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.

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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)

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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)

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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)

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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) 

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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.

announcement

Good English is on Vox now! Vox is pretty and shiny, you'll dig it:

goodenglish.vox.com/

In addition to reviews and book goal stuffs, I'm doing mini movie reviews and occasionally posting songs and videos and schtuff.

Let me know what you think! Add me if you have a Vox account!

!!!

thirty-two/seventy-five through thirty-five/seventy-five

I'm doing it again, yes. I'm sorry, but I'm afraid I'll forget what I read if I keep waiting until I have time to fully describe each book. Boo, I suck.

32. Waking the Moon by Elizabeth Hand
interesting tidbits about goddess worship, good story with great characters. I want to read the UK version, which has a bunch of stuff that was edited out of the US version (probly to make it a faster read). (****)

33. The Mermaid Chair by Sue Monk Kidd
meh. okay story, but I couldn't really get into any of the characters, and the plot just kind of floundered near the end. it could have been so much HOTTER hehe. (**.5)

34. The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
MUCH better than The Mermaid Chair. basically, this little girl runs off and tries to find out who her mom was. I loved all of the characters and the story itself was told very well. (****)

35. Come to Me: Stories by Amy Bloom
Amy Bloom writes so well that it's almost disgusting. while I didn't enjoy this collection as much as I enjoyed A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You, Come to Me was good in its own quiet way. the stories examine love and family -- the different definitions for each and the way they come together. (****)

fourteen/seventy-five through thirty-one/seventy-five

I'm cheating a little because otherwise I'll never catch up . . . briefest reviews ever, with stars for rating purposes (on a one-to-five scale).

14. Astonishing X-Men: Gifted by Joss Whedon
good and catchy! I definitely want to read the rest. (****)

15. Magical Witch Girl Bunny by Elizabeth Watasin (interview with Watasin here)
hard to follow sometimes, but cute. definitely a fluffy read. (***)

16. Close Range by Annie Proulx
definitely gives you a feel for Wyoming. (****)

17. Goodnight Nobody by Jennifer Weiner
chick lit, but WELL-WRITTEN chick lit. (*****)

18. To Have and to Hold by Jane Green (BARF)
cemented my loathing for Green. (*)

19. Love and Country by Christina Adam
okay, but Adam is WAY too fond of wordy flourish-filled metaphors. (***)

20. Passage by Connie Willis
one of those reads that takes a little while to catch on, but sticks with you forever. (*****)

21. As Meat Loves Salt by Maria McCann
hot but brutal. (****)

22. The Blue Castle by LM Montgomery
so delicate and pretty, even though it's a little dated. (****)

23. Holy Cow: An Indian Adventure by Sarah Macdonald
started out annoying, with Macdonald whining a lot and seeming xenophobic, but ended up in a better place. (***)

24. The Last True Story I'll Ever Tell: An Accidental Soldier's Account of the War in Iraq by John Crawford
gritty, truthful, sad. (****)

25. How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff
very nice YA alternate-reality read with likeable characters. (****)

26. The Three Incestuous Sisters by Audrey Niffenegger -- 9/3/06
pretty novel told in pictures (what a depressing story, though). (****)

27. Sunday Money: Speed! Lust! Madness! Death! a Hot Lap Around America with NASCAR by Jeff MacGregor -- 9/9/06
fun, and even more fun when you read it right before attending a race. (*****)

28. Poison Study by Maria V. Snyder -- 9/16/06 (good review)
great little fantasy read. (*****)

29. The Mercy of Thin Air by Ronlyn Domingue (sniffle) -- 9/24/06
sad and beautiful. (*****)

30. Not a Girl Detective by Susan Kandel -- 9/28/06
mediocre, which was disappointing considering Kandel's credentials. (***)

31. House Magic: The Good Witch's Guide to Bringing Grace to Your Space by Ariana -- 10/1/06
cute read, very open to interpretation. (****)

thirteen/seventy-five

After the poetry, I tried a little bit of another genre I've been neglecting, graphic novels. Marvel 1602, by the fab Neil Gaiman, was my first stop. Marvel superheroes + the seventeenth century = awesomeness. Very good, so good I'm looking at the sequel, even though Gaiman didn't write that one.

twelve/seventy-five

It has been forever since I finished a book of poetry. I love Adrienne Rich's voice and the words she chooses. I'm no good at poetry crit, so this will have to do: I enjoyed Dark Fields of the Republic, although it was a little difficult at times, and I'm keeping an eye out for more of Rich's work.

eleven/seventy-five

If you're looking for a good gothic YA novel, Libba Bray's A Great and Terrible Beauty is definitely it. Melodramatic, historical fiction with supernatural goodies mixed in. The sequel is out and I'm having to force myself to wait for the paperback.

ten/seventy-five

March won a Pulitzer Prize. Somehow. Geraldine Brooks's novel is well-paced, interesting, and pretty well-written, but I wouldn't say it was Pulitzer material. It was okay, not great.

