0 Book Review - Look for Me by Moonlight - 12 Feb 2011

Look for Me by Moonlight by Mary Downing Hahn

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Look for Me by Moonlight follows Cynda, as she moves in with her father and his new wife when her mother leaves for Italy with her new husband. Living in an old inn, the family is settling in for a quiet winter, when a tall, dark stranger comes to stay.

Yes, this is another teenage-girl-of-divorced-and/or-dead-parents-seeks-solace-in-the-arms-of-a-strange-lover kind of story (think Twilight and The Vampire Diaries), but the difference here is that the lover turns out to be truly evil and abusive. There’s none of the wussy jealousy and petty talk you see in other YA vamp novels, oh no no no, we’re talking real and intended cruelty and psychological abuse here.

Unfortunately, the cruelty and psychological abuse are the best parts of the book.

The rest is your typical YA fare - the heroine thinks she’s ugly and gangly and that no one understands her, she has few friends and is at war with her family - you know how it goes.

Given its dark beginnings and themes throughout, Look for Me by Moonlight really could have been something great.

It’s not.

You might as well jump on the bandwagon and read Twilight instead - at least then you’ll have something to discuss with other people.

View all my reviews

I chose Look for Me by Moonlight as my book for Read It 2011's February theme of Heart Reads.

2 Book Review - The Night Bookmobile - Sat 29 Jan 2011

The Night Bookmobile by Audrey Niffenegger

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


The Night Bookmobile is an interesting and imaginative graphic novel written and illustrated by Audrey Niffenegger (of The Time Traveler's Wife fame). It follows Alexandra, a girl who comes across the night bookmobile while wandering aimlessly one night and discovers that the collection is made up of every book she has ever read. When she discovers that the bookmobile is gone the following night, she begins a kind of journey to find it again.

The Night Bookmobile is a melancholic tale, but it is this melancholy that makes it so painfully beautiful. Like Niffenegger's Her Fearful Symmetry, there is a compelling sadness to this story and both books seem to have parallel themes of solitude and loneliness, that I feel I understand completely.

I enjoyed The Night Bookmobile much more than Her Fearful Symmetry - possibly because the plot moved at the right pace, and because I deeply understand Alexandra's love of books. Just like Alexandra, it is this love of books that lead me to become a Librarian - and just like her, I now know that the dream and the reality are often quite different. In this way, The Night Bookmobile reminds us to be careful about what we wish for - it's important to have dreams, of course, but they don't always turn out quite how you might imagine.

I would heartily recommend The Night Bookmobile to anyone - even if you don't like graphic novels - because it is a quick and easy read and is a comfortable step out of the ordinary.


View all my reviews

0 Time to Start Tweeting - Sat 1 Jan 2011

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Let's hope 2011 is a fabulous and exciting year for everyone!


Nothing is better at the beginning of a new year than setting yourself a few goals and challenges, and one "challenge" I have decided to get involved in is Read It 2011.


I discovered this through Swan Libraries on Twitter and think it's a great idea! Each month, a theme for reading is set, and everyone is encouraged to read a book in that vein and tweet about it on Twitter. Easy!


So why don't you join us and get reading and tweeting too!


The theme for January is "Scare up a good book". You can read more about it here. I'm not sure what book I'm going to read yet, but once I've decided, I'll be sure to mention it on Twitter.


You can follow me on Twitter by clicking the link on the top right hand side of my blog, or click this one here:

Happy reading!