by Michael Ende
I was obsessed with/am still haunted by the movie, too. I'm still in mourning for Atreyu's horse (Artax?). And isn't it ironic (don't you think) that the last name of the author of The Neverending Story is Ende? What does it all mean? ]]>
by Laurie Halse Anderson
What about the conjoined seamaids? If that doesn't scream YA, then I don't know what does. ]]>
Allison
read and liked
Leslie's
review of The Lover:
"The Lover is the story of a clandestine love affair between a French tween and a wealthy Chinese gentleman in French colonial Vietnam. There are quite a few black limo scenes. It is nice and plot-lite.
The writing in this tome is top notch...more "
"The Lover is the story of a clandestine love affair between a French tween and a wealthy Chinese gentleman in French colonial Vietnam. There are quite a few black limo scenes. It is nice and plot-lite.
The writing in this tome is top notch...more "
by Suzanne Collins
"Such sad, dashed hopes" flows very nicely. ]]>
Allison
read and liked
Blake's
review of Maximum Gaga:
"amazing new new new book:
Glenum could cut through gravel with a frozen waffle "
"amazing new new new book:
Glenum could cut through gravel with a frozen waffle "
bookshelves: i-wanna-be-smrt
Oh, my goodness. I'm glad I chose to spend a little time with this one--reading it cover to cover and then going back and re-reading certain poems over and over. They grew on me upon subsequent re-readings. Truly, this is a dazzling poetic feat (bone pagodas! blowhole victrolas! looping blood sausages like streamers around the chandelier!), but don't take my word for it:
"Desire in any form/leaves you crawling into rude machines/leaves you hitched inside a hideous skinbag/for little or no pay"
And that's not the half of it. Basically, it's like reading a NIN video. I wouldn't advocate perusing it whilst grilling bratwurst for supper.
And yet I couldn't fall completely under its spell--maybe because I'm really just not that much of a poetry person, maybe because it was too high concept for me, maybe because it sort of felt like the private in-joke of a scatological toddler (albeit an insanely precocious and sophisticated one) playing with naughty words.
This notwithstanding, I'm most pleased to have made its acquaintance.
]]>
bookshelves: gave-up-the-ghost
Page 19! We'll chalk this up to the subjectivity factor--just not my thing. ]]>
bookshelves: gave-up-the-ghost, hark--i-are-a-chick-
The next Sookie Stackhouse doesn't come out till April, I think. In the meantime, what's a gal who likes a little formaldehyde in her cosmos and a little gore in her chick lit to do?
Not this.
Direct quote: "Size doesn't make you dominant, Graham, power does. You are submissive to me in our pack. You are always submissive to Micah, because he is the leader of another people that has a treaty with the wolves. You will treat him accordingly or it will not be as lupa that I talk to you next, but as Bolverk."
I guess this sort of thing is either for you, or it's not. I belong in the latter category.
]]>
Allison
read and liked
Jamie's
review of Other Voices, Other Rooms (Vintage International):
"Eh. I've heard that this is considered his best writing ever. He apparently wrote it at Yalta, while Carson McCullers was staying there. It's the novel that put him on the map. See there I go again, caring more about his bio than his actual writing. ...more "
"Eh. I've heard that this is considered his best writing ever. He apparently wrote it at Yalta, while Carson McCullers was staying there. It's the novel that put him on the map. See there I go again, caring more about his bio than his actual writing. ...more "
bookshelves: gave-up-the-ghost
Welcome to the latest round of GUTG!
I thought I was going to go the distance with this one, I really did. I made it all the way to page 100 which, these days, is exceedingly far when I'm ambivalent about a book. Where did we go wrong? It's well-written with some beautiful imagery (although the flowery prose did start to grate a bit, and the descriptions/stage directions probably could have been cut in half and still been effective, but if you like ATMOSPHERE, boy, does this book deliver) and intriguing characters (Idabel especially). I think it became a chore when I got tired of the author's overly precious aw-shucks whimsy toward boyhood and descriptions of freakish giraffe necks. Which is another thing that took me out of the story--while it does a good job of reflecting the racial attitudes of the time, it also does a good job of being actually racist, to an extent that was distracting. Looks like In Cold Blood is the Capote book for me. It figures.
]]>