Monday, May 19, 2014

Gathering Blue

My Rating: 

Method of Reading: Online ebook, 256 pages in paperback
Dates of Reading: March 19, 2014
Author: Sue Monk Kidd
Publication Year: 2000
Recommended to: People who enjoyed The Giver.
Quotes: 
"You and I? We're the ones who will fill in the blank places. Maybe we can make it different."
Movie: Nope.

Wikipedia Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gathering_Blue
Link: http://www.amazon.com/Gathering-Blue-Lois-Lowry/dp/0547904142

My View: Really, really excellent. Just what I would expect from a book in tandem with The Giver. Lowry's world creation is fantastic and compelling--already excited for Messenger.

Always,
Your Bibliomaniac

Bibliography:
Allie. "Review: The Giver, Gathering Blue and Messenger by Lois Lowry." A Literary Odyssey. 6 Dec. 2010. Web. 19 May 2014.

Saturday, May 17, 2014

Allegiant

My Rating: 

Method of Reading: Hardcover novel, 526 pages

Dates of Reading: May 14, 2014-May 15, 2014
Author: Veronica Roth
Publication Year: 2013
Recommended to: If you made it through Divergent and Insurgent, this is your wonderful reward. Definitely the highlight of the series but only worthwhile if you've already read the other two. I'm kind of feeling like girls who love Hope Was Here with a few years added on might find this character set appealing.
Quotes: "I feel the urge… to wrench myself from my body and speak directly into her mind" (9).
Movie: They're making this final book into two movies and that trend is like a runaway train: expensive, dangerous, and usually avoidable. I might be tempted to ignore both films because of that. It's going to be challenging to portray Tris--rarely does a character, in a book or movie, read people's intentions rather than their actions. I'm still unsure as to how Roth wrote her like this, goodness knows how Woodley & Co. will make this work.

Wikipedia Link:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegiant_(novel)
Link: http://veronicarothbooks.blogspot.com/p/books.html

My View: This book was a challenge, cover to cover. My first shock was seeing Tris's name under the Chapter One heading. Knowing what that formatting generally foreshadowed, I was pretty ticked off. I could only assume that Roth had gotten bored of writing from one perspective, that she was desperate to add excitement while churning out the last book as quickly as the first two, that she was running out of steam and, like the writers of a dying sitcom, needed to bring new characters to the forefront to "freshen up" the plot. It even made me feel like she was taking some of Tris's power away.
 Having sifted through this most obvious response to the narration change and several others, I had to approach the most painful explanation for why a change I didn't immediately like might have been made: what if this change was really the most reasonable way to finish the series? Choosing to let us inside another person's head, in this book more than many others, sends a lot of messages. Primarily, this makes quite a statement in a book where we see countless characters named and excessively few explored (Tris herself remarks on the difficulties associated with peeling back hundreds of layers of intention, reaction, motivation, and history). Remember that Tris and Tobias's romance began as what many early reviewers called a subplot: so giving Tobias the last word, making him such a huge part of Tris's story that he increasingly narrates it and takes it over, is quite meaningful--it implies that the point of this series is Tris and Tobias's love or, more correctly, Tris's capacity to love. After all, Tobias wouldn't need to narrate if Tris didn't go to the Weapons Lab for her brother. Since there is no possible character who could narrate with her as of Divergent and no strong candidate in Insurgent, this also implies that the importance of Tris's loves to her life, her choices, and her identity grows as she matures. And that, I truly can enjoy. At any rate, reading as Tobias was a challenge: his voice is pretty similar to Tris's and that made it tough to keep track of when I was reading as Tobias and when I was reading as Tris. And that moment about five chapters after Tris dies when Tobias understands that he's alone and we don't get any more names under the chapter headings for the first time…. my feelings were fairly extreme.
   As I continue on this tangent about my feelings for Roth's wonderful characters, let me first remind you that my only love for the earlier books was for the characters. I am jealous for them, angry at them, frustrated by them, in love with some of them, and sometimes I feel myself shockingly mirrored in them. When Tris reacts to her mom's journal, her mannerisms are mine; when Nita calls Tobias "Four" I want to throttle her; and when the book turns into a Red Wedding-esque bloodbath, I shiver. Mostly, I cringe and anger to see characters I trust turn bad and my heart strains watching my favorite characters struggle.
   Roth's ability to create winning characters gives her great weapons to incite strong emotion. Prime example: Chapter Fifty-Six where Tobias crafts the most beautiful good-bye, real or fake, I have ever read. I also love the simple moments in the book--like when Four admits that, somewhere in him, he still thinks of Christina as a loud-mouth from Candor. I even love that vague feeling of delight when I realize that Uriah and I could be friends, or that I'd eventually like Christina (after the brutal truth-telling had bled into her more pleasant mild sarcasm). She also describes her characters so well that I automatically cast them in my mind--even when the people who I want to cast look very little like what Roth describes (Does no one else see Rafi as a balding Godfather in a wife beater and Mary with red-dyed hair and fake nails? No…? Also I don't care what anyone says about Nita, she will forever be Sgt. Donovan from the BBC's Sherlock in my mind.)
   Other kudos for Roth: I love that there is somebody who really exemplifies each faction and ROCKS. It gives every virtue the power and dignity it deserves--it justifies this metaworld's organization system. I also love that Roth sticks in some random conversations, especially between Tobias and Tris, with content that couldn't happen in the real world but that seem so normal. While I love this aspect of that relationship, perhaps what I love most about Tris and Tobias is that they're together, not "dating," because it doesn't matter in this place if you have a significant other, but a significant person clearly is still important.

