The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

The title: The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie
The author: Alan Bradley
Publication: Doubleday, 2009
Got it from: The library

This book has been getting a lot of buzz in the past year and I'm probably the last person I know who's read it. 11-year-old Flavia de Luce is a precocious - and I do mean precocious - girl living in rural 1950's England. Living in a big old ramshackle family estate, she loves to indulge in her passion for chemistry in a lab abandoned by a long-dead ancestor. Her mother is dead and her father is a reclusive stamp collector who seldom talks to his daughters. Sister Ophelia (Feely) is obsessed with boys and makeup and Daphne (Daffy) likes to read big books with difficult words. Both enjoy tormenting Flavia.

The story begins when a dead jack snipe turns up on the kitchen porch with a stamp impaled on its bill. If that isn't strange enough, Flavia finds a dying man in the cucumber patch who breathes his last words to her before promptly expiring. Flavia sets out to solve the case with pigtails swinging, cycling around the town of Bishop's Lacey on her trusted bike Gladys and gathering evidence.

This is a mystery as comforting as tea on Sunday. One can't help wondering if Flavia is still out there somewhere in an English village, 7o years old and solving crime Miss Marple-style. It's light and enjoyable, easy to read and a lot of fun.

The Frozen Thames

The title: The Frozen Thames
The author: Helen Humphries
Publication: McClelland and Stewart, 2007
Got it from: Hannelore's, July 2010

Between 1142 and 1895, the River Thames froze numerous times. This short book, so small you can almost fit it in your pocket, documents each of these freezings in little vignettes. Each story is almost like poetry, a "long meditation on the nature of ice." Some are told in first person and some in third, and almost all of them are based on real life historical fact or anecdotes. In one, Queen Elizabeth practices her bow and arrow with a maid, in another lovers meet upon the ice in a time of plague, and in many frost fairs and fun are sobered by tales of unlucky people falling through the ice.

One can't help feeling sad that the Thames will never freeze again. Pollution, global warming, a new London Bridge and alteration of the river bed have all worked to ensure the Thames remains open even in cold winters. Still, I can't help being fascinated by the thought that at one time, whole villages were constructed on the ice, even if for just a short time (the main street was called - what else?- Freezeland Street). With descriptions of beds so cold the sheets froze solid, this is a book best read in the summer for a dose of chilliness.

Things I haven't been reviewing

It's been a rough summer for book reviewing. First there were the visitors, followed by the new job. Then there was the heat wave, where the only thing any of us were good for was lying on the couch, staring at our popsicles. There was also the weekend with the unfortunate food poisoning incident, which I will not get into because this is a nice blog. I also took up leading one of the library's book clubs, so there's an extra book a month. And for some reason, all the books I'm reading now seem terribly long and the end is nowhere in sight. Here are some of the things I've been reading/seeing in the meantime, but haven't been review material:

Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne - One of the nice things about my Kobo is the 100 free preloaded classics. I was looking for a fun travel adventure and I really enjoyed reading this on my breaks at work. It didn't take too long to finish.

Death on the Nile and 4:5o From Paddington - I watched both of these movies based on Agatha Christie books in July. They're fairly recent versions from the past couple of years. Death on the Nile had some great shots of Egypt and 4:50 From Paddington was a fun "cozy" mystery.

 Jane Urquhart's biography of L.M. Montgomery. One of my favourite people from history, but her life is so sad to read about.

Feminist Fairy Tales by Barbara G. Walker - Disappointing. Some of the stories were interesting, but many were boring and it took me months to get through this. The characters seemed stereotyped and I didn't feel like the author was really bringing a fresh perspective on real feminist issues.

Ramona and Beezus - What a fantastic movie! This is exactly the sort of film I would have watched 100 times if I was eight. Alright, maybe I'll buy it and watch it over and over anyway. I loved the books but haven't read them in probably twenty years, but even still I remembered so many things from the books - Susan's boing-boing curls, Ramona's commercial aspirations, Willa Jean and her tricycle, the egg incident, etc. And the little girl who plays Ramona - so frigging cute! They really got it right with this one.

Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones - Not a book I would have picked up on my own, but it was for book club and it wasn't too bad. It's set in the Solomon Islands near Papua New Guinea in the early 1990's and it's about a girl whose schoolteacher only has one book to read to the class - Great Expectations. This is really a novel about the power of words and storytelling and how they can transform a person.

The 1900 House - I've been watching this on YouTube, slowly, so I can savour this. So far I've loved watching the house being renovated to Edwardian specifications. I was fascinated when they tore off the wallpaper to find the original decorating underneath and when they took out a wall to find the old hearth. It kind of makes me wonder what's lurking around the 1860's house I now live in.

