Flight into Fantasy

Title: Tillmon County Fire
Author: Pamela Ehrenberg
Genre: contemporary young adult fiction
Source: Bookshare
Reason for Reading: I thought the synopsis looked interesting, and when I was reading this last week, I was looking for short, low-stress books to get me through the holidays. This book isn’t long, though I’m not sure it was a good choice if I wanted light reading.
Synopsis: Two teenagers in a small Appalachian town perform an anti-gay hate crime, which effects the rest of the teenagers in the town in various ways.

My Thoughts: I really liked the execution of this book. I love programs like This American Life, which tell very human, personal stories in a variety of ways. In some ways, I felt as if this book was a good example of a TAL episode given fictional form.

There’s not really much of a plot. We all know who started the fire, but the fun part of the book is trying to figure out why, and learning more about the motivations of each of the characters. And these kids are real. Their voices felt authentic to me, and I never once had to suspend my disbelief that I was reading about teenagers. (In fact, in the case of Amelia, who writes in txt speak and doesn’t bother with capitalization or much in the way of punctuation, they were a bit too real.

I enjoyed reading this book, but I also would have liked to see more. There wasn’t a whole lot to the story, and I felt like the characterization was a bit shallow. I would have liked to have seen a few scenes drawn out more fully. And there were storylines that I wasn’t sure should have been included, like Amelia’s online romance that goes very wrong, which lasts for pages and pages. I also didn’t quite think the final resolution worked for me. It made things a bit too easy, and since the book had been focusing a lot on the complications of the lives of these kids, having there be a simple explanation for it all made everything a bit too pat.

In the end, though I did enjoy this book, I think it was trying a bit too hard to tackle too many issues at once, and didn’t entirely succeed.

Final Thoughts: It was a good story, dealing with interesting issues in a thoughtful manner, but it tried too hard to cover too much and so it didn’t really work for me as well as it could, so I suspect I’ll end up forgetting about it.

Final Grade: C

Other Opinions

• Bookshelves of Doom

Title: The Story of Holly and Ivy
Author: Rumer Godden
Genre: Children’s fiction
Source: Bookshare
Reason for Reading: I went with a friend to go holiday shopping for her daughters, so of course we ended up at Toys R Us. She was looking in particular for a doll for one of her daughters, and I found myself remembering this book, which I’d read as a child.
Synopsis: This is a sentimental little Christmas story about a doll named Holly, who is desperate to be sold from Mr. Blossom’s toy shop and given to her special Christmas girl. It’s also about Ivy, an orphan who doesn’t get to go home with a nice family to spend the holidays, and about Mrs. Jones, the wife of a policeman, who wants to do something special for Christmas. All of these people will invariably meet, and, it being a holiday story, everyone eventually has a wonderful Christmas.

My Thoughts: I have very few holiday traditions that I have created myself. Reading holiday books is one of them. I actually read this last week, but I wasn’t going to review it until today, because at least today marks the beginning of the actual holidays.

This is a cute story. It’s heartwarming in the way that you want a Christmas book to be. Some readers may find it a tad mawkish, but this is a book that’s probably specifically targeted to young girls, so I imagine that comes with the territory. I liked it, though, and the whole time I was reading, I had a smile on my face.

Final Thoughts: A very good Christmas story to read to the children in your life.

Final Grade: B+

Other Opinions

• As Usual, I Need More Bookshelves

Title: Benighted
Author: Kit Whitfield
Genre: Urban fantasy
Source: I bought it.
Reason for Reading: Ms. Whitfield is a regular contributor to the comments at Slacktivist, which is one of my favorite blogs ever. I always think her posts are clever and insightful, so I was curious about her fiction.

Synopsis from Fictionwise:

It is a world much like our own, with one deadly difference: ninety-nine percent of the population is lycanthropic. When the full moon rises, humans transform into lunes, bloodthirsty beasts who cannot be reasoned with or tamed. Those few born unable to change are disparagingly known as barebacks, and live as victims of prejudice and oppression. All too often, they are targets of savage mauling and death by lunes who break the law to roam free on full-moon nights. Twenty something bareback Lola Galley is already a veteran of the Department for the Ongoing Regulation of Lycanthropic Activities. When her friend loses a hand to a marauding lune, then is murdered before the attacker is brought to trial, Lola is desperate to see justice prevail. But the truth is seldom simple–and Lola may not like the shocking answers she uncovers.

My Thoughts: First of all, you should know going into this book that this is not your standard, run-of-the-mill urban fantasy. Lola, our heroine, is an ass-kicking chick with something of a snarky sense of humor and a bad attitude, but from there, the similarities end. You’re not going to find shallow motivations and annoying love triangles here, and when Lola fucks up–as she does quite often–she really fucks up. I liked that Ms. Whitfield chose to make her characters completely accountable. All of their actions had consequences, and I never felt like she was piling on the angst for the sake of angst.

This is also not your typical UF because it’s not an easy book to read. It’s long, for starters, and it deals with some weighty issues, namely the actual, real consequences of prejudice, what it’s like to live as a minority, and how we can justify torture and mistreatment, even and most especially to ourselves. And in my book, actually having something to think about other than what love interest I should root for when it comes to my urban fantasy heroines is an awesome thing.

The plot unfolds gradually, at a pace that felt very organic to the story. The solution to the murder of Lola’s friend Johnny surprised me, and I appreciated that Lola was proactive when she went about doing her investigation, rather than simply letting things happen to her. However, what the plot doesn’t do is wrap everything up in a nice tidy ending. Some people will find that frustrating, but for me, it worked. While there are other questions that could be answered about Ms. Whitfield’s world, Lola’s story was done.

