Cover to Cover Challenge discussion

Tallyho!


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Book the First!


1.) Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine.

Pretty cute. I'll probably watch the film adaptation over tomorrow's tea. It's handy that fairies have tiny feet, and magic glass slippers only fit tiny fairy feet. And that magic glass slippers are hidden in grimy old benches in abandoned gardens waiting to be found by part-fairy girls. Hm. Also, if I were a more entrepreneurial soul, I would write a decidedly ridiculous fanfic involving Ella getting mixed-up with various alternative lifestyle scenes in which her gift-curse would be a raunchy blessing for all involved. Fortunately, I am too lazy to produce such a pointless masterwork.


274 pages; finished Jan. 01, 2011

2.) Alice I Have Been by Melanie Benjamin.

Guuuh. I don't know why I put off reading this one so long. This is pretty much complete brainporn for me. Charles Dodgson is one of my dearest literary crushes, and this novel is like a long, very well-written RPF with the awfully sweet, sad, classic pairing of Alice/Dodgy. SIGH. Maybe they'll make a movie. There's already Dreamchild, but that's not stopped the movie folks before. The Lost Boys, about J.M. Barrie and the Llewelyn Davies boys, was made in 1978, but that didn't stop them from making Finding Neverland in 2004, a year after the nice live action version of Peter Pan. Since that Alice film came out last year, and there's Alice hype about, I wants them to makes me a Dodgson flick, NOWSSS. Though knowing my luck, they'd cast some twerpy-doodle as the Dodger, and some yuppie brat as Alice. Or, since Ian Holm played BOTH J.M. Barrie and Charles Dodgson, they'll repeat history and have Johnny Depp play J.M. Barrie AND Charles Dodgson. I'd roll my eyes clear out my head on that 'un, lawd. Anywho, dear little book. Recommended for others obsessed with a tiny little pocket of history, golden afternoons, and all that.


351 pages; finished Jan. 04, 2011

3.) The Ruby in the Smoke by Philip Pullman.

Yay opium! And cursed, maddening, mind-whirling gems from the East! I loved the cover on this, and the book's darling size, and the story's zippy pace. Too bloody bad my library seems to have lost and never replaced their only copy of the next installment of the series... reckon if I want to find out what happens to Adelaide I'll have to watch the film of The Shadow in the North, pray it's plot-accurate enough to my taste, then read The Tiger in the Well, since the 'brary has multiple copies of THAT one, those sillies.


230 pages; finished Jan. 06, 2011

4.) Magic Under Glass by Jaclyn Dolamore.

Pretty sexy. I'd take a clockwork fairy-man. All that winding up your pretty doll-boy stuff. And then you get to oil his gears. Mmm.


225 pages; finished Jan. 08, 2011

5.) East of the Sun by Julia Gregson.

Amusing ladies' domestic romp about India in the twenties, satisfying my Anglo fix and my Indo fix in one fell swoop. I was quite dissatisfied, however, with the treatment and (non)resolution of the "creepy" character, who seemed only to exist to be "creepy" and to provide a little fuel to the plot so it wouldn't just be about women getting teary-eyed every few minutes. The minutest of actions and feelings of the other characters are thoroughly described, and their lives are tied up nice and tidy and happy at the end, but the poor, omg-look-at-how-creepy-he-is Guy only serves to give the main gal something to wince over, and his life and motivation, which had quite a bit of interesting stuff going about in it, is left unexplained, and he is conveniently packaged away without a proper ending at all. I was spitting mad, because I rather liked him better than all those girlies. I love a good weirdo, blank-eyed and dirty-nailed. Hmph. Oh well. That's what speculation is for. I'll make up my own story for him, and fill in those blanks, and wrap him up all pretty-like. So there!


587 pages; finished Jan. 13, 2011

6.) The Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett.

