Flight into Fantasy

This week, instead of doing reviews the way I normally do, I plan to do a massive post highlighting briefly all the books I’ve read in the last couple of weeks of 2009, so that I can start afresh with reviews for the books I’ve read in 2010. And, since obviously the whole idea of actually telling y’all what I’ll be posting kind of petered out, I won’t even try.

That being said, everyone in the book blogosphere takes this time at the end of the year to reflect upon the books they’ve read, announce their favorites and set goals for the future. I’ll be doing some of that, over the course of the next few days. Hopefully, after the new year, I can get back to a steadier stream of reviews. Until then, keep checking back here for more awesomeness.

Thank God for WordPress and its scheduling feature. As you read this, I am Internetless, hanging out for a few days with my family and enjoying the holiday. I hope that you are doing the same, and that you are having an excellent Christmas. Or, if you don’t celebrate Christmas, I hope your day is spectacular.

On with the review!

Title: Wishin’ and Hopin’
Author: Wally Lamb
Genre: Historical fiction
Source: I bought it.
Reason for Reading: I forget which blogger first brought this book to my attention, but after reading that it was a lot like one of my favorite Christmas movies, “A ChristmasStory”, I knew I had to read it, so I bought it.

Synopsis:

It’s 1964 and ten-year-old Felix is sure of a few things: the birds and the bees are puzzling, television is magical, and this is one Christmas he’ll never forget. LBJ and Lady Bird are in the White House, Meet the Beatles is on everyone’s turntable, and Felix Funicello (distant cousin of the iconic Annette!) is doing his best to navigate fifth grade–easier said than done when scary movies still give you nightmares and you bear a striking resemblance to a certain adorable cartoon boy.

Back in his beloved fictional town of Three Rivers, Connecticut, with a new cast of endearing characters, Wally Lamb takes his readers straight into the halls of St. Aloysius Gonzaga Parochial School–where Mother Filomina’s word is law and goody-two-shoes Rosalie Twerski is sure to be minding everyone’s business. But grammar and arithmetic move to the back burner this holiday season with the sudden arrivals of substitute teacher Madame Frechette, straight from Québec, and feisty Russian student Zhenya Kabakova. While Felix learns the meaning of French kissing, cultural misunderstanding, and tableaux vivants, Wishin’ and Hopin’ barrels toward one outrageous Christmas.

From the Funicello family’s bus-station lunch counter to the elementary school playground (with an uproarious stop at the Pillsbury Bake-Off), Wishin’ and Hopin’ is a vivid slice of 1960s life, a wise and witty holiday tale that celebrates where we’ve been–and how far we’ve come.

My Thoughts: I didn’t join any Christmas reading challenges this year. I thought about it, but ultimately decided that I just didn’t have enough holiday spirit to commit to full participation. But I have been trying to review a Christmas book every Friday, and since Wishin’ and Hopin’ was a recent purchase, I figured that I’d read it and make it one less book I cart around on my book reader for another year.

I’m so glad I ended my unofficial Christmas reading challenge with this book. It was exactly the sort of thing I enjoy in a Christmas read; it was funny, it was heartwarming, and it left me feeling good about the world. I may even feel charitable enough toward Mr. Lamb to give some of his other, longer works a try, even though I couldn’t get into I Know This Much is True.

There are similarities between this book and “A Christmas Story.” No one shoots their eye out, but both pieces are steeped in the experiences of a boy of a certain age. Both Ralph and Felix are often flummoxed by the adults in their lives, and their peers confuse them, and both look back with nostalgia on their childhoods.

I found a couple of things surprising. First of all, though this book is steeped in nostalgia, it’s not really something I’d recommend for children. Some of the humor is quite adult, and it works well because Felix doesn’t really get it, which creates interesting complications. I suppose this only makes the book more true to life, and I’m not complaining. I’m just pointing out that if I had a ten-year-old I probably wouldn’t pick this book for bedtime reading.

I loved that the book was grounded in the 1960′s in a way that I don’t think it’s possible for a book to be unless the author happened to have experienced that decade himself. I loved the bits about the Pilsbury Bake-off, and I enjoyed the cameos by Ronald Reagan and Annette Funicello. The parochial school bits were also excellent and highly hillarious.

Final Thoughts: I don’t really have much in the way of quibbles. I would definitely read this again next year, and I’m glad I bought it. It’s not quite an A book, because I don’t think it’s going to stick with me very long, but it is satisfying.

Final Grade: B+

Other Opinions:

• Bermuda Onion

• Booking Mama
• Sassymonkey

Title: Beth’s Acceptance
Author: Teal Ceagh
Genre: Paranormal erotic romance
Source: I bought it.
Reason for Reading: I actually heard about this book from the incomparable Katiebabs on Twitter. Since I am constitutionally incapable of resisting the lure of what promises to be bad porn, I bought this.
Synopsis:

For weeks, the darkly sinful Zachariah, her favorite customer at McGinty’s, has been raising NYC student Beth Siegel’s pulse, driving her crazy with need.

Neither can she keep the tall, blue-eyed mysterious Luke, who haunts the library stacks at her day job, out of her mind or her sweaty, desperate fantasies.

