Catching Fire, by Suzanne Collins

So, remember when I read The Hunger Games and I thought it was an okay read but I wasn't thrilled and I said count me out of the love story? Well, certain people convinced me that the sequel wasn't really a love story, regardless of Teams Peeta and Gale, and so I read the sequel. In an evening. Collins can really write an engaging plot line.

But maybe not a good one, as I got to the end and was like, "Um, what? What? What??? No freaking way!" with a grumpy look on my face.

I told my Amy earlier that this book suffers from serious Book Two of a Trilogy Syndrome, in which the author has come up with a good beginning, and also a good (one hopes) end, but can't really figure out how to connect the two and thus crams too many things into the middle book. In this case, the middle book covers the span of an entire year, from shortly after the end of Katniss's Hunger Games and straight through the next year's Games. Because of this, there's necessarily a lot of jumping around — Katniss and Peeta prepare for the Victory Tour, Katniss gets the lives of her family and friends threatened, they start the tour in District 11, some stuff of importance happens in a couple other districts, the Victory Tour is over, more threats, vague notions of rebellion/escape... you get the idea. It's not very well connected and I personally felt almost more interested in what was happening in the parts that got glossed over than the parts that were written in detail, which is not good.

And the next Hunger Games... there seemed to be way too much time spent on it for how important it really is to the story, especially after finding out what happens in the end. I think that Collins could have left out some of that boring action and thrown in some more of the rebellion and intrigue that she ignored in the beginning, and I would have been much happier.

Since I've now read the first two books, I'll probably read the third just for the closure, but I wouldn't really recommend reading the second one right now. If the third one is awesome, I'll let you know it's safe to read this one. :)

Rating: 6/10
(A to Z Challenge)

See also:
Jules' Book Reviews
book-a-rama
The Bluestocking Society
dreadlock girl
Midnight Book Girl
books i done read

Pass me yours, if you've got 'em.

The Secret of Shadow Ranch, by Carolyn Keene

George and Bess! George and Bess! George and Bess!

No Helen Corning this time. It's all about my favorite cousins, George and Bess if you didn't figure that out, and the mystery at their uncle's ranch. Nancy has conveniently flown in to visit with George and Bess in Phoenix, where she finds out that their uncle is ready to pack all of the girls onto the next flight back to River Heights because his ranch is... wait for it... haunted. Were people in the 1930s really this gullible? Apparently.

Anyway, Nancy does some good sleuthing and gets to stay on to find out who is doing the haunting, and it turns out that it's probably some bank robbers who have coincidentally kidnapped another of George and Bess's uncles and brought him to Phoenix, where they discovered that there was treasure buried in them thar hills of Shadow Ranch and set out to find it. Of course, Nancy makes sure that doesn't happen, but not before she has a few brushes with kidnapping herself.

Oh, and Nancy doesn't do anything silly on the water in this book, but she and George and Bess do run out of it on their drive back to the ranch at the beginning of the book. Close enough?

Rating: 7/10
(Nancy Drew Challenge, Support Your Local Library Challenge)

See also:
[your link here]

Pass me yours, if you've got 'em.

Musing Mondays — Keepers

Today's Musing Mondays question is... "Do you keep all the books you ever buy? Just the ones you love? Just collectibles? What do you do with the ones you don’t want to keep?"

I do generally keep all of the books I buy, as I tend not to spend good money on books I'm not going to keep. These days, I won't buy a book at a book store if I haven't already read it and loved it.

However, when it comes time for the CWRU book sale... I can't help myself. I will buy almost any book that look interesting if it'll only cost me 14.7 cents. With those books, I'm much less attached. In fact, it wasn't too long after I read and dislike The Woods that I was ready to get it out of my house.

When it's time to get rid of books, I'll offer them up to friends or take them over to Mac's Backs, a cute little bookstore in my town that gives you store credit for books you give them. It's a pretty smart setup: you get store credit worth half the value of the book you give them, and then you can use that credit to pay for half the cost of the used books you buy from them. You get money, they get money, it's a great deal all around. Of course, now I have even more books that I need to get around to reading...

How We Decide, by Jonah Lehrer

I saw this book over on medieval bookworm's site (with a way better title and cover!) and thought it would make a perfect audiobook — non-fiction and and interesting topic! And, indeed, I found it on .mp3 CD at a local library and so promptly requested it. I must say, having one .mp3 CD is far more delightful than the eight or nine regular CDs that would have made up this book. So much easier to keep track of!

