6 posts tagged “50 book challenge 2008”
This book came to me direct from the publisher thanks to the Early Reviewer programme at LibraryThing. I wasn't really sure what to expect from it apart from lots of photos of babies!
Firstly I was pleasantly surprised with the size of the book. It's a hardback book and is pretty large and hefty. For some reason, I didn't expect a hardback, I thought maybe it would be a softback of some kind so that was nice. I think the hardback does it more justice though, maybe because it's more art and not a novel. The cover is rather eyecatching in a pale yet bright green and a photo of a baby covered in bubbles, bathing in the sink. There's an interesting effect to the image of the baby which makes it stand slightly proud of the background which is very nice but I'm not sure it enhances it any further. Another added factor in the book are the foldout pages which contain a bigger image than will fit on just two pages. I didn't realise this at first but it was an interesting addition and one that I think works quite well. There are only a couple which would be about the right amount, any more and it would be too gimicky, I think.
The photos are - in short - absolutely gorgeous. The colours are a strange combination of both intense and muted, in that they are vibrant even though the majority of colours in the photos are pastels or more subtle tones. There is also a softness to the photos which seems particularly visible in the closeups of the babies' skin which makes it seem velvety and as if it would be possible to feel it through the page. I think the level of detail in the photos helps with this as in some images the tiny downy hairs on the babies faces are visible and distinct. The subjects of the photos are basically babies and toddles of varying ages in different poses and settings. Some of the babies are very young and it must have taken a great deal of patience to get decent images from them!
One of the things that I do like about the photos, is that in the majority of them, there is no indication to the gender of the baby. They are all dressed similarly in nothing more than a pair of pants covering the nappies, occasionally with a hat. The beauty and personality of the baby comes through just as well, even without any gender indicators.
Most of the photos are accompanied with text of some sort, either a poem, quote or the definition of a term that includes the word baby. I was already aware that it contained information on baby names and how birthdays are celebrated around the world but was quite disappointed by both of these. The baby names contains examples of how half a dozen cultures chose the name for a baby; I was expecting more of a detailed list or explanation of this. The section on birthdays was quite interesting but again lacking in the amount of countries chosen. I was also quite startled to find that the information given on how birthdays are celebrated in England is completely inaccurate and bears no resemblance to any birthday tradition here!
All in all, it's a lovely looking book and the photos are wonderful. It didn't take me at all long to look through, maybe half an hour at the most. I'm not sure whether I'd look at it a second time though, there's not really a great deal of re-reading in it. It would probably be a lovely gift for anyone who is expecting a baby though.
Spoiler alert - the following review contains spoilers about this book.
I wasn't sure about this book from the start. I'd previously read a Doctor Who novelisation by Stephen Cole and did not enjoy it or his characterisation of the Doctor. Plus, with this one, the title seemed to have a bit of a giveaway about the nature of the monsters. It turned out that my suspicions were not without merit.
The characterisations here were marginally better than in Feast of the Drowned. Perhaps Stephen Cole has trouble with capturing the Doctor in his tenth incarnation and not so much with the ninth. It wasn't quite up to par but it was an awful lot better than in the other book. Rose wasn't great - she seems a lot younger than 19 here and certainly more of a troublemaker than has ever been suggested before. All the other characters were original, but the majority were bland, two-dimensional and nothing more than stereotypes.
The plot itself was an interesting idea. It certainly started off well. But then the monsters were revealed. Having my suspicions about who they were going to be, I was not surprised in the slightest. However, there was a twist. Unfortunately, it sank the book into the realms of very very bad fanfiction. Imagine a book where the Mary Sue is not the companion, but the monster. Yes, in this book, the monsters were not just Slitheen, but the Slitheens evil cousins, the Blathereen. I couldn't believe what I was reading. I expected it to be a joke, that the monsters were taking the piss at the expense of the Doctor, but no, it was supposed to be completely serious. I managed to finish the book, though not with a great deal of enjoyment. I'm glad that I don't have any more novelisations by Stephen Cole in my collection so far because I think I would be giving them a very wide berth or reading them with a huge grain of salt. Very disappointing.
This is the sequel to Inkheart which I read before this one. The first book was supposed to be a standalone title but it's since evolved into a trilogy. The story in the first one was more or less wrapped up to my mind but the author couldn't let the characters go so this takes on what happened afterwards. Strangely enough for a sequel, I found this book to be so much better than the first one; although now that it's stretched into a trilogy, I hope that the third and final book will continue in the same vein as the second.
