Kiwiria's Books for December

[kiwiria.livejournal.com]

( 20 books read :D )

Book of the Month: Flaskepost fra P - one of the best suspense novels I've read in a long time.
Biggest disappointment: And Then He Kissed Her - I'd been looking forward to reading it for so long that I couldn't help ending up disappointed.

New

[rosalinegunn.livejournal.com]

I'm new to this community.  Just discovered it.  I have a tendency to find an author, see if they wrote anything else and then read everything they ever wrote.  This Christmas break it was Rene Gutteridge.

Boo, Boo Hiss, Boo Hoo, and Boo Humbug - Loved this series.  Light, fun characters.  Basically what would happen if someone like Stephen King quite writing scary books and became a christian, especially if the whole town's economy depended on his books.  200-400 pgs

Occupational Hazard series ( Scoop, Snitch, and Skid) - not a fan.  Boring, not funny. didn't really care what happened to the characters. 200-400 pgs

Ghost Writer - Decent read - editor finds a book manuscript on his desk, realizes to his horror its all about him and some dark things in his past he thought no one knew.  Not really as suspenseful as it could have been.  I really like creepy action books - this isn't one.  More psychological drama.  396 pgs

I'm a huge Ted Dekker, Perretti fan.  I like thrillers that keep you up late reading. 

Green - by Dekker - I'm still not quite sure what I think of him making it the beginning and the end.  I loved the series.  He is good at taking the gospel and putting it another format so you see it in a different light.  It's a series I could give my non christian friends and have some wild discussions about.

Anne Rice recently declared her Christianity to the world.

Called Out of Darkness - Anne Rice - Not at all what I expected.  I read one or two of her vampire novels in my twenties and thought they were very sexually perverse and avoided them ever after.  Called out of Darkness is her attempt at her testimony and I think to explain to her Vampire fans why her writing had so radically changed.

My biggest surprise reads of the year were definitely Anne Rice's Christ the Lord Series: Out of Egypt and The Road to Cana - These books are her idea of what Christs life might have been like after the nativity and before his ministry began.  It was very interesting and quite unsettling.  I'm still thinking through some of her ideas.  A unique perspective in the very least.  She is a good writer.

Nov & Dec books

[sonneta.livejournal.com]

A Book by Mordicai Gerstein - Meta picture book about a girl trying to find her story. This book had been soooo hyped to me through job stuff that I suppose it was almost inevitable that it fell short of the hype. I like the drawings, but the story wasn't quite what I had expected from the reviews. Okay book, not one I'd look to reread or recommend to kids.

The Lost Summer by Kathryn Williams - When Helena becomes a counselor at the summer camp she's been attending for years, will it change her friendships and even herself? Okay, first of all, they should have called this The Last Summer, since the girls keep going on about it being the last summer in various ways. Second of all, this book was okay I guess until it took a really weird and bad turn near the end. Not a good resolution.

Gateway by Sharon Shinn - Daiyu, an adopted Chinese teenager living in St. Louis, travels to an alternate world where most people are Chinese. After reading a friend's ravings about Sharon Shinn, I finally found one of her books at work. I liked it a lot - it uses a few familiar fantasy tropes (e.g. passing through a magical gateway to another world), but not so many that the story seems tired or cliche. I liked Daiyu's adventure, and even her mistrust, and how it all ended very nicely.

The Secret of Platform 13 by Eva Ibbotson - A gateway between worlds that only opens once every nine years leaves a boy accidentally on the wrong side; a wizard, an hag, a giant, and a fairy are sent to rescue him. Is it requisite of British fantasy fiction that a subway platform lead to a magical world? Kidding, although I have seen that one a time or three. I think someone in this comm had recommended this author previously. This book was fairly decent, though it was also really predictable. But it's also for kids, so maybe if you hadn't read too many fantasy-type books, it wouldn't be as predictable. A cute little story.

Hogfather by Terry Pratchett (reread) - With the Hogfather (think Santa Claus) out of commission, it's up to Death and his associates to save Hogswatch (Christmas) - and possibly the human race. Why yes, I do read this one practically every Christmas. So much fun stuff here, with spoofs on pretty much every Christmas song and tradition you can think of. (Like this year, I realized this one part of the book was a spoof on "Good King Wenceslas". You don't hear that song much here in the States, is how I missed it previously). This book is Exhibit A in Why I Love Terry Pratchett.