Here There Be Books (BL)

4:00 pm 25 January 2013

Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen

It’s a fine enough memoir. It covers the important parts of the year Julie Powell spent cooking from [b:Mastering the Art of French Cooking Vol. 1|129650|Mastering the Art of French Cooking (Vol. 1)|Julia Child|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1333577773s/129650.jpg|2897158], and it delves deep into introspection and feelings and etc.– not just facts and events, in other words. There’s humor, and a few excellent sentences that made me want to roll around like a puppy in the sunshine, and though it’s not the best memoir I’ve ever read, neither is it the worst.Also, it made me REALLY hungry.Read the rest of my review at my blog!

4:00 pm 24 January 2013

War for the Oaks: A Novel

I bought this book back in 2005 at the Mall of America, before I knew how to pack enough reading materials into my bags so I didn’t run out halfway through a road trip. I don’t think I knew what urban fantasy was back then, but I liked the cover and I had enough of my allowance left so hey! Why not, right? I think the blurb from Neil Gaiman helped me decide, too, though it’s probably the least useful blurb I’ve ever seen.So this was my intro to Emma Bull! And I think it’s a pretty darned good one. It’s no longer my favorite urban fantasy book, but I still definitely enjoy reading it. Sure, there’s some dated stuff (the clothing, mostly) and a really depressing event near the end that makes me scream “WHYYYYYYYY” every time I read it, but it’s still an excellent urban fantasy book. It’s got rock n’ roll and scary violence and an interesting cast of characters. I like especially that it’s set in Minneapolis– the “flyover” states still don’t get much love in fantasy nowadays, and I have a fondness for Minnesota-set stories anyway (I lived there when I was little).My favorite Emma Bull book (so far) is still Freedom and Necessity, but if you’re more into modern fantasy than historical fantasy, War for the Oaks is a worth a read for sure.This review was originally posted at my blog.

4:00 pm 20 January 2013

Sammy Keyes and the Hotel Thief

This is one of my favorite middle grade mystery series, and I kinda think it doesn’t get talked about enough. I don’t know WHY, either, because they’re really good books. The writing: excellent. The characters: layered and complex and amazing. The mysteries: not super complicated, but still interesting and (y’know) mysterious.What hit me the most during this reread is how much Sammy is like a tiny Veronica Mars. The book series came out before the TV show, and I am seriously wondering whether the writers of the show had read any of the Sammy Keyes books beforehand. Sammy’s sarcastic and clever and she doesn’t pull punches, and though the book series isn’t as dark and/or depressing as Veronica Mars sometimes got, it’s still got a lot of emotional maturity running throughout.Read the rest of my review at my blog.

4:00 pm 18 January 2013

The Liar Society

This was a light and fluffy read-- fluffier than I was expecting, tbh, but perhaps that was because I read it so close to two serious books. Anyway! Kate is an unfortunately stupid teen detective; definitely not a Veronica Mars or Nancy Drew. More like a Shaggy, if anything-- only she's more fashionable, soooo: Daphne? Yeah, definitely Daphne.This made for a slightly frustrating reading experience, because I could SEE that Kate was being dumb, and not figuring out obvious things, and it was driving me NUTS.Read the rest of the review at my blog!

4:00 pm 17 January 2013

Adaptation

Sci-fi! And romance! And aliens! Yay! I LOVED Adaptation, [a:Malinda Lo|2884780|Malinda Lo|http://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1241172048p2/2884780.jpg]’s newest book. I liked [b:Ash|6363322|Ash|Malinda Lo|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1342965660s/6363322.jpg|6550542], and I’ll probably like [b:Huntress|1421990|Halfway to the Grave (Night Huntress, #1)|Jeaniene Frost|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1330786464s/1421990.jpg|1412415] whenever I finally read it, but Adaptation is AWESOME. The plot! Was so exciting! At first I thought it was going in a dystopian sort of way, and then it didn’t. Anyway, it was enthralling. I read it all in one go and I can’t WAIT to read the next book.Read the rest of my review at Birdbrain(ed) Book Blog.

4:00 pm 16 January 2013

April Lady

Originally reviewed at Here There Be Books.My first Georgette Heyer book, a mystery, did not go so well. April Lady, on the other hand, is a regency romance and it was SO. MUCH. BETTER! Huzzah! Thanks so much to the nice lady at the Sourcebooks booth who recommended April Lady to me at ALA Annual last year. I did indeed enjoy it! Yes!An interesting thing about this romance is that the hero and heroine are already married. But! They are married in the PAST, aka history, and that means they each think the other married them for convenience (and/or cash monies) and so there are misunderstandings and sadfaces all around. The misunderstandings, though, actually make sense and didn't annoy me! Which is definitely yay-worthy because tbh most romances with misunderstandings at the center of the plot tend to be really, really stupid. April Lady is not that kind of book.I really love it when the hero is desperately in love with the heroine, and it makes him go growly sometimes. But not in an abusive way! And yeah, Nell is kinda dumb. But she's a teenager who (I think) didn't even go to finishing school, so what do you expect, eh? One thing, though: Letty, Nell's sister-in-law, is a spoiled brat. She has a huge tantrum that lasts about half of the book. I'm surprised she didn't throw a clot and die, but that would've maybe been too serious for April Lady. But OH, how I wish it had happened! Letty! I hate you. I can't BELIEVE everyone around you just gave in and let you have what you wanted after you screwed them all around for 150 pages. If ever there was a time for tragedy and death and Dire Consequences, it was IN THIS BOOK. Or at least a debilitating fire or something! Sheesh.

