This story begins within the walls of a castle, with the birth of a mouse. A small mouse. The last mouse born to his parents and the only one of his litter to be born alive.
"This is the story of Despereaux Tilling, a mouse who is in love with music, stories, and a princess named Pea. It is also the story of a rat called Roscuro, who lives in the darkness and covets a world filled with light. And it is the story of Miggery Sow, a slow-witted serving girl who harbors a simple, impossible wish. These three characters are about to embark on a journey that will lead them down into a horrible dungeon, up into a glittering castle, and, ultimately, into each other's lives. What happens then? As Kate DiCamillo would say: Reader, it is your destiny to find out."
This is a beautiful, simple fable, full of all the best things: forgiveness, light, love and soup, as Booklist puts it. I remembered enjoying it when I read it four or five years ago, but this time around, I loved it. I can see why some would find its style pretentious, as if the author was trying to hard to be beautiful and simple. But I didn't. The way that the author speaks directly to the reader, asking them questions, is brilliant, and especially good for the younger readers that this book is aimed at. But really, anyone could read the book and enjoy it. A lot of middle grade novels now feel simplistic and forced to me. The Tale of Despereaux, along with only a few others like Walk Two Moons, When You Reach Me, and Savvy, doesn't. Maybe that's the point of the Newbery award (four of those books have won it), to select middle grade books that people of all ages can enjoy.
Beautiful or gorgeous or something to that effect and simple are really the two best words to describe the book's story, message, and writing. But the simplicity isn't overdone; to me it didn't seem forced, although I'm sure plenty of other people think differently. After all, of my Goodreads friends who've read it, two out of five rated it two stars. The other three rated it five stars. I guess it's one of those books that you absolutely love or one where you just don't get why everyone raves about it. I belong to the former category, although only upon rereading it.
There are so many amazing parts of the story that just come together perfectly, like a perfect blend of ingredients into a soup. There are many seemingly unrelated plot-lines, but it never gets confusing and it fits together realistically. I loved how the first part ended, with the small mouse who has discovered love telling a story to the jailer who hasn't seen the light of day for years so that his life can be saved. It was a beautiful image. And then the story moved on to a rat who was not always evil but became so.
This is an amazing story with an unlikely hero, a small mouse with too big ears who sees and hears more than the other mice. He hears music, and reader, he can read. And he can love. He wants more from life than the fairly joyless existence that the other mice lead.
I love fairy tales and fables, and this is a perfect one. It has all the good things mentioned above, as well as a princess, a castle, a servant girl, and people yearning for something more. It kind of reminded me of The Castle Corona a bit, although it was much better.
The copy I have is also beautifully designed, with the gold Newbery medal on the cover and the rough-cut pages that feel so nice to the touch. See, this is what one loses with e-books; the texture and the joy of it. I can't imagine enjoying The Tale of Despereaux nearly as much on a Kindle.
I'll close with some quotes: “There is nothing sweeter in this sad world than the sound of someone you love calling your name.”
“Stories are light. Light is precious in a world so dark. Begin at the beginning. Tell Gregory a story. Make some light.”
“Love, as we have already discussed, is a powerful, wonderful, ridiculous thing, capable of moving mountains. And spools of thread.”
“There are those hearts, reader, that never mend again once they are broken. Or if they do mend, they heal themselves in a crooked and lopsided way, as if sewn together by a careless craftsman. Such was the fate of Chiaroscuro. His heart was broken. Picking up the spoon and placing it on his head, speaking of revenge, these things helped him to put his heart together again. But it was, alas, put together wrong.”
“Reader, you must know that an interesting fate (sometimes involving rats, sometimes not) awaits almost everyone, mouse or man, who does not conform.”
"Despereaux marveled at his own bravery. He admired his own defiance. And then, reader, he fainted.”
271 pages.
Rating: *****
It was five o'clock on a winter's morning in Syria. Alongside the platform at Aleppo stood the train grandly designated in railway guides as the Taurus Express. It consisted of a kitchen and dining-car, a sleeping-car and two local coaches.
