I allow the thought to pass.”

How wonderful is that?

At the mysterious edge of the heroic world… pretty wonderful.

And I’m off!

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Nothing unforseen has happened (except maybe National Donut Day, which means I have to make a run to Krispy Kreme today to get donuts — FREE! — for the girls, but that shouldn’t take long… and the local Shakespeare company’s outdoor performance of Much Ado About Nothing, but I’m not missing that for the world), and so I get to spend as much as I possibly can of the next 48 hours reading.

Yay!

On my TBR pile:


I have no idea whether or not this is going to be too much or not enough — I guess we’ll just see how it goes.

Ever

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I think it was over at Bookfoolery and Babble (but it may have been somewhere else…) where I saw someone comment that the first Levine book you read is the one you like best. I thought about that a lot while I read this story.

It has all the hallmarks of a good fairy tale — mortal girl, Kezi, who is inadvertently sentenced to death to avoid the wrath of the god she worships (her father made an oath, and she ended up fulfilling the oath to save her aunt’s life…). And then there’s the uber-handsome (well, if you believe the cover) Akkan god of the wind Olus, who is not only intrigued by mortals, but longs to be friends with them. It’s inevitable that they will fall in love. But it’s not exactly a comfortable love: one of them will live forever, the other is doomed to be sacrificed in less than 30 days. So, they do what all star-crossed lovers do: look for the loophole.

There’s a good story there. And I enjoyed much of it. I think, though, what I enjoyed most was the questions of love, faith and doubt that the book raised. In that respect, it was very challenging, especially to someone who has a belief in religion. I thought Kezi’s doubt was very real, especially when confronted with someone like Olus, a god who is a real, physical being, unlike the god Kezi’s always believed in. I wasn’t sure what Levine was trying to “say” about religion, if anything, but the journey fascinated me.

That said, while it was enjoyable, it wasn’t, well, as good as the first Levine I read (or even the second or third). I thought it lacked the character development and romance found in Ella Enchanted, the humor found in the short Princess Tales, the “good message” of Fairest, the compelling heroines in Two Princesses of Bamarre.

Any Levine book is going to be a good book. She’s a good writer, and tells good fairy tales. It just so happens that this one is, perhaps, the fourth best one I’ve read. Maybe it’s because I read all the others first.

I’m Told it’s a Good Problem to Have

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I have parents telling me that ALL the time. Where they can’t get their kids to read…. I can’t keep M in books. I check out 10-15 a week, and that doesn’t even last. I try to keep up with all the recommended books that bloggers read, but I am losing the ability to keep track of which ones I want to read and which ones M would want to read (though honestly, they’re often the same thing), putting holds on things as I see them. When that doesn’t work, we scrounge the shelves looking for things that sound interesting, and while we generally find good ones, sometimes we come up short.

Like today.

So I decided to turn to you, dear readers, who read so much more than I do: what should M read??

Let me tell you a bit about her. She’s a precocious reader, reading at a 10th grade level. However, she’s not quite 12, so obviously there’s some things I’d rather her not experience (though I admit that’s just me…) — though I admit that it’s hard to judge what’s “acceptable” or not…. Anyway. She tends toward fantasy (she loves Eragon, Percy Jackson, Harry Potter, Bartimaeus, the Magik series, and so on), but she also likes well-written historical fiction and contemporary fiction. In short, she’ll read just about anything. She’s not read much non-fiction, but I’m not sure if that’s because I don’t really know what’s out there or because she doesn’t want to read it. She’s also a bit sketchy on the classics… I think that’s because she’s not that interested. But I suppose if there was a really good novel she’d like it no matter when it was written, right?

Also, if you had this problem (which is a lot harder than many well-meaning people think it is), where else (besides blogs) would you go to find lists of books recommended for 7th-10th graders??

Please help me!!! (Thanks a million!)

Swordspoint

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I have mixed feelings about this one. I’ve been a fan of Ellen Kushner’s Sound and Spirit for years now, and I had high hopes that I’d enjoy her written work as much as I enjoy her PRI program. And I did enjoy this book for the most part, but it fell short in the end.

I won’t — because it’s just not possible — go into the plot here. I tried to come up with a neat and tidy summary, and I just can’t. There’s so many characters — one of the flaws for me; I just couldn’t keep everyone straight — and there’s so much going on. That’s actually one of the things that appealed to me. I liked that this book was a long and involved chess game, people maneuvering other people around to their advantage; characters falling into (and sometimes out of) traps delicately laid for them. I liked the intrigue — there’s one character that you’re left in suspense of for a good portion of the book: who was he, how did he end up where he did, why does he have a death wish? — and the action was well-written. Actually, that’s one thing I can say I really enjoyed: Kusher’s as good a writer as I hoped: descriptive, but not too flowery (well, mostly), and she sketches out characters and situations that were interesting and fun to read.

But….

She fell short with the end. I’m not sure it could have ended any other way, but I felt as if I were watching a game of chess, and then at the end, everyone got up and said “Oh wait! It’s Parcheesi, not chess, that we’re playing.” I was left with a big Huh. Too many threads that she wove were left hanging, and the ending was much too pat for what had been set up during the course of the novel. If only… I don’t know what. I do know that there were several short stories set in the world (which reminds me: this is only fantasy because it’s not historical or contemporary fiction; it has very few of the hallmarks of what I usually consider Fantasy…) and I tried to read them. And either Kushner isn’t a great short-story writer (which she readily admits), or I just wasn’t all that interested in the end.

