Four Month Challenge Part 2 Wrap-Up

Hooray, I finished just in the nick of time with a fairly respectable 105 points! Thanks so much to our lovely hostess at She Read a Book for hosting - it's fun to have a shorter-duration challenge with so many options!

20-point challenges:

A book with a wintry theme:
Let it Snow by John Green, et al.

A winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction:
Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout

A book starting with A and one with Z:
Along for the Ride by Sarah Dessen
Zombie Blondes by Brian James

A book and write a review:
Full of Grace by Dorothea Benton Frank

15 points:
A biography: Dear Fatty by Dawn French

5 points
A book about a king/queen:
The Other Queen by Philippa Gregory (also for What's in a Name?)

A book by an author born during one of the 4 months:
Key to the Golden Firebird by Maureen Johnson (February 16!)

Review: Dear Fatty

Dear Fatty by Dawn French
3.75 stars

Reasons for reading: I lurve Dawn French; 15 points for the Four Month Challenge for an autobiography

From the jacket flap:
"Dear Dad
So, you're still dead. It's been over 30 years and every day I have to remind myself of that fact, and every day I am shocked. I'm not 19 anymore and many things have happened that we haven't shared, so I have decided to write this book for you. I want to remember our time together and I want to tell you about lots of stuff since. So far, it's been better than expected...

With a sharp eye for comic detail and wicked ear for the absurdities of life, Dawn French shows just how an RAF girl from the west country with dreams of becoming a ballerina/air hostess/bridesmaid rose to be one of the best loved comedy actresses of our time.

Here Dawn French shares her story, and in particular with her father who committed suicide when she was nineteen years old. She invites us into her most personal relationships with, among others, her mum and dad, her husband, her daughter and her friend Jennifer.

Dawn reveals the people, experiences and obsessions that have influenced her and that helped shape her comedy creations - including kissing, dogs, grandmas, David Cassidy, teenage angst, school, stealing, Madonna and not forgetting chocolate. She is as open about her fears and sorrows as she is about her delights and joys, and for the first time shares the experience of losing her beloved dad and later finding a tip-topmost chap in Lenny Henry.

From raging about class, celebrity and bullying to describing the highs and lows of motherhood and friendship, Dear Fatty reveals the surprising life behind the smile."

My thoughts: The letters-to-people method was a pretty good way of writing an autobiography. It made it fairly quick to read and some of them are hilarious, particularly the ones (actual or re-rememered, I'm not sure) to celebrities from the young Dawn. My favourite was "Dear The Monkees" where she asserts that, unlike all those other silly fans who have a favourite Monkee, she loves them all the same even though Peter is "the good-lookingest and funniest for me." I have to disagree with her there, I had a crush (approximately 20 years later than hers) on all of the other 3 Monkees, but never Peter. So she and I may have to have a throw-down on that one.

She states and it's true that the book should be called Dear Dad, because most of the letters are to him. It's really touching how she still feels a connection with him, despite his suicide so many years ago. And it makes sense, I can see how she'd want to tell him all the things that have happened since then. The part about his suicide is gut-wrenching to read and it really shows her strength of character and the strength of her family to have come through it and still manage to be such a life-affirming person. She's obviously blessed to have attracted so many "beloveds" into her life - I really envy her all those deep, varied friendships. Made me think I need to work harder with my own beloveds.

The letters to Fatty, who is Jennifer Saunders, are almost all horrendously bad jokes, although there's a great one that sums up their friendship and partnership at the end, as they're just finishing their last French and Saunders tour.

I love how Dawn has such positive self-esteem, a rarity for us larger ladies. She gives the credit to her parents. I also like how she can laugh about her size - she goes on about her shape in a letter to her niece, describing herself as a Weeble or hobbit and wondering about the purpose of "these massive ocean-going buoy chests? I know bosoms are womanly, but these surely belong to many women." I hear ya, sister!

There's a lovely letter describing her husband to her dad, since he didn't get to meet him, with mostly his many virtues but also his quirks and flaws. She writes not so much a love-letter as a thank you letter to her husband, which shows they've had many happy years together and have come through some tough times, too. There's a hilarious one about seeing The Exorcist with her mum. There's a series of very funny, very badly-grammared ones to Madonna, who apparently F&S have a bit of a hate-love relationship with because she constantly refused to come on their show. And the Queen Mum visited their house on the RAF base when Dawn was a toddler and scared the poor little thing (Dawn, not the QM, even though they were roughly the same height) to death! Oh, and she recounts her painfully bad audition to be in the Mamma Mia film - apparently Dawn's singing is actually worse than a cow in labour.

