Take A Peek Book Review: Cinder by Marissa Meyer

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

“Take a Peek” book reviews are short and (possibly) sweet, keeping the commentary brief and providing a little peek at what the book’s about and what I thought. This week’s “take a peek” book:

Synopsis:

(via Goodreads)

Humans and androids crowd the raucous streets of New Beijing. A deadly plague ravages the population. From space, a ruthless lunar people watch, waiting to make their move. No one knows that Earth’s fate hinges on one girl.

Cinder, a gifted mechanic, is a cyborg. She’s a second-class citizen with a mysterious past, reviled by her stepmother and blamed for her stepsister’s illness. But when her life becomes intertwined with the handsome Prince Kai’s, she suddenly finds herself at the center of an intergalactic struggle, and a forbidden attraction. Caught between duty and freedom, loyalty and betrayal, she must uncover secrets about her past in order to protect her world’s future.

My Thoughts:

Ever since this book came out in 2012, I’ve seen all of my blogger peeps raving about it and drooling over the sequels. I hadn’t gotten on the bandwagon, and thought that this was one YA series that I could sit out.

Color me silly. I was wrong.

I finally picked up Cinder when I was looking for a new audiobook to keep me company during my daily drives, and thought this would be a low commitment choice. And I quickly found myself completely hooked.

The idea of a Cinderella retelling didn’t really appeal to me. Most Cinderella stories I’ve read ended up feeling kind of sappy to me, and the idea of a poor girl saved from an awful life by fancy party clothes and a handsome prince doesn’t typically sit well with my inner feminist. Cinder manages to stick to the basic themes of the Cinderella story, but with a heroine who’s strong, empowered, and more likely to to be the rescuer than the one in need of rescue.

Cinder is a cyborg, which in this society means an outcast, less than human. Her wicked stepmother and stepsister are exactly as you’d expect, although the younger stepsister, Peony, is adorable and lovable. Cinder is a talented mechanic with a dry, take-no-bull-from-anyone demeanor. She wears heavy workgloves to cover up her mechanical hand, is often seen with oil stains all over her face and clothes, and dreams of freedom and escape, not of balls and princes.

Prince Kai falls for Cinder as herself, oil stains and all. He’s not just a pretty face either; as the heir to the imperial throne, it’s up to Kai to continue negotiating a peace treaty with the fearsome Lunar queen, Levana. Kai is smart and keenly aware of his responsibilities — and knows that his own personal desires must take second place to the welfare of his people and all of Earth.

The action is quick and the story is quite compelling. I found myself frustrated by the slower pace demanded by listening to the audiobook, so after listening to quite a bit of it at 1.25x speed (not recommended!), I finally switched over to a hard copy so I could devour the rest. The audiobook narrator, Rebecca Soler, is fabulous, by the way. She captures the personalities and intonations of each character and makes them all distinct. I loved the ironic humor in Cinder’s voice, Peony’s girlish good nature, and the android Iko, among others. Just to be clear that my switch to printed format was not at all caused by dissatisfaction with the audiobook — it was more about how I read and the fact that I have a hard time with audiobooks unless I’m driving or working out… and in this case, I wasn’t doing either often enough to let me advance through Cinder as quickly as I wanted to.

Summing it all up: Cinder is pretty terrific! The story is inspired by the classic fairy tale, but with generous amounts of originality shaping it into something new and different. The climactic ball scene and the aftermath caught me completely by surprise, as the author takes the familiar elements of the story and turns them on their head. If I’d read Cinder when it first came out, I might have been frustrated by the cliffhanger ending, but at this point, I know there are two more books available to me before I join the crowd of avid fans dying for the next release.

Excuse me, please, while I run to the library. Scarlet and Cress are calling my name!

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The details:

Title: Cinder
Author: Marissa Meyer
Publisher: Feiwel and Friends
Publication date: 2012
Length: 390 pages
Genre: Young adult/science fiction
Source: Library

19Dec2014

Book Review: Jinn and Juice by Nicole Peeler

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

With Jinn and Juice, Nicole Peeler launches a new urban fantasy series — and that’s very good news for fans of her hilarious and awesome Jane True series and for fans of paranormal fictional shenanigans in general.