Fate hands Beth a startling destiny, a chance to bond with both of them—a bond formed via sex. Sex with either one of them would have been fabulous. Together? Irresistible.

Reader Advisory: This book contains hot, sexy scenes of M/M interaction.

My thoughts: Despite my initial impression of this book as crackaliscious porn, I enjoyed it quite a lot. It was a fast, fun story with characters I liked and, more important, found sexy. (I so want a sexy elf man of my very own, particularly one who reads. Mrrrow!) There was an external plot that, while I wouldn’t have minded reading more, was a better pretext for three people engaging in hot sexoring than many others I’ve read. And I liked the relationship dynamics. The two men form a bond with each other as well as the titular Beth. And the two men are actually interesting characters in their own right.

I did have a few quibbles that kept this book from being as awesome as it could have been. First of all, there’s the infamous scene that I bought the book for. Let’s just say that this scene features the two erstwhile gentlemen both inserting their Tab A’s into the heroine’s Slot B. At the same time. My own particular ladybits still shudder and clench up in horror at the mere thought, and I just didn’t buy, “Well, moms stretch down there all the time when they give birth” as a valid enough excuse for that kind of shenannigan. It was a hot scene, I’ll grant you, but after I’d read past it and processed what I’d read, well, the phrase “WTF?” seemed a propo.

The other thing that didn’t work for me was the editing. There were a few glaring bits that an editor really should have pointed out. For example, in one sentence, the heroine is on the table, and the next she’s in a bed. How’d she get there? Teleportation? I had to go back and reread to make sure I hadn’t missed something somewhere. No, I hadn’t.

Final Thoughts: I would be interested in reading more of Ms. Ceagh’s books. Though this wasn’t perfect, it was quite enjoyable.

Final Grade: B

Other Opinions

• The Geeky Bookworm

• Smexy Books
• Babbling About Books and More

Title: A Great and Terrible Beauty
Author: Libba Bray
Genre: Young adult historic fantasy
Source: Bookshare
Reason for Reading: I’ve had this book on my TBR pile for ages, and I was finally inspired to read it, thanks to a random whim.

Synopsis:

It’s 1895, and after the suicide of her mother, 16-year-old Gemma Doyle is shipped off from the life she knows in India to Spence, a proper boarding school in England. Lonely, guilt-ridden, and prone to visions of the future that have an uncomfortable habit of coming true, Gemma’s reception there is a chilly one. To make things worse, she’s been followed by a mysterious young Indian man, a man sent to watch her. But why? What is her destiny? And what will her entanglement with Spence’s most powerful girls–and their foray into the spiritual world–lead to?

My Thoughts: I was surprised by this book. I mean, it had garnered a lot of hype everywhere, and so I was relatively certain I’d enjoy it, but I wasn’t really expecting very much. A rollicking fantasy adventure, maybe some backstabbing girl rivalries, maybe a climax at the end which would lead nicely into the sequel. In short, I was expecting a slightly more advanced Harry Potter. What I got was so much more than that, though.

First, the characters. Gemma and her friends are all very flawed people. Gemma, our first-person narrator, does not try to sugar coat any of these flaws, not even her own. Secondly, they don’t quite behave in the ways I was expecting. If this had been another book, Gemma and Ann Bradshaw, the girl she gets as a roommate, would have been bullied and abused by the more popular Felicity and Pippa. Instead, Gemma and Felicity, after a rocky start, become best friends, and through that friendship, Gemma lets Ann into the popular clique. I really like that choice of Bray’s, because it seemed more realistic, and it was a nice departure from the usual tropes.

I also liked that none of the characters had all the answers. Gemma learns that she has some unusual powers, but she has to make missteps before she learns how to control them, and she doesn’t always make the right or the best choice. This made for uncomfortable reading at times, because there were moments when I was practically shouting at the book, “Oh, Gemma, don’t do that!” And then she did, and bad things would happen, but I’d never quite know when or how.

Obviously, I came to love these girls. I liked unconventional, snarky Gemma, pathetic, plain Ann, romantic, flighty Pippa, and confident, power-hungry Felicity. I want to read more about them, because they have stuck in my head as interesting characters even several days after I finished the book.

As for the plot, it’s quite twisty as well. I don’t want to go into great detail, but again, there were surprises for me, an the story turned out to be quite a bit darker than I was expecting. There was also a satisfying ending, so I didn’t feel I was manipulated into reading the next two books in the series. I will, because I love the characters, but not having to deal with a cliffhanger is awesome.

It should also be noted that this is the first book in quite a while where my days in fandom have reared their heads. I am now a die-hard Gemma/Felicity shipper, even though I am fairly certain my hopes will be dashed.

One last note. I’ve begun to try and take note of the writing in the books I’m reading, and I have to say that Ms. Bray is a wondefrful storyteller. Normally, present tense narratives aren’t my thing, but in this book, I didn’t even notice because it all flowed so naturally.

Final Thoughts: This is an engaging start to a trilogy that I can’t wait to read further. It comes very close to being a keeper book for me, and the only reason it isn’t is because at the time I was reading, I didn’t want something quite as dark as I got.

