There's a new challenge in town. He's big. But he's huggable. Learn more about him over here: The Chunkster Challenge- aught eight.
UPDATE! UPDATE! For ease of purpose and because one just can't have too many blogs, I have a Chunky Review blog set up to help readers enjoy each other's choices. THANK YOU ALL for signing up. It's scary really how many of us want to read intimidating books! HAPPY READING!
Here we are, the 7th of January, and I haven't reviewed a single book. Fear not, I have read....err....eight, I think. Four of those being the first four Spiderwick Chronicals that I needed to preread for my girls, so don't be all falling over in awe or anything. While I rather liked my rating system last year, this year I was shown one that I think I will like much more. It's based on a 1-10 scale not 1-5, and seems to be more accurate. There are a few other things I will be chaning in my next reviews which should be posted today.
10 One of the best, worth adding to my permanent collection
9 Compelling, wonderful, should force strangers to read this
8 Very good, happy I read it
7 Quite good actually
6 Okay plus, good, but not so remarkable
5 Okay, pleasant enough but entirely forgettable
4 I read this under duress or a sense of obligation to the group
3 Why did I bother?
2 I read this only due to lack of nearby cereal boxes
1 Painful, but continued reading anyway
0 Despicable, vile; continued reading to burn off purgatory time
(Created by Jan T.)
I'm still JOINING!
Today I joined the lovely Joy's A-z Challenge (author's and titles). I discovered that I signed up for the In their Shoes challenge oh-so-long ago. I have my list and am ready to get started. I am planning to plug away again at the NYT Most Notable of 2007 this year, since I very much enjoyed so many of last year's reads. I plan to Read Full Circle with Joy and friends. I think there are a few more, but my life outside thepages calls again.
Many of you have asked if reading Just4thehelluvit will continue into the new year. and I have to say that my well-thought-out response is Hellyes!
Details of the Just4thehelluvit challenge can be found right here ( click me )
I never did set up a page last time, so here's what we're gonna do. I'm a-gonna set up a little page just like I did for the Chunkster. You don't have to sign up and for GOODNESS sake don't send me ANY lists! But if you do read one for the hell of it please go to the challenge page and leave a link of your review. That's all. I don't want any further details.
BUT if I find out that your spontaneous reads overlap with or challenges or are anything less than spontaneous I will so beat you to death with War and Peace.
WHY IS EVERYONE READING WAR AND PEACE BUT ME?!?!?
I want to read War and Peace! Can I play? PLEASE!
(By the way my chunky-monkey friends, the challenge is growing by LEAPS AND BOUNDS. I will provide the initial participant list with links this weekend.)
This is it- my final challenge list of the day. The 888 challenge is hosted by the ubiquitous 3M, and was absolutely irresistable to me. The task is to read eight books each in 8 categories with almost no (only 8) overlaps from one category to the next. We are allowed to change/ alter/ swap the titles in the categories as the year progresses, so I simply chose eight categories and will fill in titles as I go.
My categories are:
The What's in a Name challenge is hosted by Annie and seemed like a fun way to wipe out some books I have lying around. The point of the challenge is to pick one book from each of six categories.
As always, I ended 2007 with many purchased books unread. Which is why I LOVE the TBR challenge. I may never conquer my mountain completely, but hopefully I won't get buried in the rock slide of unread books.
This year I picked fifteen books. My GOAL is to read them all, the challenge is to complete twelve.
Here's to finishing more books than we bring in in 08!
January 1, 2008 - June 30, 2008
From the furry mind of Wendy. The challenge:
* Choose at least 4 books that share a theme - such as historical romances or books with animals as the central character or books set in a particular part of the country or books about family secrets. It doesn't matter what the theme is - your choice!
* Write a review about each book you complete and a final wrap up at the end of the challenge.
And my theme is: HIGH SCHOOL CLASSICS
I am going to read four books that I either read in high school OR are typically a part of a high school.
*The Grapes of Wrath
*The Moonstone
*Jane Eyre
*David Copperfield
or Confessions of a book blog/ book challenge drop out.
