Introverted Reader

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde: Book Review

It seems like I run into references to Dorian Gray pretty frequently (Most recently in James Blunt's song "Tears and Rain"). I decided to pick this up because I was tired of not understanding the references. The Picture of Dorian Gray begins with one of Dorian's friends, a painter named Basil Hallward, just finishing his portrait. Lord Henry is visiting Basil and happens to meet Dorian. Henry sort of becomes the devil on Dorian's shoulder, asking something like, "Isn't it a shame that this portrait will be forever beautiful, perfect, innocent, and pure, but you will age, wither and die?" This hits Dorian hard. In a temper tantrum, he prays that the opposite should happen. He wants to live unsullied and have the portrait bear the marks of his living. His prayer is answered. This frees Dorian to live the life of cruelty, debauchery, and addiction that he wants. The portrait is hidden away in the attic and it looks more and more horrifying. But since Dorian is forever a beautiful 20-year-old Adonis, no one ever knows about his secret life. To me, this book was cautionary tale about not judging by appearances and how you might be able to hide your sins, but you can't hide them forever. I was shocked to read the introduction (after finishing the book) and find out that the critics at the time of publication thought the book was immoral and terrible! The first version included some "homoerotic" scenes which upset readers in the 1890's. Wilde's popularity wasn't helped by the fact that he was jailed for two years, basically for homosexuality. It seemed to me like Oscar Wilde and Dorian Gray became the same person in the minds of readers and no one wanted anything to do with the book or the author.…

The Way of Shadows by Brent Weeks: Book Review

Azoth is an 11-year-old boy barely surviving in the streets of Cenaria City. He's part of a brutal gang of children who will do anything in order to survive. But Azoth wants to do more than survive; he wants a way out of the Warrens and he sees an apprenticeship with master assassin Durzo Blint as his ticket. Now if he can just find Durzo and persuade him of the same thing... My sister shoved this book into my hands and said, "Read this. Now. It will be your next book crack fix." That might have set my hopes a little too high, but it was still a great read. The beginning was a bit startling. Fairly or not, I think of my baby sister (who is 30, by the way) as being more innocent than I am. So when the book is suddenly talking about rape as a means of subduing the boys in the gang, I was appalled. It wasn't graphic, but there was no question what was going on. I started texting her about it. She didn't remember it at all. "Oh, maybe that's why The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo didn't bother me." Blink. Blink. Okay.... But the author addresses this in his interview at the end. He says, "Hope isn't vibrant unless it has to be chosen over despair. Redemption is cheap unless there's a suffocating darkness in which even a hero is tempted to hide....without that, light and peace are meaningless, worthless, boring." OK. I get it. I actually make this same argument to my husband whenever he asks why I read "stuff like that." Granted, what I normally read doesn't get this dark, but he has to listen to me working out what's going on within the darker parts of my books. He…

Santa Olivia by Jacqueline Carey: Book Review

4 Stars. This was not what I expected, but I'm not complaining. I expected more of a science-fictiony werewolf story and that's not really what this is. The nonhuman? superhuman? other-than-human? side of Loup definitely defines a large part of her life, but it's not really what drives [...]

Bookish Miscellany

Weekly Update for June 11, 2012

Welcome to my weekly update for June 11, 2012! It's Monday! What Are You Reading? is hosted by Sheila at Book Journey. It's been a few weeks since I posted, so I'll just recap some highlights. Posted [...]

10 Comments

June 11, 2012

Blog Advice

Ask the Experts: Armchair BEA

It's the last day of Armchair BEA! It's been great to "meet" so many new-to-me bloggers this week. Thanks to all who have stopped by! Today's topic: "If you have any burning questions for your fellow participants about book blogging now is the time to ask and if you don't we'd love for you to share your own personal tips about book blogging!" My burning question: How do you make time for everything? This is aimed at the people with similar situations to mine--40 hour work week, family commitments, gym time, reading time, blogging time, and the list goes on. How do you do it? It seems like it gets harder rather than easier for me. And I don't even have children! My tips? I won't claim to be any kind of expert, but I can probably throw out a couple. 1. Keep it fun. Don't worry about how many followers you have or how many review books you get. You probably started doing this because it sounded like fun. Do whatever it takes to keep it that way. 2. Don't lose sight of what's really important in life. Make time for your real-world commitments. Most of us are blessed to have some sort of support system outside the internet. Keep up with them. The internet is always here. Your friends might not be if you lose touch with them. Stop by and see what advice other experts have to offer and give advice of your own at the Armchair BEA website! I have an affiliate relationship with Malaprop's, my local independent bookstore located in beautiful downtown Asheville, NC; and Better World Books. I will receive a small commission at no cost to you if you purchase books through links on my site.

