Review: This Was Our Pact

This Was Our Pact by Ryan Andrews
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This graphic novel is absolutely gorgeous and just the right level of dreamy-magical. If you like Hayao Miyazaki's work, you should definitely give this one a go, as it has the same blurred boundaries between the ordinary and the extraordinary. I did my second reading in total awe of the art.

Another blah review because I wasn't able to write this up immediately after finishing...but seriously, I liked this one a lot and highly recommend it.

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Review: Wishtree Costco Edition: Costco Bonus Material

Wishtree Costco Edition: Costco Bonus Material by Katherine Applegate
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Look, I see the word "charming" thrown around a lot in jacket copy and reviews, but this book was, actually, charming and heartwarming to me. Yeah, it's all neatly wrapped up in a bow in the end, but sometimes that's just how middle grade fiction is. And to be honest, I need a little levity in my life at the moment between the current political situation and end of my master's program.

I loved having the point of view of a long-lived tree, loved the slipped in little bits of nature education (I'm a big sucker for that, it's part of why I enjoyed Catfishing on CatNet so much (and can't wait for it to publish!)), the wonderful personalities of all the animals, and heck, I loved the ultimate solution to the central problem of the narrative. Red's existential threat felt a little overdone, though.

Also, the illustrations are gorgeous. All my respect to Charles Santoso.

There are some publisher-y things I wish I could say about this book that maybe no one else would care about, but I will hold my tong-um, fingers, because yeah, disclaimer, I am a proud employee of the company that published this book.

I used to write such intelligent reviews. *Sigh*...

This is book is cute and clever and any reader above the age range who wants a quick, feel-good read should seriously give this a go.

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Review: The Kingdom

The Kingdom by Jess Rothenberg
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This one intrigued me in part because I loved the original version of The Unlikely Death and its questions of ethics. Unfortunately this YA book didn't go quite that deep--it was definitely reaching for bigger concepts, but just didn't quite get there. Still, the concept was interesting, the (clearly) Disney-esque park was amazingly described in all its disbelief-defying glory.

This was a fun, quick read, but one that does require a good bit of suspension of disbelief. The logic of the park starts breaking down pretty quickly if you think about it: (view spoiler)[how are the animals "evolving" if they're dying young or acting up and getting killed? Why would any Disney-esque corporation risk bad publicity by pushing one of its older models to its limits? Why would there be only seven fantasists spread so thinly across the park, and why would they be allowed to cluster together instead of mingling with guests? (hide spoiler)]

If anything, I would have liked even more description of the Kingdom. We have no real sense of how long the fantasists have been around, how fashions in the park might have changed. What does Ana remember? It would have been interesting to know more about their dresses and merchandising, and especially to have a "who's who" so we can tell the sisters apart and know what countries/regions they represent. Nia and Eve had their special performances, but what is Ana's? I was also a little disappointed that it didn't end up being Ana on the cover. I was imagining her kind of like Disney's Mulan and then out of nowhere we're told she has red hair. So then I started thinking of her kind of like, well, Ana from Frozen. Not sure if that's intentional or not.

An enjoyable light read with some things to think about--if not quite philosophize on--an okay requisite YA romance with, at least, a someone who wasn't white, and

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Review: Through Darkest Europe

Through Darkest Europe by Harry Turtledove
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I give up. I can't take it anymore. I really, really wanted to like this one because I've heard such good things about Harry Turtledove, but it took 75 pages for anything to happen. By page 158 I just don't care about any of the characters and there doesn't seem to be any kind of plot in motion, so I'm not going to keep beating myself up about this.

I love the concept behind this book, but I really need a plot and characters to structure it. We're given so little information to go on about who the characters are--except that Dawud is Jewish, a fact that we are not allowed to forget for more than a few paragraphs--that I just have no emotional investment in them.

Most annoying to me, though, is the style of writing. Something finally happens but then we have to have a full paragraph of Khalid thinking about how things are different in the Maghrib from how they are in Italy. This sometimes even interrupted action so that I forgot what was happening! The text is just so self-aware and points out every single instance where things would be different in the sane, safe Muslim world. I just think that most readers would be smart enough to guess some of these things on their own, without needing them highlighted every single time it happened. It's like the main character is mainsplaining everything to me.

I'm not going to give up on Harry Turtledove--he's written a lot of things that sound interesting--but am calling Through Darkest Europe quits. On to something with plot and action!


Quotes & Notes

None of these are spoilers, they're all just little incidental things.

p. 87 - There's no way on earth that smallpox scars would be mistaken for acne.

p. 111 - I found it interesting that Turtledove created an Islamic equivalent to Hitler. I actually wish I knew more about this situation, because Hitler arose out of very specific circumstances largely shaped by the post-WWI Treaty of Versailles and the Great Depression, neither of which would have necessarily happened in this world.

p. 153 - They stopped at a little town called Montevarchi for a snack and more coffee. Anywhere in the Muslim world, such a stop would have been as ritualized as a visit to a mosque. One or two of the leading five or six anonymous societies would have sold gasoline. etc...
At first I was intrigued by the idea of these "anonymous societies", thinking that it might be some kind of cultural business difference that Turtledove is speculating might have evolved...but then I realized he was probably trying to say "there was a Macdonalds and a Taco Bell" without referencing specific names.

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Review: We the People: A Progressive Reading of the Constitution for the Twenty-First Century

We the People: A Progressive Reading of the Constitution for the Twenty-First Century by Erwin Chemerinsky
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Not finishing not because it's bad, but because I think I have the gist and now that I'm free of grad school there is SO MUCH FICTION I want to read!

But I've been thinking about this idea a lot lately, that the Constitution ought to be interpreted through the lens of the preamble. Simple but effective. But I just can't take reading all Chermerinsky's depressing examples of where the Supreme Court has failed us...especially as things are just getting worse by the day.

So yeah, I'm on board with you, Chermerinsky, and I think everyone in the Justice Department should read this.

On another note, the quality of the cover is really weird. It feels like it's the consistency of poster board, without any kind of lamination or anything. My copy is way more gross-looking and bent than it should be.

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Review: Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats

Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats by T.S. Eliot
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Just some good fun and levity during the hellish end of my master's research project. I'd known "The Naming of Cats" for years, and recited it to my future in-laws over the holidays, and it was about darn time I read the whole thing.

Also, fun fact, I'm pretty sure my aunt named her cat Eliot in honor of the author. Yeah, my family's awesome.

Again, I forget when I actually read this.

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Review: Sonnets from the Portuguese

Sonnets from the Portuguese by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

No time for proper reviews right now, as I'm at the end of my last class of grad school and I have a huge pile of short books I've snuck in since February that I need to rate.

While I don't know Barrett Browning's whole story, I do find what I know to be quite meaningful to me. I appreciated the slow progression of the poems from disbelief to love, with all the confused and delightful nuances in between. Yes, I did find myself loving over-quoted sonnet number 14, and we may even read it at our wedding (nothing's settled). But again, I find the touch of melancholy and the knowledge that it was so successfully overcome particularly apt in our case.

I also, to my surprise, very much liked sonnet 6. It really doesn't hold up under a feminist reading--"I feel I shall stand / henceforward in they shadow"--but the overall point of the poem, that no aspect of her life will be untouched by her lover going forward, is beautifully expressed: "What I do / and what I dream include the, as the wine / must taste of its own grapes." If it weren't for that last religious line, I might go for this one for the wedding. Maybe I will anyway...there's nothing to say we can't stop early!

[Dates are a total guess because I totally forget.]
[I almost feel guilty posting this lame review to my feed and forcing people I know to see it.]

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