Review of Uprooted, by Naomi Novik

Fantasy, Fiction Review, Starred Review 1

uprooted_largeUprooted

by Naomi Novik

Del Rey, New York, 2015. 438 pages.
Starred Review

Naomi Novik is the author of the brilliant books about Temeraire, a dragon who fought in the Napoleonic Wars in alternate-history England. This new book begins with a very different sort of dragon.

Our Dragon doesn’t eat the girls he takes, no matter what stories they tell outside our valley. We hear them sometimes, from travelers passing through. They talk as though we were doing human sacrifice, and he were a real dragon. Of course that’s not true: he may be a wizard and immortal, but he’s still a man, and our fathers would band together and kill him if he wanted to eat one of us every ten years. He protects us against the Wood, and we’re grateful, but not that grateful.

Agnieszka is born in the year of the girls who will be 17 the next time a girl is chosen to go serve the Dragon for ten years. But she’s not worried for herself. Everyone is sure that her best friend, beautiful Kasia, is going to be the one chosen.

But the Dragon looks at Agnieszka and makes a quick decision that no one expects. He suddenly takes her back to his tower without even a chance to say good-by. It turns out that Agnieszka has magic.

But not long after she’s been serving the Dragon, and having learned just a little bit — messengers come to the tower when the wizard is gone, saying that the Wood has taken Kasia.

The great Wood is sinister and evil. No one has ever escaped it. But Agnieszka will not and cannot stand by. And she sets in motion a series of confrontation with dark forces inhabiting the Wood and stretching all the way to the king’s court.

This is a wonderfully absorbing story and I read it all avidly with only a few breaks for air. I should mention that with Agnieszka being seventeen years old, the only reason I can see for this not to be a young adult novel is that there is one quite explicit sex scene as well as many gruesome deaths. (I mentioned that the Wood is evil?)

I enjoyed the way the magic is described and how Agnieszka’s magic is different from that of the Dragon, more in the tradition of Baba Jaga.

This is a wonderful story of a peasant girl discovering power and using it to defend the helpless and make things right.

naominovik.com
delreybooks.com

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Source: This review is based on a library book from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

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Review of Read Bottom Up, by Neel Shah & Skye Chatham

Contemporary, Fiction Review, Romance 0

read_bottom_up_largeRead Bottom Up

by Neel Shah and Skye Chatham

Dey St. (William Morrow), 2015. 239 pages.

I’m reading like crazy for the 48-Hour Book Challenge, and this book is a fluffy romance that was a fun diversion. Okay, it’s not exactly a romance, since the Authors’ Note at the front pretty clearly indicated that the relationship is doomed.

This book is the story of a modern relationship — told through emails and texts, not only between the principals themselves, but also with their best friends.

And yes, that rings true! In a relationship don’t we go over everything with our friends? Okay, this book was nice to assure me it’s not just me who does that. I loved the way Madeline analyzes everything including the speed or lack of speed with which Elliot answers her emails.

Another fun thing about the book is that the co-authors only shared with each other what the characters shared with each other — the discussion of the relationship with the respective best friends was totally written separately.

Here’s how they put it in the Authors’ Note:

Somewhere deep in your Sent Items graveyard are the emails you wrote to your former flame along with the emails you wrote about those emails to your best friend. It’s all right there — a partial record of your relationship. But what if you could see the whole picture? Not just your side of it. After all, somewhere in the pixelated part of the world is your ex’s inbox. Therein lies all sorts of analysis to which you were never privy. What if you could read the whole funny, tragic, wincing train wreck of it all, if you could finally open up your relationship like a dollhouse (or, say, a cadaver) and know the truth of what happened?

This book is fun and a quick read. And as someone theoretically facing the whole dating world, it made me feel not alone.

hc.com

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Source: This review is based on a library book from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

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Review of The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage, by Sydney Padua

Alternate History, Fiction Review, Graphic Novel, Science Fiction, Starred Review 0

lovelace_and_babbage_largeThe Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage*

*The (Mostly) True Story of the First Computer

by Sidney Padua

Pantheon Books, New York, 2015. 319 pages.
Starred Review

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a book quite like this. It’s based on a web comic. The comic is based on two actual historical geniuses, Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace. But Sidney Padua invents the existence of pocket universes, where Charles Babbage actually builds his Analytical Engine (In real life, he never built it, always coming up with a better idea before bringing an earlier idea to completion.), and Ada Lovelace actually lived long enough to help him program it.

