Gretchen C. Hohmeyer's Blog, page 57
February 6, 2014
Stories That Shape Us: The Hobbit
This is my copy. Smudged and paint-smeared, without its dust jacket, but still alive!
I was really torn when the Hobbit movie came out. On the one hand, the Lord of the Rings was undeniably one of the best book-to-movie transitions I’ve ever seen, so I figured they would do well with the Hobbit. (Although ask me sometime about my quibbles with the Hobbit movies. We’ll have fun.) I was worried that, having seen the movies, the images in my head when I read the book–images that have been in place since I was eight years old–would be replaced by the faces from the movie, and I’d never get my Bilbo and Thorin and Bard back again.
See, I read Lord of the Rings AFTER the movies came out. I hadn’t seen them–I was determined not to see them until after reading the books, which is of course the proper bookworm behavior–but anybody with eyeballs had seen pictures. Movie trailers, posters, calendars, prop replicas. I had images in my head before I went into the books. For the Hobbit, I had no such thing. It’s all me.
I first read it when I was eight. I don’t exactly remember the context under which I picked it up, although I feel like I can thank my mother for this one too. Weirdly enough, I didn’t find it at all dense; I honestly enjoyed it. (For an awkward few pages at the beginning I was convinced that a Hobbit was some sort of non-anthropomorphic hole-dwelling creature, possibly one that lived in a shell, since my copy had already been divested of its dust jacket and the only cover image I had to go on was this odd, wiggly-looking graphic
I have no idea what this wiggly thing is.
on the spine.) I made up tunes to go with the songs. I immediately started begging for copies of Lord of the Rings, although once I got them I got to the scene with Old Man Willow–the one where all of the main characters in existence at that point are nearly absorbed by a tree–and was terrified into stopping for several years. (Yes, I was scared of a tree. Not the black riders, or the ring. Hey, it’s a scary tree.)
The Hobbit was my introduction to Middle Earth–benign enough to be a children’s story, but complex enough that it had something to offer in later rereads as well. As the paint-smudged cover of my copy indicates, it has been well-loved.
I went to see the first movie with a great deal of trepidation, but the minute Bilbo and Gandalf started talking circles around ‘good morning’, I was so caught up in the utter, delighted nostalgia of seeing MY CHILDHOOD on the big screen in front of me that I completely forgot to worry. Every single familiar line or iconic sight was greeted with delight. The Riddles in the Dark scene, in particular, is one of my favorite things Hollywood has ever done: it looks JUST HOW I IMAGINED IT. Well, except for a bunch of things that are different, but it’s close enough that it still feels like someone catching my childhood imagination on camera.
There were also a lot of stupid things about the first movie, but I was too busy being nostalgic to care. (The second movie I’m more lukewarm about, although Smaug remains awesome.) Afterwards, though, I started getting worried again. What if I would only ever see Martin Freedman’s face when I picked up the book again, instead of the Bilbo I had imagined for most of my life?
I went home and reread the book, cover to cover, in an afternoon.
I shouldn’t have worried. The images were exactly as they’ve always been. They are–thank God–too deeply embedded in my childhood psyche to be shaken by three hours of screen time. It’s good to know that even my brain, nonvisual though it usually is, will hang onto these images for me no matter what else I decide to stick in my head. It’s good to know that no matter what, when I open the book again and decide to go back, the same sights and sounds and feelings–relics from child’s imagination, which everyone knows is better than a grown-up one–will be waiting for me.
February 4, 2014
Top Ten Books That Will Make You (Or At Least Me) Cry
Top Ten Tuesday is a feature hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.
So, it’s actually really hard for books to make me cry. And honestly, often I don’t read the kind of book that does. I have to be in a very specific mood to intentionally put myself in the way of a thing that will make me THAT miserable. So this is a very specific list of books that have made ME cry, instead of the more general ‘you’ mentioned in the meme.
1. , by Elizabeth Wein: seriously, how do you NOT cry when reading this book? Verity is so beautiful and so brave and Maddie is so stubborn and courageous and FRIENDSHIP and TRAGEDY and EVERYTHING IS HARD OKAY.
2. Rose Under Fire, also by Elizabeth Wein: in case Code Name Verity didn’t make me cry hard enough, the exact same author turned around and came out with a book that was even harder to read.
3. The Poisonwood Bible, by Barbara Kingsolver: one of these days I’m going to get around to talking about why this is NOT the middle-aged mom book that everyone thinks it is, and why it was perfect for my fifteen-year-old angst-ridden self, and why I love it so dearly. But in the meantime, know that her descriptions of grief and mourning, especially the numb few days after a death, are spot-on, and made me cry.
4. Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson: this book broke my heart the first time I read it and I ended up crying in the backseat on the way home from the bookstore. (The bookstore was an hour away, I had a while to read it.) Then I read it again, a few years later, when I’d been much closer to similarly horrible events, and my heart broke all over again.
