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a marathon of a book.
upon finishing it, i feel both relieved it's over, and proud i made it through
that said, the content is so dense, and my grasp of the politics of King Henry VIII's court is so tenuous, that i often felt out of my depth. yes, i better understand the papacy and it's underlinings as a power source rather than a religious one. yes, i see the political alliances (and debts) of marriages within European powers. yes, i better understand the era's superstition - mired in the plague and other easy deaths. but these were things i did know, however casually. new information was harder to process... the king, in his need to be exalted, has no real friends? the construction of the Church of England was more a money grab than a new marriage for Henry VIII?

ok, i joined another book club and i was dreading this sci-fi title. even though i've recently discovered i like sci-fi, i assumed it was only the current stuff. this book was published in the '70s and i envisioned all the crap that hubby used to read (with sexual caricatures for women, and just plain boring details of futuristic machines)
anyhow, it was engrossing. it helped that the author's note made it clear he was writing through the prism of the Vietnam War (and that, because it was obvious, publishing houses wouldn't touch it) the novel spans centuries of warfare and the character progresses through the chain of command so there always something new to learn. there's space travel, and there's a future earth, and there is the senselessness of war. and somehow, there's also a happy ending. what more could you ask for?

looking for more carol lay, i stumbled upon this weightloss guide/memoir. i really irked me - turning weight issues (and control of them) into something like a religion. it bothered me so much, i put it aside, but somehow it creeped into my thoughts daily. there were truths in there that i didn't want to admit - that's why it made me so angry. and so this book became my own personal turning point, my own ah-ha moment. 6 weeks later, i'm ten pounds lighter, and half-way to my goal weight. only time will time if these changes are lasting.

his is why I go to bookclub - I enjoyed this book about disassembling a tiny newfoundland fishing village and it's stubborn patriarch. and I liked that it wasn't all 'henry david thoreau' (or even gary paulsen come to think of it) and the guy cannot survive alone, be it the weather, the weevils, the madness of having no human company. but going to bookclub made me realize that every tiny possible death that happened, did happen. and that he never made it off those rocks with his dead grandson in his arms.

I was expecting something more from the author of Unwritten but this was a typical, contrived high school movie. it wasn't bad, but it wasn't particularly good either.

another one devoured - over 3 days this time as i had a busier weekend :)
this one was focused on 2 women and, again, atwood nails the complexities of jealousy and vulnerability among female friends.
she weaves the oryx and crake story in and out and it makes you want to re-read her first book to see if characters interpret events differently (i say they do). in many ways it was a better book (since i'd already bought into the dystopia and wanted more) and had a nice religious theme with the god's gardeners. but it also was infinitely sadder - with women front and centre, we are continually reminded of their vulnerability to sadist and/or sexual abuse - both before and after the apocalypse.

heard that this author was supoosed to be funny, and this book was specifically mentioned - so i put aside the dry memoir i was in the midst of to read this.
i laughed a few times, sure, but overall it was mild crap. it reminded me of other British fluff i've read - like Bridget Jones's diary, or the shopaholic sries, or those useless novels i read while at the dude ranch 2 summers ago (which were so much fluff, i can't even remember the plots, let alone the titles).
back to the memoir. ho-hum.

meh. it was interesting to read - a great start with a desire to see the mystery unfold. but it did so at too slow a pace, and without enough reward when the ending became clear

I was curious to re-read this book as an adult, or I mean precisely, an adult mother of teenage children. I remembered the stories being youth centered, meanwhile, they were not (did I only focus on the young one due to my age back then? or did I confuse it with Margaret Laurence books, like "bird in the house"?) And I remembered the mother/stepmother as hated by myself and the protagonist, but not so - rose has room in herself for much more layered emotions, including admiration and compassion. but the biggest surprise was finding, within it's pages, a story I had vividly remembered and retold many times in my life only to be NOT as I remembered. in my youth and innocence, I saw the protagonist as a victim of an action. with my matured viewpoint, I could see she had a more complicit role.

the third and final memoir in her series. I still loved the first one the best, but the first half of this book was quite funny in its own right. interestingly enough, if you just read this one, you'd wonder why someone deigned her life worthy of a memoir - it's not terribly exciting or pressing - but I imagine there was a clamor for her first 2 books to continue.

this is supposedly the beginning of science fiction and - after you get used to the archaic language and his use of the main character postulating theories before the reader has a chance to formulate his own - it's actually quite a gripping story. i was on the edge of my seat at times.
i read this alongside ds as we did this novel as a literature study. there were many times that ds was supposed to create his own sci-fi situations, but his scenarios always seem to involve the rich gaining control of the army and moving to a deserted island. this may just be a reflection of how little sci-fi he's read in the past.

with it's a soap opera title, i didn't expect much from this book so i was pleasantly surprised to have the plot move quickly from the imposter to her 6 year old child and to her future sister-in-law's family. the book was choppy - shifting backwards and forwards through time without much grace or warning. but i liked that at first, as if it was a new book every time and maybe i'd like this one better.
but ultimately, i felt nothing for these characters. an attempt for closure at the end of the book consisted of an unspoken understanding between the abandoned child and mother so i, the uninformed reader, am still in the dark. except, as i already stated, i don't care about any of the characters so i can't even muster outrage at the author's choice of ending.

i really enjoyed her 'story minutes' - great concept that allowed for humor, or irony, or commentary. and the one page format reminds me of my daughter's style