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Jan 14, 2011

Rebecca rated it:

This is possibly the most underacknowledged book of all time. I am bowled over by Moriarty’s creativity upon every reread. IHABMOBP is clever, sweet, and kind of awesomely weird. Despite its quirkiness (or maybe because of it), I actually found it to be filled with little moments and observations that felt like they were lifted directly from my own experiences. The dialogue feels very real; Moriarty has an amazing grasp on the bizarre rhythm of actual conversations. Unfortunately, I think y More...

0 comments like (12 people liked it)

Apr 26, 2011

oliviasbooks rated it:

Inspite of Jaclyn Moriarty's funky, insightful and sometimes extremely funny writing style, "The Spell Book of Listen Taylor" is in essence a rather depressing book: It tells the cleverly intertwined stories of three women having each an affair and one 12-years-old girl - the one and only Alissa "Listen" Taylor -, being systematically snubbed/mobbed/cold-shouldered by her five former best friends.

I do not know why, but the helpless combination of adultery and lonel More...

9 comments like (6 people liked it)

Feb 03, 2011

Tatiana rated it:

This is just way too bizarre to be truly enjoyed. Not even close to Ashbury books in quality. Have no idea why it is being marketed as YA, because this book is basically about grown people indulging in adultery for no good reason. Adultery is accompanied by mentions of multiple orgasms, sucking toes, and qualities of a good lover.

The only poignant part of the story is Listen's junior high school experience. And the novel is very interesting structurally. Other parts of the novel - the More...

2 comments like (5 people liked it)

Aug 25, 2008

Eva rated it:

When I first picked up The Spell Book of Listen Taylor by Jaclyn Moriarty, it seemed to be quite obviously YA, published as it is by the Arthur A. Levine imprint of Scholastic and featuring a 12-year-old girl who finds a book of spells. Easy-peasy!

Well, no. To my initial uneasiness but then vast delight, this book quickly began soaring away from any possibility of pinning it down into a category or genre. Sure, there’s a Junior High School girl named Listen, whose spells may or ma More...

1 comment like (8 people liked it)

Feb 09, 2008

Kevin rated it:

I really, really loved this.

Every time I would open it to start a new chapter, I would spend 5 minutes going back and re-reading favorite parts from previous chapters. Every sentence was just such a pleasure, totally worth lingering over.

There were parts that caused genuine laughing-out-loud, and also parts where I was pretty much sobbing? If it's OK for me to share that?

I'm not sure I would call this book straight-up YA, because it spends an awful lot of tim More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jan 05, 2011

K rated it:

Past Me wouldn’t have enjoyed this book and that’s unfortunate. Disparate stories and characters seem to pick up and leave off with no apparent plot, so I wouldn’t have made it very far before abandoning it. But since I’d already read and loved the Ashbury books, I had faith and quickly finished and loved this one too.

The story—don’t worry, there really is one in there—revolves around the Zing Family Secret. There’s junior high student Listen Taylor and her mysterious Spell Book. Mar More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 19, 2010

Shannon rated it:

This is the story of how I was tricked by this book. Yes, TRICKED!! This is the story:

Four years ago in January 2006, I was at Sydney airport waiting to board the plane to Canada. As you do, I was wasting time in the airport shops, more specifically, one of those little bookshops. One book caught my eye and I instantly fell in love the cover and the zany title and the even zanier, witty blurb. It was I Have a Bed Made of Buttermilk Pancakes by an Australian/Canadian author, Jaclyn Mo More...

4 comments like (2 people liked it)

Sep 05, 2010

Punk rated it:

Fiction. When Listen Taylor and her dad move in with Marbie Zing, her dad's girlfriend, Listen finds a spell book while unpacking her things. There are nine spells in the book, and it's very particular about when she does them.

This is delightful, like Alice Hoffman at her best. It's not quite magical realism, more like reality with the barest hint of magic. The kind of magic that might come from coincidence, not the kind where people suddenly sprout wings. The prose is playful and in More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jun 02, 2008

Jen rated it:

Following this story is like trying to follow the deranged rantings of a hopped-up lunatic with ADD. There is no literary flow; it is a listing of random thoughts and actions by characters with names like Listen, Marbie, and Violin (ok, technically Violin is a cat). Bizarre is too tame of a word to describe the descriptions, and the dialogue feels like it came out of Through the Looking Glass.

