Maggie has
94 books
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| # | cover | title | author | isbn | isbn13 | asin | num pages | avg rating | num ratings | date pub | date pub (ed.) | rating | my rating | review | notes | recommender | comments | votes | read count | date started | date read |
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date purchased | owned | purchase location | condition | format | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1400069408
| 9781400069408
| 3.35
| 1,006
| Oct 07, 2010
| Feb 08, 2011
|
Five Things About Mr. Charwell: 1. If I tell you this is a book about depression, you won’t want to read it. At least, I wouldn’t want to read it. Depr...more Five Things About Mr. Charwell: 1. If I tell you this is a book about depression, you won’t want to read it. At least, I wouldn’t want to read it. Depression is real, yes, but depression also tends to be static; it clogs and slows and dilutes its victim. Which makes for boring fiction. So I won’t tell you that this book is about depression (because it’s not very true, anyway). I will instead tell you that this book is about Winston Churchill, which also isn’t tremendously true. Winston Churchill struggled with depression during his life, referring to it as a black dog. Well, in this book, depression is truly a black dog, six feet tall and smelly and just there. So there you go. This is practically a dog book. 2. Also, it’s not really about depression. It’s about strength. Possibly this makes it a not-depressing book with depression as a main character. Rebecca Hunt is a very clever wordsmith, and I had to stop a few times to read sentences out loud because of how very TRUE their contents were. I love a book that makes me nod and say “that’s exactly how it is! I never thought of it that way!” (Well, I don’t really say that. I just go GAH and read it out loud. But that’s what I mean.) 3. Plus, it’s funny. It’s interesting, isn’t it, how sadness and laughter live right next door to each other. This book nails that. Hunt is well aware of the humor inherent in a six foot tall dog named Mr. Chartwell looking for a room to let, and she runs with it. 4. The metaphor is pretty stinkin’ impeccable. I really think this exchange between one of the narrators, Esther, and the black dog, Mr. Chartwell, is a great example of both the book’s humor and the effectiveness of the metaphor. She has just asked him how it is that Mr. Chartwell affects Churchill, and he replies: “It’s hard to explain. With Churchill we know each other’s movements, so we have a routine, I guess. I like to be there when he wakes up in the morning. Sometimes I drape across his chest. That slows him down for a bit. And then I like to lie around in the corner of the room, crying out like I have terrible injuries. Sometimes I’ll burst out at him from behind some furniture and bark in his face. During meals I’ll squat near his plate and breathe over his food. I might lean on him too when he’s standing up, or hang off him in some way. I also make an effort to block out the sunlight whenever I can.” 5. The novel never overstays its welcome. Short chapters fill its brief 242 pages, making for a speedy read. The conceit of a panting black dog following people around might have gotten old if Hunt had let it, but — unlike Mr. Chartwell — Hunt gives the reader precisely what is needed and then is gone before there can be an aftertaste. (less) | Notes are private!
