"Harriet the Spy" by Louise Fitzhugh

I was not expecting to like this book this much.

It's about an eleven-year-old named Harriet, who isn't an actual spy. She just has a notebook in which she writes everything she thinks about everyone. Then |she loses her notebook, her friends find it, and nobody likes her anymore because she wrote her actual thoughts about everyone. And most of those are... let's say "brutally honest".|

(I thought it was going to be a kid-spies book, but no, it's a coming-of-age book.)

Most of my enjoyment of the book did not come from the plot. Most of my enjoyment came from the characters. As it turns out, I am a sucker for characters experiencing Emotions™. (This may possibly relate back to my review of Darkbeast and the principle that I read fiction to feel things.)

This review is part of my first completed quest.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: Uhhhhh... E10+?

4 stars.

(Endnote: I must confess that I occasionally backdate these slightly if I forget to post one on schedule or don't quite have it done. This is more for my peace of mind than anything else.)

Mini-Reviews 16: Tons of #9 Coal

Just Listen by Sarah Dessen

The main characters of another of Sarah Dessen's books (This Lullaby, I think) cameo in this one. I thought that was neat.

It's about a girl who's trying desperately to pretend everything is fine and hold things together while everything falls apart around her, and also a guy who's into weird music and who she maybe (okay definitely, this is a romance novel) likes.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: T15+ for discussion of an eating disorder (and possibly also a suicide attempt), an in-the-past and mostly offscreen sexual assault, and swearing (including one instance of The Cardinal Swearword).

4 stars.

Tags for this one: 4-star, a kissing book, DRAMA!, modern setting, rated T15+, romance, school drama, YA

Bitter End by Rex Stout

 

It's another Nero Wolfe book. A novella, this time. I read this on a tablet in an airport, which is not my favorite way or place to read books, but it was good enough that I liked it regardless.

 

Basically, someone puts quinine in a can of liver paté (no idea what paté is but I assume it's some kind of meat paste thing) that Nero Wolfe subsequently eats. He Does Not Like This and begins a personal quest to find whoever did that and make them pay.

 

I don't have tons to say about this, but I do have some favorite lines to share.

 

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: A stern T for violence (people getting shot at and stuff, plus it is a murder mystery).

 

4 stars.

Favorite lines:

 

    "I am under no obligation to catch murderers indiscriminately."

    Page, uh, I have no idea? This is an ebook and it doesn't like telling me the page numbers for whatever reason.

 

     "Some news for you. [NAME REDACTED] is under arrest: they just took |her| away from here. Mr. Wolfe would like to have |her| prosecuted for feeding him quinine, but the cops prefer to try |her| for murder. [REDACTED]'s guilty of both."

    Page nobodyknows. Page numbers are a mess in Ebooks, it's one of the reasons I don't like them as much as actual paper books.

Tags for this one: 4-star, mystery, rated T

Silverwing by Kenneth Oppel (illustrated by Christopher Steininger)

 

Content warning: This is a book about bats. If you don't like bats or are afraid of bats, don't read it.

Basically, a young bat's clan of bats is migrating south after the young bat (our main character) accidentally provoked some owls into burning down their home tree. Then he gets separated from the clan, goes on an a bunch of adventures, and meets the girl deuteragonist. She's not really a love interest, though that may change as the series goes on.

The book is actually pretty creepy. The art doesn't help, but the story features such delightful things as a rat civilization, a cult of bats who can sort of transform into humans, and these carnivorous jungle bats that try to eat whatever they can get their hands on (including some pigeons and the deuteragonist).

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: T for all that stuff I mentioned above.

3 stars. Could conceivably have been 4 if it hadn't kept talking about evolution.

Tags for this one: 3-star, adventure, modern setting, rated T, talking animals

(Endnote: And the boss man said, "Well bless my soul!")

"Kill the Dawn" by Emily Hayse

It's Hamlet... IN SPACE!

The above sentence is a lie. This book has nothing to do with space. Kill the Dawn is, in fact, Hamlet... IN SCANDINAVIA!

Yes, yes, I know Hamlet is already set in Scandinavia. More accurately, it's Hamlet... IN FANTASY SCANDINAVIA! There, we went three for three and we can start being serious.

This is a fantasy retelling of Hamlet, with all the drama and bloodshed that entails. If you want a more coherent review, go here.

I've read some adaptations of the original, including the Manga Classics version, so I mostly know how the story goes. (I haven't read the original, though. The only Shakespeare play I've read in its entirety is Julius Caesar.) So I do have the knowledge necessary to... mostly figure out who people are supposed to be. There are some people in this whose counterparts I can't fathom (if anyone knows who Axel is supposed to be, please tell me) and there are some people whose counterparts I recognized instantly (I'm looking at you, Fainga/Claudius).

