"The Lovely Bones" - Alice Sebold

BLURB:
" 'My name was Salmon, like the fish; first name, Susie. I was fourteen when I was murdered on December 6, 1973. My murderer was a man from our neighbourhood. My mother likes his border flowers, and my father talked to him once about fertiliser.'

This is Susie Salmon, speaking from heaven - which looks a lot like her school playground, with the good kind of swing sets, counsellors to help newcomers adjust, and friends to room with. Everything Susie wants appear as soon as she thinks of it - except the one thing she wants most: to be back with the people she loved on earth.

Watching from her place in heaven, Susie sees her happy, suburban family devastated by her death, isolated even from one another as they each try to cope with their terrible loss alone. Over the years, her friends and siblings grow up, fall in love, do all the things she never had the chance to do herself. But life is not quite finished with Susie yet..."

REVIEW: I got to about halfway through this book when I realised something was missing. I couldn't quite put my finger on it for a while. And then it hit me:

Plot.

The Lovely Bones is sadly lacking in plot. Where had it even gone? Was it there to begin with?

To me, a plot has a clear Beginning, a Middle, and an End. In between the Beginning and the End, there is at least one cycle of 'Conflict' and then 'Resolution'. There's some kind of goal the characters are actively working towards. You know, the guy gets the girl. The tragedy is averted. The mystery is solved. That sort of thing.

Didn't happen in The Lovely Bones.

And what is a book without a plot? I guess you could call it an 'exploration' of a theme, or an observational 'study', or a collection of poems, or something along those lines. However, if you're going to craft a fictional work along those lines, it needs to be done brilliantly if it's going to work, otherwise the audience will virtually fall asleep whilst mid-read.

Like I did.

The first few chapters were interesting - I've never read a book where the narrator had died within the first few sentences!* - but later I realised that the emotional side of those chapters came less from the actual book, but more from imagining the pain that a murdered child would bring upon a family.

And then, it became a dreary, boring, highly unrealistic recount of people growing up, with the only added ingredient being that they were all dealing with grief and loss. Sort of like watching a generation of Sims growing up in The Sims 2 without having any interaction with the gameplay. I didn't feel for the characters, the story lacked depth, and most of all, none of it seemed real. The characters and their actions did not seem credible, even in the circumstances they were dealing with. Not a single character seemed 'right'. In a way, The Lovely Bones felt very slightly like a Jodi Picoult novel without the sheer, grippingly realistic characters and emotional punch.

Flicking through to the last few chapters, things only became more ridiculous. (Spoiler: highlight invisible text to read). After reading the scene where Susie possesses Ruth's body and then "makes love" to Ray "in the shower and in the bedroom and under the lights and fake glow-in-the-dark stars" - well, I kind of tossed the book down in sheer disbelief. Absolutely terrible. I mean, come on. Seriously?

Ultimately, The Lovely Bones wound up on a very, very short pile in my room: books that remain eternally unfinished because they were so incredibly unengaging that really, all things considered, I'd prefer to be watching paint dry.

RATING: I imagine voguelady will probably eat me alive for giving "one of [her] favourite books" such a vicious panning, but I cannot believe how much I disliked this book, despite its current popularity. 1 STAR

* No, The Book Thief doesn't count, since Death had never been alive and therefore had never died. See what I did there?

EDIT: OK, here we go, this is a first. An additional note for one of my reviews. How intriguing.

But really, people, what have I overlooked? Everywhere I look I find reviews that are nothing short of glowing. Plus, completely incorrect (in my mind) genre-categorising: people are calling it a "thriller" - why? It does not thrill. The pace does not keep smartly chugging along. Instead the pace seemed to get a bit lost in the pond where it's now become so stagnant that all the previously living creatures in that pond are now non-living thanks to the thick build-up of algae.

Anyway. Is this somehow another sign of my severe unsophisticatedness? My unappreciation for abstract art, unconventional writing, etc? Or am I just one of the few reviewers out there to not be swayed by both professional and public opinion and just tell it like it is?

Feel free to leave some thoughts in the comments for me.

"The Five Greatest Warriors" - Matthew Reilly

BLURB:
"It Began With Six Stones
Jack West Jr and his loyal team are in desperate disarray: they've been separated, their mission is in tatters, and Jack was last seen plummeting down a fathomless abyss.
IT FINISHES HERE
After surviving his deadly fall, Jack must now race against his many enemies to locate and set in place the remaining pieces of The Machine before the coming Armageddon.
WHO ARE THE FIVE WARRIORS?
As the world teeters on the brink of destruction, he will learn of the Five Warriors, the individuals who throughout history have been most intimately connected to his quest.
OCEANS WILL RISE, CITIES WILL FALL
Scores will be settled, fathers will fight sons, brothers will battle brothers, and Jack and his friends will soon find out exactly what the end of the world looks like..."


REVIEW:
I have to say, I was disappointed with this one. And I feel disappointed that I'm disappointed, since I was really looking forward to reading it, and I felt as though us readers were definitely owed something after the completely unfair cliffhanger ending of The Six Sacred Stones.

But unfortunately, to me this book felt like one long, drawn out, tired, well-used, and VERY predictable formula:
Team of Heroes must place pillars into vertexes to save world.
Team of Heroes are actively being pursued and trying to be stopped in this quest by Various Villains.
Team of Heroes encounter various challenges at each vertex. Team must fight Various Villains. Team must place pillar against all odds.
At some point, Member of Team is captured by Villain. Villain has some unspeakable fate for Member of Team. But never fear! Member of Team is rescued by other Team Heroes. Before the end of the story, the Villain responsible meets some ghastly end, either through the actions of one of the Heroes or just bad karma.
At one point in the story, Pivotal Character dies. Everyone is briefly sad. Lily sobs and cries. Then Team of Heroes grimly continue with Mission To Save The World.
At some point in the story, Key Fight To the Death occurs between two key characters. One dies. The other does not.
At one point in the story, Key Hero Jack West is seen meeting certain death. However he manages to escape this by an Implausible Reason and then Astonishes people by coming "Back From The Dead".
Throughout story, Astonishing Revelations about Historical Stuff and Places make everyone Gasp in Astonishment.
Climax of story involves Saving the World. World is saved. Villains are dead. Team of Heroes (minus a few) celebrate in peace and quiet in Remote Location.
Short Interview with Author at back of book.