Final Grade: A strong B+.

P.S. Clearly, I am either not as picky a reader as I like to tell myself or I was drinking the Kool-Aid as I was reading. See below for less squeeful reactions to this book.

Other Opinions:

• Tiny Little Reading Room

• Things Mean a Lot
• The Zen Leaf
• Books I Done Read
• Bookshelves of Doom
• The Written World
• Reading Adventures
• Shelf Love

Title: The Westing Game
Author: Ellen Raskin
Genre: Children’s mystery
Source: Bookshare
Reason for Reading: It’s another childhood reread which happens to fit the Shelf Discovery Challenge
Synopsis: Sixteen people, all residents of Sunset Towers, are invited to the reading of Samuel W. Westing’s will. They are an odd assortment of people, including a crippled birdwatcher, a secretary, a judge, a podiatrist, a dressmaker, and a girl who likes to play the stock market, among others. There’s also a bookie, a thief, a bomber, and a mistake. Forced to work in pairs to solve Westing’s murder, the residents of Sunset Towers soon find out that their fellow residents may hold the biggest mysteries of all.

My Thoughts: I have to hand it to Ellen Raskin. I’m not sure many authors could write a book that was essentially one long logic puzzle without breaking their brains, but Ms. Raskin did so admirably. Not only that, but there’s a surprising amount of depth to the characters. I mean, I am a character reader, and one of the reasons I don’t read much middle grade fiction is that I don’t often find very sophisticated characterization. But there were things in this book that I didn’t pick up on when I was actually a middle-grade reader. I understood, for example, what drove Angela Wexler to seek attention for herself, and not simply because she was a beautiful woman. I understood Flora Baumbach’s grief, and even if I did want to smack Sydelle Pullaski around, she stood out as a favorite character for me.

As I said above, this was a reread. I think mysteries don’t lend themselves to rereads, especially if you have a stupidly accurate memory for pointless minutia like I do. For example, I remembered a lot of plot elements from this book as they happened, and I remember the solution clearly. This took a bit away from my enjoyment of the story as a whole, but of course the fault there lies with me, not the author.

Final Thoughts: Sunset Towers is full of eccentric characters who are well worth following. I recommend this book to any budding mystery lovers.

Final Grade: B+

Other Opinions

• The Book Zombie

• The Bluestocking Society
• It’s All About Books

Title: Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood
Author: Mark Harris
Genre: Nonfiction
Source: Bookshare
Reason for Reading: Several months ago, My Friend Amy organized the Books for our Times reading project. The idea was for book bloggers to read the books Newsweek had named the Fifty books for our times. I hadn’t intended to participate, because I normally ignore that kind of thing, but Amy called for an emergency pinch hitter to read this book, so I offered, because I want to be one of Amy’s minions when I grow up.
Synopsis: This book chronicles the histories of the five films that were nominated for the 1967 Best Picture Academy Award. 1967 was the turning point for Hollywood, which was dealing with both an overly strict decency code and the fact that the studios weren’t making any long-lasting or important films. The five nominees for Best Picture in 1967 changed all that. The movies–”Bonnie and Clyde”, “The Graduate”, “In the Heat of the Night”, “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner”, and “Dr. Dolittle”–represented a shift into what would become more modern Hollywood.

My Thoughts: I was exactly the wrong person to review this book. My blindness does not mean that I don’t enjoy movies. It just means that I’d much rather read. To this end, my roommate owns two TV’s. I own none. So I couldn’t be less interested in a history of five movies that, of course, I haven’t seen.

This is what’s amazing about this book. I was the wrong type of reader for this book, but I had a hard time putting it down. Rather than confront us with pages and pages of dry facts, Mark Harris brings to life the various producers, directors, scriptwriters, actors and movie editors that brought us those five movies. They felt like real people to me, rather than so many Hollywood icons, and I was caught up in their stories.

Harris has obviously done his homework, and he has an impressive bibliography and set of endnotes for people who want to do further reading. He obviously interviewed many of the key people who brought the world these movies, and his love for and interest in the subject shine through. The result, for me, is that I now want to watch all five of these movies, particularly “In the Heat of the Night”, which looks like something that would still be enjoyable and interesting today.

Does this book qualify as a “book for our times”, though? That’s hard for me to judge. I am inclined to point out that Mr. Harris wrote for Newsweek, which makes his inclusion on the list a bit suspect. But, whether it is a classic representation of “our times”, whatever that means, I think it’s amazing that Harris was able to weave a nonfiction narrative about movies so compelling that even someone so actively apathetic as I am found it a fascinating read.

Final Thoughts: If you’re a movie buff, or if you find film history at all intriguing, this is a good book. It is quite easy to read, and very absorbing.

