Having finished this while on holiday, it has taken me a while to get round to blogging it...
Kingdom of the Golden Dragon is the second in a trilogy for early teens. Having read the first, The City of Beasts, a few years ago and thoroughly enjoyed it, I was glad to find this in the library after a few searches.
Unfortunately, it didn't live up to expectation. It wasn't a bad book but no where near as good as I remember the first one (this of course may be memory, anticipation etc etc building it up too much but...). It is still a fun romp of the vaguely fantastical sort though. It just suffers from being a little too cheesy as much as anything. And from trying to be accesible for people who haven't read the first one which is always a problem. You are constantly being reminded how Alex was renamed "Jaguar" and how Nadia knows how to "talk with her heart". It gets a little tedious.
I don't really have all that much to say about it. It wasn't a bad book, it was enjoyable in places but left me a bit bland and disappointed. Hey ho.
I just have to decide whether to read the third one now...
Sunday, 25 February 2007
Thursday, 25 January 2007
One for the Money by Janet Evanovich
Another recommendation and acquired at the library...
Interesting read as it is set in New Jersey not tooooo far from where I spent four years of my childhood. So there were things that rang true and brought up lots of memories (like references to being the sewer of New York and general pollution issues...) but there were many things that were just a long way outside a 5-9 year old's experience!
A fast, light sort of read. Very interesting characterisation. I'd like to read something by Janet Evanovich that wasn't part of this series to work out just how good she is at creating these characters - particularly the narrator, Stephanie Plum. The language and grammar used so much built up her character and set the whole tone. But if that is just the way Evanovich speaks/writes then it is less interesting!!
Bits of the book were NASTY (rape and mutilation). They were over fairly quickly but left enough hanging that it was icky for rather longer.
Some gentle humour on the way through. For the general humour mixed with detective work type element, it was clearly not a patch on Thursday Next but that isn't really an insult to Ms Evanovich, just the continuing haven't-found-anything-to-compare-so-happy-Thursday-is-coming-back-this-year thing...
I expect I will read the rest of the series over time, I'm assured this is actually the nastiest of the series so far so I'm looking forward to more comedy moments in the next few!
Interesting read as it is set in New Jersey not tooooo far from where I spent four years of my childhood. So there were things that rang true and brought up lots of memories (like references to being the sewer of New York and general pollution issues...) but there were many things that were just a long way outside a 5-9 year old's experience!
A fast, light sort of read. Very interesting characterisation. I'd like to read something by Janet Evanovich that wasn't part of this series to work out just how good she is at creating these characters - particularly the narrator, Stephanie Plum. The language and grammar used so much built up her character and set the whole tone. But if that is just the way Evanovich speaks/writes then it is less interesting!!
Bits of the book were NASTY (rape and mutilation). They were over fairly quickly but left enough hanging that it was icky for rather longer.
Some gentle humour on the way through. For the general humour mixed with detective work type element, it was clearly not a patch on Thursday Next but that isn't really an insult to Ms Evanovich, just the continuing haven't-found-anything-to-compare-so-happy-Thursday-is-coming-back-this-year thing...
I expect I will read the rest of the series over time, I'm assured this is actually the nastiest of the series so far so I'm looking forward to more comedy moments in the next few!
Wednesday, 17 January 2007
The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne
I've just finished this (within the last ten minutes) and desparately need to talk to someone who has read it!
It is a excellent book. But I can't really say much about it. This is part of what it says on the sleeve: The story of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is very difficult to describe. Usually we give some clues about a book on the jacket, but in this case we think that would spoil the reading of the book. We think it is important that you start to read without knowing what it is about.
I wholeheartedly agree with that statement and thus for fear of ruining the book for anyone, do not want to say anything about it. However, I recommend it to (almost) anyone. There is one other clue on the sleeve which indicates that it is not necessarily a fluffy book. This is true, but it is still an excellent book. I suggest if you do intend to read it, ensure that you have someone else around who has either read it or will read it very quickly after you so you can talk about it.
