Paperback Archives - Page 21 of 27

The Fairy Folk and She by Mary-Anne Grosse Ivie: Book Review

The old woman who lives in a shoe is overwhelmed. Her children are hungry. She decides to pay a visit to Razzlewitch and ask for help. Razzlewitch agrees to help in exchange for the old woman's oldest daughter, Lisa. If Lisa will come cook and clean for Razzlewitch, the other children will be fed and clothed. Lisa agrees but wonders what she's gotten into when she finds herself in a strange new world. This was a lovely little fairy tale. It starts with the old woman who lived in a shoe, but then it becomes its own story. Like all good fairy tale heroines, Lisa grows and comes into her own throughout the book. She has surprising talents that she must learn to use. She must also learn to trust herself. She meets a whole host of magical beings who, for the most part, end up being gentle teachers for her. There's an element of darkness too. Lisa, and her new neighbors, learn that appearances aren't everything. They must work together to overcome the threat of darkness in their fairy tale land. There's a very sweet love story at the heart of the book also. I just loved how this played out. I recommend this for those who are fond of their happily ever afters and who are in search of a gentle, lovely read. Thanks to the author for sending me a copy for review.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz: Book Review

Oscar Wao is a loser. There's really no kind way to put it. But it might not be entirely his fault. His family is from the Dominican Republic, where the evil dictator Trujillo held sway for an unbelievable amount of time. Oscar's family fell into Trujillo's bad graces way back in the day and they haven't really been happy since. Everyone believes Trujillo laid a fukú, or curse, on the family forever. Everybody knows at least one Oscar. You know the type. The geek/nerd who loves all things sci-fi/fantasy. The one who's desperate to fit in. The one who doesn't understand why he doesn't fit in. The one who breaks your heart as you watch him trying to fit in by doing all those things that keep him from fitting in in the first place. Yeah, you know exactly who I'm talking about. How many faces just flashed through your mind? Oscar was a heart-breaker when he was seven but he lost his mojo. Now he breaks the reader's heart. I wanted so badly for just one thing to go Oscar's way. Everybody deserves a break, right? Well, this is the real world, and sometimes it just doesn't happen. But Oscar does learn some things on his brief, wondrous journey, and while I might not applaud his choices, I can understand them. The story was a little hard to get through. We dip into Oscar's life, his sister's life, his mother's life, and his grandfather's life. The parts in the Dominican Republic under Trujillo were pretty brutal, but necessary to understand where this family was coming from. The narrator is Oscar's college roommate. He's a fast-talking, wise-cracking, womanizing smartass. I loved him. It read like he was telling me the story instead of having me read it. He's funny, he's…

The Titan’s Curse by Rick Riordan: Book Review

Annabeth and the goddess Artemis are missing. Percy, Thalia, and Grover embark on a quest to find them before the winter solstice, just a few days away. Artemis is needed to vote at a meeting of the gods about the Titan issue. And well, Annabeth is Annabeth, and her friends are worried about her. I've waited too long to write this review! I hate it when that happens! This is another page turner in the Percy Jackson series, and it took lots of twists and turns that I did not see coming. I loved getting to know Thalia better. I had figured out some basic things about her, just knowing her background, but getting to see her in action was great! She and Percy are a little too much alike to click together well, but they're still friends and they still look out for each other. Annabeth was largely absent though, and I did miss her a lot. There is some setup for the rest of the series, and I am curious to see where all this is going. Oh, and the monster everyone is worried about? What a shocker that was! Highly recommended for fans of the series, and everyone should be a fan of this series!

A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving: Book Review

3.5 Stars. This came awfully close to being a 3 star read for me. The book just seemed to get longer and longer. It was finally about 100 pages longer than my attention span for the story. But once I got to the end, I realized that everything was essential, even what I thought were tangents. John [...]

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou: Book Review

The first volume in Maya Angelou's autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is not an easy read. It picks up when she's three and her brother is four and they're being shipped from California to Arkansas--alone on a train. They live with their paternal grandmother for years. Maya writes poignantly and heart-breakingly, but never with self-pity, about life as an African-American girl in a segregated South. I'm having a hard time writing this review. I occasionally run into this problem with memoirs. Who am I to judge what someone has had the courage to put on display for all the world to read? They have generally lived through experiences that I don't even want to think about. Maya, or Marguerite as she's mostly called in the book, is a "tender-hearted" soul. She's intelligent, she's a reader, she's a dreamer, but she has no prospects, simply because of the color of her skin. She unflinchingly lays down her history. There were parts that I had an unbelievably hard time reading, but by sharing them, Maya lets the world remember what segregation leads to, and even lets others who have shared some of her experiences know that they are not alone. Some sections left me feeling sickened by the casual cruelty of humanity, others left me infuriated for the same reason. I was never indifferent. It's not all darkness and misery though. She has good times growing up too. There's one scene at a picnic that stands out as a beautiful bright spot. And when she meets some of the women who become her mentors, they are spots of hope also, encouraging us to reach out to those less fortunate than ourselves. I did feel like this book just kind of stopped. I guess you could say that it stopped…

