The Copper Beech

Got the image here.

I really enjoyed reading this book, which was some sort of a surprise since I never did like Maeve Binchy's Tara Road [review later]. I fell in love, got hurt, speculated, gossiped [well, figuratively], got excited and rejoiced with the characters.

The Copper Beech, for me, was a representation of the line that goes, "you never know" . It was a story of a town, as seen by different eyes, each telling his own experiences, confessing something he did which is most of the times a secret to everybody else but the reader [me] and himself and the Copper Beech Tree. It was, as the 'teaser' [printed on the cover of the book] said it:

...But not even Father Gunn, the parish priest, who knows most of what goes on
behind Shancarrig's closed doors, or Dr. Jims, the village doctor, who knows all
the rest, realizes that not everything in the placid village is what it seems.

...the young people carve their initials and those of their loves, into the
copper beech tree in front of the school house

What I really liked in this is the way the people of Shancarrig, the village, seem to have different personalities...as it would always appear in this kind of story. I mean, on one chapter he is something...on the next, he is something else. It shows the human nature to prejudge someone...or postjudge someone...and thus forming different 'generalizations' of that someone. [I am sorry if I am being vague.]

I loved the fact that no one would really know it all but the copper beech tree and me [of course]. Haha. Ü

All in all: Loved it. Better than Tara Road.

The Nanny Diaries

Got the image here.

Background: It was just luck that I got this book. I was browsing in a BookSale outlet and there'e this buy-one-take-one promo. I spotted a book that I really like [after about an hour of searching] and the problem was I still haven't picked up the second one. So, what I did was, I picked a book at random then paid for my purchase.

At the van, I got curious about my second, random book. So I looked inside the bag and was surprised that it was a title that I recognize. Haha. I think I might have read it from another blog. Haha.

Review: It was indeed a good book. I enjoyed the way the story turns from being "Ahww!" to "Grrr" to "Ahww!" again. I mean, it was full of emotions. You were laughing like a maniac over a sentence and was suddenly angered or irritated by the next.

I learned to love Grayer [the kid], and his antics made me want to find a four-year-old and be his nanny. Really. I was amazed at how Nanny [the lead] managed him and his overly bossy and assuming mom and his indifferent dad and their huge family problem. Yeah, it was amazing.

These plus Nanny's hh [Harvard hottie] and the parties and the university life and the crazy world of kids with too rich parents and the injustice of it all = me reading until the very end. Ü

All in all: A really nice read.

Presumed Innocent

got the image here.

This gotta be one of my best reads ever. No, it's not because of extraordinary plot [I thought it's somehow 'old'] and no, it's not because of the way it was written [it drags sometimes]. It's because of the fact that despite all of the things above, Scott Turrow made me read it till the end. I don't know what it is in the book that just made me hold on...probably to know if Rusty [the lead] is guilty of the crime or not and if he isn't, who is?

It started very innocently. Actually, there's not much in the first, at least according to me. I read on because I heard it was really really great...and my roommate's excited that I'd finally read one of her faves. Then gradually, as I progressed, I thought that the first part was not really bad at all! It built the foundation of my obssession with the book's ending. haha. I mean, Rusty's obssession with the [murdered] Carolyn, not his wife, and the story of the investigations...all had impacts on whether I think Rusty innocent or not.

Well, like the jury, I presumed that he is innocent. Haha. Erase that, will you. I presumed him innocent then I'd know he's guilty and hope that nothing like that happened to him. Then I'd think he is innocent and would suspect others...and the cycle begins again. This is where the first part of the book [the part that I thought boring] comes into play. I judged his personality with those pages, Rusty's and the other characters' as well. And that made me drew up conclusions..conclusions that I know will remain unanswered until I finished reading the book. Heavens! haha.

The trials were a real treat. They made me decide that yeah, being a lawyer is really cool; being that smart is really cool; outwitting someone in a cross-examination is cool; having someone confess because of one's questioning is cool...Guess? I want to be a smart-ass lawyer someday. I was at awe during the whole process. I totally loved that part.

