Note: I received an e-book copy from the publisher for review consideration. ODY-C: What. And look, I didn’t want to say What in that disparaging, not-really-a-question sort of tone. I wanted to say, Hooray! Matt Fraction! Trying things! So to be clear off the top: I support trying things in this bold manner. When you find yourself confronted with a comic that gender-swaps the whole Odyssey and transposes it to a science-fictional universe in which Zeus (a lady) prevented anyone from ever having sons ever again, you have to pause to admire the attempt. I will give you a second to do that. Here is my problem, apart from…
5 CommentsTag: authors I love letting me down
Gypsy Gypsy, Rumer Godden
Published 17 Jan 2012
by
Gin Jenny
Okay, I’m going to ruin the whole plot of this book for your sake to save you from reading it yourself and possibly judging Rumer Godden based on this book which you should not, she is actually wonderful. She just is not wonderful here. Gypsy Gypsy is about this girl called Henrietta who lives with her mean aunt Barbe. Yes, the lady’s name is Barbe, and she’s very sarcastic to everybody. It is a trifle on the nose, and I’d like to make some excuse for Rumer Godden like she was only 33 when this book was published, but you…
29 CommentsHabibi, Craig Thompson
Published 27 Dec 2011
by
Gin Jenny
Nyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyynnnnnnnnggggg. Come on, dude. Is what I was saying throughout most of Habibi. I wanted to be saying what I was saying throughout most of Thompson’s previous book, Blankets, which was nothing actually because I was so breathless from the beauty of the story and the illustrations. I wanted that to be the case with Habibi, and occasionally it was, like when the characters were telling each other stories from Muslim traditions. Craig Thompson never didn’t succeed at making his stories beautiful. If he had stuck to this, we’d be having a very different review right now. Let me back…
3 CommentsReview: Falling Together, Marisa de los Santos
Published 14 Nov 2011
by
Gin Jenny
I love Marisa de los Santos, LOVE HER. Love Walked In and Belong to Me were two books I didn’t expect to like but have become regulars in my permanent rotation of books that captivate me no matter how many times I reread them (the Harriet Vane books also feature prominently, along with I Capture the Castle and The Chosen). As you may imagine, I was thrilled to hear that she was writing a new book. I wrote a begging letter to HarperCollins asking for a review copy, and they obliged. I shrieked out loud with joy when my book…
13 CommentsReview: Shalimar the Clown, Salman Rushdie
Published 8 Jun 2011
by
Gin Jenny
My lovely Legal Sister bought me Shalimar the Clown at a book sale last year and gave it to me when she GRADUATED SISTER GRADUATED WOOOO YAY FOR SISTERS. Legal Sister reports that the family has a policy whereby we all give each other books we got at book sales and do not have to pay each other back. I am not sure this is a real policy, but I’m delighted to acknowledge it as if it were. Shalimar the Clown is one of the two fiction books by Salman Rushdie I had yet to read (not counting Grimus and…
37 CommentsThe Bird’s Nest, Shirley Jackson
Published 16 May 2011
by
Gin Jenny
Well, having praised “The Lottery” and expressed my preference for novels over short stories, I now must say some less-than-glowing things about Shirley Jackson’s novel The Bird’s Nest. I’ve had quite the string of less-than-glowing reviews, eh? And another one coming up, I’m afraid. I don’t know what to tell you except that they’re all being written on a rainy day at the start of May when there’s nothing sweet for me to eat and my cable box froze so I can’t watch my shows. (The ease with which I produced those three rhymes has cheered me up more than…
26 CommentsReview: Titus Andronicus, William Shakespeare
Published 8 Jan 2010
by
Gin Jenny
They cut my head off in Titus Andronicus. When I write plays, they’ll be like Titus…I liked it when they cut heads off, and the daughter mutilated with knives. Plenty of blood. That’s the only writing. –John Webster character in Shakespeare in Love Oh, Tom Stoppard. You are so great. I wish you would write screenplays for thousands of movies. I wish you would have your own television show, and it would be called Tom Stoppard Is Not Ha-Ha-Funny But Everybody Loves Him Anyway, and on it, you could make wry comments about hermits who read newspapers and John Webster…
23 CommentsReview: The Comedy of Errors, William Shakespeare
Published 21 Nov 2009
by
Gin Jenny
Here’s what you should understand before reading Comedy of Errors. My boy Shakespeare, he’s funny. He’s all about being funny; he’s got funny down pat. If you don’t believe me, I can only assume that it’s because you have never seen one of Shakespeare’s plays performed by actors with any hint of comedic timing. He can do it in many different ways – he can do slapsticky visual gags, he can do puns, he can do wry little digs and situational irony and gallows humor. And when he’s not being funny, he’s still being clever. Nearly always! He makes his…
14 CommentsReview: Henry VI, Part 3, William Shakespeare
Published 17 Nov 2009
by
Gin Jenny
Okay, I did actually forget all about my project to read all of Shakespeare’s plays, but DO NOT WORRY. I have remembered it now and I shall carry right on with it. I just finished reading Henry VI, Part 3, which is nice because I’m all done with Henry VI and can move along to my boy Richard, Duke of Gloucester. Remember how I said Part 2 was more like it than Part 1? Not exactly like it, but more? I regret to report that I can’t say the same thing of Part 3. It’s all, Okay, now Edward is…
16 CommentsMothering Sunday, Noel Streatfeild
Published 30 Sep 2009
by
Gin Jenny
Mothering Sunday is the first Streatfeild book I’ve read that was written for adults – unless you count On Tour, which I guess you maybe could since it talks (albeit obliquely) about Victoria’s shocking flirty behavior. In Mothering Sunday, Anna, the mother of five grown-up children, has started acting strangely. She refuses to allow her favorite granddaughter to visit anymore; there are rumors that she has taken to wandering around aimlessly at night; and she refuses to even mention the name of her youngest son, Tony, who is involved in some unnamed disgrace. The four older children agree to get…
8 Comments