Tag Archives: book reviews

Perfume by Patrick Suskind

Posted by melydia on December 17, 2010 2 comments

Perfume by Patrick Suskind: This is the life story of Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, a man with superhuman olfactory senses but no body odor of his own. The whole tale is abundantly strange, from Grenouille’s unusual birth to the string of bodies he leaves in his wake, whether he knows it or not. He reminds me somewhat of Buffalo Bill from The Silence of the Lambs. I would advise against reading while eating, as many of the scent descriptions are vivid and unpleasant. Grenouille experiences the world through his nose, and the world of 18th-century France was quite odoriferous. The weirdness of the story escalates at the end, until I started having trouble swallowing it. It was like the whole theme of the narrative shifted for the last few chapters. And if you look at it from that angle, the ending is (mostly) logical and satisfying, but most of the story leading up to it didn’t quite fit. That said, I flew through this book and was fascinated by the idea of telling a story chiefly through scent. And it is indeed told well. I’m just not sure to whom I’d recommend it. Perhaps people who like dark and weird fiction.

Now I’m terribly curious to see how they managed to make a movie out of a novel built around smells.

Also posted on BookCrossing.

Paper Towns by John Green

Posted by melydia on December 15, 2010 None comments

Paper Towns by John Green: Margo Roth Spiegelman is larger than life. Tales of her exploits are nothing short of epic, and one night she grabs her neighbor and schoolmate Quentin Jacobsen for one last spree before she disappears from town. Following vague clues left behind, finding Margo becomes an obsession for Quentin that leads him to abandoned buildings, Walt Whitman, and – of course – paper towns. The whole thing culminates in an epic road trip where every noteworthy event that’s ever happened on any roadtrip anywhere happens on this one. Green has somehow managed to distill pure adolescence into prose, filling his narratives with believable characters who have believable feelings and say believable (and often very, very funny) things. Granted, these kids are more like I was in college than high school, but I can still relate. The story is similar in tone to Looking For Alaska, where you have a fairly ordinary teenage boy fascinated with a beautiful, inscrutable, unattainable girl. However, I think I might like this one just a teensy bit more, because Quentin’s philosophical ponderings about how well one can know another person really resonated with me. It’s bittersweet, and once again a book I wish I could have read when I was that age, if only so I could have played Metaphysical I Spy with my friends.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

Posted by melydia on December 2, 2010 4 comments

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows: I can see why this story resonates with so many BookCrossers: it’s all about people connecting through books. The setting is England, 1946, and everyone is still recovering from World War II. Journalist Juliet Ashton receives a letter from Dawsey Adams, a man living on Guernsey Island who purchased a secondhand book with her address inside the front cover. He writes her to ask for the addresses of bookshops he could contact to get more books by Charles Lamb. Thus Juliet is introduced to the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, a group formed during the German occupation of the Channel Islands. I feel a little silly for not knowing about the occupation, though WWII was never covered in any depth in my schooling.

I am so in love with this book. It’s told as a more realistic epistolary than most, in that people actually write the way most people write letters, as opposed to sharing novels with verbatim dialogue and fancy descriptive passages. Even so, the characters are unique, believable, and very memorable. I laughed out loud; I got choked up; I worried; I cheered. In other words, I was completely sucked in to the story. I didn’t want it to end. Highly recommended.

Also posted on BookCrossing.

The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Posted by melydia on November 23, 2010 3 comments

The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (unabridged audiobook read by Ralph Cosham): I’ve read a fair number of Sherlock Holmes mysteries, but this was the first novel-length one I’ve picked up. Holmes is called in to get to the bottom of the death of a man connected to a family legend of a hellhound. Holmes and Watson of course do not believe in the supernatural, and their methodical tying up of all the loose threads is fascinating, particularly considering this was written in a time before fingerprinting and DNA evidence. I suppose there are those who do not enjoy having every single minute detail explained, but to me that’s what delights me most about Holmes stories: he loves to explain how he came to every single one of his seemingly random deductions. I especially like Holmes’s childlike enthusiasm when faced with a challenge: the more difficult it is, the more he enjoys himself. Perhaps the most memorable aspect of this story, however, is how much of it is solved by Watson on his own. Evidently his many years as Holmes’s companion have rubbed off on him. My husband has a huge tome o’ Holmes on our bookshelf; I may have to read more of it.

A note on the audio version: Cosham’s reading of The Time Machine was a major reason I got into Wells in the first place, and this is no exception. He doesn’t do distinct character voices, but he makes up for that with engaging narrative style.

Also posted on BookCrossing.

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants by Ann Brashares

Posted by melydia on November 22, 2010 None comments

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants by Ann Brashares: This is not your typical YA after-school special kind of novel; this is four typical YA after-school specials in one. Four friends who usually spend the summer together (and who have pretty much nothing in common except their moms did aerobics together while pregnant) spend their first summer apart. Lena goes to Greece to visit/meet her grandparents where she has boy issues; Bridget goes to soccer camp where she has boy issues; Carmen goes to South Carolina where she has daddy issues; and Tibby stays home where she befriends a terminally ill kid. Kind of separately and kind of together, they all learn valuable (and predictable) lessons about life and love, while passing around a pair of “magical” jeans. These jeans are only magical in the way they fit all four of these girls so well despite being different sizes and shapes. The pants themselves don’t appear to do anything in particular. None of the girls were especially distinctive, and I kept getting Carmen and Tibby mixed up in particular. This is not to say this was a bad or even necessarily boring book – there were plenty of funny moments. It just wasn’t very memorable. Probably a good beach read for a teenager.