The ending? Oh my God. It was more than brilliant. Even though I was not surprised with the way the story ended, I had somehow foreseen that, with all of my conclusions it's not hard to have that one...but the way it was delivered was a bomb. it had me guessing until the last word. Then the truth was out...ah! was not that bliss? haha. Ü

Anyway, this can take me all night if I dont stop it. So...

All in all: Impressive. Great. Engaging.

Atonement

She reads books...>

I think the book's great. Really. Despite that I did not expect much from it, for reasons that I myself do not know, reading it and following the three main characters had been fun.

It was that great that I, also, felt the urge to actually kick Briony and make her realize the injustice of what she had done. It had me squirming (?) for the world to see that the victims were just victims.

Then, i was thrown off guard by the last bit. I did not see that coming. I was told that I had the knack of feeling where the book is heading, but with Atonment, I failed. I flipped the pages again and again, trying to understand what had just happened with the story that I was so absorbed in. And when I did realize what the author did, I found myself saying "nice" too much that my roommate asked me what the matter was.

All in all: Briony's tale was superbly told.

King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table

Image from here.

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I have never really knew any of the tales of King Arthur and of any of his knights. Well, I know that King Arthur was the one who was able to pull the sword and he became the greatest king of his realm, but apart from that...I was ignorant.

*

Then, there came this book. I borrowed it from a friend last summer. I did not read it immediately for I was sort ot uninterested. Just the same, I brought it with me when I packed the books that I would like to read in the university. Then, only last week, I tried to read the first part again and was drawn into the stories.

*

Roger Lancelyn Green did a good job of telling the adventures of the knights. I learned a lot, really. It was nice to read something like this, I mean, something quite unlike the other books that I have been perusing. Ü

*

I remember looking at my brother while he was reading the book and I wondered how can he put up with it. I first thought that it was a tedious read, boring and the like. i dont know what came to me and I liked it a lot out of a sudden.

*

All in all: Enlightening. A good read.

Angels and Demons

I can't write a really nice review about the book. The only thing that I want to say is: I think Angels and Demons surpassed the The Da Vinci Code.

*

The book is masterfully created. (I may have said this for any other book but...) This one is unputdownable. It kept me at following Robert Langdon with more vigour than I did in his second adventure. The pacing was such that I can't afford to just leave the book and do anything else...I must get to the end.

*

Dan Brown, once again, proved his prowess.

*

All in all: /go figureÜ/ Impressive, great, breath-taking, will get you offguard.

Nectar in a Sieve

Got the image here.

One question kept bugging me while I was reading. It is: How can anyone keep on hoping despite of all the things that has befallen her?

The book tells us of a tale of a woman, her struggles to continuously care for the people she loves. Set in a place where floods and drought and hunger strikes, one after the other, Rukmani bears witness to how her daughter becomes a prostitute, her 4 year old son died of hunger, another gets beaten to death because of thievery, and her other sons having jobs that she does not trust.

Yet she survives. Helped by the presence of her husband who is described as "poor in everything but love for his wife", she is able to make it through. I remembered being appalled by their optimism even though it is clearly evident that their situation would not improve.

Appalled as I was, I saw the marvel of Rukmani's spirit. Her ability to hope struck me as something so fascinating. Those are the things, I realized as I was nearing the end, that keeps her living. She draws reason from her dreams of a better life, to continue her struggle and never give up.

Just one thing that I probably did not 'like' about the book was the fact that it was so "heavy". Heavy as in it was sad and depressing until to the very end...but the tale concludes in a satisfyingly, though. It's just that I could do with an added bit of happiness in Rukmani's tale.

All in all: Impressive. Go read it.

Spinners

Got the image here.