4:00 pm 14 January 2013

Half Magic

This isn’t my favorite [a:Edward Eager|131683|Edward Eager|http://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1238364444p2/131683.jpg] book, but it’s the only one I have so far. So! [b:Half Magic|225038|Half Magic (Tales of Magic, #1)|Edward Eager|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1328876902s/225038.jpg|1441544] is a cute book, though not without its 1950s problems of light racism/sexism. The girls are all preteen housewives, and there’s a semi-uncomfortable scene with the kids and an Arabian villain. However! There’s ALSO another scene where Katherine turns herself into a knight and kicks Lancelot1 in the rear during a tournament. So it kinda balances out!I also really adore the little romance between the kids’ mother and the not-terrible adult man who help them untwist their problems. Plus, happy ending! Yay!There’s seven books in this series but I think they all have different kids in them– so if you hated these kids, you aren’t stuck with them for long. What I really want to read is the Edward Eager book I meant to buy when I bought Half Magic. It wasn’t in the store back then, and it’s been SO long since that time that I can no longer remember wtf the book I wanted IS. Maybe it was [b:Magic or Not|312080|Magic or Not? (Tales of Magic, #5)|Edward Eager|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1173656337s/312080.jpg|824544]? That sounds familiar. Le sigh.This review was originally posted here at my blog.

4:00 pm 14 January 2013

The Raven Boys

I have NEVER read a Maggie Stiefvater book before, which you’ll understand if you consider her previously published books. Paranormal romance trilogy with werewolves and a love triangle? Eh. Dystopian thingy? Eh. Not really anything that personally interests me at the moment, so even though lots of people love her books and there’s tons of hype about everything she does, I have neglected to actually read any of her stuff.Then came ALA, and there was a big pile of ARCs just sitting around staring at me, and the cover was SO pretty and I looked at the summary and I thought: why not? It didn’t LOOK like a paranormal romance (and it’s not, though there is, in fact, a romance) and I like stories with psychics and whatnot. So! I took a copy.And then I forgot about it until one of my Goodreads groups picked it for the monthly readalong. Well! Why not read it now, I thought. And so I did. And I am KICKING MYSELF.WHY have I not read a [a:Maggie Stiefvater|1330292|Maggie Stiefvater|http://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1359424840p2/1330292.jpg] book before?! Or at least THIS book– why did I wait so long? [b:The Raven Boys|13449693|The Raven Boys (The Raven Cycle, #1)|Maggie Stiefvater|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1346601744s/13449693.jpg|18970934] is SO. GOOD. OMFG.Read the rest of my review here.

4:00 pm 12 January 2013

Mechanicals: A Steampunk Novel of the Crimean War

Alternate history books are some of my favorite things! It's the "what if" aspect that interests me. In Mechanicals, the "what if" is "what if someone invented giant killer Gundams and used them in the Crimean war (and also there's a secret society of paranormal investigators fiddling with things)?" Paranormal steampunk just so happens to be ANOTHER of my favorite things, and so basically there was no way I wasn't downloading this book when it was freebied last month.What do I know about the Crimean war? Nothing, really, except that England and Russia were involved and that it's one of the main thingies in [b:The Eyre Affair|27003|The Eyre Affair (Thursday Next #1)|Jasper Fforde|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1309201183s/27003.jpg|3436605]. I don't think not knowing about the war hurt me any, but like all alt. histories books I'd probably have been better off if I could identify major changes. I can't remember if the cause of this version of the Crimean was ever really explained, either, which probably isn't good. There was some confusing stuff at the end with Rasputin that I didn't quite understand, and which I think confused the whole book's plot for me. Up until he showed up, I THOUGHT I knew what was going on, and then suddenly I didn't. Maybe I just got the various plotlines tangled up-- I'm not sure.There are three different plotlines in Mechanicals, which works well enough until it turns in four and then it's just a little too much. --> Read the rest of my review at my blog (goes live Jan. 28, 2013)!