But this is a book review, not a CD format review (but it's awesome!), and the book itself was a bit of a letdown. The topic is good. How do people make decisions? What parts of our brains do the heavy lifting? Why do people sometimes make really bad decisions, like buying crappy jam (no, really)? But there are only so many times I can hear the phrase "pre-frontal cortex" or the words "rational" and "emotional" before I start to go a little crazy! Lehrer clearly knows what he's talking about, but seems to think you don't think he knows what he's talking about, so he throws out, like, a million examples of situations in which decisions need to be made, and how they were made. And if they were all different, that would be good, but a lot of the examples just repeat the same lessons as the ones that came before them.

At least the situations are interesting. We hear about smoke jumpers, pilots, jam purchasers, contestants on Deal or No Deal, wine connoiseurs, Parkinson's sufferers who become slot machine addicts... it's a good time. And now that I've heard all of these examples, I've been annoying Scott by pointing out similar situations in everyday life. I think he might smack me if he hears the word "dopamine" again!

If you're going to read this, I'd probably advise against the audiobook — read it in book form instead, so that you can just read a chapter every once in a while and not get overloaded by the terms. But you should read it, so that you don't buy the wrong house next time you move.

Rating: 8/10
(A to Z Challenge, Support Your Local Library Challenge)

See also:
medieval bookworm

Pass me yours, if you've got 'em.

The Lightning Thief, by Rick Riordan

I've been in sort of a reading funk for the past week or so — I have a lot of books that I could read, but none of them are calling out to me. So I, of course, sent an appeal to the Twitterverse for something I should read. The Lightning Thief was the first response that piqued my interest, but of course with the movie out and all there was no chance I was going to get the book from the library any time soon. But then Fate smiled down upon me, and while I was at class that evening, I found a friend who had just finished his library copy of the book and even had it sitting in his car! I promptly borrowed the book and finished it in two sittings (a girl's gotta sleep!).

So that's a good story, but I'm afraid it might be better than the story behind The Lightning Thief. When I was in the middle of the book, Scott asked what the book was about, and I responded immediately with "It's like Harry Potter, but not as good." This could be my old-person self talking, because goodness knows that the story in A Wrinkle in Time is kind of lacking but I love it anyway, but I just really wasn't sold on the book.

The premise is that Percy Jackson, our hero, is actually a hero — like in the Greek myths and all that. We meet him before he knows this, when he's just an ADHD kid getting in trouble at school all the time because he makes weird things happen without trying. After some more backstory, a monster/car chase, and the death of Percy's mother, Percy ends up at a summer camp for "half-bloods" (illegitimate god-spawn) where no one wants to tell him a damn thing about anything.

Ahem. That part really bothered me. I mean, I get it that you don't want to give away the whole book right away by explaining everything, and that it's fun to do the exposition later, but seriously, every time Percy asks someone a question, they're all like, "What? You know the answer. Don't tell me you don't, that doesn't make sense," even the people who know that Percy doesn't know anything. Annoying.

Anyway, then stuff happens and Percy ends up on a quest to return a lightning bolt and... ugh. No, this part's bad, too. Well, quest: good. Returning lightning bolt: good. But! At the beginning of the quest, there's all this worry about how Percy can't even take a cell phone with him because the gods can track that (what?), but then he and his quest-mates meet up with, like, a millionty-twelve gods anyway. Also: they are gods. I think if they care about what Percy is doing they can find him.

Ahem. Aside from all of that, the concept of the book is decent, and if you want to learn more about the Greek myths, this book is the way to go. Lots of good information in here!

Rating: 6/10
(Countdown Challenge: 2005, A to Z Challenge, Support Your Local Library Challenge)

See also:
medieval bookworm
Age 30+ ... A Lifetime of Books
Maw Books Blog
Back to Books

Pass me yours, if you've got 'em.

Musing Mondays — Reference

Today's Musing Mondays question is... "Do you keep reference books on your shelves at home? What’s your first port of call when you need information – the internet or a book?"

I have a non-fiction shelf on the bookcase in the fun room, but most of them aren't reference books, per se. I think the only ones that qualify as reference are my travel guides, which are for hiking in Cleveland and sight-seeing in Ohio; my rhyming dictionary and my guide to correct grammar, which, really, I never use; and an MLA style handbook that I used to use all the time before I got into library science and had to learn APA instead.

