Adult Archives - Page 30 of 55 - Introverted Reader

The Inferno by Dante Alighieri: Book Review

To summarize for those who don't know, this is an epic poem, part of a greater poem called The Divine Comedy. Dante the Poet travels through Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise at the behest of his dead true love, Beatrice. His guide for his tour of Hell is the great Roman poet, Virgil. This was tough. I rip through books quickly, but this took me a good six weeks to read. I could only read one or two cantos (about four pages) at a time. I would start to fall asleep. I'm not one of those people who reads to fall asleep. I read for enjoyment. I watch tv to fall asleep. I also read a couple of other books at the same time, so that slowed me down too. Part of what slowed me down is the translation. It was translated by Longfellow. So, here I was, reading a 14th-century Italian poet translated by a 19th-century American poet. You see the trouble? It felt like a very word-for-word translation. I know that poets are allowed to play around with English syntax, and that's fine. But everything felt sort of backwards. I don't know anything about Italian, but when I've waded through French in school and now trying to learn Spanish, a lot of their syntax is backwards to me. I assume Italian is the same way since it's also a Romantic language. So I would read a line and then mentally turn it around to a form that made sense to a modern English speaker. Wow. That really bogged me down. Another thing that really slowed me down is that in the B&N version, there were at least as many pages of endnotes as there were of actual poem. Don't get me wrong--the endnotes were mostly a huge help. Dante…

The Prisoner of Heaven by Carlos Ruiz Zafón: Book Review

Fermín Romero de Torres is finally getting married. He's got one problem though--he's living under an assumed name. He has absolutely no proof that he legally exists. How is he supposed to get married without all the paperwork to prove that he is whom he says he is? As he explains this to Daniel Sempere, his history is finally explained in more detail, as well as his tie to David Martín, hero of The Angel's Game. Eh. It was better than The Angel's Game but still a long way from The Shadow of the Wind. I love Fermín, so I enjoyed delving into his story, painful as that was. But the plot felt like filler between books. It feels like there has to be a fourth book in this loose series and The Prisoner of Heaven is just a placeholder. There were some revelations that clarified a few points and set up some definite conflict for future books, but there wasn't enough going on to justify an entire book. At least it was short. I also missed Ruiz Zafón's gorgeous writing. It didn't even feel like the same author/translator team, although it was. It was just a story, pure and simple. I didn't feel any desire to mark any passages at all. I don't know who fell down on the job here, but it just wasn't up to the standard I've set for this pair. I'll give The Cemetery of Forgotten Books one more try, but I'm starting to wonder if The Shadow of the Wind was just a fluke. I sincerely hope not. Buy The Prisoner of Heaven at Malaprop’s | Better World Books I have an affiliate relationship with Malaprop's, my local independent bookstore located in beautiful downtown Asheville, NC; and Better World Books. I will receive a…

Letters From Home by Kristina McMorris: Book Review

Morgan McClain and his brother are shipping out to Europe in the last year of WWII. They spend their last night in the States at a USO dance where they meet Liz Stephens. Liz and Morgan immediately feel a connection, despite the fact that Liz is practically engaged to someone else. Complicated circumstances arise, as they do, and Morgan unwittingly finds himself dancing with Liz's friend, Betty, although he doesn't know the two women are friends. Betty promises to write him overseas. Flighty Betty asks Liz to help her write to Morgan. She intends to write one letter and be done with him. But when Morgan writes back, Liz receives the letter and can't get the author out of her head. She continues to write him as Betty throughout the war. It sounds more complicated than it is. It's a Cyrano story set in WWII. 3.5 stars. I liked it. The writing could be more polished, but I liked the characters and cared what happened to them. The snooty non-romance reader inside me would occasionally scoff at the likelihood of some of these events ever happening, but mostly I was able to shove that voice down and enjoy a charming story. We all need a dose of romance now and then, whether we admit it or not. And who am I to say this would never happen? We all agree that truth is stranger than fiction, right? I really liked Morgan. He has no pretensions of being anything other than he is--a farm boy, albeit one with above-average intelligence. His ambitions are small and homey, and his interactions with others are honest and sincere. Liz was a good match for him, but the tone of her letters was overblown. I found myself rolling my eyes at her prose sometimes. Betty…

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley: Book Review

4 Stars. I have waited entirely too long to write this review-- over a year. But. I absolutely loved this story of brilliant little Flavia de Luce. She is going to be intimidating when she grows up. Wait. What am I talking about? She already is intimidating at the tender age of 11 or so. She's a brilliant scientist with an [...]