In Jinn and Juice, we meet Leila — burlesque belly dancer, Pittsburgh resident… and 1,000-year-old jinni (genie). Leila was a young woman cursed by her family’s jinni, the evil Kouros, to live as a jinni for one thousand years. As a jinni, Leila has super magical powers, but she’s also subject to the will and whims of whoever happens to be her Master. Jinni can be either Bound or unBound — meaning that they can be Called and then basically owned by whatever Magi happens to find them. Once Bound to a Magi, jinni must be obedient and carry out their Magi’s orders. On the plus side, though, Bound jinni have access to all sorts of tremendous powers that they can’t access unBound, so there’s that.

For Leila, this jinni business basically sucks. She does not want to be a jinni. She’d love to be human again, and can be — so long as she is unBound when her 1,000 year curse ends. If she’s Bound at that time, then she’ll be cursed for another 1,000 years. Like I said, it sucks.

Leila lives in Pittsburgh, whose steel-soaked grounds provide a weird kind of magical current that Leila can plug into, although most supernaturals find Pittsburgh magic tainted and poisonous. Surrounding Leila are a Peeler-esque cast of unusual characters, including a psychic drag queen, an oracle, a will-o-the-wisp, and a pair of icky-creepy spider wraiths. This odd community works together in a paranormal burlesque club and forms a family of sorts — and they all band together to protect Leila when she is Called and Bound by a new Magi, the kinda-hot Ozan (known as Oz).

Together, Leila and Oz and company set out to locate a missing girl and figure out what the heck is causing all sorts of magical havoc in Pittsburgh. And meanwhile, Leila finds herself drawn to Oz more and more… but is that just the power of the Master-Jinni relationship, or is there actually a there there?

Okay, explanations aside, let me tell you about Jinn and Juice. First of all, it’s fun. If you’ve never read anything by Nicole Peeler, the main thing to know is that she’s hilarious. Her writing rocks, even when the storyline turns dangerous or tragic. Serious and often deadly things do happen, but the author gives her characters amazing lines that are eminently quote-worthy:

“While French fries on salads is pretty magical, that’s not what makes Pittsburgh special,” I said…

Nowadays magic was something for Dungeons and Dragons. In books, vampires sparkled and really wanted to marry teenagers who tripped a lot. Hollywood only dreamed about jinn. And none of these creatures or powers really existed in the same universe as chaos theory, or particle accelerators, or atomic bombs… except they did.

“Hit it with the bench!” shouted Ozan, and I had to obey. I reached for what had been one of the picnic table’s benches, hefting it with ease in one of my hamlike hands. Raising it above my head, I brought it down with all my strength on the bugbear’s head.
“Hulk smash!” I shouted, just for the fun of it.

“Are we ready?” Charlie asked, eyeballing our ragtag bunch with a worried expression. We didn’t exactly look professional… in fact, we looked exactly as you’d imagine a gothic burlesque would look, if it decided to do a SWAT team number.

Second thing to know: Love and sex matter in Peeler’s books. Attraction is hot. Sparks fly. Knees go weak with desire. The sexy factor in Jinn and Juice is top notch. Which is not to say that it’s all easy: One really interesting aspect of this story is how the power dynamics affect the sexual and emotional relationships. Leila’s master can order her to have sex with him if he chooses (although, hilariously, jinni seem to have all sorts of work-arounds when dealing with not-terribly-precise commands for acts that don’t suit them); he could even order her to enjoy it, I suppose. The fact that Leila’s new master is too decent to indulge is noteworthy — and later, even when the attraction is mutual and Leila is very into it, he declines — because how can either of them be sure that it’s real and not just a result of the Magi-Jinni bond?

Fangirl aside: This reminded me of the sire bond issues during the last season of The Vampire Diaries. I’m a big geeky nerd, I know.

The plot of Jinn and Juice is fueled by action, but it’s the people that really make it a treat. Leila herself is pretty awesome (especially how she’s the biggest, baddest thing in the room, despite her seemingly petite human frame), and I love her gang of eccentric, magical friends. Oz is just the right combination of smart, sexy, and sensitive, and the growing emotions and desire between Leila and Oz give off sparks.

Fans of the Jane True series will absolutely want to give Jinn and Juice a whirl — and really, this is a great choice for any one who enjoys urban fantasy that doesn’t take itself too seriously. Fun, magic, snark, along with dangerous, malevolent, volatile bad guys, make for quite an enjoyable and fast-paced adventure. Here’s hoping that the next installment in the series comes along soon!

Want. More. Now.