Final Grade: B+

Other Opinions

• Killin’ Time Reading

Title: The Magical Christmas Cat

Authors: Nalini Singh, Erin McCarthy, Linda Winstead Jones and Lora Leigh
Genre: Paranormal romance anthology
Source: I bought it.
Reason for Reading: I have a bunch of Christmas romance anthologies, and I’ve been trying to read a few of them this year.
Synopsis:

Put a little meow in their stockings this year with these all-new tales of Christmas and felines–from beloved bestselling authors! New York Times bestselling author Lora Leigh and top-selling authors Nalini Singh, Erin McCarthy, and Linda Winstead Jones have a special gift for readers this year: never-before published holiday stories featuring passionate romance, paranormal adventure, and a distinctly alluring feline touch. With four new stories–including one featuring Lora Leigh’s genetically altered Feline Breeds–this is a collection packed with more surprises than Christmas morning, and more chills than the snowiest winter night….

My Thoughts: I bought this anthology for the Nalini Singh story. I was also curious about Erin McCarthy, and I knew Lora Leigh wasn’t going to agree with me. Nonetheless, I did read this whole book. Read on to hear what I thought of all these stories.

**********

“Stroke of Enticement” by Nalini Singh: Annie Kildair is a teacher who one day inexplicably has to deal with a misbehaving student, who won’t explain the reasons for his bad behavior except to his uncle Zach. Zach is a member of the Dark River Pack of leopard Changelings. Sparks fly between Annie and Zach, but their relationship is strained by Annie’s self-doubts.

I enjoy Ms. Sing’s Psy/Changeling series very much, and this is a story set in that universe. I think my understanding of that universe made the reading of this story a bit more interesting, but I also don’t believe it’s necessary to have followed the series completely, and this might be a good introduction to the Psy/Changeling world for those who don’t want to invest in a full-length novel.

Annie and Zach are both likeable characters. I found Annie much more interesting, because I found her need for independence extremely compelling. I know how she feels, even though we don’t share the same disabilities. Zach is marginally less interesting, but I adore Ms. Sing’s heroes anyway, since they are both dominant and tender and none of them are assholes even when they could be. I liked how Zach stood up to Annie’s family, I liked that he didn’t swoop in and take care of her but assumed she would let him know when she needed him. As I’ve come to expect from Ms. Sing, these two characters had awesome chemistry, and I very much enjoyed their story. My only real quibbles were that it was a shade too long, and I also didn’t think there was much of a Christmas element to the story at all.

Still, Nalini Singh is one of the best paranormal romance writers working these days, and so her story rates a B+.

********

“Christmas Bree” by Erin McCarthy: The love of Bree Murphy’s life is not a stuffed shirt corporate metrosexual wearing a pink shirt. But that’s exactly what her sister Abby, who occasionally has visions, has forseen. And sure enough, Ian, a Chicago lawyer with whom she’d locked horns a year ago, is exactly what Bree doesn’t need. Yet here he is now back on her doorstep, wanting to get her out of his head. Will the earthy witch and the classy gentleman find love?

Erin McCarthy is lauded for her romantic comedies, but paranormal romantic comedy rarely works for me, and this was no exception. I felt as if the author was trying a bit too hard to be funny at times, with the result being that I wasn’t laughing. And yet, there is a genuineness to her writing that did make for a few moments of subtle humor that I did like, though these were far fewer and farther between than I’d have liked.

This story was also part of a series. It stands perfectly well on its own, but since I hadn’t read any of the stories of Bree’s family and friends, I mostly felt that the nods to other works were more distracting than enticing, particularly Abby’s last vision, which just screamed “Sequel-bait” in neon letters.

Aside from the forced humor, my general reaction to the story was one of complete boredom. The characters were likeable enough, but I just didn’t feel the chemistry, and I didn’t really feel invested in either as a couple. It wasn’t a bad story, just boring.

Grade: C

**********

“Sweet Dreams” by Linda Winstead Jones: When Ruby receives a jade cat for a Christmas gift from a secret admirer, she has no idea that it will change her life forever.

Zane knows the cat is a sign that a demon wants to eat Ruby’s soul. But there’s nothing he can do to protect her. As Ruby’s inevitable confrontation with the demon approaches, will she and Zane be able to fight off their attraction in order to save her life?

This is another story that was just OK. Ruby and Zane were, again, fairly likeable characters, and I liked the plot involving the demon enough to keep reading to figure out how Ruby would extricate herself from it. However, what kept me from truly getting involved with this story was the absolutely awful dialogue. Zane sounded like a professor, but only if the professor was an awful nerdy stereotype. Ruby’s dialogue wasn’t much better, although at least she managed to avoid peppering her speech with words like “practicable”.

There was also a plot contrivance that kept Ruby and Zane apart that didn’t work for me. It wasn’t exactly a big misunderstanding, but it was an element whose point was entirely transparent. I rolled my eyes when it showed up, and got a little less invested.

That being said, I read this story in one sitting, which is more than I can say for the McCarthy piece. For that, and for the pacing, which really works well, I have to give the book a few points.

Grade: C+

*********

“Christmas Heat” by Lora Leigh: Librarian Haley McQuire is hanging out in the library of Sanctuary, the headquarters of the Breeds (genetically engeneered men and women with characteristics of the predatory animals whose genes they share.) She happens to overhear an incriminating conversation that puts her in some danger, so she must rely on the protection of fierce jaguar Breed Noble to keep her safe.