Drama by John Lithgow: Book Review

In this memoir, Lithgow writes of how his early years shaped him as an actor, from his childhood, to his time at Harvard, to his studies in the UK as a Fulbright scholar, and on to his breakthrough on Broadway and film. I truly enjoyed listening to Lithgow narrate his own personal history. I don't know how much of his work I've actually seen, but I do like his voice. He took my thoughts and feelings exactly where he wanted them to go. I was quiet and pensive as he spoke about the power of story in his father's last days, I was howling with laughter alone in my car as he wrote about his father telling off a decidedly unpassionate Romeo, and I was interested enough not to notice as I listened and worked my way through yet another week of the Couch to 5K training program. You could probably accuse Lithgow of name-dropping, but when he's speaking of his work, it's impossible not to name-drop. I was very interested to learn that he was at Harvard with Tommy Lee Jones and that he saw some of Meryl Streep's earliest Broadway auditions. He doesn't hold much, if anything, back. His first marriage was rocky and he acknowledges his role in that. He writes honestly about his great love and respect for his father, how confused he felt to sort of surpass his work, and how determined he became to disassociate himself from his father's influence. If you like memoirs at all, I do recommend this as audio. It's wonderfully narrated by a fascinating man. Thanks to the publisher for sending me a copy in a contest I won during Audiobook Week at Devourer of Books. Read an excerpt. Read more reviews at A Musing Reviews, Boston Book Bums, and…

The Call of the Wild by Jack London: Book Review

Buck is a dog's dog, in and out of the house, accompanying the masters around at well, and just generally living the good life in California. But when the Alaskan gold rush starts, big dogs are suddenly worth a small fortune because of their ability to pull fully-laden sleds. Buck is furtively sold by one of the gardeners and he finds himself in a veritable Hell on earth, but this version of Hell is frozen over. But Buck is a survivor and he adapts to his new circumstances. No, he doesn't adapt; he thrives. This was shelved in the juvenile section of my local library, and I have to say that surprises me a little bit. It's just that the vocabulary seemed pretty tough for the juvenile crowd. Had I read this as a pre-teen, I would have hated it. I would have been focused on Buck being kidnapped and how hard his life was in Alaska. Now that I'm a little older, I appreciate the book more. Some parts bothered me, as Buck passed through the hands of various owners, some of whom were vicious. I'm pretty sure I just skimmed through the worst of the beatings. I ultimately found myself admiring Buck's strength. He thrived on his work and he thrived on being the Alpha dog. He was ultimately in his element. The harsh life he found himself in brought out some of his worst and best qualities. Isn't it funny how the two just naturally go hand in hand in some situations? He's a bully but he's a survivor. He's a natural leader. He has a boundless capacity for love. He's a hard worker. He's intuitive. He gives his all to every task he's given. There's a lot to admire in him, even when he's practically feral.…

Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell: Book Review

This sweeping epic portrays life during the Civil War and Reconstruction through the eyes of Scarlett O'Hara, a young Southern belle who has a stubborn streak a mile wide. She's in love with the wrong man, marries the wrong men, and is irredeemably selfish, but she's a survivor. Through it all, she steadfastly refuses the advances of reprobate blockade runner Rhett Butler. Their story is as timeless as it is turbulent. I feel like the last Southern woman to read Gone With the Wind. My excuse, such as it is: I did try to read it once before, when I was way too young. I thought Scarlett was mean, Miss Melly was a wimp, and Ashley was just useless. I put it down very early on and never wanted to pick it up again. However, as the host of The Southern Literature Reading Challenge, people were shocked that I'd never read this Southern classic, my aunt perhaps most of all. She has read it multiple times and re-watches the movie religiously. She finally told me last year when we were at the Decatur Book Festival together, "How about we do a read-a-long? It's been years since I re-read it and I would love to get your reactions as you're reading it for the first time." With her shove support, I finally got up the nerve to tackle this beast. I loved it. I have an ancient old mass market paperback with the tiniest font known to man and I still plowed through. My eyes physically hurt from the strain of reading almost 1000 pages of "ant prints" as I call fonts that small, and I still could not put it down. These characters just came to life for me. Don't ask me if I hated them or loved them because…