"Just after midnight, the famous Orient Express is stopped in its tracks by a snowdrift. By morning, the millionaire Samuel Ratchett lies dead in his compartment, stabbed a dozen times, his door locked from the inside. One of his fellow passengers must be the murderer. Isolated by the storm and with a killer in their midst, detective Hercule Poirot must find the killer amongst a dozen of the dead man's enemies, before the murderer decides to strike again..."
*This review contains spoilers, although not outright ones. Readers, beware!*
I recently watched a movie adaption of Murder on the Orient Express, so I knew what the outcome of the mystery was, but I still wanted to reread the book to see how it differed from the movie and once again experience Christie's amazing writing. I haven't read any of her novels recently; they're not really the kind of books you read twice. However, Murder on the Orient Express is one of her best (and also most sensational) mysteries, and it's worth reading more than once, the second time so that you can take note of the foreshadowing and the subtle clues that Poirot picks up on.
As I said, I think the whole set-up of the murder is very unrealistic. Without giving anything away, I think that it would be highly unlikely that something like this would actually happen, something so well planned out. Although the book is ingeniously plotted. It's also a very moving story too, since it deals with a horrible crime that happens in the past.
The writing was very good, simple, and suspenseful; however, there were some word choices that felt off. Like the phrase "freezingly cold", which was used on the very first page. Surely "freezing cold" would be much better. I don't even think freezingly is a word; Blogger says it's not. Of course, it also says that cockatiel isn't, so...Still, Christie describes everything in clinical detail which still manages to be really entertaining.
All of the characters and their quirks are really interesting; the murdered man is an awful person, and lots of people have (very good) reasons for killing him. This novel raises interesting questions of right and wrong; if a man has done something utterly horrible and legal justice fails to punish him, what punishment should be given to those who decide to take justice into their own hands? Who decide to take revenge when the courts have not properly tried someone? It's a difficult question, and I myself am not sure whether I agree with Poirot's decision at the end. Yes, it seems right and like the murder was deserved, but murder is murder, no matter who the victim is. Ratchett was killed, and that is a crime, no matter how many other innocent people's deaths he was responsible for. And yet, he deserved punishment, and the murderer(s) were doing what was right, at least in their minds.
Anyway, this is an exciting mystery that will force you to ponder these questions and also keep you entertained throughout. There are certainly new things that one notices rereading a mystery to which the solution is known. Rather than racing through the book, eager to find out who did it, I took a little more time and noticed some of the details.
Poirot is also a great character. He thinks very well of himself, and he's a very quirky, amusing Belgian character. He gets annoyed when people haven't heard of the great Hercule Poirot, and he's very fastidious. People tend to underestimate him because he's so effeminate and mincing. Big mistake, because his "little gray cells" are sharper than anyone's.
This is one of Agatha Christie's best mysteries, I think, if not in writing, then in story. I would certainly recommend it. I'm planning to reread some of her other mysteries that I own. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is also an excellent Poirot mystery.
265 pages.
Rating: ****
Different societies see landscapes differently. You may look at Elizabethan England and see a predominantly green land, characterized by large open fields and woodlands, but an Elizabethan yeoman will describe his homeland to you in terms of cities, towns, ports, great houses, bridges, and roads.
"From the author of The Time Traveler’s Guide to Medieval England, this popular history explores daily life in Queen Elizabeth’s England, taking us inside the homes and minds of ordinary citizens as well as luminaries of the period, including Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Sir Walter Raleigh, and Sir Francis Drake. Organized as a travel guide for the time-hopping tourist, Mortimer relates in delightful (and occasionally disturbing) detail everything from the sounds and smells of sixteenth-century England to the complex and contradictory Elizabethan attitudes toward violence, class, sex, and religion."
