Ketutar
Well... the idea is good, and the illustrations are nice, but the story is a bit stupid. Now, I don't know how I would see it, if I was a kid. I wanted to go to a leaf hunt, and hunt leaves from all the trees around here, but... climbing mountains and rowing over lakes is a bit much for a day trip for little kids.
Er... I don't really understand what the author wanted to do with this story. It starts as some sort of rhyme book, and then it's not, and in the middle, she goes back to her original idea, and then moves on to something else... and I don't think the events move along chronologically either. It feels like a huge hotchpotch and makes me slightly confused, and I don't like that. The illustrations are nice, I suppose, but they are a bit uneven as well.
I find it confusing.
Who is Minka? Why is Mouse called Mouse but Minka has her own name, even though they are both mice? Is Minka Mouse's big sister or what?
How big are these mice? On this page Mouse is big as Minka's head, on that page, he reaches her shoulder. And the leaves are all kinds of sizes. And not proportionate to each other either.
Also, the blurb was confusing. What was the biggest leap of all?
The pictures are very colorful and nice, and I suppose it's a fun little book to read to very small kids. I suppose toddlers would find it fun to try to find Minka when she's hiding in the leaves. But I didn't like it.
So FINALLY I found out who Minka is! She is Mouse's big sister. It wouldn't have taken too much to say it in the Fall book. “One cool fall day Mouse and his sister came out to play!”
This book follows the formula. Mouse goes around and spies things that are somehow connected to Valentine's Day. This time he follows his big sister around the house and the sister finds things and Mouse wonders what they are and what the big sister is going to do with them. I like this better than the Halloween book, but not as much as the Christmas book. The illustrations aren't quite as nice in this one, though.
So, I wanted to know who Minka was (from [b:Mouse's First Fall 1470671 Mouse's First Fall Lauren Thompson https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1348832908l/1470671.SX50.jpg 1461629] ) but she was not in this book. I love the illustrations in this one, absolutely lovely, rich, dark colors. It's the night before Christmas and the house is all quiet except for one little Mouse, who investigates the quiet house. Now... this is why this book got only three stars from me. The Mouse finds different things in the house. Like a cup of cocoa on the kitchen table. And it's still “warm and melty”. Huh? And what would you say is “white and floaty”? I'm 100% certain that you'll never guess. It's a snow globe. Well, finally the mouse finds Santa and Santa gives him a gift. Merry Christmas!
Well... it wasn't bad, except it had the three things I hate about cozies.
1) the MC gets upset when the police DARES to suspect her or her relatives or friends of the murder
2) the MC decides to solve the crime herself
3) at some point something bad happens and the MC is all mea culpa
In this book, she was also lying all the time, even though everyone knew she was lying, and telling the truth would not have made anything worse, on the contrary. sigh
I really wish the cozy writers would skip these tropes. I know #2 is kind of necessary, but it could be done in a better way. Like, the MC just happens to stumble over clues. She just happens to overhear something important, maybe not even understanding its importance herself, and happens to tell the detective who is her boyfriend. Or something like that.
Nevertheless, it wasn't bad.
A quickie read for October :-)
Cute story.
My favorite was the afterwords by the author. I am blessed to have been loved by a black cat. Gingers are my favorites, still, but blacks have a special spot in my heart. And I miss all the animals I have had the honor of sharing a part of my life with. I don't understand people who don't like animals, or who dislike a certain kind of animal, like cats, because they are this and that, when every cat person knows all that is just stupid prejudices and totally wrong. Right now I share my life with a ginger called Katja, and my love for her makes me weak and powerless, and I know she loves me. So, I will be thinking about Sara's pets whenever I read her books. <3 And mine. <3
This is a candy cookbook with a story. The story is not that interesting, which makes me give it only 3 stars. It was published in 1918, but written before the Great War - the war isn't mentioned in the story, but in both the foreword and a small appendix with recipes using less sugar, so that most of the sugar can be used by the army. The recipes are as one would expect, your ordinary hard candy, caramels, fudges, fondant, and sugared fruits and nuts. There's also quite a lot of popcorn recipes.