Overall 2007 was a great reading year even if it wasn't a great year of recording what I read. I thoroughly enjoyed 90% of what I picked up and thanks to my new reading buddies, picked up a LOT of things I never dreamed I would love. I could kick myself and try to catch up and recount, but I won't. It's the eve of 2008, and there's just too much reading ahead to get bogged down in the past.
The real question is..which book do I read first?
4/5 stars
267 pages
I wish I didn't know the end before I started. Earlier this summer I read Ann Pachett's Truth and Beauty, a memorial to a long and often times difficult friendship with Lucy Grealy. Autobiography of a Face is the story of Lucy Greely in her own words. It's true that we are in a society where the beautiful people are treasured, the "normal" ones of us go along unnoticed, and then there are the pariahs. Whether by choice or by chance, society whispers about them, stares at them, or worse yet, pretends not to notice them. For a very short period of my life I was "marked" by the tell-tale signs of an illness, and for that short time I was amazed at how people I didn't know, and who knew nothing about me, reacted to my presence. Or even scarier, what they thought they could or should say to me. The human race loves sameness. I cannot fathom a lifetime of those stares and whispers, of those fumbling platitudes, of wondering if people would look beyond the obvious to the "more" of me. And yet, that is what Lucy Grealy dealt with day after day. A face marked by something that didn't consume her, but that did define her. Everyday it was out there, for the world to see, to judge, to hold her accountable to. I understand how the end of the story (not of the book, but of Lucy Grealy's life story) came about, I just hate the finality of it. Or that it had to happen that way, at all.
In August/ early Sept I completed several challenges that need updating.
The Southern Reading challenge ended Aug. 31st. I completed three books.
I also have completed two other challenges actually ahead of time (uncompleted reviews provided later today):
I must say that of these challenges (all of which I enjoyed tremendously), the Dystopia challenge stretched me the most and provided five very excellent and amazing reads. It's definitely a genre I hope to enjoy more often, and in fact, I am supposed to be reading with/ for a group the dystopian book We, which I am still determined to both read and finish.
ETA: Oh my STARS I completely forgot that I finished the Summer Mystery Challenge which also ended at the end of August. I read:
1/5 stars
113 pps
I am hoping that no one writes me off as a right-wing conservative, bigot at the end of this review, but you might, and that's okay. We're all entitled to our opinions. Let me start out by saying that it isn't the elements you would think that bother me most about this book. On the outside it has cutesy pink cover and the innocent, and prevalent theme that unconditional love conquers all. I'll be the first to say that I think we could all do with a lot less judgment and a lot more love. What bothers me most about this book is that it glamorizes a lifestyle that is dangerous and often deadly and is marketed to young adults. The lifestyle of free love, partying, underage drinking and illegal substance abuse is made to look fun and fancy free on the streets of L.A, as long as you have a good friend and a funky sense of style. Even an episode that can be described as no less than a date rape is glossed over as "just another thing that happens when you live the glam life."
When my young daughters saw the cover they all eagerly asked to read this book. At ages 9, 8 and 7 it is easily within their abilities to do so. It appalls me to consider that little girls are picking up this book everyday and learning that it's alright to make poor choices as long as you're cool and open minded. I hope that somehow the author was so caught up in the idea of making what society calls a typically unlovable lifestyle more acceptable that she didn't consider the deeper and more dangerous messages she was sending.
In my mind, the market for this book is absolutely unconscionable. It's not a book I will be recommending to anyone.
From School Library Journal
Grade 10 Up-- A brief, off-beat tale that has great charm, poignancy, and touches of fantasy . Weetzie, now 23, is a child of Hollywood who hated high school but loves the memories of Marilyn Monroe and Charlie Chaplin, plastic palm-tree wallets, and the roller-skating waitresses at Tiny Naylor's. She wears a bleached-blond flattop and Harlequin sunglasses, covers her '50s taffeta dresses in glittery poetry, and sews fringe down the sides of her minis in sympathy with the plight of the Indian. Nobody understands her, least of all her divorced bicoastal parents, until she meets Dirk, who takes her slamdancing at the hot clubs in L.A. in his red '55 Pontiac. When he tells her he's gay, they decide to go "duck-hunting" together. He meets his ideal blond surfer, and Weetzie finds her Secret Agent Lover Man. They all move in together, make movies that become underground successes, and have a baby. This recreates the ambiance of Hollywood with no cynicism, from the viewpoint of denizens who treasure its unique qualities. Weetzie and her friends live like the lillies of the field, yet their responsibility to each other and their love for the baby show a sweet grasp of the realities that matter. As in Rosemary Wells' None of the Above (Dial, 1974), these kids spend no time considering college or career. Their only priority is finding love and keeping it once they find it. " 'I don't know about happily ever after. . .but I know about happily,' Weetzie Bat thought." --Anne Osborn, Riverside Public Library, Calif.
