Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children

RMiss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I enjoyed this original, action packed novel. I thought the ideas and characters were fresh and interesting. The plot was unpredictable yet made sense. The pictures which were the inspiration, were fun to see. Ironically, the authors desire to fit these pictures into the thread of the narrative felt contrived and broke the flow of the novel. The very inspiration for the novels brilliance was also the most irritating part of the novel. I loved the story, but it might be a bit dark for younger readers.

View all my reviews

The Marriage Plot

EThe Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I bought this book because it was $5 and had the words Pulitzer Prize on the front. (Also I thought it was a book whose glowing review I had read, but I was mistaken: upon double checking, that book was The Newlyweds). The first 100 pages or so are almost unbearable. I believe one of the goodreads reviewers used the word Pretentious. It opens on graduation day at Brown and you are introduced to a bunch of Pretentious 80's intellectuals who base their relationships on what obscure author they are reading or what philosophical class they are taking. Since no one, even the "poor" students have a job, they can sit around and theorize about all sorts of crap. But because I can never not read a book once I've started, I slogged along and it actually got a little more interesting. Mainly because a couple of the characters had to actually deal with real life; namely, manic depression, and a religious exploration. I found both of those story lines well told and thought out. I especially appreciated that an author would allow a smart, Pretentious youth to search for meaning in religion. The ending was also satisfactory and refreshing. I never did like the Pretentious heroine though. And the book had more sex in it than needed to be there.

View all my reviews

The Mysterious Benedict Society

The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Loved this book. Recommend for everyone wanting a clever, fun read. Was told this was an easy read, but I mistook it for a short read and got caught at book club not having finished it....(the downside of e books). But loved everything from the beginning to the touching end.

View all my reviews

The Time Machine

TThe Time Machine by H.G. Wells
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

We read this for book club. It was a good early foray into science fiction. Someone pointed out that it was Wells that coined the term time travel. Indeed, the argument for the possibility of traveling in the Fourth dimension was intriguing and the most logical argument for it that I've come across. Still while the story of the time traveller was interesting, it didn't hold either the interest or horror for me that it would have for earlier audiences. Too much apocalyptic literature these days, I suppose. In fact, The Accidental Time Machine by Joe Haldeman must have borrowed a lot from Wells, because it reminded me a lot of each other. It would be nice if someone travelled into the future and found out that we didn't annihilate ourselves, though. It wouldn't be as interesting, but I'm just sayin, it would be nice.

View all my reviews

Night Film

Night Film by Marisha Pessl
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I loved this book. Though I will add the caveat that I have a readers crush on Pessel ever since I read Special Topics.... And I have been eagerly awaiting her sophomore novel ever since. So I might be biased. But I wasn't disappointed.
First of all, can I say I loved the apps and all the extra stuff that came with it?! It made the book that much more alive, and I sort of became obsessed with it. Yes, I read everything on the "syllabus" and looked up to see if I could find the ending of the story of Bartho Lore. The whole app thing made me giddy and it was not disappointing.
I liked the characters, and loved going down the rabbit hole with them. I didn't find the "multiple endings" annoying, rather it leads to an ambiguity that would have made Cordova proud. Another criticism I came across was that Cordova's films didn't even sound that scary. I think that shows little imagination or understanding of scary movies....it is rarely the plot that is scary but rather the way it filmed, the score, the tension, that makes a thing scary. And I assume that Cordova was the master of it. I found it interesting that the plots of his movies all dealt with depravity of man without any supernatural elements. I can't help but think Pessel did this intentionally.
The other thing I appreciated: though the novel had all of the elements of horror...supernatural stuff, S&M clubs, spooky kids, dream sequences, it was all very PG. But in no way boring.
What was distracting, I will agree is the abundant use of italics. At first I even thought there must be a secret second novel made up of the italicized words...there were so many! Also, she describes Ashley with dark hair and then has colored pictures of her with light brown hair...distracting!
Other than that, loved it and will try to be patient for another 7 years while Pessel reinvents another genre.

View all my reviews

Red Sparrow

TyRed Sparrow by Jason Matthews
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I like me a great spy novel. This was a spy novel but it was not great. It had some great concepts, however, that were never fully realized, and some pretty lame filler. The best part of the book is the recipes at the end of each chapter that told how to make foods that the characters ate in the preceding chapter. Needless to say the characters ate a lot. But for a foodie like me, it was a great tie-in. They all sounded delicious.
Another great concept is Dominika, the newbie spy, can see colors around other people, indicating that they are warm, trustworthy, or evil, sinister. Does she ever really put that to good use? No. In fact, she often misreads things like an ordinary person, so what is the use of her super power?
She is also essentially forced to go to Sparrow school, where spies learn to seduce to gain information. It is too detailed in my opinion, of degrading sexual exploitation. Especially since she never uses the techniques she learns. It only serves to make her hate the people she works for. Which could have been done in a different way.
I'll admit I liked Nate, the American spy, and his colleague Benford. MARBLE, the asset, was equally likeable. The plot and characters were pretty cliche for a spy novel, but I liked it nonetheless. John le Carre it is not, but if you feel like Polish dumplings along with your double cross, it's not too bad.

View all my reviews

Reached

Reached by Ally Condie
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Why does every author writing in YA fiction feel like they have to write a trilogy? What was magic with Matched gets watered down, repetitive, and grinds to a halt before we reached the end of the series. If Stephanie Meyers doesn't have a poetic bone in her body, Condie more than makes up for it. The problem is, that as much as I like poetry, it tends to be achingly slow. And this novel flows like crystallized honey. Which is stored somewhere in that wasps nest she refers to at least 5 times but has no significance. That is the other problem with this lyrical book...she refers to objects, colors, and events so many times you feel there must be some hidden meaning, but no, just everything in Cassia's world reminds her of something trivial that happened in book 1 or 2, so read up before you attempt to plow through this. It was an okay story, just disappointed how it dribbled out at the end, when it had such a promising start.

View all my reviews