November Reviews

I was ahead on my reading. 
Was. 
I was actually 3 books ahead of my reading schedule at one point. It was great.  I was totally sure I was going to reach my goal for the year.
Then this book called "The Amber Wizard" put a stop to that. Guys, I want to read this book so bad. But honestly, I'm kind of bored. And I keep picking up all these other books I want to read. And then there is this whole thing about next year being the 50th anniversary of C. S. Lewis' death and my friends and I want to read through his published works. (Yes, we are nerds. More on that hopefully later.) And I'm watching all kinds of good movies...but I won't let myself start a new book until I finish The Amber Wizard. And it's starting to get on my nerves. I'm still deciding on if it is worth finishing. Until I do that, I've been avoiding the slightly boring book by watching a ton of movies.
Here, have some movie reviews. 

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
This is one of those movies that I've heard a lot about but had put off seeing. It's rather mind-bendy, but oh so good. Boy meets girl. Girl and boy start dating. All is well. Until the fight. Girl gets mad. Boy visits her at work the next day to apologize. Girl treats boy like a stranger. Girl also seems to be dating a new boy. Old boy is confused and vents to his friends about the situation. Old boy is so distressed that his friend shows him a piece of paper. It says: Clementine Kruczynski has had Joel Barish erased from her memory. Please never mention their relationship to her again. 
Upset and very confused, Joel visits the clinic that is listed on the note. He decided that if Clementine doesn't want any memories of him, he doesn't want any of her. As the process begins, Joel relives every memory before it is erased. Somewhere during the erasing, he remembers the joyful moments, the moments of pure bliss that he shared with Clementine. And he starts to think that even if they hurt, he wants to keep some of them. It's a race against the procedure to find a way to keep some of those moments with Clementine. 

I rented the collector's edition from my library and it includes a booklet with reviews from the original release as well as some stories from ordinary viewers like me. And you, if you've seen it. As I read through the reviews, I noticed the same thought woven through all of them: cherish life. Life will eventually end. Hang on to the memories, the good and the bad. All of them are worth having. They prove you lived.

War Horse
I won't lie. The only reason I wanted to see this movie was because Benedict Cumberbatch is in it. And then I learned that Tom Hiddleston was in it. He became reason number two. I don't care. Go ahead, judge me! 
And then I actually saw the movie. Wow. So good. 
The story is about a boy called Albert...but not really. It's mostly about his horse Joey.
Joey really was supposed to be a work horse. You can't really run a failing farm with a thoroughbred, though Albert does his best. However, when their best efforts fail, Albert's father is compelled to sell Joey to the British Cavalry. Albert unwilling says goodbye to his beloved horse and we then follow the story of the Captain who bough him. Enter Tom Hiddleston. Yay! Joey goes to the front, behind enemy lines, ends up on the wrong side of the war for a bit, and then ends up home again. The main character doesn't have any lines (I mean, come on. He's a horse.) but by the end of the film I found myself crying. I have no idea why and I'm almost ashamed to admit it. Well done film. I will add that some of the war scenes I didn't like. I don't like war movies at all. But on the whole, really great film.

Skyfall
I feel that I need to preface this by telling you I'm not a classic Bond fan. Actually, I've never seen any of the "old" classic Bond films. Daniel Craig is my Bond. And really, I'm okay with that. 
I loved Casino Royale. Really. Loved it. I was so excited to see Quantum of Solace in theaters in England (which I did) a few days before the rest of the world. And...was let down miserably. Did they forget to write a plot for that one? Anyway, I was very skeptical of Skyfall. They would have to do a much better job than QoS to get my vote. 
The trailers for Skyfall did an amazing job convincing me that all would be great. Adele singing the theme song? Amazing. It's my ringtone. 
The film...well, it is better the Quantum of Solace. Absolutely. Still not on par with Casino Royale. It had a plot (yay!) and a bit more M (!!) but...
Ok, I think this is my main beef with the film. You aren't properly introduced to your villain or your "Bond girl". I vividly remember Vesper Lynd being introduced in to Bond in the train. I remember meeting the baddie at the poker game. Good. Great. Clear characters. I don't remember much about Quantum of Solace, but I'm pretty sure a lot of the characters were continuations of characters from Casino. I don't feel as if the same care was put into introducing the new characters in this film. Maybe the only really good ones were Gareth Mallory and Q. 
So I guess I give it...maybe 3.5 stars out of 5? Decent film, but for me, still a bit lacking. 




