Book Review Time!
The Sugar Queen (Sarah Addison Allen) 9/10 Magic realism?/Romance
Joesy is tired of being stuck in Bald Slope, NC, taking care of her bitter and aging mother. But she can't change that--all she can do is stock her secret closet with sweets upon sweets and paperback romance novels. That is, until Della Lee shows up in her closet, and until she chances by a new friend in Chloe, a woman for whom books simply appear whenever she needs them (and befitting the subject she needs most). All three women are having trouble in love--but trouble they'll all get through.
I adored this book. I wandered around B&N for like an hour before seeing this in the new fiction, reading the back, and immediately buying it. Without even previewing the writing inside. Each chapter is named after a different candy or confection, and metaphores/similes to sweets abound. It's definitely a cheerful, light-hearted read, although there are some dark parts. I think the best word for it is "charming." Also, I adored Chloe's little weird thing where books she "needs" just appear everywhere, no matter what she does with them.
RECCOMMENDED?: Yes
The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd) 9/10 Literary fiction
(set in the 1960s) When Lily Owens runs away from home and busts her beloved black nanny out of jail, she runs to Tiburon, SC--a place she believes is connected with her dead mother--and is taken in by "an eccentric trio of black beekeepers," named for months of the year and all delightful and unique. There she learns of bees and the black Mary, Mother of Chains, of people just as people (without skin color), of love (with a Negro boy!), of her own shadowed past, and...of tragedy and happy endings.
This is, I'll admit, out of my jurisdiction for books as it usually goes. But I figured I'd try it--it was on the staff picks shelf at Ukazoo, too, and reccomendations are always a good pointer. This was a lovely book. I totally expected it, what being set during the Civil Rights Movement and in the South, to be full of some angsty, raw sort of struggle with racism...but it wasn't. Not hardly at all. And that is actually the only reason this book doesn't get a 10/10--it could have had a little more conflict, honestly.
However, it was a great read and I couldn't put it down half the time. I may have to rent the movie now, even though I'm sure it doesn't live up to the book. Also, Lily and Zach were so cute <3.
RECCOMMENDED?: Yes
Practical Magic (Alice Hoffman) 7/10 Magic realism/Romance
Three generations of Owens women, and so much love and regret. Those hours at twilight when the townswomen would come begging the aunts for their magic and for their desires are deeply ingrained into both Sally and Gillian's minds, and so affect their polar opposite lives. Sally is content with her own girls when Gillian comes knocking one day, after years, and with a dead man in her car. They bury him under the lilacs, but he's not really gone...and only Kylie can see him, only Kylie who has made the sudden transition from girl to woman and doesn't know what to do with herself, or her sister Antonia, who was once the prettiest girl in school. All afraid to fall in love, and all making mistakes--but in the end, the right mistakes.
I won't lie, I love Alice Hoffman and this is supposed to be her most well-known and received work, but honestly, I liked The Ice Queen and Skylight Confessions much better. Still, it's in Hoffman's unique fairytale-esque style and compounded with the usual grief, sorrow, and intensity that she puts into her work. It has a happy ending, of course, but...still you know, beautifully angsty. Kind of a long read--it doesn't have a difinitive beginning, middle, and end type plot. I enjoyed it, but I wasn't riveted.
Maybe the movie's better?
RECCOMMENDED?: No (can't believe I'm saying that for a Hoffman, but...hm)
Joesy is tired of being stuck in Bald Slope, NC, taking care of her bitter and aging mother. But she can't change that--all she can do is stock her secret closet with sweets upon sweets and paperback romance novels. That is, until Della Lee shows up in her closet, and until she chances by a new friend in Chloe, a woman for whom books simply appear whenever she needs them (and befitting the subject she needs most). All three women are having trouble in love--but trouble they'll all get through.
I adored this book. I wandered around B&N for like an hour before seeing this in the new fiction, reading the back, and immediately buying it. Without even previewing the writing inside. Each chapter is named after a different candy or confection, and metaphores/similes to sweets abound. It's definitely a cheerful, light-hearted read, although there are some dark parts. I think the best word for it is "charming." Also, I adored Chloe's little weird thing where books she "needs" just appear everywhere, no matter what she does with them.
RECCOMMENDED?: Yes
The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd) 9/10 Literary fiction
(set in the 1960s) When Lily Owens runs away from home and busts her beloved black nanny out of jail, she runs to Tiburon, SC--a place she believes is connected with her dead mother--and is taken in by "an eccentric trio of black beekeepers," named for months of the year and all delightful and unique. There she learns of bees and the black Mary, Mother of Chains, of people just as people (without skin color), of love (with a Negro boy!), of her own shadowed past, and...of tragedy and happy endings.
This is, I'll admit, out of my jurisdiction for books as it usually goes. But I figured I'd try it--it was on the staff picks shelf at Ukazoo, too, and reccomendations are always a good pointer. This was a lovely book. I totally expected it, what being set during the Civil Rights Movement and in the South, to be full of some angsty, raw sort of struggle with racism...but it wasn't. Not hardly at all. And that is actually the only reason this book doesn't get a 10/10--it could have had a little more conflict, honestly.
However, it was a great read and I couldn't put it down half the time. I may have to rent the movie now, even though I'm sure it doesn't live up to the book. Also, Lily and Zach were so cute <3.
RECCOMMENDED?: Yes
Practical Magic (Alice Hoffman) 7/10 Magic realism/Romance
Three generations of Owens women, and so much love and regret. Those hours at twilight when the townswomen would come begging the aunts for their magic and for their desires are deeply ingrained into both Sally and Gillian's minds, and so affect their polar opposite lives. Sally is content with her own girls when Gillian comes knocking one day, after years, and with a dead man in her car. They bury him under the lilacs, but he's not really gone...and only Kylie can see him, only Kylie who has made the sudden transition from girl to woman and doesn't know what to do with herself, or her sister Antonia, who was once the prettiest girl in school. All afraid to fall in love, and all making mistakes--but in the end, the right mistakes.
I won't lie, I love Alice Hoffman and this is supposed to be her most well-known and received work, but honestly, I liked The Ice Queen and Skylight Confessions much better. Still, it's in Hoffman's unique fairytale-esque style and compounded with the usual grief, sorrow, and intensity that she puts into her work. It has a happy ending, of course, but...still you know, beautifully angsty. Kind of a long read--it doesn't have a difinitive beginning, middle, and end type plot. I enjoyed it, but I wasn't riveted.
Maybe the movie's better?
RECCOMMENDED?: No (can't believe I'm saying that for a Hoffman, but...hm)