Storm Front (review)

Storm Front by Jim Butcher
Reason for Reading: Sounded interested
Rating: 3/5

Summarize the plot: Harry Dresden is a wizard. He also solves crimes.

One sentence review: For some mindless escapism, this book didn't annoy me, but it didn't really make me keep reading the series either.

What I liked: Harry Dresden is an interesting character, and I liked the fantasy element in an otherwise pretty typical police procedural.

What I didn't like: I didn't hate the book. I didn't even dislike it. But it was such complete fluff that I can barely remember the plotline now that it has been a few weeks since I read it. I don't really like police procedurals very much, and despite the inclusion of fantasy, there isn't too much originality in this book. Yes, it's entertaining. My husband read this one after me, and in the past month has read like six more of them. But I just wasn't that into it.

Should I read it? Plenty of other people have really enjoyed this book. If the combination of fantasy and crime novel sound like your thing, you'll probably enjoy it more than me.

Other opinions:
1330V, stephanie's confessions of a bookoholic, Rhinoa

Brave New World (review)

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Reason for Reading: My Year of Reading Dangerously Challenge
Rating: 5/5

Summarize the plot: Welcome to the future. People are now created in test-tubes, and trained from birth via sleep-hypnosis to know their place in society. Sexual promiscuity and consumption are the highest societal values.

One Sentence Review: The classic dystopian novel is still thought-provoking, if not as horrifying as it was considered when it first came out.

What I liked: For being a relatively short novel with few characters, and very little action, Brave New World describes a unique dystopia, where families are considered pornographic, and "everyone belongs to everyone else". While I kept hearing the phrase "horrifying vision of the future" along with this book, I didn't find it horrifying. Maybe I'm influenced by some of the dystopian novels I've been reading lately, but this version of the future didn't seem nearly as bad as say, The Road. That's not to say it isn't a disturbing book. It doesn't paint a pretty picture of the future, that's for sure. The Savage, a character who lives more in accordance with our own societal values and is dropped into the Brave New World, finds himself unable to function in a world where no one is allowed to care too deeply for anyone else.

I found it interesting that none of the characters in the novel are especially likeable. Bernard, arguably one of the main characters, is petty, contrary, and cruel. Even the Savage, who the reader would probably identify with the best, says and does cruel things because of the tension between his upbringing and his life in the Brave New World. Lenina, the other main character, is just vacuous. Despite this fact, the book kept me interested because I wanted to know what was going to happen to them.

What I didn't like: This is an idea book. The characters, as I mentioned, aren't particularly likeable, and very little action occurs. This is the kind of book that if it had dragged out any longer than it did, would have gotten boring.

Should I read it? It's a classic

The Sunday Salon: Back to School Books

I recently went back to school. I don't think I've mentioned it here on this blog because to be honest I've been dreading it more than looking forward to it. I love learning, I think the degree I'm pursuing will help my career, but gosh-darnit, I'm going to have to cut back on my writing and blogging time.

It was a lot easier to handle when school was this far-off thing, but all of a sudden the summer ended and before I knew it classes were starting. So now my usual reading style is going to be a little more cramped by business books. I just got a stack of them in the mail and since I was kind of in a lull with my usual reads, I decided to try skimming through to see if any of them were worthwhile.

The first book I tried was actually a pretty nice, quick read with lots of practical advice. Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done, by Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan, while geared towards the CEOs of large businesses, had plenty of good advice for leaders at any level of how to create concrete business plans that succeed.

It also included the one thing that keeps me reading an advice book: plenty of good examples. While I get lost when a non-fic author goes on and on about theories, if they can give good examples of their ideas in action, I'm a lot more likely to remember.

The second book I skimmed through was Strengthsfinder 2.0, which also included a test to find your strengths. The book was an okay reference, but I'm getting kind of tired of personality tests. Okay, really tired. Okay, I was ready to start telling the computer screen I really didn't care about whether I relate better to people or ideas and I sure don't care about whether I study the history or the future, whether I like organization or creativity, and so on and so on.

I really think my results were skewed by the fact I started talking back to the computer half-way through. Oh well. I've done two personality tests for school, and I've got another one to go. Sigh.

Other things I've been doing this past week include catching up on the final season of Battlestar Galactica. So far I'm ranging from just being grateful my most hated character, Gaius Baltar finally has less screen time to loving the action-packed episodes, to wondering if the writers ever even had direction for the Cylon plotline or if they made it up on the fly, to falling in love all over again with my favorite characters.

Two more discs to go and I'll finally have to say goodbye. I haven't decided whether I have the self-control to space them out so I can savor the end or whether I'll just gobble the whole thing up as soon as possible. We shall see.

This is Me, Three Years Ago Today

I'm the one holding the bouquet in the white dress, hubby is the one in the tux. Just to clarify.

Bluebeard (review)

Bluebeard by Kurt Vonnegut

Reason for reading: Literary crush on Kurt Vonnegut

Rating: 4.5/5

Summarize the plot: Rabo Karabekian is a retired painter, and he's been bullied into writing his memoirs by the incomparable Circe Berman. Like the Bluebeard of old tales, he keeps a secret locked in his barn.

One sentence review: Vonnegut's wizardry with words makes this character-heavy, plot-light novel completely and utterly readable.