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The details:

Title: Jinn and Juice
Author: Nicole Peeler
Publisher: Orbit
Publication date: November 25, 2014
Length: 384 pages
Genre: Contemporary fiction
Source: Purchased

11Dec2014

Book Review: The Rosie Effect by Graeme Simsion

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

First things first: The Rosie Effect is a sequel, continuing the story begun in The Rosie Project. And really, if you haven’t read the first book, there’s no point in reading this one.

The Rosie Effect picks up soon after the end of The Rosie Project, following Rosie and Don to Manhattan as they begin their lives as a married couple, with the complications you’d expect from this unusual pair. No sooner have they started settling into their lives — Don as a visiting professor at Columbia Medical School, Rosie finishing up her PhD thesis and entering med school — than a bombshell of a surprise comes along: Rosie is pregnant. And Don is thrown for a loop.

Rosie and Don take very different approaches to pregnancy, of course. Don, ever the man of science, embarks on a plan to maximize Rosie’s health — and Rosie does not take kindly to Don’s constant input on everything from appropriate pregnancy nutrition to stress levels to exercise needs. The marriage is on the rocks, and it doesn’t seem like there’s much hope.

Meanwhile, Don finds himself in exactly the sort of absurd situations you’d expect. Upon getting advice from a friend that he should spend some time observing children in order to prepare for fatherhood, Don does exactly that… and ends up getting arrested after hanging out in a children’s playground taking videos of the kids playing.

Ultimately, the plot of The Rosie Effect boils down to a headline from a 1980s women’s magazine: Can this marriage be saved?

My reaction to this book is mixed. While there are certainly many amusing scenarios (let’s not forget the Bluefin Tuna Incident!), I’m not at all convinced that a sequel to The Rosie Project was necessary. In The Rosie Effect, it’s really just a lot of more of the same. Don is peculiar, highly intelligent, and emotionally stilted. He does some pretty amazing things, but always from a place of cluelessness. There’s a cast of supporting characters who are funny, unusual, and perfect complements to Don’s oddball nature. Rosie herself seems to be a bit absent in this book; while she’s always around and is on Don’s mind constantly, I wouldn’t have had much sense of her personality or desires without having read the first book.

Basically, everything that I found delightful and charming about the first book is repeated here in the second — and that’s the problem. The Rosie Project was new and different; The Rosie Effect is just a continuation. Without the newness, it’s treading familiar ground, and I simply wasn’t nearly as amused as I was the first time I encountered Don Tillman in all his glory.

The Rosie Effect is a quick read, but I actually think I could have done without it. It definitely picks up by the end, but there’s only so many time similar antics can play out before they become tedious. The Rosie Project was one of my favorite books of 2013, but in my opinion, should have been left as a stand-alone story. Sadly, this unnecessary sequel was mostly a disappointment to me. Still, the author is clearly quite talented, and I hope he’ll tell a new tale in whatever he publishes next.

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The details:

Title: The Rosie Effect
Author: Graeme Simsion
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Publication date: US publication date: December 30, 2014
Length: 352 pages
Genre: Contemporary fiction
Source: Review copy via NetGalley

11Dec2014

Audiobook Review: Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

I just finished listening to the audiobook of Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand, and it blew me away. I haven’t been this mesmerized by any book — much less a non-fiction book — in a long time.

In this true story, we follow the amazing life of Louis Zamperini – childhood troublemaker, Olympic runner, WWII bombadier, and POW camp survivor. Louis’s story is so incredible that if it were fiction, I’d have complained, “Come on. How much can one person go through? This is beyond belief.”

Louis’s war-era ordeal began when his B-24 bomber crashed during a search flight for a missing plane in the Pacific. Louis then spent 47 days adrift on a life raft with no food or rations except what he and his companions could somehow catch or collect. Rescue finally came from a Japanese ship, and Louis then spent the next two years in a series of Japanese POW camps, suffering horrible brutality and inhumane, degrading conditions.

And yet, this remarkable man survived, spirit intact. He managed to hang on through one long period of deprivation and physical hardship after another, maintaining his hope and courage, supported by memories of his family’s love as well as the friendship of the other prisoners by his side.

I am so glad that I finally read (heard) this book. The narration is no-frills, but quite good. I was afraid that a non-fiction audiobook would be too dry to hold my interest, since my attention does tend to wander quite easily when I listen to books. No worries needed, in the case of Unbroken. I was as fascinated by this book as I’ve ever been by any suspense novel, and found myself both breathless with anticipation and moved to tears at times.

