Category: book club

who says you have to be crowded into the living room/kitchen/dining room to hold a book club? we are ladies of the 21st century. we don’t need no stinkin’ couches. so pull up a blog and join in the conversation.

the members of the BOOK HUNGRY are (alphabetically): patty blount, kelly breakey, karla nellenbach, vanessa noble, alyson peterson, cynthia reese, elizabeth ryann, and myself. here’s the deal. we pick a book to read. we discuss via email. we post a review on our individual blogs on the same day (3rd thursday of the month). we link to each other. done. i know, genius. click on each one of their names (above) and it’ll take you to their review. browse. enjoy.

this month’s BOOK HUNGRY selection is:

ALL CREATURES GREAT AND SMALL by James Herriot

i am not an animal person.

*waits until crowd stops gasping*

(and by crowd, i mean the one person who’s reading this.)

i also don’t read a lot of non-fiction.

*crickets chirping*

hey, those crickets have a place in this month’s selection, which, despite the aforementioned facts, i enjoyed. and here’s why. well, wait, let me first quote james herriot himself:

“If only vetting just consisted of treating sick animals. But it didn’t. There were so many other things.” (page 173)

and THAT’S why i like this book. it’s not just about the animals and the veterinary practice herriot joined right after he graduated from vet school, it covers his crazy boss and the farmers and the town and his crazy boss’s brother and the automobiles and his clumsy search for love. (yes, i could relate to that part.)

sure, the animals have a starring role (and i found it rather fascinating to read about them from a scientific standpoint), but it’s mainly about james  herriot, an english bloke who’s fresh out of vet school and is in desperate need of a job. (hmm, sounds familiar in this economic time). what follows is herriot’s firsthand account of how he found his way into the bizarre, hilarious, never ceasing life of a country vet. it’s a coming of age story, if you will.

(can you still call it a coming of age when the main character has graduated from college and beyond?)

back to the story, herriot’s boss (siegfried farnon) said this: “There’s a very fine dividing line between looking a real smart vet on the one hand and an immortal fool on the other. This sort of thing happens to us all.” (page 196) which is why this book is so relatable. we’ve all been in situations that required us to tread softly in hopes of coming out looking like a genius instead of appearing as though we barely passed the first grade. herriot faces these situations weekly.*

i fear if i go on, i might ruin some of the most hilarious parts, so just know that the life of a veterinarian is never dull and throughout the hectic and chaotic nature of his job, herriot manages to maintain a sense of humor as well as a degree of humbleness.

if you like animals and non-fiction (or even if you don’t), prepare to be charmed by this book.

*intentional vagueness required so as not to spoil anything.

p.s. see you next month, folks, where our December pick will be THE HOST by Stephenie Meyer.

//

who says you have to be crowded into the living room/kitchen/dining room to hold a book club? we are ladies of the 21st century. we don’t need no stinkin’ couches. so pull up a blog and join in the conversation.

the members of the BOOK HUNGRY are (alphabetically): patty blount, kelly breakey, karla nellenbach, vanessa noble, alyson peterson, cynthia reese, elizabeth ryann, and myself. here’s the deal. we pick a book to read. we discuss via email. we post a review on our individual blogs on the same day (3rd thursday of the month). we link to each other. done. i know, genius. click on each one of their names (above) and it’ll take you to their review. browse. enjoy.

side note to all readers: if you’ve read the book, jump in on the conversation. comment away. if you haven’t read the book, go out and buy a copy, you ninny. and then come back and comment. if you’d like to become a full time BOOK HUNGRY member, contact one of us and we’ll get you set up. no need to have a blog. we can post for you. it couldn’t be easier. and it couldn’t be more fun.

this month’s BOOK HUNGRY selection is:

BEAUTY by Robin McKinley

some books are boosted by lightning fast plots. you turn the pages so quick, you’re in danger of getting a paper cut. other books are charming in a more subtle way with the characters whispering their secrets to you. certain books grip you from the first page to the very end. others require a bit more dedication and perspiration to get through. some books you love and re-read multiple times. others you’re happy to return to the library.

all of these books deserve our attention.

this book, BEAUTY, is a re-telling of a very famous tale, which i’m sure you’ve already guessed — beauty and the beast. i happen to have the lyrics of every song from that disney movie memorized (yes, it’s been decades since i first saw it. don’t judge), so you could say i had a certain preconception when i picked up this book. i was wrong. all wrong. (wait, am i ever right?) while there are no singing dishes or giggling armoires or talking tea cups, there IS magic within these pages. it takes some time to show up, but once it does, the reward is worth the wait.

