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August 06
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Lucy
gave
 
to:
I Am the Messenger (Paperback)
by Markus Zusak
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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recommended for: mature teens and adults
read in July, 2008
Lucy said:
"Excellent writing. Superb. So superb that if this story were to be turned into a film, the movie would be awful. Dull. Banal. In fact, I think the film's interpretation would be a commercial and critical flop because people would think it was so...more
Excellent writing. Superb. So superb that if this story were to be turned into a film, the movie would be awful. Dull. Banal. In fact, I think the film's interpretation would be a commercial and critical flop because people would think it was so cheesy and predictable.
But...when read, the characters are so real, so satisfyingly flawed that I didn't care about Ed, Marv, Ritchie and Audrey's mediocre lives and stunted emotional maturity. Zusak writes Ed so convincingly and with enough honesty that I hurt when Ed hurt and felt a little giddy with each of his successes. I don't know any actor that could "emote" Ed's depth, especially when he seems so simple upon first glance. Sometimes (o.k....most of the time in my perfect world), you need words and an author that knows how to use them, to really know a character.
The book begins with Ed, Marv, Ritchie and Audrey, four hapless young 19 to 20 year old friends, lying flat on the floor of a bank while it is being robbed. Following some rather entertaining bantering, Ed becomes a very unlikely hero after he uncharacteristically foils the bank robbers escape.
The chapter is perfect. The setting is vivid and with limited prose, the personalities and relationship between the four friends is immediately drawn. Following Ed's heroics and subsequent attention in the press, Ed receives a mysterious playing card, an Ace of clubs, with three addresses and different times of day next to each. Ed realizes, with a little help from two thugs who break into his apartment and threaten him, that someone is watching and waiting for each message to be delivered. After he figures out what to do at each address, the ace of diamonds is delivered, with an even more mysterious message. Because Ed has to figure out what the messages are and who to deliver them to each time, the story has a suspense/mystery feel to it, even though most of Ed's missions aren't scary or dangerous (notice I say most. Some of the messages are downright "Aw, shucks"ish, but he also has to figure out how to stop a drunk who rapes his wife every night and eventually does it with a gun. Not exactly Hallmark material).
In spite of my love affair with Zusak's writing, which truly has me gushing, the plot is flawed. Preceding the book's lame-before-I-understood-and-even-lamer-after-I-understood ending, I couldn't help but think while reading, "who would do this?" Who would act on coded messages on a playing card, without contacting the police, without knowing how or why or when or who? It wasn't as if Ed was some super sleuth. His James Bond/Ethan Hunt make-over seemed a bit of a stretch. I simply didn't believe that Ed, in his 19 years of living without confidence or ambition, would even act on the first card. How did Ed, who cannot tell the girl he loves how he feels, or his mother to be nice, suddenly have the nerve to hang out with an elderly woman pretending to be Jimmy, her husband who had died in the war? The leap seemed too great. Buying an ice cream cone for a poor single mother, yes....I could believe that (although I have to admit that each time the message was this simple and and easy to deliver, I wondered, "who is bothering with this elaborate ploy?" Kind of a lot of brou-ha-ha for icecream/lights/telling your friend to get a job.
From it's ending, I get it. Zusak is. He is the messenger and the book is his message. He created Ed and Ed's story because he wanted us to know, whether great or small, we should help each other. More than that, we should be the kind of person who is willing and available to help each other. Because by doing so, we help ourselves.
Fine and great, but by inserting himself into the story, after writing in such a typical, fiction-like manner, the whole book became kind of space age. I guess I felt duped. The strength of the book came from Ed being so real, but the author took that away from me by the end. I felt...manipulated. I mean, I didn't realize I was reading the Wizard of Oz. At least that book had flying monkeys and talking lions.
Bad ending. Great book. ...less
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August 03
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Lucy
added:
Breaking Dawn (Twilight Series, Book 4)
by Stephenie Meyer
bookshelves:
what-im-reading
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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Lucy
added:
The Host: A Novel (Hardcover)
by Stephenie Meyer
bookshelves:
what-im-reading
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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July 21
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Lucy
gave
to:
SUMMER'S CHILD & SUMMER OF ROSES (Hardcover)
by Luanne Rice
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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read in July, 2008
Lucy said:
"I have been in a major summertime rut. Even coming on Goodreads depresses me because it seems like everyone is reading, and reading well, and I either have no time, or attention span, because I just can't get through a book! In a desperate attempt ...more
I have been in a major summertime rut. Even coming on Goodreads depresses me because it seems like everyone is reading, and reading well, and I either have no time, or attention span, because I just can't get through a book! In a desperate attempt to get back in the game, I checked out an old favorite, Luanne Rice, to see if I could get the novel reading juices flowing again.
Unfortunately, I picked up a two-for-one deal, and while the stories were connected, the whole effect was unsatisfying. I didn't want to start over when my thumbs told me I was halfway through. With that attitude, I felt annoyed when Rice told things over again, things she had just gotten done telling me in the first half of the book. So, this idea...this joining of half stories, gets a big ol' "meh" from me. ...less
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Lucy
gave
to:
Remember When (In Death Series, Book #17.5)
by Nora Roberts, J.D. Robb
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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read in July, 2008
Lucy said:
"Having never read any of Nora Roberts or J.D. Robb's work before (they're the same author, in case you didn't know), I quickly found myself enjoying the tempo and intrigue Roberts managed to establish in the very first pages of the book.
