Review: Evermore

Evermore by Alyson Noel
2.5 stars

Reasons for reading: YA Reading Challenge, it's really popular at my library, I've enjoyed some of the author's other books

Description: "Since a horrible accident claimed the lives of her family, sixteen-year-old Ever can see auras, hear people’s thoughts, and know a person’s life story by touch. Going out of her way to shield herself from human contact to suppress her abilities has branded her as a freak at her new high school—but everything changes when she meets Damen Auguste . . .

Ever sees Damen and feels an instant recognition. He is gorgeous, exotic and wealthy, and he holds many secrets. Damen is able to make things appear and disappear, he always seems to know what she’s thinking—and he’s the only one who can silence the noise and the random energy in her head. She doesn’t know who he really is—or what he is. Damen equal parts light and darkness, and he belongs to an enchanted new world where no one ever dies."

My thoughts: This really didn't do it for me at all, though I seem to be in the minority. Teens love it and it got really good reviews. It just seemed so much like all the other vampire-type (now I see that Fallen Angels are taking over) books - sad teen girl and impossibly handsome and perfect immortal guy. I didn't find the explanation of how Damen came to be immortal very satisfying and I didn't understand how Ever was an immortal, too, when she's apparently died dozens of times throughout history. How does Damen keep finding her? The writing isn't bad and Ever is a well-drawn character - her crushing guilt over her family's death and the suffering caused by being able to hear people's thoughts really come through. There are a couple of near-death, heavy-duty-action scenes. And of course smoldering romance with Damen as well as the I hate you-I love you whirlwind every teen girl in love with a supernatural being needs. The addition of the ghost of Ever's little sister, Riley, is a good touch and gives Ever a thread to hang on to in her otherwise sad life. And I liked that Ever could see how people were feeling through their auras. So, I can absolutely see why teens love the series, but it really didn't do it for me.

Review: All is Vanity

All is Vanity by Christina Schwarz
2.5 stars

Reasons for reading: book club selection, hardcover book for Four Month Challenge

Description: "In All is Vanity, Margaret and Letty, best friends since childhood and now living on opposite coasts, reach their mid-thirties and begin to chafe at their sense that they are not where they ought to be in life. Margaret, driven and overconfident, decides the best way to rectify this is to quit her job and whip out a literary tour de force. Frustrated almost immediately and humiliated at every turn, Margaret turns to Letty for support. But as Letty, a stay-at-home mother of four, begins to feel pressured to make a good showing in the upper-middle-class Los Angeles society into which her husband’s new job has thrust her, Margaret sees a plot unfolding that’s better than anything she could make up. Desperate to finish her book and against her better nature, she pushes Letty to take greater and greater risks, and secretly steals her friend’s stories as fast as she can live them. Hungry for the world’s regard, Margaret rashly sacrifices one of the things most precious to her, until the novel’s suspenseful conclusion shows her the terrible consequences of her betrayal."

First line: "I was a promising child."

My thoughts: Well, none of the book club members liked this one much. We felt there were some sparks of good writing, but the two main characters were a bitch (Margaret) and an idiot (Letty). Letty's financial situation spiralled out of control too quickly and too ridiculously for it to be believable. The book is referred to as satire, so I suppose that was supposed to be the satirical element about consumerism. Still didn't make it an enjoyable read. The person who chose the book had heard it was great, but couldn't remember where and now doesn't know why anyone would say it! One thought was that it does describe how difficult the writing process is and how people tend to treat would-be authors as though it's very simple. So maybe other writers liked it for that!

The verdict: No-one thought it was actually all that badly written, but overall it wasn't enjoyable and neither character got our sympathy.

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: Vodka Neat

Vodka Neat: a Faith Zanetti thriller by Anna Blundy
2.5 stars

Reasons for reading: The title/cover caught my eye on our New Books shelf; Thriller for the Genre Challenge

Description: "Vodka Neat features Faith Zanetti, a war correspondent with plenty of libido, good looks, a great sense of humor, and a zest for life that never quits. She's the new Moscow correspondent for a leading newspaper--chosen for the job because she married a Russian when she was a teenager. But the minute she steps on Russian soil, she is instantly arrested in connection with the murders, fifteen years before, of a couple from a neighboring apartment. She was drunk at the time, but surely not that drunk. In order to solve the mystery, what she needs to do is find the charming Russian black marketer she married as a nineteen-year-old. And when she finds him, her problems really begin."