What did you think? Have you seen any of these movies? 
If not, what's the best movie you've seen recently? 

I'm sure I'll have a Christmas movie post in the next few weeks...get your favorites ready to share! 

October Reviews

Wow! Three reviews ALREADY -- and I still have a week and a half left in October!
I recently got a new job (ack! like a month now!) and since then, I have been reading like crazy. Why?
(You ready?)
I work in a library.
Wooot!
Oh man, it is so nice to be working in a library again! Really. Not only am I surrounded by my books again (and get to read over my dinner every day) but I'm helping students and that, I think, is really what I love. Still working on figuring out exactly what I love, but being around books and students isn't such a bad gig. 
Anyway, I've been reading a ton over the last month. I actually have a drawer in my desk that is full of books that I've checked out to read next. It doesn't matter that I have about 10 books in my room to read. No. I have to have more! It has finally gotten to the point when I have to make myself (ha ha) read the public library books first...because they won't let me renew them any more! So I am still working on The Amber Wizard, the first book due back. And even though a dear friend tried to stop me, the last time I visited the public library I picked up another book. The newest DekKer--how could I not?! 
Ok enough excuses. Back to the reviews. 



The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
Where to start on this one?! It's been on my list for a while and was one of the first books I picked up at my new job. Back in 2006, two films were released about magic and a magician's life: The Prestige and The Illusionist. Two very different films but oh, so interesting. The Night Circus reminds me of these stories. Two master magician's have constructed a contest: two protege's are pitted against each other to discover which one is the best...and which one is dead.
I was going to write more but as I was reviewing the book, I came across a few reviewer's opinions of the book and a few of them caught my eye. 
Olivia Laing says that even if the book doesn't quite meet the mark, " it still functions as an eminently intriguing cabinet of curiosities." Her turn of phrase really caught my eye because she is right.
Laura Miller  likens the book to a beautiful piece of pottery...except it has been fired with the potter's thumb print on it. Craft without being art. She also says it is "an aesthetic fantasia with all the trimmings" but that the "plot is this novel’s flimsiest aspect."  And again, on both counts I must agree. It was a good and interesting read. I even got my mother to read it. Her images and scenes were beautiful, but the motivation was slightly lacking. 


Lenten lands by Douglas Gresham
I grabbed this book on a whim during my last bookstore trip. Well, not entirely on a whim. Hmm. Let me explain. 
The book is marketed as the story of Douglas's childhood with C. S. Lewis and Joy Gresham. I'm not sure that is completely accurate, but whatever. If you haven't figured by now, I'm a huge C. S. Lewis fan. I have a lot of his books, written more than a few papers on him and his work and even had the opportunity to visit his home in England. So even though I didn't plan on getting the book at the bookstore, I've been meaning to read it for awhile. So...there's that story.
The book was a bit of a let down. For me, anyway. I guess I was expecting there to be more personal stories with Douglas and Jack (Lewis's nickname). Instead, I found it to be more of a general autobiography, mentioning Jack a handful of times through the whole thing. Actually there were more stories with Warnie, Jack's brother, than with Jack. And perhaps, that was the case. Perhaps Jack, though he tried, was just not around enough for Douglas and his brother. 
Insult to injury is that the book is a bit discombobulated and meandering. It comes out sounding more conversational than narrative. I believe he said that he recorded his story and from the transcripts came the book. It is very to easy to believe that that is indeed how the book came about, and with little editing.
I'm rather glad I didn't try to read this in school as research for a paper. I would have been sorely disappointed with the underwhelming amount of new information. 