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: T for fantasy violence. It could be a pretty good videogame.

4 stars.

(Endnote: Next I'll be reviewing the sequel, No Leave The Dawn Alone You Fool What Were You Thinking You've Doomed Us All.)

Mini-Reviews 13: It's Not Even Friday!

Playing with Fire by Derek Landy

Book 2 of Skulduggery Pleasant. (Book 1 is here.) In this one, some new (or possibly not so new?) bad guys show up and try to resurrect an evil giant monster thing. |They succeed, and the heroes have to fight it.|

It's been like a year since I read the last one, so I don't remember how many of the villains in this were mentioned in the first one.

Oh, and the Spring-Heeled Jack shows up, which was interesting.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: T for violence and giant spiders.

4 stars. However, as previously mentioned, there are giant spiders; I can read past them, but if you hate giant spiders, you probably shouldn't read this.

Tags for this one: 4-star, cool magic, modern setting, rated T, urban fantasy

The Wondrous World of Violet Barnaby by Jenny Lundquist

This is about a twelve-ish-year-old girl, Violet Barnaby, whose mom is dead and whose dad has recently remarried. She spends most of the book grieving for her mom and railing against the injustice of change.

She also spends most of the book repressing the urge to just snap and start shouting at everything. I, too, have repressed that urge, as probably have we all.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: E.

4 stars.

Tags for this one: 4-star, DRAMA!, modern setting, rated E

The Wolf of Cape Fen by Juliana Brandt

This book has a very twisty plot, and one that holds together in light of the new plot twists (I'm looking at you, Maximum Ride). Plus they're actually well-executed enough that I don't see them coming, which... either I've been reading books with untwisty plots or I've just gotten really good at spotting the plot twist.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: E10+ for "deal-with-the-devil"-style magic (though not with the actual devil).

3 stars.

Tags for this one: 3-star, magical realism, modern setting, rated E10+

(Endnote: HALT IN THE NAME OF THE FRIDAY KNIGHT! Man, I really need to review Dragons at Crumbling Castle...)

"The Man Who Was Thursday" by G. K. Chesterton

You know how, in this year's April Fool's post, I portrayed my 8th-grade math textbook as a deep and somewhat incomprehensible drama? This one is actually like that.

 

It's about a guy named Gabriel Syme who gets enlisted as a secret detective to infiltrate a group of anarchists. And ends up being elected to their secret council, wherein everyone is named after the days of the week. He's Thursday, hence the title.

 

Turns out, |he's not the only undercover policeman on the council|. In fact, |everyone on the council is an undercover policeman|. With the exception of |Sunday, the ringleader, who's the guy that enlisted all the undercover policemen to infiltrate the anarchists|. 

 

|And who also, by the way, is implied by the ending to be God.|.

Oh, did I mention it was also probably all a dream? As evidenced by the subtitle (it's actually called The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare). Somehow this doesn't annoy me nearly as much as it does most of the time. Maybe because it's in the title? Or because it gets weird, somewhat surreal, and kind of dreamlike toward the end?

 

Either way, this is definitely a thought-provoking book, and would be even if Syme and Gregory (another character who kicks off the plot by being an actual anarchist) didn't sometimes go on opposing philosophical tirades.

 

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: T for... um... I don't actually know. I still wouldn't hand this to a 10-year-old, and it would probably actually make a rather good videogame.

 

4 stars.

 

Favorite lines:

 

    "Thieves respect property. They merely wish the property to become their property that they may more perfectly respect it."

    Page 23.

 

(Endnote: Despite the subtitle, this is not actually a horror novel.)

"To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee

I am proud to announce that, after ten years of ignorance, I finally know who Boo Radley is. 

Okay, obscure inside jokes aside, this is actually a really good book. As in, I was reading it for school, and then just didn't stop and ended up reading the entire thing in two days. Even The Scarlet Pimpernel didn't do that to me, and I was also reading that for school.

It took me about twenty pages to confirm from context that the narrator was indeed a girl. I can kind of tell whether a book's narrator is a boy or a girl just based on their style of narration, and Scout's narration felt like female narration to me, but I couldn't actually confirm my suspicion until like twenty pages in.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: ...T? I guess? For |an accusation of rape being one of the plot points|? Scout (the main character) is nine for most of the book, which makes me reluctant to rate it T, but if she were older I'd have no problem giving To Kill a Mockingbird T, so...

And after some deliberation, I've also decided on a star rating: 5. This deserves it.

