Speed-Reading Book Nerd Reviews

Heroes At Risk

By Moira J. Moore.

Before I begin (no offense meant whatsoever to Ms. Moore), I would just like to say this to the publishers: I adore that you are still wanting to publish this series...but the cover on this one makes me feel like I am on an acid trip. It goes with the book's theme, but it's over the top and the colors glare quite unpleasantly, with a heavy slice of cheese thrown in. Previous covers were a lot better. Please keep this in mind for the next book. That is all.

Lee and Taro are now back in High Scape...a much quieter High Scape, which doesn't seem to be having natural disasters of late and are sending their Pairs elsewhere. Our pair have a strange time adjusting to the world again, but on top of that are surprised to see the latest fad that's cropped up in town: magic.

Specifically, people are casting spells, wearing spelled jewelry (which Taro insists on getting for himself and Lee), and digging up the ashes of "lucky" dead people to use in spells. There's some kind of plague going around by the riverfront, and people are feeling like they're losing control of the world. Lee is pretty well horrified by this stuff, and yet goes around getting books on magic to read up on it anyway to figure it out. She also gets rather forcibly befriended by a trader who seems to have a unique cadre of friends who want to enlist her and Taro's assistance in...what, exactly?

Now that they're back where they're known and Lee and Taro's relationship has become more public, they have to deal with both private and public flack for it. Not to mention that the fellow Lee was dating before she left town returns into her life, and he's not so much into taking no for an answer. Lee still expects that at some point Taro will lose interest in her, and is in some level of denial as to what is going on with both guys.

Oh, and the Empress has died and her shifty son is now going to be in power...and since he doesn't like Taro, this can't bode well. Especially with the new laws he has coming out against magic. I've wondered ever since reading the first book when Taro's ah...more special abilities...were going to bite him in the ass. Now that the primary person who suspected he had them isn't around any more, maybe this will never happen. But what I realized reading this book was that the author has had a different game going on all along, what with the use of magic in the last two books. At this point, two things seem to be established that are downright mind-blowing....and very, very ominous. Hoo boy.

This ends on a fairly mind-blowing cliffhanger/realization...I'll be looking forward to the next book, all right. Four stars.

Fame Junkies: The Hidden Truths Behind America's Favorite Addiction

By Jake Halpern.

This is a real kick in the gut sort of book. He interviews people from four fame-seeking areas of life: child actors, celebrity personal assistants, extreme fans of celebrities, and elderly actors, investigating what kinds of "high" they get from seeking fame and what it's doing to them personally. Halpern focuses on those who aren't likely to make it on the child actor side, and ponders what kinds of damage is being done. A few people seem to benefit regardless of whether or not they are getting fame, but in the end, is it ever going to be enough? What kind of a high do you get from mingling with celebrities if they yell at you? What kind of a high do you get if a celebrity knows who you are, but odds are probably still won't let you come into his house? What's lacking in your everyday life that isn't being filled except from seeing the near-impossible?

Suffice it to say, I'll be remembering this book for a long time. Five stars.

Into the Night (Troubleshooters, Book 5)

By Suzanne Brockmann.

Finally got ahold of this book, which precedes Gone Too Far. Shoulda read them in order, but oh well. This is an excellent windup book.

The plots:
(a) White House employee Joan DaCosta is in San Diego trying to set up a ceremony in which the President gives some honors to SEAL Team Sixteen. SEAL Team Sixteen, specifically its leader Tom Paoletti, has A Bad Feeling About This due to terrorism stuff going on in SD lately. He tries to not have the ceremony go on, but no such luck. Adding to the awkward is the President's party girl daughter coming into town, and Joan has to find an escort for her.

Joan ends up palling around with the gorgeous Mike Muldoon, a former fat kid who hasn't quite grown into knowing what a hottie he is now. However, he's 25 and she's 32, and she's creeped out by the age difference enough to keep declaring him a brother-type only. Mike...does not feel similarly. The two are pretty fun, though when Joan's job and the President's daughter start causing trouble, this gets pretty rocky.

(b) The aforementioned marriage between Sam Starrett and his wife Mary Lou isn't going well. He avoids her whenever possible, and she spends her time either taking care of their kid, working at McDonald's, or going to AA meetings and trying her damndest not to drink while pretty much not having a support system other than AA. Mary Lou is a character you couldn't help but be annoyed at in previous books--a 22-year-old bar bunny who obviously got pregnant on purpose so she could marry a SEAL. However, in this book she realizes the error of her ways, and ends up making very good friends with a fellow friend of Bill who she never would have figured in a million years to be someone she'd be compatible with.

