Tag Archives: reviews

The Children Of Henry VIII

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Book: The Children Of Henry VIII

Pages/Format: 366/Paperback

My Thoughts: I thought this book deserved a re-read, especially since historical fiction is one of my new projects.

I really liked it, and found the relationships between his 3 children (plus Lady Jane Grey) really interesting.  There’s definitely a lot of material I can use.

Since I took notes, there were a lot of things that I noticed- one being how important religion was.  There was a lot of back and forth between the Catholics and the Protestants, which wasn’t a surprise, but still…a lot seemed to go back to religion.

One of the criticisms I have is that anytime medical issues were mentioned, different possibilities about what they were followed.  While I appreciate Weir’s attempt to be thorough, and mention the possibilities of what the different monarchs had, we can’t make assumptions because what we know may not be accurate.  What was recorded most likely isn’t the whole story, and how the doctors described something might not be how doctors today would describe something.  After all, we still have no idea what the sweating sickness was. 

A great example would be the times that Mary thought she was pregnant, and even showed signs she was pregnant, but actually wasn’t pregnant.  Weir goes through the different possibilities about what may have caused Mary’s false pregnancy, talking about how a phantom pregnancy was the most likely cause.

It’s not that I didn’t appreciate it, because I did.  It was interesting to read about the different theories about various illnesses they all had, but at the same time, it was frustrating because we can’t know for sure what they had.  I will give Weir the benefit of the doubt, and assume the different theories were in the sources Weir used when doing research for the book.

Another major issue I had was when she talked about Lady Jane Grey.  I was reading the part about Jane’s execution, and couldn’t figure out why it was so familiar.  And then I realized that the same passage was used in Innocent Traitor, nearly word for word!  She clearly used her own books as research for Innocent Traitor, which I don’t have a problem with, especially since Weir is known for writing about British monarchs.  But to use the exact same passage in a completely different book?  And not only that, but the wording in Innocent Traitor was almost exactly the same, if not entirely the same. 

Despite the couple criticisms I have, it was still a great book, and very informative.  I have several pages of notes, front and back, plus lots of highlighting and underlining, and even notes in the margins.  And I have quite a few questions and things I want to know more about.    

Rating: 4 out of 5.  I’d recommend it to anyone, especially those who like history or want to learn more about the relationships between Prince Edward, Mary, and Elizabeth.

The Yearling

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Book: The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

Pages/Format: 428/Paperback

My Thoughts: Honestly, I didn’t like it at all.  It’s not funny how much I could not stand this book.  I couldn’t get into it, and waited for it to get better.  Sadly, it didn’t get better.  I’m utterly confused as to why it won a Pulitzer Prize. 

I had a hard time relating to the main character, Jody.  His family’s poor, and they live in backwoods Florida.  I found him pretty annoying, actually.  And they way the talked!  The dialogue grated on my nerves, and that’s when I could actually figure out what they were saying.  I didn’t understand most of what they were saying, and spent most of the book wondering what they were saying.  Maybe that’s how the people talked where Jody lived, but reading it was a nightmare.  Thankfully, there wasn’t a lot of dialogue, which is probably the only reason why I finished the book.

I really don’t get the point of the book.  I kept waiting for something to happen…and it really didn’t.

Rating: 1 out of 5.  This was one of the worst books I’ve ever read.

The White Queen

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Book: The White Queen by Philippa Gregory

Pages/Format: 408/Hardcover

My Thoughts: I’ve read several of Philippa Gregory’s books about the Tudors.  I saw this one at the library and thought I’d give this one a try.

The book is about Elizabeth Woodville, who married Edward IV, and is the mother of the Princes in the Tower.  I liked the idea of the book a lot better than the actual book. 

I didn’t like the parts about Melusina at all.  It was mentioned a lot, and I got really tired of all the references to the water and witchcraft.  It was interesting the first couple times, but after that, I wish she had been more subtle- or even left it out completely, because it didn’t really add anything to the plot, or helped move it along in any way.  It didn’t bother me, and I would have enjoyed it if it weren’t so darned repetitive. 

It started off interesting, but then went downhill from there.  I was bored reading it, and had to force myself to finish it, which is really rare for me.  Part of it was the writing, which was worse than the writing in her Tudor series.  At times, I couldn’t believe that it was the same author who wrote The Other Boleyn Girl. 

The story didn’t seem coherent, the 1st person narrative didn’t work for the story very well, and the characters weren’t likeable.  If it weren’t for the fact that it’s a library book, I would have thrown it at a wall or something.  And it wasn’t just the Melusina bit that was repetitive.  Overall, several things were mentioned so many times that it was like she used the same few pages and wrote it in as many different ways as humanly possible.  One other example would be Elizabeth’s need for vengeance.  I get that there were several people she didn’t like, but her constant need for vengeance and revenge made her seem like she didn’t care about anything else.  And when you add that to the fact that she constantly tried to further her family above everyone else made her seem selfish and greedy.  I get it to a certain extent, because it seems like that’s what people did back then, but Gregory took it to a completely different level.   

The author’s note at the end is a completely different story.  Since I’m so annoyed with it, it’ll probably end up as a blog post, because I have quite a few criticisms of it.