As for Lola the character, I’ve said a lot about her, but I don’t think I can sing her praises enough. It’s not that she’s especially likeable, but she is an antiheroine, and the world needs more of those. She actually reminded me quite a lot of Sirantha Jax in Ann Aguirre’s Grimspace books. Both women are profoundly messed up in the heads, both have undergone a lot in their short lives, and both of them have a lot of growing up to do during the course of their books. However, for Lola there really isn’t a happy romance. I know that’s a bit of a spoiler, but if you’re a romance reader picking this book up, you will probably want to know you’re not going to like the way her relationship turns out. I know I didn’t, but I also don’t think the story could have gone any other way, and I’m grateful that Ms. Whitfield chose a more realistic ending rather than going for something that would appease readers.

The world Ms. Whitfield created is also interesting. She never out and out uses the term “werewolves”, and I think that’s an interesting choice, because of the fact that everyone in this world with very few exceptions are lycanthropic, and they probably wouldn’t identify themselves as particularly monstrous. I also found the Department of the Regulation of Lycanthropic Activity, where Lola, being a non-lyco, works, to be an interesting place. The life of a non-lyco is very grim and nightmarish. (The descriptions of what goes on in the creches where non-lyco children stay during full moon nights are absolutely chilling.) And the absolute, blatant misuse of DORLA’s power is all the more chilling in general because it makes sense and feels like something that could happen in the real world.

Final Thoughts: Obviously, I loved this book. I am dying to read Ms. Whitfield’s second novel, because I really like what she has to say. If you’re looking for a dark, non-fluffy urban fantasy, I highly recommend it.

Final Grade: A

Other Opinions

• Scooper Speaks

• Callico Reaction
• Read for Pleasure
• Rape and Adverbs

Another late review. But I was kind of afraid to put this one out during the early part of the day in case the moral majority wanted to get all offended and leave nasty comments or something. LOL. I am paranoid, what can I say?

Title: Cunt: A Declaration of Independence
Author: Inga Muscio
Genre: Nonfiction
Source: Bookshare
Reason for Reading: The Women Unbound challenge. Also, when this book hit Bookshare, there was a bit of a kerfuffle because the volunteer who scanned the book didn’t think it should be marked as adult, but the site owners saw differently. So, of course, naturally I had to put my two cents in, because we all know mine is the ultimate authority, right? …Right?
Synopsis:

An ancient title of respect for women, the word “cunt” long ago veered off this noble path. Inga Muscio traces the road from honor to expletive, giving women the motivation and tools to claim “cunt” as a positive and powerful force in their lives. In this fully revised edition, she explores, with candidness and humor, such traditional feminist issues as birth control, sexuality, jealousy between women, and prostitution with a fresh attitude for a new generation of women. Sending out a call for every woman to be the Cuntlovin’ Ruler of Her Sexual Universe, Muscio stands convention on its head by embracing all things cunt-related. This edition is fully revised with updated resources, a new foreword from sexual pioneer Betty Dodson, and a new afterword by the author. “Bright, sharp, empowering, long-lasting, useful, sexy….”–San Francisco Chronicle. “… Cunt provides fertile ground for psychological growth.”–San Francisco Bay Guardian. “Cunt does for feminism what smoothies did for high-fiber diets–it reinvents the oft-indigestible into something sweet and delicious.”–Bust Magazine.

My Thoughts: As far as I’m concerned, if you’re likely to pick up this book, you are already more receptive to Muscio than the readers of this blog who took one look at the title and decided to go read something else. I know that’s certainly true for me. I’m a strong feminist, and so I was predisposed to enjoy this book.

For the most part, I did. It was a quick read, and provided me with a lot of food for thought. I was fascinated by the greener and more woman-centric ideas she presents for sanitary napkins, and I kind of want to invest in some sea sponges now. I also really liked what she had to say about rape–namely that self-defense is important and that we shouldn’t be supporting rape in the media. It happened that after I read this book, I happened to watch the movie “Revolutionary Road”, and I thought of Muscio when I got to the scene where Leonardo DiCaprio’s character gets a woman who is not his wife drunk and then has sex with her. I was bothered by the sleaziness of that scene, and though it wasn’t an out and out rape scene, I found myself thinking that Muscio wouldn’t have approved of it.

That all being said, there was a lot of this book that I couldn’t embrace. I was bothered by Muscio’s distrust of modern medicine, because, though she’s right that it’s hardly a woman-centric field, I’m a skeptic and I just don’t believe that most people would be able to induce their own abortions with only visualization and some herbs. Call me a horrible tool of the patriarchy, but I’d rather put my trust in something I knew would work rather than something I hoped would work. Also, I do shop at Wal-Mart and other big box stores, and Muscio just had to put in a random little rant about how important it is to shop locally. Sure it is, but not all of us can do it, and it’s one of those things I am tired unto death of being lectured about by people who just don’t get that I would if I could. But that’s not really Muscio’s fault.

I also found Muscio’s writing style to be more than a little off-putting. She writes in a plain-folksy way, and uses words like “lordisa” at regular intervals. It all felt rather more affected than I think she was going for, and everytime “lordisa” showed up I was yanked out of what she was writing.