This book describes their adventures in the pocket universes. Now, in our universe, computers actually got built in the age of electricity, using vacuum tubes and electric current. Babbage designed his Difference Engine and Analytical Engine to run on steam, so that’s what’s drawn here – a grand Difference Engine with cogs and gears and powered by steam.

Other historical figures of the period run through these pages, and some of the most fun to be found here are in the extensive footnotes, endnotes, and appendices. While reading about what never happened, you’ll learn all sorts of facts about what did actually happen. You’ll come to know Lovelace and Babbage, seeing them in action, using words they actually wrote in their real-life lifetimes.

Here’s how Sidney Padua describes beginning to write this comic:

It was in a pub somewhere in London in the spring of 2009 that I undertook to draw a very short comic for the web, to illustrate the very brief life of Ada Lovelace. This was suggested to me by my friend Suw, also in the pub, who was (and still is) the impresario of an annual women-in-technology virtual festival she had named after Lovelace, a historical figure of whom I think I was hazily aware.

As anybody else would do, I looked up “Ada Lovelace” on Wikipedia. There I found the strange tale of how, in the 1830s, an eccentric genius called Charles Babbage only just failed to invent the computer, and how the daughter of Lord Byron wrote imaginary programs for his imaginary computer. It was such an extraordinary story, so full of weird personalities and poetic flourishes that it hardly seemed true; but at the end of it the facts thudded back to dull reality. Lovelace died young. Babbage died a miserable old man. There never was a gigantic steam-powered computer. This seemed an awfully grim ending for my little comic. And so I threw in a couple of drawings at the end, imagining for them another, better, more thrilling comic-book universe to live on in.

She goes on to say, “Almost everybody had failed to realize that my alternate-universe ending was a joke.” And so she began writing these comics.

The result is quirky, full of facts, and a whole lot of fun. I also love the Victorian, over-the-top style used, especially for title pages and diagrams.

And, yes, I will be watching the webpage for more adventures.

And, okay, I’ll admit it. I brought this book to a Book Dating event. It’s like Speed Dating — only everyone brings a book, and you have something to talk about. I thought this book was a nice blend of fiction and nonfiction — and that anyone who thinks it’s cool will be someone I will be able to easily talk with. This turned out to be true.

2dgoggles.com
sydneypadua.com

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Source: This review is based on a library book from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

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Review of All the Light We Cannot See, by Anthony Doerr

Fiction Review, Historical, Starred Review 0

all_the_light_we_cannot_see_largeAll the Light We Cannot See

by Anthony Doerr
read by Zach Appelman

Simon & Schuster Audio, 2014. 13 compact discs.
Starred Review
2015 Alex Award Winner
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize

All the Light We Cannot See is a rich, gently moving novel about some extraordinary people in wartime.

The book begins at the end of World War II, with the bombardment of Saint-Malo. The author spotlights two people caught in the siege, and later a third who is looking for something there. The scenes in the spotlight move slowly, inexorably through the book – coming just often enough to keep us fascinated.

In between, we get the history of these people through the war years. Marie-Laure is blind. She lived in Paris with her Papa, and went with him to his work at the Museum of Natural History. He carved a complete model of their neighborhood in Paris which Marie-Laure could navigate with her fingers, and then he taught her to navigate the actual streets.

When Paris falls to the Nazis, they flee to Saint-Malo, where Marie-Laure’s crazy great-uncle Etienne lives. Her Papa is carrying something for the museum. Is it a fake, or is it the Sea of Flames, an amazing diamond with a curse on it? The curse promises eternal life to its keeper – at the cost of disasters happening to all the ones they love. Is this why disasters are striking their family?

Another main character is a young orphan named Werner. He is fascinated with radios and soon gets the attention of the authorities with his ability to repair radio equipment. This attention gets him enrolled in the Hitler Youth and then in the army before his time.

Uncle Etienne has a radio transmitter, and Werner ends up in a unit looking for illegal transmitters.

Meanwhile, an expert on gems is looking for the Sea of Flames. He is patient, and follows one lead after another, during all the war years.

This audiobook was a wonderful choice. The narrator captured the tone of the book perfectly. The detailed descriptions had me mesmerized. I felt like I knew what it was like to be a blind girl in World War II France and a brilliant orphan drawn into the Hitler Youth.