The Supersizers. Currently my favourite show. If you haven't seen it, it's about two British people who try to eat and live through different eras (Victorian, Roman, medieval, etc.) The hosts, Giles and Sue, are hysterical. "Don't come running to me if you get rickets!" Since there's only a limited number of shows, I've been careful about watching them sparingly but I have found myself watching some of them twice just to revel in the history and hilarity. See it on YouTube or the Food Network on Saturday afternoons.

I've also downloaded All About Romance's Top 100 Romance Novels, compiled in November 2007, and was horrified that I've read only a paltry seven, even though I own another five more that I have yet to read. Time to get cracking on the romance front, methinks...

Have a safe and happy August and hopefully I will be back with more reviews sooner rather than later!

Dear Pen Pal

The title: Dear Pen Pal 
The author: Heather Vogel Frederick
Publication: Simon and Shuster, 2009
 Got it from: Kobo Books

The gals are back reading Jean Webster's Daddy Long-Legs in this third book in the Mother-Daughter Book Club series. The story kicks off with Jess being accepted to an exclusive Concord boarding school, which of course parallels the story they're reading. They also begin writing to pen pals in Wyoming, each of course having similar character traits to their Concord counterparts (Summer loves quilting, Megan's into fashion; Winky is an outdoors ranch girl, Cassidy loves being a tomboy into sports, etc.) Having now accepted their arch-nemesis Becca into the group during the last installment, their new enemy is Savannah Sinclair, a snobby senator's daughter who is rooming with Jess at boarding school. Things are also getting interesting in the romance department, as Emma and Stuart's relationship grows, Jess is almost ready to admit her feelings for Emma's older brother, and even Cassidy has an unwanted admirer.

Daddy Long-Legs is the only one of the four book club books I haven't read (a fourth novel, where they read Pride and Prejudice, is due to be published later this year). I didn't find this book to be as fun as the first two. The timeline also seems to jump in great leaps and bounds: someone mentions a class trip to Washington and presto! - a few pages later they're there. I really wish I had been in this book club when I was younger, as everything always seems to work out so magically for everyone and spontaneous field trips to faraway places frequently crop up (ten bucks says they go to England in the next book). Also, I had a difficult time keeping the huge cast of characters straight toward the end. Overall, though, I did enjoy this book and it kept me turning pages late at night. I am looking forward to the next and last installment, as I suspect it will be romance-heavy as their book of choice indicates. And I can't wait for Jess and Darcy Hawthorne to get together. I mean, come on. With a name like Darcy, how could he not end up being the real romantic hero of the series?

Will post soon

Updates coming soon, I PROMISE! Things have just been too crazy 'round here to read any books worth blogging about. But I will definitely get back to it as soon as humanly possible.

Crossed Quills

The title: Crossed Quills
The author: Carola Dunn
Publication: Zebra, 1998
Got it from: Hannelore's, c. spring 2008

I finished this book ages ago and I'm sorry I haven't had a chance to review it before now. Never mind the 80's-looking cover with David Hasselhoff, I can't remember the last time I enjoyed a romance novel more.

Wynn Selworth has recently inherited his great-uncle's riches and viscount title. Being passionate about the plight of the poor in England, he longs to make a speech in the House of Lords that will make people sit up and take notice. Unfortunately, Wynn has a secret. For years he wrote Gothic romances under the pen name Valentine Dred. Now he can't write his speech without using the melodramatic metaphors of his romances. As a fan of the radical political newspaper writer "Prometheus," Wynn goes to engage this man's service to help his writing.

What he doesn't know is that "Prometheus" is actually a young woman who took up writing radical reform speeches when her father died (he was the original Prometheus.) Pippa Lisle agrees to act as the "go-between" for Wynn and Prometheus if he agrees to sponsor her younger sister's coming-out in London. As Wynn himself has a younger sister coming out that season, he agrees. Pippa is dismayed when her mother also gets Wynn to sponsor Pippa herself, as she would far rather be home reading the latest political news than attending dinner parties and dances.

Carola Dunn does an excellent job of handling a story that could have easily veered into silly or preachy territory. Instead, it is the perfect blend of romance, humor and sweetness. Being a traditional Regency, there's not so much as a chaste kiss, but there is nonetheless wonderful sexual tension, particularly when Pippa imagines being Wynn's wife. Both the protagonists are extremely likable, intelligent and average-looking. Wynn is not your typical rakish Regency viscount, but a kind and considerate man who respects women and finds himself falling in love quite unexpectedly. Pippa does not plan on getting married because of her independence, and there's some nice feminist moments when she muses on the plight of women in her society:

Why were unmarried ladies supposed to be kept in ignorance of so much that was going on in the world? Surely the more they knew the better they could deal with life.

