Books My Son Loves: Little Gorilla by Ruth Bornstein

Little Gorilla is one of those rare books I don't discuss much in this series, the book my son loves much more than me.  I found the art to be a bit off-putting and gorillas are certainly not my favorite creatures, but for my son, this book was amazing. 

We will read it time and again and he is always fascinated by the beginning of the book.  Who loves little Gorilla, he'll ask me.  He wants a recitation of names and he superimposes his own life onto this book.  "Does Uncle E gorilla love the Nathie gorilla?" he begs of me, Nathie being his name for himself.  Does the mommy?  Does the other grandma?  How much do they love him?  Is that the baby's hand?  Is it reaching for his daddy? 

Then, we move into the animal section.  What animals are there?  What are they doing?  Do they love the Nathie gorilla?  While I get little joy from the illustrations, my son's thrill with the story tempers that and the story's gentle message that growing up doesn't cause love to fade makes me smile. 

Every time we read this, the story ends with my singing of Happy Birthday and the blowing out of the candles on the cake for Little Gorilla by my little son.  And every time we finish reading this, I remember how much, exactly, I love his reaction to it. 

Jenna and Jonah's Fauxmance by Brendan Halpin and Emily Franklin

From Amazon's website:  "Fans of romance don't need to look any further than the fauxmance brewing between teen idols Charlie Tracker and Fielding Withers-known on their hit TV show as Jenna and Jonah, next-door neighbors flush with the excitement of first love. But it's their off-screen relationship that has helped cement their fame, as passionate fans follow their every PDA. They grace the covers of magazines week after week. Their fan club has chapters all over the country. The only problem is their off-screen romance is one big publicity stunt, and Charlie and Fielding can't stand to be in the same room. Still, it's a great gig, so even when the cameras stop rolling, the show must go on, and on, and on. . . . Until the pesky paparazzi blow their cover, and Charlie and Fielding must disappear to weather the media storm. It's not until they're far off the grid of the Hollywood circuit that they realize that there's more to each of them than shiny hair and a winning smile."

Honestly, I've spent the last hour or so looking for an author's site that has a description of this book and trying to choose between a rating of a five or a six.  As you can probably see, I've settled on a six for now, but I'm still not sure.

One of the problems about books that are written from two points of view (like Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist or Jenna and Jonah's Fauxmance) is that I normally end up liking one character more, sympathizing with them more, and rooting for one character over another.  In this book, Jenna (or Charlie) is the definite winner to me.  Shallow, petty, ambitious, slightly vapid, she still comes across as an individual who's actively trying to find out what she's good at.  She's not content to sit idly watching life go by her.  She's grasping sadly at everything around her, trying to make herself a better or more successful actor.  Fielding (or Aaron, and let me just suggest to you that you don't throw a name change on a character who already has the feel of having two names), on the other hand, seemed to feel that his life plan would fall in his lap, and it annoyed me to no end.  Fielding seems to want to act only because other people around him keep telling him to do so but he takes no initiative to stop acting besides not correcting a rumor and lie being spread about him.

While I enjoyed several sections of the book on their own, I felt the moves in setting were a little strange and did not go smoothly for my reading.  I think the whole thing could have benefited greatly from a little more time on their original show as Jenna and Jonah and perhaps further in their fake relationship, but that is barely touched upon before the move is made to their isolation.  Just as quickly, it's moved again away from that and fully half the book takes place in a setting not even mentioned in any copy I found.  Was that a twist, or just poor copy?

Either way, I think more time spent in their fake relationship would have helped to establish a greater enmity between the two.  We're tossed one or two "I hate this other person" lines but always with an addendum of "but they're really hot" or "but I really liked them once upon a time" or "but I think we could have been something more" which doesn't make them seem like they dislike each other at all.  I think an exploration of their staged relationship would have worked better, because it would have allowed them to really give the reader a feel for the dislike they feel while highlighting the very interesting fact that the authors did bring to it -- the fact that two people who've been in a fake relationship and worked sixteen hour days together for years on end would know each other like no one else has ever known them.

So, since I'm complaining so much in this review, what did I like about Jenna and Jonah's Fauxmance?  As I mentioned, Charlie's attempts to find acting skills, fame, and her own identity make her a doer.  I almost always love doers in books.  People who do shit, whether good or bad, entertain.  I don't read books to meet good and kindly characters.  I read to be entertained.  I loved the brief mentions of scenes from their television show or their contract morality clauses, such as what flavors of ice cream Charlie can be seen consuming in public.  While the forced comparison Much Ado About Nothing bothered, the examination of a Shakespeare troupe's reaction to Disneyesque actors is pretty darned hilarious. 