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller: Book Review

This is the story of Captain Yossarian, who is serving in World War II as a navigator on a bomber based in Italy. Yossarian is caught in a "Catch-22" where he wants to be grounded, but he can only get out of flying more missions if he's crazy, but if he was crazy, he wouldn't mind flying missions. The book really skips around, so that you're never quite sure whether you're reading something that happened in the past, or if the story has now moved forward from the beginning point. But it's not really confusing, it all does make some sort of sense in the end. Don't let the whole "World War II bomber" thing mislead you. The book is generally one big farce, that, to me, has an underlying theme about the absurdity of war. I read this when I was a senior in high school. I remember enjoying it then, and I enjoyed it this time. It was a little bit of a different experience this time around. The first time I had no idea what to expect, so the humor was generally more humorous and the suddenly serious parts were definitely more of a slap in the face. This time, I have a few more years on me, so I can appreciate the frustration of bureaucracies and "superiors" who don't have any idea what they're doing. And, knowing what it was that broke Yossarian gave everything a little bit of a different feel. There was one part that just went on too long. It moved past funny and got into tiresome. Other than that, I just loved it. Reviewed December 6, 2007 and slightly revised September 24, 2010 According to the American Library Association website, Catch-22 was "banned in Strongsville, OH (1972), but the school board's action…

Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez: Book Review

Fermina Daza and Florentino Ariza fall in love when they're very young. Ultimately, Fermina chooses to marry Juvenal Urbino, a wealthy, well-respected doctor from a good family. Florentino decides to wait for Dr. Urbino to die so he can renew his pursuit of Fermina. As he waits, he has 622 affairs. The best thing about this book for me was the beauty of the language. Even as a translation, García Márquez's writing is lush, descriptive, and transportive. This was the first description I fell in love with: "He almost always ate lunch at home and had a ten-minute siesta on the terrace in the patio, hearing in his sleep the songs of the servant girls under the leaves of the mango trees, the cries of vendors on the street, the uproar of oil and motors from the bay whose exhaust fumes fluttered through the house on hot afternoons like an angel condemned to putrefaction." I just read this and I was there. I love when authors do that to me. But at heart, I'm a reader in search of a good story with good characters. The language bogged the story down a bit, which I could probably have overlooked, but I also disliked Florentino. That was more of a deal-breaker for me. In 622 affairs, there's a bit of a trail of destruction, and that left me disenchanted with the romantic idea of waiting for your true love. I did enjoy reading about Fermina and Urbino's years together as they try to make a marriage work. One of their arguments practically had me laughing out loud. It was over a silly thing, but those seem to be the arguments that are the worst. García Márquez got all of that so right. I really wish I could bump this up to…

Changeless by Gail Carriger: Book Review

Alexia Maccon, née Tarrabotti, is awakened one morning by her husband bellowing out orders and questions. He doesn't take time to answer her questions, but of course she finds out what's going on later. Something or someone has found a way to completely negate whatever magic makes supernatural beings, well--supernatural. This has London in an uproar. When the phenomenon seems to be traveling north to Scotland, Lord Maccon sets out in that direction too. He wants to investigate further, plus he needs to check in with his old pack. Alexia just can't be left behind, so one dirigible ride later, she joins him up there to find the pack in disarray. Another fun entry into The Parasol Protectorate! I swear I smiled and giggled the whole way through. Alexia is just as hardheaded and Lord Maccon is just as Alpha. Yum-mmmeeeee. *Waggling eyebrows lasciviously* Alexia is settling into her role as the Woolsey pack's Alpha female with ease. It's a role she was practically made for. There's one confrontation with a member of the pack who has just returned from India that left me laughing. She handled him as only Alexia can. She manages to get herself into even more trouble this time around, believe it or not. A strange French inventor, Madame Lefoux, makes an appearance too. We're never quite sure what her role is in everything, but she had me hopelessly intrigued. She is to Alexia as Q is to Bond. Talk about a tricked-out parasol! She hooks Alexia up! MacGyver would be jealous of this thing! She's wonderfully eccentric and I couldn't help but love her even as I wondered about her loyalties. Ivy Hisselpenny and Alexia's sister Felicity have a much-larger role in this book, and all I have to say about that is, "Poor Tunstell.…

Portrait in Sepia by Isabel Allende: Book Review

3 Stars. Even though this novel was written in first person, I felt as if I were watching the story unfold behind glass. I never got pulled into the story completely. I was never particularly interested in Aurora. I was more interested to see what scheme Paulina would come up with next in late-nineteenth century America and [...]

The Doll’s House by Neil Gaiman: Book Review

Dream's kingdom is being threatened by a vortex, an entity that can rip apart the Dreaming. He also finds out that a few of his major, and monstrous, subjects, have escaped his kingdom. He must look for them all and save the day before it's too late. This was better than Preludes and Nocturnes, but still not quite a four. The arc of the story flowed much more smoothly. This volume really encompasses one big storyline rather than the three or four rather disjointed ones found in the first volume. This one was definitely creepy--I'm desperately hoping that the Corinthian stays out of my nightmares!--but it wasn't as over-the-top horrifying as Preludes. All pluses in my book. I also liked the way Gaiman took a storyline from the first collection that I had completely forgotten about and expanded it into something unexpected but fitting. I liked that we got to see a little more of the family dynamics among Dream's family, the Endless Ones. They aren't really gods because gods die; these beings don't. They have always been around and they always will be. Some of Dream's past is told, and we're left with the feeling that his younger siblings aren't through messing with him and the other two Eldest. I'm not a big fan of the art of the actual story. The colors are a little too garish. Sandman is still very cool, but the other characters, (well, except for the Corinthian) were just too much. This was written and illustrated in the late '80's, early '90's though, so that probably has something to do with it. I did, again, find myself poring over Dave McKean's gorgeous cover illustrations. I really, really like the mixed-media work he did for these. I'll try one more.