Tag Archives: book

Bubble Gum, Bubble Gum by Lisa Wheeler and Laura Huliska-Beith

Where is a good editor when you need one?  Truthfully I’m not exactly sure what an editor does but with a very small amount of changes this would go from a great book to an excellent one.

-Toads are not green, this looks like a frog to me. And every kid I’ve ever known thinks that  green= frog, brown=toad, why mess with that?

-Bees do not have stinger noses, I dislike improper anatomy on animals (or bugs) for no good reason. Cowboy boots, fine but get that stinger on the other end.

-And finally, if the books follows the same rhyming pattern the whole way through why do you mess it up on the last page?!?!

road-toad

goo-shrew

loose-goose

free-bee

go-crow

stuck-truck

air -bear

stuck-hen — WHAT?!!?

Those problems aside this book has a great chanty, jaunty, rhymey, rhythmy, flow to it (that’s a technical term).

I like the pictures (other than above mentioned problems) and Ivy likes it enough we’ve been reading it multiple times in a row.

So even with the above problems…

Would I recommend it? Yes, unless you are one who reads books in a flat monotone, this requires that chanty, jaunty, rhymey, rhythm in order to be great.

Dealing With Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede

This is quite possibly my all time favorite book and it is, without a doubt, the book I have read the most often over the most number of years. I have given it to friends to read, I have read it out loud to two different people, I have even had my book club read it. Did I mention I love it?

Reasons that you will love Dealing With Dragons:

1- Chapter titles – For instance chapter one is titled: In Which Cimorene Refuses to Be Proper and Has a Conversation with a Frog.

2-Cimorene (the princess and heroine of the story) often refuses to be proper.

3-Dragons uses princess to cook and clean for them.

4- A sign above a door that reads, “NONE OF THIS NONSENSE, PLEASE.”

5- Other princesses are just as dull and ditsy as you could hope they would be.

6- King of Dragons is just a title, nothing to do with gender.

7-Dragons like Cherries Jubilee.

8- Princes also have to follow proper protocol.

9-A bucket of water won’t melt a clean witch.

10- Cimorene’s happily ever after involves being interested and busy and has nothing to do with a protocol following prince!

Would I recommend it? Yes! Technically it’s a young adult book, please ignore that and read it anyway.

Gil's All Fright Diner by A. Lee Martinez

“Reality is like a fruitcake: Pretty enough to look at but with all sorts of nasty things lurking just beneath the surface.”

That’s it, that line up there. That’s as good as it gets, you’d think with a vampire, a werewolf a couple hundred pound waitress, ghosts, a horny teenage boy, zombies and the end of the world, not to mention undead cows there would be something more to say, but there isn’t.

Would I recommend this? No. This was Martinez’s first book I have read In The Company Of Ogres and A Nameless Witch and enjoyed both of them, they do have a dark, snarky sense of humor but they were good. This one was not.

Ship of Destiny by Robin Hobb

Better, much better.

I still think that there are too many characters being followed, I still wasn’t as impressed as I was with her others that I have read but I liked it. I liked it in a couldn’t put it down lost hours of sleep over it kind of liked it. I’d be all sleepy and planning on just reading one chapter then suddenly I’d be sucked into sailing and dragons and battles and I’d be wide awake and reading far too long into the night. Now the fact that the first book, was lame makes sense, but that was a big book of lameness to make it through to get to this one!

Would I recommend it? Yes, but of course then you have to read the first two (here and here) or this wouldn’t make sense and I didn’t like those near as much. So as for the whole trilogy I’d say it was good, not great, but good. I think my full recommendation is to start with Assassins Apprentice and read those, then if you liked theme come back to these. Plus technically these fall between the Farseer Trilogy and the Tawny Man Trilogy so you should read them first anyway, but you could skip these three altogether and still understand everything in the Tawny Man books.

Whew, apparently I’ve got nothing succient in me about this book… check out the next review I’m not confused on my feelings coming up for that one!

Screamfree Parenting by Hal Edward Runkel

I don’t read very many parenting books, but this one kept cropping up everywhere so I thought I’d see what all the fuss was about.  I admit I did not read this slowly and thoughtfully while answering all the “reflection questions” at the end of the chapters, it was more of a skimming, yeah, yeah, blah, blah, hmm that’s interesting, sort of read.

My issue with reading it was my own avoidance of parenting books problem, it breaks down something like this:

one part,”I’m doing just fine thank you very much,”

one part  “If I read all the parenting books, I’ll probably start thinking that I need to do everything different, they will all say different things and then I will go insane which would have the opposite effect I was hoping for.”

and one part “I’m half Finnish and I don’t think that half of me is interested in reflecting on my inner feelings, thank you have a nice day.”

I read it anyway, and tried to stifle my eye rolling on the bold texts that said things like,

“Pain is often the greatest catalyst to powerful change.”

and

“Screamfree Parenting is not a problem-solving or behavioral modification model; it is a growth model.”

Not that these things aren’t true, it’s just that my aversion to books like this was in control of my eyeballs.

