Book Reviews Archive - Page 32 of 79

Labyrinths by Jorge Luis Borges: Book Review

Um, I think I missed something. This book's average rating on GoodReads is 4.47 as I write this and I'm rating it 2 stars. Where did I go wrong? It's been a while since I finished so I won't be able to get too specific. First of all, I didn't particularly care for the writing style. Something about his writing reminded me of H. P. Lovecraft, who I also don't fully appreciate, so that was a negative. I found it to be a little...overwrought at times. I don't think it was the translation because there were many translators throughout the collection and the style was pretty consistent. And then I think Borges is just way too smart for me. I could see that there was all this philosophical stuff going on in the subtext of his writing, but I didn't care enough to stop and think about it and try to figure out what he was really saying. I was just trying to wrap my head around a world that was created in imagination and then starts to slowly creep into the real world. Or trying to determine which of two characters was the dreamer and which was the dreamed. Or were they the same? And why did this head injury leave this character with a Phenomenon-like memory and intelligence? And what the heck is the point of trying to see if you can perfectly re-write Don Quixote by accident? And if I lived in a never-ending library, would I seriously spend all my time searching for the one book with the answers to Life, the Universe, and Everything (Thanks, Douglas Adams) or would I just sit down with the books I had and leave others to the searching? I think my reaction to this book answers that last question.…

The Bite of the Mango by Mariatu Kamara: Book Review

Mariatu Kamara was twelve years old when she was caught up in the civil war in Sierra Leone. Most of her village was killed in a raid. Boy soldiers cut off both her hands but let her go. She shares the story of how she learned to cope in the new world she found herself in. Holy cow. I just can't imagine living through the things this young woman has experienced. And she was so young when everything happened! I just shudder to think of it. But she's a strong girl. She knows from the beginning that she must learn to live on her own. From the time she turns down the first helpful stranger's offer to feed her a bite of mango, she struggles to live her new life on her own terms. Her story is inspiring and heart-breaking and important. I know I as an American sometimes forget that most of the world doesn't have it as good as I do. I get caught up in the day-to-day of "I can't believe I have to deal with this at work," or "Traffic is a nightmare, I hate this commute," and forget that in some places in the world, children are killing and maiming each other in wars they don't understand. I for one need a reality check like this from time to time. Anyone who reads this should also read A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah. Mariatu avoids demonizing the boy soldiers but it's still a good idea to get their perspective as well. They were also victims in this terrible conflict. This is by no means an easy read but I highly recommend it. Read an excerpt. Buy The Bite of the Mango at Malaprop’s | Better World Books I have…

The Girl of Fire and Thorns by Rae Carson: Book Review

Elisa is a Bearer of the Godstone. Born to the royal family, a bright light engulfed her on her Name Day and left her with a Godstone in her navel. Bearers are marked to carry out a special act of service and they're only born about every hundred years. Unfortunately, they don't tend to live long enough to complete their service. Elisa doesn't really fit into her own home. Her sister is the one being groomed to rule. Elisa just likes to study her books and, honestly, eat her sorrows. When she finds herself suddenly married off to a neighboring king, she has no idea what to expect. She sets off to be Queen of a country she's never seen. A mutual enemy is threatening their borders, her new husband doesn't seem to know what to do, and since he's decided to keep their marriage a secret, she has no idea what she's supposed to do here either. I really liked this. Elisa was by no means a perfect heroine. She struggles with her weight and with her own emotional insecurities. But she's an intelligent woman and she's always willing to try her best. She might not be the most charismatic princess but she has an honesty about her that tends to resonate with people once they stop judging her by her weight. I knew there would have to be more to her than what she appeared to be at first glance but the amount of her growth was astonishing. I was incredibly proud of her as she came into her own. Her story took many twists and turns that kept surprising me. Just when I thought she would settle into one place/story, everything would suddenly change and I would read along anxiously to see how she would handle this…

Salt by Isabel Zuber: Book Review

Title: SaltAuthor: Isabel ZuberGenres: Historical Fiction, Southern LiteratureFormat: Paperback Synopsis: John Bayley meets Anna Stockton when she's in her late teens. He decides right away that he's going to marry her. She looks to be a strong woman who knows how to work. After burying two wives, that combination appeals to John. The rest of the book follows the ups and downs of their marriage and their relationship to the land. Review: My biggest issue with this book was that I somehow felt like I was watching a silent movie as I read it. I felt very much outside the story. I got the feeling that this was done on purpose so that I the reader would be more focused on what the author was trying to show me rather than on how I felt about each character or event. It was effective, but I do like to feel a connection to the characters I read about, so it wasn't a style I cared for. There was a lot going on in this book. The point didn't really seem to be the story itself, but rather to explore man's relationship to nature and also man's relationship to other men. What I took away was a message about humanity's need to dominate our surroundings and how futile that need is. Nature will win in the end. I also took away a message about the futility of our hopes and dreams and how we are ultimately so impermanent that we will be nothing more than a fleeting memory. This is all true, but it's a little bleak for my taste. The author is a poet and it shows in her lyrical, yet succinct prose. She says a lot in such a relatively short book, but she says it beautifully. Salt left me…