I first joined Carl's super spectacular reading challenges this spring with the Once Upon a Time Challenge. What I really love about reading with Carl and his buds is that it's simply all about having a whole lot of fun. Couldn't we all use a bit more fun in our lives? Carl has great give-aways, fun book reviews, a fantastic blog, and he's really just a nice guy (creepy book fetish notwithstanding). I simply can't recommend his romp through some fun and unusual reads highly enough. Stop by Stainless Steel Droppings and see that book-blogoshpere is buzzing about!
(oh and for those of you who popped over here from the RIP-blog, yes I am retarded and did not link correctly, and you can't go BACK and fix a Mr. Linky--sigh)
Without further ado....My RIP Challenges
Colleen Gleason's Gardella Vampire Chronicals ( Rises the Night, The rest Falls away) - because I would never pick them up on my own, but Carl insists they ROCK
Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman - because Carl recommended him, and by gum I ADORED my first Gaiman read this spring.
A series of Short Stories:
"William Wilson" by Edgar Allan Poe
http://tinyurl.com/2al5ca
"An Account of Some Strange Disturbances in Aungier
Street" by J. Sheridan Le Fanu
http://tinyurl.com/34ehjt
"A Haunted Island" by Algernon Blackwood
http://tinyurl.com/2q9584
"The Screaming Skull" by F. Marion Crawford
http://tinyurl.com/2xb2wn
As I mentioned a few days ago, I am playing catch-up and clean up over here in book blog land. Yesterday I spent on projects around the house, today it's book blog day. So, I will accomplish thirteen things that need to be done and link them here:
1. Choices made for 2 new challenges
2. Button for the Just4thehelluvit challenge
(see details here. Hat tip to Marisa for the button)
3. Completed review of A Brave New World
4. May Wrap-Up now complete with pages and YTD Totals
5. June Wrap-up complete with pages and YTD totals.
6. Completed Challenges page up-to-date (except this month's challenges)
7. Cutsie Tootsie rating system up in the left hand side bar.
8. Spend a long time looking at templates for potential new site (IT COUNTS!)
9. Go to park and read 100 pps in current read
10. Review The Bone People
11. Review The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
12. Review Body Surfing by Anita Shreve (see post below)
13. Picked books for Unread Author and RIP reading challenges (post to be written later)
Audio Book
2/5 stars
(SOME SPOILERS)
I generally enjoy Anita Shreve. She isn't ground-breaking but her work is generally solid and entertaining. She's the type of author I like to read on vacation, so I was excited to have her audio book with me in the car on a 3,000 mile journey. It's probably good that I was a captive audience. I agree with the reviews that call this "not her best work." In fact, it borders on emotionally manipulative (think Nicholas Sparks- blech) with the tragic character of Sydney, divorced, then widowed, then left at the alter at the midpoint of the novel. She isn't particularly endearing, in fact, she is rather bland, and attempting to make her sympathetic through the terrible circumstances of her life is what I would consider a cheap literary device. The Edwards family is also a somewhat cardboard cut-out recipe for friction: genial older father figure, shrewish mother, handsome driven eldest son, intellectual and devious younger son, token lesbian lovely daughter. It just doesn't wash with me to try and make a new and remarkable story out of used and re-used literary devices.
And Lolita Davidovich is NOT a good audio book narrator.
Books to Movies (SMS Book Reviews)- 9/1-12/31
Seconds Reading Challenge (Thoughts of Joy) - Oct-Dec 31st