If women were properly educated, they would want to run their own lives. Men would have to give up their authority - which was the answer to her question. They set the rules, and in their determination to keep hold of the reins, they dictated what respectable young ladies should or should not know.

It's refreshing to read a romance that's a true meeting on minds; where you feel the hero and heroine are really equals. The tension is held perfectly - are they or aren't they finally going to admit their feelings for each other? - right up until the very last paragraph. I also liked how the secondary characters were equally enjoyable when they could have so easily been caricatures. There's a nice secondary romance with Pippa's younger sister and one of Wynn's friends. We're also introduced to another of Wynn's sisters, who's a longtime friend of Pippa's and has married before the story begins. I'm sorely disappointed that Dunn never wrote their story, because they seemed like a wonderful match too. Since I don't usually care for series romance, that's a huge compliment to the author that I liked her secondary characters enough to want to read more about them.

I was very sorry to finish this book. Highly recommended, especially if you're looking for a comfort read. This is the perfect book for relaxing in the bath, on a cold evening, or if you're sick and don't want to get out of bed. A-

Home in Time for Christmas

The title: Home in Time for Christmas
The author: Heather Graham
Publication: Mira, 2009
Got it from: MC, Xmas 2009

*THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS*

I know - a Christmas book in May? What was I thinking? Actually, we've been having a heat wave here with 36 degrees Celsius being the high (that's oh, about a million degrees Fahrenheit for you American readers). I thought reading about snowstorms might cool me off a bit.

This book had a very promising premise. Jake Mallory is an American Patriot about to be executed for treason by the British. Just as the noose is about to drop, his adopted sister, who practices witchcraft, arrives and says a spell that makes him disappear. Jake lands in the middle of a Massachusetts road and is nearly run down by the story's heroine, Melody Tarleton. She takes him home to her kooky family and they have to figure out what to do with Jake.

My friend, who gave me this book last Christmas, wrote, "feel free to despise it," worried that the story's far-fetchedness would bother even my time-travel loving self. So I'm going to take her up on her offer, though not because the story is far-fetched - of course it is, why would anyone buy a time-traveling soldier book thinking otherwise? I despise it because it sucks. Hardcore. I usually think of nice things to say about books I don't like, but I just can't for this one. How do I despise it? Let me count the ways:

10. Poor copy editing. This may or may not be poor Heather Graham's fault, but since she's going to take the flack for the rest of my criticism, I'll let her off the hook. Maybe this book was rushed out in time for the holiday season, but I have never seen so many typos in a commercially printed book in my life. Sentences where key words were left out, the dreaded it's/its mixup and too many others to count marred my reading experience.

9. Poor editing, period. This was the read deal-breaker for me. Again, this may be because the book was rushed out for the holidays, but nobody - not even mega bestselling authors with years of publishing history - should be let off the hook from close editing. If I didn't have the finished book in my hands, I'd say this was just a rough draft. The narrative flow was awful, jumping here and there all over the place without any semblance of coherence. It was as if I were reading pieces of the author's first draft, before she had a chance to link scenes together.

8. Wooden dialogue. The dialogue in this book had all the finesse of an eighth grade short story competition. Now, I don't have any serious writing classes under my belt, but even I know that you can't just keep saying "he said/she said." It's amateurish. Even, "he pontificated, she burbled, the thing bloviated" is a more creative approach. And the way people spoke in this book - ouch. It sounded so unrealistic, so forced, so expository, that I cringed the whole way through. Just listen to this "bantering" between Melody's parents as an example:

"We have been married since time began," he said with a sigh.

She was no longer completely concentrating. She gave him a good jab in the ribs.*

"Ouch!"

"Speak for yourself, my love. I am not that old."

"Hmm."

"And, my dear husband, you do recall that you might be considered an alchemist."

"Right. Just like Merlin. Where's the sword? I can pull it out of a stone."

See how kooky they are? See how they playfully banter with each other? See how the author is forcing them to be cah-razy and making no sense at all?

7. Poor characterization. Every single character in this book is two-dimensional. Jake is (I think) supposed to come across as mysteriously enigmatic, but really, I think it's because the author couldn't be bothered giving him a personality other than "random Patriot" and he's really just very boring. Melody is gratingly annoying, always flying off the handle at her family. Her "trait" is that she's an artist, which I didn't realize until 3/4 of the way through the book, when we learn that Jake is teh one, not her boyfriend Mark, because he recognizes her true artistic spirit. At one point, Jake realizes Mark is not right for Melody because he doesn't recognize that she's "so much more" than Mark thinks she is. Really? I think Mark has her spot on.