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1
| not set
| Aug 10, 2012
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Aug 10, 2012
| Hardcover
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| 1400031702
| 9781400031702
| 4.03
| 54,378
| 1992
| Apr 13, 2004
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Five Things About The Secret History. This is going to be a difficult book for me to talk about. I finished it days ago but I find myself a little ver...more Five Things About The Secret History. This is going to be a difficult book for me to talk about. I finished it days ago but I find myself a little verklempt, I’ll admit. It’s been a long time since a book has stuck with me so completely as this one, and I say that having had a quite remarkable year for memorable reading. So, the summary is straightforward and completely unhelpful: a Californian boy arrives at a private New England college where he falls in with a bunch of snooty but delightful Classics majors who happen to have accidentally killed someone during a Bacchian rite they just happened to be conducting in their spare time. That is a totally truthful depiction of some of the events in the book, but it is not what the book is ABOUT. I will do my best to convince you to pick it up in other ways. Without further ado, here are five things about THE SECRET HISTORY. 1. This is not a new book. All of your friends have already read it. You probably already have a copy of it, actually, that you picked up at some point in the last decade, and now it molders in a box in your master bedroom closet, the one that you never unpacked last time you moved. Right next to your college alarm clock and two boxes of 9-volt batteries and that shirt you can’t throw out because it was a gift. The reason why I’m pointing out that it’s not a new book is because, since reading it, I’ve been told by several people that it is theiwe Favorite Book Ever. It is one thing for you to read a book six months before and maintain it as a Favorite Book. It is something more remarkable when a book can elicit a passionate response from readers twenty years after its publication. 2. This book is full of terrible people. Pretty much the lot of the people that our narrator Richard meets are awful in some way. Self-centered or elitist or potheads or sociopathic or just people with really loud voices in quiet places. Even Richard is not exactly a great guy. But the magic of this novel is that, somehow, you find these terrible people deeply sympathetic. I need to go back and reread it to understand this strange enchantment. How do I find them so charming? Why do I want them to like Richard? GIVE ME YOUR SECRETS, BOOK. 3. This is not a whodunit. You are told pretty much the Bad Thing That Happens in the prologue, and you can see it coming like a comet for much of the book. The effect of this, however, is to create a lovely, unbearable tension and anticipation. And when the moment comes — in a line that involves ferns — it is so deliciously awful. I actually exhaled gloriously and put the book down for a moment because I was so delighted by the actual pay off. 4. It’s long. It’s over 200,000 words long, I think, and 600 pages in my edition. It took me five days to read it. And it’s not just long, it’s dense. One of the blurbs on the inside of the jacket said that it read like a 19th century novel, and I don’t think that’s at all unearned. It takes its time developing atmosphere and character quirks and some of the days in the novel take dozens of pages to unfold. It is not a novel to speed through. It’s a novel to get stuck in. I put it down when I got too tired, when I felt like I was starting to skim. 5. WHAT ELSE CAN I SAY? I adore the characters so much. I adore the hint —the breath — of the supernatural. I adore the slow, building tension and the sense that I, as a reader, was being skillfully manipulated. Yes, that. That last one. I think that is what I love the most about this novel. I get the idea that Donna Tartt was completely in control of this novel. Everything is measured and deliberate and just perfectly done, and I trust her entirely. Fifty pages in, I knew that she was going to tell me a story I was going to enjoy, even if I had no idea what it was going to be. Man, I just am going to flail about some more. Go read it. (less) | Notes are private!
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1
| not set
| Jul 12, 2012
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Jul 15, 2012
| Hardcover
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| 0312380429
| 9780312380427
| 3.94
| 3,967
| Dec 29, 2009
| Jan 05, 2010
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Wow, am I ever on a reading roll. Considering I normally adore fewer than ten novels in a year (about one in six or seven of the books that I read), i...more
