Summary:

Though she tries returning to the life she knew before the accident, Pierce can’t help but feel at once a part of this world, and apart from it. Yet she’s never alone . . . because someone is always watching her. Escape from the realm of the dead is impossible when someone there wants you back.

But now she’s moved to a new town. Maybe at her new school, she can start fresh. Maybe she can stop feeling so afraid.

Only she can’t. Because even here, he finds her. That’s how desperately he wants her back. She knows he’s no guardian angel, and his dark world isn’t exactly heaven, yet she can’t stay away . . . especially since he always appears when she least expects it, but exactly when she needs him most.

But if she lets herself fall any further, she may just find herself back in the one place she most fears: the Underworld.

I love Meg Cabot’s books. Her writing style is just so engaging, and she really knows how to tell a story. I love her characters and her settings. I love the way her imagination works.

Which is why it’s so unfortunate I didn’t enjoy Abandon nearly as much as any of her other books. Unusual for me, especially since I’ve always loved her paranormal books best of all.

The first half of Abandon is told using scenes set in the present day interspersed with flashbacks, and this just didn’t work for me at all. It felt disjointed; there were hints about both an incident and an accident that had occurred sometime in the past, and I spent most of my time impatiently turning the pages. I wanted to know the whole backstory so we could get on with the main story, the here and now part of the book.

About halfway through the book (I think it was about page 144 or thereabouts) the past was finally all told and that’s when the story kicked in for me – that was when it felt, at last, like a Meg Cabot book.

But that only left Cabot with half the book to develop the storyline and flesh out the characters. That’s not a whole lot of time, although there was enough time to plant a lot of intriguing possibilities and questions. Who was this newly single person Pierce’s mom wanted to see again? What did Uncle Chris do to land him in jail? What does Alex have up his sleeve? Very enticing questions, and one reason I’m on board for the upcoming sequel.

Anyway, just as I was really getting into the book, it ended.

Now, I love trilogies, but I am a firm believer that a book in a trilogy – and the first book in particular – needs to also have a story arc of its own; it needs to have its own conflict and resolution, in addition to the role it will play across the entire trilogy. But while there was a resolution of sorts in Abandon, it felt rather insubstantial in comparison to everything else.

Right on the heels of this insubstantial resolution to a vaguely outlined conflict came a cliffhanger ending.

I readily admit: I have problems with cliffhanger endings, although they can work sometimes. But you need a strong, stable resolution to the conflict that drives the main plot in the book first, before you can leave an enticing cliffhanger that won’t have me stuttering, Wait! But what … but why …. but  … but …

Mind you, I guess you could say this cliffhanger “works” for me, because, yes, I do want to read Underworld, the second book in the trilogy. I want to know the answers to all those questions, for one thing.

But if I’m honest with myself, I’m up for the second book because it IS Meg Cabot, after all. And there is so much potential in this storyline, and Cabot is simply awesome when she works with such potential.

Most of the time.

So I’ve decided to just classify Abandon as an anomaly, and trust that with the next book, things will be back to normal.

Related posts:

1. Review: Being Nikki, by Meg Cabot
2. Flash Review: Jinx, by Meg Cabot
3. Review: Airhead, by Meg Cabot
4. Insatiable, by Meg Cabot
5. TSS: Currently reading Brown, Cabot, Fowler and Neville

Today I’m marveling at how rapidly kids change. I swear, sometimes these changes take place overnight, and they can be quite amazing.

Back in March of this year, I set up a GoodReads account for my son Dylan. He was seven at the time (he recently turned eight), and since we’re homeschooling him and books play a very large role in his education, I decided to set up an account specifically to track his reading progress and have a record of the books he’s been reading. I love that I can take a look at the stats and see that, since that first week in March, we’ve read at least 136 books together, either me reading to him, or him reading to me.

In addition to chapter books, we read a ton of picture books, because the vocabulary in picture books can be quite advanced, and they are far more interesting than early readers and chapter books. Dylan likes to draw, and he’s always fascinated by how the artists created the pictures, too.

After we started using the site for a while, it occurred to me I could add another educational element to the whole process by having Dylan review one book a night. So now he “writes” the reviews by dictating them to me; I type in everything word for word (into my iPhone, since we usually do this at night, during our bedtime reading), exactly as he dictates (sometimes he’ll ask me to put in things like question marks and exclamation marks). Eventually, I’m hoping to eliminate the dictation-to-me part.