With the movie release scheduled for Christmas day, Unbroken is getting a renewed burst of media coverage — although as far as I can tell, it’s been on the the bestseller list continuously since it was published. (According to the New York Times, it’s been on the list for 181 weeks!). If you’re thinking of seeing the movie but haven’t read the book, I’d say read it first. I loved all the little details of Louis’s life, the quotes from letters, diaries, and newspaper articles, the interviews with family members and friends, and the historical context in which his story takes place.

Unbroken is a rich and moving story, and I just can’t recommend it highly enough. Whether in print or via audio, it should not be missed.

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The details:

Title: Unbroken
Author: Laura Hillenbrand
Publisher: Random House
Publication date: First published 2010
Length: 406 pages
Genre: Non-fiction/History
Source: Purchased

Audiobook info:
Narrated by Edward Herrmann
Length: 14 hours

7Dec2014

Book Review: The Last Letter From Your Lover by Jojo Moyes

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Jojo Moyes is quickly becoming one of my go-to, auto-buy authors. After reading a few of her more recent books, I decided to look into some of her previously published works, and picked up a copy of The Last Letter From Your Lover, which was originally released in 2010.

In Last Letter, we follow two timelines: a contemporary story bookending the novel and then a 1960s story, the major part of the book both in terms of length and where the heart of the tale is concentrated. Within the two timelines, we follow three different narrative arcs, all of which come together by the book’s end.

In the prologue, we meet journalist Ellie Haworth, whose career is suffering while her private life consumes her every waking thought. Ellie is one year into an ill-advised affair with a married man, and despite absolutely no evidence to support her hopes, Ellie can’t help dreaming of the day when she finally gets more from her lover. As part of a retrospective feature at work, Ellie starts going through her newspaper’s archives and comes across an old letter that knocks her socks off. Drenched in romance, the letter-writer (identified only as “B.”) declares:

I’ll be at Platform 4, Paddington, at 7:15 on Friday evening, and there is nothing in the world that would make me happier than if you found the courage to come with me… I’ll be waiting on the platform from a quarter to seven. Know that you hold my heart, my hopes, in your hands.

Ellie doesn’t know who wrote the letter or to whom it was addressed, but she’s reduced to tears by the passion and the emotion. The letter seems to awaken something in Ellie…

From there, the action switches to 1960, in which a pampered, sheltered wife of a very powerful man meets a brash and disrespectful reporter. Jennifer Stirling is beautiful but bored; Anthony O’Hare despises the spoiled society members who flit through life above and apart from the world’s real troubles. Of course, sparks fly between Jennifer and Anthony, but obstacles keep the lovers apart.

In yet a third narrative stream, we see Jennifer waking up in a hospital after a car accident, suffering from amnesia and brought back home by her husband Laurence to recover. Jennifer feels certain that she’s missing something important, but has no idea what has truly happened or what that key piece of information about her past might be.

Eventually, the story streams come together. Ellie traces the mysterious love letter to Jennifer, now in her 60s, and sets out to discover whether the lovers ever did manage to unite and start a new life together. At the same time, Ellie faces some unpleasant truths about her own love life, and must make decisions about who she is and who she wants to be.

I enjoyed Last Letter, although perhaps not quite as much as some of the author’s other novels. The mixed timelines didn’t especially work in favor of narrative tension. After meeting Ellie in the prologue, we don’t see her again until about halfway through the book. Meanwhile, the story of Jennifer and Anthony’s relationship is interwoven with Jennifer’s post-crash story, and sorting out what came first and what resulted is a bit of a challenge.

By the end of the book, I was very invested in Jennifer and Anthony’s story and in finding out what had happened between them, but given the mixed narratives and the shifting point-of-views, it was always a struggle to piece together the actual events versus the characters’ perceptions of events, which were often two different things. I didn’t quite buy the build-up of the love affair or believe how instantly and passionately they fell in love, yet as the story moved forward, it was the descriptions of their thwarted yearnings that were more convincing than their stolen moments together.

Jennifer reminded me strongly of Mad Men‘s Betty Draper, although a less childish and selfish version. Still, she’s the quintessential beautiful but useless society wife, a woman whose job is to be ornamental and a credit to her husband, with no actual skills or education and no chance of forging a life of her own. As the story progresses, it’s heartening to see Jennifer face up to her reality and try to find a way to take control and pursue a path that gives her life meaning, despite the cost.

