"Time Cat" by Lloyd Alexander

 First: disclaimer. I HATED THIS BOOK. Actually, I liked it fairly well up until the ending. But the ending ABSOLUTELY STANK. Also, I'm going to majorly spoil it, so don't read any further if you don't want that.

 

 

Now that we've got that out of our way, let's begin. The story starts when our main character, Jason, finds out his cat can talk. The premise of the book is that cats don't necessarily have nine lives, but they can visit nine lives. Accordingly, the book is divided into nine sections of two chapters each (except one, which has three chapters). Oh, and the cat is named Gareth. Who names their cat Gareth???

And then Jason and Gareth go on a rollicking adventure! Actually, they go on NINE rollicking adventures. I don't have much to say about any of them, really. They go to all sorts of places and times and do random stuff.

AND NOW, for the ending:

It was all a dream.

My first reaction upon reading that was "AaAAAaAARGH". "It was all a dream" is quite possibly my least favorite story ending ever. EVER. 

If this was a movie, I don't know how I would rate it. Probably PG.

And what rating did you think this book would get? Quite obviously, given the tone of the rest of my review, it's getting one star. This is what books get for having my least favorite ending in the history of bad book endings. (There are a few books who have managed to redeem themselves despite having "it was all a dream" as their ending, but not many in my eyes.)

Favorite lines: none. No really memorable lines.

"The Curse of Ravenscourt" by Sarah Masters Buckley

This book is a mystery. Specifically, it's a Samantha mystery, which means it's an American Girl mystery in the Samantha series (set in 1904). This factors into the plot in a lot of ways, some of which are very annoying. Very annoying indeed. (One of which is also that Samantha is the main character.)

And on that cheery note, let's get into the story itself. It starts when Samantha's family has to temporarily move into a giant apartment building/hotel/thingy. (The back of the book calls it an "apartment-hotel".) Which is called... can you guess? Ravenscourt! And because it's called Ravenscourt, and the name of the book is The Curse of Ravenscourt, said court of ravens must be cursed.

 

Couple with that, if you please, the fact that Samantha's adopted sister Nellie is initially apprehensive of the giant carved ravens all over Ravenscourt (interesting sense of decor, but I can't really blame them), and you have the start to what is quite an interesting book. 

 

And then weird stuff starts happening, some of which is actually fairly creepy. Someone or something paints a red "13" on the elevator's level plaque, and then other stuff ensues. The "13" is talked up to make it sound somewhat like it's painted in blood, which makes it creepier than if someone had just remarked something like "someone painted a red 13 on the wall, oh dear let's wash it off". 

 

I have a weird tangent for you all, by the way. How would you pronounce the name "Winthrop"? I'd always read it "Win-thrawp" in my head before, but when Daddy was reading it out loud he said "Win-thrope". Which, if either, would you say?

 

I didn't like the ending much. I mean, the curse is cool and all, but... with regards to the curse, what conclusions can be drawn from the fact that it's from American Girl? Nothing remotely magical or supernatural is going to be in an American Girl book. The ending is why I gave it the rating I did.

 

If this was a movie, I would rate it PG--there is some fairly creepy stuff in it, honestly. 

 

This book, like Everything on a Waffle, gets a rating of three stars. As I said before, I didn't like the ending. There really aren't any other reasons why I didn't like it, just the ending. It was kind of meh overall.

 

Favorite Lines:

    Samantha thought that servants might like sunlight as much as anyone else would, but she said nothing.
    Page 22.

(for background, this is Jenny, another of Samantha's adopted sisters, talking on a telephone)
    "Hello?" said Jenny, trying to talk into the earpiece.
    Page 87.