One last book for the RIP Challenge before it ends! This one was on my original list, but I didn't think it was going to make it here in time for Hallowe'en. Luckily, it did, and I quite enjoyed it, though I thought it was going to be more scary than gothic. Alas.
The Thirteenth Tale is two stories — the main story is that of Vida Winter, a prolific author à la Stephen King or Jodi Picoult, who is dying and wants to tell someone her true life story. The second is that of Margaret Lea, the woman Vida chooses to be her biographer, who is slowly coming to terms with the secret of her twin lost at birth.
The secondary plotline I don't care for much, but Vida Winter's tale is incredibly engaging. Born into an incredibly dysfunctional family, she learns to cope with a lot of insanity and hide a few dozen secrets in the process.
I recommend this book for Vida's story alone; even though I figured out the twist halfway through I still didn't know how they'd pull it off. Well told, Setterfield.
Rating: 7/10
(Countdown Challenge: 2006)
20 October 2008
Twilight, by Stephenie Meyer (13 October — 18 October)
Twilight. Oh, Twilight. I wasn't going to read this book, but I was recently visiting with my spoon (read: best friend) and she was shocked that I hadn't read it. When I left her place, I had all four books of the series in my hands and instructions to read them so that I could go see the movie with her.
And, of course, the book fit with the RIP Challenge, which I have now completed. Hurrah! My first challenge, complete.
So I read this one. And it was okay, I guess.
The premise is somewhat clichéd... girl (Bella) meets boy (Edward), boy hates girl, girl falls in love with boy, turns out boy is actually in love with girl but doesn't want to get too close because he's a vampire. Oy. There's also the usual "creating a new vampire mythology and then making fun of the girl for not knowing it" bit and the "but don't worry, we don't usually bite humans" bit.
The part I did like about the book was later on, when a second pack of non-"vegetarian" vampires comes along and one of them decides he's going to hunt Bella. Complex escape plans are made, futures are seen, minds are read, a vampire comes to kill Bella... and then nothing. All the action takes place off-screen, as it were, and the reader finds out about it through lame exposition.
If I want a vampire love story in the future, I'll just go watch Buffy. At least there are some good fight scenes there.
Rating: 5/10
(Countdown Challenge: 2005)
And, of course, the book fit with the RIP Challenge, which I have now completed. Hurrah! My first challenge, complete.
So I read this one. And it was okay, I guess.
The premise is somewhat clichéd... girl (Bella) meets boy (Edward), boy hates girl, girl falls in love with boy, turns out boy is actually in love with girl but doesn't want to get too close because he's a vampire. Oy. There's also the usual "creating a new vampire mythology and then making fun of the girl for not knowing it" bit and the "but don't worry, we don't usually bite humans" bit.
The part I did like about the book was later on, when a second pack of non-"vegetarian" vampires comes along and one of them decides he's going to hunt Bella. Complex escape plans are made, futures are seen, minds are read, a vampire comes to kill Bella... and then nothing. All the action takes place off-screen, as it were, and the reader finds out about it through lame exposition.
If I want a vampire love story in the future, I'll just go watch Buffy. At least there are some good fight scenes there.
Rating: 5/10
(Countdown Challenge: 2005)
15 October 2008
Afterlife, by Douglas Clegg (13 October — 15 October)
I found this book on one of my local library's blogs and I thought it would make a good RIP read — it's a horror novel and it's available free online. Brilliant!
Or not so.
The novel opens with a few brief glimpses of its themes: a scene at a government school called Project Daylight, a woman suffocating, a man being killed by someone reading his thoughts.
Then we meet the main character, Julie Hutchinson, a woman with some marital problems but an undying love for her kids. We soon find out that the dead man is Julie's husband, "Hut" Hutchinson, which sucks for her. She goes through some depression about his death, seeing a shrink and trying to make sense of life without her husband. She also wants answers about his life — Was he cheating on her? To what lock do a strange set of keys belong? What really happened in the childhood he avoided talking about?
As Julie searches for answers she learns more about psychics, Project Daylight, and the weird things her husband can do, even after death.
This all sounds good, I guess, but I found it poorly executed. Clegg could have used an editor or three to clean up his sentences and check for continuity errors that can be glaring throughout the novel. I would have stopped reading it, but I really wanted to understand what was going on — but I still don't know. Sigh.
Rating: 3/10
(Countdown Challenge: 2004)
Or not so.
