The History Book Club discussion

JANUARY

1. Marguerite Henry
Finish Date: January 2nd, 2011
Rating: A
Review:
I actually read the 1950 edition. This is Young Adult fiction, although really it's on the edge of children's fiction for me. My own copy was owned by my favorite great aunt, and I rediscovered it on the shelves just before New Year's. Lovely book, oddly enough it's mostly historically accurate, covering the origins of the American trotting races and the horses and people involved in it. The story itself follows a young teenage boy (Gibson White). I've always found the stark contrasts between normal child raising of the 1930s with modern child raising to be interesting and odd. (Yes, even as a child myself, I guess I've always been a bit odd.)

A very nice review Jane and I can see that you are off to a great start/

Reading: not a cheap addiction, by any means, but one of the least destructive ones out there. ;)

2. Tamora Pierce
Finish Date: January 5, 2011 (late night)
Rating: A-
Review:
Fluff fantasy, geared towards YA readers. Not bad, but clearly fluff. The budding magic system is interesting. I like that while the story focuses on one particular character, the author chose to follow the stories of other characters as well. Pierce chose to use an omniscient narration mode rather than the typical first person perspective that I've found sometimes hobbles YA fiction. Very well done. The characters were believable for their ages and yet were portrayed as both intelligent and gawky.
The minus is purely because I would have liked to see more inter-character development. The culminating friendship would have been more believable with more detailed episodes.


3. Leigh Brill
[Photo of author unavailable.]
Finish Date: January 5, 2011
Rating: B+
Review:
Decently written, although the author is clearly no Pulitzer, as the prose is not very tight. The story itself was moving enough to carry me through the book. The book is autobiographical and chronicles the partnership of the author and her service dog. The language is simple, and doesn't exactly detract from the story, but also doesn't make it shine. I'd recommend it if you're looking for a book about service dogs or about living with disabilities or for a heart-warming (and occasionally heart-wrenching) story. Did tug my interest in helping with service dogs, but at this point in my life, I'd make a poor volunteer (just too busy) and an even poorer full timer. (I don't tend to live places for long and I have too many things going on.) Overall, worth a curl up in a cozy chair with a good cuppa, but not something I'd go hunting for specifically.

Good for you Jane.

It is interesting to read your perspective on the Pierce's Circle of Magic series. I've read several of her earlier series, but haven't tried that one.

by Tamora Pierce

4. Tamora Pierce
Finish date: January 7, 2011
Rating: B+
Review:
This second book was decently well done. I liked that Pierce managed to balance the four stories while still having a focus on Tris to keep it feeling like she was the main focus character of the book. I did get a bit testy that Pierce used the "omg, emergency, main characters are the only answer!" trope so much. I would have liked more background on the world around them and more detail on how the characters think they're managing to do the magic that they do. Still consistent, though, which was nice.

{Note: I started the third book: Tamora Pierce but I am having a hard time pushing myself to finish it. The author dropped a lot of consistency in the writing and suddenly felt the need for page-long descriptions of each and every character introduced. Also, the premise doesn't match with the background and timeline given in the previous two books. Inconsistency of setting AND characters is unfortunately driving me up the wall and I may abandon it. A shame, as I had hoped to finish the series and start the continuing series after it: The Circle Opens Set Tamora Pierce (no book cover for the series).}

Hope things turn around for you on the third book; sometimes authors we love lose their way now and again.

Perfect format and you have followed the standards and the guidelines, thank you.

5. Jenna Black
Finish date: January 28, 2011
Rating: A
Review:
Another YA book, plot involves faerie and an alternate universe type build. (Avalon as a real place located in England, that plays home to both fae and humans.)
Main character is believable, which is occasionally hard to do for a teenager. I liked the twists in the plot and the shifting opinions of the main character. The switching between idealism and cynicism was spot on for teenage mindset, which a number of YA and teen authors miss their mark at (most aiming for either cynic OR idealist, but not a mixture and waffling between both). The first person perspective worked really well for introducing the reader to how the world works and what forces are at play. Good book, solid "A". I read it on the Kindle, but I think I'll be tracking down a "hard copy" at some point. Will definitely be picking up at least the next one in the series. :)

6. Mark Mathabane {no photo available}
Finish Date: February 8, 2011
Rating: A-
Review:
Well written, although subject matter is uber-grim. Gave a very good picture of what apartheid South Africa was like and the conditions of the ghettos there. NOT a light read, I had to set it down a couple of times to regain my optimism/ability to see humans as capable of decent behavior. I'm not sure about the accuracy of the author's claims about the ignorance of the white population in S. Africa concerning conditions in the ghettos, but the ignorance serves his narrative. *shrug* Brutality, abuse, humiliations, etc., are recounted with some detail, beware. Overall a decent framework for seeing apartheid S. Africa as it was. Read this for a Modern South Africa History course.

