Aaaand...We're Back

So it’s been a while since I posted here.  Okay, it’s been a long while.  I got a little sidetracked finishing grad school and moving and job-hunting and all that jazz.  I stopped keeping up with reviews, but I certainly didn’t stop reading.  

I also didn’t stop looking for ways to share my thoughts about books, and to hear what others think about what they’re reading as well.  Last summer, a friend of mine took that challenge head on when she put together a long-distance book club.  Participants exchanged books, or book suggestions, via post or the Internet, and had a grand old time finding something new and fun to read.  This year, she got even more ambitious, and it became a Blind Date with a Book Club.  The idea was that recipients would have no idea who their book was coming from, or what they might be receiving.  We all submitted our reading preferences and waited with bated breath.

I chose to send my partner a copy of The KitchenHouse.  Hopefully she enjoys it!  My Blind Date came in the form of Leigh Bardugo’s Shadow and Bone.  But since we’re all reading something different, part of the idea of the Blind Date with a Book Club was that we would share our thoughts on what we read.  For me, the obvious choice was dusting off this poor, neglected blog, and doing a little reviewing.  I can’t promise that it’ll be a regular thing again, but I had forgotten how nice it is to set down one’s thoughts about a story in writing.

Want to know more about what the Blind Date with a Book Club is reading?  Check out social media for the hashtag #bookswithbenefits.  (Cute, right?)

Shadow and Bone

Title:  Shadow and Bone

Author: Leigh Bardugo

Publisher:  Square Fish (2012)

Genre(s): Fiction, Young Adult Fiction, Fantasy, Adventure

Length: 356 pages

Synopsis:  Ravka is a country at war.  For the last hundred years, battles have raged at the borders, and even with the help of the Grisha, those with fantastical abilities to manipulate matter through their use of the Small Science, there seems to be no way to bring an end to the fighting.  For Mal and Alina, the war is just another fact of life.  Orphaned by the battles, they had nothing when they came to live among the other war orphans at Duke Keramsov’s estate, but they found in one another the comfort and companionship they needed to survive.  For Alina, childhood friendship has begun to grow into something deeper as the two set out to serve together in the First Army, while Mal seems more interested in the beautiful Grisha girls that attend the charismatic Darkling, leader of the Grisha Second Army.  But when a terrifying encounter in a land of perpetual darkness known as the Shadow Fold reveals powers she’d never imagined she possessed, Alina is sent away from Mal to train among the Grisha.  Alone and afraid, she soon finds herself trapped in a web of political maneuvering orchestrated by the Darkling himself.  Her powers could hold the key to bringing about the end of Ravka’s suffering, but is she willing to pay the price?

My Rating: 4 Stars

My Opinion: There’s a lot about this book that I like.  In fact, most things about this book I enjoyed.  It’s a beautiful departure from the more typical western European underpinnings of most fantasy.  Set against a fantasticized Imperial Russia, the glittering world of the Grisha and the war-torn borders make sense together while still providing a stark juxtaposition for one another.  The world is richly imagined; Bardugo knows everything about this place, from court fashions in dress to the rationing pattern of sugar.  Occasionally, the details feel almost excessive, but usually that serves to highlight the excesses of the royal court.  The characters, on the other hand…  I felt the world Bardugo has created deserved a little better.  I didn’t want Alina to be another YA heroine sucked in by the alluring and apparently immortal tall-dark-and-handsome fellow.  I wanted Mal to be as complex and multilayered as Alina seems to believe.  There are peripheral characters that show the kind of exquisite nebulosity of which Bardugo is capable: Genya, the Queen’s pet Grisha, whose true allegiance is hard to fathom, who buries her real feelings beneath the perfect mask she’s created of her face; David, the Fabrikator who provides weapons both for and against our heroine, whose actions still make sense in the context of his world.  I wanted the main characters to have these same shades-of-grey struggles, to get a sense that there’s more to them than love triangles or conquer-the-world plots.  But the richness of the world and the other characters gives me hope.  I’m going to hunt down the next title in this trilogy, Siege and Storm, as soon as I can!

Shadow and Bone

The Ghost Bride (Audiobook)

Title: The Ghost Bride

Author: Yangsze Choo

 

Read by: Yangsze Choo

Publisher: Harper Audio (2013)

 

Genre(s): Fiction, Fantasy, Mystery, Historical Fiction

Length: 12 hours and 8 minutes

Synopsis: "Would you like to be a ghost bride?"  Li Lan is shocked by her father's suggestion.  After all, though marrying off the dead is not entirely unheard of in colonial Malaya, it is rare for the bride to be a living woman who would be condemned to a life of widowhood.  Though Li Lan has no interest in becoming such a bride, she is curious about the circumstances that led to the suggestion.  Her intended, it would seem, was the heir to the Lim family, a young man she had never even met.  Now, however, all of his family is showing a keen interest in her, from the new heir Tian Bai to his dead cousin, who's begun appearing in Li Lan's dreams and is anything but charming.

My Rating: 3 Stars

My Opinion:  I did enjoy this audiobook performance, since it is somewhat rare to find a book read by its author.  Li Lan isn't exactly the most interesting protagonist, but through her explorations, we are treated to an extensive, lushly described, and sometimes fantastical view of her world, both in life and death.  The historical notes Choo includes at the conclusion of the story are nearly as interesting as the book itself.  There's a lot going on in this story, ranging from romance to a sort of supernatural version of Law & Order.  With the historical context in place, that combination makes a lot more sense, but during my first listening, I found it somewhat difficult to work out where the story was going, and why on earth that seemed like a logical option.  Though there were things about this book that puzzled me, I did enjoy the performance overall, and the concept behind it in particular.