...Oops...

Yes, I know. This post is long overdue. And it still isn't a real post! Don't worry. Posts will happen! I just need a little more time. Current project: The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak. Excellent book. I can't put it down!

My Ántonia

by Willa Cather

This novel is set somewhere in the Midwest and chronicles the story of young Jim Burden. Bohemian neighbours move to America and live nearby, and My Ántonia tells of how the children grow up together. The Bohemians speak little English, so the Burdens help them, as well as aiding them in surviving the winters. Ántonia (or Tony) is Jim Burden's little friend. Tony is a few years older than Jim, but they still watch out for each other.

Quite honestly, I didn't really understand the point of this story. It was sweet, but I'd rather not have read it. Not quite as slow as Siddhartha, My Ántonia took me long enough to read as it was.

Siddhartha

by Hermann Hesse

Siddhartha is a fictitious novel portraying the journey of the life of the founder of Buddha. Laden with symbolism and descriptions, this puny just-over-one-hundred-page novel is like wading uphill through molasses in the dead of winter. I actually had to read it twice just to understand it, and regretted the second read-through. Unless you really enjoy this type of novel, I do not recommend it. On a nice night, I think I'm going to burn it.

His Majesty's Dragon

by Naomi Novik

As a man of the navy, Captain Will Laurence did not ever expect to come across a dragon. Moreover, he never expected to have to be the master of one. But when the dragon egg captured as a prize from a French ship hatches and takes a liking to him, he finds himself the companion of a black dragon by the name of Temeraire. At first, taking care of Temeraire is a daunting task. All he does is eat and grow and eat some more. Captain Laurence knows that as soon as they reach shore, he must take on the task of learning to be an aviator.

Within weeks, Temeraire's company begins to grow on Captain Laurence, until he is comfortable in his job as handler. Once they reach shore, Laurence is assigned to the aviator base and begins a brand-new adventure.

Temeraire turns out to be a very rare Celestial dragon from the Orient. The people at the aviation base try to assign Temeraire a new handler, but he refuses. Relieved, Laurence continues his training with Temeraire, learning to fly and becoming even better friends with his dragon. The black dragon is fascinated by battles and constantly asks Laurence to read to him tales of heroic feats and aerial combat.

His Majesty's Dragon takes the Napoleonic wars and inserts dragons. It is a wonderful work of historical fantasy, and I doubt my book review does it justice. I'm currently searching for the next in the series (though I have to return this one, still...)

The Twilight Saga

by Stephenie Meyer

The saga begins with Twilight, the first in the series of four. Isabella (better known as just Bella) Swan is on her way to live with her dad, Charlie. All her life, she has lived with her mom, Renée. Upon arriving in Forks, her new home, she jumps right into her senior year of high school. While there, she meets Edward Cullen. Bella does some poking around and figures out that Edward and his family are vampires. Around the same time, she realizes that she is completely and utterly in love with him.

...I can't review all four of these books... I'm sorry, readers. I went to the midnight release for Breaking Dawn last night and stayed up all night reading, so I'm lucky if this is coherent. Stephenie Meyer is an excellent writer, and I highly recommend these books to anyone interested. It is a rare day when I find a romance series that I enjoy so much that I will follow it as far as it goes. Just go read them. They hold your attention.

So Yesterday

by Scott Westerfeld

Ever wonder who decides what's cool and what's not? Hunter Braque is one of those people. Hunter is a Trendsetter, the second level of the "cool pyramid." Then, one day when he's out cool-hunting, he comes across an Innovator by the name of Jen. Innovators are the top of the cool pyramid, the ones who have the original ideas. They're the ones who are the first to do something new, like tie their shoelaces in a new pattern, or wear clothes too big on purpose.
Trendsetters go around looking for Innovators so that they can sell the ideas to advertisers. Jen's latest Innovation is to tie her shoelaces in a rising-sun pattern, and Hunter spots it and sends it to his boss, Mandy. While talking to Jen, Hunter gets a call from Mandy to go to a focus group for reviewing an advertisement. Hunter invites Jen along, and she startles everyone there by making an observation that nobody had made before. This couldn't be good, since Mandy wasn't happy. But as it turns out, businesses like original thinking. They are looking for new ideas and original concepts so as not to reuse the old ones over and over again.

