Nose in a Book

Inkheart by Cornelia Funke

I probably should have reviewed this book sooner but I was kind of disappointed by it and wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to say.

It’s a story about a girl, Meggie, whose father, Mo, can read characters out of books.  A long time ago, he read a book called Inkheart and a few bad characters came out of the book.  These bad guys are after Meggie and her father because they want Mo to read some more characters out of their book.

The book was really slow and loooong.  It could have been half the length and still told the same story.  It could have been a lot more exciting and suspenseful.  The idea is really cool and has a lot of potential but honestly, I think this one just fell flat.  I bought the sequel to this one, but I don’t plan on reading it any time soon and I’m pretty sure I won’t even buy the third one.  When I compare this with books like Harry Potter and Fablehaven it just doesn’t even come close.  I wouldn’t recommend this book.

Fablehaven: Secrets of the Dragon Sanctuary by Brandon Mull

Read for: Once Upon a Time Challenge

This is the 4th book in the Fablehaven series and is just as good as the first three.  This time Kendra and Seth and others are trying to find the key to the vault housing one of the five artifacts.  The search takes them to a dragon sanctuary in Montana, where they meet giants and lots of dragons.

Of course there are many twists and turns and people who have unexpected talents and identities.  I don’t want to say too much about the book because to do so would give away too much of the story.  This 4th book in the series is just as exciting and readable as the first three.  Definitely a must read!

The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood

Read for: The What’s in a Name Challenge – book title with a profession in it, The 1% Well Read Challenge

I’m still unsure about how I feel about this book.  I finished it last night and after sleeping on it and reading some other reviews, I’m liking it a bit more than I did initially.

The story is about three women who are connected by their hurt at the hands of a single woman, Zenia.  Zenia is supposedly dead, but on the day that the novel begins, the friends are meeting for lunch when Zenia walks into the restaurant.  As each of the women leave the restaurant that day, they begin to remember the circumstances that brought Zenia into their lives and caused them so much pain.

Zenia is extremely manipulative and she knows exactly how to act and what to say to each of these women to be allowed into their lives and to steal their men.  We never really learn anything else about Zenia because everything she says is a lie.  Her history is a story carefully tailored for the person she’s telling it to, in order to garner the most sympathy.  Zenia must be extremely intelligent to be able to determine exactly what will work the best on each of these women, but she is not at all likable.  Her motivation for destroying these women’s relationships seems to be none other than because she can.

The story is told, in turn, from the viewpoint of the three friends.  First we hear from Tony, then Charis and lastly Roz.  Each of the women, from their own point of view, seem weak but when we view them from the other women’s perspective they become stronger and much more likable.  Isn’t this true of real life?  Are the people around us able to see our strengths better than we can ourselves?  I liked the book a lot better once I realized this.  I was feeling disappointed that the characters were all so weak-willed when I noticed that they weren’t really.  It was just their internal voice that was, but these women were a lot stronger than they thought they were.

The book was centred around Zenia and I thought it was about her, but I’ve realized that it wasn’t about her at all.  It was about the three women.  This is their story, not hers and that’s what I like about the book.  This book definitely isn’t for everyone, but if you like Atwood’s other books, you’ll like this one too.

Other reviews: caribousmom, dancing badger

Size 14 Is Not Fat Either and Big Boned by Meg Cabot

These two books are sequels to Size 12 Is Not Fat which I read a while ago.  I just read both of these so I decided to review them together.  If you’ve read the first book, you’ll find these two to be pretty much the same.

Heather Wells, who works in the residence hall at New York College, seems to get herself tangled up in murder investigations on a regular basis.  Dead bodies seems to have a habit of appearing at her place of work, so much so that people have starting calling it Death Dorm.  Heather tries but just can’t seem to help investigating the murders and of course almost getting herself killed at the end of each book.  (Just like every other murder mystery story.)

Heather is a fun lead character.  She’s kind of silly but she’s smart and kind-hearted and fearless (in kind of a bad way.)  There’s enough romance in these novels to include them in the chick-lit genre but mostly they are just a fun murder mystery.  There is nothing serious or deep about these novels but I’m pretty sure they’re not supposed to be deep or serious.  These are the perfect vacation or just in between the more serious stuff books.  Once again, Meg Cabot delivers!

I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith

Read for: What’s in a Name Challenge – book title with a building in it

Cassandra and her family (sister – Rose, brother, father, step-mother and Stephen – a boy who works for them but is more like family) live in an old castle in the English countryside.  Her father once wrote a very celebrated book but hasn’t been able to write anything in some time.  The family is struggling financially as a result.  A new family takes up residence in a nearby estate and they soon become friends.  The new family consists of 2 young men (Simon and Neil) and their mother.  Eventually there is one big love tangle.  Stephen is in love with Cassandra, Cassandra is in love with Simon, Simon is in love with Rose and proposes.  Rose agrees to marry Simon even though most likely she isn’t in love with him. Meanwhile, Cassandra and her brother have a plan to get their father writing again.

The book was definitely entertaining and at times even funny.  The ending was surprising (at least for me…maybe other reader’s saw it coming.)  but it wasn’t all that satisfying.  Overall it was a good read but not as great as I was hoping.  The love stories were a little hard to believe.  It seemed that characters were able to fall in and out of love pretty randomnly.  Cassandra and her sister mention Jane Austen and the Bronte sisters a few times and in comparison to their lives and I think the author was trying to go for that type of story.  If that was the case, she failed and I think that’s why I didn’t love this book.  I think I was just expecting something a little more from the love story part of it.

That’s right, I’m joining another challenge!  This one is called the 1% Well Read Challenge and it involves reading 10 books from the 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die list.   Apparently the authors of the list (and book that goes along with it) have updated the list this year.  So there are three options for the challenge:

1. Read 10 titles from the original list from March 1, 2009 through December 31, 2009.
2. Read 10 titles from the new list from March 1, 2009 through December 31, 2009.
3. Read 13 titles from the combined list (of almost 1300 titles) from March 1, 2009 through March 31, 2010.

I haven’t decided which of the three I’m going to do yet.  I’ll update once I’ve decided!

Update: I’ve decided to do #3 and read 13 titles from the combined lists.