It's a novel about the March pater's adventures during the War, and it gets the feeling of that time across well. It was kind of disorienting to think about his foibles, though, after all the adoration of him in Little Women.

Not a favorite but not a waste of time.

nine/seventy-five

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath.

Info about Frieda Hughes.
Her sometimes awkward poem re: the public's fascination with Plath:

Readers
by Frieda Hughes

Wanting to breathe life into their own dead babies
They took her dreams, collected words from one
Who did their suffering for them.

They fingered through her mental underwear
With every piece she wrote. Wanting her naked.
Wanting to know what made her.

Then tried to feather up the bird again.

The vulture with its bloody head
Inside its own belly,
Sucking up its own juice,

Working out its own shape,
Its own reason,
Its own death.

While their mothers lay in quiet graves
Squared out by those green cut pebbles
And flowers in a jam jar, they dug mine up.

Right down to the shells I scattered on her coffin.

They turned her over like meat on coals
To find the secrets of her withered thighs
And shrunken breasts.

They scooped out her eyes to see how she saw,
And bit away her tongue in tiny mouthfuls
To speak with her voice.

But each one tasted separate flesh,
Ate a different organ,
Touched other skin.

Insisted on being the one
Who knew best,
Who had the right recipe.

When she came out of the oven
They had gutted, peeled
And garnished her.

They called her theirs.
All this time I had thought
She belonged to me most.

published November 8th 1997 in The Guardian

And more Frieda.

eight/seventy-five

The Patron Saint of Liars by Ann Patchett.

seven/seventy-five

Close Range by Annie Proulx.

Proulx's reaction to Brokeback Mountain's Best Picture loss:

For those who call this little piece a Sour Grapes Rant, play it as it lays.

six/seventy-five

The Constant Princess by Philippa Gregory.

five/seventy-five

Sunshine by Robin McKinley.

four/seventy-five

Little Earthquakes by Jennifer Weiner.

three/seventy-five

Sometime I need a little gentle prodding, a reminder that "classic" does not equal "boring."

Bram Stoker's Dracula has been sitting on my TBR shelf since last Hallowe'en. For all my love of vampire lore and my desire to bone up on the classics, I couldn't find the time to concentrate on it until last month.

I expected it to be dry and boring, but at least it would give me the vampire basics, right?

Damn, it was good. I honestly hadn't thought that Dracula would be scary, but I was creeped out several times while reading it in the wee hours of the morning. The way the story is told through correspondence and various characters' diary entries is very effective, and the plot moves along quickly enough that even the slow parts aren't boring.

Of course, the "women are such fragile flowers, weak of mind, body, and will, needing protection and to be brought to redemption through the acts of men" thing scraped my nerves a little bit. (Okay, a lot.) But I chalked it up to the gender roles of that era, breathed into a paper bag for a while, and tried to ignore it, although it got especially difficult when Mina was presented as almost a saint because she had a "man's mind" along with a woman's caring, delicate, etc. soul.

Aside from that, hehe, I thoroughly enjoyed the story. It's sweeping and melodramatic and gory and full of lovely creepy imagery, and it's a rollicking good time. A few spots are slow, but it doesn't stay slow for long enough to matter. The ending seemed a little abrupt, though.

By the way, the introduction by Leonard Wolf is definitely worth reading. Aside from letting the reader know how Dracula came to be, it also offers up a huge list of classic vampire stories and puts them in context.

two/seventy-five

Once upon a time I read The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing by Melissa Bank, and I thought, "Meh." I liked it, but it did not blow my mind or change my world. As time passed, I forgot what I actually thought about it and instead, after reading several reviews that classified it as standard chick-lit, decided that's what it had been and forgot about it.

I decided to give Bank's second novel, The Wonder Spot, a go, mostly because I could get it for free in one of the book club sign-up things. Also, I like the title. I read it warily, afraid that it would end up being chick-lit at the end, with a wedding or a baby or a weight loss that would reaffirm the protagonist's place in the world and wrap everything up in a bow, and that I would despise myself for wasting my time with it.

Instead, I found myself liking the book quite a bit. Bank writes from a place she knows, and the conversations flow believably and Sophie, the main character, is definitely not a one-dimensional cut-out. There really isn't a particular plot; the novel is mostly the story of Sophie's life. Huge chunks of years are skipped, but Bank doesn't think the reader is stupid -- she gives enough clues that you can figure out what happened in the time you missed, but doesn't feel it's necessary to spell it out. Sophie is likeable and relatable and by the end, you feel like you've just read a long letter from a friend.

I'm going to have to dig out Girls' Guide and see what I think about it now.

query

A Million Little Pieces -- fact or faux?

Ah, The Smoking Gun . . . I always forget how much I love their bulldoggedness until a really juicy story like this comes along. I still have to finish the article, but the first page has been very interesting.