|
|
 On the eve of World War II, Max and his family moved from their city house out to the shore, where it should be safer. Unbeknownst to them, it’s anything but, as strange things start to happen as soon as they move in. Max’s sister Irina’s cat appears possessed, various members of the family start having strange dreams, and Max encounters a sculpture garden where he swears the sculptures move. What’s going on, and what does it have to do with the previous family, whose son drowned in the ocean?
I had high hopes for this book. I was pretty sure I’d seen it reviewed enthusiastically around the internet, and my online book club chose it as a spooky read for the end of October. Plus, I liked Zafon’s other books, especially The Shadow of the Wind. I knew he could do atmosphere, so I was excited to find out what he could do with a spooky one.
Unfortunately, I was really disappointed in it. I knew it was a YA book going in, so that wasn’t really the problem, but it just seemed so simplistic, so irritatingly dumbed down in many different ways. I’ve read plenty of YA and I know it doesn’t have to be like this, which is part of the reason it struck such a wrong note with me. I felt almost like this was a children’s book, not a YA book, which would probably explain my feelings.
To start, for a horror book the story began almost painfully slowly. I really just was not interested in what happened to Max or his family. As the suspense crept up on him, I did get slightly more interested in the story, but I felt ready to put it down at any point. The suspense was also often ruined by the fact that the story contained vast amounts of info dumping. Every time Max talked to someone, it seemed they had a pages-long story to tell him about the past, which of course impacted the present day hugely. I kind of wished we’d actually flipped back and forth in time, rather than having large story-telling sessions which simply lost the flow of the narrative.
Then there were the characters. I found it hard to relate to any of them, but Max was difficult in particular. His reactions didn’t seem typical of a nine-year-old boy, at least no little boy I’ve ever known. He seems much too wise for his age, and the book is very reflective in terms of his emotions and reactions to things. For example, he immediately invites his sister to hang out with his new friend, and at one point smiles to himself because he catches said friend and his sister kissing – wondering if it’s been the first time it had ever happened for them, in a peculiar adult-like way that creeped me out. I actually thought he was a teenager, and was surprised to look back at the end and see that he’s only nine. I couldn’t believe in his character and that ruined it for me.
Sure, there are hints of atmosphere in places, and I was creeped out at points. I can see where his future talent was emerging. But overall, I was disappointed with this book. I may have felt differently if I’d approached it as a kid’s book, not a YA book, but honestly, I doubt it. It didn’t feel the way the reviews led me to believe it would, and in the end I found The Prince Of Mist disappointing. I doubt I will read another of Zafon’s books aimed at children; I’ll still happily read his adult books though!
I am an Amazon Associate. I purchased this book.
 By all outward appearances, and in their own minds, Simon and Emily Bear lead a happy life. Simon is a successful doctor, beloved by his patients and staff. Emily is a star in the PR world, effortlessly smoothing over crises as she gives talks and inspires young people to pursue her career path. Perhaps the only outward dark spot in their life is their daughter, Jamie, but as she’s a teenager, she’s expected to be rebellious. As the book continues, however, we learn about the cracks in their marriage, like the baby boy who died just weeks after his birth, the man that Emily left because he wasn’t suiting her direction in life, the problems that Simon has with his parents. As the book continues, we learn that appearances aren’t everything, and perhaps the most successful of all of us could be the most broken on the inside.
This was a book that’s grown on me since I finished it. I’m not really a fan of stories about modern relationships, as I’ve mentioned in depth on this blog in the past. I live my own life in the real world, so it takes a special something to capture me in a story that’s about the same world. In fact, I only read this one because my mom requested it from Amazon Vine but left the review too long, and because it’s published by Amy Einhorn Books, of which I’m a fan.