First line: "Moscow 1989 - There was a do at Dom Literov, the literary house."

My thoughts: I didn't hate this book, and Blundy clearly knows Russia really well, which was interesting, as I don't know much about it. But it just wasn't my thing. For one, I didn't really get the "thriller" part of it. I felt it was more like a mystery. There were some twists and a climactic, violent scene, but I didn't really feel, well, thrilled. The basic plot had some good parts (the actual mystery of who killed the couple next door and a horrifying case of mistaken identity) but there were almost a few too many twists on the way to resolving it. Blundy's obvious knowledge of and love for Russia bogged the book down, I found - there was too much discussion of the cold, the bleakness, the weirdness of the country and the rampant alcoholism there (whether you're Russian or not). Perhaps if I'd read the first book in this series, I'd have felt warmer towards Faith, who is getting over the loss of her mother and a mental breakdown, which I assume happened in volume one. I admired her toughness, but she's a very messed-up human being (although there may be a tiny bit of light at the end of her tunnel by the end).

The verdict: I thought Kirkus Reviews summed Faith and the book up well: "A hard-drinking, foul-mouthed protagonist in Putin's Russia, occupying a landscape nearly as depressing as she is. "

Review: The Case of the Missing Books

The Case of the Missing Books by Ian Sansom
2.5 stars

Reasons for reading: spotted it at Barnes and Noble a while ago and thought it sounded perfect for me, with the whole librarian theme and all; Detective genre for the Genre Challenge

Synopsis: "Israel Armstrong is a passionate soul, lured to Ireland by the promise of an exciting new career. Alas, the job that awaits him is not quite what he had in mind. Still, Israel is not one to dwell on disappointment, as he prepares to drive a mobile library around a small, damp Irish town. After all, the scenery is lovely, the people are charming—but where are the books? The rolling library's 15,000 volumes have mysteriously gone missing, and it's up to Israel to discover who would steal them . . . and why. And perhaps, after that, he will tackle other bizarre and perplexing local mysteries—like, where does one go to find a proper cappuccino and a decent newspaper?"

My thoughts: This one just didn't do it for me and I'm sad about that because I wanted to love it. Like a lot of books I've read lately, the very ending redeemed it for me a fair bit, which bumped it up half a star. I think it could be a good book for lots of cozy mystery fans - there's no murder and it does have funny parts.

I think my problem was my librarian-ness. Israel, while amusing, is a loser. I wanted the librarian to be awesome. Apparently in England you can become a librarian after 6 months at a 5th-rate college, which is what Israel's qualifications are. Yet all that got him was a job in a discount bookshop. And then, the job of "librarian" in Tumdrum, Middle of Nowhere, Ireland. Except, they've closed the library down and Israel's actually going to be driving the bookmobile. If he can find the books, which are now solely his problem even though he's just arrived.

Maybe the humour was too broad for me - Israel's loserness, the complete stupidity of the town council's library representative - the fat, Asian, bureaucratic Linda (although there are a few great moments of PC-to-the-max pencil-pusher ridiculousness with her). And the fact that the whole town of Tumdrum is just mean to Israel - they refuse to help him even though they've asked him to come to their godforsaken town and he's basically penniless and doesn't understand the local culture or even the dialect, they act like it's his fault the library is closed and the books are missing, the only accommodation offered to him is a chicken coop owned by a surly farm family, and townspeople beat him up and threaten him. Perhaps this type of humour would've worked better as a TV show. It reminded me a bit of the Vicar of Dibley, though without as much charm.


I will say Sansom hit the nail on the head with his description of what a busy library usually looks like, when Israel discovers the building is closed up:

"No one was approaching with armfuls of books...there were no sour and pear-shaped OAPs; no straggle-haired young mums at their wits' end with smeary, miserable children dragging along for story time; no one clutching important-looking unimportant documents to be photocopied in triplicate...no wrinkled, stubbly, fragrant winos; no schoolkids half-heartedly working on projects about ancient civilizations or the Second World War or the processes of human digestion. No madmen. No one. None of them. The building was empty. The car park was deserted.

The library was shut."

It's funny that I chose this for my detective novel, because Israel doesn't actually solve the case of the missing books himself - all of his theories about who stole the books are completely wrong.

