by Stephenie Meyer (498 pgs)
Little, Brown, and Company 2005
Rating: 5
Bella Swan, daughter of Chief Charlie Swan, made the difficult decision to forsake her beloved Phoenix sun and move in with her dad. Unfortunately, Chief Swan lives in the rainiest place in the country: Forks, Washington. Forks is a very small town and Bella, as a fairly attractive girl, quickly makes a whole host of friends, including the enigmatic Edward Cullens. All the Cullens are a little strange: pale, aloof, good at everything. Edward, however, seems to quickly flip between fascination of Bella and hatred.
The writing style was clear and engaging. Meyer's true strength is in her characterizations. Her characters are brilliantly painted and distinct from each other. Despite the fantastical nature of the subject matter, the characters and events feel real and a swoon-worthy love story doesn't hurt any.
Recommend to a broad female audience and anyone who got hung up on Buffy. Appropriate for most school settings.
Showing posts with label Rating 5. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rating 5. Show all posts
Thursday, December 06, 2007
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
12. Fall on Your Knees
by Anne Marie MacDonald (512 pgs)
Rating: 4
The Piper family from Cape Breton starts ignominiously with a cross racial elopement of a young man (16) and a young Lebanese girl (13). Neither of them are truly ready for the responsibilities of married life and the girl particularly is not ready for the realities of motherhood. With their three daughters the family survives the first and second world wars, economic depression, and intercultural/racial misunderstanding.
Fall On Your Knees is an extremely well written book. MacDonald manages to cover sometimes shocking material in a way that doesn't feel like a play for shock value. This family has secrets and MacDonald's writing frames them and sets them up for discovery. It covers the history and time of pre war Canada in way that blends almost unnoticeably into the narrative.
Recommended to people who like family dramas or who have an interest in genealogies.
Rating: 4
The Piper family from Cape Breton starts ignominiously with a cross racial elopement of a young man (16) and a young Lebanese girl (13). Neither of them are truly ready for the responsibilities of married life and the girl particularly is not ready for the realities of motherhood. With their three daughters the family survives the first and second world wars, economic depression, and intercultural/racial misunderstanding.
Fall On Your Knees is an extremely well written book. MacDonald manages to cover sometimes shocking material in a way that doesn't feel like a play for shock value. This family has secrets and MacDonald's writing frames them and sets them up for discovery. It covers the history and time of pre war Canada in way that blends almost unnoticeably into the narrative.
Recommended to people who like family dramas or who have an interest in genealogies.
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
10. Tender At the Bone: Growing Up At the Table (NF2)
by Ruth Reichl (304 pgs)
Rating: 5
Ruth Reichl, in case you don't know, is the restaurant reviewer for the New York Times. This, her first memoir, covers from her childhood through to the 1970s. It's an interesting read partly because her family is so eccentric and partly because of Reichl's conversational tone. I began to feel that she was sitting on the other side of my kitchen table with a mug of coffee and telling me about here bi-polar mother and her misspent teenage years. Her frankness in the telling stops well shy of being embarrassing and is instead a comforting level of confiding.
Tender At the Bone is a very good, very quick read. I suspect that it may appeal slightly more to women then to men, but I think that's more incidental than intentional. The recipes look interesting although there are only a couple I suspect I will try.
Recommended to everyone, but specifically those who love to cook, those who love to eat, and those with crazy families.
Rating: 5
Ruth Reichl, in case you don't know, is the restaurant reviewer for the New York Times. This, her first memoir, covers from her childhood through to the 1970s. It's an interesting read partly because her family is so eccentric and partly because of Reichl's conversational tone. I began to feel that she was sitting on the other side of my kitchen table with a mug of coffee and telling me about here bi-polar mother and her misspent teenage years. Her frankness in the telling stops well shy of being embarrassing and is instead a comforting level of confiding.
Tender At the Bone is a very good, very quick read. I suspect that it may appeal slightly more to women then to men, but I think that's more incidental than intentional. The recipes look interesting although there are only a couple I suspect I will try.
Recommended to everyone, but specifically those who love to cook, those who love to eat, and those with crazy families.
Wednesday, January 03, 2007
3. The Tent
by Margaret Atwood (158 pgs)
Rating 5
The Tent is a collection of short fiction and essays gathered from a variety of sources. Never having read Atwood before, I can't say how representative these are of her style but I loved them! There's a broad mix of genre and subject matter.
I recommend this book to everyone. :)
Rating 5
The Tent is a collection of short fiction and essays gathered from a variety of sources. Never having read Atwood before, I can't say how representative these are of her style but I loved them! There's a broad mix of genre and subject matter.
I recommend this book to everyone. :)
Friday, December 15, 2006
The Ratings
To make life easier for me I've also devised a rating system. Every book gets a rating of 1-5 and here's what it means. (adapted from it's original form from the beginning of last year.)
5 - I loved it, I'm going to own it, I am in fact going to buy multiple copies and promote this book by handing them out for free at church socials and company picnics.
4 - I liked it. I definitely want to have a copy in my library and recommend it to most people.
3 - I liked it well enough, if I see a cheap used copy of it I'll snag it for my collection. I would recommend this book to some people or for specific reasons.
2 - I didn't hate, didn't like it either. I wouldn't generally recommend it to most people.
1 - I hated it or severely disliked it. There has to be a serious problem with the writing or the subject matter for a book to get this rating. In the last 2 years I've only run across 2 or 3 of these. The likelyhood that one of these will appear on the blog is pretty low since...why waste time on something so bad?
5 - I loved it, I'm going to own it, I am in fact going to buy multiple copies and promote this book by handing them out for free at church socials and company picnics.
4 - I liked it. I definitely want to have a copy in my library and recommend it to most people.
3 - I liked it well enough, if I see a cheap used copy of it I'll snag it for my collection. I would recommend this book to some people or for specific reasons.
2 - I didn't hate, didn't like it either. I wouldn't generally recommend it to most people.
1 - I hated it or severely disliked it. There has to be a serious problem with the writing or the subject matter for a book to get this rating. In the last 2 years I've only run across 2 or 3 of these. The likelyhood that one of these will appear on the blog is pretty low since...why waste time on something so bad?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)