What I love about the book, is the way it got me speculating, on what 'legend' it was based, until almost to the very end. Maybe it is because of the fact that I have never read any of Donna Jo Napoli's other works. I never knew that she is reinventing the old fairytales and makes them new and fascinating reads. (okay, I am not saying that the fairytales we all loved when we were little are boringÜ) So, in effect, I kept on guessing until the very last part and that resulted in my 21st book! yay! haha

According to a review in Amazon.com:

In Spinners, she and coauthor Richard Tchen weave a tale of a young tailor who
cripples himself while spinning gold thread on a magic wheel to win his
beloved's hand. Spurned for his ugliness, he watches her marry the miller and
die giving birth to the child he knows is his own. The girl grows up to become a
master spinner, but only when the cruel young king commands her to spin straw
into gold do we begin to sense a creeping familiarity. When a deformed man
demands her firstborn child as a return for spinning the gold, we are almost
sure. But not until the very last, when to save her baby the young mother must
guess her unknown father's secret name, do we, like her, know that this is
Rumpelstiltskin, of whom we've heard tell long ago. In Napoli's story-spinning
hands, however, Rumpelstiltskin is not a spiteful dwarf but a lonely outcast
yearning for the love of his grandchild; rather than a hand- wringing victim,
the young queen shows herself to be a strong and resourceful survivor given to
imaginative solutions. (Ages 12 to 16) --Patty Campbell

Unfortunately, the end was something like a let down. Well, not exactly the end, but the events leading to it. They had this rushed feel in them. I agree with the other reviews piosted in Amazon.com that the other three-quarters of the book is better and the final part does not 'compensate' (sorry for the wordÜ).

All in all: Okay.

Ruby: A Novel

Got the image here. (Obviously)

I really liked way the characters, especially Olivia and Ruby, clearly showed the tendecies of the people who grieve and of those who are badly in need.

...and the way the promise of healing after a really devastating experience can indeed happen to everyone. 'Hanging in there' would help, but sometimes, one needs another person to rely on...and something to hope for to be able to continue and move one.

I also found the scenes from Olivia's past marriage reasonable. They somehow 'reason' out why she just cant live normally anymore. It's just that there were too many of them. But still, they were okay. Really.

The ending is okay. I have to agree with the Library Journal review, though. It is a bit anticlimatic. But, again, that's the only way there could be a 'happy ending', if you could call it as such.

All in all: Satisfying.

Fair Exchange

Got the image here.

I have no words for the book except that I am disappointed that it is already the end of the story. I just want to keep on reading. It had me wanting to just follow what happens to the characters. Ü So, also from here:

Drawing on the secrets, lives & affairs of two of the most famous &
passionate figures of the late 19th century - Mary Wollstonecraft & William
Wordsworth - this is Roberts' most romantic novel to date, written in beautiful,
beguiling prose. In the early 1800s, Louise, a French peasant, fearing she is
about to die, calls for her priest. She has a secret to confess. Though the
priest is impatient, she wants to tell her tale from the beginning. It opens in
London in the 1780s, when Jemima Boote arrives at Mary Wollstonecraft's school.
Later she follows her beloved teacher to Paris, wanting to be part of the
erupting revolution & then - 6 months pregnant - retreats to the village of
Louise's youth. Her arrival coincides with that of another young mother-to-be,
Annette, who has been sent by her parents to the country to hide her disgraceful
pregnancy & to get over her infatuation with William, a young English poet.
In an abandoned convent they take up their waiting: waiting for their babies,
waiting for their men. While borrowing hints & facts from the lives of
Wordsworth & Wollstonecraft, the intriguing mystery of the lives that unfold
as a result of these pregnancies, is Michele Roberts'
own fascinating creation.

All in all: Intriguingly mysterious. Impressive.

The Chocolate War

Got the image here.

Every young adult should read this! Reading the book is looking at our real world...and learning and growing from it.

*

What I like most in this is the way I got to know the boys (the characters) as if they are from my own neighborhood. It was as if I grew up watching the bullies (in the book) taunting other kids (those who were bullied in the story). The cruelty, the occasional guilt, the refusal and the tumult it caused were told in a superb manner.

*

The story is marvelously structured and the ideas were conveyed masterfully. The suspense and the overwhelming reality of The Chocolate War got me excited for Beyond the Chocolate War (is it a sequel? haha I dont know, but I'll still be looking forward to it...or to any work of Robert Cormier.Ü). I really hope I will be able to read it soon!

*

All in all: Impressive. A must read.

Five Mile House

Got the image here.