4:00 pm 11 January 2013

Makers

Makers is set in the near-future, which is something that tends to interest me. I like seeing what authors think our future is going to be like, and CD apparently thinks ours is going to basically be like it is now, only with people wearing fetus necklaces as fashion statements. (Seriously.)Other things in this book: a serious anti-fat obsession culminating in a medical breakthrough that makes people un-fat with a few pills, anti/pro-Disney flipflopping, people crying all over the place, a brief fling at a new way of running businesses that fails horribly, a REALLY TERRIBLE sex scene that did nothing except gross me the hell out, and various things CD is interested in, like blogging and inventing stuff out of garbage and so on.The blogging and inventing stuff was the most interesting part of the book; the rest of it...oh, I don’t know. Like most of CD’s books, there’s a LOT packed in here. I don’t really want to unpack it all because I have other stuff to do, okay– but for once the multitudes of topics feels relatively even. Sometimes, in his earlier books, he’d go off on a tangent about wifi routers or whatever and it didn’t fit anywhere into the main plotline and made no sense in the context of the rest of the book. Here, everything fits. So huzzah for that!Read the rest of my review at my blog.

4:00 pm 9 January 2013

Anne of Avonlea (Anne of Green Gables Series #2)

For some reason it seemed less adventurous than the first book? Maybe because Anne herself is growing up; she’s a Young Adult in this book, not a kid,1 and so though she still gets herself into trouble she handles it like an ideal almost-adult would. Which is great for character development! But it’s slightly less exciting to read about someone handling problems with dignity and decorum than about that same someone causing a ruckus. Watching someone throwing a tantrum in real life is scary, but in a book it makes for good reading! Although, now that I think about it, if she HAD acted exactly like she did in the first book, I’d be complaining about THAT instead. Can’t win either way!Read the rest of my review at my blog.

4:00 pm 6 January 2013

The Princess and the Goblin (Puffin Classics)

For some reason Princess Irene's age surprised me. Like, I know this is a children's book and thus it (logically) stars children, but the cover makes her look about 12-14. She's actually something like 6-8(?) and very much that perfect Victorian "innocent child" ideal that makes me want to throw up.There's a whole thing about how every little girl can be a princess, though, not just the ones born into it, so it's not AS annoying as it could be. It's actually almost subversive-- Irene's not a perfect kid because she's royalty, she's perfect because she's got the "princess" attitude. Curdie's likewise a prince, despite being born a miner's son. So that's kinda sticking it to the people who think only the nobility can be, well, noble! Which is neat.Read the rest of my review here!

4:00 pm 5 January 2013

The Time Traders (Vintage Ace SF, F-386)

My second [a:Andre Norton|4766|Andre Norton|http://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1202314064p2/4766.jpg] book! Unfortunately, I didn't really like it. It's sci-fi, which is what she's famous for, so that's good. There's time travel! I like time travel, generally. And there's also aliens(?) and lots of Cold War stuff, which can both be interesting.[2. especially if you're interested in xenophobia and social movements and whatnot.] However! Despite all the good stuff, I just couldn't get into this book. I think my main problem was that even though it's set roughly 60+ years into the future from when it was written, it's all "RUSSIA IS EVIL AND OUT TO GET US." Which fits with the time period it was written in! And I can see why someone who was living back then would think that Russia was still a major threat way into the future. But. Er. From my perspective, now, it just seems kinda overblown and silly.Read the rest of my review at Birdbrain(ed) Book Blog!

4:00 pm 3 January 2013

Warrior's Apprentice (Vorkosigan)

The Warrior's Apprentice - Lois McMaster Bujold

I really liked the way certain plotlines were handled in The Warrior's Apprentice. For example, the romance subplot between Miles and Elena. No spoilers (just in case), but in almost any other (newer) YA book I KNOW the romance would have gone a different way, or it'd have been drawn out for another two books and probably a love triangle would've been thrown in just to annoy me even more. But The Warrior's Apprentice didn't do any of that! Yay! Elena had MAJOR character development, told hold of her own destiny, and became way more interesting to me than she was in the beginning of the story. By the end she was no longer just Elena, the girl Miles had a crush on. She was her own person. Huzzah!Read the rest of my review at Birdbrain(ed) Book Blog. (Goes live Jan. 14, 2013!)

4:00 pm 1 January 2013

Barrayar (Vorkosigan)

The sci-fi in this book is more perpendicular to the main story than it was in Shards of Honor; Barrayar reminds me more than anything of those classic books where people duked it out for the succession of some kingdom and there's a lot of conspiracies and spies and stuff. And fighting! So if you like more action than romance, you're set. (But the romance is SO NICE! Yes.)Read the rest of my review at my book blog.

4:00 pm 31 December 2012

Shards of Honour (Vorkosigan)

Cordelia Naismith, scientist-soldier and all-around amazing lady. She’s got red hair and she can use a (stunner)gun, but she’s not Action Woman. She’s not fiesty– okay, no, that’s wrong. She IS fiesty, but not in that superficial way that modern female characters are expected to be fiesty. And she CAN kick butt when she needs to but she mostly doesn’t like it. I really liked Cordelia because she’s got all the good stuff I enjoy reading about in a character and she’s got real depth of human emotions. That right there? Is because of how wonderful the writing is.Read the rest of my review at my book blog.