Perhaps I'm just too old to enjoy this novel (which read as really young 'young adult') and the wrong target audience even outside the age issue.  I never cared about celebrities so much. This novel is much like Twizzlers to me.  It's candy that I like while I'm eating, but which I'll ultimately wonder why I ate when there is so much better candy out there.

Verdict:  6.  I would give Charlie's (Jenna's) sections a 7 generally,  and Fielding's (Jonah's) a 5.  Split the difference?

Thoughts:  What is up with my run of books recently that have no authors that want to pimp the books on their websites?  I'm pulling more than a few book descriptions from Amazon.  Yuck.

Friday Links: Birthday Parties

You probably are not aware, but two different people (the most important people) in my life had birthdays this week.  While one of them was too old to have a themed party (perhaps) and the other wanted a fireman themed party (with a dose of soccer), I got to thinking of book themed parties this week. 

Some of my favorite are this baby shower party with a book theme, the idea for a girl's party based on Madeline, and the best, a Mad Hatter tea party.  Have you ever thrown a book themed party?  If so, which book and how did you go about it?  Books for young boys seem to be a bit sparser than those aimed at girls, so what books would be best for them?

Mistress of the House: Great Ladies and Grand Houses by Rosemary Baird

From Amazon's product page:  "In the 18th and 19th centuries, to become Mistress of the House was the natural prospect of women born into Britain’s wealthy aristocratic families. An advantageous marriage would bring with it an important ancestral home—a visible expression of power, prestige, and good taste. Rosemary Baird introduces us to ten of these remarkable women, detailing their accomplishments in the creation and running of Britain’s great houses. We also learn about their education and training, the marriage market, and their obligations as leaders of fashion, interior design, and society. Based on diaries, letters, and family archives, Mistress of the House is a fascinating work of social history. Rosemary Baird was educated at Cambridge and Oxford; a former consultant at Sotheby’s, she is now Curator of the Goodwood Collection."

This incredible dry book starts off in a fairly interesting manner, detailing how women in years past in England helped build giant homes, decorate them, and create incredible legacies which they'd leave to the family members in their names.  The book describes how the legacy of these women would be kept fairly quiet due to their gender and history's general desire to attribute their work and effort to their husbands.  It also lists what a rich wife of that time would be expected to do, and what she could do given leeway. 

Unfortunately, it quickly moves to individual ladies of the time, and this is where the work suffers.  While some ladies have stories interesting enough to hold the attention (Catherine Lennox, Elizabeth Montagu and the Duchess of Portsmouth) while others bored me silly.  Combined with the fact that most chapters read like a laundry list of accomplishments, it tended towards the tedious in chapters for people such as Theresa Parker.  "Yes, yes, they worked on their house.  Yes, yes, they put up Indian Paper in the great hall." 

Sadly, due to the method in which this book describes the ladies (lady by lady), it also becomes greatly repetitive in the chapters of women with no great claim to fame other than their houses.  I powered through it, but it would be lists of items purchased by ladies interspersed with a sentence like "Husband managed to make her a duchess."

I am going to give it a positive verdict, but I'm writing the review the way I am because I want you to know that if you do not have a great patience or if you have little interest in manor homes of England or strong females of bygone eras, this is probably not going to be a book you enjoy.  My love of the running of manor homes and of strong female personalities is great, and I'm still only giving it a six out of ten!

Verdict: 6.  However, I would not rate it higher than a four unless you have a rather deep interest in intellectual, dry works regarding large manors in England.

Thoughts:  One third of this book was footnotes.  I kind of felt robbed!

Books My Son Loves: Kitten's First Full Moon by Kevin Henkes

For the baby shower for my son, my hostesses implored that people include a book with their gift.  Most people gave me classics, but a few who knew me well gave me books about cats.  Clearly the person who knew me best got me this Caldecott Medal winner.

This is an adorably illustrated and sweet story of a kitten that just wants the bowl of milk sitting in the sky.  My son loves this story because I infuse it with a lot of emotions.  When kitten can't get the milk, I make it sad and I frown.  When she gets hurt, I touch him on his head or ear to indicate where she got a little banged up.  When she gets her milk, I smile and cheer. 

Though he appears to be getting over this book (my son now has a love for slightly longer books) it remains one of my own favorites, and I only highlight books that both my son and I both love in this series.  Otherwise, I'd be writing on my fifth Curious George post by now or I'd be detailing the horrible soccer story I just got from the library which he is obsessed with. 