OK. Now, formulas are fine, and every book / song / movie / creative work needs to start with some kind of base formula as its foundations. But the book (or whatever 'creative work') only becomes really good when this forumla is extrapolated, built upon, tweaked, changed, and ultimately crafted into something new and unique.

The Five Greatest Warriors, much like songs by Simple Plan, seemed to me to be just one long formula. I became a bit bored, despite all the perilous running around and actionable scenes. I didn't care for the characters and felt nothing when a key character died. This, to me, shows just how much Reilly's writing has changed since embarking on the Jack West Jr series. When characters died in Contest or any of the Shane Schofield series (especially Scarecrow!) or Temple, I felt sad (in some way) that they'd died. (No, I didn't burst into sobs and drench the pages of the books with my hot bitter salty tears. You know how it is when a good character dies.)

I also didn't really like the inclusion of Jesus as one of the major parts of the plot. (I don't feel as though I am giving any crucial spoilers away in saying this, since it's mentioned fairly early on in the book that Jesus Christ is one of the 'five warriors'.) I won't say anything else, and in fact the book doesn't make any great factual claims (it's allllll fiction, folks), but it just seems like a tacky grab for controversy on the author's part. "Ooh, look at me, I'm talking about the history of a major religious figure and making Implications! How controversial and risky of me! FREE SPEECH!"

In short, I really miss Reilly's earlier works and style. Bring back Schofield. Bring back aliens in the library. Just let Jack and his Team of Heroes feel all pleased with themselves for Saving the World and leave them to retire in peace in their Remote Location.


RATING: It was an OK way to spend two afternoons, but a lot of the reading felt curiously like a chore. Disappointing. 3 STARS

"The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time" - Mark Haddon

BLURB:

"The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is a murder mystery novel like no other. The detective, and narrator, is Christopher Boone. Christopher is fifteen and has Asperger's Syndrome. He knows a very great deal about maths and very little about human beings. He loves lists, patterns and the truth. He hates the colours yellow and brown and being touched. He has never gone further than the end of the road on his own, but when he finds a neighbour's dog murdered he sets out on a terrifying journey which will turn his whole world upside down."

REVIEW:

It's difficult to know how to review this one. On the surface, I didn't really like the book...but the purpose of this particular novel isn't really to entertain.

For me, the majority of fiction I read has to serve one purpose, above all others: to entertain. I want to get absorbed in the story, lost in the words, hooked into the narrative, and basically use books as another form of escapism. Of course if the book also has an important message, that's icing on the cake. But I mainly read fiction for entertainment.

The Curious Incident didn't quite make it, and it was a bit of a chore to finally - finally - finish this book, which has been sitting forlornly on my 'to be read' shelf for possibly over a year now. The predominant emotion I felt throughout the story was frustration. And come on, when I'm on the train at 7:45am on a cold wet day being squashed against the window by a really big person sitting next to me - I'm already kind of in a sour mood. The last thing I need to be thinking is "This is the most frustrating, dysfunctional bunch of main characters I have ever spent time with".

Of course, the protagonist (and narrator) has every reason to come across as frustrating, and I guess that's where this book really shines through: realism. Every single other person that Christopher came into contact with struck me as incredibly real. The dialogue, their thoughts, their actions, and most of all how Christopher perceived them, seemed to leap off the page. Plus, I definitely have a bit more of a sense now for what it must be like to live with someone who has a mental illness. If I felt frustrated just by reading a (comparatively) short novel about someone with Asperger's, I can't imagine how difficult it would be to feel that way every single day.

I have a terrible feeling if I go on for too much longer, I'll fall into some horrible quagmire of Insensitivity and/or Political Incorrectness. Normally, I fully support this on the Internet - there's too much careful sidestepping and political correctness everywhere else in the world, it's often refreshing to find someone who doesn't give a damn and just says what they think. But for now, I'll leave this review with just one final comment...

RATING: ...I'm giving it points for sheer realism, and also for (as I call it) Dealing with a Significant Issue, but for me personally, I wasn't a fan of the book. 2 STARS

"Jennie" - Paul Gallico

BLURB:

"Original, humorous, poignant, compassionate, Jennie has become a classic of its kind.

It relates the unforgettable adventures of a small boy changed into a stray cat and befriended by the indomitable Jennie, who initiates him into the lore of London's streets.

The Times Literary Supplement said: 'Jennie has the same simplicity as The Snow Goose; it is, like its forerunner, a family book, and as such deserves the same success.' "

REVIEW:

I showed this blog to a friend at uni today, and she asked me which was my favourite book. I mentioned I hadn't actually reviewed it on here (and so I decided to remedy this immediately), and then proceeded to tell her what the book was about.

Unfortunately, when you try to describe Jennie to other people, this is another example of a really great book with Stoopid Plot syndrome:

"It's about a boy called Peter who sort of turns into a cat...and he meets up with another cat...and they go on all these adventures together."

Sigh.

Even though it sounds ridiculous, this is such a gorgeous story which I have read approximately 14, 753 times. It's one of those rarities that can transcend age boundaries, in my opinion, since children can enjoy the fantastical premise and the adventures of Peter and Jennie, while adults appreciate the gentle storytelling and cat-person references.

And oh man, I am definitely one of these 'cat people'. In fact I think I'm starting to sound like an old woman. Living alone. With fifty cats.

I have a feeling non-cat-people wouldn't appreciate the majority of this book, since it focuses so directly on cat behaviour. The author was a keen cat lover and wrote quite a few books featuring felines and their foibles (other examples include Thomasina and The Silent Miaow). However for cat lovers, it's a real treat to read about Jennie's careful tutelage to the newly-transformed Peter about how to behave like a proper cat - it's full of little moments of recognition, when you realise your cat does everything Jennie describes, to the letter.

It's an older book, with some subtle humour and more than a few lines of thickly accented Scottish speech (och aye) that some people might find difficult to understand, and one particular part of the story nearly always moves me to tears. It's also one of my favourite books.