Wow, am I ever on a reading roll. Considering I normally adore fewer than ten novels in a year (about one in six or seven of the books that I read), it seems impossible that I should find another novel I adore so soon after reading Where Things Come Back. But I adored The Lock Artist. Those of you who read my review of Where Things Come Back will remember that I was longing for a book about guns and helicopters and magic, but found Things instead. Turns out that The Lock Artist was the book I was looking for then. Well, if you substitute “safes” for “magic.” Basically, it’s about a teen with a dangerous talent: picking locks and cracking safes. He gets tangled up with some dangerous people and dangerous things happen. Did you catch that? It is danger x 3. Here, without further ado, are five more things about the book. 1. Even though it is a thriller/ mystery/ action-adventure, it’s very character-driven. Our main character (the thrillingly named “Mike”) has been silent since the age of eight, when Something Terrible Happened to Him. And by silent, I mean Quiet As The Dead And Not Like a Zombie Novel But Like a Novel Where the Dead Really Don’t Make Noise Because They Actually Are Dead. And by Something Terrible, I mean Something I Thought I Had Guessed Because I Have Read A Million Books But Actually No It Was Not That It Was Worse. Mike doesn’t speak. At all. It’s remarkable to watch how Hamilton manages this narrator who can only tell stories in his head. 2. The pacing. There is something magical going on with the pacing in this novel, and I need to go back and take it apart slowly and methodically to figure out exactly how Hamilton did it. It’s a page turner, but . . . not like that. Ordinarily I’m quiet bored by action sequences. Right, gun, sure, kick, yep, punch, okay, blood . . . are we done here? I want to get back to the plot, and action scenes are often like sex scenes — they are just hanging there, an exclamation point on the end of a sentence that we’ve already read. But, somehow, not with this novel. I HAD to keep turning the pages, yes, but not because of the action. It was because every page left me with a question, and I had to turn the page if I ever wanted to find out the answer. It meant that instead of my usual racing through an action novel, flipping pages faster and faster, I was reading with the same care and urgency at the end as I was at the beginning. I don’t know how to describe it any better than that. 2(b). The prose. This really is sort of in line with the pacing. When I first began reading the novel, I thought, man, this prose is so — easy. It just says what it says. Well, okay, whatever. I’ll just read a few more pages. And then, the next thing I knew, four hours had gone by and I’d finished the novel and I was hugging my Nook to my chest. The prose became utterly invisible. Like a very good thief, it got in, did its job, and got out, without leaving any trace of itself. I can appreciate just how hard it is to write a book that reads so easily. Well done, Hamilton. 3. Girl. You know these things always have a token girl. The one that makes the hero look noble and powerful and hetero. Well, this book also has a girl, but she is smart and unique and felt like a person. There was no thumping of chests and conquests. There was just a really wonderful and slightly uncomfortable teen romance. With comic book, menial labor, and lock picking overtones. 4. The annoying thing about thrillers is that they so rarely pay off. They’re, well, thrilling, and then you get to the end and go, yup. Well, that happened. Next? Possibly the best thing about this book is that the second half of it is as strong as the first, if not stronger, and there is one of the most psychologically horrific scenes that I’ve read in awhile in the second half. It might have something to do with the Terrible Thing That Happened to Mike. Hamilton proceeds briskly from this Terrible Scene into the denouement, which is tense and satisfying and exactly the way I wanted the book to end. That pretty much makes this book the perfect thriller in my eyes. 5. I am not the only person who has adored this book. It is an Edgar winner (that’s a prestigious award for mystery, for you muggles out there) and it’s also an Alex Award winner, which is how I found it. The ALA Alex Award recognize adult books with high appeal to teen readers, and I tend to love their choices. If you compare the list of Alex winners over the years with my five-star-books on Goodreads, you’ll see considerable overlap. Because it’s an adult book, not a YA, I should mention that there are f-bombs and violence and all that jazz. More Guy Ritchie than Tarantino, though, for the most part. I have now managed to write a novel about this novel. If you’re looking for a book about guns and helicopters and safes, go pick it up. Or even if you’re looking for a book about guns and helicopters and magic. Because it’ll still make you happy.(less) | Notes are private!
