February Media Report: Books
Mely jumped off the bridge, so I will too. Since I despair of ever having time to write up everything individually, I have given brief reviews to the whole month below.
If anything's missing an author, it is because I am too lazy to look them up. If there's no comment, I already reviewed it here.
1. The Face of a Stranger, by Anne Perry
2. Ride the River, by Louis L'Amour
3. A Fabulous Creature, by Zilpha Keatley Snyder. Wow, terrible! Evil sexy girl, good innocent girl, symbolic stag of Environmental innocence, and deus ex machina by golf ball-- the only part of the story I liked.
4. Dragonhaven, by Robin McKinley. Wow, terrible! Some interesting ideas, but nothing happens at great and interminable length. It is always a bad sign when the story begins with three pages of "I don't know how to tell this story." And the entire book is like that: all tell, no show, all rambling. This may be faithful to the irritating protagonist, but why choose a protagonist whose natural narrative voice is unbearable?
5. Rebels on the Backlot. An expose/history of some indie film directors in the nineties; hilariously catty.
6. Kissing the Bee, by Kathe Koja. Intense, well-written, brief YA novel about three friends, a romantic and personal rivalry, bees and social dynamics.
7. Mountains Beyond Mountains. Nonfiction about doctors in Africa. (ETA: I mean Haiti-- where was my brain?) OK.
8. Blowing Zen. White guy learns the shakuhachi (wooden flute) in Japan. OK; better than the title, anyway.
9. Wild Cards: Inside Straight. Wow, terrible! Less gory than previous entries, but makes up for it by being more boring. Usual horrible racial, gender, and class politics. The whole story is about a reality show. No fiction with that premise has ever been good except for The Truman Show, which was decent. White Americans save the Middle East and return sadder but wiser; a British agent with the sort of powers that are whatever he needs at the moment pwns everyone.
10. The Cherokee Trail, by Louis L'Amour. Woman sets up stagecoach rest stop, contends with evil from her past. Good female characters, Indians with a sense of humor, gunfights and the offensive use of boiling coffee. Good stuff. The mysterious gunman needed more character development.
11. The Keys to the Golden Firebird, by Maureen Johnson. Funny, sweet YA about three sisters coping after their father's death. Excellent characterization, realistic but hopeful and positive. Will make you never ever want to drink too much.
12. Tantalize.
13. Tall, Dark, and Dead. Well-written and amusing, but I am totally done with vampires.
14. Rules of Survival, by Nancy Werlin. Excellent, suspenseful YA about (non-sexual) child abuse; disturbing but not graphic, and reads like a thriller. Unfortunate and I assume unintentional subtext in which the two female characters who have a sex life are either evil or meet a horrible fate made me raise my eyebrows, but did not ruin the book.
15. Ha'Penny, by Jo Walton.
16. Not in Kansas Anymore, by Christine Wicker. Nonfiction about magic in America; definitely Wicca/Otherkin/hoodoo 101; good portraits of practitioners.
If anything's missing an author, it is because I am too lazy to look them up. If there's no comment, I already reviewed it here.
1. The Face of a Stranger, by Anne Perry
2. Ride the River, by Louis L'Amour
3. A Fabulous Creature, by Zilpha Keatley Snyder. Wow, terrible! Evil sexy girl, good innocent girl, symbolic stag of Environmental innocence, and deus ex machina by golf ball-- the only part of the story I liked.
4. Dragonhaven, by Robin McKinley. Wow, terrible! Some interesting ideas, but nothing happens at great and interminable length. It is always a bad sign when the story begins with three pages of "I don't know how to tell this story." And the entire book is like that: all tell, no show, all rambling. This may be faithful to the irritating protagonist, but why choose a protagonist whose natural narrative voice is unbearable?
5. Rebels on the Backlot. An expose/history of some indie film directors in the nineties; hilariously catty.
6. Kissing the Bee, by Kathe Koja. Intense, well-written, brief YA novel about three friends, a romantic and personal rivalry, bees and social dynamics.
7. Mountains Beyond Mountains. Nonfiction about doctors in Africa. (ETA: I mean Haiti-- where was my brain?) OK.
8. Blowing Zen. White guy learns the shakuhachi (wooden flute) in Japan. OK; better than the title, anyway.
9. Wild Cards: Inside Straight. Wow, terrible! Less gory than previous entries, but makes up for it by being more boring. Usual horrible racial, gender, and class politics. The whole story is about a reality show. No fiction with that premise has ever been good except for The Truman Show, which was decent. White Americans save the Middle East and return sadder but wiser; a British agent with the sort of powers that are whatever he needs at the moment pwns everyone.
10. The Cherokee Trail, by Louis L'Amour. Woman sets up stagecoach rest stop, contends with evil from her past. Good female characters, Indians with a sense of humor, gunfights and the offensive use of boiling coffee. Good stuff. The mysterious gunman needed more character development.
11. The Keys to the Golden Firebird, by Maureen Johnson. Funny, sweet YA about three sisters coping after their father's death. Excellent characterization, realistic but hopeful and positive. Will make you never ever want to drink too much.
12. Tantalize.
13. Tall, Dark, and Dead. Well-written and amusing, but I am totally done with vampires.
14. Rules of Survival, by Nancy Werlin. Excellent, suspenseful YA about (non-sexual) child abuse; disturbing but not graphic, and reads like a thriller. Unfortunate and I assume unintentional subtext in which the two female characters who have a sex life are either evil or meet a horrible fate made me raise my eyebrows, but did not ruin the book.
15. Ha'Penny, by Jo Walton.
16. Not in Kansas Anymore, by Christine Wicker. Nonfiction about magic in America; definitely Wicca/Otherkin/hoodoo 101; good portraits of practitioners.