Go read it. (Unless you're a dog person.)

RATING: Incredibly sweet, warmly told, and generally just a great story. 5 STARS

biotaBOOM - A Blog

URL: http://www.biotaboom.blogspot.com/

BLURB:

"biotaBOOM is a blog about interesting animal stuff. And maybe occasionally plants, although I don't find plants very interesting to be honest. And occasional other related stuff.

"Biota" simply means "living organisms", and "boom" means "boom." You're right, there's no point to the "boom" part. I put it there just for kicks."

REVIEW:

Normally, I would never indulge in such shameless self-promotion as this. If I'd created another blog of some sort, I would probably just leave a little discreet link on the side panel over there -> and wait for people to randomly stumble across it (much like this blog).

Unfortunately, 'biotaBOOM' is not just another case of "I feel like making a blog about [blah]. Cool. I'll do that."

I'm currently enrolled in a subject at uni called Professional Science Communication, in which we learn how to use multimedia to communicate science, basically. We were told to create some kind of 'project' (worth 15% of our final mark) for the last few weeks of semester that involved multimedia and science, so I decided to set up another blog about interesting animal stuff.

BUT. The thing is, part of the marking scheme involves incorporating feedback from other people into the final product.

And I need your feedback!

The main purpose, therefore, of this particular blog entry is to plead for pageviews and comments. I've got a hit counter on the new blog, and it would be seriously extremely wonderful if you, dear reader, could simply take two seconds of your day to click on this link:

http://www.biotaboom.blogspot.com/

Even if you don't leave any comment - even if you don't look at the website at all! - at least that's another 'hit' on the site, so at the end of the day I can say "Well, I had x number of hits on my blog!" And hopefully get more marks, or something.

What would be even better, though, is if you could just read the blog entry/entries that are there, have a brief look at the blog overall, and then leave a quick comment about it. Tell me what you like and what you hate (and why) and I will love you forever and send you an imaginary prize via telepathy for your trouble. I only ask because I need to build up the blog (and the entries), market it a little, and incorporate feedback etc, within the next three weeks. Everything has to be finished by the 15th of October.

RATING: I think this is fairly irrelevant, seeing as it's another one of my own blogs. I'd really love it if YOU could give it some kind of rating though - preferably in the form of a comment on the blog itself!

"The Book Thief" - Markus Zusak

BLURB:

"It is 1939. Nazi Germany. The country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier, and will become busier still.

By her brother's graveside, Liesel's life is changed when she picks up a single object, partially hidden in the snow. It is The Gravedigger's Handbook, left there by accident, and it is her first act of book thievery.

So beings a love affair with books and words, as Liesel, with the help of her accordion-playing foster father, learns to read. Soon she is stealing books from Nazi book-burnings, the mayor's wife's library, wherever there are books to be found.

But these are dangerous times. When Liesel's foster family hides a Jewish fist-fighter in their basement, Liesel's world is both opened up, and closed down.

In superbly crafted writing that burns with intensity, award-winning author Markus Zusak has given us one of the most enduring stories of our time."

REVIEW:

I read this one in bits and pieces over a very long period (...well, a long period for me to be stuck on the same book, anyway). It wasn't because the book wasn't engaging enough, but because stupid trivial things such as university and tests and assessments and minor family mishaps kept getting in the way of progress.

But I finally finished it today, and subsequently felt rather depressed. In fact, very depressed.

Of course I know about what happened during the second world war in Nazi Germany, on a sort of 'factual' level. I've seen a movie adaptation of The Diary of Anne Frank, I've heard about people like Corrie ten Boom, I've read about it on Wikipedia (which of course naturally makes me an expert now), etc etc. But nothing brought home the true horror of actually living there, actually experiencing the full force of human tragedy, as The Book Thief.

At first I thought it was the weirdest book I've ever read. I mean, for starters, it's narrated by Death. Secondly, the prose is bizarre. I felt like I was swinging wildly between hating the pretentiousness and loving the richness with which Zusak describes the most ordinary things. Everything is personified and metaphoralised (..."metaphoralised"?...oh well) beyond belief. Houses "crouch nervously", for example, or pimples "gather in peer groups". Only, imagine this continuing throughout the entire book, on every page. Also, there were a couple of things that weren't explicitly spelled out, which mystified me a bit, and I wish they'd been made more obvious.

Once the book really got going, though, I quite enjoyed the reading experience as a whole. A lot of careful thought and imagination has been poured into this story, which I like. The characters were interesting, if occasionally a little unbelievable. And it definitely highlighted the despair of living in Nazi Germany.

What a horrible time in human history.

RATING: Incredibly haunting, and well worth a read - but probably only once. 4 STARS

"Nineteen Minutes" - Jodi Picoult

BLURB:

"Sterling is a small, ordinary New Hampshire town where nothing ever happens - until a student enters the local high school with an arsenal of guns and starts shooting, changing the lives of everyone, inside and out.

The daughter of the judge sitting on the case should be the state's best witness - but with her boyfriend dead and her childhood friend charged with murder, she's struggling to remember what happened in front of her own eyes....

Number one bestselling author Jodi Picoult brings us her hardest-hitting and most involving novel yet. NINETEEN MINUTES asks what it means to be different in our society, who has the right to judge someone else - and whether a person is ever whom they seem to be..."

REVIEW:

If you want a truly uplifting, joyous, warm, inspiring read - do not read Nineteen Minutes.

I borrowed it from the library on a whim, mainly to see why everyone was raving about Jodi Picoult. And once I started reading it, I found out why. To me, it was utterly engrossing, and as 'un-put-downable' as any thriller. It was also very, very moving and emotionally powerful. However I don't think I'll be reading any more books by Picoult after this.

Why? Because it was so profoundly sad.

Nineteen Minutes is incredibly depressing, but I think that's because it seems so real. You can imagine, with great clarity, every single one of the scenes in this book. You can imagine how each of the characters feel, how they act, how they think, what they look like. In fact Picoult paints characters so real, so vivid, that I found myself thinking about them long after I'd actually put down the book on any given day.