The verdict: Not my cup of tea, but it could be a good read for someone who likes cozy mysteries full of small-town eccentrics. It also might help if you don't base most of your identity on being a librarian, like I do. :-)

Review: Down the Nile

Down the Nile: alone in a fisherman's skiff by Rosemary Mahoney
2.5 stars

Reasons for reading: book club; late Nonfiction entry for Triple 8 Challenge

Description (from Publishers Weekly): "...the reader is taken on a great trip with an erudite travel companion soaking up scads of history, culture and literary knowledge, along with the scenery. The genesis for the trip is simple: the author's love of rowing. Her plan, "to buy a small Egyptian rowboat and row myself along the 120-mile stretch of river between the cities of Aswan and Qena," is less so. Mahoney (The Singular Pilgrim; Whoredom in Kimmage) conveys readers along the longest river in the world, through narrative laced with insight, goodwill and sometimes sadness. Mahoney's writing style is conversational, her use of metaphor adept. She cleverly marshals the writings of numerous river travelers but focuses on "two troubled geniuses": Florence Nightingale and Gustave Flaubert. The device allows readers a backward glance at the Edwardian travel accoutrements of sumptuous riverside dinners, staggering supplies of alcohol and food, trunks of books and commodious accommodations. The physical environment is demanding. "When I removed my hat, the sun had made the top of my head sting... it was like having a freshly baked nail driven into one's skull." Yet her biggest obstacle isn't the climate but the slippery hurdles of culture and sex. Whether struggling to buy a boat, visiting historic Luxor or rowing, innocent encounters become sticky psychological and philosophical snares."

My thoughts: This is a late entry because I'm just not going to finish the last nonfiction book on my list in time, so I substituted this one, since I realized it was a nonfiction book read during the challenge period. I read it in the summer, so my memory's a bit fuzzy, but it definitely wasn't one of my favourites. The Edwardian parts got a bit long (though I did learn that Florence Nightingale was quite a remarkable and interesting woman and Flaubert a whiny little thing who wanted his mama) and I have no real interest in Egypt, so that didn't help.

But the whole journey seemed rather pointless to me. It took her as long to get a rowboat as it did to row down the small part of the Nile she traveled. Plus, she wasn't alone, she had to have a man in a boat follow her before she could go at all. Her determination to do it seemed misplaced to me, rather like the answer, "Because it's there." about climbing a mountain, which I've never found convincing. She didn't seem to enjoy it much. And the book ended very suddenly, with her going home rather depressed. She did have a good quote from (I think) Flaubert about being glad to go home at the end of a trip (I've definitely felt that, you sometimes do just want it to be over with if it's been a long journey) but the whole thing left me wondering why I'd had to read about it if she hadn't even enjoyed it firsthand.

Review: Silk

Silk by Alessandro Baricco
2.5 stars

Description: "In 1861 French silkworm merchant Hervé Joncour is compelled to travel to Japan, where, in the court of an enigmatic nobleman, he meets a woman. They do not touch; they do not even speak. And he cannot read the note she sends him until he has returned to his country. But in the moment he does, Joncour is possessed."

First line: "Although his father had pictured for him a brilliant career in the army, Hervé Joncour had ended up earning his crust in an unusual career which, by a singular piece of irony, was not unconnected with a charming side that bestowed on it a vaguely feminine intonation."

My thoughts: This book seems to have gotten raves all around the world. And it's quite an interesting book - it's like a haiku of a book, really. Very short, each chapter rarely longer than 3 or 4 paragraphs, if that. As they say on my favourite British real estate show "Small but perfectly formed." (I confess, as I started reading it, my reaction was "Yay! It's really short!' - I'm running out of time to finish all my reading challenges before the end of December.)

Unlike the other books I've read for Orbis Terrarum, I didn't see any hints of the author's Italian background. At first I thought this was strange, but then thought about all the historical fiction I've read that doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the author's country of origin. It's just that this happens to be the first book of the challenge that didn't contain anything like that.

Overall, the book just wasn't for me. I'm not really a novella person, I like more meat to my stories. The historical bits about the silk trade were fairly interesting, but about 1/8th of the text is repeating the lengthy trail of Joncour's journey to Japan each year, with barely any change in the paragraph from one year to the next. And I found the no-touching, no-speaking love affair a bit hard to believe.

But for someone willing to be carried away on the silken path, it could be just the thing.