So, really, my first port of call for information has to be Professor Google, because I just don't have it on my bookshelves!

The Mystery at Lilac Inn, by Carolyn Keene

Okay, seriously, Nancy, stop going out on the water! This book begins with Nancy's canoe getting overturned and ends with her imprisoned on a freakin' miniature submarine. I don't know what to do with this girl.

The melodrama heats up some more in this book and the plotlines start getting recycled — I don't know how that's possible four books into a series, but apparently it is. In one mystery, Nancy's friend Emily is living in a haunted inn (see The Hidden Staircase) which is of course not really haunted but which is having bad things happen to it for not really a very good reason in the end. In the other, which is vaguely connected to the first, Nancy has a double (see the end of The Bungalow Mystery) who has stolen a bunch of her stuff and is making charges to her... not credit card, but whatever they had back in the 30s.

The bad stuff that happens to the inn is crazy — stuff gets stolen, employees quit, a time bomb is placed under Nancy's cottage, a simulated earthquake almost knocks down the main building — and I don't really know how the Keene writing team could possibly have made this seem like normal happenings in rural Illinois, but they made it work.

Rating: 6/10
(Nancy Drew Challenge, Support Your Local Library Challenge, A to Z Challenge)

See also:
[your link here]

Pass me yours, if you've got 'em.

Booking Through Thursday — Making Readers

Today's Booking Through Thursday questioner wants some advice: "How can you encourage a non-reading child to read? What about a teen-ager? Would you require books to be read in the hopes that they would enjoy them once they got into them, or offer incentives, or just suggest interesting books? If you do offer incentives and suggestions and that doesn’t work, would you then require a certain amount of reading? At what point do you just accept that your child is a non-reader?

In the book Gifted Hands by brilliant surgeon Ben Carson, one of the things that turned his life around was his mother’s requirement that he and his brother read books and write book reports for her. That approach worked with him, but I have been afraid to try it. My children don’t need to “turn their lives around,” but they would gain so much from reading and I think they would enjoy it so much if they would just stop telling themselves, “I just don’t like to read.”"

I've mentioned before that my brothers used to be non-readers. For my younger brother the elder, it took until he was ten or eleven to get him reading, but it was pretty easy — my grandmother bought him the first Harry Potter book, he grudgingly read a few pages to be polite, and then he devoured the rest of the pages and also got the rest of the family hooked on the series. To this day his primary reading material is epic fantasy, in particular the Wheel of Time series right now.

My younger brother the younger wasn't much of a reader until I left for college, when he was about five or six. He liked his video games much better, but always wanted company while he played them (even if it was a one-player game), so I turned that to my advantage. I told him that I wouldn't watch him play video games, but I'd certainly read a book with him. At first, this ploy didn't work very often, but soon, once we found series that he liked, he wouldn't even ask about video games, going straight for "Will you read this book with me?" It's still hard to get him to read new books (he's a total re-reader), as evidenced by the fact that he hasn't read Alvin Ho or The Maze of Bones yet, even though I've asked him to give them a shot every time I've seen him. Sad face. But he is reading what he likes to read, and I'll settle for that. :)

Also, I would recommend against book reports. As a kid, I read a whole bunch of books on my own and loved them, but as soon as I had to write a book report about one? I didn't want to read it. I would instead stress the fact that kids "don't like to read" when they've only read books they don't like. It may take a while, but someday every kid is going to find a book they love, and the reading bug will take over from there.

Boomsday, by Christopher Buckley

Oh my goodness, guys, this book was so entertaining. I can't even discuss it.

No, that's not true. I can totally discuss it. This is the first of my book club's picks that I have enjoyed so thoroughly, and that includes the one that I picked to read!

I think I loved this book so much because it was so relevant to life right now and at just the right level of ridiculousness where I was like, "Yeah, I could see this actually happening, but I'm glad it won't. It won't, right?"

The premise is simple: the economy is where it is right now, Social Security is where it is right now, foreign affairs are rather crazier than they are right now, and Generation X and the Millennials are pissed. Especially when the government decides that the best way to make Social Security solvent is to increase the tax by 30 percent for people under 30. Way to go, government. Our protagonist, Cassandra Devine, comes up with an even better plan to fix Social Security — encouraging Baby Boomers to commit suicide at age 70. Oh, yes, you read that right. It's a "meta-issue," but with her spin-doctor job and her prolific blog following, not to mention the government's wish to stop this thing in its tracks, things start to get a liiiiittle out of hand. But it's all delightful.