The story is mostly wonderful and transcends wartime – but it did have some horrible moments, because this was wartime. I didn’t find the ending satisfying. Perhaps I read too many young adult books – I wanted things tied up a little more neatly than they were and hated at least one part of the ending.

I also wasn’t entirely sure what happened with one aspect. I wondered if I’d missed something because of listening rather than reading. But when a character speculates about what might have happened, I figured the reader was supposed to speculate, too. I’m not sure I like it that way.

So I’m not sure I completely liked where the journey took me – but I definitely enjoyed the journey. Marie-Laure and her Papa and Uncle Etienne and Werner and his sister Jutta are characters who will live on in my heart.

simonandschuster.com

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Source: This review is based on a library audiobook from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

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Review of The Girl on the Train, by Paula Hawkins

Audiobooks, Fiction Review, Mystery, Starred Review, Suspense 0

girl_on_the_train_largeThe Girl on the Train

by Paula Hawkins
read by Claire Corbett, Louise Brealey, and India Fisher

Penguin Audio, 2015. 11 hours on 9 compact discs.
Starred Review

Warning to potential listeners: If you have ever been cheated on, this book contains some triggers which will remind you of that time. However, it’s also somewhat therapeutic. It will make you feel that your own reactions were incredibly calm. You were not a crazy woman! (Who knew?)

Rachel Watson rides the train into London every morning and goes home every evening – so her flatmate won’t know that she lost her job months ago for turning up drunk. Every day, the train stops as it passes the house where Rachel used to live – and where her ex-husband Tom lives with his new wife and child – the woman who replaced Rachel and the child she longed to have.

To avoid looking at her home, right next to the tracks, naturally enough Rachel watches the people a few houses down. They are the perfect couple. As in love as Rachel used to be. Rachel gives them names, Jess and Jason, and she imagines their perfect lives.

Then, one day, Rachel sees Jess kissing a man who is not Jason. Jess is ruining Jason’s life, just as Tom ruined hers! That evening, having thought about it all day, in her drunken agitation, she gets off the train at her old stop. She knows something bad happened when she wakes up at home the next morning with a cut on her forehead, but she doesn’t remember at all what it was. And the newspapers say that Jess – actually named Megan – has gone missing.

Gradually, we learn about Rachel’s past, about Megan’s history, and about Anna, the woman who replaced Rachel with Tom. Rachel has not been doing well since Tom left her. And she doesn’t blame Tom – she was already a drunk before he left, depressed because she wasn’t having a baby. Now she calls him at odd hours, even turns up at the house.

But after Megan’s disappearance, Rachel is sure Megan’s husband will be suspected. The police need to know about the man Megan kissed. The husband needs to know. Maybe Rachel has to lie a little bit to get them to listen to her, but it’s all trying to help….

I have to admit, the people in this book are not very nice. The situations are sordid. There’s a whole lot of cheating going on. But ultimately, I found I couldn’t stop listening (and this was another audiobook which had me bringing the final CD into the house to finish listening). The audio production is very well done. The three different narrators for the three women – Rachel, Anna, and Megan – make it clear who is speaking at any given time.

I think the character of Rachel is what had me hooked. I remembered the world-shattering pain of learning my husband was cheating. It would have been so very easy to turn to alcohol. To call him and beg him to take me back. If he had married the mistress and moved into our home with his new wife and baby? Well, her pain was all too easy to imagine.

And the mystery is a tangled and interesting one. There are compelling twists along the way. Let me just say that some of the cheaters get a satisfying comeuppance. But best of all is that by the end of the book we feel that Rachel, who has believed many lies about herself, is on her way to healing.

And that’s a beautiful thing.

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Source: This review is based on a library audiobook from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

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Review of The Handsome Man’s Deluxe Café, by Alexander McCall Smith

Audiobooks, Contemporary, Fiction Review, Mystery 0

handsome_mans_deluxe_cafe_largeThe Handsome Man’s Deluxe Café

by Alexander McCall Smith
performed by Lisette Lecat

Recorded Books, 2014. 9 hours 45 minutes on 9 discs.

This is the first of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency books which I listened to instead of reading. It’s pleasant listening, though in some ways it emphasized the rambling nature of the books. I did enjoy the reader’s African accent, which seemed appropriate, and now am completely sure I know how to properly pronounce “Mma” and “Rra.”

