Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy

Amy 

historical fiction, classics, romance

Far From the Madding Crowd was a book club selection. Straight up, I must admit to not being an appreciator of most “classics” and rarely have I enjoyed the experience of reading a book written prior to 1900. But I am a book club member in order to read things that I would not normally choose on my own. Unfortunately, as I predicted, this novel was not my cup of tea.

This is a mild, farm-bound, country soap opera. A beautiful, naive girl with a mind for business and a vague inclination for adventure is adored and pursued by three men. She makes an impulsive choice and must live with the consequences.

I did get a kick out of Thomas Hardy’s understanding of human relations and love, whimsy, jealousy, infatuation, and obsession. Some of his descriptions made me laugh. I’m sure some readers would appreciate the glimpse into British farming in the late 1800s but I’m not one of them.

The Boston Girl by Anita Diamont

Amy 

historical fiction

The Boston Girl was a book club selection and I’m looking forward to meeting the author, Anita Diamont, in a week. It was one of those books where the older relative is telling their life story to the younger relative—in this case the grandmother is describing her memories to her granddaughter.

I enjoyed the tale because Addie Baum lived an interesting life through so many important points of American history between her birth in 1900 and 1985. I liked her personality and viewpoint. It was cute the way she would break into her own narrative to add personal insight and words of wisdom for her granddaughter. Most of the Jewish and Yiddish references were familiar to me but I feel that the story is relatable to people of all backgrounds. The closeness of the family, throughout the inevitable hardships that families face, and the importance of friends were a nice theme throughout.

I do find it incredibly hard to believe that any 85-year-old would have the memory of Addie Baum. But, that’s one of those things you have to let go in order to enjoy the story. It was nice spending time with Addie while she reminisced. It was a quick, easy read.

Winger by Andrew Smith

Lynnie  

young adult, fiction

This book first came on my radar last year when it was mentioned in several "best YA literature" lists.  

I have mixed feelings about Andrew Smith's Winger. There were sections of the book that were really fantastic & others that were really not. It's an interesting story with wonderful characters and yet, at times it fell flat.

Ryan Dean West (aka Winger) was entertaining, though listening to the inner monologue of a 14-year old boy makes me very happy I was never a 14-year old boy (in this regard, it often reminded me of Josh Braff's The Unthinkable Thoughts of Jacob Green). In Smith's world, Ryan Dean is exceedingly hormonal and we hear all about it. All the time. Combine that with his fierce inferiority complex there's a lot about Ryan Dean that's hard to embrace. However as often as he's inappropriate, he's also endearing in a lot of ways, which is what makes him a compelling character. The supporting characters are also interesting and I often felt that I wanted to hear more about them.

My biggest complaint about the book is that at the end, it takes an odd dramatic turn. For a book that had been light-hearted and funny, this felt out of place particularly as an ending. I've read some people were surprised by this ending and I don't really see how as they spent pages and pages leading up to it, & preparing the reader for it (which also made it lose some of its impact for me).

Over all though, I enjoyed spending time with these characters and I thought about them well after the book ended.

The Graceling Realm Series (Graceling, Fire, Bitterblue) by Kristin Cashore – a *near* double review

Young adult, fantasy

Lynnie and I rarely have strong differences of opinion over books but it does happen.  Amy generally enjoyed this trilogy by Kristin Cashore.  But, Lynnie wasn’t crazy about it and has no desire to read the last book in the trilogy any time soon.  Therefore, she has given me permission to go ahead and post about the series even though she did not complete it yet. 

This trilogy takes place in a fantasy world of kingdoms.  Gracelings are humans with eyes of two different colors that have a special super-skill or super-talent.  These gracelings are turned over to the king to be used for his purposes based on their skillsets.  The first novel in the series centers around one of these gracelings named Katsa.  The second novel takes place a generation before the first, in a completely different kingdom where monsters live, and reveals the childhood of one of the secondary characters from Graceling.  The third novel takes place 9 years after the first novel ended and follows the monarchy of a young queen coming into her own.

Amy   
Lynnie

Amy’s review of Graceling

What a fun novel! I’m so glad I finally got around to reading it. I enjoyed the world and the characters within it. Yes, there were bits that dragged a little and there were bits where the wording was more juvenile than I prefer, but the adventure and my curiosity about how things would turn out kept me turning pages. King Leck seemed ridiculously evil, almost comically so, but I let that criticism go in order to enjoy the rest of the story. Its ending was an obvious setup for the sequel and I look forward to reading it!