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1
| not set
| Jan 13, 2012
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Jan 14, 2012
| Hardcover
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| 0385534639
| 9780385534635
| 3.99
| 154,556
| Sep 01, 2010
| Sep 13, 2011
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Five Things About THE NIGHT CIRCUS. Ordinarily when I do my recommendations, I do a “five reasons to read _____,” but I think opinions will be so divid...more Five Things About THE NIGHT CIRCUS. Ordinarily when I do my recommendations, I do a “five reasons to read _____,” but I think opinions will be so divided on THE NIGHT CIRCUS that I think “things about” will be more useful. 1. This novel is not what it says it is. Well, back page copy is always a weird thing anyway, as it’s not written by the author. And a weirder thing because it is essentially a glamour shot of the novel. It is not a lie. But it isn’t really what the novel looks like when it’s wandering around in its bathrobe getting coffee and trying to figure out if that smell is coming from the kitchen sink disposal or under the table. The resemblance is always a bit sketchy. THE NIGHT CIRCUS’ resemblance to its cover copy is sketchier than most. 2. This novel is about a thing. It has people in it, too, but it is mostly about a thing, the eponymous circus. It’s told in third person omniscient, which means it sounds like God is narrating the thing, if God decided he really loved black and white tents and fancy umbrellas. The voice that narrates this book is interested in humans, too, but mostly about how humans make the circus and the circus’ magic interesting. 3. This is not a romance. There is a love story in it, which is good, because love makes the world go round, but it is not a romance. If you go in imagining to be swept off your feet from page one, you can keep on imagining. The novel starts before our lovebirds have hit puberty, so you’re going to have to imagine for quite awhile. 4. The circus is not really a circus. This is fine by me, because I actually don’t care for circuses. They smell, the animals always have that look of dubious maltreatment, no, I don’t want to win a prize by shooting that thing off that other thing over there, and also, clowns look a little grubby to me. No, the Night Circus is a circus in the respect that there are tents, and there are performers, and some of them are acrobats. Mostly it is a place where pretty, pretty magic is passed off as illusion so that us muggles won’t be scared by it. I’d go to that circus. 5. This is not a thriller. This is a not an action-packed adventure. It’s not even a simmering revenge or bubbling rivalry novel. It is a novel about a thing, with love in it, and it spans over a decade. If you have a problem with that idea, it’s best you walk away now. But if you like Ann Patchett or Audrey Niffeneggar novels, or if you really thought JONATHAN STRANGE & MR. NORRELL was the bee’s knees, well. WELL. You have just found your next read. Enjoy. I did. (less) | Notes are private!
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| not set
| Dec 05, 2011
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Dec 05, 2011
| Hardcover
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| 0099549344
| 9780099549345
| 3.99
| 31,368
| Oct 28, 2010
| Oct 28, 2010
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Ten Reasons to Read WARM BODIES 1. It is a zombie book. But not like that. In the spirit of honesty, I had this book as an advanced review copy for lit...more Ten Reasons to Read WARM BODIES 1. It is a zombie book. But not like that. In the spirit of honesty, I had this book as an advanced review copy for literally months before I picked it up. It had glowing reviews from Stephanie Meyer, so I figured it couldn’t be that gross, and a glowing quote from Audrey Niffeneggar, so I figured it had to be well-written. But . . . zombies. Hopeless gore. I have a pretty strict disinterest in zombies that I break only for Carrie Ryan’s books. I’m not going to tell you this isn’t a zombie book, because it is -- there is brain eating and arms falling off and shotguns and gray matter and OMG WHAT ARE WE GOING TO EAT FOR DINNER - YOU!? and all the traditional zombie nihilism. But