Tag Archives: book reviews

Vanishing Acts by Jodi Picoult

Posted by melydia on September 26, 2006 None comments

Vanishing Acts by Jodi Picoult (unabridged audiobook): Delia Hopkins has a pretty ordinary life in Wexton, New Hampshire, that gets turned upside down overnight when her father is arrested for having kidnapped her during a custody visit 28 years ago. The twisty plot and complex character relationships are revealed slowly and deliberately, hooking me from the first chapter. This is my second Picoult book, and like the other (My Sister’s Keeper), it is told in a series of first-person narratives, including Delia, her father, her mother, her fiancee, and her best friend. Each character is read by a different person, all of whom were quite good with the exception of Delia, who was almost painful to listen to. Luckily, the story was good enough that I still got sucked in despite her awkward reading. If the two I’ve read are at all representative of quality, I will definitely be picking up more of Picoult’s books in the future.

Nevernever by Will Shetterly

Posted by melydia on September 25, 2006 None comments

Nevernever by Will Shetterly: Ron is Wolfboy now, trying to get by in Bordertown while covered in fur and without the ability to speak. This is the sequel to Elsewhere, and is definitely the superior of the two. The story is much more cohesive and feels less dependent on the source material (that is, Terri Windling’s Bordertown story collections). Unfortunately, both books employ the character-endangerment-in-lieu-of-actual-plot technique of storytelling. This only works if the reader is attached to the characters, which is why it feels more believable in the second book than the first. In short, if you liked Elsewhere, you’ll like Nevernever. As for me, while I probably won’t go out of my way to find the other Bordertown books, this was a lovely trip down memory lane in the form of two very quick reads. I can see these books appealing to other adolescents as much as they did to me, but I doubt most adults would get much out of them.

Also posted on BookCrossing.

Elsewhere by Will Shetterly

Posted by melydia on September 20, 2006 None comments

Elsewhere by Will Shetterly: This book takes place in the Borderlands universe created by Terri Windling, whose stories I have never read. Luckily, there’s little to know: Bordertown is located at the boundary between the World and Faerie, a mostly run-down place where technology and magic both work sporatically. In this story, an impulsive human boy named Ron comes to Bordertown looking for his older brother, and ends up falling in with a crowd of elves, halfies, and other humans trying to bust the stereotype that the races can’t mingle. There’s gang violence and drug abuse and sex and rock’n’roll, as is to be expected in a story about teenagers living on the street. I first read this book about fifteen years ago and I remember liking it very much. I still like it now, except that I had a great deal more difficulty following it this time around. I kept forgetting which character was which, and the ending felt extremely rushed. The story behind Ron’s older brother is muddled and confusing. I think when I read it the first time, I glossed over a lot of the little details that didn’t add up. Or maybe I just missed something this time around. Either way, I did enjoy Shetterly’s writing style, which struck me as a more realistic portrayal of teenagers than I’ve seen in a while. Perhaps the sequel, Nevernever, will clear up some things. I’ve read it before too, but heck if I can remember what it was about.

Also posted on BookCrossing.

Myths, Lies, and Downright Stupidity by John Stossel

Posted by melydia on September 15, 2006 None comments

Myths, Lies, and Downright Stupidity by John Stossel: The famous 20/20 anchor takes on a large number of commonly held beliefs and discusses whether or not they are true. I learned quite a bit about a broad range of subjects, and Stossel’s straightforward writing style is immensely readable. However, I have a feeling that if I was a die-hard believer in any of the myths covered here I would have left unconvinced and unimpressed. The trouble with this book is that there are too many topics discussed with not enough depth. Most of the myths are covered in a page or two, with a couple of general statements, maybe some statistics or interviews, and an example to illustrate his point. Unfortunately, the plural of anecdote is not data, and I suspect many people dismiss Stossel’s words out of hand because of it. That’s not to say people should avoid this book on the grounds that it doesn’t dig very deep; some of the myths are covered quite thoroughly and even with the ones that weren’t I still came away with a lot to think about and some stuff I’d like to look into further. I just think Stossel’s message would be more effective if he wrote a book with a narrower focus and a lot more detail.

Magic Kingdom for Sale – Sold! by Terry Brooks

Posted by melydia on September 12, 2006 None comments

Magic Kingdom for Sale – Sold! by Terry Brooks: This was my introduction to Terry Brooks (not counting the novelization of The Phantom Menace, which I am embarrassed to admit to purchasing), and it was pretty good. The premise was straightforward: depressed lawyer Ben Holiday sees a magic kingdom for sale in a department store catalog, purchases it, and discovers it’s not quite everything he hoped it would be. It was well-written and clever, if a bit predictable. It reminded me a lot of the books I read back in middle school, and in its own way was a pleasant trip down memory lane. In short, it’s a relaxing bit of light fantasy, but nothing I would go out of my way for.

Also posted on BookCrossing.

