Shawn Towner
A good book about young love. A great book about family and art. As the narrative alternates back and forth between the perspectives of twins Noah and Jude, I found myself often getting bored with the Noah sections, probably because those sections were heavier into the young love, which is an aspect of YA lit I'm not as interested in (because I don't have feelings and never was young and in love). The Jude sections do a much better job of balancing the passions of young love with the devotion to family (both living and dead) and the need to produce art that reflects that passion and devotion.
An interesting, if somewhat unfocused, collection of musings on the art of writing. It was interesting to see the differences in the the habits and motivations of different authors, like those who do tons of research and those, like Stephen King, who claim to do none. It's also amazing to see just how long it takes to create great art. Some writers talked about how it took 15 years to write a novel, while other can turn out 800 pages in 6 months.
Much of what I've read about this book compares it to Catch-22, and I can see some similarities, as both books spend time dealing with military bureaucracy. But while Catch-22 depicts an absurdly soul-crushing bureaucratic maze, Fobbit presents a more realistic view of the paperwork and command chains of the military. It's probably closer to The Office or Dilbert than it is to Catch-22. Because of this realistic bent, the book is just as much infuriating as it is funny. While we can laugh at the incompetent antics of Michael Scott or the PHB because they don't have real influence over people's lives. But with characters like Shrinkle in Fobbit, we see that comic incompetence result in unnecessary death and destruction. It's a weird read. I wouldn't say it's a great book–it's certainly not up to the level of Catch-22, The Things They Carried, or Going After Caciatto–but it's an important book.
Although its probably not fair to lump together a second-rate Dragonlance and A Song of Ice and Fire, I can't help but compare Dragons of the Highlord Skies to A Feast for Crows. Like AFFC, Highlord Skies focuses on a significantly less interesting batch of characters: the group that traveled south to Icereach when the companions were separated in Tarsis. That means no Tanis or Raistlin. And even though Sturm, Flint, and Tas are around, the authors choose to focus more on Derek Crownguard and his Solamnic cronies. Laurana gets a little attention towards the end of the book, but she is never presented as a particularly interesting character. She's pretty much just getting dragged along, ostensibly to fulfill her ‘destiny'.
The decent parts of this book are the chapters that focus on Kitiara. Like the Jaime chapters of AFFC, the Kit chapters give us insight into a sometimes misunderstood antihero. I wish there had been more focus on her interactions with Lord Soth, but that plot line stopped abruptly at the end, giving way to the dreadful frame story being told by a character who doesn't really matter.
I almost gave this one three stars, as it's probably the best paced book of the Lost Chronicles, and it focus entirely on Raistlin, which is always a plus. But the ending of the book–the last couple three pages–are so frustratingly awful that I had to drop my rating down to two stars. I understand the authors are trying to avoid repeating the events detailed in the Chronicles series, but that means that this book ends so abruptly that it doesn't even feel like a real ending, much less the ending of an entire trilogy.
I haven't read any Dragonlance novels since high school, so I'm going to assume that my memory of them is probably skewed by my love for D&D and the fact that Dragonlance novels were some of the few fiction books that I actually enjoyed reading (the others mostly being Star Wars novels or the novelization of Spaceballs (High school me did not have the best taste in literature)). I doubt the Chronicles and Legends books are as good as I remember them being, so I wasn't expecting much out of Dragons of the Dwarven Depths.
The events of the novel take place in between the first two Chronicles books. The companions have liberated Pax Tharkas and are trying to find a safe haven for the refugees. The best option would seem to be Thorbardin, the closed-off kingdom of the Dwarves. So they first need to find the place (help which Flint reluctantly provides) and gain entrance into the kingdom (which comes courtesy of Raistlin and Sturm). Much of what happens in the novel might not be all that interesting for people who haven't read the Chronicles or Legends series. There are references to Huma, the Silver Arm, and Fistandatilus that could be interesting to those of us who've read other Dragonlance novels, but would probably be confusing to those who are just beginning to read into the series.
If you've read and enjoyed other Dragonlance novels, then Dwarven Depths is an interesting, if somewhat underwhelming, read. I liked the way it presented the shaky alliance between Raistlin and Sturm, highlighting the distrust/distaste they have for each other, while still demonstrating why such differing personalities are able to coexist so successfully. It also adds detail to Draconian society and their desired role in the armies of the Dark Queen. It's certainly not as good as I remember Chronicles or Legends (or even the Legend of Huma book) being, but it was a nice way to return to the stories of Krynn.
