Introverted Reader

Sisters Red by Jackson Pearce: Book Review

Scarlett March was horribly scarred when she defended her younger sister from a Fenris (werewolf) when they were both young. They lost their beloved grandmother in the same attack. With guidance from the local woodsman, Pa Reynolds, and with Silas Reynolds as a partner, the March sisters become deadly Fenris hunters. Now that the girls are in their older teens, something has the wolves out in masses. Scarlett, Rosie, and Silas decide they can do the most damage by moving to Atlanta, the center of all this wolfish activity, and hunting there. But what bait can they use? Feminine wiles just aren't working as well here for some reason. Oh, I'm so torn on this rating. I couldn't put the book down. Even when the trio was in the library studying, trying to figure out how to beat the wolves to whatever it is they're looking for, there was still some drama going on between them that kept me entertained. Knocking it back is the fact that I knew exactly what was going to happen. I didn't know how it was going to play out, but once I found out what the wolves were searching for, I got it. There were tons of clues scattered throughout that just kept confirming what I thought. I could have overlooked that and still kept it at four stars, but the resolution felt a little--forced? That's probably the best word. I don't want to give anything away, so I'll just say that the wolves' behavior made zero sense to me. Scarlett was the strongest character in the story, but I just couldn't bring myself to like her. She was too focused and too intent on how her way of life was the only viable way. She accuses Rosie of being selfish, but she's completely…

Bookish Miscellany

Fairy Tale Songs in Popular Music: Once Upon a Week

In case you haven't seen it around yet, Today's Adventure is hosting Once Upon a Week this week. This is our chance to talk about fairy tales and those re-tellings we tend to love so much. Thanks to Vanessa for hosting this and to Juju at Tales of Whimsy for creating the beautiful button! I haven't managed to get any reviews written yet, but I did have fun digging around and getting this post ready. What do you think about songs that are based on fairy tales? I'm not talking about songs from Disney movies or musicals. I'm talking about "regular" songs you might hear on the radio that explicitly refer to fairy tales. The first one I think of on this topic is "This Kiss" by Faith Hill. The fairy tales come in on the second verse. And then there's "Fairytale" by Sara Bareilles. LOVE this one! And that was kind of where I drew a blank. I searched around a little more though and found several more. I'll just link to where you can listen to save this page's load time. :-) "Fairytale" by Saturday Night at the Apollo (I'm a little confused as to the name of the group, so if I've goofed, let me know, please. Thanks!) "Shalott" by Emilie Autumn "The Ballad of Humpty Dumpty and Cinderella" by Aztec Two-Step "Cinderella Undercover" by Oingo Boingo I shamelessly plundered this thread on the NaNoWriMo website for the above suggestions. "Hey, Cinderella" by Suzy Bogguss "Little Red Riding Hood" by Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs "The Bonny Swans" by Loreena McKennitt "Sleeping Beauty" by A Perfect Circle "The Red Shoes" by Kate Bush I found these in this thread on SurLaLune Fairy Tales. Of course there are tons of these kinds of songs among Celtic groups,…

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August 3, 2010

Girl in Hyacinth Blue by Susan Vreeland: Book Review

Girl in Hyacinth Blue follows the path of a painting, possibly by Vermeer, from an aloof math professor backwards to the painter and the subject. Each owner has a different story to tell, and even a little bit of a different relationship to the painting, but they all love it and find echoes of something they feel inside themselves inside the painting. And isn't that sort of the point of truly great art? The novel itself has the feel of a short story collection. Each chapter is about a different owner and is a complete story unto itself. The novel never feels choppy though. But--the writing. Beautiful. It lived up to the painting that I painted inside my head. I truly saw the landscapes Susan Vreeland paints with her words and I truly felt involved with each character's story. If you love beautiful language, or you love beautiful art, read this book. It's just gorgeous. Reviewed December 19, 2007

Introverted Reader Features

Oskar Schell: Character Connection

We all have characters we love. Let's spotlight these fantastic creations! Whether you want to be friends with them or you have a full-blown crush on them, you know you love them and want everyone else to love them too! Most of you will probably post about how much you love each character, but this is a great place for the more creative ones among you to let go and have fun! Write a love letter to Captain Wentworth. Write yourself into a scene with Anne and Diana. Draw a picture of yourself in Jamie's arms. The possibilities are endless. Be sure to post the book's title and author, and be very careful not to give away spoilers while talking about how much you love your characters. Mr. Linky will be posted here on The Introverted Reader every Thursday. Jess over at Tangled Up in Blue read Extemely Loud & Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer recently, and seeing her review has left me wanting to write about Oskar Schell. Oskar is nine years old, and he's brilliant. Seriously. That brilliance has left him vulnerable in a lot of ways. He doesn't fit in with the kids at his school, so he's kind of a lonely little boy. His dad fills that void. Thomas Schell accepts his son and challenges him and constructs elaborate games that they both love to play together. Then Thomas dies in 9/11 and Oskar's world is shattered. His very brilliance makes this loss even harder for him to take. He understands what happened and why (well, as much as anyone can understand something so senseless), but he's still only nine. How do you deal with all of that? Oskar has picked up some self-destructive behaviors that have left his mom concerned, so she's seeking help…

