Tahleen reviews: "Unfamiliar Fishes" by Sarah Vowell

Title: Unfamiliar Fishes
Author: Sarah Vowell
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio, 2011 (print available from Riverhead Trade)
Narrator: Sarah Vowell

Rating: 4.5 stars

Have you ever wondered how the United States came to acquire Hawaii? Do you know anything about the history of the last state to join the country? Sarah Vowell, in her typical sarcastically funny and intelligent fashion, takes us through the history of this chain of islands that have been through so much. From the ancient Hawaiians, to the missionaries that first stepped on the shores, to President McKinley making Hawaii officially part of the United States, Vowell tells us all about the dynamic history of Hawaii.

How have I made it this far in my life without reading one of Sarah Vowell's books? This book is fantastic. I loved Vowell's voice; she puts herself into the story as much as all of the historical figures and events, and the story is richer for it. We start with her contemplating her plate lunch, and how all these different cultures are together on one plate in Hawaii. She launches into the history and culture, both past and present. Her biting comments, quirky choice of words, and funny asides kept me listening and eager to hear more.

I picked up this audiobook because my fiance and I are going to Hawaii for our honeymoon, and I wanted to know more about it. Plus, I've heard great things about Vowell. I wasn't disappointed. Not only did I learn a great deal about the history and culture, but I was entertained throughout it with Vowell's unique style of writing. I was kind of surprised at how much I didn't know about the islands, though I suppose I shouldn't have been. We don't learn this stuff in school, and I had no reason to learn about it before this. Not that that's an excuse, but my interest was piqued when I learned I'd actually be going there.

A note on the audio edition: At first I was completely turned off by Vowell's voice. It was whinier than I was expecting. But I got used to it, and eventually started to really like how she narrated her writing in deadpan and in a conversational way. I would definitely listen to another one of her audiobooks, and most likely will. I can't wait to get my hands on Vowell's other work.

Disclosure: I got this from the library.

When Someecards Say It Best....

Today I was in an epically bad mood at work today which resulted in indulging in my favorite past time....scouring Someecards for funny things. Thus, this post and my Wedding Wednesday post on my personal book blog are all about the Someecards.

Some of my favorite bookish Someecards...for shits and giggles today.

THIS IS TRUE. This is a very important skill when you are almost done with an epic book and NEEEED to finish it and waiting until work is over will not cut it!

 Best kind of book club :P

I have so many people I'd kill off in a book...not just past relationships!

 WHY DO PEOPLE DO THIS?!

 And this is when the book blogging community makes me feel sane..

ALL THE TIME.

Here's to hoping for a better day tomorrow...and if that doesn't help I'll probably hide under my desk and read a book.

Top Ten Books I'd Play Hooky With - A Top Ten List With Jamie

 

There are probably a million ways you can interpret this week's prompt but I'm going to go with the Top Ten Books (On My Shelf) That I'd Play Hooky With....it's just too bad I don't actually have much PTO left with to actually let myself PLAY hooky because of all the wedding/honeymoon time I'll be taking off come August.


Let's be real here...I'd play hooky from work with ANY book EVER but I would definitely play hooky with these books on a nice spring day...

 1. Starters by Lissa Price: I've heard how utterly addicting this dystopian YA novel is and I feel as though it'd be the perfect book to just absolutely DEVOUR while playing hooky from (and trying to forget about) my life as a marketing professional.

2. Second Helpings by Megan McCafferty: My friends are going to kill me but as much as I LOVE LOVE LOVED Sloppy Firsts when I FINALLY read it in September, I just have procrastinated getting to this one next even though I'm already obsessed. Hanging out with Jessica Darling and Marcus Flutie sure sounds like the makings of a fun filled day of playing hooky.

3. Shift by Jeri-Smith Ready: Jen from Makeshift Bookmark is going to punch me in the face for this but after finishing (and LOVING) Shade by Jeri Smith-Ready I kept making plans to read this one but it just kept getting pushed down the pile because of review books and just general wedding planning madness.  I think Nurse Jen needs to write me a fake sick note so I can stay home and read this?

4. In A Sunburned Country by Bill Bryson: I keep meaning to read this one. Nothing like a little armchair travels and daydreams on a fake sick day from work to make me happy. Hard to daydream about places I want to go with the click click click of people typing and the most visually uninspiring work space ever.

