Tag Archives: reviews

Fruits Basket, Volume 3

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Book: Fruits Basket, Volume 3 by Natsuki Takaya

Pages and Format: 2oo Pages/Paperback

My Thoughts: I still love Fruits Basket!  In Volume 3, Kyo and Yuki get a lot of chocolate from the girls at school for Valentine’s Day.  Tohru spends a lot of her money on chocolate for the Sohma family, and can’t pay her deposit for the class trip until later in the month.  She also goes on a trip to an onsen with Momiji, Kyo and we meet the mother of one of the zodiac members.  Plus, we also meet Hatsuharu, who is the ox.

I’m still impressed with the artwork, and at the end, there’s an interview with the author, as well as some artwork some fans sent in.  It was interesting to learn that she doesn’t write out a full script, and just writes straight from her notes.  She also works all day, stopping only to eat.

I know there’s cool stuff like this at the end of each volume, so I’m looking foward to re-discovering that.

Rating: 5 out of 5.  It’s definitely one of the lighter one’s, but there are also some dark undercurrents…which come from Shigure oddly enough.  Overall, it was really fun to read!

Dragon’s Keep

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Book: Dragon’s Keep by Janet Lee Carey

Pages/Format: 302/Hardcover

My Thoughts: Dragon’s Keep is about Rosalind, who is a princess destined to fulfill a 600-year-old prophecy from Merlin.  She is born with one dragon’s talon, which her mother desperately tries to get rid of.  When she reveals it to a dragon on the island where she lives, she is taken by the dragon, and learns of her mother’s treachery and her dragon blood.

The story moved pretty slow, but I really wanted to know why Rosalind was born with a dragon’s talon.  It was indicated that Rosalind’s mother (the Queen) did something before/during her pregnancy which resulted in the dragon’s talon.  It turns out that her mother sucked on a dragon egg in order to have Rosalind.

I didn’t particularly care for most of the last third of the book- she’s taken by Lord Faul (a dragon), and raises his children because it was a fair trade for the knights who killed his mate.  She learns dragontongue, but one of the things I found most interesting was the Queen’s role in Rosalind’s dragon talon.  We learned several chapters earlier that Demetra got a dragon egg that the Queen ate, which helped her become pregnant with Rosalind.  The Queen also had a backup plan- her servant Aliss was also pregnant, and if the queen didn’t become pregnant, she’d pretend she was, and take Aliss’s child Kit, who later becomes a friend/servant to Rosalind.

The one thing I thought was odd was that no one questioned why Rosalind wore gloves all the time- even her father didn’t seem to notice.  I get she’s a princess, and for all we know, it could have been a custom for royalty to wear gloves, but at the same time, I still find it slightly odd that no one seems to care that she’s constantly wearing gloves.

I still don’t completely understand the dragon talon thing- it seemed to be a curse for sucking the dragon egg in order to have a child…but did she have some dragon blood in her because of what her mother did, or was it really a curse?  I want to know!

Rating: 3 out of 5.  I loved the premise, but felt it could have used a little more work.  Still, I enjoyed it.

The Book Of Lost Tales, Volume 1

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Book: The Book Of Lost Tales, Volume 1 by J.R.R. Tolkien

Pages/Format: 279/Paperback

My Thoughts: I thought I’d give this book a try since I love both The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings, and wanted to get some of the backstory. 

This book isn’t what I expected.  In fact, the book was far different than what I thought it would be.  I expected some of the folklore and mythology of Middle Earth, which it was, at least to an extend.  However, the “lost tales” were compiled by Tolkien’s son Christopher, who tried to make sense of the notes that his father left behind. 

Each chapter is one of the lost tales, which are immediately followed by notes and commentary by Christopher.  It definitely shows the evolution of Tolkien’s work, as Christopher often shows several drafts of each tale. 