I read and enjoyed Ian Mortimer's fascinating book about the 14th century. I was aware that he had written another one called The Time Traveler's Guide to Elizabethan England, but it wasn't published in the US until just recently. I don't think there's much of a market for semi-serious history here, sadly.
The first section of the book was really interesting, the idea that a person from the 16th century would describe their home a different way, the idea that the landscape (a term not invented until the late 1590's) is only as valuable as what it can produce for people. Things have certainly changed since then, and by our standards Elizabethan England was underpopulated with lots of space. And yet it still suffered from severe overpopulation and crowding. Why is that? What Ian Mortimer basically tries to do in both this book and his previous one is view these historical periods not as things that have already passed and are just dates on the page, but as events that actually happened, people who actually lived, in everyday life. It's a good angle, I think. It's mentioned both in the front flap and in the publicity materials that many tend to romanticize the Elizabethan era as a time of great exploration and the beginning of the modern era. The first one is certainly true, the second one maybe, but as Mortimer shows, the time was one of great uncertainty and upheaval, where lots of barbaric practices were certainly flourishing.
I was very disappointed that there were no color plates in The Time Traveler's Guide to Elizabethan England like in the first book. I suppose it must have something to do with the switch in publishers from Touchstone to Viking. I like reading about things, but sometimes some images really help to make things clearer, and it's a shame.
The writing in the introduction was dry and overwritten; I skimmed through most of it, and was afraid that the rest of the book would be like it. But it wasn't. There was ample description, and perhaps it was very slightly overwritten, but not much, for which I was grateful. Some sections were more interesting than others. The author really does paint a picture in your head; in the first chapter he describes Stratford-upon-Avon street by street. That certainly wasn't my favorite part though, as it was kind of boring. I most enjoyed when Elizabeth's legal standing as queen, religion, class, law, and customs were discussed. That's what interests me about historical periods.
I can't help noticing that 300, 400 years from now (assuming humans haven't been destroyed), this book would be useless. I doubt it would be in print anyway, but even if it was, the reader then wouldn't know anything about the 21st century, which Mortimer references in comparison to the period he is writing about. This book will only be of use for so long.
But at the moment, it is very entertaining and informative, and I certainly learned a lot. How long I'll retain that information is another matter. I thought the paradox of Queen Elizabeth's situation was very interesting; she was the ruler of the whole country, feared and respected by the people, yet by law she was not allowed to hold any legal or religious office.
I was drawn into the book with its rich and fascinating historical detail, and it well portrayed a time of many contradictions, at once progressive and totally backwards. I found the descriptions of the different classes and how sometimes the distinctions blur really interesting; I was definitely absorbed in the book. I learned a great deal about many facets of Elizabethan society, even though it's an era that I'm not particularly interested. Mortimer manages to make it interesting.
Disclosure: I received a review copy from Viking.
325 pages.
Rating: ****
I was leaning against the bar in a speakeasy on Fifty-second Street, waiting for Nora to finish her Christmas shopping, when a girl got up from the table where she had been sitting with three other people and came over to me. She was small and blonde, and whether you looked at her face or her body in powder-blue sports clothes, the result was satisfactory.
"Nick and Nora Charles are Hammett's most enchanting creations, a rich, glamorous couple who solve homicides in between wisecracks and martinis. At once knowing and unabashedly romantic, The Thin Man is a murder mystery that doubles as a sophisticated comedy of manners."
I loved the opening of The Thin Man; it was so funny and to-the-point. The first sentence, it seems to me, is the typical hard-boiled detective opening: leaning against a counter, a girl walks up to him. Except for the addition that his wife is doing Christmas shopping. Unlike The Maltese Falcon, there's kind of a balance between toughness and something else: "knowing and unabashedly romantic", as the blurb put it. Nora herself is one tough customer.
