4 Stars. I don't know that I agree that these Olympics "changed the world" but I would definitely agree that they showcased changes that were happening in the world at large. I'm not a sports fan but I read this for the "Eclectic Reader Challenge" as a sports book that I might be able to tolerate. I was pleasantly surprised to find [...]
5 Stars. I read this back in college and loved it so much that I still have my copy from that class. I decided to re-read it when my husband and I visited the coast of Maine last month. I might love it even more now. The narrator, who remains unnamed, is accepted in this tightly-knit community, but she's still enough of an [...]
4 Stars. I haven’t read that much Richard Matheson, just one short story collection containing I am Legend, but I enjoyed it immensely. I don’t remember where I came across this collection, but when I saw the combination of Richard Matheson, Joe Hill, and Stephen King, I added it to my wishlist. Like any anthology, this was […]
3 Stars. I'm having the hardest time writing this review! I've scrapped it once already. Ack! It took me about seven weeks to read Shantaram, mostly because I was busy and didn't have much time to devote to it. I think having that much time to think about what I was reading allowed me to read more objectively than I otherwise [...]
4 Stars. Oh my. I did not ever, in my wildest dreams, expect a book about Miss Gwen! What a hoot! Somehow, I'd decided that she was at least 70. She's actually only about 45. And an attractive 45 at that, if you can get past the fierce way she wields her parasol in defense of Jane's virtue. I'm so glad she got her own story [...]
4 Stars. I really, really liked this. I never had any idea where it was going and it just kept getting more and more twisted. I had more questions at the end than I did at the beginning. And I was definitely left with a sinking feeling in my stomach. This situation is going to get way worse before it gets better. I liked the [...]
4 Stars. I was much happier with this volume than with the previous one. I'm on firmer footing with love stories, however fractured they may be, than with a retelling of Animal Farm.There's not really a big plot arc here--it's more like a collection of short stories than a novel, but I enjoyed them. I particularly liked the [...]
3 Stars. Eh. Three years have gone by since I read this and I just got around to reading Volume 3. I remember that I do like this world and concept a lot, and I enjoy the artwork, but I did not like this retelling of Animal Farm. I somehow missed the classic novel [...]
2.5 Stars. When I have daydreams about packing up and moving to a new country, Spain is always the one that comes to mind. We visited in 2010 and just loved it. We felt welcome everywhere we went, the people seemed happy, and it just fit. Plus, my husband’s bilingual. At least one of us could speak the language. When I saw this as a free [...]
So, we all learned something about the Lewis & Clark expedition in school, right? They were the first official group to travel all the way to the Pacific coast and back, with brave Sacagawea leading the way, papoose strapped to her back. That's honestly pretty much all I knew. But there's got to be so much more to it than that. I wanted to know the real story so I grabbed this at the library. Eh. I did learn a lot but this book is primarily a biography of Meriwether Lewis. I'm not clear how you separate Lewis from Clark when their names are so inextricably intertwined, but there you go. I was disappointed by that. I'm not being fair to the book--the subtitle does clearly state its about Captain Lewis--but I wanted more. It read like hero worship. The author has retraced some of the routes the group followed many times, has obviously read a lot about Lewis and the rest of the Corps of Discovery and knows his stuff. But there were frequently statements that amounted to (NOT a direct quote; I've returned my copy to library already), "Can you imagine? He's practically an uneducated heathen but he discovered three new species on this day, eleven on this day, and stayed up late to take celestial observations that provided the most accurate maps known up to that time! And then wrote 2000 words about it! Holy smokes!" Am I exaggerating? Yes. But that's how it felt. Also, by focusing on Lewis so exclusively (again, that was the point of the book), it started to read like the rest of the men were just along for the ride. Lewis could have done it all by himself. I still couldn't name very many of the other men. Legendary Sacagawea is…