Occasionally, it did veer a little too widely into slightly sappy sentimental territory, and at times it felt as though the author was putting in all these clever metaphors just for the sake of writing something that had a 'deep' hidden meaning to it, just because she could. "The rain came down so they couldn't see each other clearly". Oh, and it's like a reflection of their relationship too! Wow. That's profound.

On the whole, it was one of those books that just stays with you for ages, making you think, and it does call you to question who the real victims are in various situations.

RATING: Riveting. Depressing. And haunting. 4 STARS

"Size 12 Is Not Fat" - Meg Cabot

BLURB:

"HEATHER WELLS ROCKS!
Or, at least, she did. That was before she left the pop-idol life behind after she gained a dress size or two—and lost a boyfriend, a recording contract, and her life savings (when Mom took the money and ran off to Argentina). Now that the glamour and glory days of endless mall appearances are in the past, Heather's perfectly happy with her new size 12 shape (the average for the American woman!) and her new job as an assistant dorm director at one of New York's top colleges. That is, until the dead body of a female student from Heather's residence hall is discovered at the bottom of an elevator shaft. The cops and the college president are ready to chalk the death off as an accident, the result of reckless youthful mischief. But Heather knows teenage girls . . . and girls do not elevator surf. Yet no one wants to listen—not the police, her colleagues, or the P.I. who owns the brownstone where she lives—even when more students start turning up dead in equally ordinary and subtly sinister ways. So Heather makes the decision to take on yet another new career: as spunky girl detective! But her new job comes with few benefits, no cheering crowds, and lots of liabilities, some of them potentially fatal. And nothing ticks off a killer more than a portly ex-pop star who's sticking her nose where it doesn't belong . . . "

REVIEW:

After being a dedicated Meg Cabot fan through my teens, and then being less-than-impressed by her short story in Prom Nights from Hell, I decided this adult chick-lit offering was her last chance to win me back. Her last chance to impress.

Well, I didn't completely hate it - but I definitely didn't love it. In fact, 'Size 12 Is Not Fat' ended up being annoying more than anything else.

The protagonist, Heather, really started to grate after a few chapters. Despite the book's implication that she is, in fact, smarter than she thinks, I didn't buy it. I mean, she's ditzy. She's completely obsessed about her size. She makes an enormous deal about minor occurences ("she looks like a showerer, not a bather". Who gives a damn, honestly?). She's just...ugh. Rather than warming to the stereotypical chick-lit-heroine-with-whom-women-can-identify, I found her incredibly frustrating and just wanted to slap her by the end of the book.

What is it with the size obsession, anyway? I realise the title of the book is a slight giveaway as to what the contents will feature, but I found it unbelievably annoying to be reading about sizing throughout the book. Why does Heather constantly obsess about being size twelve? If she's obsessing about body image, why isn't she obsessing about the fact that she perceives herself to be fat? Why is it all about the numbers? And the constant bleating about "size twelve is the size of the average American woman" definitely started wearing thin (HA! PUN!) after it was repeated the first fifty or so times. OK, Ms Cabot, we get it. You're trying to write a book that deals with body image concerns. But don't you think you overdid it just a bit? And don't you think the end message - girls who aren't stick thin can still prevail - was more than a little trite?

The only thing keeping me reading was the crime/mystery plot, which, once it got going, chugged along quite nicely underneath the thick veneer of shallow chick-lit slathered copiously over the top. Once a mystery makes itself known to me, I feel compelled to find out who did it. It did provide some interesting scenes for our size twelve amateur investigator to get caught up in, and while the end result (and the motive for the crime) proved to be completely ludicrous, I didn't feel entirely cheated. I mean, after all, it is chick lit.

Needless to say, the book did not make me laugh once. Not that I was expecting as much. I don't think I'll be reading Cabot again.

RATING: The crime/mystery plot was good. Everything else was not. 3 STARS

"The Cat Who Had 60 Whiskers" - Lilian Jackson Braun

BLURB:

"Times are changing in Pickax: a new senior centre is in the works and a production of CATS is set to delight Moose County residents; Polly Duncan is off to Paris, leaving Qwill without a companion for his apple barn concerts; and The Librarians Who Lunch are showing their Art Hats to help unite Pickax with their Lockmaster County neighbours.
Not to mention the conversion of the late Nathan Ledfield's mansion into a charitable museum! With Mr Ledfield's treasures being sold off to benefit needy children, the town is abuzz with excitement - that is, until a mysterious death from a bee sting leaves everyone but Cool Koko in a state of confusion.
Is it because Koko has sixty whiskers as Qwill suspects, or because Koko knows that the mysterious death was no accident?"

REVIEW:

I picked this up at random from the library, and I must admit, I just couldn't get into this one. Perhaps it's time I read and reviewed a book I didn't enjoy - there's a lot of 4 star and 5 star ratings here. While I enjoyed the descriptions of the two cats in the book, the rest of the novel (it's more of a novella than a novel, though) seemed rather dull. Constant descriptions of a cast of characters I was completely unfamiliar with, and descriptions of the places they lived, was a bit tedious for a first-time reader of this series. To me, the writing style wasn't quite engaging enough to properly complement the "quirky and cute" elements in the story. In fact, by chapter six, it was still downright boring, so I gave it a quick flick though, searching for the mystery it promised - but nothing grabbed me. Nothing intrigued me. I almost stuck with it for the sake of reading about the antics of Koko and Yum Yum (they're two Siamese cats), but unfortunately...nope.

RATING: The cats were cute, but the story was still boring one-third of the way through the book, and it just didn't appeal. 2 STARS

"The Eyre Affair" - Jasper Fforde

BLURB:

"Meet Thursday Next, literary detective without equal, fear or boyfriend.

There is another 1985, where London's criminal gangs have moved into the lucrative literary market, and Thursday Next is on the trail of the new crime wave's Mr Big.

Acheron Hades has been kidnapping characters from works of fiction and holding them to ransom. Jane Eyre is gone. Missing.

Thursday sets out to find a way into the book to repair the damage. But solving crimes against literature isn't easy when you also have to find time to halt the Crimean War, persuade the man you love to marry you, and figure out who really wrote Shakespeare's plays.