And they repeat everything for every recipe because as Betsey says, it's easier to have the whole recipe on its own page so that one doesn't need to go back to find the “mother recipe”. But there's like over 40 fudge recipes and most of them say “After beating the fudge until it was as thick as heavy cream, Betsey poured it into the buttered pan and marked in squares”. After the fifth, it was getting irritating. After the 20th I felt like screaming :-D
The story is about a little girl who loves candy, but her mother doesn't like her eating the cheap penny candy one buys from a candy store because one doesn't know what ingredients they have used and the bright colors are not good for children. One day, her friends and she are discussing what they want to do when they grow old, and she says she wants to become a domestic science teacher. Her mother is very pleased to hear this and tells her she doesn't need to wait until she is old enough to go to college, and teaches her how to make candy. And this is basically her notebook where she wrote all the recipes and other information. Then there are some stories about events during the year where she made special candies etc. It's actually a surprisingly long story considering it's a very short book and there are many recipes.
DNFI read 60% of the book, I can say I have read enough to decide to stop reading it. There are too many good books out there to waste time reading crap like this.I read it because it was recommended as Autumnal reading. Probably because Sherlock Holmes is considered very Autumnal, and this is a Sherlock Holmes fan fiction. Now, I was suspicious, because they also recommended [b:The Beekeeper's Apprentice 91661 The Beekeeper's Apprentice (Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes, #1) Laurie R. King https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1590945421l/91661.SY75.jpg 891863] and [b:The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter 34728925 The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter (The Extraordinary Adventures of the Athena Club, #1) Theodora Goss https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1490794116l/34728925.SY75.jpg 45924715], which also are more or less Sherlock Holmes fan fiction, and I have read the Daughter and it's BS, and I fear the Apprentice is that also, so I don't want to read it. Read the 1-star reviews, and believe them. If there are things said there that make you feel you don't want to read this book, do yourself a favor and read something else. I actually liked [b:Good Night, Mr. Holmes 552534 Good Night, Mr. Holmes (Irene Adler, #1) Carole Nelson Douglas https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1437091135l/552534.SY75.jpg 2903822], so if you want to read a feminist version of Sherlock Holmes, read that. It's Irene Adler fan fiction :-D (But do read the 1-star reviews first, some people don't like it for reasons, and if their reasons seem good to you, just don't waste your time reading that either.)So - I think my dislike started from the first page. The characters are caricatures and cardboard at that. Her father and mother can do only one thing and react the same way to everything that happens. Every man has a mistress, or more than one. Young women discuss sex freely. People who have never worn a Victorian outfit complain about how uncomfortable it is. I hate when the authors don't seem to understand the general attitudes of the era they are writing about. That was one of my biggest problems with [b:Outlander 10964 Outlander (Outlander, #1) Diana Gabaldon https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1659086907l/10964.SY75.jpg 2489796]. I hate it when they take a thoroughly modern Millie and insert them into a historical time.It felt like she was using an unnecessarily complicated language because “they spoke like that in the 19th century”, and was using a thesaurus way too much. English isn't my native language, but there were some words that cannot be used the way she used them. I also don't think a brougham is what she seems to think it is. Or a “dog cart”. I found it extremely irritating how Charlotte was supposed to be so smart but then make idiotic mistakes. Firstly, she should have gotten herself a proper education already when she was a child. She should have taught herself several languages if her parents had refused to get her a teacher. She could have “helped” her friends and acquaintances with their studies and exchanged favors or other things with their governess to get the education required. She could have discussed with the governesses to find out what was needed to become a headmistress. She could have researched the different routes to becoming an independent woman. She should have considered