This was wonderful.
It was so great to read about a girl who felt so real, and so healthy.
This was fantastic, bizarre, tear-making, hope-filling, funny, and so very
very strange. It was a delight.Damien is an English 11 year old obsessed with saints and his dead mother,
and he finds a bag of cash, weeks before the pound switches to the euro. (Yeah,
I know- but go with it!)He and his 14 year old brother try to spend it all,
without their dad finding out.It was such an odd book, but I loved it.
Well, Haddix is so bang-you-over the head with the point, but this was pretty good anyway.
13 year old Jessie lives with her parents in 1840's Indiana, in a small frontier town. Children being dying of diptheria, and her mother, the town midwife, tells Jessie that she needs to get help from outside- that it's really 1996, and that their entire world is a tourist attraction, and that all the adults had volunteered to 'live in the 1840's" for various reasons of their own. Jessie has to deal with that, and with the modern world, to try to find out why they are being denied modern medicine.
Interesting idea, but Haddix isn't the kind of writer that makes it alive- the idea is great, the story is cool, but the words and dialogue feel stale and dated already. (the whole 1840's thing aside). Funnily enough though, I did watch that "Colonial House" show on PBS where the people volunteered to live like the Plymouth settlers, and wondered about the ethics involved with the kids on that show, so I guess Haddix was on to something.
Vey good book about the sexualization of young girls and the impact that marketing sexy to young girls can make on their futures. I'd say it was fantastic if I hadn't read it before, but I have, so it was kind of like, Yeah, I knew that, but if I hadn't known it already, I'd be filled with rage, you know what I mean?
From the book:
“12th DAY OF SEPTEMBER
I am commanded to write an account of my days: I am bit by fleas and plagued by family. That is all there is to say.”
This was so fantastic! I've been eyeing it for a few weeks and finally read it tonight- wonderful YA!
Now, I've read Jane Austen, but I've been baffled by the flood of Jane Austen based books lately- everything after Bridget Jones left me high and dry. But this was a blast- with teen female characters who I totally wanted to know, a romance that I wanted to work out, interesting characters and language, and it was so much fun. Yay!
I've been reading so much dystopian and suburban melodrama YA that it felt incredibly new and fresh to read about absolutely healthy people. Lovely.
Well, I was so excited when I saw this on the shelf- a new Joan Hess! But for a variety of reasons, it took me ages and ages to get through it, and by the time I was done with it, I not only didn't care who the killer was, I didn't remember who was dead.
This is, I think, for 2 reasons. I've been kind of half-brained lately (Thanks, Lab 257), but also, I don't enjoy Joan Hess's Claire Malloy books as much as the Arly Hanks series, which I adore. I don't know why, but I can't put down an Arly Hanks book, but Claire and Caron Who Talks In Capitals and Inez the dowdy poker-shark and especially stupid Peter drive me nuts. I can't stand the way they talk, I would drown Caron if I met her, and I wish Peter would be captured by terrorists so he wouldn't be so damn smug.
I think I sound vaguely deranged- but I've read a LOT of her books, and I suffer through the Claire Malloys hoping for more of her others, and I guess I've grown to feel strongly about the characters.
I might as well get the other Hess books out of the way and listed out here, while I'm at it. I reread the ones I have a lot in the bath, but unfortunately for me, I've read them so many times even I remember 'who done it'.
Claire Malloy books
Damsels in Distress
Out on a Limb
A Conventional Corpse
A Holly, Jolly Murder
Closely Akin To Murder
Busy Bodies
Death by the Light of the Moon
A Diet To Die For
A Really Cute Corpse
A Murder At The Murder At The Mimosa Inn
Strangled Prose
Arly Hanks books
Maggody and the Moonbeams
Murder @ Maggody
Miserly Loves Maggody
The Maggody Militia
Maggody in Manhattan
Malice in Maggody
Mischeif in Maggody
Muletrain to Maggody
Madness in Maggody
Much Ado in Maggody
O Little Town of Maggody
Miracles in Maggody
Malpractice in Maggody
Mortal Remains in Maggody
Classic Katie Fforde genteel real-estate porn- Anna purchases a crumbling Cotswolds cottage with an inheritance, and using her skills as a qualified interior designer, plans to fix it up herself. She needs to recreate an original staircase! She adopts a rescued greyhound! She has an entirely predictable romance! But oh, the house stuff leaves you (well, ok, me) drooling- all wide oak boards and limed walls, enclosed gardens and a third floor garret transformed into a bedroom with a walk in shower- ooooh, la la.