It was hard for me to get into, and hard to get through it- I was only able to get though one chapter at a time.  It was interesting to see the evolution of Tolkien’s work and how it changed, plus seeing Christopher explain his father’s notes was interesting.  Unfortunately, I don’t remember a lot of it, but at least I gave it a try.  I’d definitely recommend it for anyone who’s really into Tolkien (and anyone who liked the Silmarillion), but if you liked Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit, you might not like it.  If you want to give it a try, though, keep in mind that it shows the evolution of the stories that make up the backstory of Middle Earth.

If I had to pick a favorite/memorable chapter, it would definitely be the coming of the elves.  Honestly, it was the one that stood out the most, and the one that I remember the most from.  I think I’ll try reading the second volume now that I know what to expect- assuming that it’s similar to this one, which seems likely.  Maybe I’ll try to take notes in order to help myself keep up with all the different characters.

There is an appendix with all the different names- I only flipped through it, but it appeared to be about the origins of the different names, and quite frankly, I could care less about the etymology.  However, it is clear that Tolkien obviously put a lot of thought into the world of Middle Earth, and into naming everything.   

Rating: 2.5 out of 5.  Interesting book, but not really my cup of tea.

Mary, Queen Of Scots, And The Murder Of Lord Darnley

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Book: Mary, Queen Of Scots, And The Murder Of Lord Darnley by Alison Weir

Pages/Format: 720/hardcover

My Thoughts: Reading Alison Weir after finishing the David Starkey book was such a relief!  She’s so easy to read.

I was definitely expecting something quite different when I what I read.  I was expecting more of a biography of Mary, Queen of Scots and the events that led up to Lord Darnley’s death.  The book turned out to be more about his death, and the aftermath of it, with an overview of both Mary and Lord Darnley.

It’s not my favorite Alison Weir book, but it was still an interesting read.  I didn’t really know too much about the murder of Lord Darnley, and quite frankly, I didn’t know too much about Mary either, except in reference to Elizabeth I.  It was nice to get background on both of them, but there was something different about this book.  I don’t know if it’s because I finished the David Starkey book recently, which was a beast of a book, or if it’s because the book is more about a series of events than an actual person or what.  I definitely want to read a biography of Mary.  I guess it is a biography, focusing on her life in relation to her marriage to Darnley, and in relation to the aftermath of his death, but I wanted more information about her childhood and the events leading up to her death.

One of the things that was really helpful was the list of different lords at the very beginning of the book, because it helped me keep track of the different people.  The prologue definitely made it seem super interesting, and the book was interesting, but not the page-turner that I was expecting after reading it.  It was a good account of some of the events leading up to his death, who killed him, what happened to those involved in his death, and what happened in the years afterwards.

There’s some speculation throughout the book, which wasn’t a big surprise, as it’s a seemingly unsolved mystery.  It had a lot of information and the attention to detail that I’ve come to expect from Weir.  The pictures and illustrations were also interesting- it’s always nice to see that place and the people mentioned.  And the map was slightly interesting as well- it is nice to see Scotland as it was during Mary’s reign, and while I didn’t compare it to a current map, it’s always interesting. 

Rating: 3 out of 5.  Very informative and well-written, but not one of my favorites by Weir.

6 Wives: The Queens of Henry VIII

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Book: Six Wives: The Queens of Henry VIII by David Starkey

Pages: 765/hardcover

My Thoughts: It’s taken me quite a while to get through this book for a couple reasons.  1- the length was an obvious factor, and if you add in the index and bibliography, the book is an astounding 852 pages.  2- it was really tedious, and there was an overwhelming amount of detail in certain parts of the book.  Those two reasons combined made it slightly difficult to read more than a few pages at a time.

I found the introduction to be slightly off-putting because I felt Starkey came across as arrogrant.  I felt like he thought his biography was the best one because he managed to access all these different documents that no one else was able to access and translate some documents that no one else has been able to translate.  In addition to that, he seems to not like any other Tudor historian because they weren’t digging deep enough, and all stuck to the same formula.