The only minus of the letters is that some of them it's hard to know who the person is. Maybe her British audience knows all of them. And it doesn't really matter. There were just a few where I kept wondering "Who are you?"

The verdict: If you like Dawn French, you'll like this book. I learned a lot about her and now want to see even more of her TV shows and films. I especially have to buy the complete Vicar of Dibley DVD set and have a lovely marathon.

Review: The Key to the Golden Firebird

The Key to the Golden Firebird by Maureen Johnson

3.5 stars

Reasons for reading: I love Maureen Johnson!; February author birthday for the Four Month Challenge and also for the Colourful Challenge

Description: "Mayzie is the middle sister, sent to private school because of her brains. Brooks, the oldest, is a beautiful athlete who's conflicted about her two loves: softball and Dave. Palmer is the youngest, tentative in all but her blistering pitches as the only freshman on varsity softball...When the unthinkable happens -- the death of their father -- a year passes in shattered silence. Brooks begins drinking, Palm withdraws, and May is left to fend for herself. She gets a job at a coffee spot, and hits the books. But the one thing she can't do alone is learn to drive. That's when Peter, her lifelong nemesis and all around thorn-in-side, assumes a surprising new role in May's life: he teaches her to drive, and the connection between them changes from childhood animosity to one that May can't understand, or doesn't yet want to. As May slowly starts to pick up the pieces of her life, her sisters struggle with their own demons. The Gold sisters have been changed irrevocably, and they are all but lost to one another, until the key is found. The key to their father's Pontiac Firebird."

First line: "Chome on," Palmer said, her words dulled from numb-tongue syndrome caused by the Icee she was slurping. "You haff to admit it wash funny."

My thoughts: This is definitely not my favourite Maureen Johnson book. I think that's still 13 Little Blue Envelopes. But it's still a good book. The reason I had put off reading it is that I (correctly) assumed that the death of a parent was going to cast a pretty big pall over the usual Johnson crazy-funny, and I was right. But that's not entirely a bad thing, it just makes it a different kind of book. It was really sad to see the way the Gold women completely fell apart. I felt sorriest for the girls, though, because even though I know the mother was suffering, too, she's the adult in the situation. But, of course, she had to support the whole family, so she ended up dumping most things on May and can't see that her one daughter is a drunk and the other has panic attacks so bad she never sleeps. But sweet Peter, who is definitely not May's childhood nemesis any more, continually steps in to save the day, so he's a real bright spot in the book. And there's definitely lots of Johnson's trademark humour, especially at the beginning (a plot to get naked photos of Peter) and the end (a highly illegal but wonderful stunt at a baseball game). By the end, the sisters have started to heal both themselves and their relationship with each other. And the Golden Firebird provides a nice link to their father - each girl has different memories of spending time in the car with him. And May's attempts at driving it are also humour high spots.

The verdict: This definitely feels like the earlier work that it is, but for a fairly quick read about an interesting trio of sisters, it's worth a look.

Review: Olive Kitteridge

Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
4.5 stars


Reasons for reading: heard lots of great things about it; Pulitzer Prize-winner for the Four Month Challenge and Book Awards Challenge 4

Description: "At times stern, at other times patient, at times perceptive, at other times in sad denial, Olive Kitteridge, a retired schoolteacher, deplores the changes in her little town of Crosby, Maine, and in the world at large, but she doesn’t always recognize the changes in those around her: a lounge musician haunted by a past romance; a former student who has lost the will to live; Olive’s own adult child, who feels tyrannized by her irrational sensitivities; and her husband, Henry, who finds his loyalty to his marriage both a blessing and a curse. As the townspeople grapple with their problems, mild and dire, Olive is brought to a deeper understanding of herself and her life–sometimes painfully, but always with ruthless honesty. Olive Kitteridge offers profound insights into the human condition–its conflicts, its tragedies and joys, and the endurance it requires."

First line: "For many years Henry Kitteridge was a pharmacist in the next town over, driving every morning on snowy roads, or rainy roads, or summertime roads, when the wild raspberries shot their new growth in brambles along the last section of town before he turned off to where the wider road led to the pharmacy."

My thoughts: This was a really good book - I can see why it won the Pulitzer Prize. I was a bit concerned, as I often am, that it would be too "literary" for me to enjoy, but it's very accessible. It's just about....life. I was also concerned because it's a series of intertwined stories rather than a typical novel and I usually don't like short stories, but Olive held them all together. A few times I couldn't remember if I was supposed to know who that townsperson was, but overall they fit together very well. And it was wonderfully written - I'm not usually one for lots of descriptions, but as you can see from the first line, Strout writes them very well and they add a great deal to the book.