Perhaps today just isn't going to be Thursday's day. Join her on a truly breathtaking adventure, and find out for yourself. Fiction will never be the same again..."

REVIEW:

I got tonsillitis while reading this book. I don't think this was actually caused by the book though, so don't worry, you'll probably be able to read it without becoming ill. However sitting up in bed for an entire day with a crazy fever allowed me to get through quite a sizeable chunk of this book in a short amount of time, which turned out to be a good thing.

This is one of the most bizarre books I have ever read, and trying to describe it without sounding completely delirious is quite a challenge. I mean, how would the ordinary person respond to a book description like this:

"Well, it's like a futuristic story...but set in 1985, in Britain...and people have pet dodos and stuff. And there's this big hierarchial law enforcement system that's divided into groups, according to what they deal with, like terrorism and stuff...and the main character in this book is a LiteraTec, meaning she works with any kind of literary crime, like people messing with important literary works etc. Oh, and her name is Thursday Next. They all have weird names in this book. There's another character called Jack Schitt. Anyway, some people can travel in time too, and the big villain of the story is trying to alter the original manuscripts of some important works, so that by altering the originals, all the copies of that work in the rest of the world get affected too...and Thursday Next has to try and stop him...and...yeah. It's kind of strange."

I swear, the author must be either a creative genius or a raving lunatic to have come up with most of the ideas in The Eyre Affair. It's just so 'out-there' and original, and with a deep undercurrent of absurdist whimsical humour throughout (the descriptions of the pet dodos made me smile, in particular). I can see how it's one of those books that would really divide people's opinions - you either love it or hate it. I belong to the former category.

However, there were a couple of things that I didn't like quite so much. First, the title implies that the book is based on (or at least makes a lot of references to) Jane Eyre, which is why I read this straight after reading Jane Eyre. However, references to Bronte's most famous work make up just a small (albeit significant) part of the story, and it doesn't even get to the 'Jane Eyre has been kidnapped' part until the last few chapters, so it doesn't fully live up to the implications its title. Also, there seemed to be a lot of different characters, and for a while I had a bit of trouble remembering who was who and what they did, etc. The weird names didn't help in this matter, occasionally detracting from the flow of the story (eg, you'd meet another weird name, and then you'd be thinking "Huh. 'Filbert Snood'? What kind of a name is FILBERT SNOOD?" for a while, rather than concentrating on the story.)

Or maybe that's because I was feverish.

At least this book provided something interesting to do!

RATING: On the whole, it was a very enjoyable, quirky read - and certainly very unique. However, despite its charm, I don't think I'd feel like reading it again, so I'm giving it a comfortable 3 STARS

"Jane Eyre" - Charlotte Bronte

BLURB:

"Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre to this day entrances readers with its passionate portrayal of a woman struggling to make a life for herself in a cruel and indifferent world. As orphan Jane becomes governess at Thornfield Hall, she falls in love with her employer, Mr Rochester, only to discover that he has a terrible secret, one which may jeopardize their future happiness. Jane Eyre's struggle for independence has echoed with readers ever since."

REVIEW:

As you may have gathered from the previous reviews on this blog, my literary tastes are not very sophisticated. My favourite authors range all the way from Matthew Reilly to - God forbid! - Stephenie Meyer. I'm not really into classics, and to be honest, I can't see why some of them are considered 'classics' in the first place. For example, The Great Gatsby. It was an OK story. I have no idea why it's a 'classic' though. I didn't like it much - but then, I suppose dislike goes with almost every text that you are forced to study for English.

Jane Eyre is the one exception. I can see exactly why it's a classic, and I genuinely love the story.

And yet it's difficult to pinpoint why I like it so much. I think what appeals to me most is the sense of mystery - what's going on in the attic? What's up with that Grace Poole anyway? What's Mr. Rochester trying to hide? The revelations that follow serve to increase the drama and suspense, without seeming completely outlandish and ridiculous, and without turning the story into a run-of-the-mill soap opera.

Admittedly, there were quite a lot of characters that I just wanted to punch in the face - mainly the hypocritical ones - and reading of Jane's childhood and adolescence was depressing and frustrating. However this just causes me to admire Jane's character even more, since she managed to get through such horrendous ordeals growing up, and did not turn out to be a serial killer.

I think that's the best thing about Jane Eyre - Jane's amazing determination, strong moral grounding and endless patience that I could never hope to achieve. She never gives up, never abandons her principles, and hardly ever blows her top at anyone. Thankfully, in the end, she is finally rewarded.

I also like the fact that I was able to buy this for just ten bucks at Dymocks.

RATING: A richly woven narrative with mystery, drama, and genuine classic appeal. 5 STARS

"Prom Nights From Hell" - Cabot, Meyer, Jaffe, Myracle, Harrison

BLURB:

"In this collection, bestselling authors including Stephenie Meyer and Meg Cabot take bad Prom nights to a whole new level - a paranormally bad level...

Wardrobe catastrophes and two left feet are nothing compared with discovering you're dancing with the Grim Reaper - and he isn't here to tell you how hot you look...

From vampire exterminations to angels fighting demons, these five stories will be more fun than any DJ in a bad dinner jacket. No corsage or limo rental necessary - just great, sexy, scary fun!"

(NB: it contains five short stories, each written by one of the listed authors. In case you didn't realise this.)

REVIEW:

This was the book that reached up, tapped me gently on the shoulder, and said "Emma? You have well and truly outgrown teenage fiction. Move on."

Of course, I didn't really expect anything more than fairly stock-standard American teen chick-lit, with the usual formula of Unrealistic Depictions of Teenage Romance, a first-person narration by the Girl Who Doesn't Quite Fit In, and the Rather Disproportionate Importance of The Prom, with a dash of Attempted Dry Humour (my friend Jen refers to this as "soppy, cotton-candy crap"). In the case of the five short stories contained in this book, there was an added Paranormal Element thrown into the mix. However I was still hoping that maybe, just maybe, there might be at least a tiny bit of light entertainment value in there somewhere.

And there was. But it was indeed small, and depended heavily on the author. What follows is a story-by-story breakdown of the aforementioned book.

