Throwback Thursday (August 2) – Circle of Friends

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Welcome to Throwback Thursday, a weekly meme hosted by The Housework Can Wait and Never Too Fond of Books!

It’s the nature of book blogging to focus mainly on new releases, but there are thousands of great books out there that haven’t seen the “New Releases” shelf in years. We hope to be able to bring attention to some older titles that may not be at the top of the current bestseller list, but still deserve a spot in your To-Be-Read pile.

You don’t have to be a book blogger to participate! You can put up a Throwback Thursday post on your non-bookish blog; or if you don’t have a blog at all, just use the comments to tell us about a book you remember fondly.

Here’s how it works:
1. Pick any book released more than 5 years ago. Adult, YA, Children’s; doesn’t matter. Any great book will do.
2. Write up a short summary of the book (include the title, author, and cover art) and an explanation of why you love it. Make sure to link back to The Housework Can Wait and Never Too Fond of Books in your post.
3. Link up your post at The Housework Can Wait or Never Too Fond of Books.
4. Visit as many blogs as you can, reminisce about books you loved, and discover some “new” books for your TBR list!

Feel free to grab the Throwback Thursday button code from the sidebar to use in your posts.

Thanks for participating, and we look forward to seeing which books you choose to remember!

On a side note, Mandi will be rejoining us next week, fresh off her blogging hiatus! Yay! This solo hosting gig is daunting. I’m glad I won’t have to do it anymore. So here’s a preemptive WELCOME BACK, Mandi!

My Throwback this week is…

 

Circle of Friends by Maeve Binchy.

You may have heard that Irish author Maeve Binchy died this week at the age of 72. She wrote chick lit love stories set in Ireland, which I devoured as a high schooler. And this story, about childhood friends Eve and Benny that grow up to attend college with the beautiful Nan and dashing Jack, was the first book of hers I ever read.

High school was a time when I was reading books after seeing movies, and this one was no exception. However, if you’ve seen the movie, while it is…okay…it really is not a faithful adaptation of the book. Especially the end. Grr. This one is definitely a case of “the book is better.”

I love her nontraditional protagonist in Benny, who is neither slim nor beautiful, and her fierce friendship with Eve. I love the beginning stages of her sweet romance with Jack. And yes, while I kind of hate the turn the story takes, at the same time I appreciate that it’s not neat and tidy and Hollywood.

And, kind of the same as in real life, some characters experience a huge amount of growth and some…don’t. I got frustrated with the ones who just stayed the same, of course, but it still felt genuine. They were simply the kinds of people who tend to not learn or grow up. Ever. But they were overshadowed by the characters who do develop and learn and grow and mature, and I enjoyed all of it. It was the kind of book I just liked to relax and melt into.

And the fact that it’s all set in Ireland didn’t hurt.

This is a blog hop! Link up your Throwback Thursday post below!



Review: Thirteenth Child by Patricia Wrede

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I was pretty excited for this book. I mean, it’s a frontier wild west story, but with magic. Cowboys + magic = good, right? It’s certainly original. Plus, I’d heard nothing but good things about Patricia Wrede’s writing, so when I picked this one up from the library, I was anxious to get started.

The Plot (Goodreads synopsis)

Eff was born a thirteenth child. Her twin brother, Lan, is the seventh son of a seventh son. This means he’s supposed to possess amazing talent — and she’s supposed to bring only bad things to her family and her town. Undeterred, her family moves to the frontier, where her father will be a professor of magic at a school perilously close to the magical divide that separates settlers from the beasts of the wild.

My Thoughts

“Wow, that’s an awfully short synopsis,” you’re probably thinking.

Yes, yes it is. And you know why?

…Well, I’ll tell you in a minute. I have such mixed feelings about this book, I’m going to have to break it up into pieces.

World Building:

Absolutely stellar world building. As far as the setting goes, this book is Oregon Trail meets Harry Potter. The magic was well thought out and intricate, the frontier setting was vivid, and the spells and magical creatures (steam dragons and mammoths guys!) were seamlessly woven into the story.

Also, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin were magicians. YES. That happened.

