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<![CDATA[Lizzie added 'The Stars My Destination']]>
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/78584521
The Stars My Destination (Paperback)
byAlfred Bester bookshelves: to-read
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<![CDATA[Lizzie
is on page 490 of Romola
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http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/71910164
Lizzie
is on page 490 of 688 of
Romola
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<![CDATA[Lizzie added 'Shaq Talks Back']]>
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/77603873
Shaq Talks Back (Mass Market Paperback)
byShaquille O'Neal bookshelves: to-read
Ha ha ha haaaaaaaaaaaaa. I own this now.
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<![CDATA[Lizzie added 'The Lacuna: A Novel']]>
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/76907028
The Lacuna: A Novel (Hardcover)
byBarbara Kingsolver bookshelves: to-read
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<![CDATA[Lizzie added 'The Sandman Vol. 10: The Wake']]>
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/75361244
to: The Sandman Vol. 10: The Wake (Paperback)byNeil Gaiman bookshelves: 2009,
comics,
david-s
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
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<![CDATA[Lizzie added 'The Sandman: Endless Nights']]>
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/76269582
The Sandman: Endless Nights (Paperback)
byNeil Gaiman bookshelves: to-read
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<![CDATA[Lizzie added 'An Off Year']]>
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/76215078
An Off Year (Hardcover)
byClaire Zulkey bookshelves: to-read
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<![CDATA[new comment from Lizzie]]>
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/45627140
Lizzie's review of
The Mill on the Floss (Modern Library Classics) byGeorge Eliot
Oh, that's fantastic! I was really flattered she wanted to read it on my recommendation, but it doesn't have the speediest beginning. It got my heart real early on, though. I will be more than happy to talk about it once you guys make progress! I'm reading my second Eliot now, Romola, which has a reeeally slow start, but I know some wonderful things happen soon. I'm glad you love Daniel Deronda, I have a copy of that I'm saving for later.
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<![CDATA[Lizzie added 'The Sandman Vol. 9: The Kindly Ones']]>
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/71632597
to: The Sandman Vol. 9: The Kindly Ones (Paperback)byNeil Gaiman bookshelves: 2009,
comics,
david-s,
myth
Well I just started reading this. Here is something about that. I won't even save it til I write the proper review, because, god.
F to this volume's introduction. F F F F F F it. There is the most giant spoiler in this introduction, and I didn't even read it. I'm so annoyed. It's just sitting there in a conspicuous spot on the page, and I think that's on purpose. I saw it as I flipped past and my jaw dropped, so then I stared at it, and ugh. This guy. It is just the most flippant and obnoxious way to drop a spoiler. So there! NOW YOU KNOW. Isn't it just like Hamlet!?
It made turning the page to start the actual book into the saddest, crappiest feeling. SERIOUSLY. I preferred to PUT THE BOOK DOWN and come out here and RANT ON THE INTERNET, it made the start so sour. BAD JOB, dude.
I don't know. I'm not trying to be a whiner and claim the experience is really "spoiled", but I am just not in the mood for it. It's the wrong type of story for this. Why not have the jaw drop at its appropriate time? Why not grapple with the idea when I know what it is for? You're forcing me to read it your way, and that sucks.
If you want to compare it to Hamlet that is great. If you think it is awesome that the book ends the way it ends, THAT'S FANTASTIC. Then why don't you introduce Book 10! Or, I mean Book 7 didn't even have anything special happen and they moved the introduction to the end to preserve the story. I don't get it. A dick move.
Anyway. Interested how this will shake out, but I wish it could just feel like a normal story I will probably like. Now it's all ANGSTY.
Ha ha get it.
.
Well. My issues with the spoiler aside, this was a pretty good read. I think I'm going to let my thoughts on the ending simmer until I read the next book, so no spoilers, this time, from me.
I'm having a small crisis because I really want to round this up to 4 stars, but I can't justify it. It's a really important part of the series, and it's long and a lot of interesting things are going on -- but also, a lot of it doesn't make sense. I don't exactly know what everyone was doing there, or even what actually happened or why. It might be enigma to unfold in the last volumes? But I feel like it's not.
There was a nice best-of quality to the story. It was really, really nice to see Rose Walker again, who made Book 2 awesome awesome. (But I'm so annoyed with the issues drawn by the guy who makes her look like a softcore schoolgirl. What is up with them?) Also great to see Thessaly again, from Book 5 which I loved, matter-of-fact and fixing things up, but being really creepy about it. Not that I understood what she was doing? But hey.
The main story with Hippolyta seeking her baby was ok, though in a familiar mold. The clue that something weird is going on, her occasional super-strength, isn't quite present enough to make me very interested, and I still don't quite understand it. The part with the Gorgons is neat. The Furies/Fates are ok. I guess it's all right to moosh them together into the same entities? I think that's what was up? Man this book was unclear.
But I'm excited for the end of the series.
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<![CDATA[Lizzie added 'The Sandman: Preludes & Nocturnes']]>
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/55104681
to: The Sandman: Preludes & Nocturnes (Volume 1)byNeil Gaiman bookshelves: 2009,
comics,
david-s,
myth
On inter-coworker library loan after drinky Cinco de Mayo chat. That's normal right.
.
This is a a strange starter book. Until the end of the last fight, I wasn't actually even sure if Sandman was supposed to be a good guy or a bad guy. (To be honest I am now only like 80% sure?)
I'll be honest: I thought I was enjoying the creepiness, but the chapter in Hell in the middle almost finished me. I mean it just is gross. Which, ok. It is Hell after all. But that is not my taste. I can get behind grisly details, darkness, I really can, including in comics where you actually have to look at it. But there is something in Gaiman's style, in general in everything he writes, that revels in it a bit, and that never works for me. (But I understand it is enjoyed by many.) Dee, also, is gross, and since the Hell chapter is immediately followed by his story, eesh. I thought we were in some trouble.
(But there is that part where they play a a game of Destructo in Hell. That's not what they call it, it is more like "a battle for your eternal servitude" according to them, but I can call a pitchfork a pitchfork.
Oh and by the way what is that helmet of his supposed to be? The... enchanted gas mask for snorkelers? Or... I swear I don't get it. WTF does he have it for and why does it look like whatever that is?)
THEN, though, I liked it again, just in time. The last chapter is nicely stylized and simple. Hopefully there is more hanging out with sexy Death in punk rock Washington Square, and less naked corpses gallavanting with rubies? I'm hoping, since Gaiman's "Afterword" says he feels much the same way about the stories in the first volume, and that the last story found his voice, and that is good. Also he makes fun of a really bad French restaurant he went to and that's pretty funny.
Sidebar: The mentions of AIDS in this book are really really really weird. Like the part where the woman asks Dee if he is sick, and he doesn't know what she's implying, and she says, "Where have you been the last five years?" 1988, huh.
There are 10 more of these, so, I'm optimistic that part of it is going to fit me well, and then that will be a really valuable thing to have.
.
ETA: I'm downgrading the stars, 5 months later. Now that I've read more of them, it was more wishful thinking and this is my least favorite.
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