Tag Archives: fiction

The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson

Posted by melydia on July 31, 2012 None comments

The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson (unabridged audiobook read by Simon Vance; 18.5 hrs on 15 discs): Oh Lisbeth, how I’ve missed you. This second installment of the Millennium Trilogy finds two of Mikael Blomkvist’s friends murdered and Lisbeth’s fingerprints on the gun. Thus begins a complicated story of Lisbeth’s past, prostitution, and Swedish government secrets. Meanwhile, we’re introduced to the various people Lisbeth has touched and who line up to be in her corner during this her darkest hour. When I think of “strong female characters” I don’t think about Buffy the Vampire Slayer; I think of people like Lisbeth. She’s fascinating and flawed and wonderful to read about. I doubt she’d be all that impressed with me were we to meet, but I’ve enjoyed witnessing her adventures so far. In fact, the very last couple lines of the book had me laughing with joy. Can’t wait to read the third book, but part of me is a little reluctant because I don’t want to say goodbye.

A note on the audio: Something about Vance’s voice makes me picture Liam Neeson as Mikael Blomkvist, as opposed to Daniel Craig. Also, I sometime confuse Daniel Craig with Christopher Eccleston. My brain does not work.

The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas

Posted by melydia on June 5, 2012 2 comments

The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas (unabridged audiobook read by Michael Page; 24 hrs on 20 discs): My familiarity with this story was limited to the Disney film and the sort-of sequel, neither of which have much to do with anything. Our hero, the young d’Artagnan, longs to become a Musketeer. While he is proving his worth, he befriends the titular Three Musketeers: Athos, Portos, and Aramis. I had not realized that most of the characters in this book are based (however loosely) on real people, but considering I knew pretty much nothing about any of them going in, it didn’t really matter. Most of this story deals with tracking down and defeating Milady de Winter, a character of uncertain origin and indubitable evil. I was surprised by two things, mostly: first, that the Musketeers’ taking on married women as lovers and financiers was a totally ordinary thing, and second, how often I laughed. This is, quite simply, an adventure story. People tend to be either wholly good or wholly evil, anyone the good guys kill is justified and anyone the bad guys killed is an outrage. In short, it’s a lot of fun, but don’t put too much thought into it.

A note on the audio: A lot of classics are no fun to listen to on audio because most of them were recorded before people figured out that voice actors are the better way to go when reading books for people. Thus, your chance of horrendous monotone is higher the older and more famous the book. So I was quite pleasantly surprised (thrilled, actually) to discover that this reader was just great. It made listening a real pleasure.

Also posted on BookCrossing.

First Person Plural by Andrew W.M. Beierle

Posted by melydia on May 18, 2012 None comments

First Person Plural by Andrew W.M. Beierle: Owen and Porter Jamison are conjoined twins. They have separated heads, hearts, and stomachs, but a shared torso and each control a single set of limbs (much like real-life conjoined twins Abby and Brittany Hensel). Porter is a star athlete, Owen is more interested in poetry and theater, but they both love music and soon form a popular band called, appropriately enough, Janus. The boys try to live as normal a life as possible, but there’s a wrinkle: Owen is gay, while Porter is most decidedly not. This causes a whole host of additional unforeseen problems, especially when Porter finds a woman he wants to marry. The whole thing is a little twisted, and I felt kind of voyeuristic reading it. Owen is brutally honest in his narration, answering a lot of the awkward questions a polite person would never have the courage to ask. It’s a drama unlike any other, I can tell you that, and it fascinated me in ways that made me a little uncomfortable at times. The ending was slightly unsatisfying, but perhaps more convincing than anything tidier would be. I’m not sure who I’d recommend this to, though if you like truly unusual love triangles, you can’t get much less usual than this.

Also posted on BookCrossing.

Passage by Connie Willis

Posted by melydia on May 15, 2012 2 comments

Passage by Connie Willis: Dr. Joanna Lander is studying near-death experiences, or NDEs. Dr. Richard Wright has discovered a way to chemically replicate what the brain goes through chemically during an NDE. Richard asks Joanna to confirm that what his volunteers are experiencing are indeed NDEs, but when funding and volunteers become scarce, Joanna goes under herself. I found this book extremely difficult to take, but in a good way: it’s extremely suspenseful and the characters are likeable and sometimes infuriatingly realistic. At first I wondered if this lengthy novel could have been shortened, but the various stories and details shared become important eventually, and add even more to the realism. Though at times emotionally harrowing, this was one seriously excellent story. A little dark in places – it is largely about death, after all – but it never loses all hope. And now I need to go pick up everything else Willis has ever written.

Also posted on BookCrossing.

Beginner’s Luck by Laura Pedersen

Posted by melydia on April 17, 2012 None comments

Beginner’s Luck by Laura Pedersen: When high school and her ginormous family get to be too much for her, Hallie drops out and gets a job as a yard person for the rather eccentric Stockton family. Here she meets kooky aging activist Olivia; the Judge, her husband suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease; her fabulous son Bernard who deals in antiques; and Gil, Bernard’s relatively sane husband. (And a chimp, but that’s not important right now.) Though a longtime and pretty successful gambler, Hallie soon finds herself spending all her time with the hospitable (and often very, very funny) Stocktons. This is not a book I would have picked up had it not landed in my hands courtesy of a generous BookCrosser, but I’m so glad I did. The characters were brilliant, the plot more or less believable (I’m still not convinced putting money in someone else’s parking meter is actually against the law), and perhaps most importantly, it made me want to put forth more effort toward making my house a home. Definitely a good beach read.