7. Steven "Kelly" Grayson (no photo available)
Finish date: February 14, 2011
Rating: B-
Review:
Interesting account, done in vignettes, of the career of an EMT (from Basic through Paramedic). Fun read, but quite fluffy (to my mind). Gruesome in parts, lots of gallows humor, fun for what I intended it for: reading while my brain is crammed full of academic schoolwork and readings. Grayson is occasionally a right jerk, and that turned me off enough to leave it alone some days. He seems to get over it, though, so reading to the end was pretty decent. The author does tend towards using medical terminology without any references for the lay reader, but I mostly just muddled my way through and enjoyed the overall story.

8. Julie Klassen
Finish date: February 18?, 2011 (I can't remember exactly when I finished this book, but I believe it was sometime that week.)
Rating: B
Review:
I really liked this book, although I found Lillian's motives to be frequently lacking and/or obscure. The atmosphere of the story is very well done and the author manages to capture elusive feelings quite well. The characters are occasionally flimsy, though, and both the interactions and the conversations sometimes feel stilted in scenes where they should be flowing. While most of the book is written from a third person omniscient perspective, seemingly hovering over Lilly (the main character). The few breaks where the author follows a different character felt jarring to me. I didn't like that the author chose to deliberately leave out some of the main character's motives just to prolong the mystery of whom she would choose. The rest of the book occasionally goes into more detail than one might wish, so the glaring lack of information for that particular area felt very contrived.

Overall an enjoyable read, but not a book I'll be putting on my favorites shelf.

9. Shannon Hale
Finish date: February 26, 2011
Rating: A
Review:
Ah, a guilty pleasure: well written banter and a cheesy romance plot. Except this one isn't really a romance plot, it's more a deep friendship plot. Very unusual. Hale manages to balance the characters well without throwing them too much into stereotype. It's pure fluff, though. There are some hard moments in the middle of the book, potentially triggery for those who have lost people close to them to cancer, but Hale manages that part of the plot with elegance as well, neither beating the issue to death nor throwing it away as trivial (quite the feat). I'm not Mormon myself, so the religious portions of the book were sometimes lost on me, but I didn't feel proselytized to or alienated.

Overall, quite a fun read. The banter is simply amazing and Hale manages to capture that magical feeling between soul friends perfectly. I handed it off to my partner who normally is not into this genre and he's loving it as well! :)

Definitely going to snag a copy of this to read when sick or in need of a good fluff book that'll keep me laughing.

10. Katherine Marsh
Finish date: March 15, 2011 (ish)
Rating: B-
Review:
Young adult fiction, not bad. Interesting premise and decent implementation. Annoyed at the pretentious use of Latin (I took a semester of Latin, the word ordering is unusual), it really felt more like a gimmick than reality, as the main character clearly likes it, but it just didn't ring true for me. *shrugs* Overall, decent read for "have the flu and my neck is out", but probably not a book I'd recommend to others.

11. Robin McKinley (no author photo available)
Finish date: March 19, 2011
Rating: A
Review:
A favorite of mine, read it numerous times. Good "fluff", vampire fiction with alternate history/present time line. Very well written, banter both internal and with other characters is wonderful. Occasional gripes with holes in plot, but not horrendously so and not enough to keep me from enjoying it immensely. ;)

12. Edward Gorey
Finish date: March 19, 2011
Rating: A
Review:
Ah, the dangers of looking through boxes of books from childhood. One of my favorite children's books, not sure if I should count it here as it's less than, oh, 30 pages. Charmingly stilted as only Edward Gorey can manage, the illustrations are by Victoria Chess and match the story nicely. General plot: Fletcher (a cat) gets stuck in a tree for quite awhile. In the tree is a large trunk with various hats and other things in it, including a very large Faberge egg which has a living doll in it (Zenobia). And there's a giant moth, and a party, and waltzing to a gramophone. (It's apparently a very resourceful trunk.)

