April Minireviews – Part 2

Oh look, the last of March’s reviews!!!

Pumpkinheads by Rainbow Rowell – 4* – finished March 15

//published 2019//

I’ve seen a lot of love for this book, and since I like Rainbow Rowell and also needed to read a graphic novel to check off some challenges, I decided to give this one a whirl.  The artwork is pretty adorable and I loved the background story with the escaped goat!!  I always enjoy stories that are set in the country, and this one definitely had that going for it.  While the story was a bit simplistic, it was still perfectly fun and happy.

Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery – 5* – finished March 18

//published 1908//

What can I possibly say about this book that hasn’t already been said?  I first read this book probably when I was 9 or 10 and have read it countless times since then.  I love absolutely every page – the warmth, the honesty, the humor – Montgomery writes people so well – even small characters are still perfectly sketched in just a few sentences of description.  Despite the fact that I’ve read this book so often, it still got me all choked up on multiple occasions.  This book is a classic for a reason, and it’s crazy to think that this was Montgomery’s first published novel!

Black-Eyed Susans by Julia Heaberlin – 4* – finished March 19

//published 2015//

A lot of mixed feelings on this one that I can’t completely get into without spoilers.  Overall this was a very engaging read that really pulled me in and made me want to keep reading.  However, I did feel like in some spots the tension was lacking.  I also wasn’t completely satisfied with the ending, but since it did technically make everything work I’m okay with it.  Overall while I enjoyed reading this one, it didn’t particularly make me feel like rushing out to see if Heaberlin has written other books.

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie – 5* – finished March 26

//published 1926//

(Did I really go almost a week without finishing a book??  No, of course not.  I read a truly dreadful “Regency” romance and also struggled through half of another book before bailing on it.  My reading stats are partially low in March and April because of so many DNFs!)

If there is some way that you’ve never read this book, you DEFINITELY should.  And I highly recommend knowing as little about it as possible, because if you know nothing, the ending will blow your mind.  It’s a twist that has been used since, but Christie was one of the earliest pioneers of this concept – sooo good!  Christie’s writing is strong enough that even though I’ve read this one several times, and obviously know the twist, I still greatly enjoy seeing how she carefully sets it all up, giving us clues and hints as we go along.  This is one of her finest books, and a hallmark of the genre.

Hot Ice by Nora Roberts – 3.5* – finished March 30

//published 1987//

I’m haphazardly working my way through Roberts’s backlog because it’s so easy to find her books everywhere!  This one was a romantic suspense, a genre she usually writes really well (and that I greatly prefer to her paranormal stories).  This one felt VERY 80’s but was still fun for a one-time read, despite the somewhat high body count, and the fact that just because the baddy went to jail in the end, I was NOT convinced that he would stop trying to avenge himself!  Still, when I’m looking for a fun romp of a read, Roberts rarely disappoints.

White Stallion of Lipizza by Marguerite Henry – 4.5* – finished March 30

//published 1964//

Regular visitors here know that I have a huge soft spot for Henry’s work, which I read over and over again as a child.  Over the last few years I’ve been revisiting her books, and have been pleasantly surprised to find that most of them hold up well as an adult.  Part of it is immense charm of Wesley Dennis’s illustrations, and White Stallion is no exception.  Dennis has a brilliant knack of sketching emotions, and also understands that just as no two human faces look alike, animals all of different looks to them as well – thus his horses and dogs especially become distinct characters on the page, even in a book like this one where theoretically a bunch of large, white horses should all look basically the same.

The story itself is delightful as usual – a young boy, growing up Vienna, loves the stallions and yearns to become a rider.  Based on a true story, as most of Henry’s tales are, eventually this young hero overcomes the odds and learns the discipline of riding these magnificent horses.

When I was in high school, the Stallions toured through my city and we went to see them – it was genuinely indescribable.  It’s amazing how long this breed of horse has been around, performing their almost-magical feats of agility.

Shelfie by Shelfie // Shelf 1C

Last fall, Bibliobeth started a new book tag, Shelfie by Shelfie.  You can see her original post here (and her most recent Shelfie here) – and I’ve nabbed her image as well.  :-D  The concept is that you take a picture of a bookshelf, and then answer ten questions about the books on it.  I have about a billion bookshelves, so I thought that I would give it a go!