Still, I have to say: the movie is better. (Gasp). Scandalous, I know. In almost every case, the book is way better than the movie. And probably in terms of the style, the book is much better. But the movie is more funny and more witty than the book. I haven't seen the film in a while (although I've watched others in the series recently), so I can't really say whether the events in the two versions differed dramatically, although I think they did a little bit. One thing I did notice was that in the book, Asta, their dog, is female; in the movie the dog is a male. I also remembered that in the film Wynant was murdered first, but perhaps I was wrong. As I said, it's been a while. It turned out, though, that I was correct.
Anyway, I couldn't help finding the book inferior to the film, but it was still good in its way. A lot of the time I wasn't sure what the heck was happening, but I just went with it, and it all worked out. There are a lot of characters and names to remember, and they aren't introduced very well (character development is kind of thin in a novel like this). There are the Wynants (several of them), the Jorgensons, the policeman, and a whole host of other usual and unusual suspects that Nick has to take into account. Nick is, of course, retired at the beginning of the book, but he's quickly coaxed out of retirement to help solve the case, especially since the Wynants are old friends of his.
The mystery itself certainly isn't as brilliant as something concocted by Christie or Arthur Conan Doyle, but it is a pretty good one. I think it lends itself better to the screen rather than the page, but The Thin Man is still worth reading. As you might except, there are some great one-liners in the book. That's what I love about the noir genre, even if the mystery itself is not the best.
It was interesting that the book was narrated by Nick Charles, the detective, himself. Usually most mysteries are in third person or narrated by an observer of the events (like Watson in Sherlock Holmes). Most of Christie's mysteries are narrated in third person, although some like The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (which is brilliant, by the way) are narrated by someone else. That's generally to preserve the mystery, I think.
Being set in the 20's, the book is a little bit sexist, but certainly not as much as I was expecting it to be. The films are actually a bit more sexist. From what I've heard though Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep is not only sexist, but also homophobic. I'm not sure if I'm going to read it. Possibly.
Here are some favorite quotes: “The problem with putting two and two together is that sometimes you get four, and sometimes you get twenty-two.”
“She grinned at me. 'You got types?'
'Only you darling - lanky brunettes with wicked jaws.”
“Nora: "How do you feel?"
Nick: "Terrible. I must've gone to bed sober.”
180 pages.
Rating: 3.5 stars.
Dear You, The body you are wearing used to be mine. The scar on the inner left thigh is there because I fell out of a tree and impaled my leg at the age of nine. The filling in the far left tooth on the top is a result of my avoiding the dentist for four years. But you probably care little about this body's past. After all, I'm writing this letter for you to read in the future. Perhaps you are wondering why anyone would do such a thing. The answer is both simple and complicated. The simple answer is because I knew it would be necessary. The complicated answer could take a little more time.
"So begins the letter Myfanwy Thomas is holding when she awakes in a London park surrounded by bodies all wearing latex gloves. With no recollection of who she is, Myfanwy must follow the instructions her former self left behind to discover her identity and track down the agents who want to destroy her. She soon learns that she is a Rook, a high-ranking member of a secret organization called the Chequy that battles the many supernatural forces at work in Britain. She also discovers that she possesses a rare, potentially deadly supernatural ability of her own. In her quest to uncover which member of the Chequy betrayed her and why, Myfanwy encounters a person with four bodies, an aristocratic woman who can enter her dreams, a secret training facility where children are transformed into deadly fighters, and a conspiracy more vast than she ever could have imagined. Filled with characters both fascinating and fantastical, The Rook is a richly inventive, suspenseful, and often wry thriller that marks an ambitious debut from a promising young writer."
Wow. The Rook just blew me away. I wasn't expecting it to be very good, but it was well-written, smart, surprising, suspenseful and creative. The premise is just so bizarre and hard to understand, and as Myfanwy learns about her new situation, so does the reader. I was fascinated and drawn into this lengthy but fairly quick fantasy and sci-fi novel. The story itself was just so gripping, and I was interested to see Myfanwy figuring who she was and what the hell was going on. Because even by the Chequy agency's standards, strange things are happening.