Always,
Your Bibliomaniac

Bibliography:
"Allegiant." Confessions of a Book Addict. 2013. Web. 16 May 2014.
"Theo James." Rotten Tomatoes. Flixster Inc. Web. 16 May 2014.

Thursday, May 15, 2014

Insurgent

My Rating: 

Method of Reading: Personally owned hardback, 525 pages.

Dates of Reading: April 20, 2014-May 14, 2014
Author: Veronica Roth
Publication Year: 2012
Recommended to: People who liked Divergent. It's not any better than the first book but I was more involved with the characters. This book is effectively only useful as a stepping stone to Allegiant, but that's okay.
Quotes: 
Movie: Coming up soon, release date set for March 20, 2015.

Wikipedia Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insurgent_(novel)
Link: http://veronicarothbooks.blogspot.com/p/books.html

My View: Love the character development here (when was the last time a character felt so personal?) and the honesty of the writing. Yet the story still doesn't appeal to me in this one. Maybe I'm just so lame that I want my stories (at the least) to be clear and this isn't giving me that but… but it felt like the Battle of Hogwarts for a book and a half with not enough meat to make it worthwhile.


Always,
Your Bibliomaniac

Bibliography:
"Insurgent." Goodreads. Goodreads Inc., n.d. Web. 16 May 2014.
"Insurgent." Bray and Books. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 May 2014.
"Theo James and His Sexy Voice Take an Audi Commercial to the Next Level." Divergent Movies. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 May 2014.

Divergent

My Rating: 

Method of Reading: Personally owned paperback, 487 pages.

Dates of Reading: April 17, 2014-April 19, 2014
Author: Veronica Roth
Publication Year: 2011
Recommended to: I'm not sure I agree with the assessment that anyone who likes Hunger Games will like this. I can't think of the right group to funnel toward this, but I'm tempted to say early high school. It's weirdly suited to more of a Twilight reader in a lot of ways.
Quotes:
Movie: Brand spankin' new. Have not seen it, not really clambering to see it, but some of my friends went and loved it… probably like 90% of that is thanks to Theo James. Maybe 95%… Sadly, there was no Uriah in this movie and I find that unacceptable. I'm told that several high-stakes changes were made when moving this story from literature to film, some of which I'm told weren't pulled off very well. If I ever see it, I'll have a real opinion to share on those edits.

Wikipedia Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divergent_(novel)
Link: http://veronicarothbooks.blogspot.com/p/books.html

My View: Bravo, Veronica Roth. You've created a heroine I can feel with even when I don't agree with her. Her world kinda drives me up a wall even before it starts showing signs of severe crumbling. Now I'm feeling all dystopian and wanting to read Harry Potter, The Hunger Games, Forest of Hands and Teeth, The Giver, and This World We Live In… even "Harrison Bergeron" again. Sadly it reads like thin soup tastes... almost like Twilight or another epic without enough plot.


Always,
Your Bibliomaniac

Bibliography:
"Books." Veronica Roth. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 May 2014.
"Divergent." Blogspot. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 May 2014.
Don't Try and Define Me. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 May 2014.

The Giver

My Rating: 

Method of Reading: Online ebook, estimated 180 pages

Dates of Reading: May 14, 2014
Author: Lois Lowry
Publication Year: 1993
Recommended to: Readers 7th grade and up.
Quotes: 
Movie: Yes'm. That and the tide of dystopian youth novels sweeping the literary world lately are what brought me back to this.

Wikipedia Link: 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Giver
Link: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3636.The_Giver

My View: Impactful even the second time around. The first time I read this, I was in the only 7th grade Language Arts class that wasn't reading The Giver. I was unable to accept that. So I waited for a day when I had unusually little homework and snuck the book out of my twin's backpack. I read it quickly that evening. Interestingly, this time I had just finished finals and needed somewhere to send excess academic energy and then I decided to read this in an evening again. Again, very powerful, very thought provoking, beautiful in its simplicity. Sometimes children's books are more meaningful than that we give them credit for. Very glad that, in my research for this article, I uncovered that this is part of a "quartet." So I shall be reading those soon…


Always,
Your Bibliomaniac

Bibliography:
"The Giver." Goodreads. Goodreads Inc, n.d. Web. 15 May 2014.
"The Giver." NPR. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 May 2014.