Starkey decided to structure the book according to the time each woman was married to Henry as well as the number of materials about each one.  This means most of the book is devoted to Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn, with a few chapters on Catherine Parr, and one chapter each for Jane Seymour, Anne of Cleves and Katherine Howard.  Theoretically, it makes sense.  We know more about Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn and Catherine Parr than we do about the other three, so a good chunk of the book is going to be devoted to them.  In practice, it didn’t work out that well.

For one thing, most of the Anne Boleyn section was devoted to the divorce from Catherine of Aragon.  I’m not kidding when I say that Henry didn’t marry Anne until 500 or so pages in, and had her executed a mere 85 pages after that!  Furthermore, he talked about Henry VIII’s divorce from Catherine of Aragon twice- once in Catherine’s section, and once again in Anne Boleyn’s section.

Some of the details were repeated, making it boring.  I get that it’s a very important event in British history, because that was a major factor in the break from the Catholic Church.  But if he’s going to devote several hundreds of pages to the “Great Matter,” he should just write a book on that.

There was so much detail on Henry’s divorce from Catherine- it was all “such-and-such a person went to this place to deliver a letter” and “this group of people went to this one place to figure out how Henry can divorce Catherine.”  It did get better once he married Anne…kind of.

There was barely any overlap between any of the queens, which I thought was slightly odd, considering that there was a considerable overlap between Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn, some overlap between Anne and Jane Seymour, and then some overlap between Anne Of Cleves and Katherine Howard.  I got the definite sense that he was more interested in Catherine of Aragon and her subsequent divorce from Henry, and that everything else was just an afterthought.  I also didn’t notice anything groundbreaking or special about it, despite his “access to special documents.”

Rating: It gets a 2.5 out of 5.  It was more about Catherine of Aragon and The Great Matter than anything else.  For a book about Henry’s wives, it was more about the politcal aspects of his marriages and the important men around his wives as opposed to his actual wives.  I also felt like his marriage to Anne Boleyn and his subsequent wives were an afterthought.  Overall, it was a disappointing book.  I was definitely glad I checked it out from the library.

Mr. Impossible

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Book: Mr. Impossible by Loretta Chase

Pages/Format: 312/Paperback

My Thoughts: I’ve always been a fan of the romance genre, but it’s been a long time since I’ve read anything from the genre, so I decided to start off with this novel.

It’s a historical romance about Rupert Carsington and Daphne Pembroke, who are trying to rescue Daphne’s brother.  She’s the brains, and Rupert is the brawn.  Some of the imagery is absolutely hysterical, which is one reason why I like romance so much.  Plus, romance (as a whole) is very predictable, and sometimes I want to read something where I know that X event is going to happen on Y page. 

So, imagery.  It’s your typical “this is what they look like, and I’d like nothing more than to make them want to get in bed with me” imagery.  It was fairly descriptive, which was just okay at times, absolutely hysterical at others. 

Rupert wants Daphne, but she doesn’t want to admit that she wants him too.  Miles ends up being saved, and Daphne and Rupert end up being married. 

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.  An interesting (and sometimes funny) re-introduction to the world of romance.

Mansfield Park

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Book: Mansfield Park

Pages/Format: 412/Paperback

My Thoughts: Of all Jane Austen’s books, this one is probably my least favorite.  It was good, and I liked it, but it’s not my absolute favorite.

Alright, Mansfield Park is about Fanny Price, who goes to live with her rich aunt and uncle and their four children.  Her cousin Edmund is unusually kind to her, and Fanny is so grateful that she falls in love with him.

They’re visited by Henry and Mary Crawford, who are siblings from London, and their visit makes a splash.  Mary and Edmund become rather attached to each other, while Henry becomes rather fond of Edmund’s sisters (Julia and Maria).

Maria ends up having an affair with Henry, she gets divorced from her husband, and Henry won’t marry her, while Henry’s sister has no problem with the affair.  Edmund realizes Mary isn’t the person he thought she was,  realizes he’s in love with Fanny, and they end up getting married.

