First, I always thought it was D’Ubervilles…which shows how your memory can fool you since I first read this when I was about 13. Secondly, since I was 13 there were a lot of things I missed in the book – little remarks by characters or comments from the narrator that add to the story.
For example, the idea that nobody really ostracized or looked down on Tess after she came back home – rather, it was in her own mind. Tess kept herself ashamed and afraid of the rest of the world. Nobody had condemned her for being taken advantage of by a rich and rather despicable man when all she was trying to do was help her family survive.
Also, I learned that I don’t hate Tess’ mother as much as I did when I read it through the first time. She is rather flighty and immature (and vain), but she does genuinely care about her children – it just isn’t apparent under all those layers of frivolity in her personality.
Lastly, I forgot that a book can be tragic without making me so sad and depressed that I don’t want to read it anymore. Tess of the D’Urbervilles is tragic, but in a rather beautiful way, which is something I don’t say often because to me the terms don’t go together.
Plus, it’s a classic. It’s worth the read.

To begin, let me say that I am mentally, and furiously, kicking myself in the teeth for not having started this book sooner. I’ve had it since about three days after the book signing for the Wheel of  Time book (the bookstore was sold out of all of Sanderson’s books by the time we arrived) and I have been putting off reading it in favor of doing things like homework, studying for finals, eating, sleeping, and all sorts of other things. Valid reasons, but still there are some books that are just really worth reading even if you have to stay up until 4 in the morning and skip a meal or two. This book is one of them.

Mistborn did not really grab my attention when I scanned the first few pages in the bookstore, but I had heard good things about the author and for some reason I kept coming back to that shelf in the bookstore and picking up this book. After I went to the book signing I was determined to get a copy of this book because really, if I’m going to be one out of hundreds of people pestering the man for his signature on a book he completed from another authors notes, then the least I can do is go read his original work and see why he was offered the job in the first place. Especially since he probably to have his hand in traction by the end of the tour…I’ve never been one to go out into crowds (mainly because I am terrified of large groups of stupid people) and the crowd at the signing was daunting…and some of them had him sign multiple books, or inscribe them to someone! Holy cow! I thought handwriting my 500-word essay for midterms was bad, but this…

But I digress.

The key thing to remember here is that Mistborn is a wonderful book. The two main characters, Kell and Vin are interesting to me, but more than that the way the story begins is interesting. It’s half in media res and half at the beginning of a daunting sort of quest – if quest is the right word for planning to overthrow a tyrant. Also, the world that is created is interesting to me because it is in many ways post-apocalyptic. Ash rains down from the sky, the sun is dim and red, and none of the plants in the fields are green. Flowers do not exist. The most exotic – and healthy- plants are simply yellow or orange or white rather than brown.

An important factor, for me at least, is that the secondary or peripheral characters are well-rounded and they seem to grow an change as the story progresses. That is not to say that anyone has some sort of great moral epiphany but rather that all the characters are made to seem real. They have pasts and secrets. They think, they act, they react to the world around them, they feel and change and generally act just like we would expect an actual person to act. For most books, that is not all necessary in characters that aren’t the focus of the story and it is something that is always a turn-off to me as a reader.

If I’m going to read and believe that the world is covered in ash and weak, brown plants, and that an entire sect of people have been cruelly enslaved for a thousand years (no easy feat for someone living in a place where, as kids, our biggest excuse was “it’s a free country”) then I want the people to be real, too, so that I have some way to understand how people would act in a world so alien to what I know.

Sanderson succeeds in creating the world and the characters in it, and there are only a few authors I could name off the top of my head that do that so well. It doesn’t mean much to the plot to know what a world is like, but for a reader to believe the story and care about the characters and what happens next then it is a great boost to have a completeness to those elements. I’ve read great stories that had poorly developed characters, and great stories that had a poor plot but excellent characters that kept me reading. This book is one of those that finds the happy medium between those two extremes.

Now, I’ve said little about plot – and I rarely do – but I have to say that on strength of the story alone I would recommend this book. If you aren’t a big fantasy/sci-fi reader then this may not be for you, because the world is entirely created.  For me it’s perfect. It’s one thing I think Wordsworth got right: a good story or poem has to entice the reader into a “willing suspension of disbelief” and this story does that. But then, I don’t consider myself as being very well-grounded in reality no matter how practical a person I am. I’m always happy to believe in the fantastic. For people who prefer nonfiction or what I call “bread-and-butter” fiction this may not be the most satisfying book to read. However, I would still recommend it. After all, it’s a great story and it’s always a good idea to try new things (unless it’s sushi).

So…read Mistborn if you have the chance, and then tell me what you think!

