The Partly Cloudy Patriot, by Sarah Vowell

I said on the Twitters the other day that I don't know whether I want to marry Ms. Vowell or be her when I grow up. But after finishing up this book and starting in on her next, Assassination Vacation, I think I just want to hang out with her and go on strange adventures on an irregular basis. She's delightfully quirky, but I'm not sure I could actually be friends with her.

I picked this book up for many reasons, but the main ones are that Vowell has a new book out, I've never read one of her books, and I've heard that the new one is a little odder than her others so it made more sense to back up and wade into the pool that is Sarah Vowell. Whatever that means.

And let's be honest, I loved it. It merited the Twitter mention as well as three quotes in a row on my Tumblr... I found myself cracking up in the middle of work and hoping that no one asked what was going on, because it would be too hard to explain.

Part of it is the subject matter... this book is a collection of essays mostly about politics and patriotism, which haven't changed terribly much save in name in the last nine years. Vowell is a capital-D Democrat, so she spends a few essays proclaiming her love for Bill Clinton and Al Gore and her distaste for George W. Bush. But there's no proselytizing, just an acknowledgement of her politics and her involvement in the political institution. And outside of politics proper, Vowell includes some essays about the underground lunchroom in Carlsbad Caverns National Park, the current practice of declaring everyone a Rosa Parks, and playing that one basketball game in the arcade.

The other part is Sarah Vowell. I listened to the audiobook, which is primarily narrated by her, with brief cameos from others (like Stephen Colbert as Al Gore), and so each essay is imbued with Vowell's inflections and emphases. Considering her often sarcastic nature, I can imagine that these essays might come across rather differently in print, so I'm glad I went in for the audio. It's sort of like hanging out with Sarah Vowell, right?

Recommendation: Highly recommended, unless you're smitten with George W. Bush.

Rating: 9/10
(A to Z Challenge)

Peter Pan, by J.M. Barrie

Continuing on the theme of books I should have already read, here is Peter Pan, which I have seen in Mary Martin movie form as well as on stage, once, though I barely remember, and of course I have seen Johnny Depp as Barrie in Finding Neverland.

The book, like The Princess Bride, plays out pretty much exactly like the movie I remember (though I'll grant that I haven't seen the movie in ten years or more), with Peter Pan losing his shadow at the Darlings' house, returning to fetch it, and then teaching Wendy, John, and Peter to fly off to Neverland. There they have some adventures with Peter and the infamous Captain Hook, and then eventually they return home to grow up, unlike Peter.

And it's so much more depressing than I remember! Part of this is the narrative around the action in the book, which describes for us poor readers how awful the Darling parents feel about the loss of their children, who are gone for quite a while, with Mr. Darling even taking to sleeping in Nana's kennel. It also describes often exactly how children feel about their parents, which wounds me as a potential parent. Clearly I should not have children.

The other depressing part is the same thing that drives Toy Story 3, which I cried over recently — growing up. The Darlings return home to grow up, and they do, and they become fairly boring and forget how to fly and think that perhaps Peter wasn't real after all. And Peter mostly forgets them, too, returning only sporadically to make good on Wendy's promise of a yearly visit. I'm getting sad just thinking about it!

But it is otherwise delightful, with Indians and pirates and an alligator with a clock in his tummy, and so I am glad to have gotten around to the book. But I think I'll stick with Mary Martin for the foreseeable future!

Recommendation: Definitely a good read, but not quite a good bedtime story.

Rating: 8/10
(A to Z Challenge)

Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen

Ohhhhhh, Pride and Prejudice. This is a book that many of my trusted friends have been obsessed with for many many years, and which I have avoided like the plague because all I ever hear about it is how sexy Colin Firth is. Which, I mean, he totally is, that's not in question, but I wasn't too keen on a book whose primary lure is the attractiveness of an actor. I knew there was more to it, but I just wasn't that interested.

But then I found it for cheaps at Mac's Backs, and I told myself I was going to sit down and finally read it. And I did. Last January. Side note: I started trying to read this last January. I got married four months before that. I have been attempting to finish this book for most of my marriage. That's intense.

And so I read through about half the book over the course of six months, then decided I couldn't remember most of it and started over, and then I read more than half the book in a month but got utterly sick of it right around the point when Darcy gives Elizabeth the letter, and so I moved on to more delightful pursuits. Then this February I downloaded the Kindle app for my phone and tried P&P as an e-book, but I couldn't be arsed to load it up to read. So THEN I found it for the OverDrive app for my phone as an audiobook, and I forced myself to listen to it last week.