The novel opens with a few brief glimpses of its themes: a scene at a government school called Project Daylight, a woman suffocating, a man being killed by someone reading his thoughts.
Then we meet the main character, Julie Hutchinson, a woman with some marital problems but an undying love for her kids. We soon find out that the dead man is Julie's husband, "Hut" Hutchinson, which sucks for her. She goes through some depression about his death, seeing a shrink and trying to make sense of life without her husband. She also wants answers about his life — Was he cheating on her? To what lock do a strange set of keys belong? What really happened in the childhood he avoided talking about?
As Julie searches for answers she learns more about psychics, Project Daylight, and the weird things her husband can do, even after death.
This all sounds good, I guess, but I found it poorly executed. Clegg could have used an editor or three to clean up his sentences and check for continuity errors that can be glaring throughout the novel. I would have stopped reading it, but I really wanted to understand what was going on — but I still don't know. Sigh.
Rating: 3/10
(Countdown Challenge: 2004)
13 October 2008
Misery, by Stephen King (4 October — 12 October)
My second book for the RIP Challenge... I'm a little bit behind in getting to four, but I think I can make it yet, as I've just started two challenge-appropriate books.
Misery is about an author called Paul Sheldon who gets into an horrific car crash and wakes up as the ward of a nurse, Annie Wilkes, who just so happens to be Paul's self-proclaimed "number one fan." Unfortunately, her love of Paul — and his series of popular fiction novels about a woman called Misery — coexists with a fragile mind that isn't prepared to let Paul go any time soon. She also has a bit of a mother mentality — when Paul does something bad, like, say, kills off Misery or tries to escape his captor, he's in for a world of hurt, both mentally and physically.
I very much liked this book. At first, I wasn't sure it would really classify as an RIP Challenge book, as there wasn't anything particularly scary or gory about the storyline, just a crazy lady keeping an author hostage. But when it started getting creepy, it was creepy. I was constantly stopping in the middle of a paragraph, looking at my man, and yelling, "This woman is CRAZY!" Let's just say I'm glad I'm not popular enough to be kidnapped any time soon.
Rating: 8/10
Misery is about an author called Paul Sheldon who gets into an horrific car crash and wakes up as the ward of a nurse, Annie Wilkes, who just so happens to be Paul's self-proclaimed "number one fan." Unfortunately, her love of Paul — and his series of popular fiction novels about a woman called Misery — coexists with a fragile mind that isn't prepared to let Paul go any time soon. She also has a bit of a mother mentality — when Paul does something bad, like, say, kills off Misery or tries to escape his captor, he's in for a world of hurt, both mentally and physically.
I very much liked this book. At first, I wasn't sure it would really classify as an RIP Challenge book, as there wasn't anything particularly scary or gory about the storyline, just a crazy lady keeping an author hostage. But when it started getting creepy, it was creepy. I was constantly stopping in the middle of a paragraph, looking at my man, and yelling, "This woman is CRAZY!" Let's just say I'm glad I'm not popular enough to be kidnapped any time soon.
Rating: 8/10
07 October 2008
Keeping Faith, by Jodi Picoult (25 September — 3 October)
I love Jodi Picoult, but I did not particularly like Keeping Faith. The premise is interesting; a little girl called Faith is seeing God, even though she's been raised essentially without religion by a Jew and a Christian. She performs some awesome miracles, like bringing people back from the dead and curing a baby with AIDS. It's the rest of the book that's rough.
Faith starts seeing God after she sees her father, Colin, with another woman. Colin goes off with the other woman, Jessica, to start a new family, and leaves his wife (or, after six weeks, ex-wife), Mariah, in the dust. Mariah is a doormat and has to figure out how to live without Colin without falling into a deep depression and also has to take care of her seemingly crazy daughter.
The press gets wind of Faith, and suddenly everyone wants to meet her, from reporters to rabbis and priests to Ian Fletcher, a tele-atheist. Ian is out to prove that Faith is a hoax all while Colin is out to prove that Mariah is an unfit mother so he can get custody of his daughter.
There are a lot of stories here, just as there are in all of Picoult's other novels, but I don't think she does as good a job juggling them here. A lot of people come in and then get ignored, and some very interesting plotlines never get resolved. Pooh.
Rating: 5/10
Faith starts seeing God after she sees her father, Colin, with another woman. Colin goes off with the other woman, Jessica, to start a new family, and leaves his wife (or, after six weeks, ex-wife), Mariah, in the dust. Mariah is a doormat and has to figure out how to live without Colin without falling into a deep depression and also has to take care of her seemingly crazy daughter.
