christianreader | Kiwiria's October Reads

Magic Steps - Tamora Pierce*, 3/5, 264 pages
Street Magic - Tamora Pierce*, 3/5, 312 pages
Cold Magic - Tamora Pierce*, 3/5, 355 pages
Daja's Book - Tamora Pierce*, 4/5, 232 pages
Felt like rereading these, making my way up to "Battle Magic" which I haven't read yet. I'm not as big a fan of the Emelan universe as of Tortall, but they're still good reads.

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry - Rachel Joyce, 2.5/5, 357 pages
I'd expected to love this, so this low rating was both surprising and disappointing.

My opinion of this book changed hugely while reading it. It went from being slightly slow-moving, but very charming and British, to being really frustrating and kinda depressing... although it did have a hopeful ending, I guess.

I'd heard it compared to "The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of a Window and Disappeared", which is a misrepresentation if I ever saw one! The two are nothing alike! (I'd be more inclined to say it has shades of "Forest Gump" - but it's been so many years since I read that one, so I might be wrong). I got fonder of both Harold and Maureen as the book went along, but thought the 'twist' completely unnecessary (not the contents of the twist, but the fact that it was kept a secret to be revealed, rather than just being open about it from the beginning).

Apparently there is a companion novel, told from Queenie's POV. I don't think I'll be reading that one.

French Milk - Lucy Knisley, 3.5/5, 194 pages
I love these graphic memoirs :-) This is basically just Lucy's journal entries from the 6 weeks she spent in Paris around her 22nd birthday, but it still worked for me. It's filled with anecdotes and fun facts about their rented apartment - in no way deep or intellectual, but an honest account of a sometimes-great-sometimes-not vacation. Other readers have mentioned that she complains too much, but I think to me that's part of its charm... well, not the complaining, but the honesty of it. It's her journal - it's not dressed up in any way (I don't even think it was meant for publication originally), it's just what she did and thought during this trip.

I enjoyed it, but if reading a somewhat superficial account (it does have loads of pictures of what they ate and shopped for while in Paris) isn't your cup of tea, you're probably better off picking up one of her other memoirs instead. "Relish" and "An Age of License" are my two favourites.

Wool - Hugh Howey, 3/5, 58 pages
I honestly don't know what I think of this book. I liked it well enough, but found it exceedingly weird! Even more so, because it's the first in a series. I think I'd have thought it less weird as a stand-alone short-story, but I really can't figure out where Hugh Howey will take it from here.

Guess there's only one way to find out ;)

Britt-Marie Was Here - Fredrik Backman, 5/5, 377 pages
I'd read "A Man Called Ove" at the last readathon and thought it alright. Pretty good, but not the masterpiece other people made it out to be. However, I'd also heard that "Britt-Marie Was Here" was supposed to be better, so when a friend of mine offered to lend it to me for the October readathon, I jumped at the chance.

It was SO good! The very first page had me giggling, and I kept laughing out loud at regular intervals throughout the book. The last third turned slightly more serious, and the laughter turned into tears at times, but I still closed the book with a happy sigh. Funny and poignant, it was everything I'd hoped for, and I am now firmly convinced of Backman's talent as a writer.

I loved Britt-Marie (once I got over my frustration with her!), I loved 'Somebody', I loved Vega, Omar and Sami. I loved the ending.

Absolutely brilliant book all around.

Afterworlds - Scott Westerfeld, 2.5/5, 599 pages
"Afterworlds" is really two stories mixed together. Every odd chapter tells the story of Darcy Patel, her life in NYC and her experiences as a debutante author, and every even chapter is the book Darcy wrote.

I'm finding it extremely difficult to figure out what I think of this book and how to rate it. I enjoyed the chapters about Darcy - appreciating this look into the book publishing business and the life of an aspiring author, not to mention that I really liked Darcy, despite her tendency to turn into an emo teen. She's 18 - she's allowed to. Those chapters flew by and were a breeze to read. That part of the book probably deserved 4 stars.

However, the chapters about Lizzie were such a slog to get through! I LOVED the first one (and as that was the chapter I read as part of the sample, which made me buy the book, I feel kinda cheated), but once she went back to the flipside after that first time, I was done. That entire storyline just didn't work for me. I don't know if it's just that I'm really not into ghosts, or if I'd have disliked it regardless, but those chapters were a real chore to read. That part of the book would probably have been a dnf if it had stood on its own.

In the end the good outweighed the bad, and I finished the book - but it was a huge disappointment, and I'm disinclined to recommend it to anybody else.

Feedback - Mira Grant, 4/5, 512 pages
A companion novel to "Feed". Takes place at the same time, but focusing on another blogging team, following one of the democratic nominees.

Every bit as good as I've come to expect from Mira Grant's novels. Granted, it couldn't quite live up to "Feed", but then none of her subsequent novels could. The plot is pretty much the same as "Feed", just focusing on another team and another set of 'incidents', but it was interesting getting background on some of the characters who only briefly appear in "Feed". Besides, I love the universe and was happy to see more of it :)

I did think Mira Grant perhaps tried a bit too hard to be diverse in this novel. The blogging team included a lesbian, a bisexual person AND a gender-fluid person... who at the same time were white, Asian and black respectively. I'm all for diversity in novels, but this seemed more like checking off boxes.

Gregor the Overlander - Suzanne Collins*, 4/5, Audiobook ~6hrs
Very sweet story about a boy on an unusual quest to find his father. It was a fun 'read', and the narrator (Paul Boehmer) did an excellent job reading it. I fell completely in love with Boots and loved seeing her interact with the various characters of the Underland. She was absolutely adorable :)

The plot itself isn't anything out of the ordinary, but it's well-written and entertaining.

How to Fight Loneliness - MadLori, 5/5, 633 pages
Once in awhile you have the pleasure of finding a fanfic that's so true to the original characters that you WISH it were actually part of canon, so you could get to see it 'for real' on screen.

That's how I feel about MadLori's "How to Fight Loneliness" fanfic. Not only is it ridiculously well written (just like everything else I've read by her), but she's managed to capture all the characters so spot on, that I can actually hear them say their lines in my mind. There's no strain of trying to get a character into a role that doesn't quite fit. They just do.

Add that to the fact that the story is a whirlwind of action, character development, humour and despair (I laughed out loud and had tears rolling down my cheeks in equal measure), and you end up with a season of Criminal Minds (this is far too much to be boiled down into one episode - even a two-parter) I'd pay good money to see. Even if it is by now somewhat AU.

Book of the Month: Britt-Marie Was Here
Biggest disappointment: The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry... although Afterworlds is a very close second.