Well, it’s been quite a while since I have posted a shelfie – I went through a pretty long spell of having the blogging blues and have been struggling just to somewhat stay on top of book reviews!  But I am mostly caught up now and thought I would take a minute to present the latest Shelfie installment!!

Shelf 1 – excuse the piles of random stuff… remodeling never ends in this house! :-D

Currently, I am posting about Shelf #1, and have already looked at the top to shelves – 1A and 1B.  Today we’re on to Shelf 1C!!

1 – Is there any reason for this shelf being organized the way it is, or is it purely random?

My fiction is somewhat organized by author’s last name, but as you can see, these aren’t really linear shelves – my husband custom-built these shelves for me (marry a man who builds shelves, ladies!), purposely creating little cubbies and odd-shaped shelves so that they could hold both books and knickknacks.  So sometimes instead of going in strict author-order, I put in the books that fit… and that’s what’s happening here.  These are taller books, mostly by Marguerite Henry… because the shelf the rest of her books are on is a lot shorter!!!

2 – Tell us a story about one of the books on this shelf that is special to you; i.e. how you got it, a memory associated with it, etc.

As a girl, I loved horses and dogs and cows (although not a lot of cow books out there), and C.W. Anderson was one of my heroes.  (Actually, I named my cat after him – Clarence.)  I checked Twenty Gallant Horses out of the library ALL THE TIME.  I was completely enraptured by the stories of these thoroughbreds, and read them time and again.  Years later, I was at the library book sale… and the EXACT copy I had read as a child was in the discard pile!  I snatched it up for a quarter!  Honestly, it was somewhat bittersweet.  While I was pretty thrilled to get a childhood favorite for my permanent collection, it’s sad to me that this book isn’t in the library for some other young girl to love!

3 – Which book from this shelf would you ditch if you were forced to and why?

Oh gee, I guess Black Gold.  While I do love that book – especially the illustrations – it’s such a sad story!!

4 – Which book from this shelf would you save in an emergency and why?

Hmm.  I’m not really sure any of these are necessarily emergency worthy, but I think I would choose Misty of Chincoteague.  I reread it recently and was surprised that I enjoyed it even more as an adult than I did as a child.

5 – Which book has been on this shelf for the longest time?

Probably either Misty or Justin Morgan Had a Horse.  Both of those I’ve owned since I was probably around 10 – long enough ago that it was before I started writing my name and the date on the flyleaf!  I collected horse books for a long time, and these were some of my earliest library additions.

6 – Which book is the newest addition to this shelf?

These are honestly all kind of oldies.  Wagging Tails is probably the most recent purchase, though – I bought it a few years ago at an antique shop.

7 – Which book on this shelf are you most excited to read (or reread if this is a favorite shelf)?

These are all old favorites, but Brown Sunshine of Sawdust Valley is actually on my #20BooksofSummer list, so hopefully I’ll be getting to that one before September!!

8 – If there is an object on this shelf apart from books, tell us the story behind it.

I probably should have turned around the frisbee-catching cow before taking the picture so you could see her better.  :-D  This is one of my favorite knickknacks – my dad gave it to me a long time ago.  The title of the piece is “Daisy’s Dream” and it makes me grin every time I look at it.

9 – What does this shelf tell us about you as a reader?

That I had a definitely addiction to horse books as a child!!

10 – Choose other bloggers to tag or choose a free question you make up yourself.

I highly encourage everyone to give this lil Q&A a whirl, as it is great fun!

For a free question,

Tell more about the illustrators of the books on this shelf.

I just really feel like I need to at least mention the amazing artwork of Wesley Dennis, who illustrated the majority of the Marguerite Henry books, and C.W. Anderson, who did his own artwork for his books.  I love both of them so much, and still snap up any book I find that they’ve illustrated, regardless of whether or not I’m actually interested in the book.  Both artists do so much with simple line drawings, although Dennis also did many full-color illustrations as well.

I poured over their artwork as a child and yearned to be able to draw even half as well as either of these artists.  I still can only draw stick figures, but at least I have the joy of being able to study their illustrations whenever I want.

Wesley Dennis

Wesley Dennis

C.W. Anderson

C.W. Anderson – from the Billy & Blaze books, more childhood faves!

February Minireviews – Part 1

So I find that I not-infrequently read books that I just don’t have a lot of things to say about.  Sometimes it’s because it was a super meh book (most of these are 3/5 reads), or sometimes it’s because it was just so happy that that’s about all I can say about it!  However, since I also use this blog as a sort of book-review diary, I like to at least say something.  So I’ve started a monthly post with minireviews of all those books that just didn’t get more than a few paragraphs of feelings from me.

