Theodore Boone: Kid Lawyer, by John Grisham

I... ugh. I don't usually regret reading books, but this one? This one I do. I have never read a John Grisham novel, so I don't know how this compares, but on its own? It's not good.

So why did I listen to it? Well, I've got five hours of tedious work everyday that is made better by the presence of audiobooks and podcasts. And I was out of podcasts. And audiobooks. And I knew that a friend had read and at least moderately liked this, so I figured it would be okay.

Well, I guess it had its okay moments. Let me think of them. ... Um. ...

Okay, let me take a different tack. Here's why it should have been good: I adore Veronica Mars, which is about a high-schooler that kicks some butt in the private investigation department. Theodore Boone is about a middle-schooler who kicks some butt in the law department, and throughout the book I felt a distinct VM vibe from the story, with fellow students and even adults coming to Theodore with their problems and Theo solving them right quick.

But it turns out that the conceit doesn't actually carry over very well. For starters, I'm pretty sure it's not completely illegal to practice private investigation without a license, and even when it is, the nature of being a PI lends itself to a little rule-breaking. Theo Boone apparently thinks it is totally okay to practice law without a license as long as he doesn't charge for it (very very wrong), and when he's all hacking into computer systems and lying to school staff and whatnot I am like, "ARE YOU SURE IT IS A LAWYER YOU ARE TRYING TO BE." I know lawyers are not all fine upstanding citizens, but the ones in Grisham's novel here at least try to be, so all of this shenaniganizing kills me.

Other things I did not like: the central bit of the story is this big murder trial, and the prosecution has absolutely no case but everyone thinks the guy is guilty anyway but it doesn't matter because reasonable doubt blah blah blah. And a convenient way for the guy to be convicted would be for a surprise witness to show up, like they do on TV. So when several characters informed me that a surprise witness NEVER happens because it is NOT ALLOWED... I figured there was going to be a surprise witness. And (spoiler!) there is, and he blurts his whole story to Theo (OF COURSE), and much of the book has Theo dithering about whether and how to get this dude into the trial.

And it's just so... tiresome. I didn't really care whether this guy's testimony could or would be used, and I really didn't care about the seventy million other legal troubles Theo helped in, but I was curious to see how it would all turn out and then the ending just does something else entirely!

On the plus side? It's not Castle.

Recommendation: I think that if you are more willing than I am to suspend your disbelief and/or you are a precocious 7-year-old who thinks that law is pretty neat and wants to read books about kids and law, you will like this book.

Rating: 2/10
(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

The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Perilous Journey, by Trenton Lee Stewart

Here's another series that I'm enjoying on audiobook... I listened to the first book about a month ago and have just now gotten to this first sequel. It's definitely great for work because the plot is quite simple so there's not too much stopping and going back any time my work area gets too loud or I have to go chat someone up.

The idea of this book is the same as its predecessor... children who are very smart and talented in different ways work together to solve seemingly insurmountable problems. But whereas in the first book this idea was set against a plot of trying to take down an evil genius from inside his base of operations, here the plot is a bit... weaker. The same evil genius is back, and he's kidnapped the titular Benedict, but for the most part his existence and actions are just there to give the story a time limit of sorts. The real plot follows a path of puzzles that Benedict had laid out for the children to follow for funsies, before he got all kidnapped and whatnot.

This plot is both better and worse than the one before it. Better, because I liked the puzzling parts and enjoyed having more of them to try to solve myself (where possible). Worse, because outside of the puzzles there is very little to this book. The characters do their thing, I guess, but it's not terribly interesting.

But! The puzzles are generally interesting, and some of the scenarios the characters find themselves in are in fact intriguing, and if you're listening to this book while doing something else you can skip all the boring parts. Sweet!

Recommendation: Good if you like puzzles!

Rating: 7/10

The Mysterious Benedict Society, by Trenton Lee Stewart

This is the kind of book that I would have read six times a week when I was younger. I have always been big into puzzles and riddles and whatnot, and the main character in this book (and series, apparently) has a keen eye for solving them, too. In fact, he's perhaps a little better at it than I am — or perhaps he's just a better guesser. Which is a good skill to have.

