Category Archives: book reviews

Bad Science by Ben Goldacre

Posted by melydia on May 24, 2013 None comments

Bad Science by Ben Goldacre: I adore books about modern myths and this is among the best. Though the title is fairly generic, the science in question here is largely related to health: medicine, disease, and diet, and the media’s role in the spread of misinformation. I was surprised both by the debunking of myths I’d long thought to be true, as well as those myths and charlatans I’d never even heard of. As an American, reading about the British perspective was extra fascinating. Goldacre also has quite an amusing way with words, which helped dilute some of the anger a bit. Exasperation can be exhausting, but when tempered with humor it’s much more enjoyable. Sure, there are some tales, like the AIDS denial in South Africa, that are simply horrifying, but by and large it’s more eye-opening than depressing. Definitely recommended to anyone who’s ever had any interest in those big “such-and-such causes/cures cancer” tales constantly blasted over the airwaves.

Also posted on BookCrossing.

Seahorse in the Sky by Edmund Cooper

Posted by melydia on May 21, 2013 None comments

Seahorse in the Sky by Edmund Cooper: Russell Graham is a member of Parliament on a flight from Stockholm to London when things get interrupted and he awakens in a strange green coffin in a fake town containing only a store and a hotel. The road goes nowhere and the cars on it have no engines. He and a handful of his fellow passengers are stranded and must figure out what’s going on. I really enjoyed this one, especially the journey through the story, slowly discovering the truth along with the characters. I can honestly say I did not predict the Big Reveal, and that made it even better. Definitely unlike any science fiction I’ve read recently – refreshingly so. I’m a little surprised I’d never heard of it.

Also posted on BookCrossing.

Thwonk by Joan Bauer

Posted by melydia on May 17, 2013 None comments

Thwonk by Joan Bauer: A.J. McCreary is a teen photographer desperately in love with the unattainable Peter Terris. One day she is visited by a real life cupid who offers to make her dreams come true. Because she is a teen girl and without stupid decisions we wouldn’t have a story, she immediately asks for Peter to fall in love with her. The whole thing pans out about as well as you’d expect it to, but the really interesting thing about this book is the photography angle. My favorite parts were A.J.’s experiences snapping pictures and developing them. It’s easy to forget that photography is just as much an art form as drawing and music, where composition is key. So while the teen romance story was a bit silly and a lot predictable, I still enjoyed this cautionary tale about love and art. I don’t know how well it would hold up to a current teenager (I found it very relatable since it takes place in the years I attended high school), but what do I know?

Also posted on BookCrossing.

The Futurological Congress by Stanislaw Lem

Posted by melydia on May 14, 2013 None comments

The Futurological Congress by Stanislaw Lem: Ijon Tichy is attempting to attend a conference of futurists when his hotel is attacked by terrorists with mind-altering gas. Through a series of absurd events, Tichy finds himself resurrected several decades in the future, when everyone relies on chemical supplements to provide them with all knowledge and emotion, perception-altering drugs that hide a distressing reality. This all sounds terribly dystopian and horrifying, and in some ways it is, but it is also pretty hilarious satire. It’s one of those sorts of books where you just have to go with it, and pay special attention to the made-up words and random asides, many of which are the funniest parts of the book. I hadn’t expected to so enjoy this book – I’d sort of expected it to be a bit of a slog, a book about an idea only tenuously strung together with plot – but this was quite a romp. The humor is dark, to be sure, but still quite entertaining.

Also posted on BookCrossing.

Goblin Quest by Jim C. Hines

Posted by melydia on May 10, 2013 None comments

Goblin Quest by Jim C. Hines: In many fantasy role-playing games, goblins are the first monster you have to fight, and thus also the easiest. By the time you’ve leveled up much at all, you can basically run them through without even breaking stride, much less losing any hit points. Here, we have an adventure from the point of view of a goblin named Jig. When a group of adventurers kidnap him in order to guide them through his home caves to the dragon they seek, the line between hero and monster becomes blurred. I thought it interesting how many of the characters were clearly a homage to other greats of the genre. In particular, the mage Rysland bore striking resemblance to Raistlin of the Dragonlance books. This is a very funny novel, and a must-read for any lover of fantasy dungeon quest stories.

Also posted on BookCrossing.

American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis

Posted by melydia on May 7, 2013 1 comments

American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis (unabridged audiobook read by Pablo Schreiber; 16.5 hrs on 14 discs): Patrick Bateman is a Wall Street yuppie in the late 1980s. He is also a brutal serial killer. There are several recurring themes here (and when I say recurring, I mean it is mentioned at least thirty times): returning video tapes, the Patty Winters Show, deciding where to have dinner, cocaine, all yuppie men are interchangeable and everyone is constantly mistaken for everybody else, women are clueless and needy, tanning, going to the gym, alcohol, decaffeinated espresso (I know – what?), excessive luxury, and brand names, brand names, brand names. I cannot stress that last one enough: Bateman describes every single person’s outfit by brand name and sometimes even the department store where it was purchased. There are scenes of extremely graphic sex, usually followed by scenes of extremely graphic violence. I’m not a very sensitive person, but there were a few times when I was seriously worried about losing my lunch. Now, there are some amusing bits. I kind of liked the overly dramatic business card comparison. The random chapters of musical critique (Whitney Houston, Huey Lewis & the News, and Genesis) were interesting but I haven’t a clue why they were included (though in the movie they are used as lectures while killing people, which is actually kind of funny). My main issue with this book is that absolutely nothing happens. Seriously: the same thing happens chapter after chapter after chapter and there is no progression of plot, no change in any of the characters. This could have been a short story and still gotten its point across. A waste of time.

