I might have been living in a box but I had no idea this was the legend of King Arthur.
No idea that it was actually four books in one.
No idea the first one was The Sword In The Stone.
But now I do!
I liked it.
It was far funnier than I thought it would be and had far more philosophical ponderings at the edges than I expected.
When it comes down to it :
Would I recommend it? Yup, it’s Arthurian legend, it’s a classic, gotta read it!.
Book one of The Sisters Grimm, totally my kind of a book. A young adult fantasy book where fairy tale creatures, or “everafters” as they are called in the book, are everywhere and not quite what you remember from the stories, there is a Great Dane and Prince Charming is sort of a cad. I think young adult fiction is my own personal book candy. Quick to read, sweet, fun and slightly addictive. I’m off to order the next one from the library, and if anyone asks it’s research for recommend books for when my girls are older, yeah that’s it, research…
Would I recommend it? Yes, although I suspect an actual young adult would find it more enjoyable. Of course if you are also an adult doing research of your own I’d pick it up!
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.
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.
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!
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
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!”
“By the big red barn in the great green field, there was a pink pig who was learning to squeal…”
Sorry, I see the book and the words just start rolling off my tongue, I can’t help it!
Ivy loved it as a baby and I read it so many times I accidentally memorized it. Then when Clara started reading books we pulled it out with the rest of the board books and it took about two times through before I had all the words back again.
Someone tell me why I was never able to master my times tables but I can memorize kids books on accident!
Regardless* of my math ineptitude this book has my favorite sort of sing song rhythm to it, making it easy to memorize (if you are into that sort of thing) and fun to read out loud. As if that wasn’t enough to make one little book lovely the girls seem to really enjoy the super detailed illustrations (can you see the hose on the barn in the picture?).
Would I recommend it? Yes, both the kids and I agree on this one. Besides, I have it memorized and I don’t hate it, it’s got to be good.
*I was going to use irregardless in this sentence but thought I’d better look it up to see if it meant what I thought it meant. My dictionary had this to say about it:
…”The most frequently repeated remark about it is that “there is no such word.” There is such a word, however.” … “Its reputation has not risen over the years, and it is still a long way from general acceptance. Use regardless instead.”
So I did…
…but every time I’ve read though my draft I say irregardless in my head.
I’m not sure how much there really is to say about the third book in a trilogy, either you are going to read them all or you aren’t. Stopping after number two would be foolish and this one had dragons and love and concludes 5 books worth of material, if you’ve gone this far you better finish!
*This picture was shrunk so as not to hurt your eyes too badly. It’s bad, really bad, I have no idea how to take a picture of a black book with a shiny cover on it, sorry!*
Also to be a tad more technical and less sassy with my comments I thought Robin Hobb did an excellent job of pulling in secrets and plot lines from all over the last five books, unraveling them and then weaving them back up into a very nice final book. Stuff was revisited I never thought to hear mention again and it made for a better ending than I was expecting!
Would I recommend it? Yes. I’ll say it one more time, Start with Assassins Apprentice, and just keep going, they are some pretty dang good books!
This was book two of the Tawny Man trilogy (see this for book one) and it defiantly had a book two sort of feel. Lots of stuff happens, you get thrown a few small bones of plot at the end, but overall not a lot gets resolved. Not my favorite of hers so far but it’s not dulling my impatience while I wait for the next one!
Would I recommend it? Yes. Just be sure to read at least Fool’s Errand first if not the whole Farseer trilogy !
Behind the Willows 