As to the question of this book being appropriate for young adults: Yes, it really is. Muscio’s message is very sex-positive, pro-women, pro-cunt, and empowering. It’s a message that I think teenagers would get a lot out of.

Overall, I think this book made me a little more cunt-loving, and it certainly made me think. But, again, you know whether this is the sort of book you would read better than I do. If you’re not likely to appreciate the basic premise, give it a miss. If you are, I think you’ll get something out of it.

Final Grade: B-

Other Opinions

• Adventures in Reading

2010 is really going to be the year of the reading challenges. I like that fact, because it means I get an excuse to reread all kinds of favorite books, plus I get to discover new authors in genres I wouldn’t have looked at otherwise.

I’m probably seriously overcommitting, too, but oh well. It’s all good.

Here are the challenges I’ve found out about this past week that I want to join.

First, we have something that’s not so much a challenge as a readalong. Kailana, one of my favorite bookish bloggers, is hosting a readalong of the Time Quartet by Madeleine L’Engle. Participating bloggers will be reading one book a month for the first part of 2010. The books consist of:

• A Wrinkle in Time

• A Wind in the Door
• A Swiftly Tilting Planet
• Many Waters
• An Acceptable Time

Kailana and I were also talking about reading House Like a Lotus and Arm of the Starfish I love House Like a Lotus and so will definitely reread that. Not sure about Arm of the Starfish, though, as it was one of my least favorite books in that interconnected arc.

I also discovered the 18th and 19th century women writers challenge hosted by Becky, who I seriously don’t think ever sleeps owing to the fact that she’s always got a million books on the go. That’s beside the point, though. The idea is to read at least two books in 2010 written by women writers of the 18th and 19th century. Here’s what I’m thinking about for this one.

• Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

• Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
• Eight Cousins by Louisa May Alcott

Next up we have the GLBT Reading Challenge. This one goes throughout 2010 as well, and I think I’m going to go for the pink triangle level, in which I read at least eight books. Given the amount of M/M romances I have yet to read, this one should be a breeze. My tentative reading list looks like this:

• Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters

• Everything You Have is Mine by Sandra Scoppettone
• Safe Harbor by Radclyffe
• The Adrian English Mysteries by Josh Lanyon (I have an omnibus of the first three, and I own the rest)
• False Colors by Alex Beecroft
• The Good Thief by James Buchanan

Next up is a challenge I would have participated in anyway, considering my reading preferences of late. I bring you the 2010 Young Adult reading challenge. I think I’ll try to read at least 25 books for this challenge, which, considering my love of YA, should be easy to accomplish.

Whew! I think that’s about it for this round of challenges. There is at least one more I’m excited about joining, but the website’s not up yet, so I’m going to have to learn patience.

Am I forgetting other challenges? Let me know in the comments.

Title: Christy
Author: Catherine Marshall
Genre: Historical fiction, religious fiction
Source: Bookshare
Reason for Reading: I’d actually read this book when I was young, and found myself thinking about it because of My Friend Amy and the Christy Awards challenge. It occurred to me that this book qualifies as Christian fiction I’d very much enjoyed reading when I first read it, and so I thought I’d give it another go.
Synopsis: Christy Huddleston, a young woman living in Asheville, North Carolina, is inspired by a talk given at a revival meeting to volunteer for mission work. This brings her to teach school at Cutter Gap, Tennessee, an isolated Appalachian village. There, she must deal not only with the people’s impoverishment, but with greater dangers as well, from blockade runners to feuds to typhoid.

My Thoughts: I think what most bothers me about my idea of Christian fiction is that in Christian fiction, the characters have all the answers. Or if they don’t have all the answers, all they need to do is zap a prayer up to the Almighty and answers will come at convenient moments. I know that’s not a fair assumption on my part, but that’s what sticks in my mind from the bad Christian fiction I have read.

That being said, I was pleasantly surprised by how lacking in the answers this book actually is. Christy struggles with faith a lot, mostly in defining what her faith is for herself, but also in questioning what God means for her to do, and, though she gets answers that work for her, I never felt that Ms. Marshall was preaching or prosselitizing. This book’s faith, like the moral center of the Cutter Gap mission, Alice Henderson, is quiet and reflective and not at all pushy. Not to say that it isn’t there or it isn’t important, but the spiritual bits are woven seamlessly into the text. I was reminded of the way one of my other favorite authors, Madeleine L’Engle, handles spirituality. It’s there, and it’s important, but you can enjoy her books without believing necessarily in her God.

That all aside, I loved this book. Christy was a very relatable character, and I found it easy to root for her as she comes of age in the mountains. She’s very much a product of her upbringing, but she proves to be made of very stern stuff. The other characters, from the young preacher, David Grantland, who isn’t sure how he can best preach to the mountain people, to the gentle Miss Alice, to the children Christy teaches, to the other mountain folk, are drawn with equal care and depth. I was pleasantly surprised by how many of them I remembered from my first reading of this book, and how many of the details about them had stuck with me.

Ms. Marshall brings the Apalachians to life beautifully with this book, and I wanted to go traipsing through them with Christy and Fairlight spencer. I also appreciated that she genuinely loved the people and their way of life. They aren’t noble savages, and have as many good and bad qualities as anyone else.

Final Thoughts: This is just a lovely, quiet, introspective book, a comfort read if ever there was one. Highly recommended.

Final Grade: A

Other Opinions

Have you read this book and reviewed it? If so, link me in the comments!