And especially in this story, as the main character, Reynie Muldoon, finds himself drafted into the titular society, whose aim is to bring together gifted and brave young souls to save the world. Silly world, always getting in trouble! This time, the world is facing some vague Emergency (isn't it always?) and the Mr. Benedict after whom the society is named has figured out that there are unsettling messages being transmitted into adult brains by children (because adults won't notice children talking to them, ha!). The exact point of the messages is unknown, but Benedict decides to send in his best and brightest on an undercover mission to the institute from which the messages are coming.

It's pretty exciting, is what I'm saying. Lots of danger and intrigue and lateral thinking. Reynie is the puzzle-solver of the group, while a kid called Sticky (because facts stick to him) has practically an eidetic memory, the Great Kate Weather Machine is a brute force to be reckoned with, and Constance Contraire is just stubborn, which isn't quite as useful.

At first, I wasn't quite getting into the story because it's all rather fantastic — I expected any minute to find out that everything was just some giant ploy to gain something or other. But no, this is a children's book and therefore quite attached to its ridiculousness. So just go with it. Once I did, I found myself enjoying it a heck of a lot more, because even the predictable bits of the story are infused with a self-aware humor that cuts a lot of the annoyance I had with The Sea of Trolls.

I will definitely be picking up the next book in this series, and then the one after that.

Recommendation: For kid geniuses, wannabe kid geniuses, and kid geniuses at heart.

Rating: 9/10
(A to Z Challenge)

The Secret Science Alliance and the Copycat Crook, by Eleanor Davis

I love volunteering at the library. The other day I found myself roped into hanging out in the children's section, shelving their series and "display" books, which usually means graphic novels. One of those latter books was this one, which I grabbed right off the cart and kept with me through all the rest of the sorting and shelving I did that day, just so no one else could take it from me!

And I am very glad I did. This is an excellent book! We have our hero, Julian Calendar (teehee), who is a Big Ol' Nerd but sees a chance to reinvent himself when his family moves to a new school district. Of course, being a Big Ol' Nerd is not a curable disease, and so Julian finds his new persona slipping away rather quickly. Luckily, there are some other kids in school who are equally as nerdy, and they group together to form a Secret Science Alliance (with an AWESOME secret hideout) with the goal of inventing things useful to 11-year-olds, like secret message pens and a flying machine. Unfortunately, these things are also useful to crotchety old inventors who are too lazy to do their own work...

I adored this story and the wonderfully crammed illustrations that go with it, and I'm pondering getting this for my 12-year-old brother who loves science-y things. There's so much stuff to look at that it will definitely do well under incessant re-reading, which is always a good thing. :)

Recommendation: For Big Ol' Nerds, especially those with ADD who will have lots of shiny things to look at.

Rating: 8/10
(Support Your Local Library Challenge)

See also:
Book Nut

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

The Reptile Room, by Lemony Snicket (4 December — 7 December)

Oh, audiobooks. Scott and I listened to about 2/3 of this book driving from Pittsburgh to Cleveland on Friday, but then we totally neglected it until yesterday. And then, when I was playing it on my computer and had lots of distractions? Terrible! I had to fold laundry just so I could focus on the book. Moral of this story? Save the audiobooks for the car. :)

But anyway, this is the second in the Series of Unfortunate Events, which I am apparently very slowly catching Scott up on. (Is there a rule about ending sentences with two prepositions?) Violet, Klaus, and Sunny, having recently avoided Violet's marriage to Count Olaf, get to go live with their herpetologist uncle, Montgomery Montgomery, and his large collection of snakes. Uncle Monty is everything that Olaf is not, and the orphans have a lovely time for the few days until Monty's new assistant, "Stephano" (really Count Olaf) shows up. Unfortunate things then happen to the kids, as you may have guessed.

This audiobook was a lot different than the one for The Bad Beginning; instead of different actors for all the voices, Tim Curry took on all of them, which made the tone rather a bit darker than in the first book. Curry also employed a hacking cough every time he spoke as Poe, which is correct, I suppose, but incredibly annoying (especially to Scott). It was still delightful, however, and I highly recommend again the series and the audiobooks.

Rating: 7/10

See also:
[your link here]

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

Lord of the Flies, by William Golding (24 November — 1 December)

This book would have been better with cannibalism.

No, seriously. I was promised cannibalism, and there was none. Hinted potential cannibalism? Yes. Actual eating of humans? No. Totally unfair.

For this review I'm going to assume that a) you are unlike me and actually had to read this at some point in your schooling or b) you are like me and the book was spoiled for you by a person of the A persuasion. If neither of these are true, well, now you know there's no cannibalism?