Of course, none of that is necessarily a bad thing.

After 100 pages or so I star More...

2 comments like (4 people liked it)

Nov 16, 2008

Meghan rated it:

I do not like fairy tales. I think they are dumb. They all want to teach me a lesson, and aside from that, when I was a youngin' all the fairy tales had already been Fractured and were parodied more than told, so, how was I supposed to take any of them seriously? It was hard to do that and that is why everyone my age is ironic and pissed off all of the time, the end. I BLAME YOU, ADULTS.

Just kidding. Sort of. Hey, this book! It's a fairy tale that I liked very much. There was a vers More...

5 comments like (2 people liked it)

Feb 20, 2008

Amanda rated it:

I've enjoyed Moriarty's writing for the past few years and was excited as I sat down to read this book that she seems to be sensing the shift in her audience. I enjoy a lot of YA novels and that's how I got into Moriarty, but this most recent book, while still having elements of YA, seems to be trying to reach her mid-twenties audience. Don't get me wrong, I think it works! I was pleasantly surprised to find Moriarty combining stories of characters of many ages and found myself equally entran More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 12, 2007

Jamie rated it:

i have no idea how to review this book. i thoroughly enjoyed it, and yet, other than me, i'm not sure who its audience is.

it's published as young adult. most of the characters are in their 20s and 30s, with the exception of a 12 year old and a 7 year old. the tone is that of a kid's (not y.a.) book, and the content is entirely adult (most of the plots revolve around extra-marital affairs). so, hmmm.

but that aside, it was charming and quirky and contained an odd myster More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 29, 2008

Virginia rated it:

I judge a book by its cover many a time, which is why I picked up this book. The instantly grabbing image of a woman in heels, looking like she's practically flying into an open, glowing window; the title (who can resist a title such as this one?!); and the predominate color of green all sucked me in immediately. Plus, I'd read other books by Jaclyn Moriarty ("The Year of Secret Assignments") in which she'd employed a writing method where the story was told in a series of handwritten n More...

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Mar 27, 2011

RachelAnne rated it:

Caveat Emptor This is a revised edition of I Have A Bed Made Of Buttermilk Pancakes (see my sad, sad story below). Also, it is NOT a YA book unless you believe that every book which has any character under the age of 20 should be shelved in YA. This is a thoughtful adult novel, and nowhere near as hilarious as the jacket would lead one to believe. I love the germ of inspiration Moriarty had around the Zing family secret, but for my own enjoyment I wish she had focused more on that and on more wh More...

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Jul 17, 2011

Kayla rated it:

This book definitely caught me by surprise. I picked it up randomly, expecting to enjoy it because I've read a few other books by Jaclyn Moriarty and loved them; they each had their own writing style and unique way of drawing me into the story. The Spell Book of Listen Taylor was no different in that respect. It was told through a variety of characters who all had their own specific quirks and personalities that came through in the text.

I'd like to get what I disliked about the book More...

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Jan 14, 2011

Savannah rated it:

I don't particularly like singling one book out of the masses and labeling it as my favourite. But, when I'm called upon to do so, I generally say this one. This is the book I most wish I had written myself. It is completely adorable and whimsical whilst still feeling very reflective of every day life. It is as if Moriarty has filtered ordinary events through a romantic, magical lense.

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 14, 2011

Amber rated it:

One of the most oddly-written, weird books I've probably ever read. I thought it was going to be a type of family chick-lit book with a bit of magic thrown in, but it was just, like, what? Little made sense until the end, and even then it was still only an alright book. It really wasn't anything like what I expected it to be. And it was a long thing, too.

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 01, 2011

Jennifer rated it:

This book was slow to start and should not really be categorized under Young Adult. It suffered from being too long with pacing issues. Its main flaw was that I didn't like any of the women. That's normally okay if I can understand them, but the motivations of these women was not believable to me. Listen was a sympathetic character, but she played very little role in the book. The "Spell Book" was nonsensical and felt random. There was also the issue of these book seeming a bit "m More...