As expected, it took me a while to get into the book. I really wasn’t interested in the fate of this particular family at first; they felt too normal, too much a suburban couple thinking more of themselves than what they are. Interestingly, I found I related much more to Emily – I vastly preferred her sections to Simon’s. I put down the book once or twice when they switched – I just didn’t want to read from his perspective. Simon felt to me like a very arrogant person. He constantly denies anything that’s slightly wrong in his life, glossing over it, inserting himself awkwardly into situations, trying to take control when he’s clearly not wanted. The way he dismisses the intern at the start put me against him right away – he just couldn’t deal with the fact that she didn’t adore him like everyone else. As the book progressed, I could see where he came from. I found his attempt to find a cure for chronic pain almost ironic; he’s trying to cure physical pain when the pain that really impacts his life is the emotional kind, which both he and Emily still suffer from years after their initial loss. Despite understanding, I still couldn’t like him.
Emily, on the other hand, I sympathized with, perhaps because I could see how she made the choices she did when she was young. I felt her pain more clearly; I could understand how she got the way she was but still feel for the woman she’d become. This is so strange, because she commits wrongs over the course of the book that are substantially worse than Simon’s. I was left wondering if I could feel for her, and not him, because her problems were ones I could better relate to as a woman even though I hadn’t experienced them myself. Some sort of instinctive sympathy, perhaps – I really don’t know, but the fact stands.
Remedies would be a great choice for those who really like to peek into the lives of a successful family and see deep into the layers of relationships. For me, however, it fell a bit short, but I’m sticking that firmly in the realm of personal preference and looking forward to seeing if Kate Ledger writes something that’s more to my taste next time.
I am an Amazon Associate. I received this book for free from Amazon Vine.
 Tacy’s life in Gettysburg is thrown into turmoil by the Civil War. Two of her brothers are off fighting and her father, a doctor, is doing all he can to save soldiers on both sides; at home with her is her brother David, crippled just enough to be ineligible for war service, and her mother. David loves Tacy but is bitter about his inability to fight, meaning that tensions often run high in the family home. Things only get worse when the Confederate army invades the town and Tacy has to hide her free black friend Marvelous and her family from the soldiers. The Battle of Gettysburg, when it occurs, shocks the town and changes Tacy’s life forever.
I’d only ever read one book by Ann Rinaldi before, when I was much younger, but I knew she wrote great historical fiction for young adults. I’m not normally a fan of Civil War fiction, but I knew I liked In My Father’s House, so I thought I’d give this new book a try, which turned out to be a great decision. The Last Full Measure is not a story about a girl who does extraordinary things for the war effort; instead it’s about a girl who just tries to get by, who is affected by the war just as deeply as everyone else, who reacts in perfect human ways to circumstances which could tear some of us apart.
In Tacy, Rinaldi creates a wonderful, real heroine who is forced to question the world around her due to a war. She gets confused and she struggles, but her core values are the same as all of ours. She adores her family and her friends, and even fighting with one of these cherished few makes her desperately unhappy. Her joy when her brothers arrive safely for a visit is transformed into the reader’s joy as we can’t help but feel for her and her pain. She doesn’t go onto the battlefield and save lives, but she does what little she can to protect those who she loves, which is more than others have done in the past. In fact, I think that was what I liked most about it, that Tacy was very ordinary but strong-willed and loving. I could imagine myself in her shoes, both in good and bad ways. This book is written for a younger audience and I do think that Tacy matches that description. In some ways, she is wise, but in others, she is still very much a young girl with a young girl’s thoughts.
I also really liked that, in her mission for the book, Rinaldi tried to aim for something that wasn’t really covered in most fiction books about the Civil War; namely, that Gettysburg had a reasonable population of free blacks and what happened when Confederate soldiers invaded. By making it personal and giving Tacy a close friend whose family was facing these very challenges, Rinaldi made the struggle personal and both educated me about the situation in Gettysburg and moved me as Tacy tried desperately to save her friend from slavery.
The Last Full Measure is an excellent young adult book about the Civil War. It deals with important complex historical situations but its best feature is its heroine, because Tacy is a believable, fully fleshed out young girl that many readers will find easy to relate to.
I am an Amazon Associate. I received this book for free for review from Netgalley.