(Endnote: Anyone who's read the book, I have a musing/question for you. [Anyone who hasn't read the book, this is one of those "no but i really mean it though this has actual big spoilers inside of it" spoiler tags.] Anyway, the musing/question is this: |How did Harper Lee manage to make me feel instinctively affectionate toward and sorry for Boo Radley despite the fact that he is literally never seen until the very end of the story? Not to mention the fact that the characters--and by extension the you--know practically nothing about him except various strange rumors?|)

"Night Watch" by Terry Pratchett

Plot summary: A homicidal psychopath yeets himself and Commander Vimes back into the past, then murders past!Vimes's mentor so present!Vimes has to take his place. Unfortunately, the "past" they were yeeted into is the time when Homicidal Lord Winder is being deposed by a revolution in the streets because he decided secret police were a good idea.

This is one of the more somber Discworld books.

I'm starting to suspect that Vimes the chronically angry and cynical actually has some form of depression, though I have no actual evidence for this.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: T15+ for crude humor, swearing, and violence.

4 stars.

Favorite lines:

    His glare ran from face to face, causing most of the squad to do an immediate impression of the Floorboard and Ceiling Inspectors Synchronized Observation Team.

    Page 118.

    He unfolded [the note]. In smudged pencil, but still readable, it read: Morphic Street, 9 o'clock tonight. Password: swordfish.

    Swordfish? Every password was "swordfish"! Whenever anyone tried to think of a word that no one would ever guess, they always chose "swordfish." It was just one of those strange quirks of the human mind.

    Page 157. I'm pretty sure this is a trope in British fiction that didn't quite translate over to America.

    "But suddenly I've got all the aces, Duke," he said.

    "But suddenly I'm not playing cards, Carcer."

    Page 194.

    THERE IS NO MORE TIME, EVEN FOR CAKE. FOR YOU, THE CAKE IS OVER. YOU HAVE REACHED THE END OF CAKE.

    Pages 389-390.

(Endnote: I don't have much to say about this one.)

"Bridge to Terabithia" by Katherine Paterson.

This is an essay I wrote for a literature class. It's part of my first completed quest. You know the drill by now.

Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson

 Bridge to Terabithia is a book that starts out as an ordinary, typical slice-of-life book, only to abruptly take a sharp turn into a serious story of sudden tragedy; this facilitates its look at the topic of good and bad emotional outlets. The author’s writing style reflects the age of the characters and their seemingly simple, uncomplicated life throughout most of the book.

The book starts out as a relatively normal story of two middle-school kids named Jess and Leslie becoming friends based around their creation of the imaginary kingdom of Terabithia in the forest, hence the title. And for most of the book, that’s exactly what it is. (If anyone doesn’t want spoilers, say something now.) But then Leslie suddenly dies, and approximately the remaining fifth of the book focuses on Jess as he tries to cope with losing his only friend. Notably, the story has basically no foreshadowing of the death, which almost jumps out at the reader; this sudden appearance reflects its “out of nowhere” nature within the story’s world. This structure helps the reader to feel as Jess does about Leslie’s death.

Bridge to Terabithia seems to have a theme of handling emotions. At the beginning of the book, Jess expresses his emotions via drawings, which he shows to absolutely nobody; this reflects him keeping everything inside and not telling anyone about it. Leslie similarly internalizes her thoughts, though she shows it less. When Jess and Leslie create Terabithia, Jess has an emotional outlet; its unexpected removal, combined with the grief from Leslie’s death, causes him to start to emotionally fall apart. There is a supporting character who also reflects the theme: Janice Avery, a bully at Jess’s school. Towards the end of the book, Janice reveals to Leslie that she bullies others because she’s always angry over how her abusive father treats her. Janice serves as a foil for both Jess and Leslie; her destructive method of dealing with her emotions contrasts with their constructive creation of Terabithia (although, admittedly, the stuff they’re using Terabithia to deal with is not nearly as bad as Janice Avery’s problem).

Katherine Paterson’s style matches the main character and overall story. The book has a serious tone, and the narration is definitely written seriously; however, it does not make use of overly scholarly language. Sentences are no longer than they need to be; compound sentences are few and far between. Despite this, the sentences don’t feel choppy. They lead into one another while still remaining separate. After Leslie’s death, the style turns introspective and almost dreamlike as Jess tries to process what just happened.

In conclusion, Katherine Paterson uses a relatively straightforward narrative and a serious but not scholarly writing style to allow the storytelling to feel natural and make the emotional themes easier for readers to understand.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: The lower edge of E10+ for bullying and Leslie's (admittedly off-page) death.

Bridge to Terabithia gets 4 stars. It's not my new favorite book, but what it sets out to do, it does well.

(Endnote: I didn't have time before the due date to read the paper out loud to find stuff that doesn't work, so I didn't even notice the fact that my conclusion paragraph is a single sentence. Or that I had three sentences in a row with semicolons. I may have a semicolon obsession when writing formally...)