9 Comments

June 8, 2012

Introverted Reader Features

Character Connection: Karou

Karou, the main character in Laini Taylor's Daughter of Smoke and Bone, is a 17-year-old girl attending an arts school in Prague. She has funky blue hair; a short and awesomely sarcastic best friend; a beautiful, arrogant ex-boyfriend; amazing artistic ability; and a double life. Karou carries around a sketchbook with her wherever she goes and her friends at school love looking through it every week to check out the continuing adventures of The Chimera, creatures cobbled together from bits and pieces of all kinds of animals. There's Esa the snake women, Brimstone with his ram's horns, a crow-like creature whose name I can't remember, and more. All of her friends think that Karou is making up The Chimera and their adventures. She's not--they're the closest thing to family that she has. Karou is just awesome. She and Zuzanna play off each other really well. Both smartasses but also genuinely caring about each other. She and the ex-boyfriend are fun to watch. He with his narcissism and she unrelentingly knocking him down a peg or two. She and Akiva are...magic. She manages to attend school and at the same time use this weird portal system to carry out errands for Brimstone, collecting teeth from around the world for him. She might be in Siberia one day and in Borneo the next. She questions Brimstone, but when he continually rebuffs her curiosity about the teeth, she mostly respects his wishes. But you can't blame a girl for being curious, right? She's hugely loyal to her adoptive family and is willing to go to the ends of the earth for them. Karou has a huge heart and she's not afraid to act on her convictions. She knows a tooth trader who wished for knowledge and got it, at the cost of his…

5 Comments

June 8, 2012

Bookish Miscellany

Positive Real-Life Bookish Experiences: Armchair BEA

The amazing organizers over at Armchair BEA are asking us to share positive real-life bookish experiences today. Where to start? Since I've been blogging, I've taken a much more active interest in my local independent bookstore (Malaprops in beautiful downtown Asheville, NC) and all the author events they have going on. We get some very well-known authors for a town our size! Some of my favorites have been Sarah Addison Allen, Joshilyn Jackson, Charles Vess, and John Connolly (whom I was apparently too lazy to write about). Through other book bloggers, I learned about the Decatur Book Festival and attended the past two years. It is such a great opportunity to meet authors and other bibliophiles! I highly recommend going if you can. But I'll write about something a little different. I've been on GoodReads a couple of years longer than I've been blogging. I "met" Sonya on there and befriended her, and was thrilled to find out that she was from a little town just over the mountain from my own. We shared book recommendations and tips about what was going on within our own local literary community. In January of this year, we decided it was finally time to meet face-to-face. I was a little nervous, and I think she was too. What if this other person was a serial killer or something? But we were meeting at a place we both love (You have to love a place called The Battery Park Book Exchange and Champagne Bar. Books and champagne. Throw in some chocolate and you have my idea of heaven. The best chocolate you will ever taste is just a street over.) It was like meeting an old friend. We talked and laughed over a bottle of wine like we had known each other for years.…

10 Comments

June 6, 2012

Book Reviews

2012 Mid(ish)-Year Review: Armchair BEA

Today is giveaway day at Armchair BEA, so make sure you head on over and try to win some free books and other goodies! Those of us not sponsoring a giveaway are asked to write about our favorite books of 2012. I rarely accept books for review because I have discovered that I hate reading on a deadline, so I mostly read from my own shelves or from my local library. So when I say "My favorite books of 2012," that means books that I read in 2012. I don't think I've read any that were published this year. On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King was fantastic. I do enjoy King's work, so I liked reading "behind the scenes" of some of his stories. I can't say that I've read any other writing manuals, but King's advice seemed to be pretty straightforward and simple enough to follow. Says the non-writer. Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese is a great big story like I rarely take the time to read any more. I loved getting lost in Ethiopia. Verghese brought the sounds and smells of the country to life for me. I re-read To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee in April and I loved it just as much this time around. I came away with a new appreciation for Jem. Don't you love how you get something different from a book every time you read it? I haven't written a review yet, but I was surprised by how much I loved Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell. My aunt finally talked me into reading it by promising to do a read-along with me and I had so much fun texting with her about it! My emotions about Rhett and especially Scarlett were all over the…

21 Comments

June 5, 2012

Personal Stories

Getting to Know All About You: Armchair BEA

Book Expo America is taking place this week in New York, so you know what that means for us bloggers left at home--it's Armchair BEA time! We're kicking the week off with "interviews." Each blogger is choosing from a list of ten questions and posting the answers on his or her own blog. If you want to read more about your [...]

21 Comments

June 4, 2012

Bookish Miscellany

My Thoughts, Your Thoughts: Bonus Material

Do you read the bonus material in a book? There are tons of extras that publishers occasionally see fit to throw into a book. I read most of it but not all and I'm curious how other readers feel. My list and how I feel about them (I do realize that some of these are way more "extra" than others): 1. Introduction--I avoid these like the plague. They should be called "Conclusions" at best, or, more honestly, "Spoilers." They definitely need to be put at the end of the book rather than the beginning. I mostly see them in the Barnes & Noble editions of classics. I know the books are classics, so the plot is supposed to just be general knowledge, but I frequently don't know anything about the classic that I'm reading. So to read an "Introduction" only to have the entire plot outlined and spoiled quite honestly pisses me off. 2. Dedication--I do usually glance at these. I think they give me an idea about who the author is as a person. Does she dedicate it to her family, friends, pets, or readers? These can be pretty cute sometimes. 3. Prologue (or whatever you choose to call the bit of story that comes before Chapter 1)--I do read these. They frequently set up something that comes along later in the book. I have one friend on GoodReads who refuses to read them. She says, "If it were necessary to the story, it would be called 'Chapter 1.'" 4. Epilogue (or whatever you choose to call the bit of story that comes after the last chapter)--I read these as well, but sometimes I regret it. For the most part, I feel like epilogues give me some closure. Usually some time has elapsed, the characters are in a better…

2 Comments

May 30, 2012