Olive was interesting to read about - she's a very real person, which I liked. She could have just been a rather stock character, the town's grumpy old woman, but she's not. I thought this was an excellent description of her: ". . . she had a darkness that seemed to stand beside her like an acquaintance that would not go away." Overall she's known for being crotchety, and she has a very strong work ethic, appreciates beauty in the natural world (especially tulips), has a sharp wit and experiences sudden moments of great tenderness and kindness. She hid a lot of despair behind her hard shell and admits that she's not fun to live with - at one point she's addressing Henry in her mind and describes herself as a beast. Yet Henry, who is liked by everyone in town, loves her with all his heart.

The book is filled with moments of happiness (Olive calls them "small bursts," like going to the doughnut shop, as opposed to life's big bursts like weddings). I was going along happily with that until she gave herself another small burst of pleasure by stealing bits out of her new daughter-in-law's bureau to mess with her head! Although the daughter-in-law is pretty awful, so I can't blame her. That little bit of wickedness really fit Olive. But these bursts often quickly turn to sadness - children hate their parents, people kill themselves or others, they drink, they commit or are victims of horrible crimes, and, in many cases, they stray outside marriage. I did find it really sad that every couple in the book has at least some form of infidelity, even if it's never acted on physically. But a lot of the couples have been married for more decades than I've been alive, and not many actually committed adultery, so who knows?

The book ends with Olive finding some small comfort in someone else, which is pretty rare for her. I thought the book dealt well with old age - people still need love and physical affection, they can still be vital people, but they've also lived a very long time with perhaps not enough bursts of happiness, either large or small, to sustain them.

Review: Zombie Blondes

Zombie Blondes by Brian James

3 stars

Reasons for reading: the cover; Z book for the Four Month Challenge

Description: "From the moment Hannah Sanders arrived in town, she felt there was something wrong. A lot of houses were for sale, and the town seemed infected by an unearthly quiet. And then, on Hannah’s first day of classes, she ran into a group of cheerleaders—the most popular girls in school. The odd thing was that they were nearly identical in appearance: blonde, beautiful, and deathly pale. But Hannah wants desperately to fit in—regardless of what her friend Lukas is telling her: if she doesn’t watch her back, she’s going to be blonde and popular and dead—just like all the other zombies in this town. . . . "

First line: "There aren't any rules to running away from your problems."

My thoughts: This wasn't a bad contribution to the burgeoning YA zombie genre. It definitely reminded me of a teen horror flick - quite a slow buildup, teen angst (Hannah's father constantly moves them from town to town because he can't keep a job, so she longs to have friends and fit in), teen girl in the house alone, missed clues that something is very wrong, and then a gory climax. There's not really an explanation of how Maplecrest turned into a town full of zombies, which would have been welcome, although I suppose it's not strictly necessary. This book is as much about Hannah's life of moving constantly, not fitting in, and her relationship with her father as it is about zombies. I much preferred the lighter-hearted Zombie Queen of Newbery High, but if you're looking for a darker take on them or if you really hate cheerleaders, this is worth a read.

Review: Full of Grace

Full of Grace by Dorothea Benton Frank
2.5 stars


Reasons for reading: I've enjoyed her other books; snagged it out of the book sale at the library; "Read a book and write a review" for the Four Month Challenge


From the publisher: "Hilton Head, South Carolina. Retirement heaven — at least it's supposed to be, but for Big Al and Connie, the move from New Jersey to this southern paradise has been fraught with just a few complications. Especially for their daughter, Grace...Her family insists on Maria Graziella... That might have been okay in New Jersey but now it's just plain silly and Grace at thirty-one is, horror of horrors, still unmarried. No wonder her family drives her crazy. Well, that and the fact that she's living with the man she would marry if they both weren't so commitment phobic. Michael is a doctor and a scientist and Grace has a good idea that he's also an atheist. Over the years, Grace has become a bit ambivalent about her faith but her family is as old-fashioned Italian as they get. The stage is set for a major showdown that might just change Grace's outlook on life, family, and the new South."


First line: "Until I met Grace Russo, I did not know that my Lacoste shirts did not have to be dry-cleaned."