I don’t have a very good relationship with Lora Leigh’s books. I know that there are romance fans who love her, but for my part I have no idea what the draw is. I am further unimpressed by the fact that this story in particular is part of a series and doesn’t stand alone at all. Characters are introduced, including Haley and Noble themselves, and I feel like I am expected to know who they are. Since I don’t, I was left feeling rather lost, and, even worse, disconnected from the story.

To give her credit, Ms. Leigh can write very steamy love scenes, and I really enjoyed reading those. But love scenes alone don’t make a good story, and I was too lost as to what was going on around the couple to care. It also didn’t help that I never really got a sense of what motivated either Haley or Noble. Haley has a shrewish fit of irrationality, Noble growls a lot, and none of it makes any kind of logical sense.

That all being said, this is the best Lora Leigh story I’ve ever read. Given that I didn’t like it, that’s not a high compliment, but if the author is reading this, I guess that’s the silver lining.

Grade: D

**********

Final Thoughts: The Nalini Singh story is by far the best in this anthology, but I’m not sure even it justifies the price of this book. The other pieces ranged from boring to outright awful, so I think, if you must read a Christmas romance anthology, you should look elsewhere.

Final Grade: C-

Other Opinions

• All About Romance

• Gwen at The Good, the Bad and the Unread
• Rip My Bodice, part I
• Rip My Bodice: Part II

Title: Red Dragon
Author: Thomas Harris
Genre: Thriller
Source: Bookshare
Reason for Reading: After finishing Heartsick by Chelsea Cain, I decided I wanted to see whether I liked that novel’s serial killer, Gretchen Lowell, better than Harris’s infamous Dr. Hannibal Lecter.
Synopsis:

A second family has been massacred by the terrifying serial killer the press has christened “The Tooth Fairy.” Special Agent Jack Crawford turns to the one man who can help restart a failed investigation–Will Graham. Graham is the greatest profiler the FBI ever had, but the physical and mental scars of capturing Hannibal Lecter have caused Graham to go into early retirement. Now, Graham must turn to Lecter for help.

My Thoughts: You know how there are books that are beautifully written and compelling, but which just don’t work for you for whatever reason, probably having to do with your mood at the time, the chemistry of your brain, or some other strange reason? Yeah, Red Dragon was that book for me. I can appreciate its merits–Thomas Harris is a great writer and a masterful storyteller–but I just didn’t like it very much.

I think, for me, the biggest problem I had with the book was that I found the actual serial killer FBI Agent Graham was after to be a far more compelling character than I found Graham. Graham is a deeply troubled man, but I just didn’t see the core of darkness that people who knew him attributed to him. Compared to the villain, who was a wonderfully warped and twisted individual, he was just boring.

As for Hannibal Lecter, there really wasn’t much about him in this book. I did find him an interesting character, and I think I would enjoy reading more about how he manages to get under the skin of the people around him, but I’m not sure I’ll be in that mood for a while.

The one thing I have to squee about is that there is a blind character portrayed in this novel who is captured perfectly. Normally, I tend to avoid books with disabled characters, but I liked Reba McClane. I thought her struggles for independence were well-drawn, and it was obvious that Harris had at least done a bit of research.

There is a lot of violence in this book. I didn’t realize I had a certain squick threshold in the books I’ve read, but I damn near put this book down and didn’t finish at the scene where the Tooth Fairy bites off a man’s lips. Just thinking about that scene, which was written in a spare style that made it even worse to read, makes me shudder.

I think I am more inclined to read Chelsea Cain’s books than I am the rest of this series. I’ve not seen any of the associated movies, although apparently my sister thinks this should be remedied, but I have to admit to being a bit paranoid over the treatment of Clarice Starling, the FBI agent who begins to pursue Lecter in later books. I’ve been assured on twitter that she is a smart and capable woman, but while I find Gretchen Lowell’s predatory relationship with Archie fascinating, there’s something about the idea of Hannibal preying on Clarice that makes me shudder, and I don’t even really know what happens. This is probably just my inner feminist talking, but as it stands, the sheer darkness and the graphic violence of this book makes me not want to read about a man manipulating a woman to make her vulnerable on top of all that.

Final Thoughts: Tbhis review is a bit scattered. I do wish I’d enjoyed the book more than I did. But, though I acknowledge objectively that it’s very good, it just isn’t one I’m ever likely to pursue myself for a reread.

Final Grade: A for the writing, D for the subject matter, so we’ll compromise with a C.

Other Opinions

• When Books Tell a Story

Title: Heartsick
Author: Chelsea Cain
Genre: Mystery
Source: Bookshare
Reason for Reading: Two of my favorite book bloggers, Wendy and Katiebabs have both praised Ms. Cain. And since I do sometimes enjoy reading about violent bloodbaths, I figured I’d give this book a try.

