Introverted Reader

A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin: Book Review

This book, the first in a series, is too big to easily sum up the plot and do it justice. Basically, Robert Baratheon led a revolt against the old king of the Seven Kingdoms when he was a young man. Now that he's middle-aged, he's found that he was more interested in fighting for the throne than he is in sitting on it. He calls on his oldest friend, Ned Stark, to take the office of the Hand of the King, and effectively leaves him to run the kingdom while Robert hunts, womanizes, drinks and has a good time. But people have noticed that Robert isn't truly a king, and his throne is vulnerable to vast conspiracies. That synopsis does this no justice. There are so many different plots woven into this epic, it's incredible. The characters are wonderfully depicted and complicated. The story is told through the eyes of many different characters. From Ned's daughter, Sansa, an 11-year-old girl who is too romantic and prim and proper for her own good, to the cynical dwarf, Tyrion, who is the king's brother-in-law, each character has something to say and a unique voice to say it in. But it never gets confusing. Just in case, though, there's a "family tree" of characters at the end to help keep everyone straight, but I never had to use it. For an 800+ page book, I really ripped through this. I picked it up to read just a little one night and I was over 60 pages into it before I realized it. For such a huge book, it really was hard to put down. I got sucked into each character's story and lost track of the time. And this happened every time I picked the book up. It's hard to maintain that kind…

Personal Stories

April Fool’s Day: Booking Through Thursday

Booking Through Thursday says Since it’s April Fool’s Day, I toyed with different ideas of questions for today. * Who’s your favorite “fool” of a character, and why? * What authors have fooled you? By a trick plot twist? By making you think their book was any good when it wasn’t? * What covers have fooled you into reading books you hated … even though the covers were wonderful? * What’s the best April Fool’s Day trick you’ve ever seen/heard about/done? Ultimately, I couldn’t pick … so choose the one you like best. Or answer all of them! Or make up your own. My husband, Luis, probably pulled the best April Fool's Day trick I know of. When we first started dating, we worked in the same department. He got a blank schedule from our supervisor and filled it in, putting everybody on the wrong shifts and making sure that people who really disliked each other were scheduled together. To make matters worse, our supervisor had actually been making noises about shaking us up like that. Anyway, Luis made copies and put them in a few of our work mailboxes. When I saw mine, I fell apart! "I can't work with those two! I'll be fired, because I'll be telling them exactly how lazy they are! Especially when I'm cranky at 6:00 in the morning. What is she thinking?!? She knows I don't work days!" And on and on. He didn't let me stew too long before he clued me in. Boy, was I mad! It was a great trick, but it was horrible for my blood pressure! He didn't do it to very many of us, but I think we all felt the same way. He was lucky he didn't get hurt that day! What's the best April Fool's…

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April 1, 2010

The Fetch by Laura Whitcomb: Book Review

Calder is a Fetch, a soul who escorts people on their journey to heaven. One day he shows up at a Death Scene, waiting to see if an infant chooses to die or not. The woman holding the baby takes his breath away. She's beautiful and has a kind, caring, sad face. He can't get her out of his thoughts, and his work begins to suffer for it. The Fetch was okay, I just felt like I never really connected with anyone. I'm beginning to wonder if I really don't like third-person narratives and just never noticed before. Here, I just felt like I was told a lot of stuff and not really shown anything. I'm told that Calder has always felt like he shouldn't be a Fetch because he has trouble with obedience, but the little I see before the story really starts shows a guy who honestly tries his best. Eventually I was told that he's in love with someone, but I didn't really see it happening. Maybe the author was trying to keep the story short, but I felt like this book should have been longer to show me everything that was happening rather than just telling me and hoping that I accepted it. At the beginning, Alexis is a whiny, bratty teenager. I freely admit that if I'd gone through what he'd gone through, I would have easily out-whined him. But I have very, very little tolerance for angsty teenagers, so he really turned me off. There were times that I just wanted to shake Calder and tell him to start thinking. He finds out that there are two things he has to do. One of them was obvious to me from the beginning. It took him forever to figure it out. Calder ends up on…

Introverted Reader Features

Ammar ibn Kharain: 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. You're going to get one of my book-loves today. That's right--not crush, or lust, but love. Don't worry; my husband knows. I have been in love with Ammar ibn Kharain from The Lions of Al-Rassan by Guy Gavriel Kay, a historical fantasy, since the first time I read it, probably about 15 years ago. He's one of those characters that you aren't too sure about at first, because he's first introduced in the Prologue as he murders someone. It's been too long since I've done a re-read for me to say how long it takes to fall in love with him, but I don't think it takes terribly long. He's just the perfect sort of Renaissance man. He writes poetry, he fights, he's a politician, he's a diplomat, the list goes on and on. And he's damn sexy too. ;-) A quick glance through found these initial descriptions of him. They fall a little short, but I don't have time for…

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April 1, 2010

Bookish Miscellany

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading?

It's Monday! What Are You Reading? is hosted by Sheila at One Person's Journey Through a World of Books. Read and Reviewed: She-Rain by Michael Cogdill The Help by Kathryn Stockett Both of these were amazing! I highly recommend both! Currently Reading The Fetch by Laura Whitcomb It hasn't really grabbed me yet, but weekends aren't really great reading time for me. Up Next Possibly Hush, Hush, Claude & Camille, People of the Sword, or The Girl Who Chased The Moon. We'll see what I'm in the mood for. What are you reading this week?