The Death of Common Sense by Philip K. Howard

Posted by melydia on August 25, 2006 1 comments

The Death of Common Sense by Philip K. Howard: This is not a good bedtime read. It’s frankly aggravating, but I knew that coming in. This is, more or less, 287 pages of stating the obvious, but in ways that continue to amaze and infuriate anew. In short, there are too many laws, and more specifically, too many highly detailed universal regulations that don’t actually apply to anything in the real world. It was a little upsetting how this book reminded me of all the things I don’t like about my job: the idiotic paperwork and endless mandatory procedure that goes along with basically everything. This book simply gave me more reasons to roll my eyes. Sure, I didn’t quite see eye to eye with the author on everything – I am not quite as enamoured of the New Deal as he, for instance – but he makes enough valid points to give me plenty of food for (frustrating) thought. There is, luckily, a marginal amount of hope offered in the last chapter. I think the author’s purpose here was mostly to point out the inanity of the current climate, to show us just how far down the slope we’ve slid. I doubt we are quite as close to the authoritarian, death-of-democracy dystopia as he implies, but there are unquestionably problems with the way things are being done. This is a book more people need to read, especially those who work as bureaucrats and special-interest advocates.

Also posted on BookCrossing.

A Little Twist of Texas by Linda Raven Moore

Posted by melydia on August 19, 2006 None comments

A Little Twist of Texas by Linda Raven Moore: This is the true story of Moore’s month-long solo motorcycle trip from Silicon Valley, California, to Fort Worth, Texas. As with any adventure, things don’t turn out quite as planned but it’s a good read nonetheless, and perhaps made better for all the unexpected twists. This is different from most travel writing I’ve come across, in that Moore manages to be a tourist no matter where she goes. Her descriptions of all the Tinytowns and Nowheresvilles she encounters are as enchanting as if she were exploring Paris or Tokyo. Though there were parts where her seemingly limitless credulity got a little exasperating, it was refreshing to witness someone so enthusiastic about life and so unabashed in her wonder at the world around her. It was surprisingly inspiring and reminded me that the world is really only as mundane as you make it. It’s been a long time since a book touched me in this way. It makes me want to go on a journey of my own.

Also posted on BookCrossing.

Geek Love by Katherine Dunn

Posted by melydia on August 8, 2006 None comments

Geek Love by Katherine Dunn: Al and Lil Binewski own a failing carnival, which they revive by creating a family of freaks though chemical abuse during pregnancy. Not just standard drugs, but pesticides, radioisotopes, and more. The story is narrated by their daughter Olympia, a bald albino hunchback dwarf, who often bemoans her relative normalcy (you should see her siblings). It’s a fascinating look at not only carnival life, but how we view physical beauty in general. Do we really envy those who are completely normal, or those who proudly display their differences? The description is raw, shocking, and painfully vivid, but like a carnival freak show, you just can’t look away. You have to keep reading, to get a better look, to see what they’ll do next. This is not the sort of book that will appeal to everyone, or even most people, but I really enjoyed it. If nothing else, it was very different from most other things I’ve read.

The Rise of the Wyrm Lord by Wayne Thomas Batson

Posted by melydia on July 27, 2006 None comments

The Rise of the Wyrm Lord (The Door Within Trilogy, Book 2) by Wayne Thomas Batson: Though the second book of a trilogy, it feels much more like a sequel, using the old formula or having another character revisit the experiences of the hero of the original. Here, this other character is Aidan’s friend and possible love interest Antoinette. Back in the real world, Aidan attempts to save his friend Robby while Antoinette searches for Robby’s Glimpse twin, a servant of the evil Paragor, to convert him as well.

In The Realm, there are three categories of people: those who follow King Eliam (good), those who follow Prince Paragor (bad), and the “undecided” people, which also includes good people who simply do not believe in the existence of The Realm at all. There is no explicit mention of hell, so it is unclear why it is so important for people to believe. What happens if you die while still in the undecided camp? Perhaps that will be addressed in the third and final installment. I hope so, because without that vital bit of information, the characters’ motivation is pretty arbitrary.

Anyway. This story is a lot more of the same stuff as The Door Within, so if you liked that one, you’ll like this one too. It was a bit more rushed and a lot more violent, and leaves you with a cliffhanger, almost as if the second and third books originally were meant as one big sequel that was too long for a single volume. I’ll be curious to see how it wraps up all its loose ends.

Also posted on BookCrossing.

The Assassins Gallery by David L. Robbins

Posted by melydia on July 27, 2006 None comments

The Assassins Gallery by David L. Robbins: On the back cover of this book, in bold letters, are these words: “What if FDR was assassinated?” Well, la dee da, there’s the entire plot of the book in a nutshell. Which is fine, if you think about it: historical fiction in written with the assumption that your audience knows how it all turns out, at least generally. The trick is to involve characters sympathetic enough that the reader cares what happens to them as individuals. Unfortunately, that does not happen here. The story follows Mikhal Lammeck, a professor who specializes in the history of assassination, as he attempts to uncover a plot to kill the president. That might be somewhat interesting, if a bit cliche, except that Lammeck is also an expert military instructor of – you guessed it – assassins. He spends a lot of time fumbling around, though I find it difficult to believe that after so many years of training killers he’d have so little idea of how to handle tracking one. The assassin herself is marginally more interesting, but still little more than the barest of sketches. I suppose this light treatment was probably intended to make her seem mysterious, but it came off as shallow. I will say that the anecdotes about various assassins through history were quite interesting, but I could have read that in other books without first wading through the tedium of this story.

Also posted on BookCrossing.

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