My favorite thing about this whole book is how well the characters are written. Buckley certainly included some stereotypical characters — the twenty-something blogger, the spin doctor, the old-money politician — but he didn't let them stay flat and he definitely gave them their own voices. You can tell when Cassandra is excited because she "can't even discuss it," you can sympathize with the plight of a man of God as he has to start selling off the nunciature's Mercedeses (that's a word today, okay?) to pay blackmail to some Russian prostitutes. Love it.

On an only slightly related note, Buckley also wrote Thank You For Smoking, which was made into an excellent movie that you should go watch, immediately, if only to hear the best line ever written in a movie: "The great state of Vermont will not apologize for its cheese!" I'm happy just thinking about it, and must now go track this book down.

Rating: 9/10
(Countdown Challenge: 2007, Support Your Local Library Challenge)

See also:
[your link here]

Pass me yours, if you've got 'em.

Musing Mondays — Book Polyamory

Today's Musing Mondays question is... "I’ve seen several bloggers mention reading multiple books this week. Do you frequently read more than one book at a time? Do you try to limit this to a certain number? Do you have different books for different purposes/topics?"

I used to be a one-book woman, but with the start of the new semester I am finding myself meeting up with books in the car, in the bathroom, in bed... -eyebrow waggle-

This is almost entirely because of my newfound love of really short and simple audiobooks. I still wouldn't try to listen to something like Harry Potter or the Wheel of Time series, but give me a Lemony Snicket or Nancy Drew book and I am good to go. But since my attention span is weak, I can only listen to these books in the car or on the exercise bike, where I do not have the distractions of my computer or desk.

So of course, when I'm not in one of those places, I still need a book to read! So I have a book that I carry around with me in my bag and read at home or school or wherever. That's the book I consider my "main book."

Then, just one more! Every once in a while I want to read a book but I find it too difficult to concentrate on for very long (Pillars of the Earth, I'm looking at you) and so I relegate it to be my bathroom book and read it just a couple of pages at a time. Right now Pride and Prejudice is that book for me... I just cannot get into the story, but I really want to read it. I'll finish that one in a few months. :)

Chunkster Challenge 2010

I'm not sure how I missed this one earlier, but I am so in! This year's Chunkster Challenge is much like last year's, in that participants read humongous books and then wonder why they don't have any free time. Ahem.

I managed it last year, so I'm going to sign up for the "Mor-book-ly Obese" challenge, which means I'll read either six books longer than 450 pages or three books longer than 750 pages, all of the grown-up variety (no Harry Potter!). I didn't read any of the books I intended to last year, so I'm going to put World Without End and the Wheel of Time series back on the list and hope for the best!

Books eaten (om nom nom)
1. A Short History of Nearly Everything, by Bill Bryson (Review)
2. In the Woods, by Tana French (Review)
3. Gaudy Night, by Dorothy Sayers (Review)
4. Fingersmith, by Sarah Waters (Review)
5. The Name of the Wind, by Patrick Rothfuss (Review)
6. The Little Stranger, by Sarah Waters (Review)
7. The Secret History, by Donna Tartt (Review)

Links of the Week

Wait Wait Don't Eat Me, an (imagined) excerpt from my favorite weekly news quiz show circa the Zombie Apocalypse. (via BoingBoing)

J.D. Salinger: not a recluse after all.

Here's an interesting look at political correctness and its impacts on free speech. Note to self: stop reading books set in historical periods in which something bad happened. (via LISNews)

Speaking of books from historical periods in which something bad happened... good luck getting your hands on a shiny new Mein Kampf in five years, especially if you want some scholarly criticism with it.

Macmillan's titles still aren't on Amazon (see last week's commentary here, and this Times advertisement proves it. (via The Guardian) UPDATE: I guess they are back now! Good work, Amazon!

Cake Wrecks, by Jen Yates

Haaaaaaave you read Cake Wrecks? No? Well, read this first, 'cause it's short, and once you click on that link I can't be held responsible for your lack of productivity over the next several hours/days/weeks.

The book version is perfect for my hypothetical coffee table (I should really get one of these) — it's small, it's mostly pictures, and it is hilarious. There are cakes on which the baker has written the customer's instructions, like a white cake with ("Olympics Rings") written in red. There are cake decorations that look like poos and cake decorations that look like phalluses (Chrome informs me that "phalluses" is not a word, but "phalli" just looks silly). There are misspellings, like "Heppy Bertty" and "I Lave You." There are wedding cakes gone horribly, terribly wrong.