13. Mary Antin (no author image available)
Finish date: March 22, 2011
Rating: B-
Review:
As reference for immigrant life in America circa turn of the 20th century, this is quite good. As recreational reading: leaves quite a bit to be desired, very dry while also frequently pretentious sounding (which gets old, at least for me). I probably would have had an easier time reading this as a dead-tree version. Instead, I had the Kindle version and the Kindle version does not have the end notes, foot notes, etc. referenced except at the *very* end of the book, and the table of contents is unlinked, so it's difficult to reference back and forth through it. Very frustrating. Decent account of Russia's The Pale of Settlement (Jewish area of Czarist Russia), interesting description of assimilating into America. The author does give some details of slum life, but I found myself wondering about more complex issues of the slums that the author did not address. The ending really fell flat for me, Antin doesn't detail any of how she and her family get out of the slums, just that they do. She gives a very broad swath view of her life after the slums of Boston, but not enough to feel like there's any closure, and no reference to what her life might be like at the time of writing the memoir, which I found annoying.

I enjoyed the book, for what it was, assigned reading for a U.S. history survey course, but it's not something I otherwise would have made my way through. *shrug*

14. Louise Marley
Finish date: April 4, 2011
Rating: B+
Review:
Fluff reading while battling a particularly nasty migraine (when in pain: read; seems to be my motto these days). Read this for the first time years ago and remembered liking it. I enjoyed it this time around as well, but had occasional frustrations with the author's choice of wording. Apparently there are three other books based in the same world which were written before this one, but I have yet to track them down... I'll have to do that someday. This novel stands quite well on its own, though. Fictional universe where "Singers" have the ability to control "psi" which can excite air molecules to heat and light areas. Given the premise of a deep cold world where summer happens only every five years and then only for a few weeks, it's an interesting set up. The author manages to convey music well even through the medium of printed words. Overall, an enjoyable read with only a few annoying holes in the plot/world build. :)

15. Shannon Hale
Finish date: late April, 2011
Rating: B+
Review:
Fun book, good story, had moments of annoyance for me, but was overall very well done. Very fluffy, though, and not likely to be something I'd re-read, though I'd likely recommend it to people looking for a decent fluffy fantasy book with good fairy tale elements.

16. Jeri Smith-Ready
Finish date: mid-April, 2011
Rating: C+
Review:
Decent fluff, but also some *very* adult scenes (sex). Plot occasionally suffered because of the sex scenes which was quite annoying. Interesting premise with post-apocalyptic world and some humans bonding with animal aspects and gaining abilities from those aspects. Plot line was predictable and had gaping holes, also frustrating in that characters were occasionally very inconsistent with earlier stated motives. *shrug* Writing style was very engaging, though, which was what pulled me through the book. Fluff, but not something I'd come back to. [Tried to read the sequel, but it was VERY poorly written and I put it down in disgust.]

17. Jeri Smith-Ready
Finish date: May, 2011
Rating: B-
Review:
Picked this up because the writing style in Eyes of the Crow was so engaging. Again, interesting premise and decent delivery. Again, frustrating sex scenes that don't necessarily add to the plot. Again, weird consistency issues. Decent fluff read, though, which was what I was looking for at the end of the school semester when my brain is largely mush anyway. Ending, however, left a sour note in my mouth. [Again, tried the sequel, got about 20 pages in before giving up, again, in disgust.]
I really enjoy Smith-Ready's premises, but hate the implementation, especially in sequels. So, giving up on this author. Just not "my style," I guess.

18. Elizabeth C. Mock
Finish date: April, 2011
Rating: A
Review:
Loved this, eagerly awaiting the next one in the series. The world building in this book is amazing and consistent. Magic system is intriguing without all the details being tediously hashed out. Inter-group politics are covered well without seeming far-fetched (a relief, some books tend towards overblown conflict without solid motivation, imnsho). Only gripe is that the perspective shifts drastically between chapters and sometimes the transition to other groups of characters is lacking (leading one to scramble a bit to figure out who the author is talking about). Names for the characters earlier on would have been helpful. At one point, the shifting was bad enough that I was sure that I was reading some other book at the same time with a similar world but some totally different character pair (I wasn't, the author just spent more than four chapters away from the opening pair and it threw me). I probably would have done better with a paper copy instead (read it on Kindle) where I could flip back more easily to be sure of character continuity. Otherwise, though, an incredible book and a lot of fun.

19. Kaplan (Kaplan publishing, multiple authors/contributors)
Finish date: late April, 2011
Rating: A-
Review:
Good initial resource guide. Gave me some food-for-thought and provided a useful time line for what I need to be doing as an undergrad. Minor gripe that it was very generalized and more focused on science, engineering, math, and psych types than on humanities. Overall, a good beginning resource guide and a good opener to exploring the path to graduate school.