0 True Grit - Read it! - Wed 20 July 2011

True Grit by Charles Portis

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Most enjoyable - I love Mattie's forward manner and take-no-nonsense attitude. This book even brought a tear to my eye towards the end. Highly recommended.



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4 To read or not to read - Wed 23 Mar 2011

If you couldn't already tell, I love to read. And while I might not be a particularly fast reader, I would definitely say I'm enthusiastic. 


However.


I have recently found myself, I hate to say, putting off and avoiding reading! Argh! 


The main cause for this literary lapse, is this - I am currently reading a Book Club book which I simply cannot seem to get excited about. Now, I understand that not all books can be exciting, or amazing or mind-blowingly stupendous. In reality, very few of the books I actually do enjoy reading are any of these things anyway. 


But a book must be compelling. It must make the reader want to keep going back to it, to make the reader think about the story and what might happen next even when they're off doing something completely different. 


For me, our Book Club book just doesn't have that compelling quality and I'm now worried that I may not even get it read before our next meeting (still two weeks away!). 


I'm really not sure what to do because the very reason I joined the Book Club was to make me read books I might not otherwise check out - to go that little bit beyond my sometimes narrow reading-comfort-zone and discover something new. But it's really such a struggle that it makes me feel exhausted!


To make matters worse, because I am feeling guilty about not reading the assigned book, I'm not reading anything at all! And I miss it desperately :( 


All my whining leads me to the main point of this post - Is it wrong to just give up and move on to reading something I think I'll enjoy? And if I do, what am I supposed to say at my Book Club meeting? Should I force myself to read the book in these precious few moments I have on this Earth, when really I'd rather be reading something else? Or should I just suck it up? I mean who knows - the last 400 pages might be better ...


Please post your suggestions and help me with this quandary!

1 Book Review - The Graveyard Book - Sun 13 Mar 2011

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


After hearing many a soul wax lyrical on the fabulous imagination of Neil Gaiman, I found myself drawn towards The Graveyard Book, figuring it would be an easy way to acquaint myself with his particular form of “brilliance”.

I was sadly mistaken.

The Graveyard Book is kind of like trying to stop a dog from eating crap - basically a good idea, but ultimately useless.

It follows Bod, a young boy who, after witnessing the murder of his parents in the first chapter (the highlight of the book), ends up living in a graveyard and being raised by it’s inhabitants.

The book, although clumsily tied together as a single narrative, is really a collection of short stories, the likes of which wouldn’t have been half bad if left that way - but the flimsy plot linking them together, which I’m sure was an afterthought, really detracts from what could have been some good writing.

The characters are kind of like faded water paintings, lacking any kind of substance or real colour, which is a shame given the potential for character growth and complexity that setting the story in a graveyard brings.

Although the book is aimed at a youthful audience, any 10 year old could have seen where the story was going, and no one would have been surprised by the turn of events leading to the book’s climax. Then finally, as if to punctuate the story’s generally lackluster meandering, the ending goes on for too long.

If I had to describe The Graveyard Book in one word, it would be “Meh”.

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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.

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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.


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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!

2 Book Review - Lips Touch: Three Times

Lips Touch: Three Times by Laini Taylor

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Lips Touch: Three Times is a book of three short stories, elegantly written by Laini Taylor and divinely illustrated by Jim Di Bartolo.

Imaginative and beautifully surreal, it would appeal to anyone who remembers the flushes and fumbles of first love. Those who still have that dreamy and romantic teenager inside them - who knows fairies are playing among flowers and demons are lurking in shadows.

The first story, Goblin Fruit, follows Kizzy, a modern teenager from an old-world family, still steeped in the superstitions of the past. Kizzy is unable to see her own unique beauty until a new boy comes to town.

Full of magic and whimsy - if Goblin Fruit was real, it wouldn’t be fruit at all, but a sweet pastry, spiced with a heady blend of cinnamon and citrus - probably not good for you, but delightfully good to eat.

In Spicy Little Curses Such as These, an old woman ventures into hell everyday to trade the souls of evildoers for the souls of children, but sometimes such trades involve a curse or two.

Enchanting and ethereal - this is one of the most original and compelling stories I have read in quite some time, and left me in awe of Taylor’s fantastical storytelling.

While Hatchling is darker than Goblin Fruit and Spicy Little Curses, once again the scenes are beautifully set and the descriptive devices used by Taylor are second-to-none.

It follows Esmé who has lived with her mother in London her whole life, not knowing the dark secrets that fuel her mother’s nightmares. When a stranger with icy blue eyes arrives, both their lives are changed forever.

Taylor has a gift for writing with such exquisite beauty and dream-like description that she could make the meanest heart break with a few words scrawled on a page. Lips Touch: Three Times is written the way all true fairy tales should be - it is both enchanting and strangely sinister, balanced between divine beauty and subtle horror.

I implore anyone with a heart to read this book, and also urge you to check out Jim Di Bartolo’s website for a glimpse of the beautiful illustrations.

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0 Book Review - The Presence

The Presence: A Ghost Story by Eve Bunting


My rating: 2 of 5 stars


The Presence tells the story of Catherine, a teenage girl who is struggling with the tragic death of her best friend. She goes to visit her Grandmother for the holidays, where a ghost in the local church takes an unusual and rather sinister interest in her.


Publisher’s Weekly said that the “crisp writing and questions that remain unanswered till tale’s end will likely keep fans of ghost stories engaged”. If “crisp writing” is a euphemism for “shallow, with little character or plot development”, then they’d be right, but unfortunately I don’t think that’s what they meant.


This book is such a shame. The plot concept had the potential to be fantastic – there’s some mystery, some danger, some supernatural themes – but unfortunately, Bunting falls short on the delivery.


Perhaps if the book itself was longer (it’s only 195 pages), Bunting may have been able to flesh out the characters and the general story idea, but unfortunately, as it is, The Presence is like a plastic skeleton hanging in an empty room rather than the chilling, spine-tingling ghost story it purports to be.

If you’d like to read The Presence and make your own conclusions, you can find it on the City of Gosnells catalogue here.

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0 Book Review - Fallen

Fallen by Lauren Kate

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


This one PROVES you should never judge a book by its cover!

Unfortunately it wasn't worth the time it took to read - the characters are bland and under-developed, making it hard to invest any real interest in their plight.

The first 300 pages are basically a waste of paper. They should have been used to develop some semblance of plot and to make the reader care about the characters - instead whole chapters are wasted on poor attempts at emo-pleasing simile and pointless pockets of dialogue.

If you're looking at this book thinking "Gee, I'd like to read that", go read Hush, Hush by Becca Fitzgerald instead.

You can find Fallen on the City of Gosnells' Library catalogue here.

Better yet, you can find Hush Hush on the City of Gosnells' Library catalogue here.

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