Tiny plot summary: a bunch of boys get stranded on a jungle island after some mysterious circumstances. They start off working toward rescue, but then some kids break off to have fun on the island or hunt the native pigs. The latter group gets bigger, the former group gets smaller. The hunters get all worked up in a tizzy one night and kill one of the other boys, who they thought was a beast at the time. Oops. Then they get worked up in a bigger tizzy about wanting to run the island and they on-purpose kill the fat kid with the asthma. Mmmm, dashed brains (and still no cannibalism!). Then. Then. -twitch- Then, right before they kill (and possibly eat? Cannibalism, please!) the last of the relatively sane people, they get frickin' rescued. WHAT.

I mean, yeah, the book is old and British, and the writing is difficult to understand at times, and there is NO CANNIBALISM, but I was pretty much on board with the book the whole way through. I was intrigued by the slow descent into madness (well, faster for some) of the boys, especially the one who's trying to keep everything together. I was horrified but admiring of the sow "rape" scene (no, there is no sex with pigs. Or cannibalism). But then, right when we're about to find out just how deep into evil 12-year-olds can get... they get frickin' rescued. Jeez. The one time they keep the fire lit. Especially after all of the stuff in the beginning about how maybe there was an atomic bomb and probably everyone else is dead and all, the rescue really seemed completely out of place. I get it — the kids are all crazy and stuff until a real voice of authority comes, at which point they become good little Brits again. But I think the drama, the horror, and the irony would have been just that much more delicious if Golding had at least waited until AFTER Ralph was dead for the rescuers to come. Seriously.

The other problem I had with this book is that while I liked specific scenes (the "rape", Simon talking with the Lord of the Flies, the parachutist/Beast nodding in the breeze, any time Ralph says "sucks to your ass-mar"), I had a lot of trouble remembering any character that wasn't on a page for a while. Jack, Ralph, Piggy, sure. But everyone else I had to flip back and re-learn who they were all the time. I don't know if that was Golding's intention (kids are interchangeable?), but it was really rather confusing.

But I did actually like this book, possibly because I didn't have to read it for school. :) Funny how that works.

Rating: 7/10
(My Year of Reading Dangerously)

See also:
Rhinoa's Ramblings

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

The Golden Compass, by Philip Pullman (8 November — 14 November)

I have really got to stop watching movies based on books before I read the books themselves. Because really, the books are usually way better, and even so I still spend too much time comparing the book to what I remember of the movie.

Such is the case with The Golden Compass, the movie version of which I really don't remember much from. But many times in the book I felt like something was "wrong" compared to the movie, and then I had to be all, "Self. Shut up and read." So it took a while to get through.

But it was pretty good. The story is of Lyra Belacqua, an orphan in the care of Jordan College in Oxford. Of course, her Oxford is much different than ours, seeing as it's in a whole other universe altogether, where people have daemons in animal form that follow them around and act as sorts of guardians of their humans. Lyra is getting along well at Jordan College until one day her uncle shows up and peeves off a bunch of Scholars, and then next thing Lyra knows she's off to be personal assistant to someone who is kidnapping children. Fun? Lyra, of course, escapes, and then she finds out lots of truths (some from people, some from her "golden compass" that tells you the answer to anything you want to know) that she doesn't really like, and then ADVENTURES happen. There are bears, and hot-air balloons, and witches, and oh my, it's pretty darn exciting.

This is a banned book, because it paints the Church out to be pretty awful (which, in this other world, at least, it kinda is), but from all of the talk I thought it would be more anti-Church than it is... maybe it gets worse in the rest of the trilogy?

Nonetheless, I liked the world that Pullman put together (though I am so over prophecies these days, which is not his fault), and I thought that Lyra was true to a 12-year-old, which doesn't happen often in books like these. She was kind of stupid sometimes, and kind of genius sometimes, and was generally willing to believe anything she heard (which is a little of both). I liked her. :) But the story itself... eh. It was exciting and adventurous, as I've said, but I'm not itching to go out and find the next book. We'll see, I guess.

Rating: 7/10
(My Year of Reading Dangerously Challenge)

See also:
Just One More Page...
books i done read
Blogging for a Good Book
Back to Books

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

Alvin Ho: Allergic to Girls, School, and Other Scary Things, by Lenore Look (26 October)

Okay, this book I am getting for my brother's birthday... in fact, I went out and bought it within a few days of reading it! It's really cute.

