Thursday, 06 September 2007

  • Currently Reading
    Princess Academy
    By Shannon Hale
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    The Princess Academy

    From the cover:

    High on the slopes of Mount Eskel, Miri's family has lived forever, pounding a meager living from the stone of the mountain itself.  Miri dreams of working alongside the others in the quarry, but she has never been allowed to work there -- perhaps, she thinks, because she is so small.

    Then word comes from the lowlands: the king's priests have divined that the prince's bride-to-be -- the next princess -- will come from Mount Eskel.  The prince himself will travel to the village to choose his bride, but first all eligible girls must attend a makeshift academy to prepare for royal lowlander life.

    At the school, Miri finds herself both bitter competition among the girls and her own conflicted desires to be chosen.  Yet when danger comes to the academy, it is Miri, named for a tiny mountain flower who must find a way to save her classmates --and the chance for the future that each of them is eager to secure as her own.

    I liked The Goose Girl so much that I absolutely had to read something else by Shannon Hale.  I feel badly because I already own 55+ books that I need to read, but it only took me one day to finish this charming story.  So that excuses me somehow.

    I really, really liked The Princess Academy, but I think that The Goose Girl is the superior story.  Both stories feature realistic, flawed young heroines who must overcome self-doubt and outside aggressors in order to prevail.  Both Miri and Ani seemed very concerned with finding and fitting into their rightful place in society.  Somehow though, Miri's story seemed more juvenile than Ani's.  Not that there is anything wrong with a story being written for a slightly younger audience.  But The Princess Academy is sweet and charming without being saccharine.  An accomplishment indeed.

    Put this one on your shelf next to Ella Enchanted and Howl's Moving Castle.
  • Currently Reading
    The Paradise War (Song of Albion, Book 1)
    By Steve Lawhead
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    The Song of Albion Trilogy

    From the cover of The Paradise War:

    Picture a world intricately entwined with our own yet separate, pulsing with the raw energy and vivid color of Celtic myth come to life.

    Picture Albion.

    And enter Lewis Gillies, an Oxford student whose search for a missing friend leads him through a door to another reality -- and unimagined discoveries about life, good and evil, and his own identity and destiny.

    In an ancient cairn in the wilds of Scotland, Oxford student Simon Rawnson vanishes, seemingly into thin air.  Unsettling signs -- a mysterious Green Man, a Celtic circle chalked on the sidewalk -- point his roommate, Lewis Gillies, to an impossible answer... and an incredible destiny on the other side of a doorway between worlds.

    There, where Celtic champions, magic, and treachery weave the beautiful and brutal land called Albion, Lewis finds Simon.  And there, schooled as a warrior, he is thrust to the front of a titanic struggle between light and darkness -- a hideous, onrushing darkness that would devour not merely a kingdom, but two worlds.

    I wanted to love these books, but I just couldn't.  I did enjoy and like them, but I can't say that I loved them.  The premise and the story were both great, but I didn't much care about the characters.  Lewis begins with a humorous narrative voice, but that is gone halfway through the first book.  And the character progressions didn't make much sense to me.

    These books were a fun read and fans of Celtic fantasy will certainly enjoy them.  But the Celtic world here is much more masculine than that which Marillier creates.  More battles and less emotion.  For some, that will be a good thing.  I prefer Marillier.

Wednesday, 22 August 2007

  • Currently Reading
    The Goose Girl
    By Shannon Hale
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    The Goose Girl

    Publisher's summary:

    On her way to marry a prince she's never met, Princess Anidori is betrayed by her guards and her lady-in-waiting and must become a goose girl to survive until she can reveal her true identity and reclaim the crown that is rightfully hers.

    I love fairy tales, so of course I am inclined to like this book.  I had the added pleasure of listening to this as an audiobook and it was my first experience with a full cast production.  Hearing all of the different voices made the story that much more engrossing.

    My favorite part was perhaps the author's note at the end.  Shannon Hale write this story shortly after completing graduate school.  She had always loved fairy tales growing up, and after reading Robin McKinley's Beauty, Hale decided to further explore a tale she had always found a little perplexing.  She never understood why the princess in the Grimm version just allowed her crown to be taken.

    In Hale's retelling, The Goose Girl becomes a story about friendship and self-realization.  Ani (as Princess Anidori is called) is not a sword-carrying heroine.  She's a little shy and awkward.  She's lead a sheltered life.  But her adventures give her some good old-fashioned life experience.

    I'd recommend this story for nearly anyone at any age (though some parts might be a tad gruesome for the very young).  If you love fairy tales, then I guarantee you will enjoy this book.