There were so many creative things in The Rook; Rook Gestalt for example, which has four bodies it can simultaneously control, as well as many other powers. Most of the characters in the Chequy that are part of the higher Court have all of these strange abilities; Myfanwy can control people's bodies, turning off certain senses and sensation, and making them feel great pain of various sorts. The old Myfanwy hated using her power. The new one is exploring, and is way less timid. I really wanted to find out who exactly was in Myfanwy's body, whether it was a different person, or actually Myfanwy herself just with her memory wiped.
The letters got to be a bit annoying; there are huge binders full of information that the old Myfanwy created, and sometimes I wish that they wouldn't be so long. Still, it added more detail to the rich world that O'Malley has created, and the Chequy is so complex that it does require a lot of information to understand. I still didn't get certain aspects of it. I also thought the chess theme of the Chequy was really interesting, and was trying to figure out how all the pieces fit in. England still being a sort of monarchy, instead of a King and Queen, which would cause discomfort to the actual King and Queen, the two leaders of the organization are the Lord and the Lady. Which would follow that the Lord is helpless and the most important thing to be protected, and the Lady is the most powerful, dangerous one of the whole organization. That was very interesting, because Lady Farrier is certainly a dangerous woman.
There are so many amazing facets of the plot; Myfanwy has to figure out who she is and who's out to get her, but there's also the problem of the Grafters, who have not been active for hundreds of years, but are back, more powerful and evil than ever. The descriptions of what the Grafters could do were really disturbing; some sections of The Rook are not for the faint of heart, although most of the book isn't too bad.
The writing in The Rook is really clever, and O'Malley slips in all these sly little things that make the reader chuckle a bit. The book is disturbing, but also really fascinating and suspenseful. I would highly recommend it for fans of fantasy, science fiction, and thrillers. This was another great book that was recommended to me by Goodreads, and their recommendation system is really, really good. This is a pretty long book, but well worth it.
482 pages.
Rating: *****
Prince George could not remember seeing his father without his crown on his head, except perhaps in bed, and even then the imprint on his temples was clear enough. But the crown could have been melted down or stolen away, and it would not have mattered. George could see kingship in every move his father made.
"He is a prince and heir to a kingdom threatened on all sides, possessor of the forbidden animal magic. She is a princess from a rival kingdom, the daughter her father never wanted, isolated from all except her hound. In this lush and beautifully written fairy-tale romance, a prince, a princess, and two kingdoms are joined in the aftermath of a war. Proud, stubborn, and bound to marry for duty, George and Beatrice will steal your heart—but will they fall in love?"
On the recommended summer reading list of my local library, this YA fairy tale retelling looked really interesting, and so I checked it out. I didn't end up loving the writing style, but the story itself was pretty good. I liked the two main characters, and how their problems are portrayed. Prince George always had a special bond with his mother (both of them had the animal magic), but when she died, he tried to forget about it all and focus on his duty as a prince, as his father does his role as king. I thought the way that was shown was really moving and sad, how George tries to forget about his communication with animals, to push it down.
The thing that didn't make sense to me was the basic opening premise. Why is animal magic considered evil and punishable by burning? After all, in the old legend that the book opens with, the animal magic saved the people from a cruel king who enjoyed torturing animals. Animal magic certainly has its dark side, but I didn't understand why it was thought to be so bad. Other than that, the story was well told, and I liked George's conflict with himself. He wants to be a good king, marry for duty, and all of that, but he also wants to do something for others like him who have the animal magic and are unjustly treated. He's just not sure how to go about it.
Beatrice, too, has had life even worse than George. Her father is just a horrible man, cruel and disparaging towards women. I felt more sorry for her than George. She's frequently beaten, and her father insults her at every turn. Beatrice's only confidant is her hound, and even though she doesn't seem to have the animal magic, they can kind of understand one another. George dreams about Beatrice's childhood, and how horribly she was treated by her father and the various women that he married in attempt to gain a male heir. George is unsure, but he knows that he likes Beatrice and wants to help her.