After I finished the book, it was brought to my attention that Patricia Wrede made the decision to write Native Americans out of her narrative, because she didn’t like any of the stereotypical ways to portray Native Americans in westerns. And a lot of people are bothered by this, and I can see why.

BUT, I think it says something for the world building that I honestly didn’t notice that glaring omission until it was pointed out to me. Even though I am well aware that there were Native Americans present in the wild west, and now that I realize they were missing from the book, it seems like it should have been obvious. But her world actually made so much sense that I didn’t realize it didn’t make sense until the book was over.

Characters:

There were a lot of characters in this book. A. Lot. I mean, from the title and synopsis, right away you know that there’s at least 13 kids in Eff’s family running around. And then of course there’s her parents, and teachers, and friends, and her parents’ friends, and her friends’ friends, and also some assorted townspeople.

Ahem. There are many characters.

Some of them — including most of Eff’s siblings — flicker in and out of the book so fast, I forgot they ever existed or what their purpose was. Others stick around for a while, and I still was not sure what their purpose was. (Like William. What purpose did William serve, exactly?) Really, the only characters that get developed are Eff, Lan, their parents, and a couple of their teachers.

But even then, I’m not sure if they actually get developed, or if I just thought they did through prolonged exposure, because I read about them so often.I think the characters I came closest to really liking were Eff’s parents, but still, I couldn’t tell you much about them as people.

Now would be the time to point out that this book is told in the first person, from Eff’s perspective, and spans about 14 years of her life. It starts when she is 4 or 5 and ends when she is 18. I do not actually have a problem with books that span a long time frame — several of my favorite books and series do this — but in this book, it didn’t work for me. Partially because of the lack of plot, which I’ll get into in a minute. But as far as characters go, it didn’t work because no matter how old Eff was, she talked like she was 11. Which worked for the one chapter where she was 11, and not so much for…all the other ones.

It’s sad, because Eff really is an interesting character. Or she has the potential to be interesting, at any rate. She is born into a magical family. She’s a twin. Her brother is viewed by everyone as super-special, while she is viewed as unlucky. She undergoes some pretty appalling psychological abuse at the hands of her uncle when she is young. These are the makings of a fascinating character. But she just kind of stays the same. Pity.

Plot:

Okay, as I mentioned above about the short synopsis, the reason for that is: This book had no plot.

Say what? It’s a magical western with no plot? Well, pretty much. I mean, it had characters, and they were faced with kinda sorta a conflict that they more or less solved…so I guess in that sense it had a plot. It just wasn’t what I expected.

But honestly, if a book spans over a decade in time, and is a western, with magic and dragons and mammoths, you’d think a plot wouldn’t be too hard to come by, right? But you would be wrong, at least in the case of this book. It’s like Patricia Wrede got so caught up in her fantastic world building that she forgot to introduce conflict to the story (even Eff’s “thirteenth child” stigma is pretty quickly solved by moving to a place where no one knows how many siblings she has. Easy peasy).

Until the last few chapters, where all of a sudden there is a conflict, and that conflict is lame. There’s not any real sense of urgency or investment, and then it is solved, and the book is done. And I’m all like, “Huh. Nothing really happened in that book.”

So. Would I recommend this book? Um, maybe. If you just want to read about a really interesting world that’s described incredibly well, then you definitely want to pick this one up. If you like westerns and stories that follow a family over many years, then you may also want to check this one out. If you want action and magical shenanigans and tension and conflict, you’re going to want to look elsewhere.

 

Top Ten Tuesday (July 31) – Characters I’d Like to Switch Places With

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Welcome to another Top Ten Tuesday, hosted by our friends over at The Broke and the Bookish.

This week, I’m mostly answering based on who the supporting characters in the story are, or what the world is like. Because if we’re switching places, I’m obviously not meeting that character. But I don’t necessarily (or at all) want to participate in their romances or conflicts. Just want to take a nice little trip to their fictional world.

Also, you’ll notice there’s a conspicuous absence of period pieces, and the reason for that is simple: I really, really don’t want to wear a corset. Also, I imagine the bathroom and hygiene situation would kinda skeeve me out.

“But, you put on your list…” SHHHH. I don’t want to hear it. My logic is not good, but it’s mine.