A note on the audio: Schreiber was excellent. The book, not so much. I’ve never wished I could skim an audiobook more than this one.

Also posted on BookCrossing.

There Once Lived a Girl Who Seduced Her Sister’s Husband, and He Hanged Himself: Love Stories by Ludmilla Petrushevskaya

Posted by melydia on May 3, 2013 None comments

There Once Lived a Girl Who Seduced Her Sister’s Husband, and He Hanged Himself: Love Stories by Ludmilla Petrushevskaya (translated by Anna Summers): This is a reasonably short collection of stories about folks living in Soviet and post-Soviet Russia, mostly in and around Moscow. Most of the stories are painfully sad, full of pathetic women scraping out a living and being completely trampled on by the men in their lives. And that’s when anything actually happens at all, which is fairly rare. I don’t know if it’s the way Russian translates into English or what, but I found the stories disjointed and vague. Or maybe – since I haven’t liked the other books I’ve read of this sort – I just don’t like modern Russian literature. And you know, I think I could be okay with that.

Also posted on BookCrossing.

We by Yevgeny Zamyatin

Posted by melydia on April 30, 2013 None comments

We by Yevgeny Zamyatin: The cover of my copy of this book claims to be the most influential science fiction novel of the 20th century. I’m not convinced that’s the case, unless it influenced Orwell and Huxley and Bradbury and claims vicarious influence through them, because let’s face it: most people haven’t even heard of this book. It is indeed a dystopia, where people have willingly sacrificed their freedom and individuality in the name of happiness. Everyone has a letter and number instead of a name. Everyone’s actions are completely synchronized, down to each bite of food. All walls are transparent except during sex, which is restricted to certain hours of the day and only with a pre-approved coupon from your partner. When our protagonist, D503, meets the alluringly subversive I330, his world is turned upside-down. Unfortunately, the writing is kind of terrible. A good portion of the sentences end in ellipses, leading me to wonder if anybody in this world is capable of finishing a sentence. It leaves a whole bunch of stuff to inference. Maybe I’m just dense, but I had a lot of trouble figuring out what was going on. And then, after all that confusion, the ending still manages to be trite and predictable. There’s a reason why 1984 and Brave New World are more famous than this one: their plots and philosophies, at least, are possible to follow. If you read only one dystopian novel this year, choose something else.

Also posted on BookCrossing.

Marbles by Ellen Forney

Posted by melydia on April 26, 2013 None comments

Marbles by Ellen Forney: It’s no secret that loads of famous artists suffered mental health problems, often severe and untreated. But will medication rob one of one’s creativity? What if the mental health issues are key to the art? In this unabashedly frank graphic memoir, Forney relates her adventures with bipolar syndrome, from diagnosis to eventual stability. Her ups and downs, as well as her fear of being “cured”, were very familiar to me, almost uncomfortably so. It made me want to read some of the other books Forney references, from The Unquiet Mind to biographies of various artists. This is a good book both for those suffering bipolar syndrome and for those hoping to understand the disease better from the outside. And, being a graphic work with drawings that somehow manage to be at once both simplistic and incredibly detailed, it’s a very quick read. I devoured it in two short evenings.

Also posted on BookCrossing.

Every Day by David Levithan

Posted by melydia on April 23, 2013 None comments

Every Day by David Levithan (unabridged audiobook read by Alex McKenna; 8.5 hrs on 7 discs): I have very mixed feelings about this book. It says some very good things about acceptance, sexuality, and gender identity. It also says some very bad things about how to pursue a love interest. Every morning, A wakes up in the body of a different person, able to access their memories but not their emotions or consciousness. (Note: though A has no gender and inhabits both male and female bodies with equal ease, I will use male pronouns to make typing less cumbersome.) The body is always roughly his same age, and he lives in it only until midnight before moving on. (Though the switch happens at midnight, A always wakes up the next morning, implying that these kids never stay up past midnight or something.) He has no control over these switches, and mostly acts in order to make as little impact on the body’s life as possible – until one day when he inhabits the body of Justin, boyfriend of Rhiannon. A falls in love with Rhiannon, becomes convinced that she loves him too, and turns the lives of his subsequent hosts upside-down in his attempts to win her over, pretty much stalking her until she gives in. A few times I wanted to shout at A, “Just leave her alone already!” It was like A was completely incapable of having a conversation with Rhiannon that didn’t focus on his love for her and how Justin wasn’t good enough for her and blah blah blah. Yes, I know that teenagers are obsessive like that, but it got kind of tiresome. I wish the story had done more with Nathan and the Reverend, exploring the science fiction side of A’s existence as a wandering soul, but its narrow focus on the complicated romance rarely wavered. On the bright side, the writing was superb, and A’s experiences in so many different kinds of lives (from drug addict to immigrant house cleaner to transgendered person) were compelling, believable, and memorable. I also did really appreciate A’s views of gender identity and unconditional love, and Rhiannon’s reactions were quite realistic. Yes, there are people out there who could fall in love with someone who looked completely different every single day, but could you? The ending was dissatisfying, though I suppose it was good that A finally appeared to mature a little bit, even if he still couldn’t seem to muster any respect for his host bodies. I kind of hope there’s a sequel, if only to explore the premise a bit more and lay off the teen romance a tad.

A note on the audio: McKenna’s raspy voice took some getting used to, but ultimately it really worked.

Also posted on BookCrossing.

© 2010-2025 kate weber All Rights Reserved -- Copyright notice by Blog Copyright