Up until a few weeks ago, it’s been a little like pulling teeth, or rather, reviews, out of him. I use two prompts to get him going: “This story/book is about …” and “My favorite part is …”

Here’s a sample of one of his earlier reviews:

Piggies in the Kitchen, by Michelle Meadows.

“This story is about pigs in the kitchen. They are making cakes because it’s their mama’s birthday. Mama doesn’t know because no-one told her. It was a surprise. My favorite part was on the back cover. A pig with a slingshot! And he has an egg on the slingshot.”

Fast forward to last month, and you’ll see the tone is pretty much the same:

Geronimo Stilton: The Secret of the Sphinx.

“This book is about Geronimo Stilton. He goes into ancient Egypt because the pirate cats strike again. The pirate cats want to change the Sphinx’s face into a cat. My favorite part was when they finally got home because Trap is so funny about eating cheese.”

And then something happened. Somewhere, something went “click”, and things changed. It was a big change.

We picked up Chalk, by Bill Thomson (a beautifully illustrated wordless picture book) from the library early last week. Here is Dylan’s review of the book:

“This story is about chalk, not just any ordinary chalk, magical chalk. Do you have any of that kind of chalk? Well, this magical chalk, when you draw a picture with that magical chalk, any picture you like, be careful, don’t draw a dinosaur or a dragon, because these pictures come to life. And don’t draw a shark either. Here is why you shouldn’t draw any dangerous creatures. Would you want a dinosaur to bite you? Do you want the dragon to breathe fire at you? And if you want this magical chalk, the only way to get it is DREAM about it. And when you wake up when you go downstairs, pretend that you’re in a new world and adventures.”

(Yes, he asked me to capitalize “dream”. For emphasis, he said.)

It really blew me away. I thought to myself, maybe this is a fluke. After all, a wordless picture book often invites children to put their own words to the pictures.

But I was wrong. It wasn’t a fluke. It turns out, reading and then writing his review of Chalk was a major turning point for Dylan.

Here is his most recent review:

Cool Crazy Crickets to the Rescue, by David Elliott.

“This book is about the Cool Crazy Crickets to the rescue. I’m not talking about the crickets the insects, it’s the Cool Crazy Crickets club. But seriously it’s actually kids running the club and I hope it doesn’t foil your excitement. There’s a one-eyed cat in the book. I don’t know why it only has one eye. The book doesn’t tell you. The clubhouse is made up of cardboard. You think it’s in their house? No way. They can go inside, opening doors, windows, you name it.

My favorite part is Teddy. They have to baby sit for Teddy to earn money. It’s my favorite part because it’s so funny. And there’s one more thing, folks. Guess who Teddy is? Is he a teddy bear? No. Is he a baby? Yes. You should hear him cry.”

I’m not sure how it all happened, but it’s really wonderful. And he actually decided to read more than the chapter a day we’d been doing with the Cool Crazy Crickets to the Rescue book, just so he could write the review!

I think Dylan’s found his “voice” … Yes, it’s an eight-year-old’s voice, but then again, he IS, after all, an eight year old!

Related posts:

1. [TSS] More Beach Reads, Movies and Writing (Not Really)

(Click on picture to enlarge)

Gilda Joyce, Psychic Investigator, by Jennifer Allison, has been on my TBR list for a while now. I finally started reading it a few days ago, and was really glad I did. I loved this book! Gilda is such a fun, quirky character.

I also recently stumbled on Austin Kleon’s blog and started reading about visual note-taking, which lead me to look at sketchnoting. It looked like a lot of fun, so I thought I’d give it a try by doing a visual review.

One caveat: I was already near the end of Gilda Joyce, Psychic Investigator when I started doodling this. So a lot of my notes are from the end of the book.

It was an interesting experiment, and I’ll probably do it again with the next book I read. I certainly had a lot of fun! My favorite part was capturing quotes that I liked, something I’ve never done before while reading. Interestingly, it didn’t disrupt the flow of my reading.

More about Gilda Joyce, Psychic Investigator:

Ever since her father died, quirky Gilda Joyce has been working hard to sharpen her psychic skills. She’s determined to communicate with spirits from the Other Side and become a crack investigator of spooky, twisted mysteries. After wrangling an invitation to visit relatives in San Francisco, Gilda discovers that her dreary, tight-lipped uncle and his strange, delicate daughter need her help to uncover the terrible family secret that has a tortured ghost stalking their home. From poignant to hair-raising and hilarious, this is a behind-the-scenes, tell-all account of the very first case in the illustrious career of Gilda Joyce, Psychic Investigator.

