Book Round-up

O.K., so I've plowed through several books in recent times--most of them pretty good.  Here are a few, reviewed briefly. (All titles were borrowed from the library.)

1. Jane by April Linder--This is a modern-day (young adult) retelling of Jane Eyre.  Full disclosure: I did not enjoy Jane Eyre when I had to read it for high school.  It was a drag and the relationships (and much of the events) made no sense.  So while Jane is a very good tribute to the original, I wound up not enjoying it for the same reasons I didn't enjoy the original.
But after saying all that, as I have been taking more of an in-depth look at introversion for my own personal insight, it has been said that Jane Eyre (the original character) was an introvert.  Lindner definitely writes that aspect of Jane Moore (the modern-day character) marvelously well.  (I even found myself identifying with some of the things she said she experienced!) Actually, I have to admit that Lindner's wordcraft in general really impressed and pleased me as a reader.
I read this in anticipation of a Twitter Book Club. . . that I wound up missing!  But I don't regret having read it.  I do look forward to reading her future work.  Even if I'm forced to rehash everything I read for high school.


2. The Girl Is Murder by Kathryn Miller Haines--I forget where I read about this book and felt compelled to request it from the library.  [Update 07/24/2012: I remembered that Bri reviewed the next installment, The Girl Is Trouble, recently. I honestly didn't remember that as I was reading the book and writing this post, so my apologies if my post notes similar things!] It's pretty well-written YA (definitely for teens and not younger) set during the WWII era.  It was almost like crossing Meet Molly (yes, I had a Molly doll, a major indulgence from my generous parents) with Veronica Mars and making a novel: teen girl with mom gone helps disgraced dad (lost his leg while serving in the military) with his detective agency.  She goes rogue in an attempt to find out what happened to a classmate of hers and discovers a new sense of self, as well as ways to relate to her dad and others, along the way.  Definitely a good novel for mystery lovers.
The only thing that really turned me off at times was the attempt at authenticity sometimes tripped me up: too much lingo, not enough contextual clues.  It seemed gratuitous.  I found myself wishing for a glossary to which I could flip for help sometimes. [07/24/2012: And it appears that Bri enjoyed the things I didn't really like, so. . . that's different tastes for you! The second book does sound a bit more substantial, though.]
 

3. The Cheshire Cheese Cat: A Dickens of a Tale by Carmen Agra Deedy & Randall Wright--I read this one on audio.  This is a middle-grade book, so it's not a million CDs long.  And what a wild story it was!  Skilley the cat won't eat mice; he likes cheese.  He manages to get himself a job at a cheese shop and pub--a very odd place where he makes friends with the mice (and particularly the clever Pip) and is studied by pub patron Charles Dickens who comes in to work on his writing, as do several of his contemporaries.
Conflict comes mainly in the feline person of Pinch, a cat with several scores to settle.  It sounds like a story that is too far-fetched, but all the characters are really well-drawn (and oh, the Dickensian names!) and the action flows.  Bonus: Pip is well-read and loves using numerous "fifty cent words," often to Skilley's puzzlement but always for his edification.  I would love to see teachers use this remarkable story to teach vocabulary.
Double bonus: The illustrations are by Barry Moser, whose cat illustrations I recognized because our family loves Telling Time with Big Mama Cat.
It's a great read and would be a really fun travel audiobook, because the production is done with such animation (intelligible British accents included).

Hiatus

As my few followers might have guessed, this blog is going (has been) on hiatus.  There are several reasons:

The titles/types of books preferred by the majority of the club members just don't appeal to me.  I tried suggesting things, but nobody else was into them.  And the one time I did suggest something, the book was so savaged at the next meeting that--while I didn't take it personally--it certainly left me feeling that my preferences didn't fit it too well with the rest of the group.

The last meeting I went to was so poorly attended, mostly because people hadn't read the book (although most of the few who did attend had not read it, either!), that I felt I had wasted my time both reading the book and coming to the meeting.  What's the point?

It's not so much that book clubs aren't for me; really, it's about finding the book club that is for me.  That could involve starting my own club.

 I will update and/or change formats if and when I get the new club going (or join a new one.).  Thanks for reading--and keep on reading!

  

The Book Has Not Moved from the Passenger Seat of My Car

Mom blew through Cutting for Stone in a weekend (650 pages!) because she "wanted to get it over with." Whereupon Monday she handed it back to me.

I have absolutely no desire to crack it open.

Maybe I'm dreading the next meeting; definitely the premise of the book is not speaking to me.

Our previous meeting's hostess just sent around a photo of the new baby, prompting a lot of addressees to hit "Reply All" (ugh) and (1) coo over the baby (all right, but really do we all need to hear 20 people say "Congratulations!" to someone else?) and (2) offer some comment about the book. Most recent was a gushing "loved it, can't put it down, may reread before we meet" reply-all.

I gagged.

Mom said it was the perfect comment because then that person could do all the (more than four or five sentences) talking.


Heh.

Book Club Tomorrow

As of right now, I am on Chapter 19. I might be reading all night and all day tomorrow so I can finish.

It's not a bad read, but it is a little depressing. O.K., a lot depressing. This woman dies of cancer in the '50s--a horrible death, because there weren't that many options to treat cancer, her cancer was very aggressive, and she got second-rate treatment because she was black and medicine was very segregated. The use and reproduction of some of her cancerous tissue started out as innocent sharing for research, and I'm getting to the point in the story where mass production is making money off it. Outrageous stuff.

I already did not want to read about cancer because my cat was diagnosed with cancer at the end of April and it's been rough going.

Definitely don't want to bring that up at the meeting tomorrow night. I probably won't have to. This is so racially charged that I'm sure someone will get fired up about something. And by someone I mean many of the usual characters. We will be missing some members because some people disappear for the summer, beach houses and whatnot. I will miss my librarian friend and mentor because she is traveling.

Our hostess this time around is pretty pregnant with baby #2 so this probably is her last appearance for a while. She's gonna have her hands full.

They tell us to bring suggestions for the next read. I want something upbeat.

I was going to suggest Sugar Queen which two people from school told me they liked, or The Happiness Project. I also just read about My Year with Eleanor, but I don't know if that one or Happiness will work.

After the My Fair Lazy fiasco, which someday when I get over the trauma I will relate, I'm thinking these people don't like memoirs much.

Or maybe they don't like funny people's memoirs that much.

I honestly can't tell.

Time Has Flown. . .

. . . and another Book Club meeting is practically upon me, even though I haven't gotten to talk about the last one yet!

I'm around page 100 or so of The School of Essential Ingredients (for some reason I keep thinking it is the Kitchen of Essential Ingredients) and it's, well, readable. A little heavy on the imagery and metaphors again for me, but it's an interesting narrative in that it uses third person POV centered on a different character each chapter. It's true at least for me that when a bunch of people get together for something like a class, there can arise some curiosity about how they got there.

Oh, and the stuff the chef-teacher Lillian makes sounds delicious. Like lick-the-page delicious.