Well now, I am in quite a pickle for reviews and reading – not because, as one would think, I have no material but rather because I have an overabundance of material. I well remember the days, which weren’t that long ago, when I had to scrounge and scrape to get enough money to buy a paperback. Now I find that while I can’t go out and buy a book a day, I can afford them rather more easily and thanks to Half Price Books, which has at least three locations within easy driving distance, finding books that I’m interested in rather cheaply is an easy feat indeed.
However, since I spent most of my last semester swamped with work and reading for class, most of the books I bought for my own enjoyment got kicked to the wayside until I had more time. Time is now on my hands, and though I’m hoping my staffing agency calls me with something soon, I’m stuck trying to figure out what I want to read during my free time.

This may not seem like much of a dilemma until you realize how truly a sad mixture of OCD and ADD I really am. Now, I know I’ve mentioned being ADD before and I’m not using it as a crutch at all, I just want to point out that the idea of focusing on one thing seems to be insanely more complicated a prospect for me than it is for most people. I have been known to read four books at the same time, switching them out from chapter to chapter or when the plot in one slows down too much for my taste. The problem is that I have about fifteen unread books right now and that technique is not going to work. I have to decide which book I want to read first and I’m determined to read only one at a time this time.

I know! How could I have so many books? Why didn’t I stop buying them? Well…I don’t know. Honestly, about 8 of them got put on the bottom shelf of a bookshelf in my bedroom…stacked sideways on top of the books that were already there…because even though I have two five-shelf and two three-shelf bookcases it just isn’t enough room!!! So…they were sort of hidden by the fact that I don’t typically crawl across my floor. Out of sight, out of mind, and off my reading list…but having remembered their existence I am determined to read them!

So…I’m going to list my books, pick the first three to read, and then check my comments later on to see which book I should read next, according to which ones you would like reviewed/summarized, or Poobah-version-cliffsnoted.

The list is as follows:

1. Tess of the D’Urbervilles, by Thomas Hardy
2. The Scarlet Pimpernel, by Baroness Orczy
3. The Genesis Secret, by Tom Knox
4. The Screwtape Letters, by C.S. Lewis
5. The Vinland Sagas, pub. by Penguin Classics
6. Aeschylus I, ed. by D. Grene & R. Lattimore (Includes: Oresteia, Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers, and The Eumenides)
7. Mistborn, by Brandon Sanderson
8. Kingdom of the Golden Dragan, by Isabel Allende
9. Wolfwalker, by Tara K. Harper
10. Cold Springs, by Rick Riordan
11. Gardens of the Moon, by Steven Erikson
12. Deep Wizardry, by Diane Duane
13. Le Morte D’Arthur, by Sir Thomas Mallory (Vol 1 & 2)
14. The Priest of Blood, by Douglas Clegg
15. The Silent Blade, by R.A. Salvatore

Now, I will pick the first three books to read:

Mistborn, by Brandon Sanderson (#7)

The Vinland Sagas (#5)

Tess of the D’Ubervilles (#1)

I will probably have other reading besides these that aren’t on the list since I just got the list of almost all of my books for classes next semester and I want to read ahead/take notes, but my “working” list for fun reading will start with these three. I will review each of them as I finish them, and if I don’t get any suggestions for reading order by the time I’m done I’ll just start going down the list in the order it’s in here. Hopefully, that will solve my problem and  result in some more reviews! Also, if I don’t post for a day or two feel free to start bugging me – all comments have to be approved, and I get an email when they come in, so comments will be sufficient to get my attention!

Thanks for reading!

Born of Ice, by Sherrilyn Kenyon, is actually a re-print of a set of books Kenyon wrote much earlier in her career. The set: Born of Night, Born of Fire, and Born of Ice were all edited before being republished by St. Martin’s for the purpose of fitting back together stories that had been previously edited because they were “censored” by the publishers, and published by different publishers instead of just one. Thankfully, the world has come to its senses and these are being published together and cobbled back together into a form which, from what I understand, is more like the author intended.

As for this book, it sort of completes the cycle in telling the story of Devyn Wade Kell, the son of C.I. Syn and Shahara Sagan – two of the toughest, and probably most frightening people in the universe. Unfortunately for Devyn, there are plenty of equally frightening enemies that want to harm both him and his family and they plan to use any means necessary to bring him down and cause the maximum amount of physical and emotional pain. The good part: Devyn has been well-trained in how to defend himself and those he cares for. The bad part: everybody has a weakness.

Alix Garran is, as stated on the back of the book cover, a woman on the run. The Ichidian Universe is, like our own world, a dangerous and rather unfair place to live. Good people don’t always have good lives and the past always has a way of catching up with you – especially if you are tied to the world by the simple ability to care for others. Alix signs on as a engineer on Devyn’s crew and as she learns more about Devyn and his friends she has to face not only her past, but the dillema of a future that holds the emptiness of lost love and possibly the burden of betrayal.