Related posts:

1. Review: White Corridor, by Christopher Fowler
2. Book Review: In a Dark House, by Deborah Crombie
3. TSS – Book Review: Full Dark House by Christopher Fowler
4. Review: An Ice Cold Grave, by Charlaine Harris
5. Review: Death Perception, by Victoria Laurie

What Blood Oath is about:

The ultimate secret. The ultimate agent. The President’s vampire.

Zach Barrows is an ambitious young White House staffer whose career takes an unexpected turn when he’s partnered with Nathaniel Cade, a secret agent sworn to protect the president. But Cade is no ordinary civil servant. Bound by a special blood oath, Cade has spent more than 140 years in service to the president, battling nightmares before they can break into the daylight world of the American dream.

Immediately Zach and Cade receive their first joint assignment: one that uncovers a shadowy government conspiracy and a plot to attack the Unites States with a gruesome new biological weapon. Zach soon learns that the world is far stranger, and far more dangerous, than he ever imagined . . . and that his partner is the least of his problems.

This is the first vampire novel I’ve read since I devoured Justin Cronin’s The Passage last year.

I enjoyed Blood Oath thoroughly (not that it’s anything like The Passage at all, though – the only similarities are that they both feature vampires and there are secret service types involved). Blood Oath is one of those great, action-packed page-turning reads, the kind of book that delivers pure entertainment. Even though it’s a vampire novel, it’s not like your typical paranormal vampire novel. It reads more like an action thriller that just happens to have, as its main protagonist, a vampire.

It turns out, you see, that all of the presidents of the United States have had in their service a vampire, one Nathaniel Cade; it’s Cade’s job to keep the bad guys of the “other world” away from this world and back in the other world where they belong.

Cade does a fine job of things, too. He’s got a new partner now, though: young and quite cocky Zach Barrows, who had ambitions to achieve lofty heights in the political world. Being stuck partnering with a vampire isn’t at all the kind of thing Barrows has been dreaming about. Even though he’s been told it’s the most important position among the President’s staff, it feels more like a punishment to him.

I thought Farnsworth did a good job in terms of world-building; the vampire/other world aspect is tied into the regular world seamlessly and reads quite credibly. I liked Nathaniel Cade, too: his own personal code of vampire ethics, and the hints at the potential consequences of adhering to such a rigid code. Zach Barrows is the perfect partner for Cade, too; his cockiness and quick mouth add to the occasional humor in the story.

The action is fast-paced and extremely readable, and while there is violence, it’s not gratuitous violence at all. I enjoy reading thrillers, but sometimes they’re just too violent for my taste. That doesn’t happen here. The violence is there for a reason, to show the reader what’s happening, and Farnsworth doesn’t take it farther than it has to go.

I’m looking forward to reading the sequel!

Related posts:

1. Review: The Strain, by Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan
2. Review: The Book of Lies, by Brad Meltzer
3. Another Saturday Random
4. The Passage, by Justin Cronin

The Story:

What if your mother-in-law turned out to be an evil, cold-blooded witch . . . literally?

Ever since fabulously wealthy Malcolm Doran walked into her life and swept her off her feet, fledgling architect Jane Boyle has been living a fairy tale. When he proposes with a stunning diamond to seal the deal, Jane can’t believe her incredible luck and decides to leave her Paris-based job to make a new start with Malcolm in New York.

But when Malcolm introduces Jane to the esteemed Doran clan, one of Manhattan’s most feared and revered families, Jane’s fairy tale takes a darker turn. Soon everything she thought she knew about the world—and herself—is upended. Now Jane must struggle with newfound magical abilities and the threat of those who will stop at nothing to get them.

My Thoughts:

So you thought your mother-in-law was bad? Just wait until you meet Jane Boyle’s mother-in-law-to-be!

I enjoyed 666 Park Avenue, perhaps more so through the last half of the book than the beginning. When I finished the book, though, I knew one thing: the sequel, The Dark Glamour, which will be released in the fall, will definitely be on my wishlist.

I love urban fantasy, but have never really taken to much of the vampire-driven subgenre that’s been so prevalent since Twilight.

I liked 666 Park Avenue for a few reasons: I found its perkiness and chick lit overtones refreshing; Jane really grew as a character, and I always like when that happens in a novel; and the whole witch in Manhattan high society thing was quite interesting.

