j wren pennington
okay, this is my second brian lumly book. i also read the first volume of titus crow. i would never have picked this up if had i not already read titus and if i did not work in a high school library. the thing is, the writing is good, the stories are pretty good, but i am not compelled to read any more of the 60 other books he's written. i get the feeling that once you've read one, you've got the idea. not that the stories are at all formulaic and i am surprised by how well he writes, it's just somehow not enough to make me want to reach for the next one.
very engrossing. the characters are believable, likable, hatable....everything they need to be to make the story work. it is a fairy tale, but one that addresses identity in a very contemporary and accessible way.
i don't like the love story aspect, so the fact that i still really liked the book in spite of the romance, is saying something profound.
this is a very interesting book, especially if you are teaching perspective. the basic premise is telling fairy tales from other from the perspective of another character, or taking a common fairy tale and telling it in a different time/place with different characters. some parts go a little beyond what i am willing to put into deciphering it, but there is definitely a lot more meaning to be mined.
this is really cute book, nothing spectacular but unique in that it is one of the minority that tells of the sweet, first love high school romance between two girls. i liked it's treatment of the subject ans wish there had been books like this when i was that age.
i am sort of in love with this book. it has flaws to be sure, but there are some particular lines in it that are truly brilliant, and i'm not sure if those peaks could have been achieved in any other way.
catching fire is the second installment of a planned trilogy that describes a facist distopic world where an annual gladitorial tv show provides entertainment and propaganda. the portion of the story we get in catching fire is very similar to the middle film in the original star wars trilogy, the empire strikes back, because the empire truly does strike back. our protagonist who has before now been able only to react to the awful realities that surround and envelope her, begins to realize that there is more than just staying alive. there is more than just keeping the people she loves alive. eventually, she must conclude that she is willing to fight and sacrifice to bring down the regime.
i am up in the air on liked versus really liked. the thing with it is this: like so many other books of this genre, there isn't a lot of truly magical writing. this is not the book thief, but the story does stick. i find myself ruminating on it still. it is good; it's well developed, it's suspenseful, it's plausible.
i get mildly annoyed by katniss' lack of direction at times, but that is a key to her development through the series. in part, it's why teenagers like this series. they identify with being manipulated by adults and the feelings associated with that. and the author truthfully describes this process.
in conclusion, for adults, not a must read. having said that, i read it in one sitting to the neglect of everything else. take from that what you will....
a little anti-climactic, in the sense that there is just soooooo much build up. still enjoyable.
fantastic. compelling, original plot, but more importantly, delightfully written. wonderful use of language, description, metaphor. playful and dynamic characters. truly enjoyable.
i love these books. they are perfect for teaching empathy and boundaries and basically everything we need to model to our children to help them understand their own emotional lives and how to express that to others. seriously, all the love.
Okay. These are fantasy-tastic, but very well written. the only issue i have is the ending...i will not spoil it for you, but it is very literary. it is so common for many of these YA books to perform exactly as the student's want them to...happy endings all around and everyone gets their just desert. it is refreshing to see a series that defies this paradigm.
it isn't book theif, but it is a more productive read than most of the schlock.
i warn you now that i have a bias in regard to the house of tomorrow. i went through a period of fascination with r. buckminster fuller and though i concluded that he was a loon, he was the best kind of loon and i admire and respect much of what he tried to do with his life. the protagonist of the house of tomorrow is being raised by his grandmother, a fuller devotee, in a geodesic dome in the middle of the woods.
this is pretty unusual, but when he makes his first friend, a 16 year old heart transplant recipient who desires nothing more than to be a punk rock icon, the quirkiness becomes irresistible. and then you stumble into some of rather clever, and convincing, dialogue; and THEN there are the punk rock references. and THEN, the story is delightful.
i listened to the ramones on my way to work this morning.
so from most of the reviews this appears to be a book you either love or hate and i can see why, eggers has written something that is all we love and hate about my generation. the writing, story and style, is innovative and engaging, but also painfully self-indulgent and fustian. even eggers is aware of this divide, as this edition suggests you only read the first 123 pages.
