Here’s another book that I liked and I don’t know why. Something about the structure worked well for me. It felt like the book was made up of slices and I only had a vague sense of the timeline, and I liked that. Time is told through New England weather and I wonder if readers from places where there are no seasons got stuck trying to figure out how long this story lasted. The plot is one of frustration. Kristen and Cal have relocated from […]
Don’t Feed Dogs Chocolate, Although That’s Not What The Problem Was
I don’t know why I liked this book. It’s sweet. It’s as far from cynical as one can get. It’s… nice. But the characters aren’t. They are sarcastic. And angry. Super dysfunctional. And really funny. Seven year old Elsa tells this story and she is hilarious. She’s far too smart for her age and finds other seven year olds to be boring and useless. Adults aren’t much better, especially the ones at school. Granny is her savior. Granny doesn’t have time for rules. Spelling […]
I Wanted More Stuff to Blow Up in the Lab
I am so ambivalent about this book that it’s taken me several minutes to compose this first sentence. I want to read some satisfying fiction, and this was not it. We start out in 1941 with our protagonist Juliet blowing stuff up in the science lab at school. I am on board with this. I’m thinking this is going to be a book about a woman doing science during the war having to deal with everything this entails. This is not what the book is about. It’s […]
This review is about the books you should read instead. But also maybe read this one too.
tl;dr: Stick with the first three books in this series: Sabriel, Lirael and Abhorsen. I don’t know what Nix is doing with these later ones, but he’s not doing it super great and it’s a total bummer. Goldenhand isn’t a waste of time, but it does not hold up to the originals, especially the first two. The Back Story For five years I was a seventh grade English teacher. One of the best parts of the job was hearing my students’ book reports and reading […]
Wake up, you’re not asleep.
It’s such a bummer when you read a book that’s just “eh”. If it’s something you hate, you can decide if you want to cast it out of your life and be done with it or if you want to revel in how bad it is, knowing you’ll be able to write a fun review. (See Dan Brown. And also Anne Rice’s Sleeping Beauty trilogy.) But an “eh” book is tough because maybe it’ll get better. Maybe there will be a twist or an ending that’s […]
Hold yourself in the palm of your hand
I don’t know how to write this review. Partly this is a physical problem. I have an injured dog wearing a cone trying to get as close to me as possible, forcing me to twist toward the keyboard which will result in muscle rebellion later. (He scratched his eye and will be fine, but is so very pitiful right now.) But more than that, this book is hard to describe because of how different and solitary it is. I keep pausing to find my adjectives […]