cyphomandra

I am attempting to catch up on these by the end of the year...

A whole lot more graphic novels, as I bought some for my niece's birthday but (naturally) had to read them first.

Sharon Hale & Dean Hale (illustrator Nathan Hale), Rapunzel's Revenge. Rapunzel escapes Mother Gothel's tower and finds a steampunky-Western outside world that is failing due to Gothel's actions. She teams up with Jack (the Giant-Killer) in order to fight evil and restore balance. This didn't really grab me but I am a very hard sell on Western settings that are not actually Westerns. I also wasn't wild on the Rapunzel-Jack romance.

Victoria Jamieson, Roller Girl. Astrid and her best friend Nicole do everything together - until Astrid signs up for a roller derby summer camp (with minimal experience) and Nicole goes to ballet camp with Astrid's enemy. Excellent, good on friendship issues and acquiring practical skills, and great people.

Vera Brosgol, Be Prepared. Not the Jeremy Irons song from the Lion King that my daughter is currently fascinated by. Graphic novel memoir in which Vera goes to a summer camp for Russian speakers, which is not quite what she expected. Entertaining and well-observed, and I like the monochrome art.

Molly Ostertag, The Witch Boy. Girls in Aster's family grow up to be witches; men grow up to be shapeshifters. But Aster hasn't shifted yet, and he's fascinated by witch magic. This was fine and the characters are sweet, but it was lacking something as an actual story.

Eleanor Davis, The Secret Science Alliance and the Copycat Crook. Super-smart Julian Calendar discovers two secret science nerds, Ben and Greta, at his new school; they team up and fight crime. I liked this and it's fun, but I would have preferred one of the other two as a viewpoint character.

Mary Treadgold, The Weather Boy. Dutch boy goes to stay with his cousins in England; there's an obnoxious neighbourhood busybody accompanying him, his father is out at sea, and the main character (possibly Jan?) makes friends with a personification of the weather.

C.S. Pacat & Johanna the Mad, Fence (v1-4). Nicholas is the illegitimate son of a fencing coach and struggles to train without resources; at his first tournament he is easily beaten by the prodigious Seiji Katayama and vows to beat him. This means he somehow ends up on scholarship to an exclusive fencing school (with a surprisingly tiny fencing team) and, of course, rooming with Seiji. I like the idea of this and I like CS Pacat's writing, but there were one too many lurches in plot logic for me and also, remarkably little actually happening. Still. It's appealing, and I will read the next volume.

Alan Sisman, John Le Carré: the biography. Fascinating counterpoint to Le Carré's own memoir, The Pigeon Tunnel, which I read earlier this year; fills in the gaps, looks at the facts behind the stories, and attempts to grapple with Le Carré's impressively monstrous father, who casts a long shadow over everything. Lengthy but a smooth read, and Le Carré is one of those people whose career does not seem to ossify as they age (I'm thinking of Doris Lessing's memoirs, which were similar in nature).

Mark Siegel & Alexis Siegel, Five Worlds book 1: The Sand Warrior. Easily my favourite of all the graphic novels this month. A sand dance who struggles to control her powers teams up with a professional athlete and a slum kid (who have their own secrets) to save a gorgeously detailed world. Fascinating and rich, and I really like the colouring. Book 2 is out and book 3 is out next May; I'm presuming there are five in total but am not sure.

Stephen King, Misery. This was rachelmanija's fault, as she re-read it and then I picked up my copy just to check something (a process I know is always doomed) and re-read the whole thing. Fabulous. I always forget just how compelling the Misery book within the story is - it's the thing that I think the film glossed over.

Mary Stewart, Airs Above the Ground. Vanessa is having tea with a friend of her mother's who mentions seeing Vanessa's husband Lewis in newsreel footage of a circus fire in Austria; but Lewis told Vanessa he was on business in Stockholm. Vanessa seizes the opportunity to escort the woman's teenage son to Austria (where he was going) and investigate. It's fun, it's fast, the tense bits are genuinely tense (racing a rickety funicular railway train up to where someone is caught on the tracks) and there are amazing and heart-warming horse bits with Lipizzaners.

André Aciman, Call Me by Your Name. Read after I'd seen the film. Wonderful writing and very good, as the film is, on the emotions and distinction between late teenage and early adulthood; however, the book frames it as Elio looking back, and also goes on into the future, and that weakened it for me somewhat. Some of the supporting characters are also more well-developed, but then it doesn't leave me with the Psychedelic Furs soundtrack of the movie.

E.M. Channon, Expelled from St Madern's and Her Second Chance. EM Channon wrote schoolgirl books (The Honour of the House is one of my favourites, dealing with loyalty to family versus loyalty to school, and characters who have hidden depths beneath unappealing exteriors). In the first, a schoolgirl is (eventually) expelled for her understandable but regrettable attempts to ruin the school. The second, the sequel, has the expelled schoolgirl, now an adult, returning as a teacher and solving a mystery. Enjoyable. These are contemporary reprints and I need to track down some of her detective stories.

Attempting to catch up on my backlog again.

( Leighton Houghton, Heron's quest. )

( Sandra Glover, The nowhere boy. )

( Shirley Jackson, Life among the savages (re-read). )

( Alan Bennett, The uncommon reader. )

( KJ Parker, The company. )

( Joanna Canaan, A pony for Jean. )

( Mary Treadgold, No ponies (re-read). )

( Winifred Mantle, The Penderel puzzle. )

( Robert Fisk, The age of the warrior. )

( Victoria M Azaro, Saffron. )

( James and Deborah Howe, Bunnicula (re-read). )

( Elizabeth Enright, The four-storey mistake (re-read). )

( Alison Bechdel, Invasion of the dykes to watch out for. )

( Gillian Bradshaw, The sun’s bride. )

( Cynthia Voigt, Tell me if the lovers are losers. )

Okay. This leaves me with one book I've written up but can't find the file, 2 books for 50books_poc, one NZ book I had issues with and am debating going into more detail on, and 11 books I've read on the iPod that I intend to review, plus 2 unpublished novels for critique that I don't. Woo hoo! (and no, don't mention the manga)