Review: Among Other Things, I've Taken Up Smoking

Among Other Things, I've Taken Up Smoking by Aoibheann Sweeney
2.5 stars

Reasons for reading: Sam Houston's review; New-to-Me Author for Triple 8 Challenge

First line (unsurpisingly): "Among other things, I've taken up smoking."

My thoughts: This wasn't a bad book, it was just a bit dull. It was my pick for book club and I'm afraid I disappointed everyone (I usually pick funny books). But, as my friend Vidalia pointed out, it was "quick dull" rather than 700-pages dull. So that was something.

My favourite part were the descriptions of their tiny Maine island. Ana the coffee cart girl and Mr. Blackwell were interesting characters, although they remained fairly shadowy, particularly Mr. Blackwell. The inclusion of the myths from Ovid's Metamorphoses added another layer. But overall it was fairly predictable - the big "secret" of her father being gay wasn't much of a surprise nor was it a suprise that Miranda would be a lesbian when she finally allowed herself to interact with people.

I wanted to know how her father had supported them for 15 years while working on the same translation. Perhaps he inherited a lot of money along with the house. I did find it very sad that he seemed to have never really loved Miranda's mother nor helped Miranda to feel anything for her memory. I also found it very sad that for most of the book it seems as though he's content to let Mr. Blackwell raise her, barely noticing her existence except when he needs her to cook or type.

Again, it wasn't a bad story or even an unenjoyable read, it was just kind of blah. The main reason the book caught my eye was the title and that was the most novel thing about it.

BUT, Sam Houston wrote a great review of it here, so do take his much better-considered and better-written opinion under advisement.

Review: Elements of Style

Elements of Style by Wendy Wasserstein
2.5 stars

Reasons for reading: had been on my TBR list for ages; New York book for Triple 8 Challenge

Book description: Francesca Weissman, an Upper East Side pediatrician rated number one by Manhattan magazine, floats on the fringes of the upper strata of privilege and aspiration. Through her bemused eyes we meet the thoroughbred socialite Samantha Acton; relentless social climber Judy Tremont; Barry Santorini, an Oscar-winning moviemaker accustomed to having his way; his supermarket heiress wife, Clarice; and more, tossed together in a frothy stew of outrageous conspicuous consumption and adulterous affairs that play out on Page Six.

My thoughts: This book felt like Gossip Middle-Aged Women, rather than Girl. While I loved the first Gossip Girl book (and I watch the TV show, I admit it!), it's definitely not appealing behaviour in 40 year-olds. And the post-9/11 setting made it seem really dated, even though it was actually published in 2006. (Perhaps it was written in 2002 but not published til after Wasserstein passed away?) Not that we should forget the tragedy and I know it changed New York forever, but - and feel free to disagree with me - it seems to me that the time for making it a focus of novels has passed. Or maybe it was just this novel.

I'm quite interested in New York's high society, but if these women are its best, my interest may be misplaced. Actually, I've been wanting to read up on turn-of-the-century/early 20th century New York society - anyone know any good nonfiction on this topic?

The Washington Post's review included this: "If we don't feel sympathy for the majority of Wasserstein's characters, their creator would undoubtedly would have said, "Good. You weren't supposed to." " Well, I surely didn't. Even Frankie, the "good" character seems, at heart, very sad and a bit pathetic. The other reviews I skimmed through talked about it being hilarious and satirical, but it just wasn't there for me. There were a few funny, satirical moments, but everyone was so hateful it was hard to be anything but just disgusted by their behaviour.

And the worst part of it for me was what I saw as a complete lack of brightness for the future. Almost every character had died, gotten divorced, or suffered another tragedy by the end and things didn't seem poised to get any better. The only ones who seemed likely to go back to their lives unscathed were still shallow, self-centred, and basically cruel people. Wasserstein tried for a note of hope on the last page with an ill baby being released from the NICU (didn't have anything to do with the rest of the story, so I'm not giving anything away), but it wasn't enough.

This just isn't the best example of the older chick lit/NYC/socialite/bitchiness genre. For love-of-NYC and stylish women, I'd suggest Candace Bushnell and for bitchery I'd suggest Olivia Goldsmith.

Mini review: The Secret of the Mansion

The Secret of the Mansion (Trixie Belden, book 1) by Julie Campbell
2.5 stars

Reason for reading: Girl detective story for the Daring Book Challenge

Description: "Trixie’s summer is going to be sooo boring with her two older brothers away at camp. But then a millionaire’s daughter moves into the next-door mansion, an old miser hides a fortune in his decrepit house, and a runaway kid starts hiding out in Sleepyside!"

