Let me make clear before I begin that I do not just review adult or nonfiction books, I also do fiction and young adult books. This is a reread of a book I read probably two or three years ago, and I'm going to review the series (although I only have a few books, so I will not be reviewing all of them).
Summary: Cirque du Freak is a fiction book about a boy who wins a ticket to an illegal freak show.
What I liked (spoilers forthcoming): The voice is real, and Shan's writing style stays true throughout the book. When Darren "died", I liked that he made clear how hard it was to leave his home and family. I liked that he reacted like a real person.
What I did not like: It was very short. I did not like his selfless attitude throughout parts of the book (although he was plenty selfish at some points). I also didn't like that he didn't react enough like a real person when he found out about vampires and such. The dialogue was also nothing to write home about.
Overall: I would give it a 4 out of 10.
Alternative reivew:
Publishers Weekly:
With strong sales overseas and a movie deal in the works, book one in The Saga of Darren Shan series is poised to capture a wide audience of series horror readers. After a rather slow buildup, a boy with the same name as the author sneaks out with best friend Steve to an illicit freak show, and his life becomes entangled with a vampire spider-wrangler, Mr. Crepsley. "This is a true story," writes Shan. "In real life, bad things happen. People die. Fights are lost. Evil often wins." The scenario is compelling, and the author mines the exploitative history of early 20th-century sideshows to create an artfully macabre "Cirque du Freak." But Darren's actions are often undermotivated: "I can't explain why Madam Octa [the spider] meant so much to me, or why I was placing my life in such danger to have her. Looking back, I'm no longer sure what drove me on." Also his intermittent attraction to and repulsion by the vampire is never fully explored. His behavior may be explained in the sequel, The Vampire's Assistant (due in Sept.), but the open ending leaves so many loose ends that readers may leave more frustrated than intrigued, especially since the characters' wooden dialogue drains them of personality ("I'm upset," says Steve. "It hurt, what Mr. Crepsley said, and you ignoring me at school... If you break up our friendship, I don't know what I'll do"). Readers interested in boys becoming vampires would be better served by M.T. Anderson's Thirsty and those fascinated with freaks by Iain Lawrence's Ghost Boy. Ages 10-up.
Book details:
Format: Kindle Edition
File Size: 254 KB
Print Length: 272 pages
Publisher: Little, Brown Young Readers (August 1, 2008)
Sold by: Amazon Digital Services
Language: English
ASIN: B000SESJ0Q
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
The Future of Ice: A Journey into Cold, by Gretel Ehrlich
Being a rainy day, and having finished my schoolwork for the year, I had plenty of time to sit down and read.
Summary: The Future of Ice was not a climate change education book, like I thought. Rather, it was a record of Ehrlich's travels, from Tierra del Fuego to the frozen Rockies to a Nordic island near the North Pole.
What I liked: Ehrlich is also a poet, and that really comes through in her words. She has a beautiful vocabulary and each sentence flows, like poetry. Her descriptiveness painted a beautiful picture of these places, making them come alive even for those of us not fortunate enough to be able to go there.
What I did not like: Ehrlich's poetic background is quite apparent, including in the bad ways. She uses her metaphorical speaking even when talking about scientific facts, which somewhat bothered me and made it a little difficult to read. She droned a bit as well, and I often found myself checking the page numbers to determine how much more I had to read before I could be done.
Overall: I would give it a 6 out of 10.
Alternative reivew:
Publishers Weekly
In this lyrical meditation on deep cold and its potential demise through global warming, Ehrlich (The Solace of Open Spaces; This Cold Heaven) backpacks among the glaciers of the southern Andes, winters in a Wyoming cabin and sails with the research ship Noorderlicht to the Greenland ice pack. Her prose is as sharply observed as poetry and nearly as compressed, and her narrative favors short scenes as fragmented as the breaking ice sheets she encounters. Though it occasionally dips into underpowered assertion ("We're spoiled because we've been living in an interglacial paradise for twenty thousand years"), it often soars to the sublime ("We are made of weather and our thoughts stream from the braid work of stillness and storms"). Ehrlich includes plenty of facts (the area covered by glaciers has diminished by 75% since 1850; increased meltwater from Greenland may actually make Europe colder), but her book is less about science than about sensation: loneliness and the relentless circling of the snowed-in mind; the rumbling of a glacier as its azure ice crumbles away; the whistling, ululating calls of the bearded seal. It does not lay out the workings of global warming nor attempt to provide blueprints for how to rescue what we are losing. It stands, instead, as a passionate elegy to what is melting away.
Book details:
Paperback: 224 pages
Hardcover: 201 pages
Publisher: Vintage (November 8, 2005)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1400034353
ISBN-13: 978-1400034352
Summary: The Future of Ice was not a climate change education book, like I thought. Rather, it was a record of Ehrlich's travels, from Tierra del Fuego to the frozen Rockies to a Nordic island near the North Pole.