Title: Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen
Author: Julie Powell
Genre: nonfiction/memoir
Source: Bookshare
Reason for Reading: I saw the recent movie made of this book. Since it was a movie about a blogger, I naturally loved it, and so hunted down the book, hoping it would be just as fun as the movie.
Synopsis:

With the humor of Bridget Jones and the vitality of Augusten Burroughs, Powell recounts how she conquered every recipe in Julia Child’s “Mastering the Art of French Cooking”–and saved her soul.

My Thoughts: I read this book while I was battling round 2 of the Killer Sinus Infection from Hell (TM). I wanted something that would take me away from myself, and this book certainly did the trick. I will never, in a million years, do anything like what Powell undertook. My idea of fancy cooking involves plugging in the crockpot. Also, though I am not a small woman, I’m not really much of a foodie. But, all that being the case, it was fun to read about Ms. Powell’s adventures in the kitchen. I also found her imaginings about Julia Child fascinating. Julia Child was obviously a very interesting person.

I do have to say, though, that I wasn’t entirely in love with this book. Ms. Powell shares a lot of deeply personal information about her friends and family. Even if what she says is true about her making most of it up and changing the details, I still felt uncomfortable getting such a close look at the lives of strangers I didn’t know. There were several points at which I just wanted to skim past her commentary on her friends and felt kind of embarrassed for said friends, reading about themselves in this way. I also didn’t really like the persona Ms. Powell presents us with. She seemed a little hysterical, a little crazy, and a lot high-maintenance. Plus, the Republican bashing was gratuitous, even to this non-Republican reader.

In the end, though, I guess I’m just disappointed the book wasn’t more like the movie, which isn’t really fair. I did enjoy it, for the most part, for its humor, its descriptions of the foibles of cooking, and its insights into Julia Child.

Final Thoughts: If you’re a foodie, or if you enjoyed the recent movie, definitely pick this one up. Recommended.

Final Grade: B-

Other Opinions:

• A Guy’s Moleskine Notebook: He didn’t like it at all.

• At Home with Books: She felt about the same as I did.
• Books, Movies and Chinese Food: mostly positive

I really should stop. And yet… My philosophy is: If I was going to read the books anyway, I might as well sign up for more challenges.

This time, courtesy of Arti, who, it turns out, I knew briefly before I started blogging, we have the flashback challenge. The idea is to reread books we’ve read in the past. I think I’m going to go for the literati level, which involves rereading six or more books.

I may change my list, but here’s what I’m thinking of.

Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder
• My Antonia by Willa Cather
• The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
• A Swiftly Tilting Planet by Madeleine L’Engle
• Dolores Claybourne by Stephen King
• The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnette

Any favorite books you’ve been meaning to reread but haven’t managed?

I meant to put this review up earlier today, but I was sick all weekend, so my posting has continued to suck. Oh well, better late than never, right?

Title: Nature’s Pentacle
Author: Eden Rivers
Genre: Paranormal erotic romance
Source: I bought it.
Reason for Reading: One of the book’s sequels caught my eye, and I like to start series at the beginning.
Synnopsis:

After someone exposes their role in a forbidden, sexual rite to heal the parched earth, Matt and Lena are forced to flee vigilantes and a rogue witch. Drawn to each other despite Matt’s ties to Kenji, the man who rescued him from a troubled past, they’re swept into a ménage, and the three witches exchange magical traits in an explosion of power and passion. As Matt and Lena face another pentacle rite, a violent kidnapping, and a magical duel, their attachment deepens–and so does Kenji’s resentment at losing Matt. The addition of another witch to the group eases Kenji’s jealousy, and sparks fly when the foursome mingles sex and magic on the kitchen floor, carrying them finally, to the love they never imagined they’d find.

Publisher’s Note: This book contains explicit sexual content, graphic language, and situations that some readers may find objectionable: Anal play/intercourse, dominance, male/male sexual interaction, ménage (m/m/m/f), multiple partners, voyeurism.

My Thoughts: I’ve been seriously burned out on romances in general for several months, but I’ve had this book on my TBR pile for ages. I thought it looked hot, and the bits I’d read were intriguing. But maybe I’m not quite over my burnout, because this ebook didn’t work for me as well as I’d hoped.

First, the characters. Matt and Lena and Kenji are nice enough people, but, a few days after reading the book, I find that I can’t remember much about who they are. I do think Lena, in particular, had an interesting past, but I wish more had been done with it, or that it mattered at all. It’s the reason she doesn’t want to commit fully to Matt, but in the end, that wasn’t dealt with, and the reader is left knowing the characters are together only for a little while. While that may be true to real life, it’s unsatisfying in a romance.

It doesn’t help that the two main characters lack chemistry. There was a distant quality to the writing that made it impossible for me to connect with either Matt or Lena. Also, this is one of those stories in which there’s a lot of sex. I have no problems with sex, but not all of it felt significant, and after a while, my reaction was one of boredom rather than real interest. This is especially troubling since some of the sex scenes (particularly the aforementioned orgy scene and some of the scenes with Kenji, Matt and Lena) felt tacked on for the purpose of titilation. The main couple are fairly vanilla, and I kept wondering what in the world was wrong with that. Vanilla’s a perfectly good thing, you know!

This book is marketed as a multicultural romance. I really wish I’d found anything multicultural about it, other than that Kenji, Matt’s ex-lover and someone else with whom Lena has sex, is half-Japanese. I wish that had actually meant something in terms of the world-building. I would have liked to have read about a more Eastern sort of witchcraft, but alas, that didn’t happen, and again, I was left wondering what the point was. In fact, the whole witchcraft angle didn’t seem particularly new or refreshing. I’ve read about witches who heal the world through sex before, and these witches weren’t noticeably different from the normal witchy stereotypes.