My thoughts: I've always wondered about Trixie Belden. I hadn't read any of the books as a kid, I wasn't really into the girl detective thing. But when Dewey's Weekly Geeks asked us to recall fave childhood books, tons of people chose Trixie. So when it came up on the Daring Books list, I thought I'd give it a go.

It was a fine book, full of spunk, friendship and adventures. It's just not really my thing, hence the 2.5 stars. I'm not sorry I read it, though, I think it's good for me to know about such an enduring children's classic. I actually thought it would be a lot more dated than it was, but it wasn't too bad, apart from things like having to call the operator to place a phone call and a few other references. I didn't dislike it, I just didn't have a really strong "wow!" reaction about it. But I can see why people would have it on their childhood faves list. And I'd put it in the hands of a kid at the library today, especially if their parents were looking for good clean reads. I guess I'm just not much of a girl detective girl.

Review: The Tail of Emily Windsnap

The Tail of Emily Windsnap by Liz Kessler
2.5 stars

Jennie asked: From what I know, The Tail of Emily Windsnap is about being a mermaid. However, I've only read the back of the book. What else is the book about? Are you interested in reading the sequel? It's also a children's book. Would you recommend it to adult readers?

It's basically about a mermaid. :-) It's also about interspecies breeding and wrongful imprisonment, how's that for a children's story?!

Here's how School Library Journal sums the book up: "Seventh-grader Emily Windsnap has never learned to swim, in spite of the fact that she and her mother live on a houseboat. When she finally takes a swimming class at school, her legs turn into a fishtail. She tries to hide her strange affliction, but something draws her to the sparkling surf. Soon, she is secretly gliding through the water as a mermaid. Below the waves, she meets Shona, also 12, who takes her to mermaid school and leads her on several adventures. When Emily learns the intriguing history of the Shiprock community and of illegal marriages between humans and merpeople, she begins to look for her merman father. Danger, humor, confrontation, and even a trial before Neptune all play a part in her search. Eventually, she finds her dad and comes to understand the truth about her oddly controlling neighbor, Mr. Beeston; her mother's dislike of water; and her parents' love affair. All ends well when the family is reunited and swims away to live a new life on a secret merfolk island."

I wouldn't not recommend it to adult readers, but it's definitely a younger kids' book with not a lot to it. It's not a bad story, but there's not a whole lot of character development and I rather found the way the mer-people had been controlling her mother for 12 years pretty creepy. I won't be reading the sequel. I read this one because I had to do a booktalk on it (and I do love mermaids) and I don't regret it, but I don't really care what happens to the Windsnap family.

But I'd recommend it to 7-10 year-old girls and their parents, it's a fun little story and I'd say it's certainly better than reading the latest Hannah Montana paperback or whatever type of fairies Daisy Meadows is up to now.

Review: Late Nights on Air

Late Nights on Air by Elizabeth Hay
2.5 stars

Reasons for reading: Book club, Canadian author for the Orbis Terrarum Challenge

Book description: "Harry Boyd, a hard-bitten refugee from failure in Toronto television, has returned to a small radio station in the Canadian North. There, in Yellowknife, in the summer of 1975, he falls in love with a voice on air, though the real woman, Dido Paris, is both a surprise and even more than he imagined. Dido and Harry are part of the cast of eccentric, utterly loveable characters, all transplants from elsewhere, who form an unlikely group at the station... One summer, on a canoe trip four of them make into the Arctic wilderness (following in the steps of the legendary Englishman John Hornby, who, along with his small party, starved to death in the barrens in 1927), they find the balance of love shifting, much as the balance of power in the North is being changed by the proposed Mackenzie Valley gas pipeline, which threatens to displace Native people from their land."

First line: "Harry was in his little house on the edge of Back Bay when at half past twelve her voice came over the radio for the first time."