5. Flowers for Algernon, by Daniel Keyes: did they make you read this one in school? Apparently they do that, but I read it on my own. Fun fact: losing my mental facilities is one of the deepest, most poignant fears I have. Yeah.
6. Shiver, by Maggie Stiefvater: okay, this one’s not quite fair, but I don’t read a lot of books that make me cry! I read it after a breakup and the genuine sweetness of the romance in this book was beautiful and hopeful and incredibly hard to take.
7. Linger, by Maggie Stiefvater: this one IS fair. There is a scene in this book in which Grace is sick–maybe dying–and her parents, because they don’t like or trust her boyfriend, won’t let him see her. Hospitals have a deep sort of horror for me–I’ve spent too much time in them, not as a patient but as a loved one–and the fear of not being able to be close to someone I love when they’re dying, to lose out on what could be their last moments, is something I absolutely would have had to face, if my parents hadn’t been so understanding about my desire to stay close. Other people’s parents made it abundantly clear to me that they wouldn’t have let me stay, and that terrified and saddened me. The utter powerlessness of a hospital is incredibly hard to take.
So yeah that scene made me cry.
8. Last Night I Sang To The Monster, by Benjamin Alire Saenz: wow, it’s been forever since I’ve read this book. I don’t know if it’s as good, or as sad, as I remember it being. But it’s another book that had me crying on the way home from the bookstore.
9. The Ocean at the End of the Lane, by Neil Gaiman: this one made me cry IN THE FIRST FREAKING CHAPTER. SERIOUSLY THE THING WAS NOT OKAY. …beautiful amazing book, though, please read it?
10. The Little Prince, by Antoine de Saint-Exupery: I reread this recently, after my boyfriend, who gets very literary when he’s tired, read some pieces of it to me in French. I originally read it when I was extremely little, and although I didn’t remember much of it, the feeling of it stayed with me.
I have no idea why it made me cry, but it did. Maybe it’s the clash of childhood and adulthood, maybe it’s the simple childlike sadness. I know the themes of regret really do me in–and I know it wouldn’t hit me so hard if it didn’t carry associations from my very, very early days of reading, when I was too little to have a barrier between my feelings and the page. But it’s as beautiful as I remember it being, more like a poem, really, than a story.
January 28, 2014
Waiting on Wednesday: The Fire Wish by Amber Lough
Waiting on Wednesday is hosted by Breaking the Spine!
Title: The Fire Wish
Author: Amber Lough
ETA: July 22, 2014
Summary from Goodreads: A jinni. A princess. And the wish that changes everything. . . .
Najwa is a jinni, training to be a spy in the war against the humans. Zayele is a human on her way to marry a prince of Baghdad—which she’ll do anything to avoid. So she captures Najwa and makes a wish. With a rush of smoke and fire, they fall apart and re-form—as each other. A jinni and a human, trading lives. Both girls must play their parts among enemies who would kill them if the deception were ever discovered—enemies including the young men Najwa and Zayele are just discovering they might love.
Why I’m Waiting: Remember how just last week I was talking about wanting more fantasy not based in Europe? Well, I am ALL for Middle Eastern folklore and history as a basis for fantasy. (Like, just the other day I was sitting in my Middle Eastern History class thinking, “This is awesome, I need to base some worldbuilding on THIS.”) Also, Tammy Pierce blurbed it, which is always sure to get my attention.
January 27, 2014
Top Ten Characters I’d NEVER Want To Trade Places With
Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and The Bookish!
So, even though I do read a lot of stuff with different worlds, I found that most of my answers for the top 10 worlds I’d never want to live in depended a lot on who I would be in that world. Given that, I decided to go with the second topic to make things a little easier on myself. So. Here we go!
1. Katniss Everdeen from The Hunger Games
Yeah, I’m sure the books sound cool and all but if I’d been here I would have died at the cornucopia in book 1 and there wouldn’t be anymore story. She goes through things I couldn’t dream of lasting through.
2. Wren Connolly from Reboot
Not only is Wren dead, but she’s been brought back from the brink to serve as a soldier in this creepy dystopian world. She was dead for so long that her emotions are almost all gone, and that’s not to mention her best friend who is going crazy and the fact that a lot of people want her dead. I’m way not butch enough to be Wren.
3. Ren from The Ward
One, I do not have the insane driving skill that Ren has to be able to drive a pond skipper in high speed races. I’d hit a wall right out of the starting gate. Also, I’m not sure I could take care of a terminally ill sister while circumventing the government and also still racing like a champ. Again, so not butch enough.