 Cod is a fish most of us probably take for granted. We can buy it, though it’s often expensive, and we don’t always think about where it came from, how it got to be popular, or what’s going to happen to it next. Mark Kurlansky does just that, however, and explore cod’s role in history from when its abundance helped the Vikings to explore to the present day, when overfishing has severely depleted fish stocks. Interspersed with this look at cod and its history are recipes from each time period, giving the book an authentic feel and an extra edge.
I thought this book was surprisingly interesting. I originally wanted to read Salt by Kurlansky, which does a similar thing but rather obviously with salt, and when my library didn’t have that one I spotted this one instead. I’ve recently started to eat more fish – it’s healthier and I seem to have outgrown my distaste for most of it – so it also seemed like great timing to learn a little bit more about cod. With history in the mix, how could the book go wrong?
Thankfully, it didn’t go wrong at all, and remained interesting and informative throughout. Because of Kurlansky’s focus on cod, he does neglect some of the wider issues, so at times I didn’t feel like I was getting a full picture. Cod was obviously not the only reason that the Vikings explored the north Atlantic, and it also wasn’t the only reason that Boston became an important city – but it helped both of those along, and I think the book may have lost some of its focus if he delved into some of the deeper issues. I suppose all I’m trying to say is that it sparked my interest in some other time periods, so I could learn a bit more about them in addition to learning about the fish.
Of course, the book also deals very heavily with the main problem facing cod these days, which is overfishing. Due to long-term misunderstanding about the way cod worked and rampant attempts to land more of the incredibly abundant fish, there is now an incredible shortage and, at the time the book was written, moratoriums on fishing cod in parts of Canada. Kurlansky writes about the many problems this has caused; namely, the fact that the fish may not recover the same way, the loss of livelihoods for the fishermen, and the changes in sealife that the lack of cod may cause. There’s a lot of theorizing here, but I could appreciate that it was because no one really knows what will happen, and they still don’t know. All they can do is hope that overfishing stops long enough for the stock to recover, and that it does precisely that.
As for the last bit, the recipes, they did add something nice to the book, but I found that overall I wouldn’t be making any of them towards the beginning! They were very interesting in terms of learning what people ate at different times in history, but for myself? Not so much. They are fairly basic, however, so anyone interested would be able to make them with ease.
Cod is a really interesting book about the fish and its role in history. It’s well worth a read if you’ve ever been interested in the fish or its role in history – or even if you’re just looking for something a little bit different.
I am an Amazon Associate. I borrowed this book from my local library.
 Nick and Alan’s life has been unsettled for as long as Nick can remember. The magicians are after their mother, so they’re constantly moving. Their mother is mad and can’t stand the sight of Nick, though she can sometimes carry on ordinary conversations with others. To make things worse this time, two kids from Nick’s school show up, one of them with a demon’s mark on him. Jamie has no idea what to do, and his sister Mae is determined to protect him. Though Nick is quite happy to throw the other kids to the wind, Alan does his best to help, imperiling his own family in the process.
I wasn’t sure about this book at the start. It opens slowly. We know the family is in danger, but the why of it is a bit shaky, and it’s difficult to relate to Nick. He’s very cold and unemotional, especially at the beginning. He very obviously loves his brother, but he seems to have no feelings for anyone else. Mae and Jamie’s arrival is met with bitter distrust and even anger; he’s quite happy to leave Jamie to die and doesn’t really care how Mae feels about that.
As the book progresses, however, secrets are revealed that really do make everything start to come clear. In large part these revelations made the book for me, as I found myself speeding through to find out the truth. Alan has been hiding secrets from Nick. I knew there had to be some answer behind the myriad dropped hints, but I didn’t manage to guess all of it, and I quite enjoyed the way it was revealed.
Though I definitely enjoyed the book, and understood why it was so, I found that Nick’s coldness put me off really loving it. He’s meant to be exactly as he is, but I think I’m one of those readers that needs to at least relate to the protagonist of a book to love it. I can like it just fine, but I couldn’t bond with Nick. He’s not the main character in the next book of the series, however, so I think I may get on with that one better and might fall in love with it as I thought I should have fallen in love with this one.
