Resurrection and rebirth

Once Upon a River by Diane Setterfield is a difficult book to categorize because it doesn't fit neatly into any one genre. It's historical fiction looked at through the medium of magical realism with a healthy dose of the supernatural. All of the interwoven narratives (of which there are 4 main ones) center on the River Thames with quite a few factoids about that body of water sprinkled liberally throughout. [A/N: The author's notes section at the back details Setterfield's research which is unsurprisingly thorough.] The opening scenes of the book take place in The Swan on a dark and stormy night with the arrival of a mysterious stranger who is injured and carrying a little girl who is dead...until she isn't. The biggest mystery morphs from how she could possibly come back to life into who exactly she is and subsequently which family can call her their own. Flipping between a couple grieving for their child who has been lost for years, a disturbed woman who thinks the little girl is her dead sister, a man who believes she might be his grandchild, and a doctor (and her would-be suitor) this is Drama (capitalization necessary).

Frankly, I think Diane Setterfield has knocked it out of the park again. Once Upon a River is another work of beautiful writing with interesting characters (very different from those in The Thirteenth Tale which affirms my belief that Setterfield is a magician). This book is more adult in tone so be aware there are some explicit scenes but they are by no means overused or detracting from the overall story. And if magical realism and the supernatural aren't your thing then you're probably not going to fully get this book but I encourage you to give it a shot anyway because the writing is just so dang great. 10/10

Source: Amazon

What's Up Next: Elfquest Archives Volume 4 by Wendy & Richard Pini

What I'm Currently Reading: Dread Nation by Justina Ireland

**If you're interested in buying this book or any books really, you can click here or here. The first will re-direct you to AbeBooks and the second will re-direct you to The Book Depository. These are great websites for purchasing books (AbeBooks carries inexpensive used and out-of-print books and The Book Depository ships free everywhere in the world). Full disclosure: I will receive a commission on all sales made by following either of these links. I wouldn't recommend a site that I didn't use and you are under no obligation to purchase anything. :-) **

I'll never look at pickles the same way again

One of the drawbacks of reading so many books is that I have extremely high standards since I've read some truly excellent pieces of literature...and also some major duds. I say all of this because I read We Were Liars by E. Lockhart 2 years ago and so I know she has the capability to write amazing young adult fiction. I chose Fly on the Wall specifically because the review that I heard on BookTube led me to believe that it was a retelling of Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis and because I had enjoyed Lockhart's previous book. What I didn't expect was for it to be chock full of really explicit sexual content. Why on earth did she have to describe penises in such revealing detail? And why did she keep referring to them as gherkins?! (And if I ever hear someone call them that or refer to breasts as biscuits I'm going to slap them across the face.) The main character and the person who we view the story from is named Gretchen Yee and she is the prototypical teenage girl filled with angst. She attends a high school that focuses on the arts and her specialty is drawing comic book style characters (hence the cover imagery). Her obsession with a boy in her school leads her to make a foolhardy wish to be a fly on the wall of the boys locker room so that she can find out how he really thinks about her. (And this is where she begins to ogle the boys as they undress for gym class.)  I guess the story is supposed to be a character study or a revelation that what we think we know about people can be turned on its head if we see them at their most vulnerable. However, for me it was a letdown and vaguely nauseating. This was a 0/10 for me and I'll have to give serious thought to reading anything else from this author in the future.

PS There were also a lot of plot holes in the storyline and the ending truly fell flat.

A/N: Thanks for coming back after the longest break (3 weeks!) I've ever taken off from blogging. Your readership means a lot to me!

Source: Amazon

What's Up Next: The Murderer's Ape by Jakob Wegelius

What I'm Currently Reading: The Intuitionist by Colson Whitehead

**If you're interested in buying this book or any books really, you can click here or here. The first will re-direct you to AbeBooks and the second will re-direct you to The Book Depository. These are great websites for purchasing books (AbeBooks carries inexpensive used and out-of-print books and The Book Depository ships free everywhere in the world). Full disclosure: I will receive a commission on all sales made by following either of these links. I wouldn't recommend a site that I didn't use and you are under no obligation to purchase anything. :-) **

Needs less drama and more food

2016 has been the year of the graphic novel for me. In the past, I had given one or two of them a shot but I guess I was making the wrong choices because I thought it was a medium that held no interest for me. Thankfully, I've been getting really great recommendations and the ones I've read thus far this year have been for the most part very enjoyable.


Today's review is about Seconds by Bryan Lee O'Malley. I picked this book up because I kept hearing how great it was especially in regards to the artwork. I have to say that I've read better graphic novels. The art alternated between beautiful and just okay. (I'm certainly not an art critic but this is how I felt about it so...) The main protagonist is a chef named Katie who was the co-creator of a restaurant named Seconds. However, at the start of the narrative we learn that Katie has stepped down as Head Chef because she's in the process of opening a new restaurant across town in a decrepit building that she's always 'had a feeling about'. (Spoiler: The new restaurant is very unimaginatively named.) She has a dream one night that there's this girl in her room who shows her a magic mushroom that if eaten in conjunction with writing down a mistake she can then go back in time and 'correct' things. (Was this the 60's?) Through a series of missteps which were pretty predictable Katie discovers that while she can go back again and again to 'fix' things she's in actuality just making things worse. (I had kinda hoped that this would be more about food to be honest (darn you, Lucy Knisley!)). To sum up, this one was right on the line for me. I'd say it was a solid 'meh'. It was a basic morality tale about wish fulfillment and the consequences of not learning from your mistakes. 5/10

PS I didn't like Katie.