Synopsis:

Damaged Portland detective Archie Sheridan spent ten years tracking Gretchen Lowell, a beautiful serial killer, but in the end she was the one who caught him. Two years ago, Gretchen kidnapped Archie and tortured him for ten days, but instead of killing him, she mysteriously decided to let him go. She turned herself in, and now Gretchen has been locked away for the rest of her life, while Archie is in a prison of another kind–addicted to pain pills, unable to return to his old life, powerless to get those ten horrific days off his mind. Archie’s a different person, his estranged wife says, and he knows she’s right. He continues to visit Gretchen in prison once a week, saying that only he can get her to confess as to the whereabouts of more of her victims, but even he knows the truth–he can’t stay away. When another killer begins snatching teenage girls off the streets of Portland, Archie has to pull himself together enough to lead the new task force investigating the murders. A hungry young newspaper reporter, Susan Ward, begins profiling Archie and the investigation, which sparks a deadly game between Archie, Susan, the new killer, and even Gretchen. They need to catch a killer, and maybe somehow then Archie can free himself from Gretchen, once and for all. Either way, Heartsick makes for one of the most extraordinary suspense debuts in recent memory.

My Thoughts: This book lived up to much of the hype I’d been exposed to. Chelsea Cain has created some memorable characters in the three principals in this story, Archie Sherridan, Gretchen Lowell, and Susan Ward. It says something about this book that I went out and bought Sweetheart , the second book in the series, as soon as I’d finished.

There is a lot of drama between the characters, and it all makes for compelling reading. Archie’s flashbacks of his treatment at the hands of Gretchen are gruesome, and he’s really become a wreck. I found myself sympathizing with him for the most part, even though sometimes he drove me nuts. I kept drawing comparisons in my head between Archie and another deeply troubled pill popper, Dr. Gregory House. Thing is, I liked Archie better. He seemed to be a much more pleasant person to deal with, even if he wasn’t exactly the most moral and decent human being ever, and he wasn’t a know-it-all, insufferable genius. (Can you tell I am one of about 3 people in the world who is not a House fan?)

I found Archie’s relationship with Gretchen to be one of the most interesting things about the book. I’m not sure I would want to read about a similar character dynamic if, say, Gretchen had been a man and Archie a woman, but as it was, I found their strange symbiosis quite compelling and am hoping for more of it in the sequels.

More than that, though, I was fascinated by Susan Ward, the reporter Archie specifically requests report on their new task force. Susan was a great character, a combination of strong and brittle that I find fascinating to read about. I liked that she was deeply flawed, and I liked that there’s no chance, at least so far, of a romance between her and Archie, which was where I assumed the story was headed. It’s Susan I want to stick around and read more about, and it’s her story I care more about than I do Archie’s. I’m not sure why this is, because it seems to be a minority opinion among the rest of the book blogosphere. But I’m chalking it up to my tendency to want to root for a female character, and my irritation with characters who don’t really do anything proactive to get over their issues.

That all being said, there were a few missteps that kept this book off of my keeper shelf. Gretchen, for one, remains a bit too mysterious throughout. Her big scene, looking back, read a bit too much like a Deus Ex Machina to me, and I hate those. And then there’s the fact that Susan is inevitably captured by the bad guy and left alone with him. The scene felt very cliched, and when it happened, I was taken out of the story, because the setup was definitely the sort of thing the reader knows will be bad in advance, and yet the heroine walks calmly right into a trap.

Final Thoughts: Aside from a few cliches, I found this book quite compelling. There is lots of graphic violence, and one scene in particular made me a bit nauseous, but if you like your serial killer mysteries, this is a good example of the genre.

My Grade: B

Other Opinions

• Wendy’s review, which convinced me to pick the book up.

• Avidbookreader
• Fantasy Book Critic
• Melody’s Reading Corner

Today, I’m delighted to get a chance to participate in the 2009 Virtual Advent tour. Please check out the other participants in this great tour, as there are some excellent holiday posts up by some amazing bloggers. Here is my small contribution!

I don’t have many Christmas traditions that other people out there in the world don’t also have. Oh, there are my little private rituals–I like to listen to David Sedaris read “The Santaland Diaries” every year, for example, which probably says something fairly unflattering about me. But other than that? On Christmas Eve I go to my parents’ house, we go to bed early, wake up to open gifts, spend the day being lazy, and then it’s over.

The one thing I do, though, that I think is really special every year is participate in a caroling group. My friend Echo, a retired teacher I met through the blind community, which is small and quite interconnected, has been organizing the caroling trip every year for well over 30 years. Off and on for the past fifteen years, I’ve been in attendance, missing only a couple of years when I was living out of state. (I like to think of those as the Christmases from Hell, but that’s a completely different post.) The number and makeup of the caroling group have changed a lot over the past few years, but I love doing it every year, because there’s something about being in a room with people and singing your hearts out that, despite the logistical nightmares of setting the whole thing up, is extremely magical.

For me, that magic has coincided with several milestones in my life. Firstly, if it hadn’t been for caroling, I wouldn’t have met and become close friends with Echo and her partner. They are both wonderful women who have taught me a lot, women whose grace and dignity I hope I can eventually possess in some small measure.