4. Nikki from Criminal
This entire book socked me in the gut, and I wouldn’t in a million years want to go through what Nikki has gone through in her abusive relationship and the murder she helps commit. The book gets even worse for her, and I just… I just want to save her from it all.
5. Fia from Mind Games
Not sure I could become an assassin because my only other option is that someone will kill my sister. See my above comment about butch-ness. Also, blood makes me squeamish.
6. Vee from Nerve
This one goes right up there with Katniss. Vee goes through the most shell-shocking, could-I-become-a-murderer-? experience that I’m not sure I could even survive.
7. Maddie from
First off, I’m not sure I’d be good enough to fly cargo planes that are basically rusted metal buckets through enemy territory during WWII. Second, there’s what happens at the end of the novel and NOPE JUST NOPE.
8. Allie from The Immortal Rules
Allie spent her whole life hating vampires, then she becomes one and has to learn how to be one in her way while also trying to learn about a whole new world. Nope.
9. Anyone from A Game of Thrones
THIS SERIES.
10. Tris from Divergent
Just look at everything that happens in the first two books. And then … Allegiant.
January 26, 2014
Review: “Harriet the Spy” by Louise Fitzhugh
Harriet the Spy (Harriet the Spy #1) by Louise Fitzhugh
Meet Harriet M. Welsch — one of the most unforgettable, funniest characters in children’s literature. Harriet is a girl with only one ambition in life: to be a spy. She works hard at it — filling her secret notebook with observations about her parents, friends, and neighbors. But when her classmates find her notebook and read her mean comments about them, Harriet finds herself shunned by everyone. How can she put her spying talents to good use and make her friends like her again?
3 stars
So maybe I’m a sap. Maybe I’m a purist. Maybe I want to believe that children’s literature is meant to teach the child reading it something. I don’t know. What I do know is that Harriet the Spy was interesting, cute in parts and rather funny other times–but that the ending was one of the least satisfying things I’ve read in a while.
On the outset, Harriet seemed like an awesome character to me. Her hobby of spying was hilarious and quirky, and she was surprisingly intelligent yet naive about what she wrote down in her notebook. She wasn’t presented as the perfect child, but rather as the wild hooligan that her parents don’t know what to do with. Despite how much she tries to understand, her social skills leave something to be desired, but in the beginning I found that endearing and realistic.
As the story goes on, however, Harriet’s character gets pretty annoying. She is almost always screaming and frustrating the adults around her. Again, despite the intelligent thoughts she writes in her notebook, she continues to act younger than her age throughout. She just gets more and more petulant. After a while, her character isn’t exactly fun to read about anymore.
This is not to say, however, that Harriet doesn’t have her moments. Her interactions with her peers and the adults around her sometimes rang so true I remember thinking or acting the same way. I also temper her attitude with the obvious fact that her parents aren’t as loving as they should be and she’s basically on her own to figure out how to go about life. She’s trying so hard to fit into life around her and find a place where she belongs, and I can respect that. That’s what really made the book for me.
In the end, though, her attempt to understand is her undoing. Her friends get a hold of her notebook and read all the not-so-nice-if-honest stuff that she’s written about them. What happens next, I thought, should have been a lesson about friendship and telling the truth and apologizing to those you’ve judged too harshly. Quite frankly, that isn’t what I took away from it. I don’t want to spell out the ending for those of you who haven’t read it, but I found the end of the novel to be abrupt and decidedly unsatisfying in how Harriet deals with her situation. After dealing with her petulant attitude all book, I was looking for more payoff then I got.
January 22, 2014
Waiting on Wednesday: “Infinite” by Jodi Meadows
Waiting on Wednesday is hosted by Breaking the Spine!
Title: Infinite (Newsoul #3)
Author: Jodi Meadows
ETA: January 28, 2014
About from Goodreads: DESTRUCTION
The Year of Souls begins with an earthquake—an alarming rumble from deep within the earth—and it’s only the first of greater dangers to come. The Range caldera is preparing to erupt. Ana knows that as Soul Night approaches, everything near Heart will be at risk.
FLIGHT
Ana’s exile is frightening, but it may also be fortuitous, especially if she can convince her friends to flee Heart and Range with her. They’ll go north, seeking answers and allies to stop Janan’s ascension. And with any luck, the newsouls will be safe from harm’s reach.
CHOICE
The oldsouls might have forgotten the choice they made to give themselves limitless lifetimes, but Ana knows the true cost of reincarnation. What she doesn’t know is whether she’ll have the chance to finish this one sweet life with Sam, especially if she returns to Heart to stop Janan once and for all.
With gorgeous romance and thrilling action, the final book in the Incarnate trilogy offers a brilliant conclusion to the compelling questions of this fascinating world, where one new girl is the key to the lives of millions.
Why?: If you missed my reviews of the first two books, Incarnate and Asunder, then you MISSED OUT. Jodi is writing one of the most gorgeous, real romances I’ve seen in a while and I cannot wait to see how the story ends!
