Book Review

A Spell for Chameleon

a-spell-for-chameleon

A Spell for Chameleon By Piers Anthony

Plot

Xanth was the enchanted land where magic ruled–where every citizen had a special spell only he could cast. That is, except for Bink of North Village. He was sure he possessed no magic, and knew that if he didn’t find some soon, he would be exiled. According to the Good Magician Humfrey, the charts said that Bink was as powerful as the King or even the Evil Magician Trent. Unfortunately, no one could determine its form. Meanwhile, Bink was in despair. If he didn’t find his magic soon, he would be forced to leave….

Review

I’ll be honest after reading the autobiography of Piers Anthony I wasn’t sure I was going to like this book. The only reason I even read it was I vaguely remember reading a Piers Anthony book in high school and liking it.

The first part of the book was colored by my dislike of the author but I eventually left that behind and began to enjoy the story. Bink, the hero, was a bit annoying at first, which just could have been my attitude, by the end of the book he had grown on me. The world was interesting and the characters were solid. I thought the ending was a bit weak, romance is definitely not his strong point, but I did like the conclusion. I look forward to reading more books in this series.

3.5/5

Shades of Grey

shades of grey

Shades of Grey Jasper Fforde

Plot:

Part social satire, part romance, part revolutionary thriller, Shades of Grey tells of a battle against overwhelming odds. In a society where the ability to see the higher end of the color spectrum denotes a better social standing, Eddie Russet belongs to the low-level House of Red and can see his own color—but no other. The sky, the grass, and everything in between are all just shades of grey, and must be colorized by artificial means.

Eddie’s world wasn’t always like this. There’s evidence of a never-discussed disaster and now, many years later, technology is poor, news sporadic, the notion of change abhorrent, and nighttime is terrifying: no one can see in the dark. Everyone abides by a bizarre regime of rules and regulations, a system of merits and demerits, where punishment can result in permanent expulsion.

Eddie, who works for the Color Control Agency, might well have lived out his rose-tinted life without a hitch. But that changes when he becomes smitten with Jane, a Grey Nightseer from the dark, unlit side of the village. She shows Eddie that all is not well with the world he thinks is just and good. Together, they engage in dangerous revolutionary talk.

Stunningly imaginative, very funny, tightly plotted, and with sly satirical digs at our own society, this novel is for those who loved Thursday Next but want to be transported somewhere equally wild, only darker; a world where the black and white of moral standpoints have been reduced to shades of grey.

Review:

I highly recommend reading the plot synopsis before reading the book. It had been a while since I’d read it so I actually had some issues figuring out what was going on. The book was good, it was by Jasper Fforde so of course it was, but there were times when I couldn’t understand the world that he had created. The plot synopsis really grabs you and is very interesting and the book was good but I felt like it dragged a little. It might have been just the fact that he started out with a scene at the beginning of the book that happens near the end. So I spent the entire book waiting for that scene to happen and it was a bit annoying because there was a ton of build up before it did. There are still so many unanswered questions but the next book doesn’t come out until possibly next year.

Overall I would recommend waiting to read the series until the next comes out and definitely read the synopsis first.

3.5/5 stars

The Well of Lost Plots

the well of lost plots

The Well of Lost Plots By Jasper Fforde

Plot Synopsis

After two rollicking New York Times bestselling adventures through Western literature, resourceful BookWorld literary detective Thursday Next definitely needs some downtime. And what better place for a respite than in the hidden depths of the Well of Lost Plots, where all unpublished books reside? But peace and quiet remain elusive for Thursday, who soon discovers that the Well is a veritable linguistic free-for-all, where grammasites run rampant, plot devices are hawked on the black market, and lousy books—like the one she has taken up residence in—are scrapped for salvage. To make matters worse, a murderer is stalking the personnel of Jurisfiction and it’s up to Thursday to save the day.

Review

I liked this one better than Lost in a Good Book. Possibly because the characters from the Nursery Crime books make an appearance. In fact Thursday Next is staying inside of an early incarnation of the series which is an awesome idea. It’s like seeing the making of for The Big Over Easy. I wish the subplot of what’s going on with her husband would get resolved, and I thought the part where she was losing her memories was just shoved in there. It will probably play a larger part in another novel, but for now it was just there. Overall I still like the series, though not as much as Nursery Crimes, and I will continue on. I’m also still in awe over how creative Fforde is.

4/5 stars

Book two of my fifty books

The Fourth Bear

fourth bear

The Fourth Bear By Jasper Fforde

Plot Synopsis

The Gingerbreadman—sadist, psychopath, cookie—is on the loose in Reading, but that’s not who Detective Jack Spratt and Sergeant Mary Mary are after. Instead, they’ve been demoted to searching for missing journalist “Goldy” Hatchett. The last witnesses to see her alive were the reclusive Three Bears, and right away Spratt senses something furry—uh, funny—about their story, starting with the porridge.

Review

Really loving this series, even more than the Thursday Next one. Jasper Fforde is ridiculously witty and can fit in so many nursery rhymes and literary references that I can’t help but smile every time I notice one. I wish could write as well as he does. Waiting for the next book will be difficult, in the mean time I will continue with all of his other books because that’s what I do when I find an author I like, I read their entire catalog.

5/5 stars

This was the first book I read this year so this is the first book in my fifty books.

Girlwood

untitledGirlwood By Claire Dean

Last year my Aunt gave me this book for Christmas and since then every time I talk to her she asks me if I’ve read it. I knew going in that it would not be my type of book and normally I wouldn’t read it but since it was a gift and seemed so important I read it anyway. I tried not to let my attitude affect what I thought about the book, but I’m not sure if I succeeded.

First off the cover is beautiful. It brings to mind a gorgeous fantasy world, or a nature goddess,  and that is something I really like. The book however is not fantasy. There are fairies and aurous, but they are only seen by a thirteen year old girl. I don’t believe the author meant for it but the girl the story is about comes off as someone that has a mental disorder and is developmentally challenged. She has a hard time relating to people and feels more comfortable in the woods. She also gets angry at her best friend any time she questions her or doesn’t immediately side with nature.

The entire family is kind of weird, which is normally not a bad thing to me, but these people just seemed very self absorbed. The mother wants the father to go back to being a lawyer and the father wants to live in a cabin in the woods with no electricity making stuff with wood. Neither is willing to compromise, and at the end of the story you think hey maybe they’re going to work out but it’s only because the mother has woken up and realized that nature is better than living in civilization. The other daughter, the one that runs away at the beginning, is also very self absorbed. She ran away and lived in the woods while pregnant not letting anyone know that she was alive letting her family think she was dead. Except that the little girl “knew” that she wasn’t cause she had some sense about these things. She knew when trees in her favorite grove were being cut down and she knew when her grandmother was dying.

The whole book was really just a way for the author to describe nature and what you can do with plants. I enjoy nature but not on this level. I don’t believe that we should all live in cabins in the wood with no amenities and forage for food. And that’s the philosophy that she pushed through the entire book.

Reading the author blurb the story evidently came to be because her daughter asked her to write a story about good stuff, magic, fairies, and girls. Cause thinking your child is possibly dead when in reality she’s living in the wilds of Idaho through multiple blizzards while pregnant is a good thing. Maybe that’s not fair since the book was written from the younger daughters perspective and that’s more the parent’s point of view. From the younger daughter’s point of view the story is how she got to disobey her parents and spend time in the woods freaking them out at every turn until they realize that being alone in the woods with a dangerous wolf pack is ok and they all lived happily ever after.

1.5/5 stars (I really liked the cover)