If you’ve been enjoying a lot of paranormal YA, you can’t go wrong with The Demon’s Lexicon. The main character is a bit cold, but the story is entrancing. I loved that this focused on a relationship between two brothers, rather than a romantic one like so much YA in this genre does; it’s nice to have a change sometimes. I’m looking forward to the next volume in the series!
I am an Amazon Associate. I purchased this book.
 This review contains spoilers for the first book in the series, Of Saints and Shadows (my review).
Vampires have been recognized world-wide as allies of humans thanks to video footage of the fight against Liam Mulkerrin and demons airing on the television. Their instinctive distrust, however, is not easily set aside, and many humans still not only fear them but desire to place the blame for the world’s ills squarely at the feet of the vampires. Meaghan Gallagher and her partner, Alexandra Nueva, are the two biggest advocates for vampire and human friendliness, but they’re fighting a losing battle as not even all vampires want to cooperate. One such is Hannibal, who still wants to hunt. When Mulkerrin returns and Hannibal attacks, the vampires find themselves fighting a war on all fronts and struggling to maintain their ideology in the face of fierce opposition.
As with the first book in this series, I enjoyed this book – I actually think I enjoyed it even more. The politics of it, particularly in the beginning, were quite interesting, and as I already knew all the main characters, I found it much easier to get into it at the very start. I also knew what to expect in terms of violence, which I found made it a lot easier to take. I knew it was going to get bloody, and probably fast, so when it did, I had no problem with it.
In this part of the series, Meaghan Gallagher really takes the lead. I do cringe a bit every time I see her name – it looks almost like my name, enough to throw me off, but obviously not too many other people out there are going to have this problem! She was one of the main characters in the last book, but here she’s settled into her role as vampire and taken charge as the one who negotiates with the government and appears as the public face of the vampires. With her is her partner and lover, Alexandra, who mainly provides her with support and love. There are a few more couples in this book as well, so again it maintains the same level of graphic descriptions at times, though there was more fighting and less romance in this book.
What I really liked about this book was that it introduced some different and interesting characters. Golden uses a bunch of characters from history in different ways. Sometimes I don’t really like this, but for some reason here it worked. We have Buffalo Bill, we have Charlemagne, and we have another character I won’t name because I don’t want to spoil it. Charlemagne doesn’t pop up until a bit later in the book either, but it was pretty obvious who it was, so I won’t consider that a spoiler. They’re vampires, which means they’ve had an opportunity to change with the times and I can excuse their irregularities to some extent. The new characters added something, I thought.
Overall this was another good, action-packed installment of the series. It’s definitely perfect for those who enjoy fantasy and don’t mind a large number of battles – this series seems like the fantastical equivalent of Bernard Cornwell’s books, with stronger women. So, if you enjoy that sort of book, you shouldn’t miss Angel Souls and Devil Hearts.
I am an Amazon Associate. I received this book for free from the publisher for review.
 In the midst of Nazi Germany, passions can become more important than ever. Young Daniel had a promising career as a luthier, a violin maker, before he was seized from his home and incarcerated in a concentration camp. He volunteered as a carpenter, knowing it was one of the better “jobs” he could have in the camp. One day he hears a violin playing in the camp, but there’s something wrong with it. He volunteers to fix it and suddenly finds himself creating a violin for the commander, his success quite possibly a situation of life or death, his work a reminder of the life he lived before the Nazis.
Though this book started off slow, it was rewarding in the end. It begins in the present day with the story of a woman with an incredible violin. Only after we realize that this violin must have been created by Daniel in the camp does it become interesting and moving. Daniel’s appreciation for his life and his music, juxtaposed with the struggles of the prisoners, is touching and hands down the best part of the book. He’s a truly passionate character and his story is inspiring.