As before, this is a translation which has been done by the same person so at least there is continuity there, although it does make it a little hard to really review the style. I thought this book was a lot pacier than the previous, it didn't drag to quite the same extent at all, even though the book is thicker than the first - 688 pages to 544. There did seem to be a bit of wandering around the plot for no real reason so it could have done with a bit of tightening up but it was nowhere near as bad as in the previous book. There was however a great deal of repetition in various aspects as if the author felt that she had to constantly remind people who the characters were or what their talents were which was rather annoying. There really are only so many times that you can read how Dustfinger is a fire-dancer and that no one can control fire in the same way he can before you get fed up of it. The characters have become a little more well-rounded now and less 2 dimensional which may be due to the author's desire in continuing their story. Although I found them not all that brilliant, some of them grew on me a little throughout the book. This book finished with a very obvious cliffhanger which was a little disappointing - not because it meant that I'd have to read the last book to find out what happened - but because it seemed that the story had been continued solely to put the cliffhanger in.
Despite all of that, I did enjoy the book. It's quite a unique one and the theme of the writer having no control over his characters or the plot of his book will be familiar to anyone who has attempted to put pen to paper and create a world of their own!
This is the first book of a trilogy, although it was written as a standalone novel originally and has since expanded into a trilogy. It's also translated from German but that doesn't affect the story at all. It's a very good translation and there's nothing in it to indicate that it's not in the original language, it's not awkward or clumsy at all. It does make it hard to comment on the language though, with it being a translation because that is obviously no fault of the author.
The premise is a great one. It's very intriguing and unique, and one that certainly made me curious. The blurb on the back seemed to give away a great deal and I also found that it was quite easy to figure out what was going on. However, the plot was dragged out quite a bit and it took ages for the story to really get going. I found this quite annoying because I already knew what was going to happen but had to wait several chapters for it to start. The book could have done with some tightening up, the plot seemed to be dragged out and various incidents seemed to happen for no reason, such as their staying in a hotel for several days instead of overnight which would make more sense.
The characters were good, though I found it hard to visualise Mo as being a younger man instead of one who was older. Meggie also seemed apt to act as though she was 8 and not 12.
On the whole, it's a book for people who love books. Various other books, plots and characters are mentioned and included for the sheer love of them, which is most unusual. According to the front cover, this book is currently being made into a film so it's probably good that I read it now! It should make an interesting film though I do think being a book about books, it's better off in that form.
I was quite looking forward to reading this because I'd seen a lot of articles lately about the author and his work which all seemed to be very complimentary. I was also interested because it seemed that he was a well-known gay author who wrote gay fiction and that was one of the reasons I'd wanted to read some of his books in the first place.
I have to say that I was rather disappointed by this book. It was an easy enough read, the writing style was not very elaborate and in fact was probably quite basic. I know that the contents were originally published as individual columns in a newspaper but even so, that should have made the writing better, not worse! I found that it didn't engage me at all, there was no hook and no impetus to keep reading. There was really no plot to speak of at all. The characters were very 2 dimensional and shallow, and I didn't care anything about them at all.
On the whole, I found it very boring and dull. It was also really dated as it was written in the 70s. I read it in a couple of days but that was mainly because I was trying to hurry through it so that I could get it finished and start something better.
I've finally got going on the challenge this year and have now finished my first book!
I'll admit that I only picked this up because I've read other books by Garth Nix and so I didn't even bother to read what it was about before deciding I would have it. Thankfully, I was only borrowing it from the library, I would not have done the same if I was buying it! When I actually looked at the cover and read the blurb, I was slightly disconcerted because it sounded like a horror story which I really don't like at all. I thought I'd start reading it - during the day - and see if it was something I wanted to continue or not before reading the other books I'd also borrowed.
The first two or three chapters do seem to be more along the lines of a horror story but after that, it's more into the realms of fantasy. It's a YA novel so obviously it's aimed at a younger age group than I am, and this is reflected in the writing but it's still well-written. It's not written down so much that it's too simple and so I found it to be quite an enjoyable read and something that wasn't too heavy but was still engaging.
I found the plot interesting as well. It was slightly different to anything I'd read before with the idea of the girl being possessed and then completely taken into the mind of the Ragwitch. There weren't really any twists in the plot or unexpected events, but it wasn't completely boring reading by any means! It was an interesting read that kept me entertained all the way through. It's not the kind of book to expect a lot from but I would recommend it to others.