A word of warning, though: the first few chapters do read like a chick lit novel. If you’re not fond of chick lit, don’t let that put you off. Persevere, and soon you’ll be in the meat of the magical parts.

There probably could have been a lot more magic in the book; Jane, for example, is quite disinterested in learning more about her magic powers. I, for one, would be far more likely to react like Dee, another character in the book. But on the whole, the “I don’t want to do magic” thing that Jane has going works quite well with Jane’s character; after all, she’s a fashionably stylish architect who grew up in France. She’s far more interested in the latest creations being shown off on fashion runways than she is in spells and potions and the like.

This is what happened for me: I hit the middle of the book, and it all really came together. There’s a ton of excitement, the secondary characters start coming into their own, and it’s fun to watch Jane step into her potential.

Altogether, 666 Park Avenue was a quick, fun read – a definite page turner near the end.

Note: Thanks to NetGalley and HarperCollins for my review copy, and my iPad and the Bluefire Reader app for making the ebook experience such a good one!

No related posts.

I was given a Kobo eReader for my birthday and yes, it’s definitely been keeping me busy!

I was able to move my library of ePubs bought from the Sony Reader Store onto my Kobo eReader – it was something I could have done before on my iPhone, by moving the ePubs to the Stanza app, but I never got around to it before now.

If you’re new to the Kobo eReader, or thinking of getting one, I highly recommend downloading the Calibre ebook management program. I was already using it to convert public domain PDFs from Project Guttenberg into ePub format, as well as converting my own WIPs into ePubs so I could do a first readthrough on my iPhone, but as it turns out, it’s a fabulous program for managing ebook content on the Kobo eReader; it’s a great way to selectively weed out the 100 classics that come preinstalled on the device.

But the thing I really like about my Kobo eReader is that I can now read DRM-protected PDFs on the go!  I have several of these, and up until now, they’ve been stuck in my “I’ll get around to reading them someday” pile because I haven’t been using my netbook very much, and I simply don’t like reading books on my desktop monitor.

Mind you, it’s not perfect (and that’s a function of PDF as a format for ebooks, and not the device itself)  – the reading experience depends on each individual PDF. With some PDFs, I can select an optimum font size and I’m still able to read each page in whole on the screen; other PDFs require me to choose either a too-small font size in order to fit an entire page onto the screen, or scroll back and forth. And let me just say, scrolling back and forth on a page (or up and down), is not fun.

So DRM-protected PDFs are now (mostly) readable on the go. But when it comes to my preferred ebook format, it’s definitely ePub.

I’ve been reading a fair bit on my new eReader. The funny thing is, I still prefer reading on my iPhone (which is why I’m holding out for an iPad for Christmas …).

What I’m eReading on my Kobo eReader right now:

No One Lives Twice, by Julie Moffett. This ePub came to me courtesy of NetGalley and Carina Press. Carina Press is Harlequin’s digital-only imprint publishing across a wide range of genres, and No One Lives Twice sounded like a book I’d love:

I’m Lexi Carmichael, geek extraordinaire. I spend my days stopping computer hackers at the National Security Agency. My nights? Those I spend avoiding my mother and eating cereal for dinner. Even though I work for a top-secret agency, I’ve never been in an exciting car chase, sipped a stirred (not shaken) martini, or shot a poison dart from an umbrella.

Unfortunately, it turned out I was wrong – and this is through no fault of the book itself. It’s just that it isn’t a match to my taste as a reader. I’d been anticipating more of a thriller novel with a female genius computer hacking main character doing lots of extraordinary things, but No One Lives Twice is more of a romantic suspense novel, with two possible love interests (who are both referred to in the rest of the synopsis, so it wasn’t like I wasn’t warned), and the extraordinary genius computer stunts are performed by one of the love interests and a set of super-smart twins (so far, anyway – I’m on chapter 18 of 26).

While it’s not really to my taste (I’m just not much into romance when it comes to books), there are lots of fun dollops of humor in it and the writing style is an easy read, so if romantic suspense is a genre you enjoy, you can check out the excerpt at Carina Press here.

Hacking Timbuktu, by Stephen Davies, is a YA novel scheduled for release this coming November. I received my ACR courtesy of NetGalley and Clarion Books, and have just started reading it.