The press gets wind of Faith, and suddenly everyone wants to meet her, from reporters to rabbis and priests to Ian Fletcher, a tele-atheist. Ian is out to prove that Faith is a hoax all while Colin is out to prove that Mariah is an unfit mother so he can get custody of his daughter.
There are a lot of stories here, just as there are in all of Picoult's other novels, but I don't think she does as good a job juggling them here. A lot of people come in and then get ignored, and some very interesting plotlines never get resolved. Pooh.
Rating: 5/10
02 October 2008
Banned Books Week
I am having the darndest time finishing my book right now. It's Jodi Picoult, and I love her, but I do not love this book... but I have to know what happens so I read anyway. Until that's finished, I'll leave you with the top 100 challenged books of the 1990s, apparently taken from the ALA website. Bold I've read, italics I've tried to read.
1. Scary Stories (Series) by Alvin Schwartz
2. Daddy’s Roommate by Michael Willhoite
3. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
4. The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
5. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
6. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
7. Harry Potter (Series) by J.K. Rowling
8. Forever by Judy Blume
9. Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
10. Alice (Series) by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
11. Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman
12. My Brother Sam is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier
13. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
14. The Giver by Lois Lowry
15. It’s Perfectly Normal by Robie Harris
16. Goosebumps (Series) by R.L. Stine
17. A Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Newton Peck
18. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
19. Sex by Madonna
20. Earth’s Children (Series) by Jean M. Auel
21. The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson
22. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
23. Go Ask Alice by Anonymous
24. Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers
25. In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak
26. The Stupids (Series) by Harry Allard
27. The Witches by Roald Dahl
28. The New Joy of Gay Sex by Charles Silverstein
29. Anastasia Krupnik (Series) by Lois Lowry
30. The Goats by Brock Cole
31. Kaffir Boy by Mark Mathabane
32. Blubber by Judy Blume
33. Killing Mr. Griffin by Lois Duncan
34. Halloween ABC by Eve Merriam
35. We All Fall Down by Robert Cormier
36. Final Exit by Derek Humphry
37. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
38. Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George
39. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
40. What’s Happening to my Body? Book for Girls: A Growing-Up Guide for Parents & Daughters by Lynda Madaras
41. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
42. Beloved by Toni Morrison
43. The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
44. The Pigman by Paul Zindel
45. Bumps in the Night by Harry Allard
46. Deenie by Judy Blume
47. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
48. Annie on my Mind by Nancy Garden
49. The Boy Who Lost His Face by Louis Sachar
50. Cross Your Fingers, Spit in Your Hat by Alvin Schwartz
51. A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein
52. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
53. Sleeping Beauty Trilogy by A.N. Roquelaure (Anne Rice)
54. Asking About Sex and Growing Up by Joanna Cole
55. Cujo by Stephen King
56. James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
57. The Anarchist Cookbook by William Powell
58. Boys and Sex by Wardell Pomeroy
59. Ordinary People by Judith Guest
60. American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
61. What’s Happening to my Body? Book for Boys: A Growing-Up Guide for Parents & Sons by Lynda Madaras
62. Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume
63. Crazy Lady by Jane Conly
64. Athletic Shorts by Chris Crutcher
65. Fade by Robert Cormier
66. Guess What? by Mem Fox
67. The House of Spirits by Isabel Allende
68. The Face on the Milk Carton by Caroline Cooney
69. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
70. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
71. Native Son by Richard Wright
72. Women on Top: How Real Life Has Changed Women’s Fantasies by Nancy Friday
73. Curses, Hexes and Spells by Daniel Cohen
74. Jack by A.M. Homes
75. Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo A. Anaya
76. Where Did I Come From? by Peter Mayle
77. Carrie by Stephen King
78. Tiger Eyes by Judy Blume
79. On My Honor by Marion Dane Bauer
80. Arizona Kid by Ron Koertge
81. Family Secrets by Norma Klein
82. Mommy Laid An Egg by Babette Cole
83. The Dead Zone by Stephen King
84. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
85. Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
86. Always Running by Luis Rodriguez
87. Private Parts by Howard Stern
88. Where’s Waldo? by Martin Hanford
89. Summer of My German Soldier by Bette Greene
90. Little Black Sambo by Helen Bannerman
91. Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett -- This one's on my list to read!
