Revamped by J.F. Lewis

( 57 ) Void City, Book 2

I don’t have words for how much better than the first in this series this book is.  The MC is still a jerk, but this book makes it work so much better than the last one, even kind of makes it a bit of a plot point. More to say later, but I’m tired and it’s late.

8/10

Local Literati

I’ve been scrounging the interwebs for book blogs lately—I read a LOT more blogs now that I’ve finally figured out how my Google Reader works! Discovered TexasRed.

Okay, that’s a lie. I’m a total Pioneer Woman fan girl (I like food blogs too, what can I say?!) PW went to BlogHer this weekend and one of her posts had a pic of Texas Red Books and I thought to myself,”Hey! That’s probably a book blog… And I like to read interesting local blogs…”

Long story short… The first thing that came up in my reader from TexasRed Books was a reference to someone else’s post that linked back to Tif Talks Books and her Literary Locals MeMe.

I’m terrible at MeMes, so I just made a tag. I dug through my past entries based on names of authors I know are local and tagged them and, before I got frustrated with how long it was taking, adding the LL logo. To make my life easier, local=Texas. Yes, I know that’s not fair since my home state is the size of several others put together, but we Texans stick together.  Some are from Austin, where I am, some Houston, some DFW, but all my local tagged authors are Texans. Or, live in Texas

So if you see this:

You know that book was written by a Texan. Which is not to say I will say I liked it.

In fact, one of my most despised reads of this calendar year, Discipline, is by an Austinite. I wasn’t nice, and he even gave my book club the books for free. Careful what you wish for when you ask for an honest opinion folks.

I digress and my new Jacqueline Carey is calling my name, so I’m out.

Read More and Often, Y’all!

Nobody’s Prize by Esther Friesner

( 56 )

This one picked up at the end of the voyage Helen was beginning in the last book.  I thought of the two this was the better, though definitely still YA in terms of complexity (or lack thereof). I also liked the fact that more of Helen’s adventures were as a girl this time.

I was surprised, though, and not pleased, to see our defiant female MC referred to as that bitch in a book for this target audience.

In the About the Author section it mentioned that Ms. Friesner is currently working on a project similar to the young Helen books but about Nefertiti/Nefertiri.  I hope the plot complexity matches the age level of the language she is willing to use. Regardless, I will probably read her new book, but I don’t see myself buying any of them.

Nobody’s Princess by Esther Friesner

( 55 )

Who was Helen before she became, “Helen of Troy”?  Friesner’s book sets out to answer this question in a mostly magic-free world.  There is a prophetess, but that’s about it. Many of the legendary creatures of mythological fame are quietly debunked in the course of the storytelling.

“Yes, well…” He took a deep breath. “Lad, did you ever see a nine-headed beast of any sort, mouse or monster?” … “No one has, including me and my uncle. But the poets who sing for their living know they won’t earn a full belly from spinning tales about how Herakles and his nephew slew an ordinary swamp snake; a monstrously BIG swamp snake, as thick  around as a pillar, but with just one head after all.”

I enjoyed it, but the fact that the ‘lad’ being spoken to above is Helen tells you where most of the adventure comes from… Girl passes herself as boy in order to have a life free of limitations. I like it better when girls have adventures AS girls, but that’s probably the influence of another book I’m digging into right now.

All in all not a bad little book, but I’d like to see something similar written for adults with more juicy mythological goodness…

Steward of Song by Adam Stemple

( 54 )

I liked this, though it was not as good as the first in the series, “Singer of Souls”. I liked the redemption theme, and the idea that just because society says you’re crazy doesn’t mean you really are crazy.

It’s been a while since I read SoS, so I may be mistaken, but I didn’t remember Douglas having any siblings in the first one—of course he was an incredibly egocentric character, so it may have just been that he never thought about them.

I was a bit po’d that Douglas got off so light, seemingly, and did not undo the damage he did to his siblings. While less bloody than the previous volume, it was still more violent than seemed necessary to move the plot forward.

Would I recommend it?  Sure. Would I read it again? Probably not.

7/10

PS – I Love You by Cecelia Ahern

( 53 )

I enjoyed the movie version of this book (okay, fine, I enjoyed Gerard Butler in the movie version…don’t get me bogged down in the technicalities!) but, as usual, the book was better

Part of that, I think, is the location. To make the movie more relatable for American audiences the writers shifted the characters’ nationalities a bit as well as the setting. I enjoyed the Irish version more.