However, unbeknownst to Mary Lou, a terrorist is targeting the ladies of the Team Sixteen men, and he's using her for more nefarious purposes...

This book takes a long time to get to the final endgame, but I have to say that you just don't feel any sort of drag with that at all here. I kept staying compelled with Mary Lou's story (the time when she goes to a Team Sixteen ladies's party is excruciating) even when "the action" wasn't going on. And I have a crush on Ihbraham, who is freaking adorable and sweet. Mike and Joan are pretty fun to read about, even if they might not be the most vibrantly standing out couple ever in the Troubleshootersverse. So, good job all around.

Four stars.

Just for the heck of it.

Reviewer questions.

1. Do you find that the anticipation of reviewing the book has changed your reading experience?

Not especially. The only time I even think about that a bit is when I'm reading an agent-solicited book.

2. Are you rating the book even as you read? Or do you wait until the end to sum it all up?

A little of each. I somewhat think I know what I'm going to rate it, but leave some room open for things to change in one way or another.

3. Does knowing you'll be reviewing it (or rating it) publicly affect which books you pick up in the first place?

No. I do read some books that I don't plan on reviewing (mostly ones I read for research purposes), but I don't have to review stuff if I don't want to, so eh.

4. Does the process of writing the review itself change how you felt about the book?

Occasionally, in the "it helps to figure out why I had issues with it" sort of way.

5. What is your motivation to assign a rating to a book and declare it to the world?

Beats me, really, other than TypePad has the cute little star ratings thing already built in.  But the actual purpose of the "rating" is kind of an after the thought, abbreviated review. The "if you're not going to read the rest of it, here's the bare minimum you need to know" point. Five equals "epic" book, four equals loved it, three equals "good but I had reservations" (approximately), two equals "not great, but had some good points" and one equals "wall banger." I don't tend to read/finish a whole lot of books that fall into the last two categories. I figure it's good to have a shortened version of the review, but in general I think people should read the whole thing to know why the book got reviewed like it did, see if they have issues with what I had issues with or not. I may hate say, "sperm bandit" stories, but if it doesn't bug you, then hey, you'll probably like the book better than me and you'll know to disregard my hatred when you read the review.

6. If you review a book but don't rate, why not? What do you feel is your role as reviewer?

My role as reviewer is to answer the questions of (a) is this book a good read or not, and (b) for what reasons?

Honestly, 95% of the books I read but didn't review (I don't leave ratings off the books so I'm skipping that bit) were probably more because I was having an issue with it than anything that I think is a problem with the writing itself. If it's about a subject matter that I have less than zero interest in, I probably should just skip it than trying to keep finding it interesting. The last book I started reading and didn't finish...there's not a darned thing wrong with it that I can even pinpoint to put into a review other than "I am just not feeling this book worth a damn somehow." Technically written well, I just somehow wasn't getting into it after 150 pages and eventually figured I wasn't going to get to liking it any better or caring what happened. But it's nothing wrong on the part of the writer, it just wasn't my cup of tea. Which is why I still don't review those books, because I don't think it's fair to slag on someone for my just not loving their writing style when they aren't doing it badly.

Royal Portraits in Hollywood: Filming the Lives of Queens

By Elizabeth A. Ford and Deborah C. Mitchell.

This is a fascinating book. I don't have to tell you the subject matter of it, obviously, but the authors compare the actual known history of each queen and then compare it to how various film versions of that queen's life went. They note which movies focus more on the men in the queen's life (they consider any movie where the movie doesn't start until the queen meets a man a no-no), and where other biases come into filming. Romantic interests are clearly thrown in where they didn't exist so much fairly often, such as with Queen Christina who was probably a lesbian, or claiming that Catherine the Great and Peter were more romantic than they ever were.

Some movies try to strengthen their queen, others deliberately weaken her, particularly Cleopatra. Speaking of crazy biases, I was particularly horrified to find out about the existence of George Bernard Shaw's "Caesar and Cleopatra," which he apparently wanted to do as another version of Pygmalion and seemed to insist that Caesar and Cleopatra weren't sexual. Um, what?! I was also surprised to learn that Sofia Coppola's very stylized, using modern music/shoes "Marie Antoinette", was actually very accurate when it came to period dialogue. Go figure.

It's interesting to compare the older movies featuring famous movie queens of the day, compared to later movies. As the book puts it:

"Casting has, does, and will alter the flavor of a film about the life of any queen. Personality stars like Bette Davis, Greta Garbo, and Elizabeth Taylor may fight to be one with their characters, but they are never really meant to merge. Instead, the two icons coexist in a sometimes shaky juxtaposition that marries box office and historical realities. Character actors like Glenda Jackson, Cate Blanchett, and Helen Mirren, however, seem to be channeling their characters."