On the other hand, I did feel this book was just a little too short to develop the connections I personally needed to really fall in love with the book. It’s less than two hundred pages long, which for me is not really enough time to develop many feelings about a book. I felt like the author also held back a little with the horrors of the Holocaust, though whether that was her or the translator I couldn’t honestly tell you. I can’t say I need more horror in my life, but it made it somewhat hard to connect and feel the sympathy that other books have inspired, if that makes sense. Still terrible, still gruesome things going on, but there’s a level of detachment here that isn’t necessarily present in other books. It may be because the only character we ever get to know is Daniel – so I liked him, but I had no idea about what other characters might be thinking or feeling.
While The Auschwitz Violin is good at what it does, it wound up being too short for me – and as a result I don’t even have much more to say about it! It’s a touching and inspiring story about passion beating oppression, but it never really captured my emotions the way I expected it to. I would still definitely recommend it to someone looking for a relatively simple story that gets its point across very well.
I am an Amazon Associate. I received this book for free from the publisher for review.
 This is the fifth book in the Vampire Academy series. See my review of Vampire Academy if you haven’t yet read the series. This review will contain spoilers for the first four books.
After searching all through Russia for Dimitri and finally escaping still determined to save him, Rose has returned to Vampire Academy to finish her training and finally become a Guardian. Even if she can’t guard her best friend, Lissa, she knows her duty to the Moroi and wants to get where she’s been planning her whole life. Almost as soon as the trials are over, though, Rose is determined to find out how to save Dimitri – even if she does have to release a condemned criminal and ostracize her new boyfriend to do it.
This was the first of the Vampire Academy books that I read completely on its own, so I hope I can do it the justice of a full review. I read this book immediately after a non-fiction book, so my first reaction to it was simply how remarkably teenage it felt to me. YA books are great but I could never only read them; I can only take so much teenage drama, and I kept feeling like the book discussed what Rose was wearing way too much. Some adult fiction has this issue, too, but it stood out in vivid contrast in this instance. Luckily, the adjustment period didn’t last long before I got sucked right into the story and absorbed with what was going to happen next. That’s the other great thing about YA – amazing storytelling, and Richelle Mead definitely knows how to do that.
The major focus of this book is Rose and her relationships. She’s determined to rescue Dimitri. He’s her first love and she clearly still remembers and almost idolizes that time they had together. In the meantime, however, she’s gotten together with Adrian, the queen’s nephew, and is enjoying the time she’s having with him. Naturally, he isn’t thrilled that she’s still so obsessed with returning Dimitri to life, but no one believes she can actually do it. Much of the conflict here is based around her internal battle between them.
Of course, Rose is also off having numerous adventures and usually getting into trouble for them. After she sneaks herself, Lissa, and her friend Eddie out of the royal court, she gets into trouble, and then she just keeps on misbehaving. Her adventures form the plot of the book, which really does feel as though it’s racing along as we get further into the book. Of course, it ends on a massive cliffhanger, and I’m already having trouble waiting for the sixth book to come out so I can finally discover what happens next.
The Vampire Academy series is a wonderful escape, the perfect fall read. I really enjoyed Spirit Bound and can’t wait for the sixth and final installment. If you’re looking for a YA series with a bit of magic, a bit of romance, and a whole lot of adventure, you can’t go wrong here.
I am an Amazon Associate. I purchased this book.
 Vampires are under siege; the Catholic church has been trying to fight them for centuries. But they don’t have to be the evil villains as which they’re so often portrayed. Peter Octavian, a centuries-old vampire, has trained himself to be impervious to the things which kill other vampires; daylight no longer worries him, and holy water carries no stigma. He gets sustenance from a doctor friend who gives him HIV positive blood from a morgue since it has no effect on him and is purposeless for medical reasons. In the process, he’s lost all of his vampire coven, who still kill for blood. When the church steps up its attack and search for a book to eliminate all vampires, led by a vicious man called Liam Mulkerrin, Peter leaves his comfortable position as detective and begins to try to fight back.
From what I understand, this series by Christopher Golden isn’t new, but has been rereleased thanks to the huge popularity of urban fantasy lately. It fits right in to that genre, and though the protagonist is a male here, there are still plenty of interesting and kickass women around him virtually at all times. It’s set across the entire modern world, with the epic battle for vampire survival – and understanding – stretching across continents and covens.