Ellie’s story is a bit pale by comparison, and the parallels aren’t always comfortable ones. We’re meant to sympathize with and root for this young woman, but it’s hard to do so while she’s enmeshed in a very stupid affair, refusing to acknowledge the real damage she may be doing to herself and to others. An awakening eventually comes, of course, thanks in large part to Ellie’s growing fascination with Jennifer and her exposure to what real love looks like. Perhaps Ellie is meant to be the reader’s entry point into the story, but Jennifer is the far more compelling character.

One especially fun feature of this novel is the lead-in page for each chapter, each featuring an excerpt from a real break-up letter, text, or email. Some are wistful, some are harsh, and some are downright comical (like the text message “U n me finished”), but all add a touch of spice and poignancy to this sentimental and occasionally sorrowful book.

All in all, The Last Letter From Your Lover is an engaging and often moving look at how love doesn’t always work out, how life can get in the way, and how sometimes it isn’t too late to start over and find happiness. For those new to Jojo Moyes, I’d probably suggest starting elsewhere, but fans of the author shouldn’t miss this one.

Want to know more? Check out my reviews of other books by Jojo Moyes:
The Girl You Left Behind
One Plus One
The Ship of Brides
Me Before You

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The details:

Title: The Last Letter From Your Lover
Author: Jojo Moyes
Publisher: Pamela Dorman Books
Publication date: First published in UK in 2010
Length: 390 pages
Genre: Contemporary fiction
Source: Purchased

1Dec2014

Take a Peek Review: Ocean’s Edge by Denise Townsend

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

I don’t usually review erotica… and I tend to avoid like the plague book covers featuring chiseled male chests or artfully draped semi-clad torsos. You know the ones I’m talking about.

But I’m willing to make an exception for the works of Denise Townsend — Denise Townsend being the erotica-writing alter ego of one of my very favorite urban fantasy authors (whose more mainstream works still feature scorching hot sexytimes).

So when I saw NetGalley featuring an ARC of Ocean’s Edge by Denise Townsend, I jumped on it.

Here’s what you need to know about her Ocean stories — Ocean’s Touch, Ocean’s Surrender, and now Ocean’s Edge:

Each features a strong woman, recovering from pain or trauma in her past. Each also features a selkie, a super sexy magical being from the sea who appears on the beach as a smoking hot male who wants nothing more in life than to help the main character find her way back to health and happiness. And each involves some majorly hot and heavy action.

In Ocean’s Edge, the main character Rachel is a rape survivor who’s retreated into a shell, but is slowly regaining her confidence through her devotion to martial arts training. When she meets the selkie Conleth, she learns to reclaim her own sexuality, and with Con’s loving guidance, is able to turn to Jake, who runs the dojo where she trains. Between (and I mean literally between) Con and Jake, Rachel is given the support she needs to move past her attack, work with the police to track down her assailant, and start building a future that includes a healthy self-image and the love of a good man.

What I enjoy so much about these books is the strength of the women. Rachel is not a victim. She’s been through a terrible ordeal, but it’s her own inner core of strength and determination that enables her to survive and thrive. Denise Townsend’s main characters are not damsels in distress; they’re women who save themselves. The love interests are there for them when they triumph, but not to triumph on their behalf. These are women who fight their own battles, and also know what it takes to pursue the passion and pleasure that they deserve.

Plus, okay, these books are hot. And explicit. And steamy. And… yeah, hot. And hey: Selkies. If all of this appeals to you, then definitely check out Denise Townsend’s books. You can thank me later.

30Nov2014

Fields & Fantasies presents… Hello From the Gillespies by Monica McInerney

Posted in Book Reviews, Fields & Fantasies by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Welcome to the November pick for the Fields & Fantasies book club! Each month or so, in collaboration with my wonderful co-host Diana of Strahbary’s Fields, we’ll pick one book to read and discuss. Today, we’re looking at Hello From the Gillespies by Monica McInerney:

Synopsis (Goodreads):

For the past thirty-three years, Angela Gillespie has sent to friends and family around the world an end-of-the-year letter titled “Hello from the Gillespies.” It’s always been cheery and full of good news. This year, Angela surprises herself—she tells the truth….

The Gillespies are far from the perfect family that Angela has made them out to be. Her husband is coping badly with retirement. Her thirty-two-year-old twins are having career meltdowns. Her third daughter, badly in debt, can’t stop crying. And her ten-year-old son spends more time talking to his imaginary friend than to real ones.

Without Angela, the family would fall apart. But when a bump on the head leaves Angela with temporary amnesia, the Gillespies pull together—and pull themselves together—in wonderfully surprising ways….