My point, I did have one…

This was better than I thought.  For the most part I liked what he said (it helped that I also do/believe many of the things already) and it did give me some stuff to ponder in daily life with my three year old. Hopefully my Finnishness will subside and I can even implement a bit of it. And I liked the basic message of the book. While the author multiple times mentions his disapproval for “what works for fideo will work for your kid”  type books, I’d say, what I took out of it sounded an awful lot like Caesar Milan. The dog whisperer and this guy have the same basics.  Calm assertive pack leader and calm consistent parent aren’t too different when you get right down to it.  I know it works on the dogs, I’ve seen it help with the kids, but knowing it will help and actually being calm are not always the same thing!

Would I recommend it? I’m not recommending any parenting books. Not because how I feel but because what you want to read in that area is completely up to you, I’d hate to add to any insanity (see avoidance issues above).

The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides

My predominant feeling reading this book was a strange mix of boredom and guilt. The middle of the book is very slow, but since you find out early on that there are going to be a bunch of suicides, (surprise, surprise) it dawns on you that the something you are impatiently waiting for to happen will be a pile of girls killing themselves. Then the guilt sets in.

We read this for a book club book, I was not the only one with such feelings nor was I the only one completely befuddled over the narrator, Who? why? What is the context to the narrative? Why?

Would I recommend it? No

Mad Ship by Robin Hobb

Second in The Liveship Traders series I liked this book much better than the first.

Is it because the character set up was done in the first book and now they are actually growing?

Because now I’m hooked in the plot?

Because I can see more and more how this connects to the Tawny Man Trilogy?

Because I love a good nautical adventure?

I have no idea, but I’m requesting the next one from the library tonight.

Would I recommend it? No, I can’t recommend the second if I didn’t like the first even if it was better. Perhaps the third will swing my vote back to a yes we’ll have to see…

While we are on the subject of things that I don’t love I have a question.

Who is in charge of cover art for books?

Don’t they ever worry about the artists actually reading what they attempt to portray? This isn’t the worst example of  an inaccurate cover ever, something like this picture sort of happened. Characters, ships and sea serpents are described to sort of look like that… seriously, I find it to be totally annoying.

The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner by Stephenie Meyer

Now the problem with this post is that I must publicly admit that not only have I read all the twilight books but that I was interested enough to check out this “eclipse novella.”  Yup, I read them, and I liked them. I did not start until after they were all written and I had a few friends rave about them, but I did eventually cave, and I was addicted, and I read them all back to back, and my husband has teased me about it ever since. I have not however gone to see any of the movies. How you can make a movie out of a book where the main character just talks about how beautiful her vampire boyfriend is and then not have that beautiful of a guy acting as the vampire is beyond me, but I digress…

This book takes one very minor character from Eclipse and gives you her whole story.  I think I can do no better than what Stephenie Meyer says in the forward:

“I hope you end up caring about Bree as much as I do, though that’s kind of a cruel wish. You know this: it doesn’t end well for her. But at least you will know the whole story. And that no perspective is ever really trivial.”

I think it exemplifies the part of authors that awes me. To create and know your characters so well that you have all these back stories in your head, to not only choose what goes in a book  and what doesn’t, but to have enough knowledge of your creation that everyone no matter how small a part acts accordingly, whether we as readers know it the first time we meet them or not. It amazes me.

Would I recommend it? Now I feel sort of silly, and maybe I’m not making any sense tonight, but my answer to this is no. This isn’t really a book to pick up just to read, if you have read the rest of them then sure, its a fun (OK,well not super fun it is a very short life) read. But I didn’t think it was awesome in itself or a necessary addendum to the books.  It is what it stands for that amazes me, the actual book not so much.

There is no picture, becuase the book is black and shiny which I find mostly impossible to photograph. Not only that it is highly recognizable from afar as a Stephenie Meyer book, you don’t need my poor picture to find this one on a shelf!

Death In A Lonely Land by Peter Hathaway Capstick

I’d just like to say right now that I have absolutely no desire to go hunting for anything that has earned it’s reputation as a man eater or even anything that could possibly do so in the future. I do not want to go hunting animals that may attempt to eat me before I eat them. I do not want to hunt animals that don’t want to eat me but would be satisfied with stomping me into a pulp. I really don’t want to go hunting for something that would like to pound me into a pulp and then eat me afterward with nothing but a few dogs and a really big knife.  Yet, for some reason I love reading about people who do.

Maybe I’m nuts, or maybe it is that Capstick is an especially engaging author, pick up something of his and let me know!

Would I recommend it? Yes.  This book of his is not all big game hunting, it also has fishing, some discussions on firearms and ammo, (now I want a fully automatic BB gun, and that’s not something I ever expected to say) and bit of bird hunting.  While the variety of topics is nice the benefits of using a tube fly for salmon just don’t have the same memorable qualities as a “Midnight Date With A Black Jaguar!”

Ship Of Magic by Robin Hobb

I was so disappointed in this book.

I probably should have taken a breather between finishing the Tawny Man series (also by Robin Hobb) before starting a new one, but I was on a roll and I didn’t.

I really wish I had.

I loved The Farseer Trilogy and The Tawny Man Trilogy  they were awesome, for reasons I have already spoken of here, here and here. This book was not as good, reading it right after Fool’s Fate made it seem even worse. Too many view points, too cliche of characters, and an unsurprising plot. Near the end things were looking up I’ll read the next one and cross my fingers it gets better but as for this one…

Would I recommend it? No. I hope it was a fluke and the writing that so impressed me with her other books returns in the second of this series.