This book has one main puzzle for the detective agency, which seemed a bit easily solved, but was at least an interesting case. Most of the book was about Mma Makutsi’s new endeavor – opening a restaurant, called The Handsome Man’s Deluxe Café.

On top of that, Mr. J. L. B. Matekoni has to let Charlie go. He doesn’t have enough work at Speedy Motors. But Mma Ramotswe feels sorry for Charlie and takes him on at the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency. But does Charlie have what it takes to become a detective? And can he and Mma Makutsi actually work together?

Reading these books is always like spending time with philosophical, cheerful old friends. Listening to one is a nice way to spend time winding down from a day at work.

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Source: This review is based on a library audiobook from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

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Review of Very Good, Jeeves, by P. G. Wodehouse

Audiobooks, Fiction Review, Humorous, Starred Review 0

very_good_jeeves_largeVery Good, Jeeves

by P. G. Wodehouse

*and*

Jeeves and the Old School Chum
and Other Stories

by P. G. Wodehouse
Performed by Alexander Spencer

The Overlook Press. First published in 1930. 297 pages.
Recorded Books, 1985. 3 compact discs.
Starred Review

The reason I’m still reviewing P. G. Wodehouse books is simply to keep track of which books I’ve read. I can’t possibly tell by reading the books! In fact, I listened to the audiobook first, Jeeves and the Old School Chum, which said it was “selected” stories from Very Good, Jeeves, but I can’t tell you for sure which stories I heard on CD first.

You might think this is a criticism? It is not at all! Yes, the stories are similar, so hard to keep straight. But I enjoy them every single time. I may have a general sense that I know how Jeeves is going to solve a particular imbroglio — but that only fills me with delighted anticipation.

This is a book of short stories, as opposed to one of the books where one big complicated entanglement fills the pages from start to finish. There are 11 chapters, 11 short situations where Bertie needs Jeeves’ help to get out of a situation or to help out a friend.

These stories are also represented in the BBC video series “Jeeves and Wooster,” which makes them all the more familiar.

As always, we’ve got Bertie’s amusing use of language and general cluelessness, along with Jeeves’ brilliant insight into the psychology of the individual. It is completely apparent that I will never get tired of hearing these stories.

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Source: This review is based on a library book from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

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Review of The Martian, by Andy Weir

Audiobooks, Fiction Review, Science Fiction, Starred Review 0

martian_largeThe Martian

by Andy Weir
performed by R. C. Bray

Brilliance Audio, 2014. 11 hours on 9 discs.
2015 Alex Award Winner
Starred Review

This audiobook was too good. Every time I stopped my car, I didn’t want to turn off the CD player and get out. Finally, when it was down to the last half-hour, I brought the final CD into my house to finish listening – even though I was already coming home late after playing games after work. The entire book was tough to shut off at any time, but a half-hour from the end, it was impossible.

This book is set in the near future, on NASA’s third mission to Mars. A freak accident has happened, and Mark Watney was left behind, since all his crewmates thought he was dead.

The book is about his struggle to survive. Using what he has (their mission was cut short), he works to figure out how to survive long enough to last four years until the next scheduled mission to Mars.

And that’s not easy. He doesn’t have enough food. He doesn’t have enough water. He has no way to contact earth. He is miles away from the planned landing of the next Mars mission.

Mark is a botanist and an engineer – and his ingenuity and resourcefulness are incredible. Everything he does to survive – to make plants grow in Mars, to make water out of rocket fuel, for example – at least sounds like plausible science. And enough things go wrong to be completely believable. Just when you think he’s finally got it made, something new almost kills him, and new plans must be made. The description of the mission to Mars and the equipment sent is told in such a way, I caught myself thinking it’s already been done.

A friend complained that the book doesn’t really explore the psychological aspects of being thousands of miles from any other human. You do have to enjoy hearing about someone messing around with science and solving one life-or-death problem after another. I was so absorbed in this, I’m disappointed when the book is done to realize none of it is real. (And I’m used to reading – this doesn’t happen to me often.)

The tension is gripping, and the science is fascinating, and you grow to really like this guy who doesn’t give up even when abandoned on Mars.

If NASA ever does send humans to Mars, I think they should read this book first. Just in case.

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Source: This review is based on a library book from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

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Review of Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson

Audiobooks, Christian, Fiction Review, Historical 0

gilead_largeGilead

by Marilynne Robinson

read by Tim Jerome

BBC Audiobooks America, 2004. 7 CDs.