Secondly, it was at a caroling party that I first made out with my then-boyfriend. I won’t go into details or anything, because I don’t remember them, but I do remember feeling more deeply in love with him in those moments than I think I did the whole rest of the time we were together. In my more wistful moments, I sometimes daydream that someone else will show up at a caroling party, because a small part of me is convinced I will meet my soulmate while my voice joins with others in singing “Joy to the World” or “O Come, All Ye Faithful.” Of course, this is not likely to ever happen, because I’ve known most of the people I carol with for years, and I’m sure if they ever thought they should set me up with someone who might be my soulmate, they’d have done so before now and not in such a chaotic setting.

And there is chaos. It all starts the Friday night before caroling, when those of us who live inconveniently far away from Echo converge on her house. The evening is usually spent in making sure we all have sack lunches to take with us, catching up on news and gossip, and eventually, the night is capped off by a rehearsal for those among us who, unlike me, play instruments more complicated than a kazoo. Echo, like me, enjoys surrounding herself with beautiful music, and consequently she knows a lot of musicians, so our carols have some complicated arrangements. (We sing Peter, Paul and Mary’s “A’Soalin’”, which, when you listen to the version Peter, Paul and Mary sing seems deceptively simple. Well, it’s not.) The musicians vary from year to year. This year, we will have two guitarists and a ukulele player. One of the guitarists, a brilliant woman who, in her day job, teaches math, also plays fiddle, flute and mandolin. (I always like to bask in her presence, in hopes that some musical talent beyond a strong and mostly on-pitch singing voice will magically rub off on me. This has yet to happen.) We also usually have someone willing to play keyboard, usually one of our blind musicians who inherited the stereotypical ability people think all blind people have to play music by ear. (I do not have this gift, much to my own dismay. I suppose I should have paid more attention and been more enthusiastic about the piano lessons I was forced into as a child, but I didn’t. *Sigh*.)

After the instrumental rehearsal, we all fall into bed to wake up bright and early on Saturday. Echo traditionally makes a breakfast casserole, which is loaded with more cholesterol and artery-clogging agents than you can shake a stick at. It’s extremely popular, and I have to confess that I don’t like it. (It should also be noted that, while I am not embarrassed to relate that my first makeout session happened at caroling, I admit to not liking the breakfast casserole with a sense of shame. After all, it’s one of those immutable traditions that people enjoy, and, despite what people may or may not think about me, I don’t always like being a killjoy.)

After breakfast and mingling with other carolers who have begun to arrive, we begin a three-hour rehearsal period. This usually doesn’t end up going very smoothly because inevitably someone is late, someone needs directions to where we’re going, and people are focused on catching up with people they haven’t seen since last year’s trip. But we sing through the hard pieces, giving our instrumentalists a chance to practice once more, only with a larger group.

I should say something about our caroling materials. Echo and our other guitarist, a mom and writer by day named Woody, have put together a diverse collection of songs. We have everything from the old chestnuts, “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer”, “Jingle Bells”, “Up on the Housetop”, etc. to more religious fair–”O Come All Ye Faithful”, “Hark the Herald Angels Sing”, “Joy to the World”, etc. And then there are the other pieces, including the aforementioned “A-Soalin”, as well as “Light One Candle”, another Peter, Paul and Mary song. We also sing a version of “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” that was arranged by The Weavers, (another 60′s folk group), and a catchy African song called “A Ka Bway La”. (I’m fairly sure that is a phonetic spelling, since when I google that particular spelling in hopes of providing you a youtube link, I get nada.) The nontraditional carols are my favorites, because only at caroling do I get a chance to sing them. Also, as a folk music fan, I love that we’re doing our part to keep obscure songs in circulation.

The actual caroling part of the adventure is fairly standard. We usually hit at least one nursing home. Sometimes we sing for people in hospitals. We’ve sung for little kids, and we’ve sung for homebound friends who find it difficult to get out and join us. (Those types are my favorites because they are genuinely excited to have us sing for them, and are much more engaged with us. The home caroling also gives us a chance to call up people who live too far away to come so that we can sing for them. Thanks to the invention of cell phones, we’ve now found it possible to carol to more than one person at a time this way.)

After the singing, we all troop back to Echo’s house, where her long-suffering partner serves up vats full of chili. People usually bring snacks and side items to go with it, and it’s a grand potluck, which is a great way to cap off the day.

So that’s my holiday tradition, in far more detail than you ever wanted. What are some of yours? Do you have favorite Christmas carols, or odd Christmas songs you like that my caroling group should learn.

P.S. Here are youtube links to a few versions of the songs we sing.

• Light One Candle

• A-Soalin’

And here’s my contribution to our caroling experience. For the love of my bandwidth, I’d appreciate if you’d right click on this file,k hit Save As, and open it on your own system rather than streaming it from mine.

Christmas Morning

Title: A Little House Sampler
Author: Laura Ingalls Wilder and Rose Wilder Lane
Genre: Nonfiction
Source: Bookshare
Reason for Reading: My interest in Laura Ingalls Wilder’s books having been rekindled, I thought I would check out this collection of essays that she and her daughter, Rose Wilder Lane, wrote for various publications, so that I could get a better sense of her life.
Synopsis: This is, as I mentioned, a collection of essays by the author of the Little House series and her daughter. There are reminiscences here about both Laura and Rose’s childhood, and there are short stories and essays about farm living.
My Thoughts: I’m never really sure how to review a book like this. I’m not normally much of an essay reader, and I don’t want to write about each piece in the book.