What I liked: Ehrlich is also a poet, and that really comes through in her words. She has a beautiful vocabulary and each sentence flows, like poetry. Her descriptiveness painted a beautiful picture of these places, making them come alive even for those of us not fortunate enough to be able to go there.
What I did not like: Ehrlich's poetic background is quite apparent, including in the bad ways. She uses her metaphorical speaking even when talking about scientific facts, which somewhat bothered me and made it a little difficult to read. She droned a bit as well, and I often found myself checking the page numbers to determine how much more I had to read before I could be done.
Overall: I would give it a 6 out of 10.
Alternative reivew:
Publishers Weekly
In this lyrical meditation on deep cold and its potential demise through global warming, Ehrlich (The Solace of Open Spaces; This Cold Heaven) backpacks among the glaciers of the southern Andes, winters in a Wyoming cabin and sails with the research ship Noorderlicht to the Greenland ice pack. Her prose is as sharply observed as poetry and nearly as compressed, and her narrative favors short scenes as fragmented as the breaking ice sheets she encounters. Though it occasionally dips into underpowered assertion ("We're spoiled because we've been living in an interglacial paradise for twenty thousand years"), it often soars to the sublime ("We are made of weather and our thoughts stream from the braid work of stillness and storms"). Ehrlich includes plenty of facts (the area covered by glaciers has diminished by 75% since 1850; increased meltwater from Greenland may actually make Europe colder), but her book is less about science than about sensation: loneliness and the relentless circling of the snowed-in mind; the rumbling of a glacier as its azure ice crumbles away; the whistling, ululating calls of the bearded seal. It does not lay out the workings of global warming nor attempt to provide blueprints for how to rescue what we are losing. It stands, instead, as a passionate elegy to what is melting away.
Book details:
Paperback: 224 pages
Hardcover: 201 pages
Publisher: Vintage (November 8, 2005)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1400034353
ISBN-13: 978-1400034352
Monday, July 20, 2009
Fat Land, by Greg Critser
I recently read Fat Land, by Greg Critser. It was not exactly what I expected. I actually expected a book about, well, things I already knew (the evils of high-saturated fat, high cholesterol, carcinogenic animal foods).
Summary: Fat Land was more of a political book than a dietary book, explaining the political pressures on lawmakers from fast food companies, and national agricultural policy that shaped how our food came to us.
What I liked: I did learn quite a bit about why America (especially America's youth) is getting larger. It taught me a lot about the inner business of fast food, not just their evils. For example, it talked about pouring contracts (deals with schools to serve only one kind of soda, for example) and ways brands are assailing our children younger and younger (McDonald's, Pepsi, M&M, etc. donates school nutritional materials and other ways to incorporate themselves into lessons). Luckily, Critser does not blame the schools exclusively; with our school system forever cash-strapped, he reminds us that turning down a seven-figure contract to sell fast food on campus at no cost to them, or free "educational" materials is extremely difficult. Critser also explains modern state and town politics, and how people have the option to change these frightening realities by organizing, voting and educating others. I also liked that he was very cut-and-dry about the solutions to some childhood obesity problems: It starts at home. To bring down a child's weight, you must amend your own eating and leisure habits as well as theirs. Telling Johnny to eat his carrot sticks then run a mile doesn't cut it if you're sitting in front of the TV with a pint of fudge ripple.
What I didn't like: Critser droned a bit. His book became very difficult to read at some points, and it was hard to stay motivated. He also focused very exclusively on one DOA (Dpt. of Agriculture) head, as opposed to touching on policy changes of many that greatly affected this. While I liked his clear cut message, by the end it was getting a little didactic. I also disliked his heavy reliance on statistics. I am a visual learner: I'd rather see the chart than read about it (to be fair, he has several charts in the back of the book, but they do not really make up for the huge number of statistics he uses).
Overall: I would give it a 7 out of 10.
Alternative review:
Publishers Weekly
You reap what you sow. According to Critser, a leading journalist on health and obesity, America about 30 years ago went crazy sowing corn. Determined to satisfy an American public that "wanted what it wanted when it wanted it," agriculture secretary Earl Butz determined to lower American food prices by ending restrictions on trade and growing. The superabundance of cheap corn that resulted inspired Japanese scientists to invent a cheap sweetener called "high fructose corn syrup." This sweetener made food look and taste so great that it soon found its way into everything from bread to soda pop. Researchers ignored the way the stuff seemed to trigger fat storage. In his illuminating first book (which began life as a cover story for Harper's Magazine), Critser details what happened as this river of corn syrup (and cheap, lardlike palm oil) met with a fast-food marketing strategy that prized sales-via supersized "value" meals-over quality or conscience. The surgeon general has declared obesity an epidemic. About 61% of Americans are now overweight-20% of us are obese. Type 2 (i.e., fat-related) diabetes is exploding, even among children. Critser vividly describes the physical suffering that comes from being fat. He shows how the poor become the fattest, victimized above all by the lack of awareness. Critser's book is a good first step in rectifying that. In vivid prose conveying the urgency of the situation, with just the right amount of detail for general readers, Critser tells a story that they won't be able to shake when they pass the soda pop aisle in the supermarket. This book should attract a wide readership.