Last Christmas in Paris by Elizabeth Gaynor and Heather Webb

//published 2017//

This book is a collection of letters written between several different individuals during World War I.  The majority of the correspondence is between Tom and Evie – Evie is the younger sister of Tom’s best friend, Will.  It’s pretty obvious that Tom and Evie are going to end up together, but that didn’t diminish my enjoyment of the story.

I really loved this book for about the first 3/4 of the way.  The letters were delightful, the characters engaging, and the voices different enough to make it really feel like I was reading letters from and to different people.  Epistolary tales can be rather narrow, but because we have letters between people besides the two main characters, the story felt fairly well-rounded.  It definitely had a Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society vibe about it.  I really liked the upbeat sense to this book.  It was serious, yes, but it wasn’t all doom and gloom and there were no plot twists were someone turned out to be gay.

But then Evie goes to France also, and the story just kind of fell apart.  The correspondence became disjointed, and the characters no longer felt like they were being true to themselves.  There were also a few instances where I was uncertain of the continuity because of weirdly long gaps between letters.  It was very strange to me that for the first three years, they write letters all the time, then suddenly in 1917 and 1918, there are only a handful of letters, which I think added to the feeling of disjointedness.

In the end, a 3/5 read for a book that started very strong and then just sort of petered out.

Something Fresh (AKA Something New) by P.G. Wodehouse

//published 1915//

In my quest to read all of Wodehouse’s books in published order, I have waded through over a decade’s worth of school stories and short story collections.  While all of them have been readable and even enjoyable for a one-time read, there have only been glimpses of what I consider to be genuine Wodehouse magic.

But the title of this book is definitely appropriate, as this is the first book that really begins to collect all the bits of what will later be the Wodehouse formula. Plus, it introduces one of my all-time favorite Wodehouse characters, Lord Emsworth of Blandings Castle.  While this book may still not be up to the standards of some of Wodehouse’s later works, it was still a delight from beginning to end.

After reading a collection of Wodehouse’s correspondence back in late 2016, I sometimes refer to A Life in Letters to see if Wodehouse himself had anything interesting to say about my current Wodehouse read.  I was intrigued to find that even he thought that Something Fresh was a new and better direction for his writing as well.  Was it because he found and married the love of his life a few months earlier?  I like to think so.

Brighty of the Grand Canyon by Marguerite Henry

//published 1953//

As I’ve mentioned before, Henry was one of my favorite authors growing up, and I devoured all of her books.  I collected a lot of them in cheap paperback editions published by Scholastic, and although I’ve upgraded a lot of them through the years, I still have a few of those paperbacks with my name scrawled in painful 2nd-grade cursive on the flyleaf.

I could look at his illustrations all day!

It had been a really long time since I had revisited this title, and while it was a decent story (and the illustrations by Wesley Dennis were magical as always), it really wasn’t one of my favorites.  In some ways, the story feels very choppy.  It’s about a little wild burro who lives in the Grand Canyon at the turn of the century (Theodore Roosevelt is president, and is even in the story!).  The problem is that Henry tries to tell both the story of Brighty’s everyday life + how he helped make the Grand Canyon the park that it is today AND the story of an old prospector who was murdered and how Brighty helped bring the killer to justice.  Except… the murder part feels very strange in a children’s book, and it also takes like ten years to solve the mystery, which makes no sense because why is Jake still around after all this time???  The murder mystery was definitely the weak part of the tale.  If it had been jettisoned and more focus had been made just on Brighty’s life in the Canyon, I think the book would have read better.

In fairness, Henry was basing Brighty on a real burro, who, in real life, did discover a clue that lead to the capture of a murderer – but still.  Brighty had plenty of other adventures.  Still, a very readable little book, and the illustrations really do make it a joy.  3.5/5.

December Minireviews

So I find that I not-infrequently read books that I just don’t have a lot of things to say about.  Sometimes it’s because it was a super meh book (most of these are 3/5 reads), or sometimes it’s because it was just so happy that that’s about all I can say about it!  However, since I also use this blog as a sort of book-review diary, I like to at least say something.  So I’ve started a monthly post with minireviews of all those books that just didn’t get more than a few paragraphs of feelings from me.