It turns out that Pride and Prejudice is quite good.

I had the same troubles with the audiobook that I did with the print version, namely that if Mrs. Bennett and Mr. Collins wanted to run off and be batshit crazy together I don't think anyone could complain, and maybe we could send Lady de Bourgh over to judge them. I absolutely hated these characters, but of course I imagine I'm not supposed to like them. I also, having gotten to Darcy's letter, was not a fan of The Darcy, which is supposed to be the draw, right, and I could not imagine how Austen was going to make Darcy sympathetic in a couple hundred more pages.

And yet, she did. I am definitely more in the Jane and Bingley camp, but by the end of the book I was like, "That Darcy isn't so terrible after all, is he? I do so hope that those two crazy kids work it out." Darn you Jane Austen!

Aside from the 'shipping, I was actually most interested in the culture of Longbourn and environs, as I have not read too deeply in or about this time period. I was intrigued by the particulars of politeness and society and how incredibly scandalous pretty much every little thing seemed to be. And with the characters, I loved how Austen was able to make me hate the sympathetic characters and like the antagonists (with the notable exception of Lady de Bourgh, who can go jump off a cliff if she pleases) in their turn.

Verdict: I need to read some more Austen. I think I might go after Emma and see if Mr. Knightley is as enchanting as Paul Rudd.

Recommendation: Yeeeeah, you should probably read this. I wouldn't quite recommend the audiobook version I listened to, but there are probably better ones out there.

Rating: 8/10
(A to Z Challenge, TBR Challenge)

13 Little Blue Envelopes, by Maureen Johnson

This isn't technically my first e-book, since I've read two Cory Doctorow novels and Dracula on my computer, but it is the first e-book I've read portably, in this case using the Kindle app for my Android phone. I had originally downloaded the app to try to read Pride and Prejudice, but gave up on that for the audiobook version, and the poor app was destined to languish along with Angry Birds and Words with Friends.

BUT THEN! Maureen Johnson, whom I dedicatedly follow on the Twitters, decided to offer up 13 Little Blue Envelopes for FREE in advance of the publication of the sequel, The Last Little Blue Envelope. And while I am in love with Twitter Maureen, I have managed to read but one of her books proper, and so this situation presented itself as a win for everyone. It can even still be a win for you, as the book is still free for a few days yet, with all the pertinent links over at Maureen's blog.

So first a note on the e-book format itself: it being on my phone, the book necessarily looked a little odd, what with sentences not fitting perfectly on short little lines and some formatting causing odd little line breaks here and there. And indeed, I felt a little lost without page numbers or an idea of the heft of the book. But I had an eye appointment right after work last week and got there, as usual, embarrassingly early, and so I pulled out my phone and started reading. I felt like Reed on Criminal Minds, "turning" pages at an alarming speed but still managing to understand them (if only I could do that for regular-sized books!), and though I was surprised by a chapter break here and there it still felt like reading a paper book. It being my phone, I wouldn't want to read a large book in one go on it for fear of going blind by backlight, but it was perfect for the waiting room and for the times I was standing in line or otherwise bored.

And now for the story: It was okay. It, like its format, was perfect for the waiting room or standing in line et cetera, but I had some problems with it.

The driving force behind the story is the eponymous set of envelopes, which are left to our hero Ginny by her dead aunt who was a bit flighty in life. Her aunt, Peg, wants Ginny to go wander around Europe, following the path that Peg took after she left the States.

This seems pretty cool, except that the letters are constantly telling Ginny to go here or there IMMEDIATELY DO NOT PASS GO DO NOT GIVE YOURSELF A CHANCE TO DO WHAT YOU WANT and Ginny, being that sort of person, obliges without question. This makes me hate Ginny a bit, and it makes me hate Peg more considering that she herself did whatever she wanted. And as a consequence of Ginny up and leaving for somewhere new every ten seconds, the book felt quite rushed and unfinished and I just wanted it to slow the heck down and let me figure out what was going on HERE before I had to go THERE. And so there is that.