Laine T...more
Having never read any of Nora Roberts or J.D. Robb's work before (they're the same author, in case you didn't know), I quickly found myself enjoying the tempo and intrigue Roberts managed to establish in the very first pages of the book.
Laine Tavish, formerly Elaine O'Hara, has changed from being the talented young thief working alongside her father, into a respectable antique shop owner in a small, close-knit community. When an accomplice of her father's runs into the street and is killed by a car right in front of her antique store, and is later discovered to have been a part of a 28 million dollar diamond heist, her safe new world no longer exists and she must decide, who to trust and if she's really Laine or Elaine.
Throw in a romance with the sexy insurance detective,Max Gannon, an all-evil-all-the-time bad guy, and some safe sidekicks, and you have the first part of the story.
The second half, is set in 2059 where life is pretty much the same, except for the frequent mention of 'links and people going "off-planet". A quarter share of the diamonds was never recovered from the half-century old theft, and when Shannon Gannon, the granddaughter of Laine and Max Gannon (awww...they stayed together!) writes a book about her grandparents and the diamonds, someone seems to think Shannon, herself, must have the lost diamonds and murders the woman house-sitting for her. When another murder connects the two, detective Eve Dallas sets out to find the murderer, and perhaps the diamonds as well.
I don't know if it was the two-book-in-one that didn't fit, but both stories seemed rushed, simplified, and predictable. I was hoping for something easy....light...quick, and it was, but I was also hoping for something good, which, unfortunately, I can't say that this was. Sorry Roberts/Robb. You didn't gain a new fan. ...less
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Lucy
gave
to:
The Kaleidoscope Season (Paperback)
by Sharon Downing Jarvis
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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read in June, 2008
Lucy said:
"Emily Jean Knowles, a girl who is "nearly twelve" is being raised in Georgia in the late 1940's by her Southern Baptist grandmother because her mother and father both died during her infancy. She knows very little about her mother due to h...more
Emily Jean Knowles, a girl who is "nearly twelve" is being raised in Georgia in the late 1940's by her Southern Baptist grandmother because her mother and father both died during her infancy. She knows very little about her mother due to her grandmother's disappointment over her rash marriage to Emily's father, who she has only been told was not "their people."
After a visit from a couple of "those mormons", some letters to her knew penpal LaRue in Wyoming, a visit to her other grandmother during the summer, and witnessing her beloved Uncle Bob, who is going into the ministry, fall in love with her favorite teacher's helper at her school, Starlett, and finding his own faith challenged, Emily's view of the world shifts and changes, much like a kaleidoscope, as she discovers a new faith, new courage, and the confidence that comes when you know you're loved.
In spite of it's dramatic,choppy and came-from-left-field ending, I found myself enjoying this quaint, summery, coming-of-age story. ...less
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July 18
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New comment on Lucy's review of
Under the Banner of Heaven
(see all 3 comments)
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July 09
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Lucy
added:
Heart of Darkness and the Secret Sharer (Paperback)
by Joseph Conrad
bookshelves:
what-im-reading
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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Lucy
added:
Vanity Fair (Paperback)
by William Makepeace Thackeray
bookshelves:
what-im-reading
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my rating:
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June 29
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Lucy
gave
to:
The Coffee Trader: A Novel (Ballantine Reader's Circle)
by David Liss (Goodreads author!)
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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read in June, 2008
Lucy said:
"I read this because my husband really enjoys David Liss's writing and suggested I might like it. I rarely read anything he does (because I am not interested in all the ins and outs of wars, how to be a spy or navy seal, or how differences in Teslas ...more
I read this because my husband really enjoys David Liss's writing and suggested I might like it. I rarely read anything he does (because I am not interested in all the ins and outs of wars, how to be a spy or navy seal, or how differences in Teslas improve MRI imaging), but I thought this might be a great crossover book - give us something to talk about at the table.
This is a manly book. The narrator follows Miguel Lienzo, a Portuguese Jew living in Amsterdam during the 17th century, who had escaped the Inquisition and now trades future commodities on the Dutch stock exchange. Miguel has lost all his fortune in the sugar trade and is currently living in his brother's damp basement, but has recently been introduced by an independent and ambitious Dutch widow to a relatively unheard of commodity: coffee. However, the Ma'amad, a ruling council of Jews, forbids all Jews from meeting with the Dutch in public (only one of many, many outlandish rules), which forces Miguel to create an intricate web of deceipt to carry out his ultimate goal of cornering the market and creating a European coffee monopoly, an act which would ultimately would make him a very, very rich man.
Ethics questions abound throughout the book as Miguel, the Ma'amad, the Dutch and all of society manipulate the rules in order to accomplish their own personal goals. At what point of these manipulation does the line of morality get crossed?
My husband liked the book because it contains a thriller-like tempo in regards to trading futures. Yes, I did just include the word "thriller" in a sentence describing economics. Who would have thought?
Well...David Liss did, and it sort of works. He manages to write the desperation and anxiety exchange trading involves, and even manges to write about the complexities of such a market without being overly technical or vague. However, in the end, it was still a novel about economics...and that, apparently, is one more thing I'm not interested in reading about.
...less
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