5. Outlander by Diana Gabaldon: What better way to spend a day off than trying to make a dent in the biggest freaking book on your shelf? Ok...well one of the biggest. It's looks so daunting!

6. Dreamless by Josephine Angelini: Ever since this came in the mail last week I've been DYING to just find a huge chunk of time to devour it. I could be persuaded to play hooky from work to read this. Starcrossed was so easy to get lost in and I'm hoping this will be similar. 


7. Harry Potter: Dude, you guys. I have admitted this crime/dirty little secret several times on both this blog and my personal book blog but I STILL have not read this series. Like  WHAT IS IT GOING TO TAKE FOR ME TO MAKE TIME TO DO THIS?! A day of skipping work is maybe what I need! I CAN DO ANYYYYTHING. PS. Do you like how I tried to bury this within my list hoping you would not see it? 


8. Bridal Bargains: Secrets to Throwing a Fantastic Wedding on a Realistic Budget: Ok you all might think this is a lame way to spend a day playing hooky because shouldn't playing hooky be FUN AND FROLICKING?? Well, friends, NOT if you are  planning a wedding and only have five months to go and have SEVERELY procrastinated. Let's be honest, I'd be knee deep in favors, flowers and family seating drama-rama with a day off. WOMP WOMP. Lamest hooky day ever.

9. Something Strange and Deadly by Susan Dennard: I hadn't heard of this book until it made its way into my mailbox but seriously...parasols, corsets, zombies and a Victorian setting? How could I not play hooky with this one? While I'm picky with my paranormal, I always love just spending a whole day in a crazy world and this seems so interesting! HarperTeen, are you prepared to plead my case when I get fired for playing hooky? :P

10. Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen: Last week mentioned that I needed a little Austen on my Spring TBR list but Pride & Prejudice would be the PERFECT reread to play hooky with. In fact...maybe my car will just NOT start tomorrow.....OOOOPS.


What books would YOU want to play hooky with?? Also, thanks to April from Good Books and Good Wine for this awesome topic suggestion!

As always, check here for the future Top Ten Tuesday schedule. It's typically scheduled months in advanced...when I'm on the ball!

Natanya Reviews Vaclav and Lena by Haley Tanner

Title & Author: Vaclav & Lena by Haley Tanner

Publisher/Date: The Dial Press (Random House), 2011

Where I got it: Amazon for kindle

Why I read it: I think I found out about it from a Goodreads newsletter a few months ago, and it sounded interesting. I also thought the papercut design on the cover was really pretty!

Summary (from Goodreads):

Vaclav and Lena, both the children of Russian émigrés, are at the same time from radically different worlds. While Vaclav's burgeoning love of performing magic is indulged by hard-working parents pursuing the American dream, troubled orphan Lena is caught in a domestic situation no child should suffer through. Taken in as one of her own by Vaclav's big-hearted mother, Lena might finally be able to blossom; in the naive young magician's eyes, she is destined to be his "faithful assistant"...but after a horrific discovery, the two are ripped apart without even a goodbye. Years later, they meet again. But will their past once more conspire to keep them apart?

This is a story about things that change and things that don’t change; things that are known, things that aren’t known, and things that shouldn’t be known. It’s about love and beauty and ignorance and pain and sorrow. This book was so good, I cried a bit when I finished it. I hadn’t read a book this touching in a long time. Vaclav and Lena are so cute, and I loved that, while this could have just been a cute love story, Tanner made it so much more complex—to the point where at times I wasn’t sure if I was really rooting for Vaclav and Lena to be together or not. Vaclav’s love for Lena is heartbreaking, and it is so difficult during parts of the novel to watch Lena take advantage of him and manipulate him. And while this makes Lena seems horrible, she’s just messed up, and no matter what she says or does, we know that she still loves Vaclav.

Anyway, going past the nonsensical gushy stuff and onto some specifics. The novel is split into four parts, two of which follow the characters while they’re together, and the other two detailing their time apart (from an omniscient third-person perspective), and I think that this was a great way to split up the novel. I also loved Vaclav’s obsession with magic, which continues even once the story switches to him as a teenager. The concept of not letting go of the characters’ childhood is a big theme throughout the novel, and Vaclav’s magic really helps with this. The one thing about this theme that got kind of annoying is that, even when they were 17 years old, Vaclav and Lena still seem very naïve and immature, to the point where they really sound exactly the same as they did at age 10. At times this wasn’t very believable, but at the same time, I do think that part of the point is to contrast the ways the two characters do and don’t change, so that aspect certainly doesn’t ruin the novel for me.