as a reader, this book won’t be hitting my “favorites list”, but there were portions i really liked. (side note:  i use a post-it note as a bookmark and when i reach a part that makes me go “oooh,” i rip the post-it note and use the smaller portion to mark the passage.) in BEAUTY, i didn’t mark any passages until the third section, but then there were so many parts i enjoyed that i needed more post-it notes, however, i was on plane and didn’t have access to any, so i resorted to writing the page numbers on the small scrap i had left. i can be resourceful, no?

but it was as a writer that i truly appreciated reading BEAUTY. it’s a solid story with some amazing passages. if i hadn’t HAD to read the book, i wouldn’t have learned that a slowly paced plot is something i want to avoid in my writing, but for this book, the pacing fit. and i would have miss out on the McKinley’s third section. the magic is literally palpable. that portion was its own course in creative writing. my point being, it’s necessary to read books you LOVE and books you don’t because it’s not always easy to pick out what you like, but it is easy to figure out what you didn’t. and then once you’ve learned what you like and don’t like, you can go ahead and incorporate it (or not) into your own work.

as elizabeth ryann said, “This book is like the literary equivalent of getting into a really hot jacuzzi. You kind of ease into it slowly, going at your own pace, and each muscle relaxes as you do. You can’t just plop down and feel more relaxed. It’s the [slow paced] process that gets you where you want to end up.” the girl has a point. the beginning (and umm, middle) parts are slow going and while i didn’t love that feature, it did get me to the end, which was entirely adorable and magical and sweet and satisfying. the end result wouldn’t have felt the same if we, the readers, had gotten there faster. also, ER had another brilliant point. the book is titled BEAUTY, not beauty and the beast. this is her story. and her life is a bit dull and we need to know that so we can fully appreciate what she gains when she joins the beast and how she changes once she’s there.

my diagnosis: read this book. read it on a quiet afternoon or on a day when it’s nothing but hectic around you or on a sunny day or on a rainy day. it’s not going to cause lightning and thunder in your brain, but it will enchant you. and who doesn’t want some magic in their life?

thanks for challenging us with your choice, elizabeth. my writerly and readerly sides bow down to you.

//

Stork by Wendy Delsol. Candlewick, October 2010. 355 pages.

here’s the deal: “Katla is a true California girl. She lives for fashion and she hates the cold. So when her parents get divorced and she moves to her mother’s hometown in Minnesota, Katla’s sure that life’s going to be a drag. The town doesn’t even have a Starbucks!

But soon after Katla arrives in Norse Falls, strange things start happening. She discovers that she’s part of an ancient order of magical women, the Stork Society, who guide undecided new souls to their mothers. And Katla meets Jack, a handsome senior to whom she’s inexplicably drawn. As Katla gets to know her place among the Storks and gets closer to Jack, she’ll figure out the truths that have been hidden from her.”

here’s my opinion: the premise of a person who guides “undecided new souls to their mothers” is new (to me) and i thought it was well done and really interesting. i read a lot of paranormal books, so this felt fresh and new. the whole stork and ancient magic and norse mythology were pretty awesome and when combined with a spunky main character, that’s a recipe for fun. katla is a great character to root for. she’s strong and individualistic and unique and real and funny! i laughed.

(a side note about her name. it bugged me, but only because i’ve previously read and intensely loved two other books with similarly named main characters: katniss from HUNGER GAMES trilogy and katsa from GRACELING).

the relationship between katla and jack was well drawn out and had just the right amount of teen angst that flowed into the all encompassing first love. and jack. woowee. wendy desol did a fabulous job with him. athletic? check. smart? check. ambitious? check. a good, caring, devoted guy? check. a real, live good guy. (well, you know what i mean). now THAT is refreshing.

there were all those good parts, but then, there’s the pacing of the book. and i didn’t like it. the book was moving along at a slower clip and was introducing a lot of pieces, but then the end came crashing down and fumbled its way towards a resolution while opening even more doors and loop holes and options. i didn’t realize this was to be a series, until i set to writing this review, so i guess that clarifies why the ending was the way it was, but the first book in a series needs to stand alone and honestly, this one doesn’t.

that said, i’m excited to learn that these characters will be continuing on. i’ll definitely make it a point to pick up the next book in this series, FROST (september 2011).

FTC Disclosure: Review copy provided by publisher.