Shortly afterward, Mandy invites the two of them to a meeting. She had something to show them, a new level of cool. But she never turns up for the meeting, and Hunter and Jen find Mandy's phone in a nearby abandoned building. Suspecting that Mandy has been kidnapped, they embark on a crazy mission to find her and rescue her. As it all turns out, things aren't what they seemed to be...

I really, really enjoyed this book. Westerfeld's creative use of capital letters to indicate importance or emphasis (i.e., Innovators, Trendsetters; at a computer-geek's house, dust and sunlight were Very Bad Things and Bad Things, respectively) is very clever and gives voice to the story. The characters come to life, with an excellent balance of action and slump, along with a dash of romance to keep things interesting. This story, though it may be small, has a little bit of everything I look for in a book. Action, character interaction, espionage, humour, seat-of-the-pants decisions... the list goes on, but it's all there. Kudos to Westerfeld, and this book gets a great recommendation!

Poison

by Chris Wooding

Poison is a strong-willed, bull-headed child who lives in the marshes. She chose her own name on her nameday in order to spite her mean stepmother. Then, one day, she finds her little sister Azalea taken by the phaeries and decides that she must go rescue her. Once she reaches the Realm of the Phaeries, she goes to the Phaerie Lord and asks him for her sister back. He tells her that she must steal a dagger from another lady, the Lady of Cobwebs. Poison steals the dagger and returns to the palace, only to discover that the Phaerie Lord, Aelthar, won't give her her sister back and instead intended to kill her. With Bram, the wraith-catcher who joined her cause; Peppercorn, the girl she picked up in the house between Realms; and Andersen, the cat who was Peppercorn's companion, Poison determines to steal Azalea back. Her plan is thwarted, however, when she discovers that the Hierophant, the most powerful lord in the Realms, is writing again. To her, this means nothing--to the rest of the Phaerie Realm, it means something big is going to happen.

Poison, along with her companions, travel to the Hierophant's castle, where Poison encounters Fleet, an old friend of hers from the marshes. Fleet explains that he is an Antiquarian, someone who watches the world and records the most interesting of stories. Thus, the Hierophant is the head Antiquarian, and whatever he writes, happens. The Hierophant tells Poison that she is but a character in the fiction he is writing, and that all that has happened is just a story. Poison tries to give up, but all the people in her story begin to fade and die. She steps back onto the path just in time for someone to murder the Hierophant with the dagger she stole from the Lady of Cobwebs. The Phaerie Lord actually figured out who had done it--his secretary, Scriddle, who was originally born for the sole purpose of becoming the Hierophant. Accompanying Scriddle was the Hierophant's wife, Pariasa. It was she who did the deed and stole the book recording the Hierophant's life from the Hierophant's library. Scriddle, who had intended to become the next Hierophant, tries to kill Poison. But he can't kill Poison without killing himself, as he is merely a part of HER story. Of course, Poison is the next Hierophant, and she records her own story. Her test was the quest that the Hierophant sent her on through his writing.

As soon as I opened this book, I sensed two things. One: a very clichéd character set. Poison has purple eyes, an angsty name, and she named herself. On top of that, she is rebellious. Two: a plot-driven story. There are four main kinds of stories in the world: plot-based, character-based, both, neither. Usually I prefer the stories that are character-based and have good plotlines, falling under the category of "both." However, I can excuse a plotline if the characters are convincing enough. Poison was a little too predictable for my tastes. I knew, at least twenty pages in advance, that Poison would be the next Hierophant. I knew she would succeed at the impossible, and I had a sneaking suspicion that the girl she met in the first town would have an importance later on. If you like stories with good plots but cardboard-cut-out characters, take it. If you're more like me, pick up something else.

