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taliaissmart
In The Transmogrification of Roscoe Wizzle, a very matter-of-fact boy with an orphan mother and nerves-shot father begins to transform into a bug. He and his super smart best friend Kinchy decide to solve the mystery of both Roscoe's and other kids' transformations and subsequent disappearances. The pair encounter a old woman (aka a jujitsu-practicing gorilla mascot), a paranoid and butterfly-net wielding henchman, and maybe even a link to Roscoe's family history.
This book is ultra-bizarre but highly enjoyable! I did have some confusion regarding the actual powers of the Mysterious Empty Lot and the significance of some of the secondary characters, but the majority of the novel hits all the right silly bases.
This book is ultra-bizarre but highly enjoyable! I did have some confusion regarding the actual powers of the Mysterious Empty Lot and the significance of some of the secondary characters, but the majority of the novel hits all the right silly bases.
I just finished reading this with my 11 year old cousin, Mari. It's a cute story about a girl named Katie who (predictably) loses her friend Callie in the transition to middle school and copes by making cupcakes!
While the narrative of a tough entrance to middle school is oh so common, Simon plays with and mocks some of the tropes. For example, the obnoxious clique members actually call themselves the "Popular Girls Club." Katie and the Cupcake Cure is a sweet, accessible, not particularly nuanced but still funny middle-grade story.
While the narrative of a tough entrance to middle school is oh so common, Simon plays with and mocks some of the tropes. For example, the obnoxious clique members actually call themselves the "Popular Girls Club." Katie and the Cupcake Cure is a sweet, accessible, not particularly nuanced but still funny middle-grade story.
DNF @ p.85
While Fitzgerald clearly had a strong command of the English language, this book is absolutely mediocre. It's about a woman named Florence Green who opens a bookshop in a small Suffolk town after her neighbors warn her not to. There's some debate about whether she should sell Lolita, but she doesn't actually take the time to read it because she believes that a woman's opinion on the issue is too unreliable (which made me seethe). That seems to be about all that happens. There's no tension, no likeable characters, no engaging setting. It's just quaint and uninteresting.
While Fitzgerald clearly had a strong command of the English language, this book is absolutely mediocre. It's about a woman named Florence Green who opens a bookshop in a small Suffolk town after her neighbors warn her not to. There's some debate about whether she should sell Lolita, but she doesn't actually take the time to read it because she believes that a woman's opinion on the issue is too unreliable (which made me seethe). That seems to be about all that happens. There's no tension, no likeable characters, no engaging setting. It's just quaint and uninteresting.
Furiously Happy is a memoir of Jenny Lawson's hilarious daily life, which involves mental illness, taxidermy, and many arguments with her husband Victor. Lawson's comedy provides an engaging and often uplifting frame to discuss the darkness that sometimes pervades her mind.
While I found this book very entertaining for the most part, I did struggle a bit toward the end, as some of the sentiments began to repeat. I think that the collection of essays could have been significantly cut down without any loss in terms of impact.
While I found this book very entertaining for the most part, I did struggle a bit toward the end, as some of the sentiments began to repeat. I think that the collection of essays could have been significantly cut down without any loss in terms of impact.
DNF @ p.53
I'm torn on this one! I love McEwan's beautiful writing but I just can't get past how little this concept is working for me.
First of all, let me be clear: I love the original Hamlet. Both the character and the play as a whole. Shakespeare brilliantly combines righteousness, revenge, angst, and comic timing to produce a thoroughly fun and affecting work of literature. In McEwan's retelling, there's a disconnect. There are certain things I think McEwan does really well, like showing the narrator's conflicted feelings of love and resentment toward his mother. He writes Claude as the perfect punchable villain.
And yet the narrator (I'm just gonna go ahead and call him Hamlet 2) lacks the biting wit of the classic Shakespearean hero. Oh, he's clever. In fact, he's brilliant to the point of being obnoxious. And although Hamlet 1 has that same quality of self-congratulatory intelligence, he's also able to make fun of his situation even as it tears him apart mentally (or perhaps because he's coming apart at the seams and has nothing to lose). Maybe Hamlet 2 is just too sane. Something's missing.