There were things I did like. I like that Ms. Rivers starts out with a bang (literally, heh) and keeps the action going. There’s not a lot of time to pause and info-dump, and this gave the story a fast-paced tension that I liked. I also liked the fact that the setup for future books felt authentic rather than forced, though I’m not sure that I’m so inclined to keep going.

Final Thoughts: I would have liked this book better if I’d been able to connect with any of the characters, and if there hadn’t been so many seemingly gratuitous sex scenes.

Final Grade: C-

Other Opinions

I couldn’t find other reviews for this book. Let me know if I’ve missed yours!

To my regular readers: This is not exactly a book-related post. You can feel free to skip it if you like.

For the curious, Yuletide is a huge fanfiction exchange in which participants write stories about obscure fandoms for one another. I participated last year, and the experience was awesome. I promise not to flood my blog with yuletide posts, and, probably, this will be the only one I post. So, if the idea of fanfiction doesn’t appeal to you or you want to argue about its legality, feel free to skip.

That being said…

To my Yuletide Author:

First of all, you are awesome for taking on this challoenge. The fact that you write anything for me at all will make me ecstatic. However, I realize I wasn’t very verbose on my official sign-up sheet, (I had this problem last year, sadly), so I figured I’d go into more detail.

First of all: Flowers in the Attic. If this is the one fandom we have in common, I apologize. I enjoy reading really bad books for the sheer hilarity of torturing other people with them, which is how I came to read FITA. I realize asking someone to write me crackfic for a series I love to hate isn’t exactly fair, and if these are your favorite books of all time, you probably shouldn’t read further on my blog lest my snark about them make you sad. That’s why I’m looking for something funny and cracky. I’m flexible about pairings, and I can handle smut, but I mostly just want someone to reach for the full potential of crack that these books provide. I have read Flowers in the Attic and Petals on the Wind, but have no intention to read any of the others. I hope that gives you a bit of a frame of reference to go on.

For the Madeleine L’Engle canon, I’m flexible. I really love Meg/Calvin, and would love to see something featuring them as young people, first discovering their romance. Then again, something with a Zachary and Polly post- An Acceptable Time would be fun, too. Basically, you can’t go wrong with any of the characters in this series, because I love them all.

Lastly, the Millennium Trilogy. Oh, Lisbeth. She is probably my favorite character in all of the books I’ve read this year. She is such a well-rounded character, with her brilliant mind but horrible past, her single-minded determinedness and her inability to quite cope with the softer emotions. I’d love to see someone do her justice. Again, I’m flexible, so if you feel inspired toward fluff or angst or smut or het or slash or whatever, just go for it. I will love it regardless.

Overall, I enjoy strong characterization–particularly of female characters. I like getting inside the heads of the characters I’m reading about and seeing how they tick. I love schmoopiness, and I love fluff, especially if they make sense in the context of the story. Obviously, I enjoy humor and a bit of crack as well, provided, of course, that it makes sense in context.

As for dislikes, I’d prefer not to read about graphic violence, or lovingly detailed torture scenes. I’m also not a huge fan of rape as a dramatic element, and prefer not to read it. Other than that, and the obvious desire to read a story that’s gramatically correct, I’m pretty flexible.

I hope this gives you enough to work with.

Thanks once again!

Shannon

Title: The Tea Rose
Author: Jennifer Donnelly
Genre: historical fiction
Source: I bought it.
Reason for Reading: I thought the premise looked interesting. I like the idea of family sagas, and rags-to-riches stories, and the sequel, The Winter Rose looks amazing, too.
Synopsis:

East London, 1888–a city apart. A place of shadow and light where thieves, whores, and dreamers mingle, where children play in the cobbled streets by day and a killer stalks at night, where bright hopes meet the darkest truths. Here, by the whispering waters of the Thames, a bright and defiant young woman dares to dream of a life beyond tumbledown wharves, gaslit alleys, and the grim and crumbling dwellings of the poor. Fiona Finnegan, a worker in a tea factory, hopes to own a shop one day, together with her lifelong love, Joe Bristow, a costermonger’s son. With nothing but their faith in each other to spur them on, Fiona and Joe struggle, save, and sacrifice to achieve their dreams. But Fiona’s dreams are shattered when the actions of a dark and brutal man take from her nearly everything–and everyone–she holds dear. Fearing her own death at the dark man’s hands, she is forced to flee London for New York. There, her indomitable spirit-and the ghosts of her past-propel her rise from a modest west side shopfront to the top of Manhattan’s tea trade. Fiona’s old ghosts do not rest quietly, however, and to silence them, she must venture back to the London of her childhood, where a deadly confrontation with her past becomes the key to her future. The Tea Rose is a towering old-fashioned story, imbued with a modern sensibility, of a family’s destruction, of murder and revenge, of love lost and won again, and of one determined woman’s quest to survive and triumph.

Soundtrack: This book made me think of a piece that Irish musicians Mick Moloney, Robby O’Connell and Sean Keen put together called “The Green Fields of America” which is a medley of songs about primarily Irish immigrants to America.