January 21, 2014
Top Ten Things On My (YA Fantasy) Reading Wishlist
Top Ten Tuesday is a feature hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.
Fair warning: I am going to rant about villains at the end of this. Other fair warning: this list is mostly focused on the realm of YA fantasy, because that’s the genre I’m best-versed in!
1. More epic fantasy in YA. And I DON’T mean the incredibly cliched stuff. Was Sabriel cool? Sabriel was cool.
2. More nonwhite protagonists. Or nonbeautiful ones. Or non-heteronormative ones. Or…yeah, you get the idea.
3. More fantasy based in places other than Medieval Europe. Nonwestern history is cool too!
4. More positive portrayals of a variety of different female roles (not just the utterly kickass heroine with a sword in each hand and a knife in her teeth or the passive love interest type!)
5. More long, gorgeous, ridiculously well-crafted books in YA. A lot of the time this genre moves extremely quickly, but there is something to be said for the beauty of an 800-page hardcover.
6. More sensitive, sweet guys who aren’t secret badasses, and romances that develop based on mutual compatibility and connection, not hotness. I was actually talking with my boyfriend (who is not a secret badass, although he is a scientist so maybe that counts?) about this one recently–how love interest guys are almost never quiet and thoughtful and emotional. They’re confident and badass and sexy, and if they’re not, they’re hiding something. Which I think is a shame, because other guys are awesome too! And sweet, thoughtful types have a lot more long-term, happy relationship potential than guys who have killed six people with their bare hands, y’know?
7. More awesome platonic relationships that are not ever sexual.
8. More functional, supportive parents in good relationships. Seriously, they all suck in YA. Well, not all of them, some of them are okay, but most of them suck. (I’m aware that a lot of real parents suck. But it’s important to note that not all of them do!)
9. SURPRISE ME. It’s really hard to surprise me. When I am surprised, I’m usually really happy about it, and I am willing to overlook about ten other kinds of errors because someone generally threw a twist at me that I didn’t expect.
10. And the one I would write an essay about if I didn’t restrain myself: MORE PEOPLE WHO AREN’T EVIL BUT ARE DOING BAD THINGS AND AREN’T EXCUSED FROM THEIR ACTIONS. I didn’t realize how much I wanted this until I read an example recently. I want characters who have good potential but also some fatal flaws, and make a lot of bad decisions or fall in with the wrong people, and end up doing inexcusable things. I want antagonists who have good friends that care about them and try to help them. And I don’t want the redemption story. I want the wrongness of their actions to be acknowledged. I don’t want them let off the hook. I want the story to own up to what they did, and follow that through.
There aren’t a lot of genuine monsters in the real world, but there are a whole lot of normal people who ended up doing bad things because of their surroundings. Because they were desperate, or they wanted to fit in, or no one ever taught them about compassion. If we think all bad people are monsters, then when someone who obviously ISN’T a monster does something horrible, we can’t reconcile it. I want a story that can simultaneously acknowledge the lack of inherent evil, the potential for not-terribleness, and the horror of someone’s actions.
…-end accidental rant-
January 19, 2014
Bibliomancy for Beginners’ “13 Days of Misfortune”: Day 13 + Wrap Up
Welcome back to the 13 Days of Misfortune! If you’re new to this, then let me tell you that this post is about a 13 day long marathon event where my book club is tackling one book of A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket a day! If you made it all the way through this special, way to go! I almost didn’t myself.
Tonight’s episode is going to be possibly the best yet. We talk marooning, bird cages and answers (?) in The End and also wrap up our thoughts on the series as a whole!
Miss one? Here’s some back links to our previous episodes…
Day 9: The Carnivorous Carnival
January 17, 2014
Bibliomancy for Beginners’ “13 Days of Misfortune”: Day 12
Welcome back to the 13 Days of Misfortune! If you’re new to this, then let me tell you that this post is about a 13 day long marathon event where my book club is tackling one book of The Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket a day!
Tonight we discuss concierges, injustice and noble people in The Penultimate Peril! Do NOT miss tomorrow when we wrap up this series with a discussion about The End.
Miss one? Here’s some back links to our previous episodes…
Day 9: The Carnivorous Carnival
Bibliomancy for Beginners’ “13 Days of Misfortune”: Day 11
Welcome back to the 13 Days of Misfortune! If you’re new to this, then let me tell you that this post is about a 13 day long marathon event where my book club is tackling one book of The Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket a day!
Here’s last night’s episode, in which I was absent, but there is still a great discussion for The Grim Grotto! Hopefully I will be in attendance later today for The Penultimate Peril!
Miss one? Here’s some back links to our previous episodes…
Day 9: The Carnivorous Carnival
