Archive for Book Reviews
Book Review — The Lost Hero
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
The Antiquity background on which the story sits is interesting and, dare I say, educational. Although the story is not a Harry Potter look-alike, the main characters are: Jason, the bewildered and reluctant leader, Leo, the comic relief and goofy genius, and Piper, the girl in the trio who seemingly has no useful powers but is the “heart” of the trio.
The writing is good and reads well, but this is a big book with nearly 600 pages. Since it is the first book in a series, this means a serious investment in reading time. Nevertheless, if only because of all the Gods (Greek and Roman) and all the associated monsters and fabulous creatures, The Lost Hero is a fun read.
Book Review: Room
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
In learning that Emma Donoghue had be shortlisted for the 2010 Man Booker Prize, I had a feeling her book might be a difficult one to read, one that you have to work at in order to get through it. I was completely wrong.
The story is grim, desperate, yet it is a testament to the love that exists between a mother and child and how freedom as a concept and freedom as a reality are two very different things. The story is told entirely from the point of view of Jack, a five-year-old, who was born in “Room,” the space where his mother has been held captive for the past seven years. What he knows as real is what is in Room. Everything else is in Outer Space or in TV. When Jack’s safety is threatened by his mother’s captor, “Ma” conceives a plan for them to escape that hinges on the courage of her young son.
It is a testament to Donoghue’s deft and clever writing that she is able to address complex concept in Jack’s entirely believable voice. She does that by using a child’s ability to ape without understanding, but also by using a child’s often much clearer understanding of the world, because it is so much simpler for them.
Once started, it is impossible to put down Room. Jack’s escape scene is particularly harrowing and emotionally difficult to read, but the “side effects” of freedom are equally fascinating and startling.
Here is the blurb from Goodreads:
To five-year-old Jack, Room is the entire world. It is where he was born and grew up; it’s where he lives with his Ma as they learn and read and eat and sleep and play. At night, his Ma shuts him safely in the wardrobe, where he is meant to be asleep when Old Nick visits.
Room is home to Jack, but to Ma, it is the prison where Old Nick has held her captive for seven years. Through determination, ingenuity, and fierce motherly love, Ma has created a life for Jack. But she knows it’s not enough…not for her or for him. She devises a bold escape plan, one that relies on her young son’s bravery and a lot of luck. What she does not realize is just how unprepared she is for the plan to actually work.
Told entirely in the language of the energetic, pragmatic five-year-old Jack, ROOM is a celebration of resilience and the limitless bond between parent and child, a brilliantly executed novel about what it means to journey from one world to another.
All in all, Room deserved to be nominated. Highly recommended.
Book Review: La Isla Bajo el Mar
La isla bajo el mar by Isabel Allende
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
The poignant story of Zarité, a black slave in Saint-Domingue (now Haiti) and later in New Orleans in the 18th Century.
I have read this book in the original language (Spanish), and Allende’s prose is simple and elegant, yet extremely vivid. The book is a mix of fairly detailed historical fiction and the slave Zarité’s voice, which brings an element of immediacy to the events. When she speaks for Zarité, Allende can shock us with the casual way the slave speaks of her treatment (e.g., her master extinguishing his cigar on her), and so gives us the utter helplessness of the slave.
But Allende shows us also the cost of becoming free–a fact that Haiti, in a way, has never recovered from–and, despite the inescapable disgust of slavery she creates in the reader, she also succeeds in making us see the slave owners’ point of view, in all its callousness, insensitivity, greed, and ignorance.
If I have one criticism it’s the slow pace of the book, maybe due to the detailed historical events she uses as parentheses to the story. It was sometimes a bit plodding, although it opened my eyes to the plight of the slaves at the inception of the slave trade.
Well worth the read.
Book Review– Looking for Alaska
Looking for Alaska by John Green
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Move over Salinger, here comes John Green. This is a coming of age story that is truly contemporary and real, sans rose-coloured glasses. Green doesn’t skim over the concept that high-school teens know about -and often do- drugs, alcohol, and sex.
But Looking for Alaska is more than the “bad” things kids can get into. It’s about the search for self (Rabelais’ “Great Perhaps”) through being confronted with the realities of friendships, love, death, and the future.
A truly superb, daring novel.
Looking for Alaska has received many awards, including School Library Journal Best Book of the Year for 2005.
»» Book Review– Looking for Alaska
Book Review: The Day the Falls Stood Still
The Day the Falls Stood Still by Cathy Marie Buchanan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Buchanan’s novel reads so well that it’s easy to think it’s written simply, but it’s in fact an elaborate, rich, and lush story filled with complex characters and historical details. These details –from World War I era– are what made the book for me. Buchanan made the setting vivid and real, and the characters who lived in it all the more well-grounded. »» Book Review: The Day the Falls Stood Still