I will tell you this: it doesn’t feel like a zombie book. 2. R, the narrator. What really makes this book not feel like a zombie book is that it’s told from R’s point of view -- and he’s a zombie. It’s not glorified or toned down, but R makes the book different because he’s different. Somewhere in the core of his zombie brain, there’s a bit of R left, and watching that struggle against the delightfully metaphorical zombiesm is just . . . lovely and agonizing. In a good way. 3. Did I mention metaphor? Well, let me do it again. The metaphor that the zombies stand for is not deeply hidden in WARM BODIES, and it’s equal parts lesson and warning. It also happens to be something I deeply, deeply believe in. I don’t want to say it’s about self actualization, because who even knows what that means outside of a Meg Ryan movie. It’s about living life to the fullest and feeling everything you can and not being afraid. Maybe that does sound a little like a Meg Ryan movie. 4. It’s short. It’s not that I don’t like long books -- I love ‘em. But there was something very satisfying about reading this perfectly paced slender novel in three or four hours. It makes me think I’m going to do it again. 5. The book begins with R saving a girl -- Julie -- from certain death from both himself and other zombies. Oh how easy it would be for this to descend into pure cheesiness. How easy it would be for them to stop being real people. How easy it would be for Julie to be a construct instead of a real girl worth saving. But Isaac Marion veers away from all that. If at some points R becomes dangerously sentimental, it’s noted with a wry smile. It’s all rather delightful at some points. There’s one scene that’s sort of . . . Wall-E with dead people. 6. R’s so nice. No, really. He’s like . . . nice. If he wasn’t dead, I’d be all, what a nice boy you are, playing Sinatra for your girlfriend. 7. Pretty prose bonus round! “I dream my necrotic cells shrugging off their lethargy, inflating and lighting up like Christmas deep in my dark core. Am I inventing all this like the beer buzz? A placebo? An optimistic illusion? Either way, I feel the flatline of my existence disrupting, forming heartbeat hills and valleys.” 8. There’s a Mercedes convertible in it. As if we even NEED reasons 1-7 or 9-10 anymore. 9. No, really, really, it does not read like a zombie book. Your mom would read it. Probably. Well, it really depends on your mom. Back up. Have I steered you wrong before? No. No, I haven’t. 10. You’ve been looking for a book where you finish it with a smile on your face, haven’t you? I know it. Well, this is it. (less) | Notes are private!
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| Mar 2011
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Mar 21, 2011
| Paperback
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| 0060530928
| 9780060530921
| 4.09
| 128,893
| Sep 30, 2008
| Sep 30, 2008
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I have just this moment closed the cover of THE GRAVEYARD BOOK, after loitering rather longingly over the acknowledgments and possibly the back jacket...more
I have just this moment closed the cover of THE GRAVEYARD BOOK, after loitering rather longingly over the acknowledgments and possibly the back jacket flap as well. I don't think I can manage a proper synopsis or review of this book -- about an orphaned boy who is raised by a graveyard of ghosts -- so I think I will just have to say that I love it very, very deeply. For so long I refused to pick it up because I thought it sounded quaint and possibly twee, but it was neither. It pushed all the buttons that Maggies love to have pushed: archetypes, humor, high stakes, personal stakes, and a deep ingrained sense of folklore that only comes from the author having grown up with rather than researched it. Add to all that and I have to say it was, for me, the most well-written of all of Gaiman's books that I've read. I kept seeing things that I associated as Gaimanisms, but they felt absolutely right here. Weapons wielded by someone for so long that they've become part of their arms. Just ahhh. Loved it. If there are Susan Cooper fans out there longing for that sense of other from the Dark is Rising books, pick this book up. (less) | Notes are private!