everyone and everything in this book is dave eggers. this might be his most innovative device, which in many places is rather genius, like a literary fun house where all of the images end up being you. but eventually his obsession with himself and the mythologies he has created gets a bit tedious. to be fair, it's his book and he mostly sticks to stuff that drives the story onward, but occasionally he gets mired down in what feels like his personal inside joke. no matter how he describes it, it just isn't as entertaining as he seems to think it should be. he also does a lot of moralizing, which gets old pretty quickly, especially from a character who is 22 years old.
now, having made the above criticisms, i have to remind myself that the primary reason i as a woman in my mid thirties, don't spend a lot of time with people in their early twenties is because they tend to be self aggrandizing children made overly bold by their newly acquired freedoms and responsibilities that they perceive as full blown adulthood, equal to that of any one older than themselves. and if the kid has had some kind of tragic experience they feel even more suddenly sage-like and world weary. this is exactly how i feel about dave eggers in this book and while this certainly doesn't describe all twenty somethings, it does describe me when i was 22.
personally, i really liked it, but it speaks so directly to my own experiences, vices, and virtues, that i find even trying to write this review of it incredibly complicated. so...
the good: well written, some really funny and poignant moments. the story is interesting. overall, it's a good book.
the bad: sometimes you'll just want to skip ahead. even the author says so.
i would recommend it, but not broadly.
One of the best YA books I've ever read. Unlike Book Theif, this is not one of my all time favorite books, but it is definitely one of the best young adult novels to hit shelves in ages. in accomplishes this in a couple of specific ways. 1. it is not a series. what an fabulous idea! 2. there is a lot of story and not much fluff. there is more story in king's 360 pages than stephanie meyer could put together in 2000 pages worth of the twilight saga. and better yet, it is good story. with compelling characters and witty writing.
i like it. it's making me seriously reconsider my “ninja vs. pirate” ninja allegiance.
i don't even know where to begin with this...pros = i could not guess to save my life where the story was going but it wasn't random or incomprehensible, just weird.
someone else i know needs to read this and tell me what you think.
unfortunately a little too outdated to be really funny. i'm sure it was a riot 10 years ago, but humor has changed and reading this brought that fact into super sharp relief. the experience feels like a progression of missed opportunities. someone in the field should update it.
i don't often give books really high ratings, but this is a really good book.
perfect mixture of gravity and levity. especially attractive to people like me, literary science nerds with a penchant for history and current events.
i am smitten.
do you like your fiction to be as educational as nonfiction? i do!
do you have an interest in the global economy, economics in general, on-line gaming, unionization, social justice, and/or sticking it to the man? i do!
even if you're not sure about whether you really require these things when selecting a book, you should read For The Win anyway. it's top asset is the novelty of subject matter. this not your standard YA fare and i would challenge anyone to name a novel with this kind of sophisticated global economic awareness. and though it is YA, i daresay that every adult i know apart from maybe my financial adviser and my college mentor will learn something from it. it's employ of metaphors and some pretty plain language to describe global financial transactions and macroeconomic principles borders on brilliant.
on top of that, the story is smartly written, well paced, and stay-up-till-3-to-finish-it compelling.
i can not point out anything bad about this book, and yet it lacked that spark that would have really made it good....
this book is crap. it's like listening to an aunt you don't like go on and on about rumors she's heard about ghosts. the writing is terrible, there is virtually no structure, and the author presents herself (unwittingly, i'm sure) as perhaps the least convincing authority EVAR.
drivel.
okay wait....i know how this looks, but it's actually pretty good. it's not winning the booker prize or anything, but the writing is decent and the story is fairly original and compelling, and above all it's pretty entertaining.
this one has some truly startling moments, but the author is too whiney and spends too much time telling you about his personal life. i don't care that you are a single father. that should have been covered and left alone in the first paragraph. i don't care that you wre unhappy working at a corporate giant. if i had wanted to read about these things, i would have sought a well written book about these aspects of life.
i wanted to read about weird paranormal activity and things that happened, so i read this. and it's okay.
my rating comes mostly from the treatment of some of the subject. the writing is good and i few complaints about the story except the relationship between the father and the son and the quasi-resolution thereof.
i'm not sure how i feel about that yet.
...but, i think that is why i like it, because it is complex and evokes complex emotions that cannot be dichotomized.
interesting.