     

    (Has anyone read anything else by Hale?)

Tuesday, 21 August 2007

  • Currently Reading
    Uglies (Uglies Trilogy, Book 1)
    By Scott Westerfeld
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    The UGLIES Trilogy

    From the back cover of UGLIES:

    Everybody wants to be supermodel gorgeous.  What could be wrong with that.

    Tally is about to turn sixteen, and she can't wait.  Not for her license -- for turning pretty.  In Tally's world, your sixteenth birthday brings an operation that turns you from a repellent ugly into a stunningly attractive pretty and catapults you into a high-tech paradise where your only job is to have a really great time.  Tally will be there.

    But Tally's new friend Shay isn't sure she wants to be pretty.  She'd rather risk life on the outside.  When Shay runs away, Tally learns about a while new side of the pretty world -- and it isn't very pretty.  The authorities offer Tally the worst choice she can imagine: find her friend and turn her in, or never turn pretty at all.  The choice Tally makes changes her world forever.

    At some point during the 21st century, an oil-eating virus was released and cause the civilized world to collapse.  Now, three hundred years in the future, society has done all that it can to eliminate the possibility of warfare.  To do this, cities operate nearly independently from one another.  But they have all opted to eliminate as many differences as possible in their populations.

    Therefore, at age 15, Tally is looking forward to her next birthday.  As a 16 year-old, she will receive an operation which will transform her into a Pretty (the standards of which are determined by the Pretty Committee) and will move from Uglyville into New Pretty Town.  (I'm guessing at the names.  Forgive any inaccuracies.)  Tally is looking forward to all of the privileges enjoyed by New Pretties: constant parties, high-tech toys, and hooking up.  And she especially misses her lifelong best friend, Peris, who turned 16 before she did.

    But, as the cover material above implies, things do not go as planned for Tally when her new friend decides to buck the system.  And, since there are three books, you can probably guess that Tally's situation is quite a complicated one.  I'd say more, but I don't want to accidentally spoil any details for anyone.

    I enjoyed these books.  I must admit that Westerfield's prose style took a little getting used to, and that the slang in Tally's world can sometimes be ponderous.  But these books do what good sci-fi is supposed to do: they satirize and examine our society.  And everything Westerfield introduces seems plausible.

    The only downside to these books is Tally.  She's not a very interesting character.  Shay is the one who is usually doing something, and all of the conflict centers around her.  Tally is a wet blanket -- but at least she isn't whiny.

Wednesday, 08 August 2007

  • Currently Reading
    The World According to Garp
    By John Irving
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    The World According to Garp

    Sorry, that was a longer break between posts than I had anticipated.  I won't bore you with all of the details here, but you can read about my life changes on my other blog if you so choose.  Book review time!

    From the cover:

    This is the life of T.S. Garp, the bastard son of Jenny Fields -- a feminist leader ahead of her time.  This is the life and death of a famous mother and her almost-famous son; theirs is a world of sexual extremes -- even of sexual assassinations.  It is a novel rich with "lunacy and sorrow"; yet the dark, violent events of the story do not undermine a comedy both ribald and robust.  In more than thirty languages, in more than forty countries -- with more than ten million copies in print -- this novel provides almost cheerful, hilarious evidence of its famous last line: "In the world according to Garp, we are all terminal cases."

    Alright, so this cover is slightly misleading.  I think that it is unfair to describe Jenny Fields as "a feminist leader ahead of her time."  She's more like a feminist icon.  And while Jenny is a very important character in the novel, I feel like this blurb suggests that the book is about Garp living in her shadow.  He isn't as famous as she is (his publisher even capitalizes on Jenny's fame to sell Garp's books), but Garp doesn't seem to suffer too much anxiety over that fact.  Not to say that he doesn't suffer from other anxieties.

    However, I will say that this book is about sexual extremes.  Jenny Fields wants a baby, but she has absolutely no interest in sex.  Garp's life is ruled (and nearly ruined) by lust.  As you may have guessed, the book does address gender issues.  Very interesting stuff about victimization and false heroes.

    But truly, "lunacy and sorrow" is the best way to summarize the novel.  Garp is eccentric in the extreme and he has some very bizarre life experiences.  His youth is quirky, his family life endearing, and his anxieties burdensome.  The novel is bizarre and often slow-going, but I did enjoy it.  The cast of characters is broad, but each one is memorable and likable (well... they're all memorable and most of them are likable).  As I mentioned, there's lots going on in the novel and it will leave you thinking a bit.  But it is quite odd.