Now that I’ve utterly confused you, today’s topic is…

Top Ten Characters I’d Like To Switch Places With For 24 Hours

(as always, in no particular order)

Thomas, The Maze Runner, during one of his first days in the Maze. I want to meet Chuck and Minho, and I want to see the Glade. I do NOT want to go into the Maze, and you can’t make me.

Buttercup, The Princess Bride, after the events of the story are over and they’re living out their happily-ever-after. I want to meet Inigo Montoya. And Westley and Fezzik. But mostly Inigo.

Katniss, Mockingjay, sometime between the end and the epilogue. Mostly because I spent the entire trilogy thinking that Peeta needed a hug.

Bella, Twilight. In this scenario, do the other characters know we’ve traded places, or do they assume I am the character I’ve switched with? Because for this to make sense, everyone would have to think I was Bella. Because my goal here would be to break up with Edward, then get on a plane to go live with Renee in Florida.

Harry, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. I want to experience Hogwarts during one of the lighter years, and hang out with Ron and Hermione. And if I go during their third year, I’d get to meet Lupin. Score.

Mr. Abshire, The Time Traveler’s Wife. On that day. You know. That day. I would tell Mark I didn’t feel very well and we were staying home, and then I’d stay in bed all day.

Nate, Timepiece. I just want to live at the Hourglass and hang out with Em and Michael and Kaleb and Lily.

ANY of the children, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. Before all the shenanigans start, obviously.

America, The Selection. I WANT TO BE A PRETTY PRINCESS. Also, Maxon is fun.

Polly, The Magician’s Nephew. She gets to see SO MANY WORLDS. How many pools do you think I could jump in in 24 hours?

So there’s a slightly disturbing glance into my thought process. Who would you trade with?

Review: Fire by Kristin Cashore (@kristincashore)

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Fire is the companion novel to Graceling by Kristin Cashore. You may be wondering what the difference is between a companion and a sequel. I haven’t read many series that take this approach, but in my understanding, a sequel picks up after the conclusion of the events in the first book and follows the same characters. A companion merely takes place in the same world, but doesn’t need to follow the same characters (although there may be some overlap) or the same timeline as the first novel. Fire actually takes place many years before the events of Graceling, in a different part of the same world, and the only overlapping character is the villainous Leck. So fans of Katsa and Po, be warned — they haven’t even been born when the events of this novel come to pass.

The Plot

Fire is a monster girl, the only one of her kind. Monsters in Fire’s world are not as we think of them; they are simply creatures with fantastic coloring and certain special abilities. So a brown cat is a cat. A purple cat is a monster cat. Fire’s monster beauty causes all creatures, but especially men and other monsters, to be unnaturally drawn to her — men to her beauty, and monsters to her blood. She has learned to diminish the attention by covering her flame-red hair and dressing drably, but she still draws the eyes of every man that crosses her path. She also possesses the ability to enter other beings’ thoughts to communicate or even alter their thinking according to her will, but she doesn’t like to use her powers to control others and tries to allow men to keep their thoughts their own.

Fire has grown up living with her lifelong friend, Archer, and his father, former commander of the king’s army, Lord Brocker. She and Archer have enjoyed a friends-with-benefits relationship for many years, as he can’t help but be in love with her monstrous beauty, but at the same time, he knows her for who she truly is. Fire loves her friend in return, but has decided she must never marry or have children, for she wouldn’t wish the life of a monster on any of her offspring.

But soon, Fire’s comfortable life with Archer and Brocker is upset. Her presence is requested by King Nash, and his brother and current commander of the army, Brigan. They need her to use her special abilities to help them determine who is sending spies with mysteriously clouded minds into the kingdom, and what their enemies are planning. Although Fire is reluctant to go, she realizes that her powers may be the only way to prevent the kingdom from falling to evil in what seems to be an inevitable war.

My Thoughts

Fire was a very different type of story from Graceling. Whereas Graceling was more of an adventure story with just a handful of important characters, Fire is much more political and character-driven. There is a host of varied and intriguing characters, and while there is some action, most of the story revolves around unraveling the mysterious political motives and actions of nations on the brink of war.