Mysterious enough for you? I certainly hope I managed to interest you without giving anything away. One thing I will mention: this book is complete enough to stand alone if you haven’t managed to read its predecessors – each of the books in this set can do that. Also, I have to give major kudos to Kenyon because I have often found it annoying and difficult to read books about the children of characters I have read about in a previous novel. Typically I end up giving up on the book when that dynamic pops up because I find that I either can’t stand the child, whether its an adult child or not, or that the characters I loved so well have become “tame” or unbearably sappy pushovers with regards to their children. That doesn’t happen in this book – in fact I would say that when previous characters appear in this, they are just as good, if not improved, compared to the previous stories.

Alix and Devyn also form an interesting dynamic as characters and, as usual for Kenyon, the supporting characters are equally interesting and I find myself wanting to know more about them and their backgrounds and relationships as the story progresses. It is what initially drew me into the Dark-Hunter series, and what made these books great for me. I even have to admit I was a little leery picking up the first book in the store. I knew I loved Kenyon’s writing and characters, but this is set in a futuristic, sci-fi sort of world and if you know me you know that I’m not huge on science fiction. I’m more of a fantasy gal when it comes right down to it. Give me swords and horses and magical powers and I’m game. Give me alternate universes, spacecrafts and advanced technology and I’m ready to run away screaming at a moment’s notice.

So again, it’s a credit to Kenyon that the story was still enjoyable to me. The sci-fi element didn’t become an overwhelming facet of the story, it was just sort of quietly there in a way that encouraged that “willing suspension of disbelief” (thank you Wordsworth, Coleridge) for the reader. Of course, at its core this is a romance novel. You’ll find it in the romance section of the store and everything, so guys, you may not be all that interested. Still, the writing is just wonderful and the story is just as skillfully written as any of the other bestselling novels in any other genre that are out in the market. (Or better, actually, now that I consider some of the things that have made the bestseller lists.) I would definitely recommend this book to my friends. And really, I should since it was one of my friends who started me on reading Kenyon in the first place!

Kill me if you must, but this is another review of a book I have not yet finished. One reason for my slowness is indecision: I’ve been reading about four books lately, in little chunks, and I keep meaning to get back to this one only to think that I shouldn’t start back on it because it’s sort of a tough read – not that the writing is bad or anything, but it’s a lot of characters and plot developments to keep in one’s head.
That being said, I have come close to the end and I haven’t loved a book this much in a while – this book is now in the running with Terry Goodkind and Gail Z. Martin for one of my favorite books of all time.
It is, yes, a little dense to slog through, especially if you are easily distracted like me. (This is your ADD calling; I’ve found something shiny!) Buuut, well worth the effort. (And yes I have been diagnosed with ADD and no I don’t think it’s just a term made up and it’s just for exceptionally smart people because I’m right up there in IQ with a box of rocks, but that’s a story for another blog.)
But, all asides aside, The Eye of the World is an excellent read, especially for those readers keen on the fantasy genre, and I am assured the rest of the series is equally full of awesome. The world offered to us as readers is rich and varied, the characters are interesting and show potential to grow into some even deeper and more interesting characters, and the relationships between the characters has much potential for further exploration.

Plus, I am always game for an epic battle against the forces of evil and it seems like this book is preparing us for something like that – but in a relatively new and different way – and I approve. Nothing seems patently stereotypical in the plot, but it does echo other major authors/works (Tolkein! ^.^) in such a way as to put its toe in the door of the genre and say quite firmly that it isn’t going anywhere without a fight.  Of course, most of the world already knows this – the series itself is nothing new.

So, unless I come to the last page and something happens to suddenly make me hate the book…I would highly recommend it.

I’m fairly certain I reviewed this when I read it last semester, but it’s one of my favorite Austen novels so I feel like it’s worth bringing it up again. Persuasion was published postumously, and while there are many things that make it interesting I’ll give you two facts right away that have readers, scholars, and fans intrigued.

First of all, Persuasion has two endings. Several movie adaptations have been made and just for that reason alone they faced a challenge. My favorite version thus far blends them together. Ingenious.

Second of all, Persuasion is of all of Austen’s novels the most Romantic – as in the Romantic Period – but not quite enough, in my humble opinion, to really qualify it as Romanticism. Austen was great, but I wouldn’t put her in the same room with Byron, Shelley, Wordsworth, or Keats. Okay, maybe with Wordsworth, but only because I think they’d get along just fine.

And a third reason, which I didn’t prepare you for, is that the story starts about eight years after where her other novels began. Are heroine and hero have met, fell in love, gotten engaged…and then broke it off. Why? Check the title.