A few of the cakes in this book I've seen in my browsing of the web site, but the introduction informs me that there are never-before-seen cakes as well. Yay! There are also some funny cake stories, in case you start to forget how to read after looking at all the terrible cakes.

Okay. Go look at some wrecks now, but don't say I didn't warn you.

Rating: 8/10
(A to Z Challenge, Support Your Local Library Challenge)

See also:
[your link here]

Pass me yours, if you've got 'em.

Booking Through Thursday — Season's Readings

Today's Booking Through Thursday question is: "The northern hemisphere, at least, is socked in by winter right now… So, on a cold, wintry day, when you want nothing more than to curl up with a good book on the couch … what kind of reading do you want to do?"

I don't think my reading moods are defined by the seasons so much as what's going on in my life at the moment... like, right now I am being attacked by work and homework from all sides, so my reading of Pride and Prejudice is going very slowly. I just don't want to take the time to figure out what's going on there! Boomsday, however, is going pretty quickly when I have time to read it because it's just a crazy story that I don't really have to think about, just enjoy. And at the extremes of my book reading, I sat down and read the Cake Wrecks book yesterday in one go, because I needed a break from reading articles and there are like no words in the Cake Wrecks book. :)

The Bungalow Mystery, by Carolyn Keene

Another Nancy Drew book, because it's way easier to "read" these audiobooks on my drives than to read a physical book right now! But they're still delightful, so that's good.

In this one, things really start heating up for Nancy. First of all, she and her friend Helen get caught in a storm while in a boat (she also gets stranded in a boat in The Secret of the Old Clock; I think she should really avoid the water) and just when Helen is telling Nancy to save herself, an attractive (because everyone's attractive in these books) 16-year-old called Laura shows up in her own boat to save the both of them! Huzzah!

The three of them take refuge in the titular bungalow (which we hear about all of maybe twice more in the book), and Laura tells Nancy her life sob story, which includes being a newly minted orphan and having to go live with new guardians soon.

Meanwhile, the lovely Hannah Gruen has sprained her ankle, so Nancy cuts short her adventurous vacation to go home and take care of Hannah while Carson Drew is off lawyering. Carson soon phones to get Nancy involved in his new embezzlement case, and while she's investigating she also gets drawn in to Laura's Case of the Really Crappy Guardians. These two cases [spoiler alert? I think not] end up being related in the end, and Nancy and Carson even find themselves in roles reversed from The Hidden Staircase, with Nancy all locked up and Carson attempting to rescue her.

These books are definitely getting more fantastic and melodramatic as they go; it kind of entertains me but at the same time I'm like, "Oh, come on, this totally does not all happen to the same attractive eighteen-year-old girl in the span of a few weeks!" But I guess it does, if said girl is Nancy Drew.

A fun note on the feminist side: Nancy Drew is such a threat at one point that she gets knocked unconscious by the bad guy. That's pretty bad-ass.

Rating: 8/10
(Nancy Drew Challenge, Support Your Local Library Challenge, A to Z Challenge)

See also:
[your link here]

Pass me yours, if you've got 'em.

Musing Mondays — Random Book Love

Today's Musing Mondays is an activity... "Go to your bookshelf and pick a random book. No cheating now, just reach out and pick one. Now tell us about it – where did you get it? Why? Was it a gift? Does it hold any special memories? Did someone recommend it to you? etc."

I closed my eyes and pointed, and came up with Many Waters, by Madeleine L'Engle, part of the Time series that starts with A Wrinkle in Time. I got this book for 14.7 cents back in June at the CWRU book sale of delightfulness, along with A Swiftly Tilting Planet. I just need to grab A Wind in the Door and my quartet will be complete!

As to why I got it... well, mostly it's 'cause I love A Wrinkle in Time. I read that book as a kid and then many times again, but it wasn't until my freshman year of college, about five years ago, that I even realized that there were more books in the series. At that point, my dear friend Amy was like, "Um, dude, there are totally more and you should read them," and we went to get them on one of our many trips to the Cleveland Public Library. Those are good memories — waiting for the Rapid, taking the trip downtown, walking over to the library in various types of weather, and spending an inordinate amount of time in the children's section, where the books we could read between assignments lived.

Oh, and that one time we were at the library and I was sleepy and got yelled at by a guard for napping in the library. That was fun, too.