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July 29, 2010

Spell Hunter by R. J. Anderson: Book Review

Something isn't quite right in the Oakenwyld. The fairies are terrified to go outside, they're losing their creativity, and their numbers are dwindling. Young Bryony has a chance face-to-face meeting with a human that leaves the other fairies aghast and Bryony remorseful but curious. After Bryony comes of age, Queen Amaryllis appoints her as the Queen's Hunter. Bryony is thrilled. Now she gets to venture out of the tree on legitimate business every day and see a bit of the wider world. She starts to question the way things are, and soon she finds herself torn between not wanting to endanger her friends and trying to find out if she can help them lead a better life. I enjoyed this. I love fairy tales and I love the idea of fairies. Unfortunately, most of the modern books I pick up about fairies disappoint me. They're so very dark and dangerous. I want to see the cute little flower fairies. (Why, yes, I do think Disney Fairies are the cutest things ever!) This delivered the cute fairies with flowery names while also giving me a mystery that kept my attention. This is probably more of a middle-grade book than a young-adult book, but I still couldn't guess how everything was going to tie together and end up. There's a little darkness, a little twisty-ness, but nothing that went too overboard. Bryony is such a feisty little thing, I couldn't help but love her. She's practically fearless. Fearless can lead to stupidity in real life, and it happened a little with Bryony too. She would occasionally get over-confident and she'd pay the consequences and learn from her mistakes. She isn't content with hearing, "That's the way things are," she wants to know why things are the way they are and if it…

The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón: Book Review

Daniel Sempere's father takes him to The Cemetery of Forgotten Books when he's ten years old. One of the cemetery rules is that on your first visit, you choose a book, take it with you, and protect it forever. Daniel chooses The Shadow of the Wind by Julián Carax. Daniel falls in love with this exquisitely written book and is puzzled when he find out that very few copies of the book ever sold and that his copy is one of the few still in existence. He sets out to find out more about the author of the book that he loves so much, never dreaming of the secrets he will uncover over the next ten years. I don't think I've ever read many, if any, books by Spanish authors. So I'm reading along, starting to fall under this book's spell, and I all of a sudden started thinking about the movie "Pan's Labyrinth." Then I started worrying that maybe that brutal kind of sucker punch that happened at the end of the movie was a trademark of Spanish writers in general. And I think that affected the way I read the rest of the book. I think that if I ever go back and re-read it, I will enjoy it more. But this time around, I was afraid to let myself get too attached to anyone. Weird, I know. I wish that hadn't happened. All in all, this was a really good book. It had that melodramatic feel that I've loved in Jane Eyre and The Thirteenth Tale. There were several twists and turns that grabbed me and almost shouted, "This isn't going where you think it is! Pay attention!" When I could let go of my weird "Pan's Labyrinth" thing, I caught myself wandering through the house, holding…

Introverted Reader Features

Jasper Fforde’s Miss Havisham: Character Connection

We all have characters we love. Let's spotlight these fantastic creations! Whether you want to be friends with them or you have a full-blown crush on them, you know you love them and want everyone else to love them too! Most of you will probably post about how much you love each character, but this is a great place for the more creative ones among you to let go and have fun! Write a love letter to Captain Wentworth. Write yourself into a scene with Anne and Diana. Draw a picture of yourself in Jamie's arms. The possibilities are endless. Be sure to post the book's title and author, and be very careful not to give away spoilers while talking about how much you love your characters. Mr. Linky will be posted here on The Introverted Reader every Thursday. Do you have a sense of humor that can at least occasionally be described as quirky? Do you think it's cool when characters from the classics are injected into new books in new ways? Then you should give Jasper Fforde a try if you haven't already. His books just tickle my funny bone. The first in his Thursday Next series is The Eyre Affair. Miss Havisham doesn't make an appearance until the next one, Lost in a Good Book. In Thursday Next's world, there really is a Book World. While the Cat formerly known as Cheshire presides over things, characters run about, take vacations in other books, give out awards, and police themselves. The policing branch is called Jurisfiction. When she isn't performing her role in Charles Dickens' Great Expectations, Miss Havisham is one of the star operatives of Jurisfiction. Forget that crazy lady who wanders around her dilapidated house in her wedding dress. This Miss Havisham is sharp as a…