Another thing that really irked me was Wooding's consistent usage of ridiculous spelling. Phaeries for fairies or faeries, magick for magic, etc. It got really irritating after a while... Regular spelling works just fine, but for some reason he felt the urge to add in the extra letters. British spelling I will excuse--I spell certain words the British way. I grew up on Roald Dahl and Harry Potter before graduating on to Agatha Christie, so it's imprinted onto my brain patterns. But adding all those different letters gave me a headache after a while and did little more than frustrate the grammar Nazi in me (who is trying to be on vacation for a little while).

Overall, Poison was not my cup of tea. I'd much rather read something with a little more imagination, but that's just my opinion.

Summer Reading List

Most of the books on my summer reading list (see below) are self-assigned projects, stemming from requests or from my own interest.

The List, so far:
Poison, by Christopher Wooding
*The Ender quartet, by Orson Scott Card
*The Bean quartet, also by Orson Scott Card
-*1984, by George Orwell (already reviewed, see 2007 > June)
-Siddhartha, by Hermann Hesse
-My Ántonia, by Willa Cather
Breaking Dawn, by Stephenie Meyer
So Yesterday, by Scott Westerfeld
The Temeraire series, by Naomi Novik

Starred selections are rereads. Selections with a hyphen next to them are not self- or reader-assigned. Said hyphenated selections are mandatory and will take priority over others if my summer time runs out before I complete the list. If I missed one or if you find a good book to add, comment here! I have an entire internet-free week coming up and will spend that time reading as much as possible. Prepare for a barrage of reviews upon my return!

Edited note: green selections are completed and reviewed.

Keep reading!
~Yours Truly

Apologies

To my dear readers:

You have my sincerest apologies for my long dormancy. I'm afraid I have had neither the time nor patience to complete my perusal of Dante's Inferno. If I keep it out of the library for much longer, it will be long overdue and the fine will be outrageous. Perhaps another time, when I don't have as much on my plate...

In happier news, I have just finished a whole stack of new books and checked out another. At least one of them is sure to find its way out here very soon.

I hope my reviews inspire you to explore new worlds through other books.
~Yours Truly

The Divine Comedy

by Dante Alighieri

I finally got my hands on Dante's complete Divine Comedy! I'm going to review them one book at a time. I've started in Hell (The Inferno) and will work my way up through Purgatorio and Paradisio. Right now I'm reading The Inferno, and since it's written in verse rather than prose, it's taking me a lot longer than expected. I also have one review still in the works and will finish it as soon as possible. Until then, sit tight and hang on because I'm on a very long trip.

The Cure

by Sonia Levitin

I was browsing the library bookshelves recently and came across one that looked particularly intriguing. It had the stickers for both Science Fiction and Historical Fiction on its spine and I thought it might have been a mistake on the librarian's part. It wasn't. However, I didn't know that, so I checked it out, thinking it would be an interesting read, nothing more, nothing less. I never expected such a little book to be so spectacular.

Not even an inch thick, The Cure is light reading... or so you'd think. On the contrary, it is a truly moving story about a lesser-known historical event, as shown through the eyes of sixteen-year-old Johannes.

Perhaps to fully understand the story, one must first understand the background. It is the year 2407. In a way similar to that of 1984, the "human" has been taken out of humanity. People wear masks and consume high levels of serotonin to keep them subdued. Instead of being born at random like humans today, they are born in boy-girl twin sets, named with the same familiar name and formal number, and are genetically engineered to get along perfectly. Everybody wants to conform. The method of thinking of the people in this society is that conformity leads to harmony, which leads to tranquility. Diversity has all but been taken out of the people.

Enter Gemm 16884. He and his twin, Gemma 16884, are scheduled to become parents in a few days. Somehow, though, Gemm is struck by an urge to listen to and make music. He is no longer conforming. He loves music and wants more! It is wonderful, it is good! The Elders brand him as dangerous and disruptive. Gemm is seen as an exceptionally tricky case and given a choice: take "the cure," which will be painful but will make him not like music, or be recycled, which is a euphemism for die. Gemm chooses "the cure."