I hope the TV adaptation lives up to the book. There's a lot going on here (war, rape, genocide, gender discrimination, FGM) that could be powerful, and in some cases, groundbreaking television.
A book that garners high praise from Stephen King (he calls it one of the three best horror novels of the 20th century) and Guillermo del Toro (calls it a true classic that will shatter your worldview) and the praise is well-deserved. Carrion Comfort twists the convention of vampire fiction, creating mind vampires that feast upon the thoughts and deaths of the their victims. The novel gets its title and epigraphs from Gerald Manley Hopkins' poem ‘Carrion Comfort' and the main characters in the novel are, like the speaker in Hopkins' poem, trying avoid giving in to the carrion comfort of despair. Instead of giving in to the despair, violence, and horror around them, the heroes of the novel risk everything to seek out revenge in spectacular fashion. There's even an awesome Hitchcock moment halfway through the novel that prevents things from getting stale, which is always a risk in such a long novel.
A decent read, but it doesn't deal with the abusive violence of the sex industry as well as [b:Box 21 1437993 Box 21 Anders Roslund http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1194215026s/1437993.jpg 1428570], nor does it capture the pointless and ineffective police bureaucracy as well as [b:Child 44 2161733 Child 44 Tom Rob Smith http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255690645s/2161733.jpg 2167258].
Disturbing. Beautiful. Frustrating. Disgusting. Exhilarating. Exhausting. I don't know the right words to describe this book. I suppose the obvious comparison would be to Lolita, but the violence and more objective point-of-view of this novel make this a more difficult novel to stomach. At times it's a book that's difficult to read, and at times it's a book that I couldn't put down.
A beautifully written book. I really enjoyed the energy of the book at the beginning, when the narrative flips back and forth between a young girl living largely on her own in the swamp and a police investigation of the death of the local town's high school football hero. As the novel goes on, the focus shifts more predominately to Kya, the swamp girl's, story, and the pacing of the novel suffered as a result.
The chapter/poem about reporting on a rape trial (“if it pleases the court”) might be the most concise and crushing encapsulation of how society and the legal system view rape, rapists, and survivors. The rest of the book, a memoir in verse, looks at Anderson's life and art. But the book is so much more than a memoir. It's a follow-up to Speak, but instead of being a sequel or just a behind-the-scenes look at the creative process the produced the novel, Shout is a rebuke of a society that ignores or antagonizes survivors, of a culture of misogyny and masculinity. The struggles that Melinda faces in Speak haven't gone away in the 20 years since the publication of that book. With Speak, Anderson showed us the impact sexual assault has on a survivor. And 20 years after that, you can turn on the TV and see some of the most powerful men in the world give slap-wrist-sentences to rapists and value the drunken rantings of abusive man over the testimony of a woman. In the “Postlude” to the book, Anderson writes of “writing rage-poems” and stories that “activate, motivate, / celebrate, cerebrate, / snare our fates / and share our great / incarnations of hope”. I hope that people read the “rage-poems” in this book and let that anger and pain be an impetus for change. Speak showed us that we need to get better. Shout is the reminder that we've failed.
I hope that one day I can live life with the remorseless vivacity of M'sieur Pierre.
The Magicians has an interesting premise: that magic isn't fun. Instead of being an enchanting world filled with happy little goat men and stair-dwelling orphans, the magic academy of The Magicians is populated by academic overachievers, the hard-working nerds who can master the ancient languages and arcane hand gestures required by magic. This is all well and good, and the first 150 pages or so of the novel, which deal with the arrival of a new batch of magic students and their struggles to integrate into a strange new world (as well as the difficulties they have dealing with new levels of academic and intellectual competition) are very interesting. Unfortunately, it takes a good long while for the book to get out of the good students do well in school portion. There's a dead zone of the novel that lasts another 150 pages. For a book that's 400 pages, that's not good. The novel does pick up towards the end, when the characters actually get to start adventuring and using their magicks. I suppose the novel is done in by its own premise. If studying magic isn't as fun as Harry Potter makes it out to be, then a novel about students of this boring magic probably won't be all that interesting, once the novelty of the premise wears off.