My two cents:

In this slice-of-life family drama, we meet a seemingly perfect family — and then get to see what they’re really like. When Angela sits down to write her annual Christmas letter, she’s stuck and completely flustered at the idea of producing yet another glib, sugar-coated interpretation of her family’s current events. Instead, she starts a stream-of-consciousness rant, covering everything from her adult daughters’ career troubles, affairs, and debts, to her 10-year-old son’s weirdness, to the wall of coldness that’s come between her and her husband Nick.

Angela never intends to send the letter — but in the midst of a family crisis, Nick thinks he’s helping Angela out by hitting “send” on her Christmas email. And thus begins a touching and funny tale that explores the power of communication and family love.

This domestic drama was a huge change of pace for me, after reading a lot of horror and thrillers recently — but in truth, I loved it.

First of all, you can’t tell from the synopsis, but Hello takes place on a sheep station in the Australian outback. So, 10 bonus points for excellent setting! The landscape is described beautifully, and the isolation of the station is a big factor in how much the family has fallen apart.

The book takes some turns that I did not expect, with the crazy Christmas letter being dealt with much sooner than I would have thought. I was surprised by how honest Angela and her children ended up being with one another, and I loved the relationships between the daughters, who come with their own sets of problems and idiosyncrasies.

It’s much tougher for Angela and Nick to figure out their issues — and after a freak accident leaves Angela with a strange case of amnesia in which she believes her fantasy life to be real, her family’s nurturing and support help her find her way back to herself and to the life she and Nick truly want.

The characters here are all quirky and memorable, and I enjoyed the glimpses of the various Gillespie kids, their messed-up lives, and their great personalities. (Son Ig is my favorite, hands-down — funny, rambunctious, and with an endearingly oddball sense of creativity and imagination.) Angela and Nick have a bedrock of true love at the heart of their marriage, so it was quite moving to see the pain they each suffered along the way toward healing the rift between them.

As I said earlier, the Australian setting absolutely enhances the overall story and made it that much more enjoyable. And who hasn’t gotten tired of the annual Christmas letters, where every child is brilliant, every spouse is a success, every house is sparkling and lovely? Hello shows the fall-out from a massive dose of truth-telling. It’s fun, light reading, but with a real sense of heart as well.

This would be a great choice for someone looking for a holiday read that’s a bit different, but that still leaves you feeling warm and fuzzy when you’ve finished.

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The details:

Title: Hello From the Gillespies
Author: Monica McInerney
Publisher: Penguin Group/NAL Trade
Publication date: November 4, 2014
Length: 624 pages
Genre: Contemporary fiction
Source: Review copy via NetGalley

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Diana is sitting this month out, but check back next month when we’ll be back with full interactivity!

Next for Fields & Fantasies:

Our December book will be Hyperbole and a Half by Allie Brosh.

29Nov2014

Take A Peek Book Review: Revival by Stephen King

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

“Take a Peek” book reviews are short and (possibly) sweet, keeping the commentary brief and providing a little “peek” at what the book’s about and what I thought. This week’s “take a peek” book:

Synopsis:

(via Goodreads)

In a small New England town, in the early 60s, a shadow falls over a small boy playing with his toy soldiers. Jamie Morton looks up to see a striking man, the new minister. Charles Jacobs, along with his beautiful wife, will transform the local church. The men and boys are all a bit in love with Mrs Jacobs; the women and girls – including Jamie’s mother and beloved sister – feel the same about Reverend Jacobs. With Jamie, the Reverend shares a deeper bond, based on their fascination with simple experiments in electricity.

Then tragedy strikes the Jacobs family; the preacher curses God, mocking all religious belief, and is banished from the shocked town.

Jamie has demons of his own. In his mid-thirties, he is living a nomadic lifestyle of bar-band rock and roll. Addicted to heroin, stranded, desperate, he sees Jacobs again – a showman on stage, creating dazzling ‘portraits in lightning’ – and their meeting has profound consequences for both men. Their bond becomes a pact beyond even the Devil’s devising, and Jamie discovers that revival has many meanings. Because for every cure there is a price…

This rich and disturbing novel spans five decades on its way to the most terrifying conclusion Stephen King has ever written. It’s a masterpiece from King, in the great American tradition of Nathaniel Hawthorne and Edgar Allan Poe.

My Thoughts:

It’s really impossible to quibble with Stephen King. He’s a master writer, and even in his lesser works, his gifts shine through. But for me at least, Revival is a step down from some of his more recent brilliant novels.