I am the Messenger by Markus Zusak
I kind of fell in love with Zusak's The Book Thief the other year in Gettysburg and I was convinced that anything he touched would be gold. This book does not disappoint. When a book speaks to me in a certain way, I struggle to explain it to people. Kinda of like when I tried (and possibly failed) to tell you about If I loved you, I would tell you this by Robin Black. It's haunting and beautiful at the same time. Ed Kennedy is coasting through life when we meet him in line at the bank. We discover that he is an underage taxi driver and the least successful and least loved child in his family (No, seriously. This comes out later in the book.). His life keeps to the same boring pattern until that day in the bank I mentioned earlier. He helps the police catch a bank robber. He thinks things might be looking up...until he receives an ace in the mail. The card has three addresses & times on it. Ed learns that these are three opportunities for him to make a difference in the world around him. But it doesn't stop there. 
While Ed is striving to reach out to members in his community and spread a little bit of happiness, he ends up discovering more about himself than the people he helps. It reminds me of something C. S. Lewis said: if you want to see what’s really in your basement, surprise your basement. The playing cards that gave him the instructions turned the light on in the basement of Ed's life and showed him what he was and what he could become. See? I told you I had trouble explaining books like this.

If I loved you, I would tell you this

I just finished (and by "just finished" I mean I finished this book maybe 10 minutes ago.) If I loved you, I would tell you this by Robin Black over dinner tonight. I don't think it quite took me a week. I have three other reviews on tap for this month already but figured, since I finished it and had time to write, I should get a review up pronto. 
I have been speaking to many people about this book over the last few days. I don't always do that, talk to people about what I'm reading, unless people ask me. There are few books that demand my attention and require me to spread their story to others around me. It's like when I started Hunger Games or Why We Broke Up. Those stories gave me no choice but to go to all of my friends and say, unasked and possibly unwanted, "Have you heard of this book? You NEED to read it." When I told my co-worker that I had finally finished the book, she asked what I thought. I replied simply and truthfully: My emotions hurt. 

If I loved you, I would tell you this is a collection of ten short stories that Robin Black says took her nearly 8 years to write. Before they were a book, she tells us in the Acknowledgements, they existed individually in various literary journals. On their own, they are beautiful; in a bound collection, they are haunting. That doesn't even  come close to describing the book, really. 
Perhaps this is a better way to describe the book: 

What makes this such an exquisite collection is the way Robin Black brings unpredictable elements into the emotional lives of her characters, creating that special kind of literary magic where a reader experiences everything right alongside them and it all feels new. -- Hanna Tinti

 I'm sitting here, typing and re-typing, erasing and re-writing the same sentence in an attempt to properly describe this book. It's the story of love and loss, of joy and deep hurt. It hits and resurfaces emotions you didn't remember you had or tried so hard to forget. It is story of a father and his blind daughter trying to overcome the boundaries caused by her blindness, only to find that they seem to communicate more with what is left unsaid rather than unseen. It is the unsent letter of a woman with cancer to her uncaring neighbor who is disputing property boundary lines at the worst of times. She is shocked not by his actions, but with the total and complete disregard of common sense manners. Had he been kinder, maybe she would have explained their situation; as it was, she kept the situation to herself and tried to politely argue the age old lines that had been honored for years before the young man moved in next door.  

I will tell you this: it put me in a funk. I have been in a weird place, emotionally, for the week and I think I will need to blame the book. Not a "shame one you!" kind of blame. Just a "huh, well at least there is an explanation" kind of blame. 
Don't let me talk you out of reading this book, though. I promise, it's worth it.

Rizzoli & Isles: Last to Die

We called him Icarus.

It was not his real name, of course. My childhood on the farm taught me that you must never give a name to an animal marked for slaughter. Instead you refer to it as Pig Number One or Pig Number Two, and you always avoided looking it in the eye, to sheild yourself from any glimpse of self awareness or personality or affection. When a beast trusts you, it takes far more resolve to slit its throat.