Rating: 2 out of 5 because I liked the plot and thought it could have been better with a little more editing.

Sula

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Book: Sula by Toni Morrison

Pages/Format: 174/Paperback

My Thoughts: I decided that I would give Toni Morrison another chance after reading Beloved.  Looking back (and after reading another of Morrison’s books), Beloved probably wasn’t the best introduction to Morrison. 

I actually liked Sula a lot.  I’m pretty impressed with Morrison’s writing- there really is beautiful imagery, and I feel like I’m experiencing what the character’s are going through. 

I’m still not sure of how the character of Shadrack fits in, other than he’s just a really odd man who lives in Medallion.  I also didn’t get the whole thing about the deweys, who were 3 boys that were taken in by Eva, who is Sula’s grandmother.  I honestly don’t get why they were so important, and I kept thinking they were Sula’s uncles, even though they really weren’t.

I liked how Morrison divided up the chapters- each chapter was a different year in the lives of the characters.  I found the gaps interesting, and it made me wonder what had happened as time moved foward.  I also liked seeing the characters develop over a span of about 40 years. 

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.  While I liked it a lot better than Beloved, it didn’t capture my attention in any way.  It felt like something was missing, and it’s driving me crazy that I don’t know what it is!

Innocent Traitor

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Book: Innocent Traitor by Alison Weir

Pages/Format: 399/hardcover

My Thoughts: Having read several of her books, I thought I’d give this book a try.  It’s about the life of Lady Jane Grey, who is also known as the 9 Days’ Queen.

The format I found to be somewhat annoying, as she shifted between the different characters.  Just as I got used to one character, she would sometimes switch to someone else.  While it was interesting to see the different perspectives, it would have been nice to focus on one character throughout the novel.  Plus, I felt like the shifting characters fell flat- the characters had very similar voices, and if it weren’t for the “headers” and different events/relationships, it would be very hard to distinguish between everyone.  Personally, I thought the most distinct character was the executioner of Lady Jane Grey.   

Something I thought was interesting was that I found myself wanting to take notes.  I think that’s the direct result of having read several of her non-fiction books, and taking notes what I’m reading. 

I could envision everything happening- she really brought the people to life, and dug deeper than just the facts, which also brought the events and the people to life.  I honestly felt like I was one of the characters in the book.  Or if not one of the characters, then I felt like I was eavesdropping or peering into their life in some way. 

My Rating: It gets a 3 out of 5, as it is Weir’s 1st attempt at fiction.  It was very enjoyable overall, despite the fact that the characters sounded very similar.

I, Lorelei

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Book: I, Lorelei by Yeardley Smith

Pages/Format: 339/Hardcover

My Thoughts: This book was okay.  It’s about 11-year-old Lorelei, who writes a journal to her cat who died.  She chronicles her life as a 6th grader so that he knows what’s going on in her life.

I thought it looked interesting when I was at the library.  I liked how Smith used journal entries to tell the story, and the fact that the journal was written to her cat made it more interesting and original.  And the fact that she was writing to her cat made it feel a lot more personal.  Lorelei included a horoscope or a word-of-the-day too, which was different and slightly unexpected. 

A few parts made me smile, and a few times I even felt sad for Lorelei.  I found my attention wandering a few times, getting bored with the story. 

I found it hard to relate to at times, but that’s probably because it’s targeted to kids, and I’m not the target audience, but it was still enjoyable, and held my interest long enough to get through it.  I’d definitely recommend it for kids.

Rating: 3 out of 5.  I liked the format, and found myself wanting to know what was going on in Lorelei’s life.  Writing an entire novel in letters or as journal entries is something I definitely want to doing sometime, but nothing I’ve really come up with would work well with that.

Island Of The Blue Dolphins

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Book: Island Of The Blue Dolphins by Scott O’Dell

Pages/Format: 181/Paperbook

My Thoughts: It’s been a while since I’ve read it, but it’s still one of my favorite books.  The first time I read it was in elementary school, and I’ve read it several times since then.  After the frustration of reading Beloved, I wanted to read something lighter.

I remembered why I loved it so much in the first place.  It’s the story of Karana, who is stranded on an island with her brother Ramo.  He’s left behind on the island, and even thoug Karana wants the ship she’s on to wait for him, they can’t because of an approaching storm.  He dies, leaving Karana alone on the island for several years.  She takes on a lot of the tasks that were done by the males in her village, like hunting and making spears.

I loved the plot, and how she managed to survive for what seems like quite a while.  The author’s note at the end intrigued me: O’Dell writes that the novel is based on a real woman who lived on an island off the California coast from 1835 to 1853.  She is apparently known as the Lost Woman of San Nicolas and really jumped off the boat despite all efforts to restrain her.  I’m definitely curious about the historical aspects, since the whole novel seems to be based on history.  I may research it at some point, to see how accurate his claims really are, but her skirt of green cormorant feathers was sent to Rome- it doesn’t say where, unfortunately, because I’d definitely want to check it out.