Clearly the authors are huge fans of Elizabeth I (the Mary chapter seems to focus on her as little as they can get away with so they can talk about Elizabeth some more!), and then they really get into her in the later chapter. Of course, there's plenty of movies made about her for comparison, but they seem to really love the "Elizabeth R" miniseries because it's very comprehensive. I was also intrigued to find out about "Young Bess," a movie that features a less-emphasized period of history in Elizabeth I's life, where she was involved in an awkward love triangle between her last stepmother and the guy she married after Henry's death.

I was also pleased to see that they do mention "The Queen" (on Elizabeth II) at the end, even if there isn't another movie of its ilk to compare to another one.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, it's very well done and intriguing to read. Five stars.

Falling in Love Again: Romantic Comedy in Contemporary Cinema

Edited by Stacey Abbott and Deborah Jermyn.

Themes covered in this book:

• Romantic comedies in New York City.
• Bill Murray's romantic comedies (Groundhog Day, Broken Flowers, Lost in Translation)
• Revisiting high school
• British romantic comedies, i.e. ones made by Working Title
• Edward Burns movies
• Jennifer Lopez movies
• Indian, French, and African-American romantic comedies
• How the Miss Congeniality movies are really about lesbian romance
• The use of gay male characters in hetero romances
• The "homme-com", or romantic comedies for men, and comedian-based romantic comedies

If you're interested in any of this subject matter, you'll enjoy this book. I wasn't so into the foreign-based movies (haven't seen 'em, though), but some folks had some very interesting takes on things. I was rather astonished at the African-American rom-com essay (even though it only featured two movies, huh? I can think of more than that off the top of my head) pointing out how shallowly the characters were treated in them. I haven't seen the Miss Congeniality movies, but pointing out that Gracie Hart is most likely a lesbian makes sense. I can't say I thought of Bill Murray as all that much of a romantic hero either, but the two essays dedicated to him make sense as well. I was amused at the pro-English takes on the Working Title movies, but then again, is that a surprise?

Anyway, it was a short, fun read. Four stars. Wish it was longer.

Trust Me

By Peter Leonard.

(Disclaimer: this was sent to me by an agent.)

This is one of those "caper" sort of novels that runs along at a brisk pace, but doesn't have much depth beneath it.

Former model Karen dates high-powered men. She was happily shacking up with a fellow named Samir and made the mistake of trusting her entire savings from modeling to him...then they broke up and he kept the money. Now currently unhappily engaged to a guy named Lou, when Lou gets robbed, she privately offers the robbers the job of busting her money out of Samir's safe. Naturally, this doesn't go well and shootings go down, people end up on the run, and everyone's trying to get money.

If you look at the book on that level, of "watch the guns go off and watch people scheme and things happen," sure, it's quite a fast roller coaster ride. So on that level, it's good. However, I didn't honestly give a crap about pretty much any of the characters. Now, they're all "bad guys" (well, maybe not Virginia, Karen's sister) and I wasn't really expecting to find anyone to be a sympathetic "hero" or anything like that. But everyone is drawn so shallowly that I didn't care what they were getting up to, why these guys were so stupid to "fall in love" with anyone who showed any sexual interest in them, I didn't care who got the money or who lived or died. And if I don't care what happens to anyone, it's hard to get my thrills and chills from the roller coaster ride.

Karen, the ostensible heroine, has occasional moments of character/humanity. I actually enjoyed reading about the starts of her relationships with Samir and Lou, which were kind of sweet before they went bad. And I enjoyed the friendship she had with her lawyer. Seeing brief moments of humanity rather than "scheming femme fatale" made me root for her a little...but well, since those moments are pretty short in here, it was only a little.

So...two and a half stars.

Coyote Dreams

By C.E. Murphy.

I reviewed the first two books in the Walker Papers (papers? it's not a journal) series ages ago, but apparently I forgot to post #3. Since I just reread the book, I'll post a review.

It's about a month after the last book, and Joanne apparently managed to pick up a new guy named Mark at the police officer's July 4 picnic. Her boss, Morrison (who Joanne pretty blatantly has a crush on at this point) has also picked up a date, Mark's cute-as-a-button twin Barbara. Joanne can't stand her from the getgo, but finds Mark pretty nice, albeit too-good-to-be-true in some ways. But then again, anyone who's comfortable with the word "shaman" right off the bat freaks Joanne out.