Album of Horses by Marguerite Henry

//published 1951//

This is an easy 4/5 read, and a childhood favorite – it just isn’t very long, so I don’t have a lot to say about it.  It’s an oversized book full of gorgeous illustrations by my fave, Wesley Dennis.  Each chapter is about a different breed of horse.  I love how Henry usually manages to tell a little story or anecdote about each breed.  She even says in the afterword that writing this book inspired her to write several of her other stories, because the little mini-story she was writing in Album just got way too involved and interesting!  If you have a young horse lover in your life, this is a perfect gift book.  The illustrations are amazing, and it’s just the right amount of information to get them going.

I will say that, rereading as an adult, I was intrigued by how some of the chapters did actually feel dated.  Album was published in 1951, and she says things about various draft horses still being used to plow fields, which was in fact still happening in the 1940’s, but has disappeared pretty much completely almost 70 years later.  However, rather than detracting from the book, I felt that it gave it even more charm!

Bronco Charlie by Henry Larom

//published 1951//

This children’s book is about a boy who becomes the youngest rider ever for the Pony Express.  It seems like a completely improbable tale, but I looked it up, and most of it is actually true!  I picked this up at a booksale eons ago, but hadn’t read it in years.  Of course, I was attracted to it because of the illustrations…  by Wesley Dennis!  Have I mentioned that he was an artistic genius??  :-D  In all seriousness, his pencil drawings really do add so much to this story, and made me want to saddle up right along with Charlie.  This is an adorable story, and definitely deserves a slot on the children’s bookshelves here at my house.

A Lady of Quality by Georgette Heyer

//published 1972//

Another 4/5 read – the perfect combination of fun, frothy, and witty that Heyer always presents, even if it is in a rather predictable pattern!

November 9 by Colleen Hoover

//published 2015//

I’ve never actually read a book by Hoover before, but Stephanie mentioned reading this one a while back, so I thought maybe it would be a good place to start.  In this story, Fallon meets Ben right before she moves from California to New York.  They have an instantaneous connection, but Fallon doesn’t want to start a relationship at that moment.  Instead, they agree to meet on November 9 for the next five years, but to have no contact with each other – not even through social media – in between.

This book has a fun concept and I did enjoy it for the most part, but it began to feel kind of same-y, since we only get the story on November 9 each year – nothing in between.  Fallon and Ben are super insta-love-y, which I would have been okay with, except it began to translate into the sexual, so now the November 9 dates not only don’t have a lot of story, they do have a decent amount of sex, which also felt kind of weird since they don’t actually know each other all that well.  There was also a decent amount of swearing, and there is nothing like a string of completely unnecessary f-bombs to put me off a book.

Part of the problem was that I never liked Ben, like not even a little. I thought he was obnoxious and pushy and kind of a creeper. And while I did think the twist was clever, it didn’t really make me like Ben even more. He’s still kind of a self-centered whiner.

I did like the ending and felt like things came together well, and I really did want to see how things turned out, but overall I felt pretty meh about the whole book, and not particularly inspired to look up more of Hoover’s works.

The Little Lady Agency by Hester Browne

//published 2005//

This story is about a woman who opens an agency that helps men get their lives together – she’ll help them shop for the right clothes, purchase nice gifts for people, redecorate their apartments, etc.  She’ll also provide herself as a date to various events where a plus one is needed – basically, she’ll help you with girlfriend stuff – but “no laundry, no sex.”  I really liked this concept and thought that this book would be about Melissa having various misadventures helping befuddled bachelors.  But this book turned out to be surprisingly boring.  Melissa aggravated me to no end, with her complete lack of self-confidence and the way she always knuckled under to her dad.  Her relationship with her long-time friend/flatmate (who is a guy) seemed extremely weird and confusing to me, especially since she was supposedly falling in love with this other guy.  Her dad was so horrifically obnoxious that I could hardly stand reading the scenes where she had to deal with him.  I was also confused about how Melissa was supposedly starting her own business but seemed to have no concept of how much money she had/was making/was spending…  I feel like I keep better records for my small, part-time Etsy shop than Melissa was keeping for a business that is supposedly becoming her livelihood.

I will say that I appreciated the lack of sex in this book.  While there were some romantic scenes, there was no shagging, and Melissa doesn’t sleep with anyone for the entirety of the book!  This was so refreshing and made me frustrated that I didn’t enjoy the book more overall.