I found her to be a very sympathetic character- trying to survive on the island while waiting for someone to come back and rescue her.  She gets used to being by herself until the Aleuts come back, and she befriends Tutok, realizing she was lonely after they left.  A couple ships come after that, and in the end, she decides to leave the island with her dog and 2 birds.

Rating: It gets a 4 out of 5.  It’s not the best thing I’ve ever read, but I love the story, and seeing her survive on the island.

Beloved

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Title: Beloved by Toni Morrison

Pages/Format: 324 pages/paperback

My Thoughts: This is yet another book sitting on my bookshelf that I started and never got around to finishing.  Having never read Toni Morrison before, I thought it would be a good idea to read at least one of her books.  I found it hard to get into, and hard to follow.  I felt confused for a good chunk of the book, often wondering if I was missing anything.  A few times, I even had to go back several pages to see if I really did miss anything.

It is different from a lot of the books I’m used to, in terms of how it’s written.  It jumps around and the scenes are disconnected, plus there’s a bit of stream-of-consciousness towards the end.  It doesn’t follow the typical, straightfoward narrative that I’m used to reading, which frustrated me for most of the book.  Towards the end, everything started to make a lot more sense, which eased my frustration. 

I’m really ambivalent towards Beloved.  I loved the imagery, and Morrison’s writing style, as much as it frustrated me.  I felt like I was really there, and had a clear picture of what the characters were experiencing.  On the other hand, you definitely need to be engaged with the book in order to “connect the dots.”

I felt really out of my league when I was reading it- parts of it went right over my head, and like I said before, I flipped back and forth to figure out what was going on.  I don’t know if I’m just completely stupid for not “getting it” (like some of the reviewers on Amazon seem to imply), or if it takes several reads in order to truly understand the book on a deeper level. 

I am willing to give it another chance, since I didn’t read it as carefully as I should have.  It’s definitely not a light read, or something you can read in a few days.  I think when I’m ready to read it again, I’m going to read it more carefully, underlining and writing notes in the margins if I have to.

Rating: Right now, it gets 3 stars out of 5.  It was difficult to read, but I loved the imagery and how Morrrison wrote the book.  Yes, her style was hard to get used to, and frustrated me, but at the same time, I think it worked well for the novel.

Spilling Open

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Title: Spilling Open: The Art of Becoming Yourself

Author: Sabrina Ward Harrison

Pages/Format: 176/Paperback

My Thoughts: I’ve had this on my bookshelf, and the last time I looked at it was when I first bought it.  It’s a mix of being a personal journal, photography, art, and collages.  I loved it when I first got it, but now, it’s okay.  There are still several things she says that ring true, and resonates with me, but overall, I had mixed feelings this time around.  I found the text hard to read, and some of the pages had too much going on for me to fully enjoy it.

It was fairly repetitive and angsty at times, which didn’t really bother me, since my journals are somewhat similar in that regard.  And since it’s the diary of a young girl discovering who she is, it was somewhat expected.  There’s a fair amount of rambling, iand sn’t really coherent.  That was disappointing, but again, for a personal journal-type book, it wasn’t that surprising either.

I loved some of the quotes she had scattered throughout the book, but found she relied too much on them at times.  It would have been nice to see more of her own thoughts, even if the actual text was disjointed, and didn’t always make sense.  That was another thing I didn’t like- the text was all over the place, and it was hard to connect some of the thoughts together. 

I loved a lot of the artwork and photography, which quickly became one of my favorite parts of the book.  However, it did overwhelm some of the pages, since there was too much to focus on and look at.

Rating: I give it a 4 out of 5.  The artwork was great, and she captures what it’s like to be a young woman really well, which is why it gets a higher rating than it really should have received.  Also boosting the rating is the fact that I feel inspired to be more creative with my own journal.

The Spirituality of Imperfection

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Title: The Spirituality of Imperfection: Storytelling and the Search For Meaning

Author: Ernest Kurtz and Katherine Ketcham

Pages/Format: 243/Paperback

What I Thought: Someone recommended this book to me about 4 years ago, and it’s taken me several years to get through it.  I loved the stories and quotes scattered throughout the book.  It was hard to get into, because the book is fairly dry, and read like a textbook at times.

A.A. and the 12 Steps/Traditions are mentioned throughout the book; at times, I felt like it was more like the spirituality of A.A., not the spirituality of imperfection.  Kurtz, according to the author biography at the back of the book, has written several books about A.A., which would explain the focus on A.A., as well as the bias towards A.A..  I don’t have anything against A.A., but I felt like it was focused on too much.

I did find the book interesting, though, since it’s about how accepting imperfection is the 1st step towards spirituality, and how there’s meaning and joy within suffering. 

I did like how the authors connected the stories to both imperfection and spirituality, and also how the stories illustrated the story of spirituality and imperfection.  I also liked the organization of the book, which is divided into 3 sections- the roots of spirituality, how spirituality and A.A. are really connected, and how spirituality is beneficial. 

Rating: 2.5 out of 5 because the quotes and stories were the only redeeming factor of the book.  Everything could have been said more succinctly, and it was redundant at times, especially towards the end.  While I did like the stories, they did start to sound the same about halfway through.