My thoughts: While not as utterly dreary as a great deal of Canadian fiction, this one didn't do a lot for me. I didn't hate it, but overall it felt pretty blah. I really agree with Nicholas Maes' review in Books in Canada:

"Another weakness is that the novel lacks a sense of urgency and forward momentum. Very often, somewhat inexplicably, we are warned in advance that some character's decision will lead to misfortune down the road, or that situation A will cause (dramatic) situation B. Perhaps Hay felt such milestones were necessary because events on their own wouldn't sweep the audience along... Even the romance in the novel is resolved without much emotional fanfare... Eleanor loses Ralph the very day he has proposed to her, and the loss is more capricious than necessary or devastating. Harry has seemingly slipped away from Gwen, but then tumbles into her lap eight years later. This turn of events seems such a matter of happenstance that the reader, while wishing the couple well, doesn't really care one way or another."

That was my feeling through most of the novel, not really caring. It seemed like the novel was made up of too many uninteresting things strung together with a few interesting ones. The Mackenzie Pipeline Inquiry stuff was dull and I never want to read about frozen lakes or herds of caribou ever again.

The foreshadowing mentioned in the review really bugged me - it was so incredibly blatant that it was annoying. And really, after all that buildup, the tragedy is sad but not particularly earth-shattering. I tired of the constant references to John Hornby's doomed expedition (more heavy-handed foreshadowing) and couldn't quite get past the sheer stupidity of novices attempting that journey through the Arctic. I was actually expecting all of them to die.

The characters' relationships struck me as odd quite often. People falling in love rather suddenly, people being attracted to horrid people - it's hard to imagine why every man (and the occasional woman) she met would fall in love with an utter bitch like Dido. She and the loathsome Eddy were made for each other. While I liked both Gwen and Harry, their relationship - with a 20-year age gap and a failed marriage each - did seem "happenstance," almost as though they ended up together because they were the only two left to get out of Yellowknife relatively unscathed.

The radio station parts were well done, especially when Gwen was learning the ropes (I liked how she was enchanted by the tiny little sound-effect door). I'd now like to know more about Yellowknife and I particularly enjoyed the descriptions of the almost endless daylight in the summer Hay does have some really well-crafted passages. To me, the radio station and Barrens trip combined would have been enough for a good story, if they had been allowed to gain more momentum and not get bogged down by extra threads.

Review: Real Vampires Have Curves

Real Vampires Have Curves by Gerry Bartlett
2.5 stars

Reasons for reading: thought it would be fun to mix chick lit with vampire lit; Triple 8 Challenge

Book description:

What—did you think all vamps were pale, thin and brooding? Don’t I wish.

Me, I just happened to be bloating when a sexy Scotsman sank his teeth into me, so here I am, eternally “full-figured.” On the plus side, Glory St. Claire can rock a corset like nobody’s business. Oh, and as for Angus Jeremiah Campbell III, aka Jeremy Blade? We’ve been on and off again for centuries, currently off. After a couple hundred years we sure know how to press each other’s hot buttons—in good ways and bad.

The whole never-aging thing means that a girl’s gotta keep moving, and I’m headed for Austin and a new business venture: Vintage Vamp’s Emporium. After all, I love cute clothes, and I am an antique. Only problem is, there’s a billionaire techno-freak vampire hunter on the loose. Blade’s in total he-vampire mode, and orders me to move in so he can “protect” me. But I’m sick of the not-so-little woman thing. It’s time for this vamp to explore her own powers . . .

My thoughts: I really wanted to like this one more than I did - look how cute the cover is! But it was, as Randy Jackson would say to an American Idol hopeful, just a'ight for me.

My main problem was the large amount of repetition. Worse, everything being repeated was really irksome. Every chapter Glory had to remind the reader that:

1) She really wants to be independent, you know. She doesn't need Blade to protect her. Yeah, she knows she has his magical guard dog and that he's always rushing to her rescue, but she doesn't need him or anything.

2) She and Blade have been having really hot sex for centuries. And it's still hot.

3) Vamps have a lot of really cool powers that she never bothered to learn, like shape-shifting. And she hates it when other vamps read her mind, but she can't be bothered to learn how to block them. And when she finally does decide to learn them (because her "life" is at stake - pardon the pun) she has to remind the reader that she's working on learning what she didn't learn centuries ago.

4) She's fat.

Hello, I have been reading the book. I managed to grasp all these facts the first time they were mentioned. If you thought maybe it was beyond me, a second time would've been okay. But not over and over and over.

