Creepy Kids, Awesome Princesses, and a Woman Who Knows Her Worth

I've been getting a lot of reading done recently, and wanted to share with you some of the books I've finished recently. All of these reviews are cross-posted from my Goodreads account.


Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Synopsis
Professor Henry Higgins is a phoeneticist who prides himself on both his mastery of the English language and his ability to teach others to speak properly as well. When he runs into a flower girl named Liza Doolittle who has an extremely thick Cockney accent, he bets his friend Colonel Pickering that he can pass her off as a lady within six months.

Review
I wasn't crazy about Pygmalion, but I liked it well enough, so it gets a solid three stars from me. I was expecting the story to be more about the process of Liza's transformation from flower girl to lady, but in actually it focused on the way she was treated by others.

That being said, I think it's fascinating to look at how Liza views herself and her worth, and that she's so conscious of the importance of how others view her. She flat-out says as much to Pickering towards the end of the play. So often women are portrayed as self-deprecating and humble to the point of shaming themselves, but not so with Liza. From the very beginning she holds herself in high esteem, and gives Higgins the what-for when he doesn't see her as worth much.

I am bothered by the fact that Higgins never apologizes for the way he objectifies and uses Liza, but I'm bothered even more so by his lack of even really seeing the problem. Liza explains how she feels to Higgins, but he just doesn't get it, saying that he treats everyone the same, so what does it matter? He has a deeply ingrained sense of self-importance and righteousness that got under my skin for the entire story and left me fuming when he never seemed to feel bad about any of it. But, that's life I guess, and it probably would have felt inauthentic if he had changed.

I would recommend this if you're looking for:
*a short read
*something that's referenced a lot
*a strong female character who steals the spotlight



Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Synopsis
Jacob is a 16 year old boy who has lived with his grandfather's stories about monsters and super-human children for his entire life. After his grandfather is killed by one of the monsters that has haunted his memories, Jacob sets out to a remote island to find the orphanage his grandfather grew up in with hopes to learn more about his past. There he finds the peculiar children and learns that there's more to his world than he ever could have bargained for.

Review
Peculiar Children was a fast read that I had a lot of fun with. The story moves quickly and the pictures themselves were interesting enough to make me keep going, just so I could see the next one. Jacob's struggles with not trusting his own mind keep him an interesting character to follow and add a layer of depth to what could have otherwise been a very boring protagonist.

The book feels like more of a set-up than a story at first, until Jacob actually finds the peculiar children, which doesn't happen until fairly late. But I found out that this is a series, not a stand-alone as I originally thought, so that makes sense. I'm definitely going to continue reading, especially since Riggs drops you at a point in the story where things are really heating up.

Read this if you like:
*YA fiction
*slightly disturbing photographs
*monsters
*something quick and light



Princesses Behaving Badly: Real Stories from History Without the Fairy-Tale Endings by Linda Rodriguez McRobbie
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Synopsis
Princesses haven't always been the cute, friendly Disney versions we're all used to. Many princesses in history have been killers, rebels, independent spirits, and/or clinically insane.

Review
I saw this hanging out in my library's new arrivals section and had to have it. Princesses being awesome -- yes, please! I wanted feminism and great stories and surprises, and boy, this book delivered.

The only problem I had with it was McRobbie's lack of "scholarly" sources. A lot of the stories come from local tales and writings steeped in gossip and rumor. But, McRobbie is completely up front about that fact, and if you aren't concerned with having the 100% absolute truth and just want awesome stories, you should definitely check this one out.

In addition to the stories themselves being pretty fantastic, I loved McRobbie's writing style. She is educational without being dry or condescending. She's witty and snarky without being rude. She makes you feel included and excited, and I plan on looking her up to see if there's more for me to read!

I would recommend for anyone interested in:
*princesses
*women going against the grain
*old-school politics
*folklore

Kids and Reading

I've loved reading since I was very young, so I found Kathryn, Lexi, and Jenna's final project for class fascinating. They interviewed three sets of young kids about reading physical books vs. reading on a e-reader.

All the kids had read on an e-reader, which blew my mind a little bit, and all of them found reading "real" books and on a screen equally fun. In fact, they seemed to have trouble differentiating between the two. That got me thinking about my own reading experience and how I would have like to read off a screen growing up.

As a kid, I think I would have adored reading off of a reader. I was the type to look up every word I didn't know, make notes about passages I particularly liked, and carry around more than one book at a time. Heck, I'm still that type, which is why I love reading off my Kindle. It's all integrated right in one device, which is super portable to boot. Do I love the aesthetics of books? Of course. But I also love being able to do things with the story as I read, and e-readers make it almost obscenely easy.