Danny is a freelance IT specialist–that is, a hacker. He and his pal Omar are both skilled at parkour, or freerunning, a discipline designed to enable practitioners to travel between any two points regardless of obstacles. This is fortunate, because they’re off on an adventure that’s filled with obstacles, from locked doors to gangs of hostile pursuers. Together they follow a cryptic clue, find a missing map, figure out how to get to Timbuktu without buying a plane ticket, and join the life-and-death treasure hunt, exchanging wisecracks and solving the puzzle one step at a time.

I am familiar with parkour, or freerunning, because it’s something my husband is interested in (and participated in, until he hurt his knee last year). It’s exciting to watch, and the pairing of it with the computer hacking is intriguing to say the least. So far, I’m on page 70 of 274, and Hacking Timbuktu is living up to its promise.

I am midway through The Lineup: : The World’s Greatest Crime Writers Tell the Inside Story of Their Greatest Detectives, edited by Otto Penzler:

What was the real-life location that inspired Michael Connelly to make Harry Bosch a Vietnam vet tunnel rat? Why is Jack Reacher a drifter? How did a brief encounter in Botswana inspire Alexander McCall Smith to create Precious Ramotswe? In The Lineup, some of the top mystery writers in the world tell about the genesis of their most beloved characters–or, in some cases, let their creations do the talking.

If you find these questions interesting – and I definitely do! – you’ll love The Lineup. I’ve also discovered some mystery series that I’ve now added to my TBR list. As a writer, the essays in this book are especially interesting; it’s a peek into how a series character has developed, and absolutely fascinating from a writing point of view.

I’m also on chapter 3 of The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything, by Ken Robinson:

The Element is the point at which natural talent meets personal passion. When people arrive at the Element, they feel most themselves and most inspired and achieve at their highest levels. With a wry sense of humor, Ken Robinson looks at the conditions that enable us to find ourselves in the Element and those that stifle that possibility. Drawing on the stories of a wide range of people, including Paul McCartney, Matt Groening, Richard Branson, Arianna Huffington, and Bart Conner, he shows that age and occupation are no barrier and that this is the essential strategy for transform­ing education, business, and communities in the twenty-first century.

I’m really enjoying reading the various stories of all the different people in the book; the rest of the material isn’t quite as interesting, as it simply reinforces what I already know to be true. But it’s fun learning things like the fact that Elvis Presley didn’t make his high school glee club because the director of the club thought Presley couldn’t sing!

Related posts:

1. The Chloe and Levesque Mystery Series

I was hesitant about reading The Passage, by Justin Cronin; I loved the premise of the book (a secret government project to create super warriors ends up unleashing a deadly vampiric virus onto an unsuspecting world – I ask you, how could I resist?), but I was uncertain because of the dystopian nature of the book (those of you who know my reading likes and dislikes fairly well probably aren’t surprised; I have several books on my list I’m hesitant about simply because they’re dystopian).

But one day, I was feeling a little bored, and fooling around with my iPhone (which happens to be one of the best little tools for alleviating boredom that I know of), and I ended up downloading the two free preview chapters of the book from one of my favorite ebook sites.

I started reading, and I was hooked. Stephen King had this to say about The Passage:

“Every so often a novel-reader’s novel comes along: an enthralling, entertaining story wedded to simple, supple prose, both informed by tremendous imagination. Summer is the perfect time for such books, and this year readers can enjoy the gift of Justin Cronin’s The Passage. Read fifteen pages and you will find yourself captivated; read thirty and you will find yourself taken prisoner and reading late into the night. It has the vividness that only epic works of fantasy and imagination can achieve. What else can I say? This: read this book and the ordinary world disappears.”

And let me say, he is so right. I literally read those first fifteen pages and I was captivated. After thirty pages, and I could not put the book (or rather, my iPhone) down.

It’s a hefty tome, weighing in at 784 pages, but I read it all on my iPhone, and when I finished the last paragraph, I did so reluctantly, not wanting to leave the world Cronin had weaved.

In a Q&A at Amazon, Cronin was asked, “You are a PEN/Hemingway Award-winning author of literary fiction. Does The Passage represent a departure for you?” His reply:

I think it’d be a little silly of me not to acknowledge that The Passage is, in a number of ways, overtly different from my other books. But rather than calling it a ‘departure,’ I’d prefer to describe it as a progression or evolution. First of all, the themes that engage me as a person and a writer are all still present. Love, sacrifice, friendship, loyalty, courage. The bonds between people, parents and children especially. The pull of history, and the power of place, of landscape, to shape experience. And I don’t think the writing itself is different at all. How could it be? You write how you write.

