February Media Report: Books

[rachelmanija]

Mely jumped off the bridge, so I will too. Since I despair of ever having time to write up everything individually, I have given brief reviews to the whole month below.

If anything's missing an author, it is because I am too lazy to look them up. If there's no comment, I already reviewed it here.



1. The Face of a Stranger, by Anne Perry

2. Ride the River, by Louis L'Amour

3. A Fabulous Creature, by Zilpha Keatley Snyder. Wow, terrible! Evil sexy girl, good innocent girl, symbolic stag of Environmental innocence, and deus ex machina by golf ball-- the only part of the story I liked.

4. Dragonhaven, by Robin McKinley. Wow, terrible! Some interesting ideas, but nothing happens at great and interminable length. It is always a bad sign when the story begins with three pages of "I don't know how to tell this story." And the entire book is like that: all tell, no show, all rambling. This may be faithful to the irritating protagonist, but why choose a protagonist whose natural narrative voice is unbearable?

5. Rebels on the Backlot. An expose/history of some indie film directors in the nineties; hilariously catty.

6. Kissing the Bee, by Kathe Koja. Intense, well-written, brief YA novel about three friends, a romantic and personal rivalry, bees and social dynamics.

7. Mountains Beyond Mountains. Nonfiction about doctors in Africa. (ETA: I mean Haiti-- where was my brain?) OK.

8. Blowing Zen. White guy learns the shakuhachi (wooden flute) in Japan. OK; better than the title, anyway.

9. Wild Cards: Inside Straight. Wow, terrible! Less gory than previous entries, but makes up for it by being more boring. Usual horrible racial, gender, and class politics. The whole story is about a reality show. No fiction with that premise has ever been good except for The Truman Show, which was decent. White Americans save the Middle East and return sadder but wiser; a British agent with the sort of powers that are whatever he needs at the moment pwns everyone.

10. The Cherokee Trail, by Louis L'Amour. Woman sets up stagecoach rest stop, contends with evil from her past. Good female characters, Indians with a sense of humor, gunfights and the offensive use of boiling coffee. Good stuff. The mysterious gunman needed more character development.

11. The Keys to the Golden Firebird, by Maureen Johnson. Funny, sweet YA about three sisters coping after their father's death. Excellent characterization, realistic but hopeful and positive. Will make you never ever want to drink too much.

12. Tantalize.

13. Tall, Dark, and Dead. Well-written and amusing, but I am totally done with vampires.

14. Rules of Survival, by Nancy Werlin. Excellent, suspenseful YA about (non-sexual) child abuse; disturbing but not graphic, and reads like a thriller. Unfortunate and I assume unintentional subtext in which the two female characters who have a sex life are either evil or meet a horrible fate made me raise my eyebrows, but did not ruin the book.

15. Ha'Penny, by Jo Walton.

16. Not in Kansas Anymore, by Christine Wicker. Nonfiction about magic in America; definitely Wicca/Otherkin/hoodoo 101; good portraits of practitioners.

Comments

[oyceter]

Yaaaay! More people blogging about books!

I'll have to check out the Koja and the Wicker.

I... wasn't caught by Tall, Dark and Dead as well. Mostly because I didn't like the hero. And I usually like vampires!

[gwyneira.livejournal.com]

I was so disappointed by the McKinley. I tried to talk myself into liking it, but I just couldn't, really. Nothing happened in it.

I think The Keys to the Golden Firebird might be my favorite Maureen Johnson, after The Bermudez Triangle.

[coyotegoth.livejournal.com]

For me, the Wild Cards series peaked with the Astronomer. Great villain (if a silly name), and they bump him off in Book Two.

[wildgreentide.livejournal.com]

I was really disappointed with Dragonhaven, and only made myself finish it because I was on vacation and running out of books. (This is what happens, of course, the one time I *don't* bring three times the amount of reading material I think I might need.) There were sentences in that book that I had to reread several times just to make sure I understood what they meant -- and not because they were brilliantly elaborate or used fancy words, but just because the narrative voice was totally incoherent and dull. Blah.

[chomiji]

Wow, two horrible books by favorite childhood authors ... although truthfully, I have been disappointed by just about everything Zilpha Keatley Snyder wrote after she broke through with The Egypt Game.

(And the McKinley reviews are making me feel teary-eyed. There's never before been a book of hers that I've decided to ignore. I wonder if something in her RL is going wrong ... holy crud, she has an LJ! Didn't know that 'til this minute.)

[taliabriscoe.livejournal.com]

I've enjoyed the three Johnson books that I'v read thus far (Girl at Sea, Devilish, and Bermudez Triangle.) Clearly I must also check out Firebird.

[sarahtales.livejournal.com]

Oh Firebird. I have now read all of Maureen Johnson's books and am hopelessly pining for Suite Scarlett. Tell me, Scarlett, when will you be mine?

Dragonhaven pleased me on two levels: marsupial dragons, so awesome! and raising baby animals, horrific and boring - it is and it's worth saying, but oh, if only we'd had half the book in omniscient, even, we could have had an interesting adventure.

[cofax7]

This may be faithful to the irritating protagonist, but why choose a protagonist whose natural narrative voice is unbearable?

I feel so vindicated. I really disliked not liking a McKinley book!

[elynross.livejournal.com]

7. Mountains Beyond Mountains. Nonfiction about doctors in Africa. OK.

If this is the book about Paul Farmer, it's primarily about Haiti, with some discussion late in the book about programs in Peru and Russia, I think? Partners in Health now has a program in Rwanda, but I believe it was started after the book was published.