James and the Giant Peach I think I forgot how nasty Roald Dahl could be to his characters. Poor James is orphaned at the age of four because his parents are killed and eaten by an angry rhinoceros, which is especially tragic considering rhinos are herbivores. James is sent to live with his horrible aunts, because we need horrible abusive adults in our story. Then there is a crazy old man, who is completely off his rocker. The old man gives James a bag of […]
So bad it made me make up a bad metaphor
So I thought this was going to be Craig Ferguson’s biography. I know it says “a novel” but I still thought it was semi-biographical at least. I was wrong, it appears. This is not good. It bounces around and rambles. Everyone seems to have miserable lives. Some of the background characters have interesting stories, but as others have mentioned, women are not portrayed well. I didn’t hate it as much as other people, but I didn’t like it either. We follow certain people around, […]
Not-very good men do not very good things
In Ferguson’s reading guide to this novel he mentions that he was heartbroken while writing this novel and this statement both surprised me and not surprised me. It starts out as a simple tale of two friends, an incident at a river and then drifting apart. Then there’s two Americans who start a religion and it seems destined that all the tales will intertwine. They do, but not in any satisfactory way. This is not a pleasant novel. It is filled with not-very good men […]
And not a duck to be seen!
Quackery: A Brief History on the Worst Ways to Cure Everything is indeed what it says on the box. We have an intro into what each method is, and then how awful it was and why. It’s very informative, but for each thing it comes across as a Very Big Deal. Each of these methods were indeed used, but it seems like the authors over-inflate their importance. Mercury (I’m sure everyone knows by now that medically, Mercury is a Very Bad Thing) Antimony […]
But I don’t care how many times you change your ways, what’s in you is in you, and it’s got to come out
CBR10Bingo: White Whale I know why this book sat on my shelf for so long. I read Giovanni’s Room several years ago, and while I loved James Baldwin’s writing, I really did not care for the story, particularly the way it ended. I’ve picked up Go Tell It on the Mountain several times when looking for my next read, and each time, I put it away, never quite in the right mood for this book that felt too heavy with expectation and history, like a […]
Their names written on water. Or scorched into the earth. Or atomized into the air. Legion.
CBR10Bingo: This Is The End (BINGO!) Have you ever read a book that you hated to put down but also hated to keep reading because you couldn’t bear the thought of reaching the end? That’s how I felt reading Kate Atkinson’s A God in Ruins, the companion to her brilliant Life After Life. Unlike Ursula in Life After Life, her younger brother Teddy only gets one shot at life. He still becomes a bomber pilot during World War II, still gets shot down over Germany, […]
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