The biggest problem was that this book wasn’t remotely funny.  There weren’t any humorous scenes at all, and there was so much potential!  Instead, it was basically just listening to Melissa waffle around and be stressed, which got kind of old after a while.  The next biggest problem was that there was not a single happily married person in the entire story.  Everyone who was married was miserable.  And I honestly didn’t feel like Melissa’s guy was going to make her happy, either.  It really put a damper on the overall tone of the book.

In short, this book didn’t make me feel happy to read, which is the whole purpose of chick lit.  It honestly made me feel low-grade stressed because I disagreed with so many of Melissa’s decisions.  And without anything funny to leaven the story, it just sort of dragged on with an overall dark gray tone to life.  3/5 for being fairly readable, but not particularly recommend.  At least I can mark this series off the TBR without bothering to read the other two books.

The Man Upstairs & Other Stories by P.G. Wodehouse

//published 1914//

Honestly, this was my least-favorite collection of Wodehouse stories that I’ve read to date.  While they weren’t terrible, they really lacked that sparkle and wit that I think of as trademark Wodehouse.  If I hadn’t known that these were Wodehouse stories, I wouldn’t have guessed it.  They were just rather flat, several with abrupt endings.  Not terrible for a one-time read, but rather disappointing on the whole, as I’ve come to expect more from Wodehouse, even with his earlier works.

Sea Star: Orphan of Chincoteague // by Marguerite Henry

//published 1949//

A while back I reread one of my childhood classics, Misty of Chincoteague.  This story, about two children – Paul and Maureen – who raise a pony on an island off the Delmarva Peninsula is probably Henry’s best-known story.  Its rise in popularity led to it being made into a movie, and so Henry returned to Chincoteague and Pony Penning Day.  She says in her afterword,

I had no though of writing another Chincoteague story.  I really did not want to write another.  Misty, I thought, was complete in itself.  Let the boys and girls dream their own wonderful sequels.

And then all my resolves burst in  midair.  Early on the morning after Pony Penning, a lone colt with a crooked star on his forehead was found at Tom’s Cove … except for the sea mews and the striker birds, the colt was quite alone, one little wild thing, helpless against the wild sea.

And there, in that wild moment at Tom’s Cove, the story of Sea Star was born of itself.

Like the story of Misty, the title character of Sea Star doesn’t appear until better than halfway through the book.  The beginning of the story picks up a year or two after Misty ended.  Paul and Maureen love their pony, and she is like a member of the family.  And then, two men appear and offer to buy Misty.  They have read the book about Misty and want to make a movie.  And while they plan to shoot portions of the movie on Chincoteague – namely, the Pony Penning parts – they want to take Misty back to New York with them, not just for the recording of the movie, but –

Because … we’d want to keep her a while after the screen play is made.  We’d want to take her to schools and libraries where boys and girls could meet her.  We’d want to fix a stall for her in the theaters where her picture was showing so they could see the real Misty.  It might be a long time before she could come back … Sometimes when I hear the children in New York talk about Misty, it seems she no longer belongs to a boy and a girl on an island, but to boys and girls everywhere.

While Paul and Maureen initially give a resounding no to the offer, circumstances change when they realize that the money from selling Misty would be enough to send their uncle to college.  It’s a truly beautiful scene, as the children realize that there are things bigger than themselves.  Their uncle’s yearning to go forward with his education so he can become a minister and serve others, the way that Misty has become an important part of the lives of many children whom Paul and Maureen have never met, and through it all the lesson that one reaps what one sows: the knowledge that selfishness is only beneficial in the short run.

This book has a more serious tone than Misty.  Henry does a really wonderful job showing us the many ways that Paul and Maureen mature in just those few weeks (and isn’t that how life happens?  In leaps and bounds?).  She never portrays their decision as easy or flippant: what they are doing is a huge, serious sacrifice.  Any reward they may eventually receive from their choice is far in the future.

There are multiple life-lessons to be learned.  Throughout, Wesley Dennis’s amazing illustrations bring the story to life.  I may or may not have gotten teary-eyed when Paul and Maureen saw Misty off.

While Misty was a happy children’s story, I liked Sea Star better.  There is a bit more drama and depth, and everything pulls together to make a cohesive and engaging story.  While not perfect, it is a really wonderful sequel and definitely recommended.

#18 for #20BooksofSummer!!!