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| May 2010
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May 22, 2010
| Hardcover
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| 0399155341
| 9780399155345
| 4.44
| 750,302
| Feb 10, 2009
| Feb 10, 2009
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So, it looks like THE HELP is turning out to be one of those novels that I love despite flaws. Nearly everyone in the world knows what this book is ab...more
So, it looks like THE HELP is turning out to be one of those novels that I love despite flaws. Nearly everyone in the world knows what this book is about (as I pen this review, it is at #2 in Amazon sales ranking) but I shall reiterate: it’s the story of three women -- two black, one white -- in 1960s Jackson, Mississippi, and how the two black maids work with the one extremely naive white young woman to write a book of their stories as “the help.” In the spirit of honesty, I should tell you that I didn’t want to read it. It sounded like it was going to hit the Maggie Trifecta of Doom: 1) Fiction that is Good for You 2) “Women’s Fiction”, now with 60% more tears 3) Mint Julep references* *I have not been thrilled by a single novel that mentions a mint julep. I’m not sure if this is coincidence. However, I loved it. Despite the fact that the book is massive -- pick it up next time you go by, it’s a doorstop -- I read it in three evenings. It was engrossing, very well characterized and often funny. Strangely enough, two of those are also part of what I consider its flaws. The characters are so reliably themselves that they are nearly caricatures in some areas. While it meant I could definitely never mistake one woman’s voice for another, it also gave it a bit of a Hollywood/ sitcom feel; they were types instead of people. And the funny -- well, race relations in ‘60s Mississippi is not exactly all fun and mint juleps, as everyone knows. But this book is upbeat, uplifting, and ultimately made a bit fluffy by all its humor and optimism. Again, I could imagine this as a Hollywood screenplay in a New York minute. Still, don’t get me wrong -- it’s wonderfully written and easy to love and very easy to recommend. I also think it would be a killer book club book, because there is a lot to talk about in here, and I don’t just mean the Trifecta of Doom bits. I think that everyone who reads it will at least like it, even if it will not become their absolute favorite in the world. And we need books like that. So go out and read it. ***wondering why all my reviews are five stars? Because I'm only reviewing my favorite books -- not every book I read. Consider a novel's presence on my Goodreads bookshelf as a hearty endorsement. I can't believe I just said "hearty." It sounds like a stew.***(less) | Notes are private!
| everyone's
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| not set
| Jan 2010
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Jan 26, 2010
| Hardcover
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| 1416596240
| 9781416596240
| 3.76
| 3,058
| Jan 01, 2009
| Aug 04, 2009
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Almost exactly two hours ago, I finished reading OF BEES AND MIST, and I’m still in its spell. Normally I am opposed to writing reviews right after I...more
Almost exactly two hours ago, I finished reading OF BEES AND MIST, and I’m still in its spell. Normally I am opposed to writing reviews right after I read a book, because often my opinion of a book needs time to sort of marinate. I tend to get fonder of a book the longer I’ve had to think, but I have to say, my fondness for this book is pretty darn inconsequential. What matters is that this curious novel has dug its way under my skin in a way I can tell will last for quite awhile. Saying that OF BEES AND MIST is a fable-like story of two women -- one whose birth home is infested by perpetual mist and one who literally whispers bees -- who are locked in furious and long-lasted battle is rather inadequate. If I add that its chapters are hung lusciously with metaphor (see what I did there?) I get a little closer. But the real charm and danger both of this book are the familial relationships. Because the two women at the heart of the book (though there are many -- for a book written by a man, I’m pretty much blown away by the scads of nuanced, strong women in this novel)(he has possibly stolen my estrogen)(it’s all right, he’s making good use of it), Eva and Meridia, are mother-in-law and daughter-in-law. Their common link is a pleasant but flawed man, and the way that the author paints the relationship between mother, daughter-in-law, husband, sister-in-law, etc. etc. is very familiar for all its magic realism trappings. Meridia escapes from a troubled home life directly into the arms of Daniel, a guileless young man. From him she inherits a complicated family drama ultimately controlled by Eva, who is a wicked stepmother in the most horrifying and delicious meaning of the phrase. Anyone who has had the slightest amount of conflict with their in-laws or extended family will appreciate the subtleties and motivations of every character in OF BEES. Events and what each party’s perception of events are often delightfully confused. This is young, married life, served with family-sized side dishes of guilt trips, subtext, and meaningful looks. Definitely enough to share and enough again to take home for later. But there’s joy, too, and charm aplenty, and some moments stark and moving in their suddenly unsentimental view of love. A clever tale like this, brimming with none-so-subtle metaphors and magic, could easily be an intriguing exercise in the fantastic and mundane, but the reason OF BEES is getting put here in my five-stars category is that the characters evoked genuine emotion and sympathy from me. The phrase “flawed, strong heroine” is thrown around too much, but Meridia is that if I’ve ever seen one. She makes bad choices, hard choices, but she always makes A choice and you’re always convinced she’s the hero regardless; her goodness is not in question. Normally, I can’t tolerate infidelity plotlines but infidelity in this case was necessary (though agonizing). This book was both a pleasure and a pain to read and I’m so glad I picked it up -- entirely by chance, while rushing through the store on the way out of town. Might’ve been the work of fate or of the engineering spirits, if OF BEES AND MIST is to be believed. ***wondering why all my reviews are five stars? Because I'm only reviewing my favorite books -- not every book I read. Consider a novel's presence on my Goodreads bookshelf as a hearty endorsement. I can't believe I just said "hearty." It sounds like a stew.***(less) | Notes are private!