I think I also prefer the book because there was more character depth.  And less drama and mystery about the envelopes.

*yawn*

Insomnia is catching up w/ me and I have to go get ready for take your kid to work day with no sleep last night. Let’s hope the kid and I survive today!

8/10

Heroes: Volume Two by Chuck Kim

( 52 )

I enjoyed volume 1 a lot more.  This book, and volume 1 as well, is a bound collection of the short comics the network runs on the “Heroes” website during the regular TV season.

It may just be that I was too far behind the curve on this, but I could scarcely remember half the characters in this one.  A few were recognizable, but most were people never introduced in the series, or else characters that were bit players and are no longer actively part of the story in the latest season of the show.

One particular GLARING inconsistency between series and comic drove me nuts—a character whose conflict with his brother becomes a major plot device for a couple of the tv episodes is an only child in the comic and his father dies in his childhood. Only one story works, ABC—pick one, please.

Still not thrilled with the art either, and think it actually declined in quality since volume one.

Or I could just be writing this after a night of insomnia and be  bit crank.  Happens, ya know.

5/10

Lady Macbeth: A Novel by Susan Fraser King

( 51 )

This took a little getting into, and dragged a bit in spots, but overall was a very enjoyable read.  I being an ignorant American girl, had no idea that Macbeth was anything other than a creation of Shakespeare. Learning a bit more, even in a fictional context, about the real Macbeth, who did indeed become King of the Scots* was fascinating.

*According to the book the monarch or Scotland is referred to as king or queen of the Scots, the people, not Scotland, the land.

A warning, though.  If you don’t already enjoy historical fiction, particularly that relating to the history of the Bristish Isles, then you probably won’t get much of this book.

7/10

Loch by Paul Zindel

( 50 )

I’m a bit of a lake monster buff, so when I saw the title to this old 80s YA book I knew I would read it. I kind of wish I hadn’t. There really isn’t much to recommend it, sadly.

The MC is a bit unlikeable, and from a parent’s perspective, terrifying with the foolish risks he takes. The other characters are scarcely developed at all.The little sister and girlfriend are cookie cutters, too.

The adults, in particular, are horribly one-dimensional and just generally not good people in this book. In fact, there is not a single adult in the story that represents a positive role-model. I realize adults in YA books are meant to be peripheral characters at best, and are usually deeply flawed in order to allow the MC the freedom to have whatever adventure the book details, but still…

The biggest problem I saw with this book is that I closed it wondering why I read through the bloodshed and feeble characterizations. I finished it and genuinely wished I had skipped it and read something more worth my time instead.

1*/10

*The 1 is totally cuz of my pop culture crush on lake monsters, almost gave it a 2 because there was more than one monster, otherwise this book would have been 0 for 10.

Dead and Gone by Charlaine Harris

( 49 ) A Southern Vampire novel / Sookie Stackhouse book 9

I liked this one. It was, like all the other SV books, a pretty quick read. I don’t have anything deep to say, just a few random comments.  Yay for bulleted lists!

• I appreciated finally getting to learn more about Eric’s past.
• The scene with Quinn just didn’t jibe with the character he has been in previous books in the series. A good guy turning into a real jerk is nothing new, but doing so with little to no warning is irksome.
• The main plot point, the fae war, was resolved in a way that was both too pat and too simplistic for my taste (and kind of made me feel like my time was wasted paying attention to the politics, learning the names, etc).
• I love that Sookie is so real. She argues with herself about the morality of killing to survive, particularly killing someone actively trying to kill you. And I adore that she does it w/o getting all existential or angsty like some other paranormal heroines.
• It was dark.  Characters die in these books, it goes with the genre, but there was a LOT of it in this one. And many of them were unnecessary deaths (did nothing to significantly move the plot forward).WTH is up with introducing us to half a dozen new peeps just to kill em off?
• The torture. Okay, I don’t actually want to read detailed descriptions of torture, but this just rang false. There’s a lot of the character talking to herself about how she’ll never be the same again, but the experience is glossed to the point where suspension of disbelief became impossible, for me.
• Bill?  Come on, now, really? That’s all I have to say about that.

I liked it, I’ll read the next one in the series—from the library.

6/10