Wow. Very powerful but wildly depressing movie. Set in a dystopic England of 2027, this was a hell of a disturbing, all too easy to visualize future.
Women haven't had babies- anywhere- for 18 years. Terrorist attacks have destroyed most major cities. Britain is a locked down police state using constant surveilance to track and imprison illegal immigrants fleeing wrecked nations.
Clive Owen was amazing in this as Theo, and Michael Caine broke my heart in some of the tenderest scenes- I'm getting all choked up. Ack. Alfonso Cuaron directed the 1995 Little Princess and the 1998 Great Expectations, both of which I thought were wonderful, but I had no idea this would be so so heartbreaking and scary.
But seriously, this was HARD to watch- I paced around during a lot of it. Ouch.
Well, I read the first of these (cover pictured) before I started this blog, but I just read the two sequels Flawless and Perfect. The fourth, Incredible, will be published on the 27th of May, so I guess I'll read it once it's out.
YA, obvs, and kind of I know What You Did Last Summer crossed with The Clique with a little more sex. Murder, blackmail, and mayhem. Who is A who is tormenting Hanna, Emily, Aria and Spencer?
Right now I'm guessing it's Melissa, but I am almost definitely wrong- I never guess the right murderer, even in Mary Higgens Clark, where the murderers pretty much are named Killer McStabby, so that should put Melissa in the clear, then.
Ooooh, FANTASTIC. Bourne kicks ass.
I really love the whole Bourne series- it's like an American Bond. This one had some darker stuff too, behind it- I don't want to be a spoiler, although I think I might be the last person to see this movie who wanted to. Anyway, super fantastic kick ass action movie.
So Yesterday.
Scott Westerfeld rules. Smart, consumer-aware YA fic. I love it how he took the entire cool hunting viral marketing thing and made it read as creepy as it is.
Ok book by a psychiatrist who treated some special cases of obsessive and compulsive behaviour- the saddest was the case of a gambling addict- a former statistics professor who had moved with his wife from rural China to Las Vegas in search of a better life. He ended up a suicide. She ended up a highprice call girl. So sad.
Well, this was kind of awful, I thought. It was aimed at teachers, with advice from high school students for how to relate and get better behaviour from them- for reasons I will not go into, I hoped that I might get some ideas for how to... well, I'm not getting into that!
But as well intentioned as it was, and as touching as some of the students comments were, it just seemed kind of useless to me. Most of the stuff in it was pretty high school teacher specific, and of that, a lot of it just reminded me that teenagers really are kind of aggravating and lack common sense. The kid who said if school was all about animals, she'd be interested, because she wants to be a vet, well, really? What about, um, kids who don't want to be vets? And obviously this girl will never be a vet if she doesn't get her head out of her...
Yeah. Anyway.
Fun, pretty good YA.
Molly is being sued for 5,000,000 pounds.
The story of how she got there is funny, poignant, and rings true. Molly, Tara, and Jane decide to start a band- and despite only knowing three chords and one base line, the get to play a friend's party. They totally blow up from there.
The manipulation of image in rock and pop is pretty keenly covered here- the manipulation of the band members by unethical managers and uncaring roadies too.
Molly's voice rang very true here- enjoyable read.
Interesting if not thrilling flick about the fall of Enron.
Worth seeing just for the scenes of the Bush family interacting with the Enron people- fucking A, these people are sick sick sick.
It was really in depth and at the same time glossed over a lot of the actual hows of what exactly made anyone ever think Enron had a product worth selling - in many ways, the movie is a revelation in that no one anywhere actually seemed to think it was selling anything or had any assets other than it's hypothetical value.
Good but not great movie. I am surprised it was nominated for Best Documentary, because it really wasn't as good as others I have seen. I trust those people! I totally don't have time to watch a lot of movies so I'm kind of relying on that for advice as to what to watch.
Anyone know a better system for finding decent movies to watch?
Fantastic mystery. I've definitely read it before, but it ws such a treat to reread this one, because I had totally forgotten all the who-done-its.
Astonishing book, really- the heroine (in 1922!) (book published in 1924) makes her way to South Africa on her own, using all that is left of a small inheritace from her anthropoligist father, and upon getting to South Africa, promptly involves herself in all sorts of fun and frisky intrigue, up to and well beyond the point of social acceptability. She even surfs!