Right off the bat, I liked Fire more than Katsa. My biggest problem with Graceling was that I couldn’t connect to Katsa very well, and therefore had a hard time becoming truly invested in the story. With Fire, although her monster beauty and her semi-telepathic abilities make her even less human than Katsa, I found her spirit and inner struggles much easier to identify with. She definitely had some thoughts and attitudes I disagreed with, but they all fit with her character and you could see why she was the way she was.

This book has a large supporting cast, and it took some concentration to keep them all straight. My favorites were Brigan, Brocker and Archer, even though none of them was infallible (it may be weird that I picked Archer, given his cornucopia of character flaws, but seeing him through Fire’s eyes allowed me to like him in spite of them), but I also really enjoyed the female members of Fire’s personal guard, who were a constant presence for most of the book, and the king’s other siblings, Clara and Garan. It was a lot of personalities to keep track of, and Kristin Cashore did a fantastic job of giving each of her characters, supporting or not, their own distinct personality and voice.

The plot was complex and at times hard to follow, simply because of the nature of books about political intrigue. I normally tend to speed through books, but I had to pull back and pace myself with this one so as not to miss any of the intricate twists and turns. The pacing was a bit on the slow side, but it worked for me because it allowed the characters to develop more naturally. I felt the ending was a bit more drawn-out than seemed strictly necessary, but it was still largely satisfying, tying up many loose ends. There’s definitely room for more stories set in Fire’s world of monsters and monarchs, but even if this book was a standalone and not a companion, it would be fulfilling.

The writing, as in Graceling, is beautiful. Settling into Kristin Cashore’s prose is like curling up by the fire with a cup of hot cocoa. It’s just comfortable and soothing for my brain, and I could actually feel my thoughts relaxing as I sank into the world of Fire. I love the way Kristin Cashore tells a story, and I’ll read anything she writes, simply to experience her lovely storytelling.

Fire is a beautiful and fascinating tale, set in a unique fantasy world full of colorful characters that I wanted to immerse myself in completely. Even if you haven’t read Graceling, you could read and enjoy Fire with no trouble, although Graceling would probably enhance the reading experience. I loved it, and look forward to more stories set in this world.

Content Guide: Contains violence, threats of sexual violence, and several mentions of casual sex.

My review of Graceling

I WENT ON VACATION.

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I mentioned before that we went on a cruise last week, and some of you actually want to hear about it. So I thought I’d share some pictures and highlights, although BRACE YOURSELVES: We are the most boring cruisers ever. Seriously.

Beforehand, I was unreasonably nervous that they wouldn’t let us on the boat, since G didn’t have a passport and we were traveling with his birth certificate instead. Even though I checked approximately 935 times to make sure that traveling with a birth certificate was okay.

Turns out, the lack of passport was not a problem. What was a problem was this:

Customs agent: “Sir, do you have a knife in your backpack?”
G: “No, do you mean the corkscrew?”
Customs agent: “No, it looks like a knife.”
G: “Well I don’t have a knife.”
Customs agent: [Sends us to be searched. We pull out the corkscrew and are very helpful.]
G: “Are you sure you don’t mean the corkscrew?”
Customs agent: “No, I mean these.” [Pulls out giant pair of hedge clippers.]
G: “Oh, I forgot I had those in there.”

Yeah, those got confiscated.

We also lost our corkscrew and had to get the cabin steward to come open our bottle of wine. Oh the humanity!

Ahem.

We participated in one, yes, one organized shipboard activity. It was a stand-up comic, and let’s just say, it became real obvious real fast why he was performing on a cruise ship during hurricane season. Yeah.

Speaking of hurricane season, it rained some (the day we left was all sorts of dreary), but not a ton.

Never fear, even in the case of torrential downpour, kids would STILL be in the pool. On a related note, we never went in the pool, and we’re not sorry.

After the horrible comic, we decided that what we would rather do is just relax and read and eat a lot. So that’s what we did the large majority of the time. I even wrote some blog posts.

These drinks were super-delicious. Too bad I have absolutely no idea what was in them.

My souvenir glass seems pretty darn confident.

The boat wasn’t deserted. It was just so windy, most people weren’t crazy enough to try to read at the back of the ship. NOT ME.