NPR Favorite Driveway Moments: Book Review

I'm not an NPR listener but something about this title caught my eye. I downloaded it at the end of the year when I was trying to squeeze in one last nonfiction book to complete a reading challenge. Only about two hours long, I knew I could listen to it in just a couple of days on my commute. The first part was unimpressive. At this point I've forgotten what most of those stories were. I do remember one about a young lady aging out of foster care that made me feel sad for her and others like her. Otherwise, its a pretty big blank. And then I got to the second part. Here were the stories that wouldn't let me go. A young man getting off the farm and into college with not much more than his determination and "Ten dollars and a dream." A small town basketball team making it to the state playoffs, taking the hometown pride with them. An elderly woman telling a story about her misfortune with a...unique... bra when she was younger had me laughing out loud! Following a couple after that big earthquake in China flattened their apartment building with their young son and a set of their parents inside. My favorite was probably the one about the US Marshals who kept their charges safe during school integrations in the Civil Rights era. Most of these had me near tears for different reasons. And I'm seriously not a crier. I don't know if the stories really were that uneven or if it just took me half the book to settle into what NPR is about. But once I got into it, I loved it. I felt like I experienced a huge range of human emotion in a short time span. I was saddened,…

The Penderwicks at Point Mouette by Jeanne Birdsall: Book Review

4 Stars. I love this series. It's just so innocently fun! The girls are funny but caring, as are their circle of friends. Girls in their "tween" years should love these books as well. This installment was just as much fun as all the others. I missed having Rosalind around but without her guidance, the three younger Penderwicks [...]

This Dark Road to Mercy by Wiley Cash: Book Review

Talk about shades of gray! The whole book just drifts around in this nebulous area that left me unsure as to what the right thing to do and the best thing to do really were. I don't think they were ever the same thing. Why should these girls be left in a system that rarely seems to turn out well for anyone when they have a [...]

City of Thieves by David Benioff: Book Review

During the siege of Leningrad in World War II, Lev and Kolya find themselves in jail at the same time. After a sleepless night in which they expect to be executed the next morning, they instead find themselves facing a Colonel in the Red Army. He will let them go free if they agree to find a dozen eggs for his daughter's wedding cake. Leningrad is surrounded by Germans and people are starving to death in the streets. They don't know how they're going to do it but they undertake the task. I really think I would have enjoyed this more in print. There was nothing really wrong with Ron Perlman's narration, but the tone of his voice is just so low that it was pretty easy for me to unintentionally tune him out as I was driving. That said, I did enjoy it. Poor young, serious Lev, to be stuck with Kolya! But I loved Kolya. He's like that one person that you really like even though you're uncomfortable around him more often than not because of the things that he says. He has no idea when to shut up but he's so charming that he generally gets away with saying whatever he's thinking. He thinks a lot about girls and how much he hates the Germans and a book named The Courtyard Hound. He quotes it all the time! I would have been more of a Lev in their situation, terrified of everything, but Kolya kept young Lev going. He kept me laughing and shaking my head. The novel felt a bit like The Odyssey, with the young man drifting from one insane adventure to the next. While their journey only lasts a week, so much happens that it felt like much longer. Cannibals, sadists, epic chess games,…

Dark Fire by C. J. Sansom: Book Review

Matthew Shardlake has been asked to defend a young woman accused of the terrible murder of a child. The problem is that the girl refuses to speak in her own defense and time is running out. Luckily, Thomas Cromwell intervenes and gains Shardlake two more weeks to prepare a defense. In exchange, Matthew must find the secret to the recently rediscovered Greek Fire, a technology that promises to place England firmly in control of her own destiny. For me, this was really as enjoyable a read as Dissolution. Shardlake is perhaps even more full of melancholy, doubt, and loneliness, but he hasn't quite lost his faith in either God or humanity. He sees innocence in the eyes of the accused murderess and sets out to prove it, despite the unpopularity of her case. She has already been tried and hanged in the court of public opinion, but Shardlake desperately wants to see justice done. The one weakness for me was in the two plotlines. This could easily have been two separate books, but instead one book had the two stories jammed together. The deadline given for both adds to the urgency of the story, but that felt a bit like an artificial device added by the author for that very reason. Overall, though, Sansom has created a great character in Matthew Shardlake and surrounded him with a few other characters that are more complex than meets the eye. Jack Barak is introduced in this book, and at first he appears to be a beautiful bully, but he quickly shows that he is much more than that. In reading the author's notes at the end, it sounds like he has stayed as true to the period and history as possible. At the same time, he has taken something that was a…

Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan: Book Review

After the recession hits, Clay Jannon finds himself out of a job. He spends hours walking the streets of San Francisco, trying to find something, anything. He wanders into Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore and finds himself working as a bookstore clerk. But there aren't really very many customers. Well, there are a few impassioned, odd people who come in and request books from what Clay refers to as the "Wayback List," books he's not supposed to look at. He likes Mr. Penumbra and when it starts to look like Mr. Penumbra might be in some kind of trouble, Clay calls in his friends to help the owner out. Oh. My. Gosh. I enjoyed the heck out of this audio book! I described it to my husband as "The Da Vinci Code for tech-savvy bibliophiles." (I enjoyed The Da Vinci Code so that's a compliment.) People in robes, secret messages, clues, and only one man to tie them together. What's not to love? I loved the characters. Clay is pretty funny and I loved listening to his internal monologues. I loved Mr. Penumbra's willingness to do whatever he felt needed to be done. And that he was willing to listen to Clay's crazy ideas without being an old codger. He embraced the technology Clay introduced him to! Clay's friends were all pretty funny and talented in their own unique ways too. I wouldn't describe myself as "tech-savvy," so I have no idea how much of the technology described in here is real and how much is made up. Some of it was pretty cool. And some of it was a little...not so cool. There were some ideas I wouldn't mind discussing in a book group or something. Like how one character who works at Google seems to think that all information…