But! For all the rushing around, I was still quite engaged in the story; I wanted to know where Ginny would go next and what she would learn and who she would meet and if she'd ever get back to the cute guy from the beginning of her adventures. And although Maureen Johnson does not quite write the way she tweets (for then her stories would go on for ages), I am still drawn in by her turns of phrase. And and, I love the way that she describes all of the weird things that go on in foreign countries, like washing machines in kitchens and oddly labeled bathrooms and other things that you don't really think about until they're staring you in the face.

So, on the whole, I do not regret the time I've spent with this book. The free version comes with a preview of the sequel, which preview I read and which did not really entice me to put the book on hold. But I am excited for Maureen's upcoming Jack the Ripper mystery series, which seems slightly more up my alley.

Recommendation: For YA fans who like a good road-trip story or a good jaunt about Europe.

Rating: 7/10
(A to Z Challenge)

Salt: A World History, by Mark Kurlansky

I downloaded this from OverDrive at the same time as The Phantom of the Opera, and started it right after I was done with the novel. It is, shall we say, not the same.

I actually remember seeing this at my local Borders way back in the day when it was the place for me and my friends to hang out. So, like, eight years ago? I was amused by the cover, but was also not at all a non-fiction reader, so it stayed on the shelf. Now that I'm trying to learn more facts (and need things to listen to at work), this book seemed perfect to read!

And it's quite interesting. I... did not know that you could apply that word to salt before listening to this book. I had no idea that salt was ever considered something valuable, or that wars were fought partially on account of salt, or that the Morton salt I put on my food is, like, intensely uniform. I thought it was just salt!

I also didn't know a lot of things about salted fish, but that whole section of the book did not interest me, either, so I can't tell you much except that apparently the Vikings started their slave trade partially because they did not have salted fish to trade with people. Salted fish, humans, same difference.

SPEAKING of salted fish and humans, did you know that when they first started bringing mummies into... what was it, Britain?... the customs people or whoever taxed them as salted fish for lack of a better way to make money off imported dead people? So maybe not so different after all...

This is what I love about non-fiction books these days. Even if the subject seems completely odd or boring, in the right hands it can have me spouting off strange facts for weeks. I'm sure my husband approves.

Recommendation: For anyone who has ever eaten salt, which is, by the way, everyone.

Rating: 8/10

I Saw You..., edited by Julia Wertz

This is an odd little book. It has a long subtitle, like so: "Comics Inspired By Real-Life Missed Connections, filled with near misses, brief encounters, strange sightings, lusty longings, and a little hope for love." I'm... not really sure what to say about it.

Okay, well, so it's a series of comics, that's a good start. And they're all based on Craigslist "missed connections" ads, which can be awesome or depressing, and are therefore sometimes awesome and sometimes depressing. I'm not clear if all of these comics are actually based on specific Craigslist postings or if some are just sort of made up, but they all sound pretty plausible.

Also, each comic is done by a different artist, so there are a lot of different art styles and different takes on how to illustrate a missed connection — some are straightforward and beautifully rendered, a couple take the Craiglist ad and turn it into something super-creepy (though I suppose some of the ads are!), most are somewhere in between. All of them give you a little insight into the kind of person that might find themselves writing to a hottie they've possibly barely spoken to.

For the most part, I found the comics a bit boring and/or predictable, but a couple really stood out and made me happy in my heart, so it wasn't a total loss.

Recommendation: For people who surf the missed connections, because maybe there's something you need to know. :)

Rating: 6/10
(A to Z Challenge)

The Phantom of the Opera, by Gaston Leroux

It is April, and I am now on my second of twelve TBR Challenge books. This is going swimmingly.

On the plus side, I found this and another TBR book on the OverDrive app I just downloaded for my phone, which makes listening to things at work very slightly easier since I don't have to transfer them from CD to iPod. Of course, I've only found a few books I'm interested in available on the app, but that could change.

Anyway. Phantom. I've loved the musical soundtrack since high school, and I saw the musical back then with my bestie (love to Laura!), and also sometime around then I purchased a copy of the book. This is like six or seven years ago. I'm pretty sure I haven't even cracked open the book. Oops. -gets up from couch-

-cracks open the book on principle-

-returns to couch, is attacked by cat, is now writing this while peering over a cat-

Right, yes. So these days, I am not quite as obsessed with Phantom as I was back then, which is probably good because the book? Not so much the same. Not as different as, say, Wicked (holy heck those are two different beasts), but still I found myself thinking, "This didn't happen in the musical. This DEFINITELY didn't happen in the musical. Oh, this part happened, kind of."