Longer review: I completely gushed over my first Vonnegut read, Slaughterhouse Five, so I figured I would probably enjoy this book as well. I LOVED Bluebeard. Ordinarily, I would not get so excited about a book that jumps all over the place, and barely has a plot, but Vonnegut sucks the reader in with his uniquely enjoyable writing. He has a literary style, but somehow he manages to be so much more accessible than your typical literary novel. Okay, here's the opening lines. I mean, who wouldn't want to keep reading after this opening?

Having written "The End" to this story of my life, I find it prudent to scamper back here to before the beginning, to my front door, so to speak, and to make an apology to arriving guests: "I promised you an autobiography, but something went wrong in the kitchen. It turns out to be a diary of this past troubled summer, too! We can always send out for pizzas if necessary. Come in, come in!"

Rabo Karabekian is a fictional painter who came of age during the American Abstract Expressionist era. His great works of art were created with Sateen DuraLuxe, a paint so toxic and short-lived, his paints have crumbled to dust and no hazardous waste facility wants them. His wife and children are no longer part of his life, and he lives alone in an old mansion.

What I liked: I liked the format of this book. It is split into short sections, and Rabo skips between the past and present, completely nonlinearly, but somehow you never feel lost. I think it helps that he hones down on a few of the themes of his life that are the most important to him, and goes back and forth between how it was in the past and what actually happened.

Rabo's character hooked me in. All of the main characters in his life were vividly written. Although some were outlandish, they never felt unreal. Especially the violent relationship Rabo describes between his painting master and his lover, Marilee, who Rabo secretly loves too. The woman he can't have, the one who gets away. The majority of the novel is focused sharply on her.

What I didn't like: Duh, it wasn't long enough! No, I mean, it was the right length, but when I got to the end, I felt like I didn't really know much more about some of the other people who were important in Rabo's life, like his family or his best friend, a painter who shot himself in the head. By sheer amount of words dedicated to her, it appears that the only important person in his life was Marilee, which I suppose was the point.

Should I read it? In a word, yes.

The Sunday Salon: Angels, gods, and steampunk

I just managed (quite recently) to finish Scar Night by Alan Campbell, which is all full of angels, gods, deadly assassins, a city suspended over an abyss on chains, and... steampunk? Yup, steampunk. Air ships and all sorts of fun stuff like that.

It rocked. I was totally caught up in reading all weekend, during every spare minute that I wasn't dashing around like a mad person seeing plays. Because here is the other awesome thing I got to do this weekend: attend the Fringe Festival!

Minnesota does have some pretty awful winters, but probably as a result, the Twin Cities has an awesome, vibrant arts scene. And a really awesome Fringe Festival. In eleven days, there are 160 performances at 22 different venues around the Twin Cities. Hard-core fringers can buy this ultrapass thingy and see as many plays as their legs can take them to, but hubby and I opted for a bit smaller of a dose.

We went and saw a madcap comedy sketch, a ballet, and a satire called Cigarettes for Jesus. All for about the price of two discounted tickets to a regular performance! My hubby, who loves theatre, but wasn't sure if he was going to enjoy so much of it at a time, is thrilled to go back and do the fringe again next year.

As for me? I had a crazy adventure with the husband, a nice dinner afterward that included a wine tasting, and now I'm settling in to enjoy the last remnants of the weekend. Life is good.

A Beautiful Child (review)

A Beautiful Child by Matt Birkbeck
Reason for reading: Recommendation from my sister
Rating: 4.5/5

Summarize the plot: A Beautiful Child is the true life story of a girl named Sharon. In high school, she was at the top of her class, she worked as a Lt. Colonel in the ROTC, won a scholarship to Georgia Tech, and seemed to have everything going for her. But behind the facade, she was forced to hide a terrible secret about the man she called her father, a secret she kept so well even those who knew her best never guessed the truth.

1-Sentence Review: A tightly written book that examines a tragic young life, the man who took it from her, and the search to find out her true identity.

Longer review: A Beautiful Child was an interesting choice to read around the same time as another book I reviewed earlier this week, The Lucifer Effect. The latter is a lengthy academic contemplation on the nature of evil, and the potential for evil within everyone. A Beautiful Child, on the other hand, is a short, true-crime, journalistic look at a person who can only be described as pure evil.

Without giving away too much from the novel, Shannon Marshall, likely kidnapped as a child, was forced by a man named Franklin Floyd to live out a life with him that became ever more horrifying as his grip over her intensified. It is a tragic story, through and through, and yet because Birkbeck writes with a terse, journalistic style, I felt like I could handle reading it. I felt an emotional connection to the story, but I never felt that the book was emotionally exploitive, shoving my nose into a situation that is already horrible enough.

Shannon Marshall's life defies understanding. As Birkbeck unraveled the layers to her life, the lies she was forced to enact, and the sheer number of people who sensed something was wrong but didn't intervene in time, a huge question emerges that Birkbeck only briefly addresses. How could something like this happen? While giving a serious answer to a complicated question like that is outside the scope of this book, I think most readers will walk away from the book at the very least, contemplating that question. Hopefully it will be a wake-up call for anyone who encounters an exploited child to take signs of abuse seriously.

Should I read it? It is a quick, thought-provoking read, but be forwarned that the details are shocking and some may find them disturbing.

Visit MattBirkbeck.com