I will note that my son is always happy to go back to this story and that it's been a favorite since he's been younger than one.  He was highly obsessed with the moon (third or fourth word), so take that with a grain of salt.  Of course, if your child is also obsessed with the moon, it might be a nice break from Goodnight, Moon.

Unlocked by Courtney Milan

From the author's website:  "A perpetual wallflower destined for spinsterhood, Lady Elaine Warren is resigned to her position in society. So when Evan Carlton, the powerful, popular Earl of Westfeld, singles her out upon his return to England, she knows what it means. Her former tormenter is up to his old tricks, and she’s his intended victim. This time, though, the earl is going to discover that wallflowers can fight back.

Evan has come to regret his cruel, callow past. At first, he only wants to make up for past wrongs. But when Elaine throws his initial apology in his face, he finds himself wanting more. And this time, what torments him might be love…"

I love to read other book review blogs, and while Dear Author is not my favorite reviewing site (though it is my favorite book news site), I do find that I love Jane's take on books.  When she posted this highly appreciative review of a Regency romance, I wasn't that intrigued until she pointed out the price.  Swoon, it was a buck.  I downloaded the Kindle app for my iPhone, bought the book, and read it that night.

I've reverted, slightly, from my old love of the Regency, but when I do read it done well, I find I still can't resist it.  Milan does Regency well and she makes a character who should be unforgivable all too human.  Evan is a prize and I don't mean that sarcastically.  We know he was a jerk, and that the reason for his actions was petty, but he looks at his actions and he realizes just how wrong he was.  Additionally, though he knows how horrible he was, as he realizes even further how Elaine feels, he recognizes how much worse it is than even he suspected.  He doesn't expect forgiveness though he requests it.  He works at forgiveness.  Like all people who were once bullied, I love a good groveling scene in which a bullied person gets the abject apology of the bullier, but I even more appreciate that it takes more than just a pathetic apology to get past Evan's actions.

Further, though this is a short novella, time passes.  Love doesn't occur overnight.  Elaine at first accepts Evan's apology, but it takes her time to really understand that he means it.  I wish we had gotten a better look at the time that had passed and their developing friendship (and I suspect I'll be searching out Milan's other full length novels to see if she has other novels about developing friendships), but I simply appreciate that these characters don't come to fully love each other within a week's time.

I will issue a caveat and state that two scenes in the novella made me come out of the reader's high I was on, and they were fairly lengthy scenes so it was quite a ding on the score.  Both scenes dealt with the characters in private and were unrealistic to me, which made me a little sad and pulled me out of the story entirely. 

Everything else about this novel, including Evan's relationship with his cousin and Elaine's relationship with her mother, deserves full scores, however.  Those two relationships in particular deserve some high marks.  Evan's cousin though quite petty and evil also shows a human nature at the end which entertains,.  Elaine's feelings toward her mother are fantastic.  We see there a mother daughter relationship which is fraught with problems even though they love each other and are both good people. 

Great work, Milan!

Verdict:  7.  I was leaning on a six here due to the scenes mentioned briefly above, actually, but the price and the strength of all the relationships.  I can't give it anything less than a seven.  In fact, if you factor in the price, it should probably jump to an 8 or a 9.  If only all self-published works were this good.

Thoughts:  A dollar.   If books were normally a dollar or two (e-books or otherwise) I'd probably be living in stacks of books.  In fact, I purposely limit my own visits to used bookstores for this reason.  I'd come home with a pile of books and devour them until I was tired from lack of sleep and my son was whacking my knees with his soccer ball begging, "Play with me!"

Friday Links: Joined a Read A Long

Well, I decided to do it.  I've been working a this blog pretty steadily over the last month.  I've read a lot, created a Twitter account, reviewed a lot, and it's been during the busiest time of the year for me.  So, I joined a read-a-long.  Specifically, the Read-A-Myth Challenge.  I'm starting at the wimpiest level of Athena which means I need to read two books which are either retellings of myths or non-fiction works on mythology.

I mean, I've already read The Goddess Test and I'm pondering my thoughts on that one and I should have a review for it up within the month.  That means all I need to do is read one other book about myths and post a review on it in the next six months.  Considering mythology is one of my favorite subjects (c'mon, you all read encyclopedia articles about mythological figures too, happily cross referencing until every encyclopedia was open around you, right?!) I think I should be able to handle this challenge.

Abandoned is probably going to be the next one I attempt since I don't know when The Goddess Test's sequel is coming out.  Unless I should give Percy Jackson another go.  Any suggestions?!