Introverted Reader Features

Frankie Bard is one of three main characters in The Postmistress by Sarah Blake, a World War II novel that I loved and which inspired my favorite personal review. Man, I impressed myself with that one! Anyway, this is what I had to say about Frankie then: "I am going to be haunted by Frankie's story for a long time. I should [...]

Moses Froben. A world-famous opera singer. No one would ever guess the story of his life. I just loved Moses when I read his story in The Bells by Richard Harvell. He began life as the only son of a deaf woman whom everyone believed to be the village idiot. Their life was not easy, surviving as best they could in a hovel, but really and truly living in the bell tower of the village church. Unknowingly, she gave her son the priceless gift of a beautiful voice and the ears to recognize beauty when he hears it. Moses eventually ends up living with some monks, who recognize his talent and start to train his voice. He's a lonely boy who lives in uncertain fear of some of the monks. He loves the music though, and does what he must in order to have it. The world through Moses's eyes is uncertain and dark for the most part. But when he finds love, the whole tenor of the book changes. He grasps it tenderly but with both hands, because he has learned how easily that which we love is lost. When obstacles stand in the way of what he wants, whether that is happiness or his career, he does not let anyone stand in his way. I don't remember thinking of Moses as being a particularly powerful character; he wasn't the type to pick fights or draw attention to himself. But tenacious describes him perfectly. He chooses his battles wisely and then puts everything that he is into them. His life is never easy, but he doesn't complain overly much, and he makes the most of his opportunities. When things happen to him that would crush the souls of most people, he picks himself up and keeps going. When he…

It's no secret that I love Stardust by Neil Gaiman. I came to it late, but I especially love the version illustrated by Charles Vess. But then, I love Gaiman and I love Vess, so that should be a no-brainer, right? There are lots of not-very-nice people running throughout Faerie in Gaiman's version of the fabled realm, but probably the real villains of the piece are the Lilim, especially the oldest one. When the three Lilim are first introduced, they are ancient hags stumbling around a filthy, disgusting hovel they share. But there's an odd thing. There's a mirror within their home that doesn't reflect, but, rather, shows three beautiful women in a beautiful castle looking out at them and approving and disapproving of their actions.  "The three women in the mirror were also the Lilim:  but whether they were the successors to the old women, or their shadow-selves, or whether only the peasant cottage in the woods was real, or if, somewhere, the Lilim lived in a black hall, with a fountain in the shape of a mermaid playing in the courtyard of stars, none knew for certain, and none but the Lilim could say." As the book gets going, a shooting star falls to Earth and sets off a whole chain of events. The eldest Lilim (Lilith?) is one pursuer. She is the lucky crone chosen to go fetch the star for its powerful magic. She gets to eat their last little bit of star heart (you read that right) and so regains her lost youth, beauty, and full power to enable her to effectively capture the fallen star. With her powers fully restored, the eldest Lilim goes on a rampage. She is merciless in pursuit of what she desires. I think part of what makes her so…

Yup, you read that right. We are venturing into microbiology here. Hey, I was a bio major back in the day; gotta get some use out of that degree, right? The Hot Zone by Richard Preston is a non-fiction book, and it is absolutely horrifying. Or, rather, terrifying, as claimed in the subtitle. Preston decided to make his readers lose some sleep at night by writing about how close the United States came to an outbreak of Ebola. You might have heard of it. An awful little virus that leaves you bleeding out of all orifices. So, I'm scrolling through my shelves on GoodReads, as I do every Wednesday night (yes, I am a procrastinator), trying to choose villains for an October Character Connection. Up pops The Hot Zone. "Scary book," I thought as I scrolled by, as I always do. Wait for it... "Scary. Book!" Ding ding ding! What could be scarier than the Ebola virus? It's a definite villain in this piece. You might argue that in order to be a villain, there should be some evil intention involved. You'd be right. But I'll go ahead and argue for the sake of it that when your purpose in "life" is to replicate, and you do that when your host dies an agonizing, beyond-messy death, there's a (weak) argument to be made for evil intention. I was going to post some of the descriptions of exactly how Ebola victims die, but I decided that is a little bit much for me. I'll just introduce you to the beginning of an agonizing end (Here's an excerpt with more details if you're curious). It apparently starts with a monster of a headache and then a backache and then progresses into nausea and vomiting. Later, "His eyes are the color of rubies,…

My intention for the month of October is to feature either villains from any genre or heroes from horror/thriller novels. I don't always follow through with my intentions, so we'll see how this plays out. Boy, do I have a doozy of a villain this week. William Hamleigh. Words cannot begin to express my deep loathing for this bully of a character. I think if he were real and walked into a room, I would have to launch myself at him and beat the crap out of him. Seriously. I hate this guy. You can find William in The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett. The book is set in 12th century England, when times were probably pretty brutal. William represents the brutality. See, William is from a little nothing middle-class family that has ambitions. Oh, the dreaded a-word. Ambition in moderation is definitely a good thing. Overweening ambition is nothing but destructive. The Hamleighs have decided that they need to be an aristocratic, titled family. Unfortunately, there is another family and a community of monks that stand in the way of the the Hamleighs' plans to get titles and riches. Too bad for the townsfolk. William, a jerk who cries for mommy when he doesn't get his way (I won't even get started on the mommy-complex he has; I don't want to sicken anyone), thinks that it's okay to rape, pillage, and destroy--well, anything. He's horrible. The book is a monster at around 1000 pages, give or take a couple of hundred, and I just kept reading, thinking, "He's got to get what's coming to him now...Okay, well, maybe now....Or now?....Ok, is anybody going to teach him a lesson?!?!?!" He just kept sinking lower and lower and lower. His evil mommy spurred him on to some of his…

I have avoided Harry Potter and company completely in my Character Connection posts. It's not that I don't love them; I absolutely do. It's just that my memory for details in books isn't great in the first place, and in the second, I haven't re-read these as often as so many of you have. I don't want to make any glaring mistakes and look like an idiot. I'm going to give this a try for Banned Books Week, so please bear with me and nicely correct any mistakes I make. My husband said something the other day that left us talking for a few minutes about little Neville. I ended by saying that I really liked what Rowling did with his character over the course of the series. Neville isn't the best student at Hogwarts. He's shy and forgets things and makes mistakes in almost all his lessons. If something can go wrong, it's going to go wrong for Neville. He gets into some situations that are funny and painful at the same time, because you can't help but feel bad for the clumsy, gentle boy. But he knows what he's good at and that's where he shines. He has a true gift with plants and he knows it. He doesn't seem to waste time wishing that his talents were flashier and more amazing. He's content with his plants. Neville is being raised by his strict, aristocratic, it's-all-about-the-family-name, grandmother. She is an awful person to be raising a child like Neville. Instead of encouraging his talents, she dwells on his weaknesses and always makes him feel bad. No one really knows what happened to Neville's parents, but everyone just seems to assume that they died in the first Wizarding War. He doesn't talk about them and doesn't ask for anyone's…