book review: odd and the frost giants | ****

Odd and the Frost Giants by Neil Gaiman

Everything I know about Norse mythology I learned from a superhero movie. Which, weirdly, helps a lot when you find yourself in the middle of a fairy tale -- that's probably not the slot it technically falls into, but I can't think of it as anything else -- that involves Thor and Asgard and the Rainbow Bridge, especially when the story is so short there's no space for the author to explain most of the mythology.

Odd and the Frost Giants was sitting on my bookshelf, ready to be returned to the library because Rabbit decided it was not for her, and I thought "SELF, YOU NEED TO READ SOMETHING ADORABLE" and decided to give it a go. Gaiman's story is, indeed, adorable. I liked it a lot. I don't know if I would have liked it as much if I hadn't seen Thor a couple of months ago; I probably would have been a little lost. Also, on the one hand, I wish Odd had been less of a hollow character, but on the other hand, the way he's written kind of works with the whole fairy tale thing.

The illustrations are charming, too. I think I'm eventually going to find a copy of this to stick on the bookshelf.


(4/5)

book review: unholy night | **

Unholy Night by Seth Grahame-Smith  

The two-star rating isn't fair, but I didn't enjoy Unholy Night very much. Grahame-Smith tells a good story, tweaking the established framework of the Nativity to build a compelling tale filled with adventure, revenge, and a little mysticism; however, the novel's bad guys are really indefensibly bad, and I don't think it's a spoiler to say that any story involving King Herod is going to be heavy on the horrible.

These things would be fine if I weren't such a delicate over-invested flower, and I think for most readers -- readers who are able to separate themselves from the story -- this would be a rollicking adventure. For those who are familiar with the New Testament, it might be fun to spot divergences and see which familiar names make appearances in Unholy Night. There are swordfights! Very carefully described swordfights. There's a lot of cutting and hacking and ducking and plunging.

And that's where I ran into a problem, because a lot of the violence in Unholy Night is directed toward kids, BABIES, and while it's historically accurate and everything, that's just not something I can handle when I'm reading for pleasure. I can't totally deal with the adult-on-adult violence, either, to be honest -- Grahame-Smith describes it way too lovingly -- but the huge amount of kid stuff takes it over the edge into Have-to-Skim Territory.

I don't know, there are enough times in real life where I have to batten down the hatches so that I don't become useless to my own kids; I try not to purposefully chase after things that wreck me. I'm sure this means I'm missing out on a lot of great literature but it also keeps me (relatively) sane.

But that's my special snowflake thing, and obviously many people CAN deal, and for those people, I think this is a good book. I have a few minor quibbles, like the fact that the the only character who's fully fleshed out is Balthazar, the protagonist, and that the dialogue felt too modern at times given the historic setting. And I think the ending felt a little rushed. But then, I was skimming a lot of it so for all I know, it was perfectly timed and felt faster than it is.

So, after all that long explanation, you can see why I feel like my two stars are a little unfair, but they're based on my enjoyment, right? So I'm going to leave it.


(2/5)


Related: because I liked the full cover a lot -- here are some process shots.

past/prologue

One of the big, happy, good things about Goodreads is -- I mean, I like many things about the site, but this is one of my favorites -- the Reading Challenge widget, which makes counting the books I've read VERY easy and lets me know when I've slipped behind my goal.

As far as I can recall, this is the first year since 2005 where I've hit my reading goals, and I chalk it up to a combination of the visibility of the widget and the magical powers of my big gift last year, a Kindle Fire.

I'm not going to bother trying to copy all the reviews I've done on Goodreads to good english right now, but I might do that later. For now, I'll just try to get back into the swing of things with a few mini-reviews of the last things I finished, five Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season Eight TPBs. These were the books that sent me over the tipping point and helped me surpass my reading goal (forty-nine books) for 2012.

---------------------------------

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Long Way Home (Season 8, #1) by Joss Whedon

I'm not going to try to sound all scholarly or like an actual reviewer up in here; Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season Eight is like crack-laced popcorn to me, and it's impossible for me to be objective. The original teevee series meant a lot to me, and Season Eight feels like an extension of that series -- same cleverness, familiar characters, Monster-of-the-Week-style subplots with a Major Big Bad hovering over it all -- and I can't help but love it.

I don't know if non-fans would think as highly of it -- maybe having the characters' voices and mannerisms in my head already is an advantage? -- but I finished the first five TPBs in one night, and would have kept going if my library owned the others in the series. 

(5/5)

---------------------------------

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: No Future for You (Season 8, #2) by Brian K. Vaughan
 
 FAITH! I loved her storyline. The Giles-ness of it was an added bonus.

TOTALLY IRRELEVANT: some kid (I assume) drew ALL OVER this volume. I've never encountered this sort of stupidity in a library book before: at the beginning of the volume, the "artist" just lightly drew over already existing lines that indicated cleavage, but by the end of it s/he was adding nonsensical BOOBS!-related lines, adding nipples, etc. It was ridiculous. One of the hazards of borrowing library books -- better than finding food stuck between the pages, I guess. 

(5/5)

---------------------------------

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Wolves at the Gate (Season 8, #3) by Drew Goddard

Okay, the Dracula episode of the teevee series is one that I only half-watched, if that, so I don't get most of the Dracula/Xander interaction, and I'm kinda pissed that the cute relationship between Xander and Renee ended the way it did. I realize it made sense within the story but still, BOO. 

 (4.5/5)

---------------------------------

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Time of Your Life (Season 8, #4) by Joss Whedon

I might have liked Time of Your Life a little better if I'd read Fray first. That whole storyline seemed confusing, then hand-wave-y, then rushed. Also I spent too many minutes trying to remember why I hated Kennedy so much. Maybe I should have rewatched season seven first, too.

I did enjoy the Big Reveal, though.

 (4.5/5) 

---------------------------------

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Predators and Prey (Season 8, #5) by Jane Espenson

Predators and Prey . . . still good, but not as consistently likeable for me as the first four volumes.

I don't like Harmony. I have never found her as funny as the writers apparently do. The reality teevee show thing feels overdone; I just wish they could have found another way to get the anti-Slayer sentiment going. However, the non-Harmony-centric issues were pretty good, especially Safe and titular issue.

 (4/5)

HI HELLO AGAIN

So I'm back! Vox died a while ago, and I miss having a dedicated book review blog. I post reviews on Goodreads here and was cross-posting to LibraryThing until I got too lazy for that, but it's not the same.

And OBVIOUSLY the next step after growing too lazy for one type of cross-posting is trying another type!

We'll see how it goes.