Meg Cabot's story - The first time I read Cabot, like almost any other teenage girl, I thought her books were refreshing, light-and-fluffy, and very amusing, if not hilarious at times. However, after reading quite a few, I started to feel like I was reading the same story, over and over again, with different characters (always whinging about boys) and a slightly different background scenario. Her short story in this volume, about a girl trying to kill a vampire, was just another delivery of formulaic, cookie-cutter Cabot. It was very disappointing, and also seemed to borrow a little too heavily from Meyer's Twilight series. I found it incredibly lacking in originality, to be honest, even for teen fluff.

Lauren Myracle's story - wasn't actually as horrendous as I thought it might have been. There were still one or two cringe-worthy elements, but considering the intended audience is indeed pre-teen and younger-teenage girls (as opposed to 19-year-old science degree students), I guess I won't judge those flaws too harshly.

I liked this story much better than Cabot's, and even though it was rather predictable, the writing was decent, with the ending even reminding me slightly of Stephen King.

Kim Harrison's story - This one actually started off quite well. To me, it seemed to be a tad more believable and even, perhaps, slightly more mature than the other stories, and towards the middle of the story, it became really intriguing. However, the second half of the story was a bit of a letdown. It suddenly turned into a straight-out supernatural fantasy tale, bogged down with details and raising more questions than it answered. It was also just pretty confusing, and the ending proved to be very anticlimatic. Kind of disappointing.

Michele Jaffe's story - Not bad, not bad. It's certainly not the best thing Jaffe has ever written, but I still found it fairly enjoyable, and some of the ideas were quite original. This particular story provided the sole 'laugh out loud' moment (for me) from the entire book, which I think deserves a round of applause. However I did think a lot of the protagonist's characterisation seemed very similar to Jaffe's Bad Kitty series, so I just hope she doesn't go down the same path as Meg Cabot - recycling the same characters under different names - in the future.

Stephenie Meyer's story - Oh dear.

OH DEAR.

This was by far the worst story of the lot. Unbelievably shallow, full of completely ridiculous fantasy, and containing the longest and dreariest passage of dialogue interspersed with descriptions that I have ever read. It wasn't so silly that it was fun - it was just plain stupid. I mean, consider the plot: there's a demon at the prom who likes causing misery and whose primary goal is to ruin the night, but don't worry, everything is saved by an ANGEL and the PROM ENDS HAPPILY FOR ALL.

*hits head on desk*

I'm not even going to apologise for putting a bit of a spoiler up there, because the story was so bad, it doesn't deserve to be read. Seriously. Avoid. It's crap.

RATING: I guess it's fair to say that younger readers might enjoy it more than I did, but on the whole, this book was pretty so-so. 2.5 STARS

(PS: Interestingly, I ended up reading Prom Nights from Hell when I had random moments to fill in while at home. However, on the train to and from uni, and in some of my break times there, I was immersed in Jane Eyre. Talk about from one extreme to the other.)

Label on a jar of strawberry jam

BLURB:

"100% spreadable fruit. An old French recipe of delicious strawberries sweetened only with grape juice concentrate. Net wt. 284g. Refrigerate after opening."

REVIEW: I'm not sure if anyone else has really explored a particular food I have occasionally for breakfast, if we happen to have whipped cream in the fridge that needs to be used up. I call it 'Devonshire Toast' since, like Devonshire teas, it involves jam and cream, but instead of warm scones, this fantastic combination is spread liberally on a slice of toast. As you can imagine it's not the healthiest of breakfasts to be had, and most mornings I swap the jam and cream for butter and Vegemite.

However, for the purposes of Devonshire Toast, I use this jam (or I guess Americans would call it 'jelly' or something, even though it's not jelly, it's jam, because jelly is the gelatinous stuff that wobbles around and is eaten with ice cream as a dessert, not the sweet spreadable fruit conserve pictured above. This is why I was completely mystified once as to why anyone in their right mind would have 'peanut butter and jelly' on a sandwich. But never mind all that.)

The label is pretty boring, and there's definitely not much of a plot: just a description of the contents, a list of ingredients (Strawberries 55%, grape juice concentrate, lemon juice, fruit pectin), nutritional information (nil fat, plenty of sugar), and company contact information. However, the actual jam in the glass jar is pretty impressive stuff - not too lumpy, but not runny either. Tastes good too. Just right.

RATING: There was very little character development throughout - but it was very sweet. 4 stars.

Just a note...

...to say I'm amazed to discover a couple of people have actually read my blog! To be quite honest I never really expected many people (if anyone at all!) to read any of my reviews, which is one of the reasons I ended up abandoning it for several months without any real explanation. (The other two reasons are called 'the HSC' and 'starting university', both of which effectively stopped me from reading anything other than textbooks and study notes for a while.)

Not that I'm kidding myself, or anything - I mean I don't really believe many people are, you know, checking back here each week in eager anticipation to see if I've posted something new.

However I did notice that the 'hit counter' was not just in the tens, or even in the hundreds - but over a thousand views! Now that was surprising. So I might just start blogging here again (though perhaps not as frequently - semester 2 starts next week after all), just in case anyone is actually, uh, watching.

If you are reading this, I'd love it if you could leave a comment below, just saying how you actually came across my blog...I'm very curious :)

And a big thank you to the people who have left comments on a couple of the reviews, as well. <3

"Bad Kitty" - Michele Jaffe

BLURB:

A weekend in Vegas with my family. How crazy-slash-shocking-slash-dangerous could it be?

Meet Jasmine [1], forensic supersleuth and unwitting victim of a naughty feline.

Her book is:
36% Las Vegas mystery
49% unstoppable crush [2]
15% fashion emergency
100% the cat’s fault [3]

[1] That’s me! Hi.
[2] Is that all you’re going to say about Jack? Aren’t you going to mention him? I mean, other than as a crush? If I were reading this, that’s what I could want to know about. I’m just saying.
[3] That’s it? The. End.? What about the wedding I ruined and Alyson and Veronique’s Crimes Against Fashion and…yes, I know. For the book. Inside. Zipping it.

(yes, those footnotes are intentional.)