So begins Tess Gerritsen's latest novel Rizzoli & Isles: Last to Die. I couldn't tell you how I found Gerritsen's work or how old I was when I fell in love with her writing. It might have been a public library find or one of those $1 hardcover sales that the library does every year. However it happened, bottom line is that it happend. I ended up bringing my dad along for the ride too, so now Tess is on our common list of authors, joining Clive Cussler, Michael Perry, and Robert Ludlum, that we talk about.

Tess Gerritsen is a retired medical doctor who started writing while on maternity leave, according to her bio. As you saw in the title, she is also the creator of that dynamic duo Jane Rizzoli & Maura Isles. Yes, that Rizzoli & Isles TNT hit TV show Rizzolie & Isles. I've only seen clips from the show so don't leave comments like "Wasn't that scene where Jane and Frost caught the bad guy who was really the neighborhood pizza delivery guy who baked his murder victims' organs into the pizza epic?!?" because I won't have an answer for you. But thanks for ruining that episode, mate.

Just like when I read Ted DekKer, I find the most recent book from Gerritsen better than her last novel. Not that her books need improvement--not at all! Maybe she is just crafting her words in different ways that seem new and wonderful. Maybe it is just that her books are more artfully crafted than other books on the market right now and it just seems they get better. They are a breath of fresh air to the writer in me, no matter how many dead bodies Tess writes about!

The story is about a boy (well, two boys and a girl) who has been orphaned twice the the span of two years: his parents and siblings were killed on the family yacht during vacation and his foster family was gunned down one night in their home. An odd case on its own, but when two other similar stories crop up, Detective Jane Rizzoli of the Boston PD starts seeing a pattern. She teams up with long-time friend Maura Isles, even though their relationship has been a bit difficult. The saftey of three orphans depends on Rizzoli and Isles patching up their friendship and working together to stop a killer.

(Guys. Guess what? Tess Gerritsen is coming to town October 15th and I get to hear her speak about creativity and why the writing process is so hard. I cannot tell you how excited I am to get to meet her!!! Look for pictures later next month!!)

A Wizard of Earthsea

I finally FINALLY finished A Wizard of Earthsea today! I've only been working on it like all summer! It was totally worth it, too. 
As I think I explained earlier, as soon as I started this book I knew it was different. It wasn't like any of the "modern" fantasy books I've read recently. There was something in the language and the sentence structure that said,"Whoa. Hold on. You can't just read this fast like you do every other new book. This is epic, like Tolkien epic. Take time to actually read the words, digest the sentence." The book was only 183 pages, but it was so so dense and rich in subject. 
It is the story of Ged who is, according to the back of the book, is the greatest sorcerer in all Earthsea. This is the story of his beginning, his youth, and how he came to that power. However, as it often happens, Ged is proud, reckless and power-hungry in his quest for knowledge. As I was reading and Ged kept asking questions about the fundamentals of magic, spells and the true nature of things, I kept seeing Tom Riddle asking his professors at Hogwarts about the Dark Arts and information about a horcrux. Because of that, I felt things were destined to go down hill...and I wasn't disappointed. 
But unlike Tom, once Ged reaches the point of no return, he is remorseful and strove to right the wrong he created. He goes to great lengths to fix the problem he created. That is what makes a good wizard (or sorcerer) a great one. 
There is magic, spells, and dragons (so hi, I'm in!) and a wonderfully woven story. 
Sometimes I like books, but would never read anything else by the author or another book in the series. (Like how I said I won't read any more of the 13th reality books.) I haven't decided where that leaves Ursula Le Guin. Love the style, love the story. Can't decide if I want to dedicate to another series. Silly? Maybe. I am just starting to get to the point in my life (har har. I feel old. Sue me.) where I don't want to just read books to read books and say I've read them. I want to like them, to enjoy them and want to read them because they are good, not just because I have to finish the series. 
I do recommend this book, though. Whole-heartedly. 
Did I mention there are dragons in it? Dragons that talk?! 

Why We Broke Up

No, this isn't a personal break-up post.

I just finished a brilliant book called Why We Broke Up by Daniel Handler. Most people know him from his fame as Lemony Snicket, the author of A Series of Unfortunate Events. The moment I made that connection, I knew this book was the next thing I NEEDED to read. 