What I will say is that I enjoyed this collection quite a bit. In fact, I stayed up with it late into the night, which is something I never thought I would say about a collection of essays.

Having read this collection, I do have to admit to curiosity about Rose Wilder Lane’s writing. I found her fiction in particular quite memorable, from the slightly Gothic “Innocence”, which describes a little girl’s family’s brief but disastrous move to the South, to the melancholy “Autumn”, about a woman returning to her hometown only to discover that she’s changed far too much, to the mysterious “Object Matrimony”, about a mail order bride and her reasons for coming out West to seek a husband. I have Free Land by Ms. Lane on the TBR, and I definitely think I’m going to read it after I finish my reread of the Little House books.

Final Thoughts: This is an interesting collection of pieces which provides a fascinating look into the lives of two iconic writers of the 20th century. I enjoyed it and intend to make a closer study of the authors’ works.

Final Grade: B

Other Opinions

If you’ve read this book, let me know in the comments and I’ll link to your review.

Title: Little House in the Big Woods
Author: Laura Ingalls Wilder
Genre: Children’s historical fiction
Source: Bookshare
Reason for Reading: Childhood reread. Also, it counts for the Shelf Discovery challenge.
Synopsis: This is the first in Mrs. Wilder’s series of autobiographical novels about her childhood. It recounts a year in the life of the Ingalls family as they live in the woods of Wisconsin.

My Thoughts: I’d been thinking I might like to reread the Little House books for some time, because they bring back all kinds of childhood memories. I was surprised by how much I remembered as I read, particularly the bits about Pa’s fiddle. I also remembered some of the food, in particular the maple sugar and what a treat it was. And, as people who know me in real life can attest, music and food are two great tastes that taste great together in my book.

There’s not a lot that happens in this book. I seem to remember other books in the series having larger amounts of plot, but this story is fairly episodic. This isn’t a bad thing, because the story is all about the experience of Laura’s life, so I think it’s more important to read about, say, the family having a hog roast, or about the maple sugar being made, or about the family’s first trip to town. All of these are described in vivid detail, so much so that I spent the entire book hungry for something extremely fattening and sweet. There were things I’d forgotten, though. I can’t imagine actually wanting to play with a pig’s bladder the way Laura and Mary did, and I don’t think anyone would be nearly as cavalleer about hunting as the Ingalls family is.

Final Thoughts: This isn’t my favorite in the series. That honor goes to Little Town on the Prairie which I read over and over and over so that I memorized whole passages of the book when I was eight or nine. But this is a quick read. If you’ve never read any of Mrs. Wilder’s books, this is, obviously, the best place to start.

Final Grade: B+

Other Opinions

• Becky’s Book Reviews

• The Well-Read Child
• You’ve Gotta Read This!: who is also doing the Shelf Discovery challenge
• It’s All About Me

A couple of weeks ago, I decided that I really ought to post a schedule of posts every week, so you all would know what I’m reviewing. Of course, having decided to do that, I promptly forgot, so this week is going to be the trial run of this new feature.

Here’s what’s coming up this week on the blog.

Monday: I’ll be reviewing a childhood classic, Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder.
Tuesday: I’m sticking to the theme of Laura Ingalls Wilder by reviewing A Little House Sampler , a collection of essays and articles that Laura and her daughter Rose wrote over the years.
Wednesday: I’m changing it up entirely and reviewing Chelsea Cain’s Heartsick. It’s about female serial killers, and was highly recommended, so stop by then to learn what I thought.
Thursday: Having finished Heartsick I thought I ought to read about another fictional serial killer, the infamous Dr. Hannibal Lecter, so I’ll be reviewing Thomas Harris’s The Red Dragon. Which serial killer did I like better? Tune in and find out.
Friday: I’m hoping to have finished another anthology of Christmas related romance novellas, The Magical Christmas Cat. This is the only review I’m not entirely sure about, since it’s been kind of a slug so far.

Also this week, I’ll be writing a blog post for the 2009 Virtual Advent Blog Tour. That’ll go up on Wednesday as well, and you’ll get to learn about one of my Christmas traditions.

Challenge update: You knew there were going to be more challenges, right? Because I have no self-control whatsoever.

Here are the latest challenges that look like fun.

1. What’s in a Name 3: The idea is to read one book from each of the following categories.

• A book with a food in the title: (I think I’m going for Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel.)

• A book with a body of water in the title: (My pick is Red Seas Under Red Skies by Scott Lynch.)
• A book with a title (queen, president) in the title: (I think I’ll go with The Sugar Queen by Sarah Addison Allen.)
• A book with a plant in the title: (My pick is The Rose Bride by Nancy Holder.)
• A book with a place name (city, country) in the title: (My pick: The Little Giant of Aberdene County by Tiffany Baker.)
• A book with a music term in the title: (My pick: Song in the Silence by Elizabeth Kerner.)