A great little story for boys, with some pretty gross-out scenes and images. I like how Super Fly Guy could talk, but only in "buzz" sounds.A great little story for boys, with some pretty gross-out scenes and images. I like how Super Fly Guy could talk, but only in "buzz" sounds....more
Woah! Blew my mind. I can't even believe the setting of the second book. Totally crazy.Woah! Blew my mind. I can't even believe the setting of the second book. Totally crazy....more
**spoiler alert** So good! I really enjoyed Holes, and actually I read it in one sitting. It's meant to be realistic fiction, but I think that parts o**spoiler alert** So good! I really enjoyed Holes, and actually I read it in one sitting. It's meant to be realistic fiction, but I think that parts of it come off as a little more fantastical. The setting (and the cover) is very surreal and almost dystopian, and the main resolution comes about because Stanley is able to successfully complete the rules of the fairy-tale where his great-great-great(-great?) grandfather was not. However, the book is seriously based in reality, and these elements just add a little bit of spice to the story.
I thought that Stanley was a great main character, and the book teaches some important lessons. For example, Stanley learns to be proud of himself for working hard and getting the job done, and he learns to value himself more for this ability. He also learns the value of friendship as he befriends the boys at Camp Green Lake and eventually escapes to save one.
Holes is also just a great book with a really suspenseful plot, as the readers try to figure out why the boys are digging these crazy holes and why the warden is just so crazy. There's a big mystery and some big twists that make you want to just keep reading to figure it all out. And I loved that Sachar worked in the other, historical stories about Stanley's ancestors and the outlaw Kissin' Kate Barlow....more
So torn on what to give this book. I found it both enormously interesting and slightly boring at the same time. I'm not sure why it wouldn't hold my iSo torn on what to give this book. I found it both enormously interesting and slightly boring at the same time. I'm not sure why it wouldn't hold my interest. It may just have been me and the timing. So for that reason and because Wells does so many cool and unique things with race and gender in this book, it's getting 4 stars. (Anyone else keep imagining Moon as Toothless from the How to Train Your Dragon movie? I know he's not all cartoony and round looking, but I just couldn't get that image out of my head!)...more
I didn't think I would like this book as much as I did. I was hesitant that the photographs would come off too gimmicky, and from the cover I expectedI didn't think I would like this book as much as I did. I was hesitant that the photographs would come off too gimmicky, and from the cover I expected a kind of gothic, circus freak show sort of tone.
So I was amazed and how quickly the main character's narrative voice caught me. And the pictures turned out to work pretty well with the text. I probably could have done without them - I like to imagine my own characters - but they didn't distract from the text. And while there is a bit of gothic horror to this book, the overall tone is one of a fantasy novel, as the main character Jacob goes on an adventure to solve a mystery, save the day, and discover his true identity.
What I ended up liking the most, though, in this story were the characters, the titular peculiar children. There is something circus freak show about them - for example, the girl with a mouth on the back of her head - but Riggs does a great job at making each of them a unique and likable character.
And I'm excited at what the end of this book hints at as far as what's going to happen in the sequels.
This book turned out better than I thought it would when I first started reading it. Don't get me wrong, the writing was fine. Really good, actually. This book turned out better than I thought it would when I first started reading it. Don't get me wrong, the writing was fine. Really good, actually. But I'm just so tired of that very specific type of female character, the one that's been named the "manic pixie dream girl." You know the one:
stunningly attractive, high on life, full of wacky quirks and idiosyncrasies (generally including childlike playfulness and a tendency towards petty crime), often with a touch of hairdye and inexplicably obsessed with our stuffed-shirt hero, on whom she will focus her kuh-razy antics until he learns to live and love. ... By the end of the story, she's either living out the rest of her kooky life with her newly happy loverman, or dead.
That is totally the character of Alaska in this book. And let me tell you, authors of Teen fiction, it's been done to death! And it kind of offends me as a woman....more
(Note: this review will be spoiler-ish, not in specifics but in the discussion of general tone and plot building.)
So obviously this book gets 5 stars.(Note: this review will be spoiler-ish, not in specifics but in the discussion of general tone and plot building.)
So obviously this book gets 5 stars. The writing and the complexity of the characters and the sheer epicness of it all warrants 5 stars. But...
But sometimes I thought it was almost too epic. There's almost too much going on sometimes. In places where I'd like just a minute of everyday-ness to breathe and get to know a character a bit more, Martin just plows ahead with war and more war. And there are almost (probably) too many characters that we follow, but that might be a personal pet-peeve. The switching POVs construction was never my favorite. It always makes me so made when we have to switch away from a character I really like (like Daenerys or Arya or Bran) to one that I'm not so fond of.
Also, and this is probably my biggest beef, Martin is totally ready to throw everything out the window at any moment. I mean, I'd heard of the Red Wedding, I knew he killed Many (all?) of his main characters, but still sometimes this proclivity would catch me by surprise. And knowing this as I read made the reading experience slightly less enjoyable, slightly more stressful. I like knowing that everything is going to turn out all right in the end. With Martin, nothing is guaranteed. He breaks prophesies for heaven's sake!
But I still totally want to read the second book, especially given how the first one ended! But more Arya please!...more