what would happen if her scheme failed, before running away from home. What would be needed? How difficult it would actually have been to get a job. She could have started applying for a job already when she was 15. She could have started writing to earn some money. And how come she didn't manage to save more than what she had? And why didn't she wait until she was sent to the countryside before she run away? I mean, I would have made an agreement with the driver about him taking me somewhere else - and I would have secured that “somewhere else” already in good time beforehand... I suppose I need to write my version of this to see if it was any better :-DAlso, the scheme she cooked up to force her parents to give her what she wanted was stupid. At that time, all she needed to do was to SAY she had had sex with someone. She didn't need to actually have sex with someone. Anyway, what made me finally decide not to continue reading was the passage about the relationship between Charlotte and the love interest. sigh I was fascinated by the idea of a young woman being Sherlock Holmes, having chosen the name as a male disguise, but... the name “Sherlock” is a surname, and not common enough for someone to think of it as their pseudonym. She could have chosen any name, John, Edward, Frederick, Oliver, even Charles. No one would have thought the little plumb Charlotte Holmes would be the brilliant detective.The mystery part of the book was somewhat interesting, even though it wasn't interesting enough for me to want to finish the book to find out the solution. I just don't care. I suppose Sherry Thomas was writing Charlotte as being on the Autistic spectrum (having Asperger's), people have been having theories about Sherlock Holmes being an Aspie. I can accept her description as someone on AS. Some of us function like that. I also appreciate the fact that Charlotte was a glutton and rotund. Though I'm thinking about Lily Langtry, the White Elephant, and that being fat wasn't in any way unattractive during the Victorian times.
Ok, so... Chapter 11 was wonderful. Absolutely perfect. I didn't expect that.
But then Alice spoiled it all by writing and writing and writing and writing... and writing hogwash. I hate the movie Practical Magic because of the ending. The whole town hated them for being witches, but then everyone just magically loved them. And here this end of 17th century Salem that burned witches just 10 years earlier, we have these witches everyone knows to be witches being respected citizens who do modern things and everyone is happy and loves them. Yeah, sure. Tell me that story about little Red Ridinghood, too. Sure a teenage girl walks around wearing trousers and reading books, sure :-D Why, didn't they make pocketbooks in the 17th century?
I also don't believe in karma. “The witches' rede” or Wiccan Rede was written in the 60s. The 1960s, that is. It's a lot of BS, IMHO. I believe witchcraft is like anything else one does, and one's personal ethics is the only rede one needs. We all know you don't get what you give, nice people are nice to everyone, mean people are mean to everyone, and if someone is having a p*ssy day, they don't suddenly become all sunshine and unicorn farts just because you smile to them. I suppose you can tell I'm not a “white witch”, nor a fluffy bunny, but more a “grey witch” and a stinking badger pagan :-D But - I accept that in Alice's universe witches bleed black acid and follow the ancient laws from the 1960s - so mote it be.
There were also a lot of historically questionable details there, like how likely was it for some witch living in the woods to get their hands on ginger? Also, they didn't call the wild herbal teas “liberty teas” before the Boston Tea Party.
Nevertheless, I like Alice Hoffman's books. It's easy to read her writing (even though she doesn't know when to stop:-D) and she creates interesting characters and stories.
I really like miss Pym. The rest of the book wasn't as good as the first one, which wasn't as good as it could have been.The ending was quite abrupt and not quite satisfying. There is much more material here than can be put in a little “pulp fiction” like this. I recommend [b:A Company of Swans 963274 A Company of Swans Eva Ibbotson https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1311649502l/963274.SX50.jpg 3271817] All in all, it's a harmless, cute regency romance novel.
Firstly, I love Margaret Mahy. That's why I wanted to read this book.
Secondly, I love the illustrations. That's another reason why I wanted to read this book.
And boy, it didn't disappoint! The illustrations are amazing! The story is wonderful! Should teach you to not listen to your children and believe them, even when their stories sound unbelievable. >:-[