Lynnie’s review of Graceling 

This book started slowly. Almost painfully slowly. Thankfully it did pick up a bit in the middle, but if it hadn't been a library book there's no way I would've purchased it. Several friends of mine had said they'd liked it and Goodreads/Amazon kept recommending it to me, so I gave it a try. I was not crazy about the writing style and overall the story was somewhat interesting, but I don't think it's a must read for those of you who love YA action-y books. There were definitely some interesting twists & a few edge of the seat moments, but most of it was fairly predictable, unfortunately.

Amy   
Lynnie

Amy’s review of Fire

This novel and its heroine were both inconsistent. Most of the time, I really enjoyed Fire and her courage and her sacrifices. I really cared about her and continued reading because I wanted to know how things turned out for her. But, other times she was mopey, whiny, immature, desperate, mindless, and tiresome. Sure, she was only 18yo and, I suppose, the author wanted her to appear as "complicated". But, these lapses in personality just seemed unbelievable to me.

Same goes for the story. Most of the time it was very engaging and I enjoyed all the other characters. However, there were several stretches where I felt like I was slogging through the mud of a convoluted tale from which the author had trouble emerging. And there were long, fairly boring sections too. When the story was good, it was really good.  But, this was not as good as the first in the series.

Lynnie’s review of Fire

This book frustrated me. I liked several of the characters, but overall, I didn't like the story & found that it had very little to do with the "Graceling Realm" or the first book in the series.

Yes, it had one overlapping character (the one character from the first book that I didn't care to learn any more about, of course). It took place in a different place than Graceling, with entirely different people & I felt that Kristin Cashore simply used the success of the Graceling name to sell the book when she could have used her own success instead. Bizarre.

2 stars for the characters I enjoyed & because I did finish it, but overall, I wouldn't recommend it unless you LOVED Graceling I think.

Amy  

I enjoy Cashore’s characters and creatures and places.  It’s the stories that bog me down.  Again with the slogging sections!  Plus, the crazy castle environment in which Bitterblue lived and “worked” was just odd.  The fact that she floundered for so long made me itch. Bitterblue was too much of a drama queen and a clueless child for most of the novel. Sadly, I’ve liked each book in this trilogy less than the one before.  Overall, it had its moments and it was fun.  I enjoyed the way the characters from the first two novels appeared in this last one.  The ending was satisfactory. 

--Amy

The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss

Amy 

fantasy

The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss did not come anywhere near my expectations.  It fell very flat for me.  I do not remember how it made its way onto my To Read list.  I had the impression it was an epic fantasy. It’s rated 4.55 stars on Goodreads out of 235,000 ratings!  That’s seriously high!  Two authors I follow on Goodreads had rated it highly.  Then, a friend finished it and gave it 4 stars and then another friend gave it 5 stars.  I was so eager to read it!  However, I am, apparently, completely missing the point and joy of this novel.  I almost gave it up after 200 pages because it bordered on boring.  But, I figured it had to get better with all these high ratings. Alas, I’m sorry to have wasted so much time on this 662-page book.  There is nothing epic about this novel to me.  In reading others' reviews for this book, it seems that readers either loved it or hated it.  The lovers are the large majority.  However, I do feel a little vindicated that I'm not the only one who wasn't impressed.

This is the life story of Kvothe....well, the first third of his life story...a young man of humble but happy beginnings who loses his family and life as he knows it, through no fault of his own.  He tells his own story to a writer and the story is interrupted occasionally when the reader is brought back to the present-time of his story-telling.  There is magic and fantasy woven throughout.  There is a mystical university and odd professors.  There is a bit of adventure.  It sounds like my sort of book.  But, it's not.

Sure, it was interesting sometimes.  But, the main character was pompous and foolhardy.  Granted, he had some serious knocks early in life that weren’t his fault. But once he made it to the University, practically every troublesome situation he brought on himself.  The supporting cast included some fun characters but there wasn’t enough of them and I grew tired of Kvothe, the ultra-talented.  Yes, it was his life story but I found it slow-paced, too long in the telling, and anticlimactic.  And, not a single question was answered in the course of this tome.  Although, I did learn that Auri’s hair was gauzy, if nothing else, since he mentioned that about a dozen times—nearly every time Auri was in the story.  Perhaps that’s why he couldn’t describe Denna accurately—he could never find the right adjective for her hair.  Okay, I’m being snide, but….seriously?!

Yes, I feel that long books have to work harder to earn their high praise.  If an author is going to tell such a long tale, making me spend a lot of my time reading it, it better be worth all that time.  There are too many good books in the world to be wasting time better spent reading something more enjoyable, in my opinion.

So, I’m very obviously in the minority on this one.  I have no interest in reading the sequels nor do I care what happened or will happen to Kvothe.