I read this because I assigned Nicole Krauss' History of Love as a summer reading assignment, and this book was mentioned in pretty much every review of that book. The two books do share some similarities (both are about a child investigating a mystery of their dead father and both mix traditional narrative storytelling with piecemeal excerpts of letters/journals/etc.) but I think Foer's effort was not nearly as good as his wife's. The parts of the books told from Oskar's point of view are remarkable. Foer perfectly captures the voice of an intelligent, curious, and shellshocked little boy. The other parts of the book, consisting of letters written by Oskar's grandparents and the occasional scrapbook photograph aren't nearly as engaging. The way Foer uses simple, declarative sentences to try to capture the voice of Oskar's immigrant grandmother quickly grows tiresome. And I'm honestly not sure what to think about the use of 9/11 in the book. At times, it seems entirely essential to both the plot and to establishing aspects of Oskar's character. At other times, especially when Foer is inserting photographs of the falling man, the use of 9/11 seems designed to shoehorn in an extra layer of sadness to the story.
Maybe not as good as [b:A Game of Thrones 13496 A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, #1) George R.R. Martin http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1239039164s/13496.jpg 1466917], but definitely deserves to be considered as the best of the Song of Ice and Fire. It has the quick-moving plot of [b:A Game of Thrones 13496 A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, #1) George R.R. Martin http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1239039164s/13496.jpg 1466917], the intricate political intrigue of [b:A Clash of Kings 10572 A Clash of Kings (A Song of Ice and Fire, #2) George R.R. Martin http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1307734601s/10572.jpg 3272005], and even a little bit of the madness of [b:A Storm of Swords 62291 A Storm of Swords (A Song of Ice and Fire, #3) George R.R. Martin http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1298429990s/62291.jpg 1164465]. And, best of all, it has none of the flaws of [b:A Feast for Crows 13497 A Feast for Crows (A Song of Ice and Fire, #4) George R.R. Martin http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1288333578s/13497.jpg 1019062]. Even the ironmen are interesting in this one.
Worst of the series so far. At the end of the book, Martin points out that this is only half the story, or rather the story of half the characters. Unfortunately, it's the boring half. No Tyrion, very little Jon Snow or Arya, and way too many ironmen and random Dornish nobles. If it weren't for the Jamie chapters, where he goes from being a total douche to being a more well-rounded douche, this book would almost be unredeemable.
It's strange to go back and read books I loved in high school, before I became interested in “real” Literature. The story here is great, action-packed and exciting, just as I remember it. But the writing... Well, I suppose it's fitting that a Star Wars novel has terrible dialogue and really awkward writing at times. It's a great way to honor the legacy of the original films.
The last part of this book is so good, I had to stop reading after each chapter to process. A remarkable book, and definitely one of the best of 2018.
A lot of interesting information (I especially enjoyed all the stuff about Flash Gordon and other serials), but ultimately undone by a slavish, fanboy devotion to George Lucas. Whatever George says is absolute truth. So if George says that Star Wars was more influence by the Golden Bough than The Hidden Fortress, then that's the way it is. Even though the author acknowledges the roles of other Lucasfilm people and Star Wars fanatics (the Son and the Holy Ghost to Lucas' the Father), ultimately the book is a loving tribute to Saint George and his brilliance in all things Star Wars and otherwise.
Eggers has a great voice to his writing and this book showcases that, but the story was too slow too me. By halfway through the novel, I was bored with it.
I'll admit it, I like a little plot in my books. If that makes me a bad snobbish literary hipster, then so be it. A Separation is well-written, and I thought an interesting plot was going to develop around Chapter 7, but it never did. We ride around with the main character as she makes no real decisions or choices. We are observers to nothing. There is more description than action. It's an exercise in literary indecisiveness.
3/4 of the way through this book, I probably would have given it four stars. There are some problems (like how a career thief slips so easily into committing other crimes), but it's a fun, fast-paced read. But the resolution is not satisfying. The book doesn't really end, it just stops.
I expected this book to be a comedy: the zany adventures of gangly Abe Lincoln slaying the undead. But while the premise is comedic, the novel takes a serious approach, painting Lincoln as a man beset by death at every stage of his life, whose efforts to fight slavery and keep the union of states were actually part of his determined vow to rid the world of vampires. It actually makes a lot of sense. Vampires would thrive in the slave states, where they could use the monies they've amasses over the decades and centuries to purchase victim who would never be missed or mourned. And, naturally, these same vampires would adamantly oppose abolition and would fight to preserve the Confederacy. Although I was surprised by the serious tone of the novel, I certainly was not disappointed by it. Author Seth Grahame-Smith does a wonderful job of taking a ridiculous concept and fitting it into American history.