Still, there were some aspects of the book I didn't like. The book is advertised as a retelling of Beauty and the Beast but it didn't remind me of the fairytale at all! On the back cover of the paperback, it says, "Beauty and the Beast retold - but the Beast is a woman." What? Beatrice is not beastly in appearance or personality, although she's not as feminine as her father would like. She does have a secret, but it's still not that similar to the Beast. Speaking of which, I did like the secret that Beatrice and her hound shared; it made some sense, though not a whole lot, and was interesting.
Overall, I think the story of The Princess and the Hound was pretty good with some weak points, and the writing was just so-so. It wasn't particularly compelling, except for the portrayal of George. The animal magic didn't really work for me, but I did enjoy this one. The marketing was just kind of misleading, and that annoyed me. I enjoyed the first bit, the second part was a bit odd, and the third part picked up again.
410 pages.
Rating: ***
The ornate script on the board twisted in the candlelight, making the letters and numbers dance in my head.
"Mara Dyer doesn’t think life can get any stranger. She wakes from a coma in hospital with no memory of how she got there or of the bizarre accident that caused the deaths of her best friends and her boyfriend, yet left her mysteriously unharmed. The doctors suggest that starting over in a new city, a new school, would be good for her and just to let the memories gradually come back on their own. But Mara’s new start is anything but comforting. She sees the faces of her dead friends everywhere, and when she suddenly begins to see other people’s deaths right before they happen, Mara wonders whether she’s going crazy! And if dealing with all this wasn’t enough, Noah Shaw, the most beautiful boy she has ever seen can’t seem to leave her alone… but as her life unravels around her, Mara can’t help but wonder if Noah has another agenda altogether…"
I have major mixed feelings about this book; on the one hand, it was a creepy, delicious, well-written, YA book, but on the other hand, it could have gone a whole other direction and probably been better for it. The romance was really, really annoying; I'll get to that later. For now, let's focus on the things that I really did like about The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer.
It was recommended to me when I asked for recommendations for books similar to Code Name Verity. Now, obviously, the two plots are nothing alike, and the setting is complete different, but the narration is kind of similar. Both books are very high-stakes, and both books have unreliable narrators who withhold lots of information. There's also a very gripping mystery element to both books.
The basic plot of this book was certainly very scary and compelling. I kind of already knew what had happened at the accident after not very many pages, but I did want to find out more, and I certainly wanted an explanation for the strange things in Mara's life. The writing was also incredibly suspenseful, as paranormal YA is wont to be. I could barely put the book down, even though I found myself rolling my eyes at some of the things that happened. At Noah, for example.
Anyway, I was very skeptical about The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer; I actually expected to put it down after a while, disgusted by its YA-ness. But I didn't. I raced through the book; it was one of the most suspenseful and disturbing books I've read in quite a while.
Yeah, the romance was annoying. But just like Mara, I found myself being attracted to Noah in spite of myself. I didn't like it one bit, and I have a feeling Noah in the flesh would be even harder to resist. So I can't say that I blame Mara for falling for him, just that I wish the author would have done something different with the romance. Noah is also kind of controlling, and that I hated. Yeah, he helps Mara a lot and sticks up for her, but that doesn't mean that he's not kind of evil. And he enjoys messing with her. A lot. I really did not like that aspect.
Still, I didn't hate The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer as much as other people did. It's certainly entertainment rather than art, and I doubt it will be remembered fifty years from now. But if you're looking for a read that's interesting, disturbing, and yeah, has an attractive guy in it, this is the book for you. I won't say that I regret reading it, only that I should really be a bit more selective with my reading. Books like this really aren't worth my time. This was definitely a guilty pleasure, even though it's not a particularly pleasant book.
Anyway, I did not like the ending, which didn't tie anything up. It was basically a ploy to make everyone who's at least halfway interested in the book read the sequel. I probably won't, if I can resist it. But the ending was such a cliffhanger!
452 pages.
Rating: 3.5 stars.