REVIEW:

My friend gave me this book last Christmas. When I saw it, my first thought was "Huh, a Meg Cabot clone, but probably with inferior humour and a stupid plot." But it was a book. That someone had given me. Of course I was going to read it.

I soon found myself wondering why Michele Jaffe wasn't a lot more popular in the teen chick-lit scene, because I actually found myself giggling out loud more times than I could count. And let me tell you, I am not the kind to actually laugh out loud simply from reading a book, because my sense of humour is rather weird, and the only other author who has succeeded in this quest is Jaclyn Moriarty. Usually I just smile. This book was a crack-up and I'm looking forward to reading the next in the series.

I did have some qualms though. For instance, the plot. The book tries to be a 'mystery thriller', and the narrator, Jas, is an amateur detective who then goes about trying to solve this mystery. However, like so many police procedural TV shows, all the clues suddenly coalesce in the detective's mind during the last five minutes and are wrapped up so quickly you find yourself wondering "Hold on - who was that guy anyway?" In this case, the speech given by our detective in one of the final chapters - you know, the one where she recites all the clues and how the realisation about who the culprit was came to her in a sudden flash of inspiration at the last minute - winds up all the leads in a slightly tangled mess which was quite confusing.

Also, many of the situations and characters veered out of 'deliberately-bizarre-in-order-to-be-humourous' territory into the 'just-plain-ludicrous' category. This applies especially to the final climactic scene where all the lead characters are in big trouble - but of course they get out of it - where everything that occurs is entirely unrealistic and contrived.

But I forgive Michele for these flaws, and for spelling her name with only one 'L', because I understand they tend to be commonplace in this brand of fiction, and also because it was just plain fun to read.

RATING:

Very silly. Very funny. 4 STARS

Quote by Stephenie Meyer on age limitations for books

BLURB:
Stephenie Meyer, author of the Twilight series, said something in a video interview that I completely agree with. Quote:

“I didn’t make any kind of conscious effort to write an adult novel. For me, those lines are actually kind of irritating. I don’t think there should be a certain section of the bookstore that you can’t go into – a good book is a good book, and if it’s a good book you should read it! Just because it was written so that ten-year-old could enjoy it too, that doesn’t mean that an adult can’t get a whole lot out of that novel. I’m hoping that my books help people cross those lines, that they don’t feel like “Oh well, that book is in a section of the store where I don’t belong.” You belong anywhere a good book is.”

The video can be seen on the Amazon.com page for her novel The Host.

REVIEW:
I'm at a slightly awkward age in terms of "where I belong in a bookstore". I'm eighteen, and next year I'll be a uni student, so I'm in that horrible transitory age somewhere in between 'teenage/young adult' and 'adult'. When I go look in the 'teenage' section, I feel too old to be there, and when I look in the adult section, I feel too young. (This could be largely due to my entirely irrational self-conscious tendencies, which make me feel as though everyone is judging me.)

However, being "in transition" is somewhat advantageous: I can still identify with many of the teenage characters in the young adult books, while also enjoying the added sophistication that comes from adult novels. For instance, my guilty pleasure when it comes to books is Anthony Horowitz's 'Alex Rider' series. Since they are written for an intended audience of younger-teenage male readers (Alex is fourteen in the books), I definitely don't fit into the intended demographic. But they're still very entertaining books. Meanwhile, right next to those books on my bookshelf (literally!) sits Michael Crichton's "Next", which is very definitely an adult novel, dealing with complex themes and containing several sexual references.

Hence, I don't really like age barriers. (Although, nevertheless, some books are definitely too adult for younger readers - perhaps books should carry classification ratings in the same way that movies do). I still enjoy teenage novels, even though most people would say I'm too old for them. Why should I be 'too old' for them? Because they don't have the level of intellectual complexity I should be dealing with now that I'm legally an adult? Matthew Reilly is one of my favourite authors, and he writes action thrillers for adults, but they don't exactly contain a great deal of content designed to make me think. In fact, they're largely rubbish. But I mainly read for entertainment. And I think if a book is entertaining, then I should feel entitled to read it, no matter where it belongs in the store.

RATING:
How does one rate a quote? Not sure. But I agree with it. 4 STARS

Intermission

I was talking to my best friend Jen the other day in English, trying to figure out a time she could come over to watch the latest couple of Doctor Who episodes she'd missed (I'd recorded them.) However we weren't able to decide on a suitable time - because something got in the way.
"Stupid school!" she complained, emphatically slapping the desk. "It gets in the way of all our favourite TV shows!"
It also gets in the way of other hobbies, too.
In the past three weeks, I have only read 118 pages of a 583-page novel (that sounds like a lot written down, but it's a standard-sized novel...I should be able to finish that in a few days!) I highly doubt any more reviews will be forthcoming for quite some time.
So, with my first exam only 45 days away, I have to back off on the recreational reading and attempt to throw my unwilling self into study instead. I should be able to return to reading stuff and writing reviews when the damn HSC is over...and the partying begins.
Adiós!

"The Kite Runner" - Khaled Hosseini

BLURB:

Amazon.com product description: "In his debut novel, The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini accomplishes what very few contemporary novelists are able to do. He manages to provide an educational and eye-opening account of a country's political turmoil--in this case, Afghanistan--while also developing characters whose heartbreaking struggles and emotional triumphs resonate with readers long after the last page has been turned over. And he does this on his first try.
The Kite Runner follows the story of Amir, the privileged son of a wealthy businessman in Kabul, and Hassan, the son of Amir's father's servant. As children in the relatively stable Afghanistan of the early 1970s, the boys are inseparable. They spend idyllic days running kites and telling stories of mystical places and powerful warriors until an unspeakable event changes the nature of their relationship forever, and eventually cements their bond in ways neither boy could have ever predicted. Even after Amir and his father flee to America, Amir remains haunted by his cowardly actions and disloyalty. In part, it is these demons and the sometimes impossible quest for forgiveness that bring him back to his war-torn native land after it comes under Taliban rule. ("...I wondered if that was how forgiveness budded, not with the fanfare of epiphany, but with pain gathering its things, packing up, and slipping away unannounced in the middle of the night.")
Some of the plot's turns and twists may be somewhat implausible, but Hosseini has created characters that seem so real that one almost forgets that The Kite Runner is a novel and not a memoir. At a time when Afghanistan has been thrust into the forefront of America's collective consciousness ("people sipping lattes at Starbucks were talking about the battle for Kunduz"), Hosseini offers an honest, sometimes tragic, sometimes funny, but always heartfelt view of a fascinating land. Perhaps the only true flaw in this extraordinary novel is that it ends all too soon. --Gisele Toueg "