Glory came off as pretty pathetic, combining the worst traits of the worst characters in bad chick lit. Two hot vampire guys are lusting after her and all she can think about is her jiggly butt. She could do all kinds of amazing, powerful things, but she just never bothered to learn. She wants to be independent but rather than having managed to make or save any money over the centuries, she has to live hand to mouth until she finally opens the shop. Now, I did admire her for wanting to make her dream come true and I thought the shop was cool, but hearing her tell everyone how independent she is while sexy uber-vamp Damian finds her the location of her shop/apartment, his sister Florence moves in with her, and Blade soon moves to Austin to look after her, it starts to ring a bit false. I'd have had a much easier time of it if she admitted she loved Blade and, while not wanting to live in his castle and play the meek Scottish lass, she still enjoyed that he looked after her. She does redeem herself a bit in the end by finally using her powers, so I suppose she's grown, but it wasn't quite enough to make up for the litany of lameness.

And I guess I wasn't expecting it to be so Harlequin romancey - the vampire sex, complete with biting and mind-reading, kinda creeped me out.

Review: The Devil of Nanking

The Devil of Nanking by Mo Hayder
2.5 stars

Summary (from Barnes and Noble): Grey, a young Englishwoman with a troubled past including a dramatic mental breakdown and a Carrie-like shame about sexuality, has just arrived in Tokyo, penniless, unprepared, and on a mission. For years she's been obsessed with a rare, possibly fictitious film artifact-a film made by the Japanese during the Nanking massacre, depicting a very specific incidence of torture. Flunking out of graduate school because she did nothing but obsess over the film, she thinks she has found the man who possesses it-Shi Chongming, a Chinese survivor of the massacre now teaching at Todai University in Tokyo-but he will have nothing to do with her.

Then an attractive stranger becomes her angel-hooking Grey up with a place to live, and a job that will have unforeseen consequences, in a high-class hostess bar. Shy and schoolteacherish in dress, Grey gradually learns to embrace her femininity, just as it becomes clear that an old, decrepit, but incredibly powerful yakuza gangster, one of the club's regulars, is the key to gaining Professor Shi's trust, because he has something the professor wants-an elixir of unknown origin, which is keeping his decrepit body alive. If Grey can get the formula, the film is hers. It's a devil's bargain-but who, really, is The Devil of Nanking?

My thoughts: Okay, for technical merit, this book actually gets 4 stars. It was a well-crafted thriller with excellent atmosphere. For example, you can picture every detail of the rambling, spooky, decaying house where Grey lives and well as the neon nightlife of Tokyo. But, Hayder's talent for powerful description extends to every horrifying, disgusting, creepy, stomach-turning person, place, and event in the novel. And that's why it only gets 2.5 - this is an incredibly disturbing book. If I hadn't been reading it for book club, I would have stopped reading it. I just couldn't understand why I was having to read about so much horror - not just during the war, but in present-day Japan, as well. Murders with entrails displayed artistically, rape, cannibalism - basically everything that makes one despair for humankind was in there.

None of the characters were likeable. It was really hard to empathize with Grey. She's clearly incredibly disturbed, apparently due to a childhood so sheltered and strange that it was a form of abuse. She's obsessed with Nanking and you don't really find out why until the very end, so it was hard for me to understand why she'd let it rule her life. Shi Chongming came off as a very hard, unkind man. He refused to escape Nanking with his pregnant wife - first because he had faith in the government and then because of his pride. Of course, he couldn't know the extent of the horror that was coming, but there are at least 6 episodes where things keep getting worse and he still won't leave until it's beyond too late. He's also cruel to Grey, sending her into the den of the yakuza to get the "formula," armed only with cryptic clues, when he already knew what it was.

The ending actually made the book a bit better for me - it's not a surprise ending, but everything meshes together and becomes clear. I didn't hate it quite as much once everything was resolved.

I'm wondering about Hayder's other works - I thought her writing was really good, but if all of her books have that level of disgustingness in them, I won't be checking them out.

Favourite character: There was one, at least - Mama Strawberry, the owner of the Some Like It Hot club where Grey works as a hostess. She's obsessed with Marilyn Monroe (the club has a huge Marilyn perched on a rocking swing on the roof) and only wears clothes based on ones she wore in movies or public appearances. She's constantly saying how much better the clothes suit her than Marilyn. But despite that oddness, she seems to be an excellent businesswoman and she comes to truly care about Grey. I have a soft spot for Marilyn, myself, so I also enjoyed seeing what Strawberry would be wearing next.

For a much better-written review of The Devil of Nanking, check out my friend and fellow book-clubber Vidalia's post about it here.