It's the same baaaasic plot. There's an Opera Ghost, he teaches a young woman (Christine) to sing amazingly well, he becomes jealous when an old friend of Christine's (Raoul) shows up all lovey, he tries to make Christine his wife through force. This is never a good idea.

But the Opera Ghost of the novel, Erik, is much more menacing than I recall the musical Phantom being — he weighs heavily upon Christine and Raoul's relationship much earlier, and his retaliation for their love is scarier and rather more psychopathic. I can see how Erik would not appeal to a mass audience.

What I did like more about the book is that it is presented as a frame story, which I am a sucker for, and so Leroux makes it out like he's actually researched this Opera Ghost and learned all about him through testimony from the various characters (including a "Persian" who pretty much writes the last few chapters), and he does that thing I sometimes like where he gives away what's coming up and I get all antsy waiting to see how it'll happen.

Overall, though, I think I'll stick with my beloved Michael Crawford; the book is quite good, but the musical is just happier!

Recommendation: For fans of the musical or of psychological horror. That's sort of a strange combination, I think.

Rating: 7/10
(A to Z Challenge, TBR Challenge)

Zombie, Ohio, by Scott Kenemore

I'm not gonna lie — if this book had been Zombie, Iowa or Zombie, Florida, or Zombie, Texas or whatever, I would have been about 1 percent as likely to pick it up. I mean, I like zombies and all, but they're getting a little overdone these days. But combine them with Ohio, my home state for almost 25 years? And make the story told from the point of view of a zombie? I am so in.

So, yes. This book opens with a guy wandering around amnesia-full after a car accident. He finds his wallet and driver's license, finds his way home, and discovers that there are zombies — I'm sorry, "moving cadavers" in government-speak — wandering around. He is understandably confused and worried, and gets a friend to drive him over to his girlfriend's house to hole up and wait out the storm or whatever, but during all this excitement he takes a bathroom break only to find that the back of his head is kind of missing. Better keep that hat on!

At first, the dude, Peter, is like, "Well, I'd better hide this zombie thing," but then he realizes he totally can't and so runs off to be a zombie in the woods of Ohio. He has "fun" zombie adventures — eats some brains, kills some people, kills some zombies, becomes a legendary zombie by shooting at military helicopters and flipping soldiers the bird... you know. Normal stuff.

It's actually a lot more intriguing than I was anticipating it to be. Peter is pretty self-aware, and being an amnesiac gets a lot of digs in at general human behavior. And also he's pretty much the smartest zombie around, with the others being more like "regular" zombies, so there's a lot of protecting of the zombie herd going on that is kind of sweet. On the downside, there's a bit of a plot line revolving around the fact that Peter's car accident was not so accidental, and although the resolution is interesting, the whole thing could have been edited out and I wouldn't notice a lack in the rest of the story.

On the whole, then, I'd say this book does what it says it's gonna do, and does it pretty okay.

Recommendation: For those who want a different perspective on the zombie novel craze, and people who have always wondered what Knox County, Ohio would look like zombified.

Rating: 7/10
(A to Z Challenge)

The Search for WondLa, by Tony DiTerlizzi

My main reaction to this book is this: WHAT.

I picked it up knowing absolutely nothing about it except that it had a neat cover and a strange title. The "jacket" copy (I grabbed the audio version) was interesting enough, with its promises of a kid living underground and busting out and discovering new and interesting things, that I figured I could give it a listen at work. So onto my iPod it went.

Listening to it, though... eh. I missed the part on the box where it said that Teri Hatcher was narrating, and that was a pleasant surprise at first, since I do love Hatcher's voice. But I quickly discovered that I do not like Teri Hatcher's robot voice, or her "Dory speaking whale" voice (from Finding Nemo, of course, and which Hatcher uses for a different, alien large animal) or, in fact, her teenage girl voice, which is possibly more that I hate teenage voices and inflections in general, see that link above. Uggggggggh.

So the story, then. There is a teenage girl — well, a twelve-year-old, so almost teenage — called Eva Nine (another narrating beef: Hatcher can't decide if it's pronounced eh-va, ee-va, or ay-va), who lives underground with her robot MUTHR, who is, obviously, her robot mother. It's just the two of them, and they're training Eva to go wander around Earth, or something, I'm not quite clear on this, but the training gets interrupted when a Bad Guy comes and burns up their hidey-hole. Eva runs off, then gets captured by the Bad Guy, then escapes with a couple of friend-types who are decidedly not human, then goes back to rescue MUTHR, then decides to figure out why she is not on Earth with the humans, and then there is more travelling and adventuring and oh, the title comes from some picture that Eva finds that has just the letters WondLa visible around the picture. Uh. Huh.