These interesting little tidbits make Persuasion interesting enough on its own, but when you class it with Austen’s other novels, it stands out quite a bit. The way that characters interact is more interesting in Persuasion, there’s less conversation, but more acts. You  understand people through their actions more than through their words – though conversation never really plays a negligible part in Austen – and the romantic (little ‘r’!) tension between the characters is set just at the right level so that you neither put down the book, nor throw it against the wall in frustration.

Lastly, since it’s not a modern-day romance novel (though it is more than just a love story – but I won’t get into that here; that’s what essays are for ) it’s classier than most of the books you’ll come across when you’re looking for a love story. I particularly like the fact that the characters can be in love without getting all hot and sweaty. It doesn’t dismiss that affection can have a physical side, with all those blushes and comments about looks, but it does let the reader enjoy a story about two people learning about each other and re-learning to love each other without turning into something deplorably base. The characters are sincere, if satirized for the peripheral characters, and Austen’s wit is still present throughout the novel. It’s sad that it was her last completed work, but I say hey, that’s going out with a bang.

Tags: Anne Elliot, Austen, Captain Wentworth, Classics, Jane Austen, Romance, romance novels, romanticism

I wish this wasn’t the last book of the series. I have absolutely loved every book of the series. The characters were fantastic, though I’m sad we lost track of some and mad that some of them didn’t die like I wanted (the bad guys, I mean) and elated because for once it’s a whole series where I didn’t guess every ending before I made it halfway through! I really hope that Butcher has something new in the works to follow this. I love the Dresden Files series, and I’ve been alternating my reading of those with my readings of the Codex Alera series…and now I feel like if the Codex Alera series is over and nothing new comes out I’ll DIE.

Okay, maybe not. I may just have to find a new author to fill the gap…but still. I can’t get into plot details because if I gave away anything to someone who hasn’t read the series I would feel horrible…but I will highly recommend the series. Even if you aren’t big on the genre (fantasy) it’s worth a shot. Read the first book, and if you think it’s even rated “OK” then go to the next…because it’s worth it.

Gambit, thankfully, is reading the series now…which makes me happy because when he’s done I can gush over it to him. I’ve already had a great time listening to him put forth his theories on how the plot will develop – and I have to say it’s been a little difficult to keep my mouth shut, but it’s great for me to ask “So what do you think about Isana?” and not get the look that says, “Okay, crazy girl, I don’t know who that is…just calm down.”

As endings go, it wasn’t quite as final as I would’ve wanted  – only in a couple of things – but it delivered. I gotten to the ends of trilogies and the ends of series and been angry or disappointed because the ending wasn’t really an ending (or it ended like Hamlet), but in this case it was good. It ended well, though I’m sad to see it go.

Tags: Calderon, Canea, Codex Alera, endings, First Lord's Fury

I have never been quite satisfied with the current template for the NeoLibrarium page, though I do like it better than the original, which I felt didn’t allow for enough content on the sidebars. Now that I’ve had some time to start looking again, I have a few prospective templates I’d like to consider. I’m sort of letting readers get a say on this, though, so I don’t make people think they’ve lost their minds or gone to the wrong page (or both) like last time.

So…here’s what the new one would look like:

And here’s what the header would look like up close (I would need to add the site name to the blank space at the top)

And lastly, a view of how comments and ratings would display:

So…what’s the verdict from the peanut gallery? Yes? No? Something completely different? Need more closeups? Let me know!

This was one of the books I needed to read for class and my overall impression at the end was…confusion. This just does not strike me as one of the best books of all time, nor do I see why literary canon includes Virginia Woolf as a major author. Hopefully, this is just not one of her best works and there’s some other justifiable reason that students the world over are forced to read her works, but for my part, I didn’t see it.

Then again, I’m not big on the modernists at all. The stream-of-consciousness writing doesn’t bother me; I’m all over that and I appreciate it because it’s an original way of writing and I think it gives a lot to the readers by allowing the book to go outside of the expected structure. It also kicks out the narrative voice, to a point, and well…it’s just awesome.

Yet somehow, I didn’t see it as a benefit to this book. I actually think the story itself went along just fine, but there was no voice to help the reader find the “point” in reading the story in the first place, and I think that in this case that was needed. I know, Woolf’s dead, it’s not like it’s going to fix it for me to criticize, but…I was sort of disappointed. It’s the first time I’ve read Woolf and I expected to be impressed.

Even after the class discussion, I felt like I’d gotten cheated. Still, it’s not something I would recommend against reading, and if you like modernism you’ll probably get more out of it than I did. Most of my reading skips modernist authors (and the Romantics, and even quite a bit of post-modernism) so I just may not have the literary “chops” to understand this book. If it’s something you just loved…let us know why. I’m not closing my mind entirely to Woolf…I’m just disappointed I didn’t get more out of it.

Tags: Modernism, Modernists, post-war fiction