Also posted on BookCrossing.

A Place to Die by Dorothy James

Posted by melydia on November 18, 2010 None comments

A Place to Die by Dorothy James: Eleanor and Franz Fabian are visiting Franz’s elderly mother at her nursing home in Vienna, Austria. While they are there, an unexpected bit of drama crops up: one of the residents is brutally murdered on Christmas Day. Inspector Georg Büchner arrives on the scene and methodically goes through all the evidence, unweaving the tangle of lies and contradictions and unrelated issues to find the culprit. I enjoyed the musings on aging, the (too brief) discussion of the post-WWII climate in Austria, and the vivid descriptions of the Vienna woods. I also found the subplot of Eleanor’s marital problems and amateur sleuthing enhanced the main story rather than taking away from it. I’m not much of a murder mystery aficionado, and in fact don’t generally seek them out, but this one was really good. I really liked Büchner (though I am not familiar with his namesake) and Eleanor, and I’d be curious to see more of Frau Dr. Lessing in the future. All in all, a fun read. I may even have to start following the Inspector Georg Büchner Mystery series.

Also posted on BookCrossing.

Rules by Cynthia Lord

Posted by melydia on November 9, 2010 None comments

Rules by Cynthia Lord: Catherine’s little brother David has autism, and because of it she feels increasingly invisible to the rest of the world. She’s just that girl with the weird brother. When her new next-door neighbors turn out to have a girl just her age, she’s overjoyed to have a normal person to hang out with. Then she befriends Jason, a mute boy in a wheelchair, who causes her to rethink her definition of normal. I admit, I was worried this story would end with someone dying, since that’s how so many authors “resolve” any relationship with a differently-abled person (I’m not trying to be snarky here; I just don’t know what the correct term is anymore). Luckily, I was granted a happy ending to this tale that is both very sweet and unflinchingly realistic. (And funny. Can’t forget funny.) I don’t know if I’ll necessarily look up any of Lord’s other books, but this one was a nice change of pace. It’s so refreshing to find a Book With a Message that’s actually fun to read and not preachy.

Also posted on BookCrossing.

Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine

Posted by melydia on November 3, 2010 None comments

Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine: A charming twist on the familiar tale of Cinderella. Ella is cursed from birth to obey any command anyone gives her. Using her own ingenuity, she overcomes hungry ogres, careless fairies, and wicked stepsisters in her journey to break the spell and find true love. All the standard components are here – a fairy godmother, glass slippers, a pumpkin turned into a carriage – but reimagined in a clever way. Rather than sitting around waiting to be saved from her life of servitude like the classic Cinderella, this Ella is her own savior, and an excellent role-model to boot. I wish this book could have been part of my own childhood. It’s marvelous.

Also posted on BookCrossing.

The Bad Beginning by Lemony Snicket

Posted by melydia on October 26, 2010 2 comments

The Bad Beginning (A Series of Unfortunate Events #1) by Lemony Snicket (unabridged audiobook read by Tim Curry): When the three Baudelaire children lose their parents in a fire, they are sent to live with distant relative Count Olaf. He is determined to get his hands on the Baudelaire fortune, legally untouchable until the eldest child, Violet, turns 18. What follows is a somewhat ridiculous collection of torments for the children, all told with the same flowery narration, sprinkled with non sequiturs. The humor is less dark than random, such as the description of Violet being, “like many girls her age,” right-handed. All in all I enjoyed it, but I’m not champing at the bit to read the rest of the series. I do, however, wonder how many people read these books expecting a happy ending. And, for that matter, whether the series ends unfortunately.

Notes on the audio version: Tim Curry was a fine narrator, even if I was unable to forget for one second that it was Tim Curry. After the end of the book was an obviously pre-scripted “interview” with the author. It was cleverly written and would have been very funny had the readers not been so terribly stilted and awkward. I suspect Daniel Handler played himself, which made me thankful he hadn’t narrated the story. As insincere as it would be to have actors play Handler and the interviewer, it would have been a much more enjoyable listen.

Also posted on BookCrossing.

Dragon Rider by Cornelia Funke

Posted by melydia on October 21, 2010 2 comments

Dragon Rider by Cornelia Funke (unabridged audiobook read by Brendan Fraser): A delightful tale of a dragon and his brownie companion on a search for the Rim of Heaven, the legendary dragon home that may or may not exist. This is the sort of thing I think of when I think of fantasy epics: quests, dragons, genies, dwarfs, magic, legends, peril, humor, excitement, new friends, trust, betrayal, and a happy ending. It reminded me in many ways of The Neverending Story. In other words, I absolutely loved it. It’s the sort of thing I would enjoy reading again and again, just to relive the adventure.

Regarding the audio version of this novel: I don’t have strong feelings about Brendan Fraser’s movies. I mean, he’s charming enough, but he always seems to play more or less the same character. As a reader, however, he is absolutely brilliant, easily one of the best I’ve ever come across. The characters came to life with his animated narration, sound effects, and distinct voices. Simply fabulous.

Also posted on BookCrossing.

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