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Nov 22, 2008

Jeremy rated it:

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Feb 12, 2011

Patricia rated it:

For most of this book, I was confused as to what was going on. I followed the story well, but couldn't see why the characters were doing what they were doing. After about 50 pages, I gave up trying to figure it out and just sat back and enjoyed what was going on. There are nice sketches of adults in relationships making bad choices and how it affects the children around them. Also, a compelling portrait of a girl isolated by her former friends. In that way, I found this more adult, than Mor More...

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Sep 30, 2010

Talulah rated it:

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Aug 05, 2011

Jen rated it:

I was really looking forward to reading this book, especially because I had really enjoyed Feeling sorry for Celia and Finding Cassie crazy. Also the reviews had been mixed but intriguing. Well - what a mess of a book. Supposed to be for teenagers, but just because one of the characters is a teen (Listen herself) doesn't make it a teen read. Most of the other characters have affairs without it being made clear just why - in many ways they were very unsympathetic characters and I felt like sh More...

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Aug 06, 2010

Alicia rated it:

It was good, cute, a little darker and more mature than her other books. More an adult book than a young adult book. (But not THAT adult).

I don't know if I liked it more or less than her others. I guess my star ratings would answer that question for me. It didn't have the same cute "memo" style that her other books did (which can get annoying after a while) but it did take longer to get into. (maybe 100 pages or so)

I guess the best part was that it was real. The " More...

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Jul 28, 2011

Kristy rated it:

A story about the Zings and how they have much in common without knowing it. I loved how this book would follow the storyline of Cath, Fancy and Marbie. It kept it interesting and the story would always keep flowing and I would always be keen to keep reading to see what happened to each character. My favorite character was Listen. She was very believable that I felt like I completely understood where she was coming from. The only thing I was disappointed about was the theme that was chosen, adul More...

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Aug 05, 2009

Melanie rated it:

Loved this - it had that whimsical quality that I adore about Sarah Addison Allen, but in its own weird, unique way. It is, apparently, marketed as a "teen" book, but it really seemed pretty adult to me - the 12 year old girl, Listen, was only part of the story, and there was plenty about the adults to make it accessible even to people who don't like teen fiction. The writing was really beautiful and unusual, and I loved how of it was woven together - these strange, disparate bits an More...

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Dec 21, 2008

Akilah rated it:

I have no idea why this book is marketed as YA lit (except for the fact that the author usually writes YA) because it is SO not YA lit. Like, at all. It's more about adult relationships than anything, even if Listen herself is 12 or 13. However, she is one of four/five rotating main characters and the rest are all grown women.

It differs a LOT in style from Moriarty's books, and once I got past that, I really enjoyed it. It was nice to see how all of the stories came together as w More...

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Jan 18, 2010

Kat rated it:

A layered work that doesn't condescend to its tween/teen readers, this book reminded me of Special Topics in Calamity Physics for a slightly younger audience. Almost entirely plot-driven and following multiple, intersecting lives, it presents life - adult relationships, anyway - without any sugar coating. It isn't a book about fairy tale endings as much as it is a meditation on compromise, denial, security, and family.
Overall, the writing is sometimes morose, but even passages that are les More...

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Oct 02, 2010

Laura rated it:

The story follows four different characters. Listen Taylor, who finds a spell book after moving in with her father's girlfriend, Marbie. Fancy Zing and her struggles with her life. Marbie Zing who thinks she may ruin her life with one mistake. And, Cath Murphy, Cassie Zing's second grade teacher. I thought the book would be more about Listen Taylor and the spell book. It is, but it is also about so much more. The Zing family has a secret and each Friday night they meet in the family shed. More...

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Jan 14, 2011

Monica rated it:

Fun, creative, adorable, and highly recommended.

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 14, 2011

Jemma rated it:

Very quirky, very gripping and very enjoyable!!!

0 comments like (1 person liked it)