"The cure" for Gemm's love of music is to implant a memory into his brain, allowing him to live one year as another person from history while his real body is simply asleep for one day. Gemm becomes Johannes, a Jewish boy who lived in Germany during the beginnings of the Black Death.

Johannes is sixteen. He is the oldest in his family, and is therefore going to take over his father's business of money-changing and -lending in a few years. He loves music, his flute, and his neighbour Margarite, who loves him back. Life seems very good for Johannes and his village. Granted, being Jewish leaves everyone in the village open to ridicule from outsiders, but they are used to it by now and it has never truly affected them.

Word begins spreading of a horrible disease affecting and killing countless people. In need of a scapegoat, the Jews are blamed, and there are false and ridiculous stories popping up left and right about how the Jews were the cause of the whole thing. The most popular is that the Jews poisoned the well water.

From Johannes's village, men are being dragged in for questioning. "Questioning," in this sense, means, "being painfully tortured until they tell the authorities what they want to hear." Johannes's own father is taken, and while he (thankfully) came back alive, he would never be the same again.

A glimmer of hope appears in the chaos and distress--Johannes and Margarite are betrothed! Both they and their families are immensely pleased and hearts begin to rise in anticipation of their wedding in the springtime. This joyous occasion in a time of such sadness is a welcome reprieve from grieving.

Alas, it was not to be... all the Jews in Johannes's village were rounded up. The horrible illness was everywhere, and everybody pointed their fingers at the Jews. In punishment (and a sorry attempt to dispel their fears of the unknown), all the Jews were burned.

Gemm wakes up and no longer wants to have anything to do with music. To the Elders, he is cured. The incident left him changed for life... he remembers what it is like to feel pain, what it's like to hate and be hated... and what it's like to love and be loved.

I highly recommend this book to everybody who can find it. It expresses such meaning about the importance of the individual. I absolutely loved this story. It only took me about a day to read it, but it was so well-written and had such power that I'd be willing to read it again and again and again. I am amazed that such a little book is so compelling, but it is truly spectacular.

Airman

by Eoin Colfer

Conor Broekhart loves to fly. What he and his teacher Victor Vigny want most in the world is to create a heavier-than-air flying machine. And when your family is best friends with the local royal family, an achievement of that magnitude is entirely possible.

Everything is going well--Conor loves the princess, his playmate since they were both old enough to play together, and she loves him. Conor and his teacher are on the verge of an enormous breakthrough in flying machine designs and the future is looking bright.

Little does anyone know, a man by the name of Bonvilian, whose family has worked for the royal family of the Saltees for generations, is plotting against the wise and much-beloved King Nicholas. His evil plot is a success, and Conor is thrown into the prison on Little Saltee under the name Conor Finn. A different story was told to everyone so as to manipulate them into doing whatever Bonvilian wanted them to. Conor thought that his family hated him and would kill him on sight, that they believed it was he who had killed the king. The rest of society believed it was Victor Vigny, one of King Nick's oldest and most trusted friends, who had turned traitor and was a spy for the French, who had killed both the king and Conor. Princess Isabella was being groomed to be queen, and Bonvilian thought she'd make a great puppet, even though she had more spirit than to be controlled by an evil manipulator.

Conor spends two years on Little Saltee, forging alliances and learning how to bribe. Conor Broekhart is a thing of the past: all that exists now is Conor Finn.

I totally LOVED this book. Everything in it was balanced so well... the cruel mind of Bonvilian, the intellect of Conor, the humour and lightness in the beginning with the darkness that followed. I recommend this as reading to everyone old enough to understand it because it is such an amazing story.

Coming soon: review on Airman!

I finally procured a copy of Airman, by Eoin Colfer. As soon as I finish reading it, I will review it! I promise!