I will be keeping my eyes open for other books by this chap. (And am now going to email the person who gave it to me so that I can talk about it!)
It is a excellent book. But I can't really say much about it. This is part of what it says on the sleeve: The story of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is very difficult to describe. Usually we give some clues about a book on the jacket, but in this case we think that would spoil the reading of the book. We think it is important that you start to read without knowing what it is about.
I wholeheartedly agree with that statement and thus for fear of ruining the book for anyone, do not want to say anything about it. However, I recommend it to (almost) anyone. There is one other clue on the sleeve which indicates that it is not necessarily a fluffy book. This is true, but it is still an excellent book. I suggest if you do intend to read it, ensure that you have someone else around who has either read it or will read it very quickly after you so you can talk about it.
I will be keeping my eyes open for other books by this chap. (And am now going to email the person who gave it to me so that I can talk about it!)
Friday, 12 January 2007
Mother, Missing by Joyce Carol Oates
Where to start? Well, I launched into this book with great gusto, relieved to be reading something that came as highly recommended after my few recent unsatisfactory reads.
I was involved in the characters immediately and I think that is the key to this book - the narrator is excellently portrayed - you aren't always sure you like her, she doesn't always write "well" but you are drawn to her, not to her story necessarily. So I read LOTS in the first few days of reading it and am vaguely surprised now to find that it took me almost two weeks to finish it, perhaps I became a little less involved - towards the end I did get a little less interested but not in a drastic way. I did also notice a couple of editorial errors that I can still remember now - often I notice errors but by the end of the book no longer know what they were. Perhaps because I knew I'd be writing this, I remembered or perhaps it is an indication that I wasn't so involved in the story itself. I suspect if that latter was the case, it was through self preservation. The book follows the first year of a woman's life as she copes with the untimely death of her mother. And if there is anything that REALLY scares me in the world, it is the thought of one of my parents (or my husband) dying. (Having never experienced someone very close to me dying, only my dog.) So I may have distanced myself a little.
A couple of really interesting elements to the book (without saying too much as I wouldn't want to spoil) are...
The book feels like it covers a bigger time span than one year. Although vague timings are always put on things, you do feel the sense of the slowness of time that comes when you are sad and when you are waiting for something big to happen. The book did not drag. But I was amazed when reaching the end to realise it really had covered just one year.
The other thing was, as mentioned above, the narration style. The narrator is a journalist and so much of the time "writes well". However, at points of particular sadness or particularly strong emotions, especially around memories, the writer slips into childish styles, email style communication (not going quite as far as text speak!) which creates a really interesting effect of bringing you closer to the character.
So a good book and I imagine I will read quite a bit more of her's in future.
I was involved in the characters immediately and I think that is the key to this book - the narrator is excellently portrayed - you aren't always sure you like her, she doesn't always write "well" but you are drawn to her, not to her story necessarily. So I read LOTS in the first few days of reading it and am vaguely surprised now to find that it took me almost two weeks to finish it, perhaps I became a little less involved - towards the end I did get a little less interested but not in a drastic way. I did also notice a couple of editorial errors that I can still remember now - often I notice errors but by the end of the book no longer know what they were. Perhaps because I knew I'd be writing this, I remembered or perhaps it is an indication that I wasn't so involved in the story itself. I suspect if that latter was the case, it was through self preservation. The book follows the first year of a woman's life as she copes with the untimely death of her mother. And if there is anything that REALLY scares me in the world, it is the thought of one of my parents (or my husband) dying. (Having never experienced someone very close to me dying, only my dog.) So I may have distanced myself a little.
A couple of really interesting elements to the book (without saying too much as I wouldn't want to spoil) are...
The book feels like it covers a bigger time span than one year. Although vague timings are always put on things, you do feel the sense of the slowness of time that comes when you are sad and when you are waiting for something big to happen. The book did not drag. But I was amazed when reaching the end to realise it really had covered just one year.