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| Dec 2009
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Dec 28, 2009
| Hardcover
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| 0393068579
| 9780393068573
| 4.03
| 9,010
| Sep 08, 2009
| Sep 08, 2009
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I am not going to tell you anything about this book. I'm sure you're thinking that's an odd way to begin a review, but that's how I went into this boo...more I am not going to tell you anything about this book. I'm sure you're thinking that's an odd way to begin a review, but that's how I went into this book, and it worked for me. I was doing an interview with Booklist last weekend and I asked the interviewer what he thought was the graphic novel of the year so far. Without even having to consider, he said, "STITCHES." My publicist picked an advanced review copy up for me at ALA and I am thrilled that she did. I didn't know anything about it except that it was a memoir written as a graphic novel, and that it was supposed to be fabulous (which makes me naturally mistrustful, of course). I didn't even read the back -- just opened it up in the airport and fell in. So I won't tell you what this book is about. I will tell you this: David Small shines in illustrating the small details that make people real. This is a fairly dark book, but there were parts were I laughed out loud at Small's cunning characterizations. If you read other reviews, you'll see they call the style "cinematic" and "stunning" and it's both of those things. It's also whimsical, sad, and ultimately uplifting. It has possibly the best final line of any book I've read. Definitely one I'll be buying in hardcover and my favorite graphic novel for the past several years. Stunningly done and a good pick for adults who haven't stuck their toe in the graphic novel pool. The water's fine. ***wondering why all my reviews are five stars? Because I'm only reviewing my favorite books -- not every book I read. Consider a novel's presence on my Goodreads bookshelf as a hearty endorsement. I can't believe I just said "hearty." It sounds like a stew.***(less) | Notes are private!
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| Jul 2009
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Jul 19, 2009
| Hardcover
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| 0142001430
| 9780142001431
| 3.97
| 56,682
| Aug 06, 2001
| Apr 30, 2002
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I picked up YEAR OF WONDERS off my shelf after a stint of disappointing fiction. I have to admit that I was dubious that a book about the plague would...more
I picked up YEAR OF WONDERS off my shelf after a stint of disappointing fiction. I have to admit that I was dubious that a book about the plague would satisfy my desire for a satisfying read -- but I'm revoltingly pleased to say I was wrong. Yes, this is a book about the plague -- namely, a 17th century village that becomes infected with plague and chooses to cut themselves off from the rest of the world rather than spread the disease -- but it's not gruesome or desperately sad. The purposeful, earnest voice of Anna Frith, a maid to the rector and his delicate wife Elinor, leads us through a year full of death, madness, and loss, navigating the tragedies until we discover how the season could've also been called the Year of Wonders. What do I love about this book? I love that Geraldine Brooks plays with language and gives lovely wordplay that delights the writer in me, and I love that she is unerring and subtle in her deft characterization. Because of the subject matter, this wasn't an easy book to read, but it wasn't unpleasant either. I could imagine myself reading it again and it's earned a place on my keeper shelf. Highly recommended. ***wondering why all my reviews are five stars? Because I'm only reviewing my favorite books -- not every book I read. Consider a novel's presence on my Goodreads bookshelf as a hearty endorsement. I can't believe I just said "hearty." It sounds like a stew.***(less) | Notes are private!
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| not set
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Jan 18, 2009
| Paperback
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