Honestly, I found myself rereading most of it, because I found myself losing interest at times.  I find the fact that Fanny is overlooked by her family interesting, but not a surprise, since her family was poor.  She does go back to live with her parents and siblings for a time, and it was interesting to see her in a different environment.  She is smart and shy, lives by a strict moral code, and is somewhat prone to wishful thinking.  She does become more confident by the end of the novel but other than that, she didn’t seem to change all too much.  Fanny was slightly difficult for me to relate with, but I still liked her.

Rating: 3 out of 5.  It’s my least favorite Austen book; overall, I thought it was just average.

A Brief History Of The Vikings

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Book: A Brief History Of The Vikings by Jonathan Clements

Pages/Format: 229/Paperback

My Thoughts: I was completely bored reading this book.  I think I’ve read it before, but I honestly can’t remember.  There’s nothing that’s memorable, and it was really hard for me to get through it because it was really tedious.  It certainly is brief, only clocking in at 229 pages.  The best part of the book (besides finishing it) were the maps and family trees that were in the appendix.

I did like that the first chapter focused completely on the myths and legends of the Vikings, which is the only thing I remember from the actual book.  While I love mythology, I don’t remember anything from that chapter.  It’s unfortunate too, because that chapter alone would’ve bumped up my rating a little more.

However, for such a brief account, the amount of information was overwhelming.  And it was so tedious that I read a chapter every day or two, because that was all I could handle reading.  And that was barely tolerable.

It’s really not a good sign when the most memorable part of the book was finishing it.  Being serious though, the fact that the three things I remember are the maps, the pictures, and the timeline of rulers/family trees isn’t good.

Rating: 1.5 out of 5.  If not for the maps, timeline/family trees and pictures, it would’ve received a 1.

Graceling

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Book: Graceling by Kristin Cashore

Pages/Format: 471/Hardcover

My Thoughts: Graceling about Katsa, who carries the Grace of killing.  In the world that Cashore thought up, there are people who are born with extreme skills (called Graces) and they are both fear and exploited.  Katsa lives with her uncle, who is King of the Middluns,  and does his dirty work.

Like Fairy Tale, I was bored reading it, and I liked the premise of the book more than I liked the actual book.  I loved the world she built, and I loved the idea of people being born with extreme skills and being feared and exploited and even shunned because of it.

It was very well-written, but I didn’t like the pace of the novel during certain parts of the book.  I would’ve liked to have gotten into Katsa’s head a little more, and to see what she was thinking. 

Katsa’s very independent and insisted that she would never get married.  It was nice to see such an indpendent female. 

For a debut novel, it was decent, and I’m hoping that her second book (which is a prequel to this one) is better.

Rating: It gets a 3 out of 5.  I liked it, but felt there was room for improvement.

Fairy Tale

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Book: Fairy Tale By Cyn Balog

Pages/Format: 248/Hardcover

My Thoughts: This book is Morgan and her best friend/boyfriend Cam.  About a week before their 16th birthday, Cam’s cousin Pip comes to stay, and tells Morgan that Cam is a fairy, and needs to take his place as Fairy King.  Morgan, however, decides to fool the fairies, because they are meant for each other.

It was just okay for me.  In the end, Cam goes off to the Otherworld to be the Fairy King, and Pip takes his place.  No one remembers Cam except for Morgan, who’s immune to fairy magic. 

I was kinda bored reading it, and I kept wondering why she was in love with Cam.  She was so dependant on him, and the whole time, I wanted them to break up.  It felt too forced, and we don’t see too much of Cam. 

I wanted to like it, because the premise was so intriguing, but it was hard to actually like the book.  Plus, we don’t really learn anything about the fairies, which is unfortunate, because that would have made the book so much more interesting. 

It is her first novel, so I’m hoping that’s why it wasn’t completely amazing.  I’m interested in what Balog’s future works, and hopefully they’ll be a little more developed than this one.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5.  It wasn’t good, but it wasn’t bad either.  It was a quick read and it did have a happy ending.