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Category: 2 Stars

Lady’s Maid, Margaret Forster

Hmph. One quick method to make me not finish your book: Talk shit about Robert Browning. I was reading this book Lady’s Maid, which is a story about Elizabeth Barrett Browning from the point of view of her maid, Wilson, and for a while I was only bothered by how little Robert Browning there was in the book.  I kept reading, expecting to see more of dear, sweet, lovely Robert Browning (born on my birthday!), and very little was forthcoming.  And I was only half paying attention to it while I was reading it, because in my mind I kept…

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The Good Thief, Hannah Tinti

I read about this on Foreign Circus Library, the name of which I simply adore, and which I’m glad I’ve remembered because for some reason it wasn’t in my bookmarks even though I really like the name. Silly Jenny. Anyway, this book sounded so appealing. A little Catholic orphan! A con man! Mysteries of parentage! However, having read a bit of it, I concluded that there weren’t really any mysteries of parentage, and so I didn’t peek at the end to see what the truth was, so I didn’t pay attention to any little clues that were dropped. Therefore my…

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Henry VI, Part II, William Shakespeare

Ah, this is more like it.  Not – you know – exactly like it, but more.  Much more political intrigue than fighting battles, and that always makes for a jollier play.  It’s all about the political machinations going on around Henry VI’s rule – everybody wants to rebel against everybody else. Gloucester wants to carry on being Lord Protector but the queen and her lover don’t want that because they want to be the power behind the throne.  The Duke of York and his pals want Henry deposed, because they feel that their claim to the throne is superior –…

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Perfect Match and Vanishing Acts, Jodi Picoult

Sigh. I know she’s better than this.  Ms. Picoult is an excellent writer.  She does good dialogue, her characters are generally consistent, the little kids are really good little kids.  In each case where I have begun reading a book of hers, I have stayed up way past my bedtime finishing it.  (In the case of Vanishing Acts, I was already up thoroughly late because I was introducing my friend Teacher to Firefly and I didn’t want to let her leave until she totally liked it and had stopped saying snide things about Kaylee.  Victory!)  So I will not suggest…

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Adam and Eve and Pinch Me, Ruth Rendell

On with the reading of books by Ruth Rendell/Barbara Vine to decide what I indeed think of her! Adam and Eve and Pinch Me – of whose title, incidentally, I simply cannot approve – is all about a caddish man called Jeffrey John Leach, who is wickedly assuming false names and seducing women so that they will give him money, and then he ups and vanishes, leaving them a bit in the lurch.  He has done just this to two of the three central characters here – crazy Minty Knox who has OCD and hears voices, and opportunist Zillah Leach…

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The Hills at Home, Nancy Clark

“Did someone die in here or what?” …. “Yes,” she told Andy, “somebody die die in here but I have, of course, since changed the sheets.” I read about this book here, and felt smugly certain that I would not be, as Powell’s review suggested some would be, “deaf to this novel’s considerable charm”, thus would not have “wandered away long before those scenes [the ones with plot in them] arrive.”  They said it was like Jane Austen, and I suppose I thought that meant gently satirical and not very exciting in a Scarlet Pimpernel way, but nevertheless containing various…

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City of Bones, Cassandra Clare; or, I apparently think Oscar Wilde had the werewolf gene

Recommended by: Darla at Books and other thoughts Many spoilers to follow, but you can probably guess them while you’re reading anyway. City of Bones is all about a girl called Clary who witnesses a most unpleasant murder and gets drawn into the wild and wacky world of demon-slaying.  Turns out her mother used to be a demon-slaying badass chick, but left that life to pursue normalcy as a single mum.  Clary has a steamy crush on one of the demon-hunters, Jace, and they have banter and sexual tension; there’s a wicked guy called Valentine (it was hardcore with the…

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Rules for Saying Goodbye, Katherine Taylor

At last, a review for a book I finished last month.  I didn’t review it before because I had so many anger feelings at the hurricane.  However, we finally have power back.  A tree fell right on my aunts’ house and took it out completely, while they were inside, but they’re okay – probable PTSD aside – and their four dogs are okay.  Our fall holiday got cancelled and I lost thirty pages of a story I was writing under mysterious yet-to-be-explained circumstances.  Gustav was vile, and going to the grocery stores is like being in the Great Depression.  No…

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Vanity Dies Hard, Ruth Rendell

I began Vanity Dies Hard with the working hypothesis that Ruth Rendell was infallibly brilliant, and that even if her books were not as emotionally satisfying as Anna’s Book, they would always have satisfying and elegant plots like Anna’s Book did.  I was most disappointed.  Vanity Dies Hard had an ending that was the biggest let-down since the ending of The Machinist.  (Did you see The Machinist?  I already didn’t like Christian Bale, but my God, even for a movie containing Christian Bale, The Machinist was awful.) Anyway, I had to create a new hypothesis based on my new data. …

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Why She Left Us, Rahna Reiko Rizzuto

At the library the other day, I did two things that I never do.  First, I walked in with a self-imposed limit to get no more than ten books.  Then when I was looking for the books I wanted, I grabbed random books off the shelves because they looked interesting.  This is so not me.  I am not that girl.  Indie Sister is that girl, but I am not that girl.  I get books I’ve heard of, or at least books I’ve seen around several times before and I can’t take the curiosity anymore. Well, this isn’t like that.  I…

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