My Thoughts: The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

Neil Gaiman writes another corker. The Graveyard Book manages to draw you back to the childhood sensation of discovering a new world hidden in the depths of a few hundred pages.
The book is about Nobody Owens (Bod), escaping from murder at the age of one, Bod fines sanctuary in a Graveyard. The Ghosts and The Honour guard provide him with a family and a safe place to grow up, away from those who need to come to finish him off. As Bod grows older his obedience frays and he begins to explore the town around his graveyard placing himself in danger. The danger follows his scent, leading to a climactic ending.

Neil Gaiman managed to create a wonderful sense of place in this novel, the creepy graveyard transforming to become a place of warmth, love and security. The book is classified in our library as Young Adult, but this is a book which deserves to faind many many readers.

Challenges:
The Dream King 2/6
A-Z (Title)
The YA book Challenge 2/12
999 (New Fiction) 5/81
NaJuReMoNoMo 5/5

Reviews:
Bart
Stuff Dreams are Made On
Things Mean A Lot

Characters who annoy/frustrate.

Yesterday I finished Siam: Or the Woman Who Shot a Man by Lucy Tuck, before I make this book sound bad, I'll give you the low down. The book is about a young newly married couple, his job is with the Army and he is posted in Thailand helping in the strikes against Vietnam. The wife moves out to live with him. One evening they go to dinner with the president of the Thai Silk Company, a few days later he goes missing. The wife becomes obsessed with the missing man.

My Rant: Firstly I cannot see why the couple are married, he is obsessed with sex, seeming to need in non-stop. She talks and talks despite the fact that he is not interested, and if you had to listen to it you would't be interested either. In the middle of sex she will be telling him about the Thai royal family and during a car crash she decides to repeast all the Thai she had learnt that week!
She also becomes obsessed with a man she met once at a busy dinner, whom she barely spoke to. She obsesses about whether he has been attacked by Lions, kidnapped by communists, or even the Americans. She is basically a wet blanket, far too young to be married and longing for some way to speed up her lonely days.
I kept reading on trying to figure out when this book was going to get better, when she was going to solve the murder and whe she was going to catch her husband in bed with someone else - it never happened.
Anyway it helped with a couple of challenges
Challenege:
NaJuReMoNoMo book 4/5
A-Z (Title)

My Thoughts: American Gods by Neil Gaiman

"Shadow had done three years in prison. He was big enough, and looked don't fuck-with-me enough that his biggest problem was killing time. So he kept himself in shape, and taught himself coin tricks, nd thought a lot about how much he loved his wife."


The moment Shadow is released from prison his life changes, his wife is dead having been killed in a car crash is a compromising position with his best friend, and on the way to her funeral he meets a man who will change his world.


Shadow suddenly becomes the employee of Wednesday half god/half con man. He runs every time this man calls taking him on various jobs across the States, and meeting a number of random gods. In every place he travels he meets gods from each of the countries that Americans originated from, all brought over by the beliefs of migrants and many forgotten by the current breed of Americans.


And that's not all he has to deal with: His undead wife keeps returning asking to be brought to life. Oh, yeah and...


"...all the gods that people have ever imagined are still with us... And that there are new gods out there, gods of computers and telephones and whatever, and that they all seem to think there isn't room for them both in the world. And that some kind of war is kins of likely."


The story of Shadow and of the war of the gods is interspersed with my favorite chapters, those from the past which show the arrival of migrants and gods arriving to the shores of America, my most favorite being the chapter entitled 'Coming to America' about twin African children sold to slave traders and shipped to America, that language just pulls you right in, and you feel like you have stepped into another novel.
Challenges:
999 (Fantasy)
A-Z: Author
The Dream King 1/12
The Genre Challenge 4/10
Fourth Annual NaJuReMoNoMo 3/5
The Chunkster Challege (640 pages) 1/6
Other Reviews worth checking out:
A Striped Armchair
Rhinoa's Ramblings

My Thoughts: The Tales of the Beedle and the Bard.

Do you ever build books up too much before you get around to reading them and then feel let down?

Now I know that had this book been by a different author, hadn't had a slight link to a series I loved I would have regarded it much more highly.
As with the Harry Potter books I expected to start this and not put it down until the very last word. I expected to feel like a little kid again lost in another world. I expected that this book would remain a favorite.
It was ok.
That's probably unfair. I did enjoy some of the little stories, and they are good little alternative fairy tales and I will keep the book so when I have kids I have some slightly sinister fairy tales for them to read, but this only gets 3 stars out of 5 for me.

Have you read it? What did you think?

Challenges:

A-Z (AUTHOR) (1/26)

999 (Fairy tales) (2/81)

Fourth Annual NaJuReMoNoMo (book 2)

My Thoughts: Beauty by Robin McKinley

McKinley has taken the classic fairytale Beauty and the Beast and reworked it into her own tale, presenting it to a new audience. I was really worried that this would be a modern take on the fairy tale, in a modern world, but I had nothing to worry about this book is set far enough back in history to contain the magic of a fairytale.
Beauty (an ungainly teenager) is removed from a life of poverty and a loving family when her father one day picks her a rose from the Beasts castle. She has to choose to live with the beast or give her father's life. Like any dutiful daughter it is her freedom which she chooses to forsake.
McKinley's depiction of the Beast's castle is mesmerising, I felt like I was back as a kid again, marvelling at Bedknobs and Broomsticks or Cinderella (can't ever recall having seen Beauty and the Beast - think Disney rereleased it when I was a teen and to cool to be watching stuff like that :rolleyes: The dishes fill themselves, she is dressed and pampered by invisible servants, and the ground of the castle change daily so she is never bored. She also has our fantasy library, more books than you could ever read, and it contains books not yet published, a view of the future she will not live to see.
Yes we all know how this story has to end, and McKinley sticks very close to the story, yet I was still wishing she would go back to him quickly before he faded away.
This may be kids fiction but definately is a must for anyone who loved/loves a happy ending and a fantasy world. Great for 9 year olds but also those of us who wish to escape to a magical world for a few hours. I'll definately be checking out her other books.

Challenges:

Fourth Annual NaJuReMoNoMo 1/5

999 Challenge 2/81

YA fiction 1/12

A-Z Challenge: Title 1/26

Other Reviews worth checking out:

Things Mean a Lot

Raidergirl 3

Rhiona's Ramblings

Have you reviewed this? If so pop a link to your review in the comments section