Revival is never dull, but it does take a very long time to truly start building momentum. I was at the 200-page mark before I began feeling any urgency in my reading. Perhaps the problem lies in starting the story with Jamie as a six-year-old. A great deal of time is spent on his childhood and adolescence, and while these years matter in the overall story, it’s a very slow build.

The ending is nightmarish, no doubt about it. And yet, I never felt a strong sense of where this story was going. There isn’t a whole lot of black and white, good and bad. The bad guy isn’t, strictly speaking, a real bad guy. The climax is a bit out of the blue, although hints pile up prior to the big event. Jamie himself is an interesting character, and while I was invested in him and his ability to turn his life around, I didn’t quite buy the obsession with Charlie Jacobs or the level to which he influences Jamie’s life.

I enjoyed Revival, and lost a lot of sleep after finishing it at one in the morning. Yes, by the end I couldn’t put it down, and found it intensely creepy and unsettling. Still, overall, I wouldn’t rank it among the Stephen King books that I routinely describe as masterpieces. This feels second-tier to me — but even so, second-tier King is still better than so much else that’s out there, and if you want a book that blends boyhood nostalgia with the most awful feeling of impending doom, you really can’t go wrong with Revival… or pretty much anything else King has written.

(PS – Completely irrelevant to discussion of the merits of this book… but Outlander fans will be amused by the presence of characters named Jamie, Claire, and Brianna in Revival.)

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The details:

Title: Revival
Author: Stephen King
Publisher: Scribner
Publication date: November 11, 2014
Length: 403 pages
Genre: Horror
Source: Purchased

25Nov2014

Graphic Reaction… Serenity: Leaves on the Wind

Posted in Book Reviews, Pop Culture by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Browncoats, rejoice!

If you’ve been in mourning ever since you watched Serenity once or twice or a thousand times, there’s a glimmer of sunshine waiting for you:

Mal is back! And so is his crew of big damn heroes.

Picking up after the events of the movie Serenity, we rejoin the gang some eight months or so later, on the run, avoiding the Alliance baddies, and trying to lie low and go their own way. But Captain Mal doesn’t manage to stay out of trouble for very long, and some very bad bad guys are trying to track them down.

Meanwhile, there’s bittersweet joy onboard the Serenity, as personal lives have moved forward in all sorts of ways — most pretty expected, but at least one development totally unexpected.

Sigh.

I can’t even begin to express how great it was to spend time with these guys again! River, Kaylee, Inara, Simon… even Jayne’s hat!… and the mule… and so much more.

This isn’t just fan service, though. Serenity: Leaves on the Wind has a story to tell, and it’s a good one. The plot is tight and action-packed, but with the same heart that held together the stories told in the too-brief life of Firefly.

The artwork is a bit spotty at times — sometimes Mal and Simon seemed interchangeable, and ditto for Inara and River. But overall, the likenesses worked well enough to make me happy.

156d_firefly_inevitable_betrayal_dinosaurs_with_sound

via ThinkGeek

What really and truly sent me over the moon was the dialogue. Words on a page aren’t the same thing as words spoken on a big (or small) screen — but the writers of Serenity: Leaves on the Wind have done a gorram great job of capturing the essence of the characters through the words they speak.

I know! Let’s play a guessing game! Can you guess who says each of the following in Serenity: Leaves on the Wind?

a) Bad people got in my head, put things there, secrets. I could feel them hidden away, dug in like parasites.

b) This job can’t go but one way. Turns out you’re beyond your depth, I ain’t gonna drag you back.

c) This ain’t right, havin’ that man on our ship.

d) Vera’s got this.

e) I marched a lot of young folk to their deaths and had it in mind never to do so again. Anyone shows up uninvited, there’ll be a fine amount of hell to pay, that clear?

f) Plus, you need me, sir.

g) Case you don’t remember, we dealt a pretty ugly blow to a giant wasn’t too fond of us in the first place.

h) I can hear everything, all at once. I can hear the whole ‘verse.

Whee! I could go on all day. But I’ll stop there. Share your guesses in the comments. Whoever gets the most right wins… the undying admiration of your peers!

Serenity: Leaves on the Wind is a hardcover compilation volume of six previously published comic book editions plus a short story comic, “It’s Never Easy”, from Free Comic Book Day in 2012. The story is left open-ended just enough to allow for more Serenity tales to come (although I couldn’t find anything saying one way or the other whether more are planned at the moment).

If you’re a fan, you’ll want to read this. It’s fun. It’s exciting. It’s sexy. It’s moving. It even brought on a tear or two.