My Thoughts: There will be those among my readers who won’t like this book. I was not one of these people, but I figured I would put the problems people might have out front. Fiona, our erstwhile heroine, suffers from something of a Mary Sue streak. She is anachronistically strong, indomitable, and direct. The good guys all love her. The bad guys, not so much. None of this bothered me about Fiona, because I was charmed by her, but I can see how she might bother others. Also, the romance here is not one of the more sophisticated offerings in that genre. Most of what keeps Fiona and Joe apart are external forces, and there are times when the only thing that keeps them apart is the author’s machinations.

Here’s the thing, though. I was so charmed by this whole story that, even though I recognized these flaws, I still enjoyed it. I mean, why even read a story about a woman’s rise to power and glory if you’re sensitive about Mary Sue characters?

I did like Fiona a lot. I felt that her Mary Sue qualities were more than offset by the sheer amount of crap she has to go through in the course of the novel. For the most part, she was smart and ambitious, and not at all “feisty” or silly. Ms. Donnelly takes her time showing Fiona’s rise in social status, so I was convinced it was all very plausible.

The rest of the characters are great, too. I felt like I was being privileged to watch the lives of these interesting people, and I felt as if I’d been welcomed into their confidences. I cared about a lot of them, not just Fiona and Joe, but the rest of Fiona’s family, her friends, and Joe’s family as well. I never felt that Ms. Donnelly was trotting out all the stuff she’d learned in her research, but I could tell that she had done a lot of research, because it all felt so natural and authentic. I could smell the tea, I could hear the sounds of the market where Joe first sells his produce, and I was swept away by the hustle and bustle of New York.

Though Amazon says this book is 768 pages long, it was a quick read. I even finished the last quarter of it during off time while I was hanging out on campus, something I rarely do except for books I’m loving. The plot was engaging, and though it wasn’t particularly innovative or original, I was so captivated by the characters that I didn’t care. I also loved that Ms. Donnelly introduced Jack the Ripper as an important background character. Now I want to read more about Jack, and people’s theories about him.

There is a sequel to this book, The Winter Rose , and it features a minor character from The Tea Rose, whose identity was a complete surprise to me. I’m definitely going to read it sooner than later.

Final Thoughts: This isn’t a perfect book, but it gets a high grade from me because I was engaged with the story. I loved Fiona, I loved Joe, I loved watching them triumph over the horrible things in their lives, and I can’t wait to encounter them again.

Final Grade: A-

Other Opinions

• Literate Housewife

• Fyrefly’s Book Blog
• Outlandish Dreamings

I was going through my reading challenge list, and realized I’ve actually mostly completed the Herding Cats challenge. I’ve read five books on the official master list, of which I have reviewed only one in any meaningful way. I plan to use the list for recs so that I can hopefully review more books and therefore count myself as a real participant. The sad thing about my lack of real reviews is that my favorite book so far this year, Tender Morsels was on the Herding Cats list. And… I haven’t reviewed it. Mostly because I don’t think I have the words to express how much I loved it other than simply squeeing like an imbicilic fangirl.

But, despite a lack of reviews, reading 5 out of a 163 book recs list is pretty cool, so yay for that!

Anyway, last night, while blogsurfing, I ran across yet another challenge I can’t resist joining. I present the countdown 2010 challenge.

Here are the requirements:

• The goal of this challenge is to read the number of books first published in a given year that corresponds to the last digit of each year in the 2000s — 10 books from 2010, 9 books from 2009, 8 books from 2008, etc. The total number of books required, therefore, is 55.

• This challenge lasts from 9/9/09 through 10/10/10.
• Crossovers with other challenges are allowed and your lists may change at any time.
• Sign up using Mr. Linky.
• Have fun reading!

I figure this won’t be all that stressful, and though I do like the idea of reading challenges broadening my horizons, I’m not so fond of ones that I’m going to look at as homework.

Anyway, at least for now, that’ll be it on the reading challenge front.

Title: Kristy’s Great Idea: Babysitters Club 1
Author: Ann M Martin
Genre: children’s fiction
Source: Bookshare
Reason for Reading: My friend Amy is hosting a BSC week. To be honest, I hadn’t thought about the BSC in years, and hadn’t read any of the books since I was the target age, but I thought the nostalgia trip would be fun.

Synopsis: This is the first book in the series, and is where it all began. After Kristy Thomas’s mom is forced to call all around town looking for a babysitter, Kristy decides it’d be more efficient if she just had to call one place at a certain time and reach several babysitters. Thus is born the concept of the Babysitters Club, which she begins with her friends, Claudia (Japanese-American, fashion-obsessed but bad in school), Stacy (sophisticated New York girl moved to Stonybrook), and Mary Ann (shy girl with an overprotective father.) The club has a few problems right away, including the fact that Stacy’s got a secret, not all the parents are particularly honest, and Kristy’s home life is going through some changes.
Soundtrack: the theme from the short-lived TV series
My Thoughts: When I was nine or ten and these books were hugely popular, I encountered the usual problem of not being able to access them. I know Mom read a few of the books to me, and I think I read one of them in Braille that someone got me as a gift, but I didn’t read as many as I’d like, and I never read the first book in the series. Fast forward not quite 20 years, and books are much more readily available, so I thought I’d start at the beginning.

As a reader, I’ve also grown much more cynical, and so I was prepared to roll my eyes, make a few snarky comments and be done, since this is part of a franchise which contained hundreds of titles when all is said and done, and that kind of series isn’t exactly going to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. I was pleasantly surprised by how much I liked this book, though. Sure, the writing isn’t exactly OMG wonderful, but I thought the girls were believable 12-year-olds. I liked Kristy’s impulsiveness and determination, and I especially liked reading about the change in her relationship with Watson, who becomes her stepfather in later books. There’s enough poignancy to make me feel for her, but not enough that I feel like I’m reading an issue book.