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March 29, 2010

The Help by Kathryn Stockett: Book Review

In Jackson, Mississippi during the Civil Rights era, a white woman stumbles on the idea of writing a book about the black maids of the area and the white families they work for. There have been so many great reviews written for this book, that I don't know if I have a whole lot more to add. I was alternately infuriated and then cheering for the characters. Seriously. On page 7, I was thinking, "Did I really just read that? Oh my gosh. What a bitch." On page 9, I was laughing, thinking, "All right! I like this character. I can't believe she said that!" And that's how I went through the book. One extreme to the other. There were even parts that left me misty-eyed, and that doesn't happen often. The idea behind the book was great, but I think without the characters, I wouldn't have liked it as well as I did. I just loved them all. Aibileen is so calm and wise, but she's taken all she can take. She's the one who left me wondering what part of your soul you have to tamp down or kill in order to put up with this kind of stuff. Miss Skeeter is the white society girl who went to college to actually learn, not to catch a husband. She wants to be a writer and only accidentally stumbled on this firestorm of an idea. She wasn't quite as indoctrinated in this whole racist point of view as most of her friends, but she still didn't know what she was letting herself in for. To her credit, even when she did realize and her world started falling apart, she knew that what she was doing was too important to stop. And then there's Minny. Oh, my gosh, Minny. She's…

She-Rain by Michael Cogdill: Book Review

Frank Locke is the son of an opium addict in the 1920s in the Blue Ridge mountains of North Carolina. He's quit school to work in a cotton mill and take care of his parents' and grandparents' farms. He's bitter about his father, but he's found a good woman to love. Then some big family drama hits the fan and he discovers a world whose existence he'd never even dreamed of. I'm a Blue Ridge mountain girl, so I'm a little predisposed to love books set at home anyway. But this was just gorgeous, both the writing and the story. It's not a book to rush through; it's a book to take your time over, savor, and wring every last bit of meaning out of. Here, this paragraph that explains both the title and very basic premise of the book will show you what I'm talking about. "In the rise of crickets and peep frogs, Granny spread out her mountain mystic view of things again, and the whole wagon treated it as sacred for a moment. She'd often speak of how a little scrap of fog tears from a rain cloud. Floats on the waves of blue ridge as if a wisp off a bride. Granny and others called it she-rain, I suppose for its womanly drape, white as a wedding gown. Common legend, though Granny took the vision further. Said she-rain was like us all--little scraps torn off into the world, given to the wind, and meant to find a paradise. As she saw things, no human scrap of this life is made for the trash. Even the most ragged are fit to beautify somewhere. Fit for some quilting into the finery of creation." And that's the hope. No matter your background, no matter what you've done, its never…

Peace Like a River by Leif Enger: Book Review

Synopsis from GoodReads: Born with no air in his lungs, it was only when Reuben Land's father, Jeremiah, picked him up and commanded him to breathe that Reuben's lungs filled. Reuben struggles with debilitating asthma from then on, making him a boy who knows firsthand that life is a gift, and also one who suspects that his father is touched by God and can overturn the laws of nature. The quiet 1960's midwestern life of the Lands is upended when Reuben's brother Davy kills to marauders who have come to harm the family. The morning of his sentencing, Davy -- a hero to some, a cold-blooded murderer to others -- escapes from his cell, and the Lands set out in search of him. Their journey is touched by serendipity and the kindness of strangers, and they cover territory far more extraordinary than even the Badlands where they search for Davy from their Airstream trailer. Sprinkled with playful nods to Biblical tales, beloved classics such as Huckleberry Finn, the adventure stories of Robert Louis Stevenson, and the westerns of Zane Grey, Peace Like A River is at once a heroic quest, a tragedy, a love story, and a haunting meditation on the possibility of magic in the everyday world. Do you love Scout and Jem Finch from To Kill A Mockingbird? Then you will love Reuben and Swede Land. Reuben's simple faith in his father and his brother are refreshing and heart-breaking. But Swede--Swede is the shining star in her family's sky. Reuben tells this story and his talented sister obviously baffles him at times. She's composing an epic Western poem as they journey across the Badlands, and she's finding that her characters won't do what she wants them to. She's hilarious, she's heart-broken, she's frustrated, and she's wise beyond her…

Introverted Reader Features

Jilly Coppercorn: 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. Thanks for stopping by my very first Character Connection post! I hope you'll decide to join in! My very first character spotlight is not going to be a book crush. I'm as surprised as you are! I'd like to introduce you to Jilly Coppercorn. She's a minor character in most of Charles de Lint's Newford books and stories, but she's the main character in The Onion Girl; Widdershins; and the novella, Promises to Keep. Jilly has never met a fairy tale she doesn't believe in. For that matter, and perhaps harder to believe, she's never met a person she doesn't believe in. It would be easy to write her off as a "cock-eyed optimist" without any sort of firm grounding in reality, but Jilly comes from a reality so dark, most of us wouldn't even want to contemplate it. But she's mostly healed, thanks to friends who found her, rescued her, and believed in her, and now she tries to pay…

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March 25, 2010

Bookish Miscellany

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading?

It's Monday! What Are You Reading? is hosted by Sheila at One Person's Journey Through a World of Books. Finished and Reviewed: Tempest Rising by Nicole Peeler Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld Ash by Malinda Lo Currently Reading: She-Rain by Michael Cogdill Up Next: The Help by Kathryn Stockett! Finally! I requested this about two months ago from my library, and they just sent me a notice that it's available to be picked up. Now if my night-shift self can just get out of bed early enough to actually go get it tomorrow.... Other News: I got to go to not one but two author signings last week! I was at Sarah Addison Allen's official book launch on Tuesday, and I got to see Ron Rash on Friday! I'll be writing about both signings as soon as I make time for it. If either is going to be close to you, go see them! What are you reading this week?

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March 22, 2010