Soundbites: World War Z

Title: World War Z
Author: Max Brooks
Narrators: Full cast (includes author and Nathan Fillion)
Rating (Story): ★★★☆☆
Rating (Narration):★★★★★

World War Z is the story of the zombie war, told in a series of interviews with the survivors. One of my favorite things about this book was that it starts with the first infections and covers all the details you might possibly want to know about how a zombie outbreak would go down. We start by learning about what the disease is like from a medical perspective. Then we see how different countries reacted politically and eventually militarily to the outbreak. And finally, we get little snippets of how individuals survived. I loved how realistic and believable all these details made the story. I also adored the full cast narration. It was just perfect for this book. The only downside for me was the narrative style and the length of the book. The interview style narrative seemed lazy to me, with the interview questions interrupting the flow of the story and serving as an artificial mechanism to transition between different topics. Due to this narrative style and the short length of the book, I never got particularly attached to any of the characters in the story and the whole thing lacked emotional impact.

 

The Handmaid’s Tale

Title: The Handmaid’s Tale
Author: Margaret Atwood
Source: library
Rating: ★★★☆☆
Review Summary: The writing was truly fantastic but the plot was slow and the ending was unsatisfying.

Offred is a Handmaid in the Republic of Gilead. She may leave the home of the Commander and his wife once a day to walk to food markets whose signs are now pictures instead of words because women are no longer allowed to read. She must lie on her back once a month and pray that the Commander makes her pregnant, because in an age of declining births, Offred and the other Handmaids are valued only if their ovaries are viable. Offred can remember the years before, when she lived and made love with her husband, Luke; when she played with and protected her daughter; when she had a job, money of her own, and access to knowledge. But all of that is gone now… (Source: Goodreads)

The Sultan of Monte Cristo – Classics Retold

Title: The Sultan of Monte Cristo
Author: The Holy Ghost Writer
Source: bought on amazon
Rating: ★☆☆☆☆
Review Summary: The writing style was similar to the original, but the plot was boring, unbelievable, bizarre, and not true to the spirit of the original.

This book is supposed to be a sequel to The Count of Monte Cristo. My review contains some spoilers for this book but none for the original.

Initially, I actually had high hopes for this book. From the first few pages it was clear that the author had done a good job capturing Dumas’ writing style. The language was flowery, Dantes was arrogant, and Hadee subservient. Not my favorite things about Dumas but integral to his work and well represented here. However… The book opens with a blatant sex scene between Dantes and Haydee. Now, I don’t have a problem with sex scenes in principle, but nothing like this happens in the original. More than that, I thought the ambiguous nature of Dantes’ relationship with Haydee was part of the first book’s appeal.

The Book Thief – Discussion 1/3

We here at Doing Dewey are very anti-spoiler but for read-a-longs, there’s really no way to avoid them. So, if you haven’t read the first three parts of The Book Thief which are being discussed in the It’s All About Books read-a-long, this post is going to be COMPLETELY SPOILERY. You have been warned.

This read-a-long for The Book Thief is one of the first read-a-longs I’ve done, so first I’m going to tell you a bit about how I’m liking it. Then I’ll answer some of the discussion questions from our host, Suey. I don’t like to be reading multiple books at one time, so I was surprised at how easy it was to read this between two other books. It was very hard to stop reading because I was enjoying this book a lot, but it’s worth it to me to get to discuss the book with other bloggers. I can’t wait for the twitter chat tomorrow!

Discussion Questions

1. What’s your first impression of Death as a character/narrator?

Early Decision

Title: Early Decision
Author: Lacy Crawford
Source: from publisher for TLC book tour
Rating: ★★★★☆
Review Summary: Although I disliked not knowing what was fact and what was fiction, the believable, self-consistent characters made the story feel very real and gave it a strong emotional impact.

Author Lacy Crawford has been a private college application counselor for 15 years. Her experiences help write the protagonist Anne, as well as the kids Anne is helping through the college application process. Anne officially helps with essays and SAT prep, but her primary value to the parents is as someone they can freak out to and who can help communicate with their kids. Anne herself sees her role as helping their children achieve independence, using the essay writing to help them find their own voice. Given her highly unpleasant boyfriend, Anne could use some of that independence herself.

Bookends About The Mirrored World

Title: The Mirrored World
Author: Debra Dean
Source: from publisher for TLC book tour
Rating: ★★★☆☆
Review Summary: I had mixed feelings about this one, which was beautifully written and conveyed the essence of events very well but never made me feel engaged in the plot.

This book was inspired by the life of Xenia, patron saint of St. Petersburg, but is told from the perspective of her (imaginary, I think) cousin. We watch as Xenia falls madly in love and her complete devastation following her husbands death. As Xenia finds solace in giving her belongings for the poor and slowly transforms into a pauper revered as a “holy fool”, her cousin must decide whether Xenia needs saving from herself or just support in her choices. Her cousins life is also deeply impacted by Xenia’s transformation which helps her find love in the most unlikely of places.