The Winter Sea by Susanna Kearsley: Book Review

Carrie McClelland is an author struggling with writer's block. She heads for Scotland for some alone time to try to work through it. When she arrives, she is immediately attracted to Slains Castle and decides to use it in her book. In 1708, Sophia Paterson finds herself at Slains Castle as well. She finds herself mixed up in a Jacobite rebellion and falls in love with one of the soldiers. I know, that's pathetic, but it's been ***coughcoughalmostayearcoughcough*** since I read this. I loved it so much that I did want to get some sort of review down. I love Scotland. I haven't been, but I think that will be our next European vacation. I'm just dying to go. I don't actually read all that many stories set there, I think because I don't want to get sick of it. It just seems so beautiful, so different, yet so familiar. There's a reason so many Scots settled in the Southern Appalachians--they were reminded of home. It works both ways now. Anyway, I read this on our cruise last year, and even though I was bathed in sunlight on the Caribbean, my mind was totally lost to the coolness and mist of Scotland. I liked both stories equally, which is pretty rare. I usually read through one story just waiting to get back to the one that I'm really interested in, but I was happy just going back and forth between Carrie and Sophia. I liked Graham and John Moray. They are both handsome, solid, dependable men. With Scottish accents. What's not to love? The ending has a twist that I did see coming from pretty far away. My mom read this around the same time I did and it caught her completely off guard. We were both happy with it…

Legends in Exile by Bill Willingham: Book Review

All our familiar storybook characters have had to leave their homelands because an evil creature known as the Adversary has destroyed them. They have all converged on New York. In order to fit into mainstream society, there are some pretty stringent rules in effect. Snow White is effectively in control but her right-hand "man" is Bigby, otherwise know as the Big Bad Wolf. Jack the Giant Killer comes tearing into their headquarters one day with a story of finding Rose Red, his on-again off-again girlfriend and Snow's sister, missing from her apartment, which is covered in blood. Has there been a murder? Who did it? The first thing that struck me is how very much Snow White in the opening pages of this graphic novel looks like Regina/The Evil Queen from Once Upon a Time. My husband was even struck by it when I showed him. I know that doesn't have much to do with anything, I just found it amusing. Anyway, I really liked this story and the world that Willingham has built here. I am a fan of Once Upon a Time, so the idea of storybook characters living in our world is familiar to me. Still, this take is slightly different (and first--I just came to them backwards). They aren't cut off from the world in a little out-of-the-way town; most of them are living in the heart of one of the biggest cities in the world. I liked seeing how their personalities allowed them to thrive or not in that setting. I was surprised by the mystery and had absolutely no idea "whodunnit." I was also amused by the characters gathering at the end for the classic "parlor scene" so familiar to fans of the cozy mystery. I liked the art a lot as well. I…

The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein: Book Review

Enzo, the wonderfully perceptive narrator of The Art of Racing in the Rain, is a dog. His master is Denny, a talented race car driver who can't seem to get a break. There is always something that keeps him from realizing his full potential. Enzo is an astute, loyal observer of Denny's life as events spiral out of control around them. With wisdom and compassion, Enzo relates Denny's story with his own incisive commentary. This review keeps veering off into "Why I Love Enzo," so I guess I'll start there but try to keep it short. He is the friend that is quietly there, always loyal, always listening, and always loving. He's so quietly necessary that it would be easy to take him for granted. Luckily, Denny knows what a good dog he has so that doesn't happen. Enzo has almost a zen take on life and he shares his thoughts in such a way that I wanted to highlight almost the whole book. He believes that good dogs are allowed to come back as men in the next life, and he believes he's reached that stage. I agree. He understands life and being human better than most of us ever will. Enzo relates some tough times in his life with Denny. There's the adjustment period as Denny gets married and has a child. As Enzo shares very, very early in the book, Denny's wife also dies and there's huge fallout from that. That's where the book got almost infuriating. I was so aggravated with the jerks around Enzo and Denny! I didn't know why Enzo would even aspire to be human when we do such horrible things to each other. But that's where they both actually shine and they have the most to share. It was hard, but when…