PSA: Neither of us got seasick. G didn’t even have to break out his seabands. And as a point of reference, back when G used to take the bus to work, he had to wear his seabands every day for a 30 minute bus ride. So. There’s that.

We stopped for a day in Cozumel, which was really just a morning because all we wanted to do is shop and eat Mexican food. Which doesn’t take a whole day. We were back on the ship watching The Hunger Games by 12:30.

Mango Margarita. Yes. Let’s just all ignore the fact that I look insane.

These guys were performing during lunch. It added to the tropical ambiance of it all and even made the guacamole taste better.

(Just kidding. There is no way to make guacamole taste better, because it is perfection already).

The only problem was, DID YOU SEE THAT GUY’S FACE?

It’s like he is staring into my soul, and he doesn’t like what he sees.

He was like that the whole time.

Anyway.

We may or may not have watched parts of The Hunger Games three times, and the entire movie once, while we were on the ship. They were just playing it around the clock on the ship’s movie channel. We couldn’t resist.

Also, we ate a lot, because when all the food is included and you really love food more than you should but you can’t help it, you eat a lot. And thus I have many food pictures. But I won’t post them, because honestly, unless you were the one eating the food, cruise ship food pictures are kinda boring.

Okay, here’s one. G really wanted me to use this picture for the blog, and I’m not sure why, but I’m a good wife and so I’ll use it.

“I want you to see my pizza and the view at the same time!”
Okay, honey. Okay.

Speaking of food, on our cruise, we had the option of an assigned dining time, where we would be eating with the same group of people every night at the same table at the same time, or flexible dining, where we’d eat by ourselves during a certain window of time. We opted for flexible, because we’re antisocial and didn’t want to have to meet people (don’t judge). But even with the flexible dining, while you’re not at the same table as strangers, you’re still sitting really close to them.

So although we didn’t want to actually interact with other people, we decided to play the game of “try to make the people at the table next to us laugh because we are so hilarious, which is awkward for them and amusing for us because they’re trying to pretend they’re not listening to our conversation.” It was a fun game. Especially when I made the guy next to me choke.

Me, laughing at the guy next to me, laughing at me. I’m too hilarious to handle.

G, pretending he doesn’t know me. Like we’re not sharing the same tiny table.

Hey, I told you not to judge.

Moving on!

We discovered mini golf on the upper deck of the boat, and G has a deep and profound love for mini golf, so we played 3 times. I won twice, and he won once. The time he won was when it was freakishly windy, and he still tied my best score. Apparently G thrives on wind in mini golf. It’s his mutant power.

And, um…that’s really pretty much all we did. There’s not a lot to report when you spend about 80% of every day sitting on the deck reading, munching, and writing. If you want to read about all the fun and exciting cruise activities, you should probably go check out a travel blog, which I’m guessing is a lot more action packed when it comes to travel activities than a book blog. Or at least my book blog.

We did make sure to take some “look, we’re on a cruise without our kids” pictures though!

I’m taking “windblown” to a whole new level.

I was dumb and started the day in pants. That lasted for a whopping 30 minutes.

Waiting for the safety demonstration. SO EXCITED TO BE SAFE.

In case of emergency, one of THESE BOATS would save us. And they are completely UNSINKABLE, even if they’re full of water. At least, that’s what they told us in the safety demonstration. I wanted to see this in action, but I guess that would have involved the boat sinking, so it’s okay that I didn’t get to.

So there you have it! And much as we sound like the most boring cruisers in the history of the world (or at least since cruising became a thing that people do for fun and not to discover brave new worlds), we had a really good time.

Except for when our rental car overheated on the way back home and added 5 hours to our drive. But we’re going to pretend that didn’t happen. And it wouldn’t have happened if we would have just stayed on the boat forever.

Lesson learned.

P.S. We never got the hedge clippers back.

Books read:

Whispers in Autumn by Trisha Leigh

Something Strange and Deadly by Susan Dennard

Circus Summer by Kailin Gow

Fire by Kristin Cashore

Thirteenth Child by Patricia Wrede

[Husband re-read Fellowship of the Ring and listened to some audio book about the Trojan War. Our tastes are slightly different]

Movies watched:

The Hunger Games

This Means War

The Vow