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July 22, 2010

The Education of Bet by Lauren Baratz-Logsted: Book Review

Elizabeth is an intelligent young woman growing up within the constraints of Victorian society. To make matters worse, she is "the maid's daughter." After her mother and the owners of the house where she worked died, Bet is taken along with the heir, Will, to live with Will's uncle. Bet is treated as something between, neither family nor servant. She's allowed to read and study whatever she wants and develops a thirst for knowledge. When Will is kicked out of yet another school, Bet decides that they should each pursue what they want. She assumes Will's identity and heads off to school in his place while he runs off to join the military. But there's much more to becoming a boy than developing bad handwriting, and it's much harder to leave behind a girl's feelings than Bet had expected. I don't have a whole lot to say about this. I am more than twice the age of the intended audience, hard as that is for me to believe, and so I didn't feel like I read anything new here. Younger audiences will probably feel differently. I couldn't help but compare this to Alanna: The First Adventure by Tamora Pierce. The genres are different (historical fiction and fantasy), but the basic plot is very much the same. I think Alanna was more well-developed. I liked Bet well enough. She was plucky and stood up for what she believed in, no matter how scared she was. She also pursued her dreams wholeheartedly, knowing that she would regret it if she didn't seize this one chance offered to her. There's a "revelation" at the end that I saw coming from miles away. Again, though, I am a lot older than the intended audience. The time line was a little jarring. A new chapter…

Shadow of the Swords by Kamran Pasha: Book Review

The famous Muslim leader Saladin believes that he has finally driven the Christian crusaders from Israel's shores. The King of Jerusalem has surrendered, most other nobles have gone home, and there's only a small, stubborn contingent to deal with outside the town of Acre. Newly-crowned King Richard I of England (Richard the Lionheart) sees this as his chance to win everlasting fame and glory. He rallies his forces to travel back to Israel and try again. With his brilliant strategies and fearless leadership, the Muslims won't know what hit them. I guess in a nutshell you could say that this is the story of the Third Crusade told from a Muslim point of view. I found it incredibly interesting. It's always a little--what's the word?--enlightening to see things from the "enemy's" point of view. This took place so long ago that I didn't go into it feeling invested one way or another. Still, if you learn anything about the Crusades in school in the Western world (and I don't remember learning much), it's probably that the Christian knights were fighting to take the Holy Land back from the "infidels." I found it fascinating to see what the Muslims thought of Westerners at that time. Of course they saw them as infidels also. But they also saw them as dirty, ignorant, and without honor. They were medically and scientifically advanced and I'm guessing that Europeans hadn't progressed past leeches and wouldn't for several hundred years. The book opens with Saladin re-taking Jerusalem. The Christians still living in the city are cowering in fear, knowing how their soldiers had treated the Muslims when they took the city earlier. Saladin makes it clear that he's not going to harm anyone. The war is over, enough people have died, and if you don't harm…

Personal Stories

My Favorite Smell: A Bit of Me(me)

Danielle from There's a Book hosts A Bit of Me(me) every Saturday. Each week she asks us to post the answer to a question designed to help us get to know each other better. This week's question: What is your favorite smell and why? Does it bring back memories? I'll admit that I thought this question was a little weird at first. I don't have the greatest sniffer out there, so smells aren't something I pay a whole lot of attention to. Working in health care, this can honestly be a blessing. Is that TMI? Anyway, I thought about it and realized there are a lot of smells that I really like, but there's one that stands out. I ♥ the smell of freshly-cut grass. I smell it and I'm happy. Photo of a "new-mown hayfield by Bickley Hall Farm" taken by Espresso Addict and posted on Wikimedia Commons. I grew up pretty far out in the country. My grandparents have a small family farm and I grew up just a "little piece" down the mountain from them. My uncles have slowly been taking over more and more of the responsibility for things over the years. Anyway, my parents' house is at the edge of all this, in between a big hayfield and the tree line. So every summer, in about June, my uncle would mow the hay for the first time. Oh, it's a heavenly smell. We were fresh out of school for the summer, I had stacks and stacks of books from the library to read, life was simple and life was good. We didn't have air conditioning back then, so we would open the windows in the evening to let the cool air in and that smell would come wafting into the house on a summer breeze. The lightning bugs…

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July 17, 2010