Chelsea
is now friends with
Lily Hoshi
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Chelsea
is currently reading:
Palimpsest
by
Catherynne M. Valente (Goodreads Author)
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Chelsea
gave 4 of 5 stars to:
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The summaries for this book are all very misleading, at least they were to me. I didn't want to read it for ages because I have little interest in time travel and even less in history, but really, it is about so much more than that. Many people have...more
The summaries for this book are all very misleading, at least they were to me. I didn't want to read it for ages because I have little interest in time travel and even less in history, but really, it is about so much more than that. Many people have complained about the direction Stephen King's writing has taken in recent years, but I find it suits me perfectly. I really appreciate the more introspective, emotional tone, the exploration of humanity and relationships (not that he didn't do that before, but it feels different now, gentler, maybe). It's an interesting contrast with the way he mercilessly stomps all over my heart every time, unrelenting in his determination to give no happy endings. Sometimes I almost hate him, when the final page is turned.
The things I consistently dislike in his writing are all present here. He is still completely lacking in subtlety where foreshadowing is concerned, he still does not know his way around a sex scene even after all these years and all the writing he's done, and he can never resist a few good sexist and racist comments. But that last, at least, is different in this book because it is made clear that the comments are not accepted by the main character(s), that they are a product of the times, which is not something that can generally be said for his books.
And for all his flaws, the man knows how to tell a good story. He is very readable. Part of it is good pacing, part is good grasp of tension and suspense-building, but most of it, I think, is the tone he uses. I have said before that reading Stephen King is like being told a story by a favorite relative, comfortable and casual and without pretensions, and that applies here, too.
I found, as I have found with a lot of his newer work, that the ending was terribly anticlimactic. And, relatedly, I was disappointed by the exploration of time travel and the effects of changing the past. I didn't feel like any new ground was covered, or even that old ground was covered in a new way (although I did enjoy the past's efforts not to be changed), and this is coming from someone who is not particularly well-versed in time travel literature. These are the things I took off a star for, but I still really, really enjoyed the story and the characters and their relationships. Jake was a likable narrator, and his relationship with Sadie was sweet and well-drawn, except for the creepy pound cake euphemism. I don't know why Stephen King seems to have sex and food linked in his head, but it's weird.
The parts I liked best were when Jake (or George) was teaching, and directing school plays, and organizing benefit shows. They were very human and felt real, like their was genuine passion behind them. I can't remember if Stephen King was ever a teacher (and considering how much I stalk him,, I really should), but if not, he should be.
TL;DR: Not great, but good. Probably not something I would reread regularly, but something I wouldn't mind revisiting at some point. Had more potential than it ended up reaching. SK needs to work on endings, foreshadowing and sex scenes.(less)
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Chelsea
has challenged herself
to read 36 books in the 2013 Reading Challenge
She has
read 1 book toward her goal of 36 books.
1 of 36 (3%)
Create your own 2013 Reading Challenge »
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Chelsea
gave 4 of 5 stars to:
The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There (Fairyland, #2)
by
Catherynne M. Valente (Goodreads Author)
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I will be writing about this book on my blog, so I won't do a full review here just now. But I will say that, even though I did not like it quite as much as I liked the first Fairyland, I always, always appreciate what Catherynne Valente does with wo...more
I will be writing about this book on my blog, so I won't do a full review here just now. But I will say that, even though I did not like it quite as much as I liked the first Fairyland, I always, always appreciate what Catherynne Valente does with words and story. She is truly a master of both. And September is just a delight to read about. I like that this book seems to have grown up along with her, taking on tones a little darker (fitting, for being all about shadows and Fairyland Below) and deeper. CMV wrote a post in her journal, fairly recently, a promise to children that she would never talk down to them or simplify her stories unnecessarily for fear that they would not understand, and she lives up to that promise. She does not condescend with her storytelling. This probably makes Fairyland not the stories for some children, but I think many more will thrill to it and revel in the cleverness, as I do even now, far from childhood.(less)
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Chelsea
gave 4 of 5 stars to:
The October Country
by
Ray Bradbury
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I did not love this book, but I enjoyed most of it very much. It is the first Ray Bradbury I have managed to finish. The great thing about his writing is that, like so many of my favorites, you can tell how much he enjoyed the act of writing. He know...more
I did not love this book, but I enjoyed most of it very much. It is the first Ray Bradbury I have managed to finish. The great thing about his writing is that, like so many of my favorites, you can tell how much he enjoyed the act of writing. He knows his way around a sentence, but it's more than that. Even during the stories I didn't particularly care for, reading this book was still a delight.
I generally have a difficult time with short story collections, because there is not enough time for me to really get invested in the plot or attached to the characters, and when the story is finished I am left feeling unfulfilled, wishing for more. Even with short stories I do love, I still find myself wishing they could be expanded into novels. But I was invested in most of the stories in this collection, drawn in sometimes contrary to the expectation I had at the beginning. The common threads of mortality and the body were very relevant to my interests, as well as the psychological twists. There were a couple of times when I was reminded of Clive Barker's "Books of Blood", thematically only, not stylistically.
I loved the wide array of creepinesses, from "The Next in Line" (which was my favorite story) and "The Small Assassin", where people's fears and obsessions are ultimately forced to manifest in terrible ways, to "Uncle Einar" and "There Was an Old Woman", which managed to be charming and funny while still retaining their creepy elements, to "Jack-in-the-Box", whose creepiness came, even when I didn't quite understand the story, from the amount of control the mother exercised over the boy. Actually, even though it was not my favorite of the c
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