Also posted on BookCrossing.

Atonement by Ian McEwan

Posted by melydia on April 3, 2012 2 comments

Atonement by Ian McEwan (unabridged audiobook read by Jill Tanner; 14 hours on 12 discs): I wanted, so desperately, to like this novel. But the fact of the matter is that I found it tremendously tedious. Though the back cover blurb talks of young Briony’s mistaken accusation regarding her cousin’s sexual assault and its horrible consequences, this event does not actually happen until about halfway through the book. The plot is buried in page after page of literary navel-gazing, and the “twist” ending put me off so much that I wondered why I’d wasted all that time getting there. I suspect the movie is tidier, assuming it leaves out such thrilling passages as Briony pondering the possibility of her not being the star of everyone else’s life story while watching her finger bend back and forth. The writing itself was fine – the description quite vivid, the language very, er, literary – but I found the whole thing tiresome and I frankly can’t understand why so many rave about this lengthy piece of rambling blather.

Also posted on BookCrossing.

Revenge by Mark Young

Posted by melydia on January 3, 2012 None comments

Revenge by Mark Young: Travis Mays walks away from his life in the police force after a sting operation ends in tragedy. He moves from central California to middle-of-nowhere Idaho, where he teaches criminology at a Washington university to fund his life as a recluse in a small cabin. One day he signs up for kayaking lessons; his guide is the lovely Jessie White Eagle, a Native American of the Nez Perce tribe whose brother has recently gone missing. What follows is a rather twisty tale of murder and deception. I understood the killer’s beef with Mays, but a whole lot of plot hangs on the chance meeting between Mays and White Eagle. If Mays hadn’t signed up for those lessons that day, quite a bit of this story would not have happened. Anyway, I enjoyed this one more than I’d expected, zipping through chapters with ease. It helps that the author has experience both as a cop and a journalist. Sure, I didn’t know what all the lingo and acronyms meant, but I gleaned enough from context that it didn’t distract me, and indeed added to the realism. My only real complaint was how much difficulty I had keeping the various characters straight. There are a lot of players here and all of them are interconnected, often in convoluted ways. I also wish there was more information on the Nez Perce, though instilling an interest in further learning is never a bad thing in the book. All in all, if you’re looking for a decent thriller, this is worth picking up.

Also posted on BookCrossing.

The Patron Saint of Eels by Gregory Day

Posted by melydia on December 30, 2011 None comments

The Patron Saint of Eels by Gregory Day: Noel is woken one night to the sound of hundreds of eels sloshing about in the roadside ditches, having been washed out of the river by a recent string of heavy rains. It’s the most exciting thing to have happened in this tiny Australian town for ages, but even more remarkable is the stranger who appears the following night, chanting and ringing his bell for the eels. Noel and his friend Nanette spend the next day talking with the stranger. While it’s clear this is supposed to be a fable, the lessons are vague. My best guess is “stop complaining and do something about your problems” but then at other times it seems to be “relax and go with the flow”. So I dunno. Not a whole lot happens in this book – in fact, basically nothing happens – but I enjoyed the descriptions of the Australian bush. I wouldn’t mind living in a fire tower overlooking such lands. All the same, it’s a quick read, so if you’re looking for something different from your normal fare, this might just fit the bill.

Also posted on BookCrossing.

Grover G. Graham and Me by Mary Quattlebaum

Posted by melydia on December 9, 2011 None comments

Grover G. Graham and Me by Mary Quattlebaum: Ben Watson is just arriving at his eighth foster home, which is his first experience with foster siblings. He unexpectedly bonds with one-year-old Grover G. Graham, to the point where he resents Grover’s teen mother. This is more or less a slice-of-life story. It was pretty predictable, following the traditional plot arc, and honestly I probably wouldn’t have even finished it were it not so short. However, Quattlebaum’s books for younger readers are mostly awesome, particularly Pirate vs. Pirate. So check that out instead.

Also posted on BookCrossing.

The Last Cowgirl by Jana Richman

Posted by melydia on November 25, 2011 None comments

The Last Cowgirl by Jana Richman: Dickie Sinfield grew up an unwilling ranch hand when her father suddenly sold their suburban home and purchased a piece of land out in the wilds of Utah. Though her sister doesn’t take to the life and her brother seems born to it, Dickie is an unhappy in between, pleased with the work and the land but having convinced herself from an early age that she hates it. This sort of cognitive dissonance is a theme throughout the novel, from Dickie’s cowgirl roots to Utahns’ attitude toward the testing and disposal of deadly chemical weapons in their backyards. When Dickie’s brother dies suddenly, she is forced to face the past she has been avoiding for thirty years. This is not the sort of book I normally would pick up – I don’t really have much interest in westerns, or coming-of-age stories, or tales of redemption. (Or Mormonism, though that was more backdrop than main theme.) I only read this one because I found it by chance while traveling (thank you, BookCrossing!), and you know what? I enjoyed it. I loved the scenery and the quiet intensity of the characters, especially Merv, though Bev was definitely my favorite. A nice change of pace for me.

Also posted on BookCrossing.

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