The other thing was, as mentioned above, the narration style. The narrator is a journalist and so much of the time "writes well". However, at points of particular sadness or particularly strong emotions, especially around memories, the writer slips into childish styles, email style communication (not going quite as far as text speak!) which creates a really interesting effect of bringing you closer to the character.
So a good book and I imagine I will read quite a bit more of her's in future.
Friday, 29 December 2006
Oryx & Crake by Margaret Atwood
I have at last come to realise that I have a strange love/hate relationship with Margaret Atwood's books. I think I've only read one that I particularly enjoyed and a number that I have actively not enjoyed and yet I just keep going back and reading more of them! I think the problem is that she writes well but I don't enjoy what she writes. So I'm not saying they are bad books as such. Just not for me.
When I started Oryx & Crake it was quite a relief - I have been reading some dubious NZ fiction mixed in with the first three Harry Potter books for the last little while. Although I love the HPs, I was craving something a little more grown up and the dubious NZ fiction was not fulfilling (note: this is not a comment on all NZ fiction, I have been taking a rather random approach at the library to selection of NZ authors and have only read a small proportion. I'm sure there are excellent authors out there, they just haven't yet fallen under my random sample...). So it was with some pleasure that I read the first few chapters. However. I then spent the next 200-250 pages wondering if I really wanted to read this book at all. Should I just give up and take it straight back to the library? It wasn't grabbing me, I wasn't enjoying it, I wasn't particularly interested in the characters... But somehow, I thought I ought to finish it. I don't like leaving books halfway through as an active decision so I kept going. Somewhere between 250-300 pages in, I reached the point of deciding that yes, I did want to finish this book. The main reason being that it had hinted at horrible things that had happened so much that I decided I wanted to actually know, as I suspected it wasn't going to be as bad as my imagings. So finish it I did. And it deed, it wasn't as horrid as I'd imagined. So in that respect, I was glad I'd finished it. But I'm still sorry I started it.
I'm aware this hasn't gone much into the plot (civilisation as we know it destroyed by some evil thing someone did...one person left alive, bemoaning his part in the unfolding. Sort of.). This is mostly because it is rather to complex to explain and if you did want to read it one day, I think something would be lost on the way by knowing too much to start.
Would I advise anyone to read it? If you enjoyed the Handmaid's Tale, yes. Otherwise, probably not. I shall do my best to remember in future that I don't actually like her books...
When I started Oryx & Crake it was quite a relief - I have been reading some dubious NZ fiction mixed in with the first three Harry Potter books for the last little while. Although I love the HPs, I was craving something a little more grown up and the dubious NZ fiction was not fulfilling (note: this is not a comment on all NZ fiction, I have been taking a rather random approach at the library to selection of NZ authors and have only read a small proportion. I'm sure there are excellent authors out there, they just haven't yet fallen under my random sample...). So it was with some pleasure that I read the first few chapters. However. I then spent the next 200-250 pages wondering if I really wanted to read this book at all. Should I just give up and take it straight back to the library? It wasn't grabbing me, I wasn't enjoying it, I wasn't particularly interested in the characters... But somehow, I thought I ought to finish it. I don't like leaving books halfway through as an active decision so I kept going. Somewhere between 250-300 pages in, I reached the point of deciding that yes, I did want to finish this book. The main reason being that it had hinted at horrible things that had happened so much that I decided I wanted to actually know, as I suspected it wasn't going to be as bad as my imagings. So finish it I did. And it deed, it wasn't as horrid as I'd imagined. So in that respect, I was glad I'd finished it. But I'm still sorry I started it.
I'm aware this hasn't gone much into the plot (civilisation as we know it destroyed by some evil thing someone did...one person left alive, bemoaning his part in the unfolding. Sort of.). This is mostly because it is rather to complex to explain and if you did want to read it one day, I think something would be lost on the way by knowing too much to start.
Would I advise anyone to read it? If you enjoyed the Handmaid's Tale, yes. Otherwise, probably not. I shall do my best to remember in future that I don't actually like her books...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)