As I am in the middle of an excellent 400+ page book (Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife), which is taking me quite a while to read (a full time job really cuts into one’s reading time), I thought I would post so as not to neglect you, dear Reader.
So, need something to read? Go look:
Teenreads.com (reviews and stuff for teen books)
Genreflecting (reviews and booklists for adults)
Overbooked (more reviews and booklists for adults, yay!)
Bibliomania (Free classic texts)
And, can’t forget the lovely Jane Austen and the incredibly thorough Pemberley.com.
I am thoroughly enjoying Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife. Not only is it well written, but it improves my vocabulary as well! So many words, I have to read it with a dictionary at my side. I will be finishing it up this weekend, I think, while languorously idling by the lake. And maybe starting another book (Confessions of a Backup Dancer, perhaps?). Look for a review next week.
When I first picked up this book, it was at lunch, which, considering that it pretty much starts off with descriptions of giant cockroaches, was not a great idea. But once I got over the ickiness of giant roaches, bats, rats, and various other rather repugnant bugs and animals, I found it was a really well-written and engaging book. Gregor is an eleven-year-old boy who lives in an apartment in New York City with his family, and one day he and his toddler sister are sucked down into the Underworld (a world beneath ours consisting of humans and giant creatures). He and his sister, Boots, are immediately beset with danger, and are continually so throughout. All Gregor wants to do is to escape back home, but when he discovers that he has a chance to find his dad, who went missing over two years ago, he agrees to stay and help the humans with their cause. It’s action-packed and has an interesting contrast between our world and the Underworld in the dialog. Gregor speaks like an ordinary, modern eleven-year-old, and the Underworld humans speak with a sort of archaic, stilted language. Good book.
This one won a Newbery Honor. I wasn’t all that psyched to read it, but I had heard good things abut, so I gave it a shot. It was really very well written. It is told from the point of view of Squirrel, one of two who survived a litter of a stray dog. Squirrel and her brother Bone spend their early years fairly comfortable in a shed of a country house, but one day Mother leaves the shed and does not return. Bone and Squirrel fend for themselves for a while, but also eventually leave the property. They learn to hunt, and where the best garbage piles are, and are eventually separated. Squirrel spends her next 6 or so years living off garbage piles, her own hunting skills, and sometimes living with humans. This book made me want a dog. The writing really emanated a dog personality. I don’t know what else to say about it, but it was very good.
This series was recommended to me by several different people (patrons at my library), and so I thought I would give it a shot. It’s not my usual cup of tea (i.e. kid’s books), but it was pretty good just the same. It’s about Stephanie Plum, who, after being laid off as a lingerie buyer for a cheap store, ends up working for a cousin as a bounty hunter. In the process of trying to aprehend a cop-turned-bad guy (who happens to be her ex-boyfriend from high school), she manages to get on the bad side of a semi-famous boxer who also likes to beat and rape women on the side (pleasant, I know). Now, the women who recommended it to me said it was laugh-out-loud funny, but I did not find it quite that amusing. Amusing at points, and entertaining, but I never laughed out loud. The only thing I did not like (in a mild sort of way) was the violence. There aren’t a lot of actual violent scenes in the book, but there are descriptions of brutality towards women that made me wince. The story was well-paced and exciting, and it had me gripping the pages towards the end. Overall, a good book. I think I will start on the next one, Two for the Dough.