(I really dont know how to write a proper review as anyone who read the other ones already knows.Ü I just write what I think about the whole book, nothing too formal or too studied or anything. Have patience please. Ü)

*

Five Mile House contains everything that I look forward to in a book. The mysteries, the suspense, the secrets, the passion, wicca and the events that would really really lead you into thinking. It has just enough of these good bits that I consider this as one of my best reads this year.

*

The book started with Eleanor and in my perception, it ended with her as well. The prologue was a bomb and the last part was to die for. Yes, I sound exaggerated, but i do feel that way.

*

As for the whole story, I found myself reading something totally different from what I expected (a disappointment at first) but it was something that turned out to be far better than what I anticipated. It was filled with twists and turns that I seriously felt the need to go and get a break only to discover that I can't! I am rooted to the book.

*

The suddenness of some of the revelations and the slow but deliberate way some secrets were unraveled got me gripping the book tighter...for at times I was blown away, and at times, I was too impatient to get it over with. haha.

*

I loved the way it was told by a character in an omniscient view of all the others in the story. It showed how every little thing is connected to another detail that is all in all important in the book. The chapters ended like they were goading me to read on and find out what's gonna be next.

*

As I've already told, I was overwhelmed with the different subplots that are intertwined and got the book to a really good ending. There was the House (apparently), the ghost, the detective, the children, the wicca (witchcraft), the passion the women showed, the obsession, the thing compared to the Holy Grail...there were so many that I am still in a state of marvel at how Karen Novak gathered all this together and created such a beautiful beautiful story. She is really good. Ü

*

All in all: Impressive. (already in my TBR list!)

The House on Belle Isle and other stories - Book Review

Got the image from bookcloseouts.com

Contents: Friend to Women, Miniature Man, The Correspondent, Wings, Father Judge Run, Postman, The House on Belle Isle

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Carrie Brown has written seven beautiful stories that I have felt eager to turn page after page and to start the next one as the previous ended.

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My first impression of the book was it's like a sedative. Reading it made me feel calm. It seemed that the words are like the gentle breeze that plays with one's hair in the late afternoons. Then, I began to notice some eccentric points, then felt the longing in ALL of the stories, then got attached to the characters, as if they were old friends and I stumbled in their blogs...all of which just made the book better.

*

The abrupt endings got me a bit disconcerted...specially in the first story. Ü I wondered if I am to conclude it myself and that I can make someone read it and he will have a different perception of things. But as I go along, I saw that that is not the case. They are real endings. They are not suppose to leave the readers hanging, speculating on what might have really happened or something.

*

And, for the best bit of it (as I see it) is that all of the seven stories looked like they were taken from poems. I don't know how to put it but maybe it's the images that are so vivid and striking they seem to leap from the words.

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I just noticed that many of the stories in the book started in the present then some flashback of memories then would revert to the present. It's just that when I am on the last story and I saw that it would have another dose of the past, I felt that I should go and get a rest from reading the book for a while. Oh, well...it heightened the melancholy tone and I felt the last story the most.

*

All in all: Impressive.

Kindertransport - Book Review

Got the image from target.com

The book tells of another side of the Holocaust that few of us know about. It revolved not on the camps, not on trying to survive day-by-day in Germany...in fact, more of the story occured in foreign lands. It is about a brave decision of a mom to send her eleven-year old girl away so as to escape the growing dangers in their own country. It narrates how the girl tried to cope with the new surroundings, new people, new language. It tells of how she strived to be accepted in a world totally new and different from where she came from. It shows how she acted in an ungrateful way to everyone...with everyone (even herself) not knowing that all she needs is genuine love and affection, the two things that are so difficult to give to a child not your own. It is Ollie's story.

Kindertransport was written in a way that you can feel Ollie's own longing tugging at your heart. It was as if she kept a diary all along...one can still see the purity of the eleven-year old girl who waved at her Mama and Oma until they can no longer be seen. Though, one will also "feel" that she matures as she grows...

It's not so much 'dark' so the kids can read it and relate to it but it nonetheless conveyed all the fears and horror and pain troubled times (like in wars) can cause us. It is a perfect example that life goes on, no matter what...and that one just has to keep on holding on to the things that keep one alive.

It is a beautiful read.