My thoughts: I wanted to like this more than I did. I was actually thinking about not finishing it, but I needed something to read in the tub. I think it might resonate more with a person who had grown up in a Catholic family - religion plays a huge role in the story. Grace's family is very devout, so much so that they refuse to acknowledge her boyfriend, Michael, because they're living in sin and because he does stem-cell research. They don't manage to get their supposedly Christian selves together until he loses his mother and is facing a health crisis. And Grace and Michael's love for each other is lovely and presented well, but I don't really get their refusal to get married. Her family is by turns very annoying, occasionally funny, and fairly loving, though her father and grandmother's treatment of her mother is dreadful and only explained (rather lamely, I thought) at the end. Grace's religiously zealous, constantly knitting, bossy grandmother Nonna is good for some comic relief, but she's very over-the-top and her treatment of her daughter is awful.


As always, Frank does a good job of portraying South Carolina, particularly Charleston in this case, especially it's culinary scene. It didn't give me much of a feel for Hilton Head, where I haven't been. And Grace has an awesome job, basically a travel agent for rich people seeking exciting vacations, so that was fun and enviable to read about. But I hate stories about cancer and I'm ambivalent enough myself about religion to really be interested in reading about it. And...well, it requires some suspension of disbelief, near the end, in my opinion, although if I had the faith I'm suggesting the recommended audience have, maybe it wouldn't.

Review: Let It Snow

Let it Snow: three holiday romances by John Green, Maureen Johnson, and Lauren Myracle
4 stars

Reasons for reading: it's Christmas!; three of my favourite YA authors; Winter-themed book for the Four Month Challenge

Synopsis/review from Kirkus Reviews: "Three top authors of teen fiction join forces for a collection of linked novellas set in the same small town in North Carolina on Christmas Eve. During the worst blizzard in 50 years, a packed train gets stuck in the snow, and teens from the train interact with teens from the town in ways both hilarious and romantic. In Johnson's "The Jubilee Express," a 16-year-old passenger named Jubilee meets Stuart, who takes her home to his family and convinces her that she needs a better boyfriend than the one she left at home. Green's offering is "A Cheertastic Christmas Miracle," narrated by Tobin, who struggles with his buddies through the snow so they can meet 14 stranded cheerleaders. Myracle contributes "The Patron Saint of Pigs," about a local girl named Addie who has just broken up with her boyfriend. The conclusion ties up the plot strands from all three stories, with all the main characters enjoying coffee at Starbucks on Christmas night."

My thoughts: This was a great holiday read!! I loved that the stories were interconnected. Each one was definitely in the author's usual style, and I like all of their styles. I'd just finished Paper Towns by John Green, so it was neat to read a light romance by him so soon afterwards. He still has his great group dynamics and one-liners. I think Maureen Johnson is incredibly funny and cool and her story about Jubliee and her parents' obsession with the Flobie Christmas Village was a hoot. Lauren Myracle had her usual girl who learns not to be so self-centered while trying to remember to pick up a teacup piglet for her best friend. And then it all comes together in a crazy wind-up at Starbucks.

The verdict: Lots of romance and laughs, perfect reading for the holidays.

Another verdict: Raidergirl liked it, too!

Review: Along for the Ride

Along for the Ride by Sarah Dessen
4 stars

Reasons for reading: Sarah Dessen's great!; book starting with A for the Four Month Challenge

Description: "It’s been so long since Auden slept at night. Ever since her parents’ divorce—or since the fighting started. Now she has the chance to spend a carefree summer with her dad and his new family in the charming beach town where they live. A job in a clothes boutique introduces Auden to the world of girls: their talk, their friendship, their crushes. She missed out on all that, too busy being the perfect daughter to her demanding mother. Then she meets Eli, an intriguing loner and a fellow insomniac who becomes her guide to the nocturnal world of the town. Together they embark on parallel quests: for Auden, to experience the carefree teenage life she’s been denied; for Eli, to come to terms with the guilt he feels for the death of a friend."

First lines: "The e-mails always began the same way. Hi, Auden!! It was the extra exclamation point that got me."

My thoughts: I've been going through some serious not-sleeping myself lately, so I could relate to Auden. Although I don't have the luxury of being able to sleep during the day, sadly! Ah, teenage summers... :-)

It was quite wonderful to see academic, no-nonsense Auden learning the basics of having a social life - friends, girliness, the importance of having fun, and even what it's like to have an actual boyfriend. Eli seems like a bit of a cold jerk at first, but once his tragedy is revealed and he comes out of his shell with Auden, he's another great Dessen guy. I enjoyed Auden's (at first very unwilling) growing relationship with her step-mother and her love for her newborn baby sister. Auden's relationship with her parents - her demanding, academic, seemingly "cold bitch" of a mother and her selfish ass, novelist father - changes appropriately as she realizes she doesn't have to be like either one of them. She learns that sometimes people change and sometimes they don't, but you can change yourself.

The verdict: Yet another winner from Sarah Dessen.