I guess this is a children's book, though I found it in the YA section (I imagine it's for older kids, younger teens), and so I guess I can forgive a lot of the telegraphed information and things that seem obvious to me but come as a "surprise" at the end. And one of the things that I absolutely did not see coming actually makes the book make a whole lot more sense, and makes it possibly better, and I wish I had figured it out sooner so I could have appreciated it while it was happening. But I had a lot of nitpicky problems with the story; I wondered how DiTerlizzi's version of a Babel Fish actually works or why the Bad Guy shows up in the first place or why certain things that seemed incredibly important got completely ignored for the rest of the book.

Oh, and then at the end something completely out of left field happens so that I will read the sequel. Not gonna happen.

I don't think I would read this book again, but if I were going to go back in time and pick this book up for the first time again, I would make sure it was in book form, as apparently there are neat illustrations and, of course, I wouldn't have to listen to the voices I disliked. And there's an interesting thing that I didn't check out because I didn't want to download something, but if you are reading this with kids they'll probably download it before you even realize — on the CDs and, I imagine, in the book are some illustrations that you can hold up to a webcam and that the aforementioned downloadable program will apparently decode and turn into some sort of interactive image or video or something? If you end up doing this, let me know what it is!

Recommendation: I think kids will like this; I think I would have liked it better as a kid, at least. I imagine that if you like DiTerlizzi's other stuff, this is probably right up that alley.

Rating: 6/10
(A to Z Challenge)

The Book of Awesome, by Neil Pasricha

So I started reading this book waaaay back in January, and then got distracted by work and audiobooks and never managed to make it back to the book until I got that irksome little notice I get so often that says, "Hey, you. Yes, you. Stop hoarding library books. No, you can't renew it. Yes, I want it back in three days. Get on that."

I couldn't rescue the other three books mentioned in the notice... sigh... but since I was quite close to finishing this I zoomed through it, sneaking the last bit during a slow time at work. Don't tell my boss. :)

So. This here book is based on the website 1000 Awesome Things, which, in looking up that link, I discover is ready to become a second book, there are so many awesome things in the world. I can get behind that.

And that's what the book is — it's basically an annotated list of things that make life awesome, from old friends like finding money in your pocket and getting a snow day to things I hadn't realized were awesome until I read them and thought, "Hey, that is awesome," like that first scoop of peanut butter in the jar and the feeling of new socks fresh out of the package. Dude, awesome.

Some of the entries are really short, some go on a few pages, the entry on silence is, well, blank. It's not really a sit-down-and-read-this-in-one-go book, though obviously you can, but more of a book to reach for when you need a reminder of awesomeness. And it is awesome.

Recommendation: Not for people who have a problem with the word "awesome," which makes up probably 20% of the book's words (possibly an exaggeration). Otherwise, for everyone!

Rating: 9/10
(A to Z Challenge)

The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Prisoner's Dilemma, by Trenton Lee Stewart

It is just a week for finishing up series, it seems. After the last installment of this one, I was a little hesitant to continue, but I needed something to listen to at work and this is what I had. So it goes.

Luckily, I liked this one a heck of a lot more... for the most part. My plot problems with Perilous Journey are gone, replaced by an actually fairly interesting plot wherein the kids and the Whisperer are being protected from the bad guy up until one of them manages to run off and Bad Guy breaks in and steals the Whisperer, and the other three kids are left to fix this situation. And, awesomely, the evil genius bad guy actually uses some of that genius to totally screw the kids over. Awesome.

Of course, that means fewer puzzles, because that's how this series goes, but that's okay. I can deal with that. What I couldn't deal with was the annoying psychic bits, and then how the book ended — with a very strange move from the evil genius that just completely jarred me and then a way-too-nicely resolved mystery and future. You know how I hate it when people are happy.

Soooooooooo all in all it was another decent entry in the series, and probably quite entertaining if you're closer to the intended age level.

Recommendation: Again, for puzzle-lovers, and for people who've read the other books and want to know what happens.

Rating: 7/10