The rest of the cast is familliar, and the things I remember about the BSC girls are started here as well. There’s Claudia with her, ahem, interesting and unique style. There’s Mary Ann, with the requisite pigtails and strict father, and Stacy with her New York sophistication. And here again, there’s surprising depths. I liked that Kristy doesn’t really get Claudia and Stacy, and that one of the reasons she started the club was to try not to drift away from Claudia, who is acting much more grown-up these days. Yet again, the struggles between Kristy and her friends were portrayed realistically.

There were definitely things I didn’t like. A lot of the scene transitions didn’t quite work, making me feel that the book was a bit frenetic. And I was left with questions like: How did the girls all get enough time with the club notebook to write down their experiences? What happened if all of the babysitters were busy on a particular day? Does Claudia ever get grounded so the BSC can’t hold meetings at her house? But I feel a little bit mean wondering these things, since they’re not really important to the overall story. It also doesn’t help that I was reading this book during my brief hatefest with V C Andrews, so by comparison, Ann M Martin is a wonderful writer!

Final Thoughts: This isn’t a perfect book, by any means, but it’s a great start to a successful franchise. I found it engaging and enjoyable, and while I’m not particularly compelled to read more BSC books, I’m glad I read this one.

Final Grade: B

Other Opinions

Have you reviewed this book? If so, leave a comment with a link!

I’ve been thinking of joining a couple more challenges, both of which are quite different in scope, and so I thought I would use this opportunity to announce my participation in both.

First of all, My Friend Amy, who is among my very favorite bloggers, is helping to organize the Christy Awards Challenge. This challenge celebrates quality Christian fiction, and I admit to being one of those bloggers who’s really, really not sure about that kind of thing. I mean, I read Slacktivist, who does a regular feature deconstructing the Left Behind series, the first book of which I tried to read and couldn’t finish and aside from Narnia when I was a kid and certain classics now that I’m in school, I haven’t read anything else. I’m also a pretty staunch agnostic, and, what with people constantly offering to pray for my immortal soul because God chose to punish me with blindness, I’m not such a huge fan of prosseletizing.

But I don’t want to dismiss an entire genre of fiction out of hand because I don’t have experience with it. I expressed my desire to try some non-preachy Christian fiction on twitter several months ago, with the caveat that I refuse to read anything written by either Tim LaHaye or Jerry B. Jenkins, because I’m fairly sure people watching my head explode would not be nearly so entertaining for me as for other people. And so the Christy Awards challenge (which, alas, does feature several books by Messrs. LaHaye and Jenkins) seemed like the perfect opportunity to find some Christian fiction I’d like.

There are several levels to the challenge, and I’m going to start at the total Christian fiction newbie, which requires me to read… count them… one book. I figure I can’t go wrong with such a non-rigorous amount of work. The one I’ve chosen is Phillip Gulley’s Home to Harmony , because friends of mine were reading that series together on a long car trip. I got to hear parts of one of the books, and found them quite funny. Plus, I believe the minister character is a Quaker, and if I were to embrace any sort of spiritual path at this point in my life, I think I’d pick liberal Quaker.

The other challenge I’m signing up for comes to us from Booking Mama, a blog I wasn’t following until I heard about this challenge from… some other person I have forgotten. She’s hosting the Shelf Discovery Challenge. I recently read Shelf Discovery and adored looking back nostalgically at the books I’d read from my childhood. (I read it during the time when I was woefully behind in my reviews, so suffice to say the book is awesome and you should read it.)

Anyway, this challenge runs from Nov. 1-April 30, and I’m to read six books featured in Shelf Discovery. So here are my tentative picks.

• Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh

• The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin (reread)
• Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George
• A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett
• Wifey by Judy Blume
• My Sweet Audrina by V C Andrews (this last because apparently I am a huge, huge masochist and don’t know when to quit.

To connect these two challenges together, the friend who read the Phillip Gulley books is a huge children’s book fan, and so after I read Shelf Discovery I emailed her and told her, quite strongly, that she should run, not walk, to acquire a copy of the book for herself. I know that she did, but sadly, I have no idea if she enjoyed the book as much as I did.

Yet again, this review will contain spoilers. If for some reason you want to encounter the Dollangangers pure and unsullied, you should not read further.

Title: Petals on the Wind: The Dollanganger Saga, Book 2
Author: V C Andrews
Genre: Gothic horror/WTF trainwreck
Source: Bookshare
Reason for Reading: You know, that’s a really good question. Let’s just call it trainwreck syndrome and leave it at that.
Synopsis: This book picks up exactly where Flowers in the Attic left off. Chris and Cathy make it to North Carolina, where they are taken in by Paul Sheffield, who it turns out raped his first wife and screwed around on her, and yet who is the least dispicable man in the entire series. Chris becomes a doctor, Cathy begins her dancing career, and Carrie graduates to the position of complete tragic figure. Oh, and Cathy manages to take revenge on her mother by… sleeping with her stepfather and having his baby.