The book is basically a series of stories about all of the things Alvin Ho is scared of... he can't talk in class (literally, he gets so scared he can't talk); he can climb up a tree but can't climb back down; when he hears that his new piano teacher might like to eat children, he runs away screaming. But he's a good kid at heart, and just wants to make friends, so parts of the book are about Alvin trading away really awesome baseball cards to his bully to gain his friendship and bringing in his dad's FAVORITE TOY EVER to show and tell (and, of course, breaking it in the process).

There are also delightful illustrations, so you can't really go wrong there. :)

Rating: 8/10
(Countdown Challenge: 2008)

See also:
Book Nut

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

The 39 Clues: The Maze of Bones, by Rick Riordan (15 September — 16 September)

Well. I picked this book up from the library yesterday because I'm thinking about buying it for my brother for Christmas and I haven't heard too much about it. And then last night I started reading the first pages, thinking if they were okay I'd get it. And then I read three quarters of it and finished it this morning. So... it's good.

Amy and Dan Cahill, aged 14 and 11, attend their grandmother's funeral, sad that she is gone and intimidated by the several hundred people who are also there, most of them family. They aren't exactly expecting an inheritance, what with all those other family members, but they certainly get one! They are invited to take on a quest comprised of 39 clues, a quest that will allegedly change the fate of the world as we know it. And one that might also kill them, because the other people who take on this quest are ruthless. But they take it, because it would make their grandmother (and their dead parents) proud of them, and they end up hunting down information about Ben Franklin and jumping on a plane to France. And then, in the end [spoiler alert?], they find a second clue!

This, like yesterday's book, is meant for younger kids, so the plot is pretty much implausible and the pacing is quick. The clues — because the first clue only leads to more clues to find the second clue, like, come on, puzzle makers! — are all National Treasure-style hidden messages and such (and they're about Ben Franklin!), and of course Amy and Dan are the ones figuring them out first or best and being chased around by the other, allegedly older and wiser teams. But whatever. It's fun! I don't think I'll read the next book, but I think my little brother will.

Rating: 7/10
(Countdown Challenge: 2008)

See also:
Blogging for a Good Book

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

A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeleine L'Engle (11 September — 12 September)

A Wrinkle in Time was one of my favorite books as a kid, probably because it has a cool girl protagonist and also a super-smart five-year-old, both of which I wanted to be/have been. :) I re-read it once in undergrad and I remember liking it, but I don't remember it going by so fast! I think I was also reading lots of the A Series of Unfortunate Events books at the time, so it probably didn't feel so rushed.

Anyway! Like you don't know (and if you don't, you should fix this immediately!), this book is about a girl called Meg Murry who has the hard life of any teenager, plus a little bit: she hates school, she's constantly picked on and getting in fights, and her dad has disappeared amongst rumors that he's left his wife for another woman. Fun! Meg doesn't believe that last one, so when her super-smart little brother, Charles Wallace, introduces her to some crazy old ladies who say they can help get Mr. Murry back, she's game. But, of course, this adventure requires some space-folding and other-planet-visiting and moral-learning.

Reading it now, I can see some problems with the book: namely, everything seems to happen in the span of a day and there's no time to digest what's happening before something else happens. And the moral-learning part is more than a little heavy-handed. But I think it's perfect younger young adult reading and the images of the book (especially the sameness of everything on Camazotz) have stuck with me since childhood, so that's a point in L'Engle's favor.

Rating: 8/10
(Summer Lovin' Challenge, My Year of Reading Dangerously)

See also:
Library Queue
Rhinoa's Ramblings

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

B is for Beer, by Tom Robbins (28 August)

This is a weird little book. It is subtitled both "A Children's Book for Grown-ups" and "A Grown-up Book for Children" and it has a big ol' glass of beer on the front. Oh, yes.

It's basically an excuse for Tom Robbins to write a book of fun facts about beer and how it's brewed in the "explain this to my five-year-old daughter" way, because the protagonist is five and gets curious about beer. Her uncle, Moe, who is totally that slacker uncle that your kids love and you don't care much for, promises to take her on a brewery tour for her sixth birthday, but when her birthday totally falls apart it doesn't happen. So she drinks a bunch of beer (for a six-year-old, anyway), vomits, and then goes on an adventure with the Beer Fairy. Yeah, you read that right.