I liked this book. It perhaps isn’t going to be one of my favorite series, but it was a solid enjoyable book that had an interesting take on vampire mythology. It’s revealed fairly early on, so I won’t spoil anything by telling you that many of the traditional vampire fears are based on intimidation by the church. The book itself is a bit anti-Catholic, but since the book is fictional and the true evil is confined to Mulkerrin, I don’t think it would be considered offensive even for those who are more religious than me.
The beginning of the book felt a bit hard to get hold of, as a lot is happening and a number of characters are introduced right away. After a few chapters, it swiftly settles down and I got much more into the story.
I think my least favorite part was probably how uncomfortably graphic the book was. There’s a lot of violence, some of it sexual, which I don’t like to read about. I’m not a big fan of vampire sex anyway – I don’t like paranormal romance very much, for example, unless it’s got something else going on. The whole thing fit in with the darker theme of the book, but these parts were not exactly pleasurable reading experiences. For me, it felt different from what I’d find in another urban fantasy series; for some reason I react differently to such scenes when they’re written by women or men. I don’t know if they’re actually written differently or if it’s a mental thing on my part; so if this doesn’t bother you much, please don’t let this stop you from reading the book.
Overall, I liked Of Saints and Shadows and am quite happy to continue reading the series. I’d recommend it to those who appreciate urban fantasy, however I do think it’s aimed more at a male audience and it might be worth keeping in mind if you’re accustomed solely to the paranormal romance type of urban fantasy (like Sookie) that is currently most popular.
I am an Amazon Associate. I purchased this book.
 Having taken a rather memorable few trips through Europe in his youth and early adulthood, Bill Bryson decides to repeat the experience solo as an adult. After all, at the time of writing he lived in England but had hardly ever traveled across to the continent. In an effort to remedy that, he first sets off for Norway to watch the Northern Lights, then slowly makes his way south to city after city of hotel rooms and amusing cultural insights, ending up in Istanbul.
It’s no secret that I am a big fan of Bill Bryson, and now that I’m off on my first ever trip to the Continent myself, I thought it was the perfect time to be reading this book. I’m only going to Paris right now, but I have big plans for the future, and I couldn’t wait to read Bryson’s perspective on Europe. (I did plan to read a book more specifically on Paris, but the library lost it before it got to me, so I chose this instead.) Bryson didn’t disappoint me at all, and I found myself laughing along at all of his jokes and thoroughly enjoying this book. I also discovered that it was perfect for late night Read-a-thon as everything he says just becomes hilarious when you’re that tired. I may possibly have preferred more depth – a bit more detail on the history of each place perhaps – but I was still quite pleased with what I got.
What I like most about his books is that while he encounters stereotypes and in many respects has a “typical” experience in certain countries, I never feel like he’s stereotyped the country without a good bit of humor. He pokes fun at them, but he also regularly pokes fun at himself in the world, so it’s impossible to be offended by anything – something which I admired when reading his books about my own country. I like that Bryson’s books feel like a friend has sat chatting with me about his trip; they’re not high literature or particularly sophisticated, they’re just about a really funny writer who has had quite a few memorable trips and life experiences.
Contrasting his trip now with his trip years ago really brought to life how much the world has changed in a short span of time and simultaneously how much remains the same. Our world is indeed evolving, but in ways perhaps different from what we might expect. The most poignant section of the book for me was his trip back to Sofia, Bulgaria, formerly in his mind a wonderful place with a particularly notable huge shopping mall. When he arrived this time, there were queues for bread and the shopping mall was virtually empty. The landmarks were the same, but the entire feel of the city had changed and was set to change again just a short time later.
I’m definitely looking forward to reading more by Bill Bryson – his later writing is definitely better, if The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid is any indication, so I’ll be rounding out my collection of his books sometime in the very near future. In the meantime, Neither Here, Nor There was an amusing, sarcastic little read and I would definitely recommend reading it before or during a trip to Europe.
I am an Amazon Associate. I purchased this book.
|
|
Recent Comments