92. Running Loose by Chris Crutcher
93. Sex Education by Jenny Davis
94. The Drowning of Stephen Jones by Bette Greene
95. Girls and Sex by Wardell Pomeroy
96. How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell
97. View from the Cherry Tree by Willo Davis Roberts
98. The Headless Cupid by Zilpha Keatley Snyder
99. The Terrorist by Caroline Cooney
100. Jump Ship to Freedom by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier
Clearly I'm not controversial enough.
1. Scary Stories (Series) by Alvin Schwartz
2. Daddy’s Roommate by Michael Willhoite
3. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
4. The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
5. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
6. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
7. Harry Potter (Series) by J.K. Rowling
8. Forever by Judy Blume
9. Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
10. Alice (Series) by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
11. Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman
12. My Brother Sam is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier
13. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
14. The Giver by Lois Lowry
15. It’s Perfectly Normal by Robie Harris
16. Goosebumps (Series) by R.L. Stine
17. A Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Newton Peck
18. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
19. Sex by Madonna
20. Earth’s Children (Series) by Jean M. Auel
21. The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson
22. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
23. Go Ask Alice by Anonymous
24. Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers
25. In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak
26. The Stupids (Series) by Harry Allard
27. The Witches by Roald Dahl
28. The New Joy of Gay Sex by Charles Silverstein
29. Anastasia Krupnik (Series) by Lois Lowry
30. The Goats by Brock Cole
31. Kaffir Boy by Mark Mathabane
32. Blubber by Judy Blume
33. Killing Mr. Griffin by Lois Duncan
34. Halloween ABC by Eve Merriam
35. We All Fall Down by Robert Cormier
36. Final Exit by Derek Humphry
37. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
38. Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George
39. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
40. What’s Happening to my Body? Book for Girls: A Growing-Up Guide for Parents & Daughters by Lynda Madaras
41. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
42. Beloved by Toni Morrison
43. The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
44. The Pigman by Paul Zindel
45. Bumps in the Night by Harry Allard
46. Deenie by Judy Blume
47. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
48. Annie on my Mind by Nancy Garden
49. The Boy Who Lost His Face by Louis Sachar
50. Cross Your Fingers, Spit in Your Hat by Alvin Schwartz
51. A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein
52. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
53. Sleeping Beauty Trilogy by A.N. Roquelaure (Anne Rice)
54. Asking About Sex and Growing Up by Joanna Cole
55. Cujo by Stephen King
56. James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
57. The Anarchist Cookbook by William Powell
58. Boys and Sex by Wardell Pomeroy
59. Ordinary People by Judith Guest
60. American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
61. What’s Happening to my Body? Book for Boys: A Growing-Up Guide for Parents & Sons by Lynda Madaras
62. Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume
63. Crazy Lady by Jane Conly
64. Athletic Shorts by Chris Crutcher
65. Fade by Robert Cormier
66. Guess What? by Mem Fox
67. The House of Spirits by Isabel Allende
68. The Face on the Milk Carton by Caroline Cooney
69. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
70. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
71. Native Son by Richard Wright
72. Women on Top: How Real Life Has Changed Women’s Fantasies by Nancy Friday
73. Curses, Hexes and Spells by Daniel Cohen
74. Jack by A.M. Homes
75. Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo A. Anaya
76. Where Did I Come From? by Peter Mayle
77. Carrie by Stephen King
78. Tiger Eyes by Judy Blume
79. On My Honor by Marion Dane Bauer
80. Arizona Kid by Ron Koertge
81. Family Secrets by Norma Klein
82. Mommy Laid An Egg by Babette Cole
83. The Dead Zone by Stephen King
84. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
85. Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
86. Always Running by Luis Rodriguez
87. Private Parts by Howard Stern
88. Where’s Waldo? by Martin Hanford
89. Summer of My German Soldier by Bette Greene
90. Little Black Sambo by Helen Bannerman
91. Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett -- This one's on my list to read!
92. Running Loose by Chris Crutcher
93. Sex Education by Jenny Davis
94. The Drowning of Stephen Jones by Bette Greene
95. Girls and Sex by Wardell Pomeroy
96. How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell
97. View from the Cherry Tree by Willo Davis Roberts
98. The Headless Cupid by Zilpha Keatley Snyder
99. The Terrorist by Caroline Cooney
100. Jump Ship to Freedom by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier
Clearly I'm not controversial enough.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)