The rest of Melody's family can be lumped into a sort of, "oh, you wacky people, you" category. Her mother is a sort of hippy-dippy free spirit (gag) who believes in women's freedom but nevertheless spends the whole book slaving away in the kitchen and smothering her family. Melody's dad is an absent-minded blob who does - well, I'm not sure what he does, but it's vaguely science-y. He contributes very little to the story. Melody's brother bickers with her like they're both seven and is creepy enough to have a thing for strippers, which is what he wants to introduce Jake to as part of his twenty-first century experience. Then there's Mark, Melody's boyfriend, who serves as Jake's foil because he's so uptight and old-fashioned and...oh, wait. Jake's like that too. Never mind.

6. Cliches ahoy! I've already mentioned the kooky family. How about the lovable deformed pets? The overprotective brother? (you actually get two in this story!) The magical wishing well? The old diary that provides all the answers? The notes sealed in the fireplace? The "years later" epilogue where everybody finds true love, there's a passel of kids named after other characters and everybody's gotten successful and found their true calling?

5. Serious anachronisms. Other reviewers have pointed out that Jake mentions the U.S. constitution even though he time-traveled before it was even written, but I won't touch that. My main problem is Jake's handling of being in the twenty-first century. I'm reminded of a line from Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure (a movie that deals with time travel in a much more fun, creative way) when Ted, after hauling historical figures through time, commends Socrates for handling time travel, "with the greatest of ease." Jake understands and accepts everything so completely that I almost shrieked, "Are you serious!?" In mere days, he talks 21st century slang and words like cell phone, the Internet, etc. roll off his lips easily. He's so adept at picking up our language that his sister, still living in the 18th century, starts to say words like "seriously," too. Amazing! He also instantly knows how to run appliances and groom himself 21st-century style. What a guy.

4. Where's the good times? Think of all the fun you can have writing a story about somebody from the Revolutionary War arriving in the 21st century, and you can bet Heather Graham didn't write about it. Jake's "education" in modern times consists of him watching lots of DVDs like Full Metal Jacket and learning words like "dickhead." Yes, you heard that right. When Jake's announced he's learned this, Melody's mother says, "Wonderful. We've taught him all the right stuff." I found this to be the most unintentionally hilarious line in the book. Old Jake would have probably been better off if he'd dropped into, say, the middle of Siberia rather than with these nuts.

3. Mystical mumbo-jumbo. A book can have magic, but it has to have rules. A book can beat you over the head with a moral message, but it has to figure out what it's saying first. This book did neither.

Despite people hurling back and forth through time like paper airplanes toward the end, it was never clearly explained how this all worked, despite the fact that Melody's dad's work supposedly helped it all. It was some sort of combination of black holes, electo-magnetic waves, magic herbal potion and rose petals. Look, everybody knows if you're going to time-travel only one thing does it, like a phone booth or a DeLorean or a hot tub. Not five!

And what the hey was this book trying to say about religion? It was all over the place. Melody's mom went on and on about acceptance and understanding and they all attended some sort of Wiccan all-inclusive party, but the characters kept mentioning Jesus and there was a mystical priest thrown in for good measure. With no overarching theme or message, all I could get from this book is love your family, be true to yourself, there is no "I" in we, accept all religions, worship God, women should work outside the home except when they have to cook for their families, women should be traditional and stay home and make lots of babies, love each other for ourselves, miracles happen at Christmas, if you wish for something hard enough it can come true, don't choose that traditional man choose the other one, love your brother even when he's an asshole, bring home stray things you find on the side of the road, the world hasn't changed in two hundred years except it has....I could go on, but I'm afraid I'd start making as much sense as this book.

2. It's weird. That's the one word I can use to sum up this book, and I can't think of a better one. It's like something you would see a night you were up sick and couldn't sleep and you turned on the TV at 5 am and this was on, and you watched it and got a little creeped out and then afterward you're never quite sure you saw it or it actually existed because you can't find it on IMDB.

1. It's boring. This really saddened me. It wasn't even so bad it was hilarious and entertaining, it was just bad. About halfway through I kept wishing it would end. It wasn't even that long but it felt way too long. I wouldn't have finished it except that I felt like I had to because a friend gave it to me.

Usually I end my unfavourable reviews by saying, "I didn't like it, but here's why you might." But I can't. I really can't recommend this book to anybody and I wish to warn you away from it right now. Please save yourself or your loved one the $20.00 and stay as far away from this book as possible. If you value your reading time (and I know you do) avoid Home in Time for Christmas because there is nothing worthwhile about this book. I am giving it a D, and it's spared the F only because I still like the concept.


*This is an example of the bad writing right here. If she really wasn't concentrating, she wouldn't have heard him and wouldn't have elbowed him in the ribs. But don't expect this book to make that much sense.