My co-worker Lynne Imre recommended these books, and I’ve long been meaning to read Housekeeping, so I grabbed an audiobook, which is my way of reading books I’ve long been meaning to read.

This reminded me of the Marilynne Robinson nonfiction I’ve read, When I Was a Child, I Read Books. The fictional story is narrated by an old preacher in 1956, writing a letter to his young son. The preacher, John Ames, has a heart problem, and doesn’t think he will live to see his son reach adulthood.

The book is gentle and philosophical, and has some Scriptural insights thrown in throughout, since, after all, a preacher is narrating.

Reverend Ames tells about his father and grandfather, both preachers before him. His grandfather was an abolitionist and a character.

In many ways, the book is a meditation on fathers and sons, and blessings handed down from one generation to the next. Besides John Ames’ own family, his dear friend and fellow preacher has a wayward son who was named after John Ames. Young Jack comes back to town and he and the preacher embark on a journey of understanding, forgiveness and blessing.

This is a slow moving novel, but a rich one. I didn’t always hurry to put in the next CD when one ran out, and it’s not the kind of book that it’s hard to stop the car and shut off the sound when you arrive at your destination. But sometimes that’s the best kind of audiobook — something to mull over on your commute, which will stick in your thoughts.

The reader has a deep, rich, friendly, thoughtful voice. He made it easy to imagine an old preacher speaking these words.

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Source: This review is based on a library audiobook from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

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Review of Shades of Milk and Honey, by Mary Robinette Kowal

Fantasy, Fiction Review, Historical, Romance 0

shades_of_milk_and_honey_largeShades of Milk and Honey

by Mary Robinette Kowal

A Tom Doherty Associates Book (Tor), New York, 2010. 320 pages.
2010 Nebula Nominee for Best Novel
RT Book Reviews Reviewers’ Choice Award for Best Fantasy Novel 2010

Thank you to my sister Melanie for giving me this book for Christmas.

The book is essentially Jane Austen – with magic. Now, it didn’t enchant me as much as the other Jane Austen with magic series which began with Sorcery and Cecelia. I think the reason was that the sibling rivalry was a bit intense for my taste. The younger, more beautiful sister, Melody, is intensely jealous of her older sister Jane’s accomplishments. (I missed the love between Elizabeth and Jane in Pride and Prejudice.) Those accomplishments include ability with Glamour – magical enhancement of art and music.

The story is fun, in many ways mirroring Pride and Prejudice. I rightly looked for romance to develop with the most distasteful man Jane was initially introduced to. But things do stay interesting. I didn’t particularly like the jealousy subplot, as Melody also has some men to choose from. Does she really need to like the same ones as her sister? Meeting and getting to know the various eligible men and their sisters takes up most of the book. It was also not a surprise that one of the men turns out to be a cad.

Here’s a taste from the first chapter:

When all was settled, Jane seated herself at the pianoforte and pulled a fold of glamour close about her. She played a simple rondo, catching the notes in the loose fold; when she reached the point where the song repeated, she stopped playing and tied the glamour off. Captured by the glamour, the music continued to play, wrapping around to the beginning of the song with only a tiny pause at the end of the fold. With care, she clipped the small silence at the end of the music and tied it more firmly to the beginning, so the piece repeated seamlessly. Then she stretched the fold of glamour to gossamer thinness until the rondo sounded as if it played in the far distance.

The door to the drawing room opened. Melody leapt to her feet with a naked expression of welcome on her face. Jane rose slowly, trying to attain a more seemly display. She placed her hand on the pianoforte as the room spun about her with the lingering effects of working glamour.

But only their father entered the room. “Hullo, my dears.” The plum brocade of his waistcoat strained across his ample middle. He looked around the drawing room in evident pleasure. “Are we expecting company?”

Melody said, “Mr. Dunkirk said he would honour us with a visit this afternoon.”

“Did he?” Her father looked befuddled. “But I saw him not fifteen minutes ago passing through our fields with the FitzCamerons. They looked for all the world as if they were going hunting. Are you certain you did not mistake his meaning?”

Melody’s face soured. “His meaning was clear. But perhaps he preferred to spend the afternoon in the company of a lady than a farmer’s daughter.”

Jane winced as Melody flew from the room.

If you’re in the mood for a fun old-fashioned romance with a nice dose of magic, this book is a fun read.

tor-forge.com

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Source: This review is based on my own copy, a gift from my sister Melanie.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

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