Beyond that, there were certainly problems with the novel—the end is a bit abrupt, and there’s a side of Lena that keeps resurfacing but that Tanner never fully deals with, making it hard to guess what happens after the end—but honestly, I don’t even care, because all of the good parts of this novel are just so good.

I’m sure Vaclav and Lena isn’t for everyone, and I may very well just be a sap, but especially as the author’s debut novel, it really is wonderful.

4.5 stars

Jessi Reviews The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara

Title/Author: The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara
Publisher/Year: Ballantine, 1974
Where I got it: I got my copy from my library's used book sale
Why I read it: I adore reading about anything to do with Gettysburg and the Civil War

Synopsis: 

In the four most bloody and courageous days of our nation's history, two armies fought for two dreams. One of freedom, one of a way of life. Far more than rifles and bullets were carried into battle--memories, promises, love. And far more than men fell on those Pennsylvania fields--shattered futures, forgotten innocence, and crippled beauty. It was a battleground forge for America's destiny and a sweeping panorama of valor, drama, and passion.

Review: 

My family and I have been making multiple trips a year to Gettysburg for as long as I cam remember, so I'm not sure what has taken me so long to get around to reading this. But now that I have, I'm sitting here itching to read more, more, more about this battle and its key players.

Having such a love for this town and this battlefield, perhaps I am a bit biased in giving this book five stars. I truly believe, though, that someone who has little to no knowledge of this battle could read this and enjoy it. I will say this, though, if you find yourself in that position, don't go into this reading it like a history textbook, or it will read like one. There are battle moves discussed, multiple maps (which I found very helpful actually), and many names. Try not to get too caught up in keeping it all straight.

Shaara writes beautifully, there's no other way to say it. Some of the passages within these pages literally took my breath away. He just has this stunning prose. The other part of his writing that I especially enjoyed was how his characters' thoughts starkly changed upon going into battle. Thoughts became shorter, less reflective and more instinctive. This stream-of-consciousness he employed was really effective.

For me, my favorite aspect of this novel was the characters, and I think Shaara's intent with this wasn't to provide a play-by-play of the battle tactics, but rather to take a look into the thoughts, reflections, and decision-making processes of the men behind the war. With the movie Gettysburg (which I've seen a couple times before I read this) and subsequently this book, for the first time, the Civil War was not black and white, blue and gray, right and wrong. I actually felt for both sides. Of the key players, Longstreet and Chamberlain were the most fascinating for me, and I fully intend to read more on both of them. I still am in awe of how much I felt for these men, even considering the fact that this story was written in third person, not first. I actually found myself close to tears when Longstreet was reflecting before Pickett's Charge. I just loved "seeing inside the heads" of the men of this battle.

I can't recommend this book highly enough. And honestly, if you're still hesitant about picking this one up--read a basic summary of the battle or even look up some pictures of the Gettysburg battlefield and its landscape. It'll help you get a feel for things, even though, like I said, Shaara does not write a "dusty history book." Rather, it is a compelling piece of literature well worth your read.

Julia Reviews The Way We Fall by Megan Crewe

Title/Author:The Way We Fall by Megan Crewe
Publisher/Year Published: January 2012 by Hyperion
How I got this book: From my library system
Why I read this book: I saw it show up a few places in the blogosphere and the description intrigued me
Rating: 3 stars

Let's start with a brief summary. Kaelyn just moved back to her home, an island with her mom, dad and brother, and is feeling a little blue. She misses her best friend Leo, who she had a thing for, and starts writing letters to him in the form of a journal to feel connected to him. Inadvertently, she also starts to document the spread of a new unknown virus on the little island. This story is about that virus, how it ravages the island, and how people turn either bad or good when the going gets insane.

The Way We Fall was a refreshingly good book. It is pretty much is just what I told you in the paragraph above. There is an island and a disease that no one has seen starts cropping up and killing people throwing everyone into a panic. Once the island was quarantined, the book picked up speed and did not slow down. It was what Lord of the Flies would be if it was an island of people of all ages, supplies, was set in modern day and was enjoyable...