The main problem I have with Nutshell, though, is not the dissatisfactory portrayal of one of my favorite characters. The flaw that I cannot forgive is McEwan's choice to implement the unique and original narrative device of a fetal protagonist only to then use that protagonist as a personal mouthpiece. The impression I got from Hamlet 2's frequent soliloquies is that McEwan wanted an excuse to talk about his views on current events and his taste in wine, but still wanted the product to be in fictional form. None of Hamlet 2's musings reveal much about his character--unless that character is a thinly veiled, supernaturally overdeveloped fetal version of the author. I just don't understand why McEwan would establish such a potentially interesting frame through which to tell this story if he wasn't going to treat Hamlet 2 as an actual baby. Why bother?
In short, I found the first fifty pages of this novel pretty insufferable and disappointing despite my love of the source material and McEwan's writing.
I'm torn on this one! I love McEwan's beautiful writing but I just can't get past how little this concept is working for me.
First of all, let me be clear: I love the original Hamlet. Both the character and the play as a whole. Shakespeare brilliantly combines righteousness, revenge, angst, and comic timing to produce a thoroughly fun and affecting work of literature. In McEwan's retelling, there's a disconnect. There are certain things I think McEwan does really well, like showing the narrator's conflicted feelings of love and resentment toward his mother. He writes Claude as the perfect punchable villain.
And yet the narrator (I'm just gonna go ahead and call him Hamlet 2) lacks the biting wit of the classic Shakespearean hero. Oh, he's clever. In fact, he's brilliant to the point of being obnoxious. And although Hamlet 1 has that same quality of self-congratulatory intelligence, he's also able to make fun of his situation even as it tears him apart mentally (or perhaps because he's coming apart at the seams and has nothing to lose). Maybe Hamlet 2 is just too sane. Something's missing.
The main problem I have with Nutshell, though, is not the dissatisfactory portrayal of one of my favorite characters. The flaw that I cannot forgive is McEwan's choice to implement the unique and original narrative device of a fetal protagonist only to then use that protagonist as a personal mouthpiece. The impression I got from Hamlet 2's frequent soliloquies is that McEwan wanted an excuse to talk about his views on current events and his taste in wine, but still wanted the product to be in fictional form. None of Hamlet 2's musings reveal much about his character--unless that character is a thinly veiled, supernaturally overdeveloped fetal version of the author. I just don't understand why McEwan would establish such a potentially interesting frame through which to tell this story if he wasn't going to treat Hamlet 2 as an actual baby. Why bother?
In short, I found the first fifty pages of this novel pretty insufferable and disappointing despite my love of the source material and McEwan's writing.
DNF @ p.144
This novel is formed by a series of interconnected accounts of events affecting young black veteran and geek Atticus Turner, his friend Letitia, and their families in 1950s Chicago. The protagonists fight a secret society of alchemists descending from Titus Braithwaite, a slaveowner from whom Atticus's ancestor escaped. Author Matt Ruff claims the influence of horror writer HP Lovecraft, who is both a pulp hero and an infamous racist.
I'm thoroughly unimpressed by this novel. Ruff's goal of addressing horror tropes through the lens of American racism and Jim Crow laws has potential, but the author's depiction of that racism seems like a caricature, accurate to some extent but oversimplified. Adding to this issue is the fact that the author is white and therefore probably shouldn't be writing from POC perspectives anyway.
The supernatural/horror elements were not particularly compelling either, with Atticus and Letitia unrealistically accepting the weird shit around them rather than being understandably freaked out. The mythos of the Braithwaites' secret society is completely underdeveloped, and many of the main characters' actions seem unfounded- they jump to (always correct) conclusions quickly and without any sort of explanation.
And on top of all that, the characters could have used much more development. None of them really have distinct personalities, a flaw which makes their responses to situations seem even less reasonable or realistic.