The best bit of art in the book. Source: pinterest.com

**If you're interested in buying this book or any books really, you can click here or here. The first will re-direct you to AbeBooks and the second will re-direct you to The Book Depository. These are great websites for purchasing books (AbeBooks carries inexpensive used and out-of-print books and The Book Depository ships free everywhere in the world). Full disclosure: I will receive a commission on all sales made by following either of these links. I wouldn't recommend a site that I didn't use and you are under no obligation to purchase anything. :-) **

What does it mean to be human?

Oddly enough, when I came up with the title of this blog I was really only thinking about the second book that I read this past week but it actually applies to both in a strange way.

Some of you might recall that I started reading a series which was a retelling of The Wizard of Oz with Dorothy as a villain. The last novella that I read (a prequel) concerned how Dorothy ended up back in Oz and how she came to be worse than all of the witches combined. This time around I learned about the Tin Woodman in Heart of Tin. I have to admit that I didn't find as much enjoyment in this book as I have in most of the others. I'm not sure if it's because I finished up The Lunar Chronicles and it kinda blew this series out of the water or if I just didn't care for the Tin Woodman's storyline as much. (In point of fact, I think it's a combination of the two.) This book is fairly straightforward. We see just how far Tin is willing to go to win over the heart of his one true love, Dorothy. I'm trying to come up with a delicate way of describing his preoccupation with Dorothy who is a teenager but all I can come up with is icky. The best part of Heart of Tin is that we get a few tantalizing glimpses of the schemes that Scarecrow and Glinda are cooking up behind Dorothy's back. I have a feeling that his story, The Straw King, is going to be a doozy. (Don't worry, I've already placed it on hold at the library.)

The next book that I read over the last week was Sophie's World: A Novel About the History of Philosophy by Jostein Gaarder. It's an international bestseller which for some reason I had never heard of until suddenly I found it on my library holds list (I don't remember placing it there but I guess one night I was cruising the library website half asleep). It's translated into English from Norwegian so that might be why it caught my eye (Remember my obsession with Swedish translations? I'm branching out.) or it could be because it's a book on philosophy. I had little to no knowledge about the great philosophers of the past or even what it meant to be a philosopher. I can happily say that is no longer the case. Not only did I learn about it but I experienced what it means to think philosophically...and I may have had an existential crisis as a result. The book starts out with Sophie who discovers a letter in her mailbox asking her questions such as "Who are you?".  It snowballs into packets of lecture notes and suddenly she finds herself enrolled in a philosophy course with a professor who prefers to remain hidden. I don't want to give any more away because it's better to experience it for yourself. I guarantee you'll be scratching your head and asking "Who am I?" by the end.

And now a tantalizing little teaser! I was recently contacted by a publishing company, History of the World, which is interested in creating educational books for children. Of course, I'm on board with that! The book they're starting off with is called The Amazing History of Technology and from the sample I was sent I can tell that this is a winner. It's full of beautifully illustrated scenes from history which chart the history of technology through the ages (I mean duh look at the title. I doubt it was going to be about hairstyles.). Each illustration is accompanied with the name of the creator and/or the name of the device along with the year it was created. This would be a fantastic gift for either the educators (hello, teaching aid!) or the tiny information absorbers in your life (that's children if you were confused). And for the techno geeks among you, it's accompanied by an educational app. Maybe you were looking for the perfect stocking stuffer. If so, you're welcome. ;-)

You can go here to order it

By the way, this is my 200th post. *confetti falls from the ceiling*

Good news and bad news

The good news is that I thought Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children was fantastic and there is a SEQUEL (not due out until January 2014 though). The bad news is that I'm already finished with it and the sequel isn't out until January 2014. JANUARY 2014. Okay, maybe I should review this or something. Firstly, I would like to thank Ashley for asking me to read this (and for loaning me her copy). This book is a perfect example of magical realism gone so very right. The author, Ransom Riggs, uses vintage photographs to bring the story to life for the reader. They're so beautifully woven into the storyline that you (well, if you're like me at least) look forward to them every few pages. I really dig photographs (especially those found in old family albums) and I thought it was a clever device for transporting the reader into the world that he had created. These children are "peculiar" because of their abilities and these same gifts make them vulnerable. I don't want to say anymore because I want you to go read this immediately. GO NOW. OH and they're turning it into a motion picture due out in 2015. EVERYTHING IS HAPPENING. Edit: It's actually coming out September 30, 2016 and I'M EXCITED.

Okay if you managed to make it through the paragraph above I have to assume that you're a hardcore fan of mine (hi mom!) and I really appreciate you sticking it out with me. The next book up is another title from NetGalley which means it hasn't been published yet and therefore will not be readily available to you. However, it will be beneficial for me to trundle through it so I can let you know if I think it's worth your time. The book is Countdown: Our Last, Best Hope for a Future on Earth? by Alan Weisman. The basic question that this book is trying to answer is how humanity can come into balance with the earth. He travels the globe asking questions about limiting the growth of humans (not a new concept), ecosystem development (is the earth strong enough to hold all of us?), and what the economy of this newly stabilized (and shrunken) world might look like. I find nonfiction works about the state of our world and our place in it highly compelling which is why I gravitated toward this one. I imagine a world of possibilities that I never even imagined are about to be opened before me!