But you know what it is, more than anything else?

Shiny.

_________________________________________

The details:

Title: Serenity: Leaves on the Wind
Author: Zach Whedon
Publisher: Dark Horse Books
Publication date: November 5, 2014
Length: 152 pages
Genre: Comics/graphic novel
Source: Purchased

22Nov2014

Book Review: The Martian by Andy Weir

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

This is yet another book that makes me want to write a review that simply says:

Loved it. Read this book.

But that’s not terribly helpful, is it? Unless you trust me so very much that you’re willing to take my word for it, just because. No? Okay, I’ll tell you just what I loved about this smart, funny, dramatic, and utterly entertaining book.

As you’d guess from the cover image, The Martian is the story of an astronaut. Mark Watney is part of a crew of astronauts participating in NASA’s third manned exploration of Mars. Six days into their mission, a massive dust storm prompts an evacuation of the planet, during which Mark is struck by flying debris and believed to be dead. With only minutes to spare before their emergency launch, the mission leader makes the tough call to leave Mark’s body and get the heck off the planet. The world mourns.

Surprise! Mark isn’t dead… but he may be soon. Mark is the sole human on all of Mars, left with the mission’s habitation structure and equipment, a 100-something day food supply, and no means of communication or rescue. The next mission to Mars won’t arrive for another four years. So what’s Mark to do? He has no intention of giving up, and sets about figuring just what it will take to breathe, drink water, and not starve to death in the years he’ll have to wait before he has a shot at returning to Earth.

When NASA finally realizes, thanks to satellite imagery, that they left a very much alive Mark behind, the entire world becomes obsessed with Mark’s survival, and it takes all the brains of NASA and then some, plus the determination of Mark’s crewmates, to figure out a rescue plan with any chance of success.

Ultimately, though, it’s all up to Mark and his incredible brain. As with all NASA missions, the crew members serve multiple roles, and Mark is the mission’s botanist/mechanical engineer. With his knowledge of botany, Mark figures out how to grow crops to sustain himself when the stored food runs out, and with his engineering skills, he’s able to jerry-rig solutions whenever equipment breaks — which is often.

You’d think a book in which the main character spends time calculating the square footage of arable soil needed to produce enough calories for survival or figuring out how to use rocket fuel to create water might get a little weighed down by science-speak… but you’d be dead wrong. I’ve never been more fascinating by geeky science talk. Stuff like this:

I can create the O2 easily enough. It takes twenty hours for the MAV fuel plant to fill its 10-liter tank with CO2. The oxygenator can turn it into the O2, then the atmospheric regulator will see the O2 content in the Hab is high, and pull it out of the air, storing it in the main O2 tanks. They’ll fill up, so I’ll have to transfer O2 over to the rovers’ tanks and even the space suit tanks as necessary.

The point is, the narration here is super-smart yet super engaging. Mark is in battle for survival — but he’s so extremely funny that even in his direst of straits, there’s plenty to make you laugh. Everything that can go wrong, does go wrong, and half the fun is seeing how crazily creative Mark’s solutions are.

One thing I learned after reading The Martian is that author Andy Weir created his own programming in order to figure out things like trajectories and orbits, and his need to make sure that the science works results in a book that’s full of compelling and weird details — which, strangely, don’t weigh down the narrative, but instead let us feel like we’re right there next to Mark, trying to figure out how to rig a heat supply without blowing things up. (I loved Entertainment Weekly’s recent write-up about Andy Weir – check it out here.)

Bottom line? I loved this book. With never a dull moment, The Martian is a treat for the brain as well as providing plenty of laughs along with true suspense and a nail-biting battle for survival. Mark’s voice is what makes reading The Martian such a fun experience, so I’ll leave you with a few choice selections from the logs of astronaut Mark Watney:

If you asked every engineer at NASA what the worst scenario for the Hab was, they’d all answer “fire”. If you asked them what the result would be, they’d answer “death by fire.”

About the e-mails that come pouring in once the world realizes Mark is alive:

One of them was from my alma mater, the University of Chicago. They say once you grow crops somewhere, you have officially “colonized” it. So technically, I colonized Mars.

In your face, Neil Armstrong!

In other news, it’s seven sols till the harvest, and I still haven’t prepared. For starters, I need to make a hoe. Also, I need to make an outdoor shed for the potatoes. I can’t just pile them up outside. The next major storm would case the Great Martian Potato Migration.