My Thoughts: I’ll give Flowers in the Attic some credit. It was a bad book, but there was something cheesy in its badness that made it strangely compelling reading. In this sequel, any sense of fun I had with the story is gone, and I’m not entirely sure how come I managed to finish it. Also, a reader has to have a heart of stone not to have some pity for four kids locked in an attic for years, but the sympathy doesn’t last when at least the character narrating the events of the story is a complete sociopath. What makes it worse is that we are supposed to gloat over Cathy’s mastery of everyone around her, from her brother (who is still in love with her! Ick!) to her stepfather, to her mother and grandmother at the end. Reading this book was an absolute chore, but I was determined I’d see it through to the end.

In my review of Flowers in the Attic I mentioned that I was bothered by a really troubling and very explicit misogynist streak in the text. This is here in spaids as well. Cathy is constantly playing games with the men in her life, alternately seducing and then pplaying hard to get. It’s worse in this book, though, because it’s also clearly Cathy’s fault when Julian, the dancer she first marries, hurts her. After all, she provokes him, and people actually tell her that she needs to stay with him or he’ll kill himself. When she doesn’t heed this advice, Julian gets into a terrible accident and eventually does end up killing himself. As I read, I kept wondering if any teenagers reading this book, struggling with their burgeoning sexuality, actually think relationships between adults are like this? Because seriously, Cathy should have gotten the hell away from Julian long before he conveniently died.

Also, Paul Sheffield, the doctor who takes the Dollanganger kids in, has a terrible past. See, something horrible happened to his wife so she hated sex, so what does Paul do? He rapes her, because he is a man and he has needs, you know. It’s implied that it was Paul’s wife’s fault for not getting over herself, and it was further her fault when Paul slept around with young girls. Just… ugh.

The revenge Cathy exacts is also painful to read about, because not a whole lot happens. Cathy and her mom shout backstory at each other, then the house catches on fire, and that’s pretty much that. There was also a painful scene in which Cathy whipped her helpless grandmother, which, rather than being cathartic at all, was just so very wrong on so many different levels.

Final Thoughts: I hated this book. It was a chore to read, most of its characters were completely unlikeable, and I was really bothered by how much the author clearly seems to hate her own gender. The train wreck syndrome doesn’t make this book worth pursuing.
Final Grade: F

Other Opinions

• Mrs. Giggles, whose opinion is very different from mine

P.S. Oddly enough, the book I started reading after I finished POTW was Jennifer Donnelly’s The Tea Rose. It’s another rags-to-riches story featuring an indomitable heroine successfully gaining revenge over the people that did her wrong. However, it’s a much better book, because I like Fiona and she’s not a sociopath. Plus, there’s no incest. Always a good thing.

So it’s been a crazy week here in Chez Shannon.

Early this week, I resigned from my reviewing commitment at The Good, the Bad and the Unread. I love that I got to review over there, but I didn’t have the time to devote to writing for two blogs in addition to being a full-time student. In addition, I’ve been feeling really burned out on romances lately. I haven’t read one in a while that I thought was a keeper, and I slowly want to ease back into reading them. This happens to me a lot. I’m not meant to be a one-genre reader, and I don’t quite get people who can do that.

I also had a brief struggle to find a way to use Net Galley, which I thought would be a useful resource. But sadly, I was stymied by DRM it is illegal for me to strip which makes the books unreadable. This actually nearly caused me to write up a whiny blog post, before I reminded myself that it didn’t matter. My blog is small potatoes. I’m content with it remaining so, since this is largely something I do for my own enjoyment and I have enough homework. I’d much rather campaign for e-arcs I really want, which is a relatively small number, and read what I want the rest of the time, whether it was recently published or not.

As I posted a few days ago, I’m participating in the Women Unbound challenge. I have several of my books ready to go, and I am excited to participate. I also really love that there’s this whole community on twitter who is doing the challenge, which will make it more fun.

Anyway, there’s an opening meme for the challenge, so here are my answers below.

1. What does feminism mean to you? Does it have to do with the work sphere? The social sphere? How you dress? How you act?

I think it means all of those things. For me, feminism is all about finding our voices and using them, as often as possible and as bluntly as we can. It’s about not being ashamed of those things that make us female, and not participating in shame of others. It’s not about fucking the patriarchy, bringing the man down, or making it so that men can never ever have fun again, which is what people who oppose feminism seem to think it is. I believe there are issues feminists face in the work and social spheres, and I think they’re all important.

2. Do you consider yourself a feminist? Why or why not?

Absolutely I consider myself a feminist. I’ve always found the complications of gender fascinating. And the more I read about the feminist movement, how far it’s come and what still needs work, the more I identify with it. Also, I’m a left-leaning tree-hugging pinko commie liberal, so feminism naturally follows from that. LOL.

3. What do you consider the biggest obstacle women face in the world today? Has that obstacle changed over time, or does it basically remain the same?

Honestly, I think the biggest obstacle women face is dealing with our own issues. I ran across the term internalized oppression in my social work classes last year, and I think that’s exactly what I’m talking about. Statements like, “I don’t have any girl friends because they’re all such catty bitches.” are all too common. Assuming implicitly or explicitly that a woman’s worth is tied up in whether or not she has a man and can keep him still goes on today. In fact, if I can go off on a tangent, one of the things that’s turned me off about romance novels in particular has been the treatement of female characters. In a genre that is meant to be so women-centric, the number of authors who develop such fascinating, multi-faceted male characters and then pair them with women as interesting as drying paint is absolutely appalling. Also, if I never read a description along the lines of, “She wasn’t like all the other women he’d met, who all *insert awful stereotype here*.” it will be too soon. I’m not asking for every single woman to embrace sisterhood and solidarity, but not cutting each other down would be seriously awesome.