Book Details:
Title: Fat Land
Author: Greg Critser
Hardcover edition: 240 pages
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin; January 14, 2003
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0618164723
ASIN: B000TVIW6E
Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.6 x 1 inches
Summary: Fat Land was more of a political book than a dietary book, explaining the political pressures on lawmakers from fast food companies, and national agricultural policy that shaped how our food came to us.
What I liked: I did learn quite a bit about why America (especially America's youth) is getting larger. It taught me a lot about the inner business of fast food, not just their evils. For example, it talked about pouring contracts (deals with schools to serve only one kind of soda, for example) and ways brands are assailing our children younger and younger (McDonald's, Pepsi, M&M, etc. donates school nutritional materials and other ways to incorporate themselves into lessons). Luckily, Critser does not blame the schools exclusively; with our school system forever cash-strapped, he reminds us that turning down a seven-figure contract to sell fast food on campus at no cost to them, or free "educational" materials is extremely difficult. Critser also explains modern state and town politics, and how people have the option to change these frightening realities by organizing, voting and educating others. I also liked that he was very cut-and-dry about the solutions to some childhood obesity problems: It starts at home. To bring down a child's weight, you must amend your own eating and leisure habits as well as theirs. Telling Johnny to eat his carrot sticks then run a mile doesn't cut it if you're sitting in front of the TV with a pint of fudge ripple.
What I didn't like: Critser droned a bit. His book became very difficult to read at some points, and it was hard to stay motivated. He also focused very exclusively on one DOA (Dpt. of Agriculture) head, as opposed to touching on policy changes of many that greatly affected this. While I liked his clear cut message, by the end it was getting a little didactic. I also disliked his heavy reliance on statistics. I am a visual learner: I'd rather see the chart than read about it (to be fair, he has several charts in the back of the book, but they do not really make up for the huge number of statistics he uses).
Overall: I would give it a 7 out of 10.
Alternative review:
Publishers Weekly
You reap what you sow. According to Critser, a leading journalist on health and obesity, America about 30 years ago went crazy sowing corn. Determined to satisfy an American public that "wanted what it wanted when it wanted it," agriculture secretary Earl Butz determined to lower American food prices by ending restrictions on trade and growing. The superabundance of cheap corn that resulted inspired Japanese scientists to invent a cheap sweetener called "high fructose corn syrup." This sweetener made food look and taste so great that it soon found its way into everything from bread to soda pop. Researchers ignored the way the stuff seemed to trigger fat storage. In his illuminating first book (which began life as a cover story for Harper's Magazine), Critser details what happened as this river of corn syrup (and cheap, lardlike palm oil) met with a fast-food marketing strategy that prized sales-via supersized "value" meals-over quality or conscience. The surgeon general has declared obesity an epidemic. About 61% of Americans are now overweight-20% of us are obese. Type 2 (i.e., fat-related) diabetes is exploding, even among children. Critser vividly describes the physical suffering that comes from being fat. He shows how the poor become the fattest, victimized above all by the lack of awareness. Critser's book is a good first step in rectifying that. In vivid prose conveying the urgency of the situation, with just the right amount of detail for general readers, Critser tells a story that they won't be able to shake when they pass the soda pop aisle in the supermarket. This book should attract a wide readership.
Book Details:
Title: Fat Land
Author: Greg Critser
Hardcover edition: 240 pages
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin; January 14, 2003
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0618164723
ASIN: B000TVIW6E
Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.6 x 1 inches
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Why lemongrass? What's up with coconuts?
Hey all!
The purpose of this blog will be to review books that I read on a regular basis, and I read very many. I should have my first post up within a week or two (that actually relates to a book), and any other special features will be considered upon request, or when I find them. :) Thanks!!
M
P.S. The lemongrass and coconuts came from a random stroke of inspiration after reading about a blog with another food name.
The purpose of this blog will be to review books that I read on a regular basis, and I read very many. I should have my first post up within a week or two (that actually relates to a book), and any other special features will be considered upon request, or when I find them. :) Thanks!!
M
P.S. The lemongrass and coconuts came from a random stroke of inspiration after reading about a blog with another food name.
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