Don't bother with this one.
This novel is formed by a series of interconnected accounts of events affecting young black veteran and geek Atticus Turner, his friend Letitia, and their families in 1950s Chicago. The protagonists fight a secret society of alchemists descending from Titus Braithwaite, a slaveowner from whom Atticus's ancestor escaped. Author Matt Ruff claims the influence of horror writer HP Lovecraft, who is both a pulp hero and an infamous racist.
I'm thoroughly unimpressed by this novel. Ruff's goal of addressing horror tropes through the lens of American racism and Jim Crow laws has potential, but the author's depiction of that racism seems like a caricature, accurate to some extent but oversimplified. Adding to this issue is the fact that the author is white and therefore probably shouldn't be writing from POC perspectives anyway.
The supernatural/horror elements were not particularly compelling either, with Atticus and Letitia unrealistically accepting the weird shit around them rather than being understandably freaked out. The mythos of the Braithwaites' secret society is completely underdeveloped, and many of the main characters' actions seem unfounded- they jump to (always correct) conclusions quickly and without any sort of explanation.
And on top of all that, the characters could have used much more development. None of them really have distinct personalities, a flaw which makes their responses to situations seem even less reasonable or realistic.
Don't bother with this one.
DNF @ 40 min. on audio
I tried to read a print copy of this book a couple years ago and quickly gave up out of boredom. I thought that maybe the problem was timing and format, so I tried again with audio. I gave up after less than an hour.
Essentially, I think that Larson tries to do too much in this book, and the result is that he does not do any of it particularly well. Even in the first scene on the RMS Olympic, Larson establishes an unnecessarily high amount of required information (introducing many characters and giving quick backstories that become easy to lose track of), all of which is not particularly relevant to the actual story of the World Fair. What makes this setup even more frustrating is Larson's deliberate withholding of some of that information. Like...why won't he just say that the friend is on the Titanic. It's clearly the Titanic. What does not saying the name actually accomplish?? I feel like it's a sign of a weak writer if the only way they can create tension is to refuse to give away NAMES of historical events. WE KNOW THESE THINGS HAPPENED! Create tension in the pacing of the narrative, or in the characters' interactions. Withholding facts about history does NOTHING except frustrate me!! (And by the way, constantly hinting at other things that will happen by saying "this person's eventual destiny will end up being completely ironic given what you just saw" does not count as good tension-building either. It's gimmicky and maybe fine for [a:Lemony Snicket|36746|Lemony Snicket|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1199734355p2/36746.jpg], but I expect an actual historian to do better.)
If this book works for you, great. But I'm not going to try to appreciate it anymore.
I tried to read a print copy of this book a couple years ago and quickly gave up out of boredom. I thought that maybe the problem was timing and format, so I tried again with audio. I gave up after less than an hour.
Essentially, I think that Larson tries to do too much in this book, and the result is that he does not do any of it particularly well. Even in the first scene on the RMS Olympic, Larson establishes an unnecessarily high amount of required information (introducing many characters and giving quick backstories that become easy to lose track of), all of which is not particularly relevant to the actual story of the World Fair. What makes this setup even more frustrating is Larson's deliberate withholding of some of that information. Like...why won't he just say that the friend is on the Titanic. It's clearly the Titanic. What does not saying the name actually accomplish?? I feel like it's a sign of a weak writer if the only way they can create tension is to refuse to give away NAMES of historical events. WE KNOW THESE THINGS HAPPENED! Create tension in the pacing of the narrative, or in the characters' interactions. Withholding facts about history does NOTHING except frustrate me!! (And by the way, constantly hinting at other things that will happen by saying "this person's eventual destiny will end up being completely ironic given what you just saw" does not count as good tension-building either. It's gimmicky and maybe fine for [a:Lemony Snicket|36746|Lemony Snicket|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1199734355p2/36746.jpg], but I expect an actual historian to do better.)
If this book works for you, great. But I'm not going to try to appreciate it anymore.