REVIEW:

I have always been someone who wants both sides to a story. When two of my friends fought, I didn't just listen to one and bitch with them about the other - I sought out both of their opinions before making any judgement. When I began getting involved in debates about science and religion, I was mainly reading creationist literature, so I took biology as one of my subject in my senior years of high school to get the 'hard science' I was missing. And these days, most of the time when the media talks about Afghanistan and the Middle East, it's in a decidedly negative tone. After all, who was it who flew those planes into the Twin Towers on September 11?

It's for this reason that The Kite Runner becomes a much-needed antidote to the biased attitudes of many (reinforced by the media, of course). At a time when many Afghanis are probably crying out for their side of the story to be heard, this book has launched itself onto the bestseller list, and at least one of their stories can be told to everyone who reads it (and judging by the statistics on BookMooch, that's a lot of people - it is currently in second place on the 'Most Frequently Mooched' list.)

The tale of Amir, the protagonist, is beautifully told - after reading action-packed thrillers for a while, the different style of prose was at first startling, however I soon got used to it. Hosseini paints characters so incredibly real, so real that even the most hard-hearted of readers couldn't help but feel for them. The bleakness of their situations only heightens the sense of heartache one feels while reading - this is not a novel to read when you need cheering up, it's one to read when you need waking up to what goes on in the world we live in.

Nowhere is the utter depravity of human nature more starkly highlighted than in The Kite Runner. You may not enjoy it, but it will certainly make you think.

RATING:

Not what I'd usually read at all, but I'm glad I did. 4 STARS

'Buttons' (video) by Sia

BLURB:
There are no words to describe this. You simply have to watch it to understand it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUkje1lw4cA

REVIEW:
Despite the fact that you can't really 'read' a video, and this is a review site for stuff I've read, this just kind of got to me. My overall response to seeing this video clip can be summed up in three letters:

WTF?

You know you must be famous when you can make a video that consists entirely of lip-synching your song while contorting your face into grotesque positions by way of clear plastic (warning: danger of suffocation. keep away from children), stockings (retired bank robber perhaps?), pegs (which made me cringe just to look at) and sticky tape (not its most productive use). It's as though the singer said 'Hey, let's see how stupid and unglamorous I can look with this put on my face!' Followed by 'Hey, let's make this into a video clip!'
One question: why? Were you out of your mind and/or drunk and/or stoned when you made this?
Sia, I'm sorry, but you look like a complete idiot. I watched an interview with you talking to someone on a bus, and you seemed like a quirky, charming sort of person. But this video clip does not "make any statements about true beauty" (as one commenter claimed), nor does it make any statement at all, apart from perhaps "I'm bored so am mucking around with various materials in front of a camera". It's painful and sometimes very, very disturbing to watch.
The song is alright though.

RATING:
Singing with a stocking over your head just makes you look like a moron. 1 STAR

"Next" - Michael Crichton

BLURB:

"Is a loved one missing some body parts? Are blondes becoming extinct? Is everyone at your dinner table of the same species? Humans and chimpanzees differ in only 400 genes; is that why a chimp fetus resembles a human being? And should that worry us? There's a new genetic cure for drug addiction--is it worse than the disease?

We live in a time of momentous scientific leaps, a time when it's possible to sell our eggs and sperm online for thousands of dollars and to test our spouses for genetic maladies.
We live in a time when one fifth of all our genes are owned by someone else, and an unsuspecting person and his family can be pursued cross-country because they happen to have certain valuable genes within their chromosomes...
Devilishly clever, Next blends fact and fiction into a breathless tale of a new world where nothing is what it seems and a set of new possibilities can open at every turn.
Next challenges our sense of reality and notions of morality. Balancing the comic and the bizarre with the genuinely frightening and disturbing, Next shatters our assumptions and reveals shocking new choices where we least expect.
The future is closer than you think. "

REVIEW:

This is such an ambitious sort of book I doubt it would have succeeded if it weren't for Michael Crichton's best-selling status and reputation. In fact, my mum (also a fan of Crichton) tried reading it but put it down quite quickly as it "was just too complicated". I have to admit, it was.

This is not the kind of book you read as you're getting ready to fall asleep - it requires concentration. It was even getting to the point where I felt like writing down a list of the main characters and a short description for each, just for reference. Crichton juggles many lead characters at once, with many complex scientific scenarios as well, not to mention the fully fleshed-out personal lives of each character - their career paths, their wealth, their upbringing, their various sex partners, the lot. Their stories are all told 'at once' so to speak - a chapter about Rick, followed by a chapter about Josh, followed by a chapter about Lynn, and it's five chapters before we get back to Rick's story, which has since moved on slightly, and then we're back to Josh again and then a new character with a new situation is introduced and - you see what I mean. (There are even two different primary-school-aged boys called Jamie. Confusion city.)

These characters and their stories all interweave and connect as you move through the book, so the experience is sort of like watching a tapestry being constructed, but only seeing one distinct section being worked on at a time. The issues tackled in this one are also pretty hefty - it's all about genetic researchers and their crazy experiments and the big pharmaceutical companies who just want to make money. Occasionally, some elements of the story became slightly ludicrous - a genetically modified parrot with incredibly high intelligence levels who can perfectly mimic voices and sounds, do arithmetic, and hold coherent conversations sometimes provided comic relief, but other times was simply too ridiculous and the situations seemed contrived.

Because of all the different plotlines being juggled and told at the same time, I felt that there were too many loose ends not tied up at the end of the book. Following all these different storylines proved difficult, but possible - as long as you were concentrating very carefully.

RATING:

Thought-provoking stuff that raises many questions about issues that arise in today's genetic industries, but the sheer amount of different plotlines and characters muddled the message. 3 STARS