And I think this is exactly why the The Passage gripped me so tightly. Yes, it was a fabulous thriller of a book, about a vampire virus running rampant, a world pushed into destruction, and the power of the human race to continue living despite it all. The plot was breathtaking in its breadth and excitement, exactly the kind of thing I like in a book.

But at The Passage’s core are those themes that Cronin talks about – love, sacrifice, friendship, loyalty, courage. And this is what makes the book such a beautiful read.

It says a lot that today, about two weeks after I finished the book, I still remember all the main characters. They remain so very vivid to me. If book two begins with these same characters, I know they will come back to me immediately, as full of life as when I read the final pages; and if book two begins with different characters, I have the utmost faith that I will be drawn into the new story immediately.

And the dystopian aspect? I loved it. The dark, bleak hopelessness that I associate with dystopian fiction isn’t what dominates the book; it’s a dystopian world that, despite everything, is filled with so much human hope and potential.

When I first finished reading this book, and began thinking about writing this post, all I could think of saying was, “Wow. Wow. Wow.” And “OMG, you’ve GOT to read this.” I still want to say these things, and so I’ll end my post this way.

The Passage is an incredible, absolute wow of a read. Read it, and you’ll be captivated. If you’re at all uncertain, do what I did – download the free preview chapters from your favorite ebook site, and take the plunge.

And a PS: despite the vampire virus/destruction of the world theme, there is minimal blood and gore. Cronin’s writing is wonderful, and he’s quite able to provoke an emotional response from the reader without the need to be extreme.

Related posts:

1. Fabulous Reading Streak – Ending, or Just Beginning?
2. Review: Blood Oath, by Christopher Farnsworth
3. Review: The Strain, by Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan
4. Reading E-books: Sony Reader or iPhone?

I’ve been reading Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol.

I found the book extremely exciting; it’s definitely a real page turner.

I really enjoyed all the research, too. I was very tempted several times while reading to stop for a moment and go to the computer to Google some of the things that Brown talks about in the book.

So here’s the paradox: despite this, I returned the book to the library without finishing it.

This is exactly the same thing that happened when I read Angels & Demons, the sequel to The Da Vinci Code (I enjoyed The Da Vinci Code enormously, by the way, and yes, I did finish it).

I had put down Angels & Demons with about a quarter of the book left to go. I’ve never been able to figure out why, exactly – I mean, here we were, coming up to the finale, there was a ton of excitement, which I’d enjoyed thoroughly, and suddenly, I lost interest.

As it turns out, I put down The Lost Symbol with about a quarter of the book to go, too; today, on my way to the library, I looked at it, sitting on my bedside table, and realized I probably wasn’t going to be in the mood to pick it up again, at least not in the near future. So I returned it.

This time around, I gave it a bit more thought. After all, I love a good story, with lots of excitement, a book that’s real page turner – so what happened?

Perhaps it didn’t help that I saw through all of the villain’s traps, right from the start of the book (that is, all the traps up until I stopped reading, which was just after Langdon fell into another trap despite my saying to him, “No! Don’t do that! Why aren’t you calling to check first? Oh, no, here we go again!”).

Still, despite this, as a reader I was quite willing to forgive Langdon for falling into these traps, even though they seemed so obvious to me (maybe I’m just way more paranoid or cynical than Langdon and after all, of course Langdon doesn’t know he’s a character in a thriller while I do know he is). Still, that wasn’t the reason I stopped reading.

The only thing I can think of is that there was just too much excitement for me. I already knew how the book would end – obviously, the world isn’t destroyed, and Robert Langdon lives to potentially get involved in another symbology caper – but really, I know that for most of the suspense novels I read.  But the pace was relentless, and in the end, just too fast for me. I could keep up for a while, and the subject matter and all the research definitely kept things interesting, but as we headed toward the finale, I just found all the excitement to be too much. And I lost interest as a result.

So this is a real paradox, because while I did not finish the book, I actually really enjoyed every bit of the book that I did read. And I just noticed that there’s a special illustrated edition that will be published this November, and if my library will be ordering it, well, I’d love to flip through it, so I can see pictures of the things Brown talks about in the book (because yes, I did resist the urge to Google while I was reading).

How weird is that? But it’s true. I enjoyed every bit of the book that I did read. At the same time, it’s a DNF (did not finish) for me. And yes, I would be tempted by the illustrated edition.