It was cute! And entertaining. And wholly unbelievable. And it had some bad puns. Really bad. Terrible. But it's still really funny.

Rating: 7/10

See also:
[your link here]

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

Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card (7 August — 8 August)

I found this book in the adult sci-fi section of my library, even though the back of the book clearly states "for ages 10 and up." I'm not sure what the librarians are trying to say here. :) Also, the back of the book totally spoiled the end for me, so I suggest not reading that if you can help it.

So. In this story our hero is a young boy, whom we meet when he is six and selected to go to something called Battle School. This turns out to be a place where other small children battle each other in preparation for joining armies and fighting bad guys in the future. The people in charge think that Ender's going to be their savior in fighting some aliens called buggers, so they isolate him from making friends and push him ridiculously hard. He takes it as much in stride as he can and becomes a pretty good fighter-type.

You'd think that would be the story, really, considering how many pages are spent on it, but the actual story happens after that, and in the span of not very many pages. But if I sum up the actual story, I'll give it away.

That's pretty much why I'm giving this book a low score; I was interested in the beginning of the book but all of that plot doesn't really matter to the end except that it gives Ender some experiences to draw on. And then after that, everything happens really quickly and it's all kind of weird. I didn't like the bugger fight, I didn't care for the side plot with Ender's siblings, and I was incredibly confused by the Giant's Drink part at the end. Very very confused. I still don't get it, though I guess I understand what happened now, after consulting the internets. Meh.

Rating: 6/10

See also:
Library Queue
Trish's Reading Nook

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

When We Were Romans, by Matthew Kneale (21 January — 23 January)

I'm not gonna lie, I read this book because of its cover. Luckily, the book was pretty darn good as well!

Our narrator, 9-year-old Lawrence, lives with his mother Hannah and sister Jemima in England. His father, who lives in Scotland, has been bothering Lawrence's mother so she decides to pack up the kids and go on a little vacation — to Rome, in the middle of the school year. They try to live a moderately normal life while being shuffled from house to house among Hannah's old friends and hoping that their father doesn't find them.

Hmm. That doesn't sound all that exciting, but it really was. The book is written as if by Lawrence so it's riddled with spelling errors and general kid misunderstandings, but it's fun to read about what's going through his mind before he decides what he's going to say. Lawrence is also a smart little kid, so each section of his narrative begins with some information from his book about space or books about Roman emperors that pertains to the story and is also educational!

Having Lawrence as the narrator helps keep the true nature of things hidden for a while, and as it started to fall into place for me I was just hoping he would figure it out too. Definitely a great conceit.

Rating: 8/10
(Countdown Challenge: 2008, Support Your Local Library Challenge)

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, by John Boyne (18 December)

Well. Hmm. I was home sick yesterday and watched about 12 episodes of How I Met Your Mother (awesome show, btw) instead of starting this book. I felt silly at the time (I haven't spent so much time watching TV since I had finals to procrastinate!), but I think I'm pretty glad I didn't read this until I felt less like vomiting.

Note: John Boyne (the author) thinks that books should be read without knowing what's going to happen in them. In the case of this book, I would agree. If you're planning to read this with or without my notes, please go do that now. It won't take long.

This is a very short book (200 pages of large type, YA reading level, took me 3-ish hours to read), so I can't say much about it without giving away the whole darn thing, but here's a synopsis: our protagonist, Bruno, moves to a place called "Out-With" in 1943 as his father, a newly promoted commandant, has been assigned to a new job there. He's not terribly pleased at leaving Berlin, but learns to get along in his new home with only three floors and not five, especially after he goes on a walk along the fence by his house and discovers a new friend called Shmuel, who wears striped pyjamas* like the rest of the people on his side of the fence. Then the climax happens and the book is over.

When I heard about this book, I didn't realize it was YA (and apparently young YA, at that), so I guess I was expecting a little bit better characterization and plot — the characters are very flat and the plot saves itself all up until the end — but I did rather enjoy it nonetheless. I also would like to see the movie (is it out yet/still?), because I think that might help me out a bit — the author also doesn't do much with descriptions, though I think there might be a point hidden in there about all of us being the same. Subtle.

Rating: 7/10
(Countdown Challenge: 2006)

*So this book is totally supposed to be called The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, but for some reason (the fact that it's YA?) it's been Americanized to "pajamas." Strangely enough, the word "tyre" appears several times, and two instances of "pyjamas" are left unchanged. Is that "y" so difficult?