I’m still trying to make up my mind whether or not to venture into the other two books. Maybe I’ll like them better… or maybe they’ll end up with the same flaws that doomed this one. But then, I won’t know until I read them, will I?

The Sisters Grimm: Magic and Other Misdemeanors

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First thing: that’s a terrible reproduction of a pretty good cover. Sorry.

I’ve been slowly reading this series to C, and while I thought the idea was original and interesting in the beginning, my interest has waned over the last three books. The fourth one kind of perked it up, but I admit I wasn’t more interested in the story than I actually needed to be in order to read to C.

All that changed with this one, though.

This time, I found myself interested enough in the story to want to read ahead (and did, much to C’s chagrin). It’ s not because Buckley’s writing has changed — he’s still an overly long-winded writer, including scenes that really don’t have a whole heck of a lot to do with the plot (but for some reason M and C really enjoy) — but rather because this time there was an interesting enough story.

Prince Charming’s lost the mayoral election and the new mayor, Mayor Heart (as in Queen of Hearts) has decided to tax the humans out of town. On top of that, magical items around the town — specifically the Wand of Merlin, the Wonder Clock and water from the Fountain of Youth — are disappearing. And to make things more challenging, rips in the fabric of time are occurring randomly, spending people, animals, and even the Grimm sisters forward and backward through time. And then, of course, there’s still the pesky little Scarlet Hand problem, in addition to trying to figure out how to wake up their parents.

The things I liked: Charming was a winner in this book. He’s been annoying throughout the series, but I really liked him here. Not only does he prove to be a decent fellow, but a good action hero on top of that. I liked the future sequences, too… Daphne and Sabrina meet their older selves, which makes for some interesting situations.

Things I didn’t like: The end. Doesn’t Buckley know how to wrap up a book?! The one thing I hate the most is a book that ends with “to be continued…” Don’t slip in a cliff-hanger (and this one’s a doozy) two pages before the end of the book. Sure, it’ll get people to buy the next one, but it’s bad form.

I’ve just discovered that our library has the sixth one, so I get to read that one to C. Though I really liked this one, I still find myself asking: When will this ever end? That’s probably not a good sign. Even so, C adores them, talks about them, and wants to keep going, so we will…

Persepolis

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I picked this up yesterday with the desire to read something quick, easy and light. I got the first two with these graphic novels by Marjane Satrapi, but light… well, let’s just say I was in a dark mood, and this didn’t do much to lighten it up. It’s a starkly drawn graphic novel, different from anything I’ve read before, literally in black and white without much variation. And it’s not like the subject matter — Satrapi’s childhood in Iran, exile (of sorts) in Europe, and return to Iran — was exactly a cheerful one.

Persepolis is the story of Satrapi’s childhood in Iran, during the revolution. I’ve heard her story before — not as told by her, but as told by others; it seems that this story (of an upper-middle-class, fairly liberal woman) is one that gets told a lot. Probably because these are the sorts of people that got out of Iran, and are able to tell the stories. Not that it wasn’t interesting; it was. I thought Satrapi portrayed her childhood as, while not idyllic, charmed. At the very least, she was charming. (I loved that she wanted to be a prophet when she grew up. Very cute.) When Hubby was talking to me about the book, and asked why she left, for me it boiled down to personality: it’s not that she couldn’t have made a go — her parents did, after all — but her personality was too forceful for the regime and she was unwilling (and her parents were unwilling to make her) change. So, she went to Vienna for school.

Which brings us to Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return. Of the two, I was more affected by this one, because this is a story that I haven’t read before. I was moved by her esperiences in Vienna — as a teenager alone in an unknown city, as an immigrant in a European town, as a person who’s trying to not only find her identity but come to terms with her nationality. In a lot of ways, she was at a disadvantage: her parents weren’t there to guide her, she had problems making friends, her aforementioned personality was a hindrance as much as it was an asset. I thought Satrapi portrayed isolation and loneliness and need incredibly well. After four years in Vienna, Satrapi decides to return back to Iran, and we have another set of adjustments. After four years of living in Europe, to come home to the Islamic regime of Iran was not only a shock and adjustment, it did nothing to alleviate her loneliness and identity crisis. Again, we have another period of adjustment, where mistakes are made — including a doomed marriage — and it’s not until the very end where Satrapi leaves again, that she finds her sense of balance between who she is and what everyone — parents, friends, the state, the world — expects of her.

My favorite little bit — it’s just two frames — was the same one that Sarah quoted:

“The regime had understood that one person leaving her house while asking herself: ‘Are my trousers long enough? Is my veil in place? Can my make-up be seen? Are they going to whip me?’ no longer asks herself: ‘Where is my freedom of thought? Were is my freedom of speech? My life, is it livable? What’s going on in the political prisons?’

It’s only natural! When we’re afraid, we lose all sense of analysis and reflection. Our fear paralyzes us. Besides, fear has always been the driving force behind all dictators’ repression.”

Satrapi hit the nail on the head there. And I think that’s what I liked most about it. At one point, Satrapi is praised by a member of the committee for her honesty (which is how she got into art school), and I think fundamentally that’s what is most appealing about these books: Satrapi holds nothing back. She’s honest about everything — good and bad, ups and downs — which makes these, while difficult to read at times, very intense and intriguing.