How’s that for a wishy washy sort-of-review?

What about you? Have you read The Lost Symbol? Did you like it? And if not, is it in your TBR list?

No related posts.

I moved on from reading Eye of the Crow to something completely different: French Milk, by Lucy Knisley is a memoir, written in graphic novel format, of a month-long holiday the author took with her mother in Paris, France.

I came across this novel when I was reading around the blogosphere (when I do this kind of surfing around, it’s extremely dangerous for my TBR list, which grows at an astronomical rate); I immediately put in a hold request for it from the library (I’m not sure whether my librarians actually like me all that much anymore, because I’m always putting things on hold).

This was a lovely, quick read; what I liked most about it were all the descriptions of the food that Knisley and her mother ate, accompanied by Knisley’s charming illustrations.

Interspersed throughout are black and white photographs from the trip; the photos are a nice accompaniment to Knisley’s drawings.

The preface to the book talks about the self-discoveries Knisley made during the trip, as well as similar revelations about her relationship with her mother, but I didn’t feel this to be the book’s strong point; it’s not so much about the author’s fully coming into adulthood while in Paris, as it is about all the wonderful sights and experiences she had while there. Her mother accompanied her, true, but I didn’t get much insight into their relationship. If anything, I got more of a feel for the author’s relationship with her father, who joined them for a few days of the trip.

French Milk is at its heart a wonderful and charming travel memoir – a fun, quick read that will leave you dreaming of leaving regular life behind for a few lovely weeks in Paris.

Want to buy French Milk? Support MsBookish by purchasing through one of these links: Amazon.com) | Indiebound | Chapters Indigo | Amazon.co.uk

Related posts:

1. Incoming! The Memoirs Edition
2. The Holiday Catch-Up Post
3. Holiday Mode, The Strain, and Writing
4. Reading Temptations
5. Linking Around: The Holiday Edition!

Despite appearances, I’ve actually had some time to read lately. Maybe “had some time to read” isn’t totally accurate – it’s been more like “squeezed some time to read” but regardless, it’s the end result that counts, right?

And I’ve been lucky, because everything I’ve picked up to read recently has turned out to be a good read. Eye of the Crow was a  really, really good read, in fact.

I picked up Eye of the Crow, by Shane Peacock, from the library one day; the “Silver Birch nominee” sticker on the spine caught my eye (as it turns out, it’s won a bunch of awards, including the Arthur Ellis Award for Juvenile Crime Fiction).

The book is about Sherlock Holmes’ first case, one undertaken when he’s a boy of just thirteen; I’m a Sherlock Holmes fan, and always on the lookout for good books about Holmes (Laurie King’s Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes series is another favorite of mine).

But Eye of the Crow stayed sitting in the pile of books on my library shelf for most of the three weeks I had it out.

And then, luckily, one day I read Memory’s review of Death in the Air; it’s the sequel to Eye of the Crow. Memory mentioned that Death in the Air was a good read, but not as good as Eye of the Crow. I realized, “Hey! I have Eye of the Crow sitting in my library pile.”

So I dashed over to my library shelf, picked up the book, and started reading.

I didn’t stop until I’d finished the entire book. The day got darker, my to-do list stayed undone (which, when you think about it, is really not such a bad thing,  because it meant all I had to do was re-use the same list the next day, with a few more additions), but I finished the book, my heart racing because it was gloriously, gorgeously suspenseful.

I know this is a children’s book, but the fact is, once you start reading, you’ll find yourself drawn into the world of 1860s London – drawn so deeply in you can almost smell the grime and feel the grit. And you’re not going to be thinking to yourself, I’m reading a children’s book – you’re going to be too deep in the story to remember that you actually are reading a book.

And really, that’s the best kind of book to sink your teeth into.

Peacock has done an amazing job. His boy Sherlock Holmes gives the adult Sherlock Holmes exactly the right childhood background – all the pieces fall into place. The reasons behind why Holmes is the way he is are all there, in the childhood backstory that Peacock has created for the adult Holmes in Eye of the Crow.

Not to mention, the suspense builds and builds and builds. This one is a keeper, and for the Sherlock Holmes fan, a must read.

Related posts:

1. Review: The Case of the Missing Marquess, by Nancy Springer
2. This Week’s Library Loot
3. Review: The Wright 3, by Blue Balliett
4. Friday Finds: Children’s Books
5. The Baker Street Challenge