Mostly the plot deals with the "blue flu", some strange sleeping sickness that takes over a quarter of the police force and their relatives. Joanne suspects rightly that this has something to do with her and tries, in her usual fumbling-in-the-dark-alone style, to deal with it. Turns out she's triggered all kinds of things in her blind attempts to fend off supernatural gods, and now they've come back to blow up in her face. Combine that with her spirit guide Coyote mostly being AWOL, and having a major need to heal her own past wounds and deal with what happened when she was a teenager, and...it's quite a complicated battle in the mind for Joanne.

I will say that the overall use of dreams, while an obviously necessary plot point here, did kind of get to me after awhile. I am not a big fan of dream sequences and stuff, but Joanne probably spends at least half of the book in some kind of dream/trance/spirit journey or other and frankly, I found the action hard to follow after awhile. I also wish the book had clarified WHAT went on with her mother before book 1, because I am sure she never mentioned it previously, but it's referred to here like the readers should know what happened.

On the other hand, Joanne's mental/emotional journey continues to be compelling, and since I just found out a book 4 will be coming, I am excited to hear from Joanne again and find out where she's going to go from here.

So, three and a half stars.

Julie and Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously

By Julie Powell.

Note: I am not sure what, if anything, is drastically different from the original book text, but this copy I ended up with does have a Q&A with the author in the back and a list of book recommendations.

I'm not a foodie (dear god, no), so I mostly ignored the whole original blog thing, was amazed it got turned into a book, etc. However, once it got turned into a movie, I was all, "You gotta be kidding me. How'd she DO THAT?!" So I went to see the movie, liked it, and guess what I ended up with the next day. (The person I went with picked up "My Life In France" for comparison's sake.)

I had pretty much figured that this book was going to be a republishing of her old blog posts, but...no, not really. It's more of turning that period of time into a narrative, filling in details of Julie's stressful government job dragging her down and throwing in some personal details here and there. To be honest, I was not terribly interested in hearing about Julie's childhood or what her brother is up to or what her friends are doing dating-wise so much. Those things were kind of off-topic and thus I didn't care much, though I will admit to being horrified the way Julie was at how her friend "Isabel" dumped her husband to chase after an English punk rocker. I realize that yeah, she probably couldn't 100% republish the blog and had to fill in some more information here and there that people hadn't read before. But I would have say, wanted to hear more about her idolization of Julia Child or more about the cooking and how it was affecting her life instead. I also think it's kind of odd that as the blog got more attention, she really starts summarizing more, not really mentioning her book deal or all that much about her TV/media appearances (besides being really annoyed at CNN for not giving her plate back). 

On the other hand, the chapters that she does dedicate to cooking are vivid, and the point where she finds out what Julia thinks of her is a stinger. But the main thing that stands out to me about this book is the stuff about how picking a crazy-ass project that overtook her previously dull life got her some fame and fortune (and out of her crappy job). That is what I find to be amazing: the transformation that she went. Finding a purpose, albeit a crazy one, that took her away from the post-9/11 tragedy she dealt with every day. She felt like Julia saved her from being a nonentity, gave her an escape route out of that world that she didn't like. And towards the end of the novel, there's some very lovely quotes about that.

And then I wrote this sentence: "I have no claim over the woman at all, unless it's the claim one who has nearly drowned has over the person who pulled her out of the ocean."
And I started crying so hard I had to stop writing.

And I love that.

So, three and a half stars overall, I guess.

Here If You Need Me: A True Story

By Kate Braestrup.

After her husband died, Kate Braestrup did what he'd wanted to do in life and became (a) a Unitarian-Universalist minister, (b) working as a chaplain with game wardens when they go out to look for dead bodies. So most of the novel is a series of thoughtful, too-short vignettes on doing her job, occasionally one on juggling having four kids and a job like this, and how to deal with spiritual questions in a job where you find a lot of dead bodies. It's very intriguing, and yet not too disturbing the way you might assume it might be, given her job.

On the other hand...it's a little TOO vignette-y for me. The death of Kate's husband is breezed over in a short vignette, ditto her decision to go to seminary (that's really skimmed over). I wanted to know more about how she came to make that choice in life and why, but she barely touches it. Later, she also really skims over finding another husband. I wanted more details as to her personal journey, but she stays very reserved and far away from those topics. I hate to say it ,but the shortness of each chapter kind of felt like...well, a bathroom reader.

Actually, it's a good, quick read, but I felt like it could have been more, and I wanted more. So, three and a half stars.