I really enjoyed the medium that the story was presented to us. I thought since the journal was to someone not on the island, some of the more specific details made sense. Granted I never would expect a journal to have paragraphs of dialogue that this one did, but it really didn't bother me.

Kaelyn, our narrator, is interesting and yet still a teenager. Not that the two are mutually exclusive, it's just you can tell that she is a teenager with her stressing about fitting in, and pinning over a boy. But when the going gets tough, her personality goes beyond just that and over the course of the book grows. At times, she can be a little frustrating and at one point I was thinking "Oh yeah? You figured that out and not the experts? Please." but the book actually schooled me a bit on that thought.

Some of the secondary characters can be one note, but the ones we see a bit more of, like the family, round out a bit around the edges.

It is hard to say much specifically about the story, considering it is pretty much just a pandemic attacks an island. Everything you think may happen does. The characters are believable. Our narrator, reliable. It was enjoyable story in the way a story about a pandemic can be.

In a slight aside, remember how I mentioned that all current YA are series? Well, as soon as I had fished this I was thinking about how I was going to go online and profess my love for finding an excellent standalone young adult book. Then once I went to Goodreads, I see "Fallen World #1". What a disappointment.

So where does it fall short? Before I knew this would continue, I thought that the ending was a perfect open ended ending for a book that is so weighty in its subject. With a teeny bit more closure I would have been happy. I would have known what I needed to know to form my own conclusions about the future of this world. I am actually really disappointed though not surprised that this is the beginning of a series.

I had a whirlwind relationship with this book (I read it in 6 hours. I was sick, which I thought was pretty ironic) and I think I am judging the ending more on what I wanted it to be more so than what it actually was. There were some pretty loose ends, three major ones, that I sort of wrapped up to myself. But I really believe that this book would have been AWESOME if it's ending was a little more conclusive and wrapped up those loose ends (to an extent, leave us to draw some of our own conclusions) and call it a day. One book and out.

I don't know if I want to know more though. I like where my mind took it. I like not knowing the whole picture or the after. And I wish that the author could have done it, but I've babbled on about my wishes long enough.

Summary: It was a good book; solidly interesting. I would recommend this for people who don't mind a little death (because seriously it is a pandemic) and for people looking for a good survival story.

Book tour: The Sister Queens by Sophie Perinot + giveaway

The Sister Queens by Sophie Perinot

Reviewed as a part of Historical Fiction Book Tours

Links for Sophie Perinot:  WEBSITE | BLOG | FACEBOOK | TWITTER 

Twitter Event Hashtag:  #SisterQueensVirtualBookTour 

I don't know about you guys, but I don't have a sister. Three older brothers, yes, but the friendship and closeness of a sister, no. This is one reason why I was so anxious to read The Sister Queens! I was eager to experience what it was like to have a sister all through the eyes of our two heroines.

As you probably guessed, Marguerite and Eleanor are sisters as well as queens. Marguerite, the older sister, becomes the Queen of France in 1234 when she marries Louis IX. Louis is young, handsome, and an excellent king, but he denies Marguerite affection and trust. A few years later, Eleanor marries Henry III of England and initially finds her new husband and king to be extremely old (he's 28!) and less than handsome. Henry's rule is not the most effective, but he is a deeply kind and caring man that she grows to love passionately. Over the next 20 years, Marguerite and Eleanor never meet in person, but they still remain close and confidantes though separated.

The tagline of this books is something along the lines of "Like most sisters, Marguerite and Eleanor were rivals...," and let's just say this could not be more true! While they were best friends, they were also each others greatest enemies. They tried to oust each other and win their battles vicariously through their husbands. Children, war, money, and power were all ways they could triumph over the other. Still, through all this, they were completely and truly devoted to each other. Almost the entire was through, I was so envious of their sisterly bonds, something I've never known. 

This is an excellent slice of an extremely interesting period of time. We get the politics and social aspects of not one but two countries (always a bonus!) as well as in the the latter part of the book, Louis' crusade to the Holy Land. I felt very connected to them and their personalities were extremely opposite and varied. I enjoyed watching the sisters grow from young teenagers to mature mothers, queens, and friends. Recommended to all historical fiction lovers!

Giveaway!

One of you readers has a chance to win a copy of this fabulous book! The giveaway is open to US residents only and will run until March 28th. Enter HERE, good luck!