listersgirl (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
listersgirl) wrote2010-10-12 09:35 pm
listersgirl) wrote2010-10-12 09:35 pm
Entry tags:
Booktalk
Look, more books! I got a little backlogged. This is also a combination of my most recent reads, and some from ages ago that I found in a file (pre-Goodreads, even). Whoops.
Ilona Andrews Magic Bites
I enjoyed this! I would have liked more about the actual world and how the magic works, because I liked that sort of detail, but I enjoyed the characters and the storyline.
Christopher Brookmyre Pandaemonium
A school trip and a top secret military experiment collide with disastrous consequences. I love how Brookmyre writes kids - so funny.
Gordon Dahlquist The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters
A weird, crazy book with a sort of Victorian steampunk sensibility, where secret societies and manufactured dreams cause a collision of alliances. A little confusing, but very addictive.
Tessa Dare One Dance with a Duke
I don't remember any of the details about this book, but I do remember it being a great read.
Emma Donoghue Room
Fantastic! Told from the point of view of a 5-year-old boy who has lived his whole life locked in one room with his mother. Donoghue gave a fascinating world - life as seen by him and as created for him by his mother. It being from his point of view keeps the book from being too depressing or melodramatic. Loved it.
Guy Gavriel Kay Under Heaven
Totally fantastic. It's a story of how one gift and one woman completely change a man's life, with consequences that effect the entire land. What I loved is that it was story, so I never felt like there was too much trying to be squished into one book, but in typical Kay fashion there were detours and side stories and lovely codas.
David Nicholls One Day
I enjoyed this book quite a bit - it's a neat concept, one day a year in a friendship/relationship of two people. It dragged a bit at the end, but I liked that we saw changes in the characters, both their personalities and their circumstances, and not all for the good. Unrelated to my opinion on the book: I definitely agree with something I read (maybe in the Monkey See blog?) that said that if this exact book had been written by a woman, it would a) not have gotten nearly the press, and b) been dismissed as "chick lit". It's a stupid world we live in.
Julia Quinn Ten Things I Love About You
A very funny, very cute romance.
Charles Stross The Fuller Memorandum
This book lost me almost immediately - it's a combination urban fantasy/spy novel, with all the world-building, secrets, and acronyms that both those genres come with. WAY too much to absorb at once. I've been thinking about why some books are completely successful at throwing the reader into an unknown world, and some fail (I started reading China Mieville's Kraken right after this, which could potentially have the same problems, but doesn't). I think the trick is to have a character that *also* doesn't know what's going on, who finds him/herself drawn into something unusual, so the reader has something to hang onto. In this book, it's first person POV from someone who works right in it all, so there was too much too fast. Probably didn't help that it turns out it's the second in a series, which I didn't realize. I've liked other novels by this author, but this one didn't do it for me.
Ilona Andrews Magic Bites
I enjoyed this! I would have liked more about the actual world and how the magic works, because I liked that sort of detail, but I enjoyed the characters and the storyline.
Christopher Brookmyre Pandaemonium
A school trip and a top secret military experiment collide with disastrous consequences. I love how Brookmyre writes kids - so funny.
Gordon Dahlquist The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters
A weird, crazy book with a sort of Victorian steampunk sensibility, where secret societies and manufactured dreams cause a collision of alliances. A little confusing, but very addictive.
Tessa Dare One Dance with a Duke
I don't remember any of the details about this book, but I do remember it being a great read.
Emma Donoghue Room
Fantastic! Told from the point of view of a 5-year-old boy who has lived his whole life locked in one room with his mother. Donoghue gave a fascinating world - life as seen by him and as created for him by his mother. It being from his point of view keeps the book from being too depressing or melodramatic. Loved it.
Guy Gavriel Kay Under Heaven
Totally fantastic. It's a story of how one gift and one woman completely change a man's life, with consequences that effect the entire land. What I loved is that it was story, so I never felt like there was too much trying to be squished into one book, but in typical Kay fashion there were detours and side stories and lovely codas.
David Nicholls One Day
I enjoyed this book quite a bit - it's a neat concept, one day a year in a friendship/relationship of two people. It dragged a bit at the end, but I liked that we saw changes in the characters, both their personalities and their circumstances, and not all for the good. Unrelated to my opinion on the book: I definitely agree with something I read (maybe in the Monkey See blog?) that said that if this exact book had been written by a woman, it would a) not have gotten nearly the press, and b) been dismissed as "chick lit". It's a stupid world we live in.
Julia Quinn Ten Things I Love About You
A very funny, very cute romance.
Charles Stross The Fuller Memorandum
This book lost me almost immediately - it's a combination urban fantasy/spy novel, with all the world-building, secrets, and acronyms that both those genres come with. WAY too much to absorb at once. I've been thinking about why some books are completely successful at throwing the reader into an unknown world, and some fail (I started reading China Mieville's Kraken right after this, which could potentially have the same problems, but doesn't). I think the trick is to have a character that *also* doesn't know what's going on, who finds him/herself drawn into something unusual, so the reader has something to hang onto. In this book, it's first person POV from someone who works right in it all, so there was too much too fast. Probably didn't help that it turns out it's the second in a series, which I didn't realize. I've liked other novels by this author, but this one didn't do it for me.
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