What are your thoughts? Do you enjoy reading on a reader? Why or why not? Please, let me know in the comments!

An Unfinished Book

Last night I made the difficult decision to let go of a book. You may remember from a couple weeks ago that I was reading The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan, the first in his famous Wheel of Time series.

Logan has been obsessed with the series for a couple months now, so I told him I would read them so he'd have someone to talk to about them. I made it about a third of the way through when I finally admitted to myself that I just wasn't enjoying the story.


I can't really put my finger on why I wasn't enjoying myself. The writing style is fine, the characters are pretty interesting, and the plot is fun. It has all the elements of stereotypical fantasy I usually enjoy in a book, but it just wasn't cutting it. I didn't feel myself drawn to read it like I normally am with books, and every time I picked it up, it felt like homework, not something enjoyable to spend my free time on.


Have you ever had books like that? Books that you just didn't like for some reason you couldn't quite explain? Do you go back and try them again later, or let them go for good?

What Is Reality?

For this Wordy Wednesday (on a Thursday), I had planned on writing about Jasper Fforde's The Eyre Affair. Unfortunately, despite pushing the blog back, I didn't finish in time. But that's ok, because instead of talking about the plot, I would like to talk more about the general feel of Fforde's book.

 

   (Photo courtesy of Goodreads.com.)

In the book, LiteraTec agent, Thursday Next, tracks down the human manifestation of pure evil. In other words, she's a policewoman for the force of literature in a world where literature is super loved and dangerous. Cool stuff.

But what's really interesting is the idea Fforde plays with -- walking into literature or pulling characters out. Normally, I would classify that information as a spoiler, but if you look at the cover, well, it's not subtle.

As readers, how many of us have dreamed of literally stepping into a book to interact with our favorite characters? I would dare say all of us. But why? There are plenty of books that I have no desire to get any closer to than I already am while I read them. The characters, though they may be interesting, are people I have no desire to meet. Even a lot of really cool fantasy worlds don't call up an urge in me to go live in them. I've got a good life going for me, and I'm content to escape into these other places merely in my own mind.

But then there are those books that I would kill to get into. Characters I want to meet more than any living, breathing person. Places I would trade my current lifestyle for if I could just go see them for a day.  But why? 

I would argue that this desire stems from the illogical place in my brain that insists the characters and places are actually real. After all, I've shared personal experiences with these people and spent a good long time living in some of the universes. What's to say that they aren't real, in a certain sense? Perhaps this desire is just so my logical brain that knows literature only exists on the page and my illogical brain that knows literature is also a living, breathing thing can finally agree. As if stepping into a book could cure the disparity that rages in my subconscious.

What do you think? Are characters and places we read about real because we experience them, or for something to be real, must we be able to touch it? Then what does that mean for our emotions?

Deep questions that I've been turning around a lot in my mind lately.

The Ocean at the End of the Lane

All I can think to say about Neil Gaiman's newest book, The Ocean at the End of the Lane, is that it touched me deeply. As I read it, I felt that I was looking at a piece of Gaiman's soul, that he was sharing something fundamental with me. When I finished reading it (which only took a few hours -- I devoured it) I closed the cover, then just sat quietly for a long time, thinking.

(Photo from Goodreads.com)

But besides the insubstantial connection with the author that refuses to be pinned down, there are many concrete things that make the novel wonderful. As always, Neil Gaiman's style and word choices delight me. His prose is simply a pleasure to read. It's beautiful, and art all on its own.

The subtlety of the story helps urge this beauty along. The novel, though it is yet another account of good versus evil, feels so fresh and crisp. The story is short, but it turns in such a way that it feels much longer than its word count would suggest. It's epic in feel, and all of that concentrated feeling is engaging in a way that I haven't been engaged in a while.

Patrick Rothfuss, my favorite author, said that this story made him cry, not because of the events, but because the story was told so masterfully. (I paraphrased there, he was much more eloquent.) I did too. At first, I didn't really understand what he meant by that, but somewhere in the middle, I realized that what I was holding was pure, distilled beauty. It squeezed my heart and made it ache.

Plus, it's full to bursting of complex, wonderful, strong female characters. I'm so tired of cliche females in stories. These women felt so real. They made me feel proud, rather than exasperated. I won't go into the beauty of them, because their roles are kind of spoilers, and I don't want to give any spoilers, but I'm sure you'll notice when you pick up the book.

I would recommend this book to anyone and everyone because it is, quite simply, a masterpiece.

And that's coming from someone who didn't think you could get much better than American Gods.

I am better for reading this book.