It is a young adult read, but (as I said in my Goodreads review) if you have ever been, almost been, or wanted to be in a relationship, you will understand this book. All of the emotions of relationships (any relationships really) --heartache, love, comfort and confusion -- are represented in this story. 

Min Green is a high school student (sorry, I can't remember how old she is meant to be) in love with movies. From the very first pages she talks in scenes from old movies ("Lately, I've been like Aimee Rondele in The Sky Cries Too, a movie, French, you haven't seen it. She plays an assassin and dress designer, and she only smiles twice in the whole film.") She is sending her ex-boyfriend, Ed, the co-captain of the basketball team, a box of treasures from their relationship along with a letter that lists every single item, why it was important to her and why they are breaking up. 

This story feels so unique. There is artwork littered throughout the book. Not unusual, exactly, but the way the art is used feels so easy, effortless maybe, and so right. Sometimes its a drawing of whatever item she is describing to Ed. Sometimes it is a simple pale blue page to punctuate the end of the story. It's subtle and I like it. 

The writing style is interesting as well. In A Series of Unfortunate Events, Snicket was always hilariously morbid to me. I loved laughing as his melancholy turn of phrase for something so incredibly simple. That style is missing from this book. You have the same melancholy feel (in fact, if there is one word I would use to sum up the beauty in this book, I think that word would be "melancholy") in the style, but the sentences are run-ons, but not in the annoying, ungrammatically correct way. The sentences, they are a girl talking, trying to explain exactly what she is feeling without giving too much of herself away, trying to be strong and show Ed he doesn't matter, but man, how do you hide how much you really loved someone? (Actually they are rather like that last sentence I wrote.) And I loved it. I love that Min writes in a way that makes sense to me.  It is hard to understand at first. I wasn't really expecting it. But once I saw what Handler was doing, I relished every long sentence, even the ones that I needed to go back and read twice. 

I could really go on and on about this book. I finished it in what, just a few days? That ought to tell you something about how much I loved this book. 

And, like with Kill Order, I am still mulling it all over. What does it mean to love someone? Can you love someone and never want to see them again? Can two people so different ever make a relationship work? What makes people stop loving each other? 
Before you start saying, "Come on, they were in high school! It wasn't going to be forever!" I know. I know that. But still. Saying they were "just in high school" says to me "Their relationship didn't count." And I don't believe that it didn't count. It was real and it happened.
Yes, I know. They are fictional. 
Stop raining on my book. 

Why We Broke Up. Go read it. Seriously. This book is for everyone. 

THE KILL ORDER

I finished Kill Order last night over dinner. Whoa. 

Ok, some thing I feel still aren't clear. Maybe I'm expecting too much from the series. Maybe it's been too long since I read the first three for everything to make sense. Maybe he has more in the works. I don't know. 

Final word? I wasn't disappointed. 

Before the Maze, before Thomas, before the elevator from nowhere, the world was plunged into a chaos when solar flares sent scorching heat around the world, melted the ice caps and released radiation that killed millions. Settlements were set up in an attempt to live -- or at least simply survive -- in this new world. Those barely-surving settlements along with what little peace they are able to find are destroyed when Bergs come into the area and begin shooting people with no warning and no explanation. There is something odd about their method though. The darts sometimes kill instantly. And that is a mercy. But sometimes it takes days...

I couldn't have predicted the ending. Well, maybe if I had tried I could have done. But I wanted to see where Dashner would take me and not try to figure out on my own. His trilogy was really great at surprising me as a I read and I wanted to give Kill Order the same respect. 

Like I said, I almost feel that I have more questions now than I did before I read Kill Order. But that's not a bad thing, is it? Because a day later, I am still thinking about it, mulling it over, thinking of "what if's" and trying to make things connect in my head. And isn't that the whole point of stories? Yes to help you escape, introduce you to a new world. But when that new world can keep you past the story, isn't that the mark of a good story teller? 

Do you think about books and characters after you've finished reading a story? What do you think makes -- or breaks -- a story?