This is the kind of thing that makes me wish that English majors didn't focus so much on the "good" writers- like that bloody Virginia Woolf or that godawful Gertrude Stein. I mean, you want feminist literature from the 1920's? Look at Agatha Christie. Seriously- her female characters kick 40 kinds of ass, and there's no wan pining for "A Room with A View" from them- they go off to find a view, and if there isn't one, I bet they'd knock a hole in the wall to make one. And no "A rose is a rose is a rose" idiocy either. I do loathe that kind of pretentious crap. I do indeed.
Toast to Agatha Christie! (Who, may I point out, spent ages mucking about in what is now Iraq on archaeological digs at all the Tells. Nice going, girl!)
Good book, although I liked Lynas's High Tide better. He writes about the impact of each degree of global warming, and the changes across the world that would happen at every stage (6 degrees being the outer limit of what the IPCC is predicting).
The thing is, I think, that I've read so many of these books that even the most horrific consequences become kind of boring after a bit- like, ok, at 1 degree we lose Tuvalu and mountain frogs, and 2, that's it for polar bears and a lot of other mammals, at 3, the Amazon rainforests are dead and desert conditions reach up through Europe, and so on, until at 6 degrees, most of life is dead, and as well written as this book is, I don't think anyone gives a damn.
Howling into the void.
Excellent YA futuristic sci-fi set in a drowning world. Climate change has left the highlands of Scotland isolated islands in a vast sea, and the sea is rising rapidly. Mara Bel must leave Wing, the only home she has ever known, and lead her village to safety.
This was pretty kick-a**. Good love story, too.
Oh, how I love this book. I loved this book when I was a child, and my parents, incredibly, actually took me to Chincoteague so we could see the ponies swim, and oh, I still can't believe how lucky I was! It was magic.
I've been almost scared to re-read this one, afraid that it would lose some of it's goodness, but I can say that it didn't- I still cried at the end, probably a good 20+ years after I read it the first time.
Best horse book ever, for me- knocked Black Beauty and Black Stallion out of the water entirely. Black Beauty was too Victorian-miserable and Black Stallion was just too... eh.
Misty was the horse for me, and still is.
"British agent Alec Leamas refuses to come in from the cold war during the 1960s, choosing to face another mission, which may prove to be his final one." (Summary from IMDB)Fantastic Cold War spy movie with a dazzling amount of twists and double crossings. Heartbreaking. I've loved the book for ages, and always think of the end of the story every time I hear David Bowie's "Heroes". The kind of twisty, flip-floppy movie that makes you realize that by the time you are doing things as bad as your enemy, you are as bad as them yourself- much like Paradise Now, in fact.
It was a great Unicorn Chaser to that ridiculous zombie thing.
Lovely, warm story of 4 children who pool their allowances so that every fouth Saturday, one of them can go do something splendid.
Randi goes to see an art exhibit, Mona gets her hair bobbed, Rush goes to see the opera, and Tim goes to the circus, in an episodical book- great for reading to a child, I imagine.
A lonely old neighbor turns out to be full of exciting stories and to serve tea with petit fours, and all in all it's kind of a lovely and dreamy book. Before I make it sound too dementedly sappy, let me say too that while reading it I was all lulled along, and thinking how much easier this world seemed, peaceful and trustworthy and safe, and then boom
"What was it like when the world was peaceful, Cuffy?"
"Ah," said Cuffy, coming up again. "It seemed like a lovely world; anyway on top where it showed. But it didn't last long. First there was a long, bad, war, and then peace like the ham in a sandwich, and now a long, bad bad war again."
This was (predictably) pretty bad, but it was interesting for one major reason- the protagonist was definitely kind of dumb, which is so refreshing after reading YA book after YA book where the protagonists have all these hidden depths and motivations, and in their diaries/letters/blogs/whatever use startlingly good vocabulary words and even their friends often end up being bright and articulate behind their shells. This girl, Kelly, the dancer, really just wanted to dance and help her brother, who, although he ended up being surprisingly bright and articulate under his troubled shell, still didn't turn around and be all strivey and complicated, he wanted to go be a forest ranger and fight fires. It was just different.
I imagine that writers, being writers, have a hard time creating inarticulate voices, and that's just what this Kelly was- a kinda dumb girl who thought about her hair and looked around and danced and when she didn't like her strippery costumes, it was because the boob tape itched or something, not because of any (even buried or inarticulate) gender politics, and who never questioned why Darcy (Brittney Spears, y'all) was a better selling pop star than her rival, the vocally talented but skanky Pashmina (Christina Aguilera, FTW).
Yup. It really is a porno angel out of "inedible baker's clay". Rather, it is an "Angel pendant of inedible baker's clay by Vernon Koenig. In collection of Mrs. Spencer Mosely."