Darling. One of those books that makes me wish I had young'uns so's I could read it to 'em. It takes some heady concepts and makes them easily digestible. And there's little blue people in kilts. Awfully fun.


263 pages; finished Jan. 16, 2011

7.) Wildwood Dancing by Juliet Marillier.

The Wee Free Men had a talking frog in it. This one has a talking frog in it. And I have Toads and Diamonds waiting on my stack. Oh, the amphibiary! Now that I'm on a roll, I'll want to look for more toad-centric literature. Rrribbit.


403 pages; finished Jan. 22, 2011

8.) A Royal Pain by Rhys Bowen.

I wasn't expecting this 'un to be about communists... but it was! I could have done with significantly more commie action, however, and the paltry crumbs of Ruskie spy goodness that the story hinted at only whetted my appetite before ending without sating it, but alas, one can't have everything. I reckon not everyone reading this brand of fluffy mystery novel is as keen on the political nitty gritty, and it would take a whole other book to cover all the material that could be had in a backstory for a few revolutionary "villain" characters. And then I believe it'd require another genre, and would make a novel of a different sort entirely. Oh, dear. That'd be asking a bit much, I s'pose.


307 pages; finished Jan. 28, 2011

9.) Isolde, Queen of the Western Isle by Rosalind Miles.

Ehh. I picked this up at random from the library, being attracted to the story of Tristan and Isolde, and the pretty cover. But. This didn't quite cut the mustard. Mists of Avalon it ain't. I did find the mention of Merlin's prissy, perfumed Shirley Temple curls oddly compelling, however, in the creepy-shudder-wtf way. The gender and social politics made me ill, and basically add up to: Christians = bad (and smelly); overly lusty women = bad (because they're too forceful in their political agendas); fempowered modern idealistic twits and the men who love them = good. I was hoping, from the cover art, that Isolde might be some sort of female sado-tyrant. Nope. She seemed more fit to live in a present-day subdivision as a practicing bourgeois Wiccan, with her husband, Tristan, who enjoys playing video games like the bitch he is. Hahaha. Phew. I did like the bad women and the old women, though. So there's that. But anyway: ehh.


340 pages; finished Jan. 29, 2011

10.) Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia.

I am biased, seeing as this book is set in South Carolina, and I live in South Carolina. So much of my amusement in it comes from the novelty factor that a popular paranormal YA book is set in a state which seldom inspires any fiction other than a few milquetoast chick-lit or family drama offerings. Sure, I was rolling my eyes at the teeny bopper stuff, and the authors' exaggerated, trying-too-hard attempts to drive home the point that SC is a lame, bass-ackwards state, but still, I was pretty darn tickled to see the Daughters of the American Revolution represented in such a mass market format. Some of the story and magical premise is iffy, but there were sections where I really liked the tone and atmosphere of the situation, if not so much the primary characters involved. The two kids grated on me, but the story, and the mood of their surroundings, they were wound up in made up for it. I found that by kinda squinting my eyes and viewing the story from an external perspective rather than the look-I'm-a-teenager commentary of the narrator, I was able to appreciate it better. And also pretending that I wasn't reading something that has raked in some cash, but the creation of just a couple of girls having fun sharing a plot helped, too. And the voodoo. I loves me some voodoo.


563 pages; finished Jan. 29, 2011

11.) Toads and Diamonds by Heather Tomlinson.

A sweet little dharmic fairy tale set in a pseudo-India, which manages to bring divinity and devotion quite effectively into reality. I was mighty keen on the various forms of the snake goddess Naghali: first as a diseased hag, then a haughty, bejeweled, imposing royal, and finally as the grinning bearer of a corpse cart, sharpened teeth and all. Jai ma!


276 pages; finished Feb. 05, 2011

12.) Fire and Hemlock by Diana Wynne Jones.

I'm not sure whether I read this or dreamt it.


420 pages; finished Feb. 08, 2011

13.) For All the Tea in China: How England Stole the World's Favorite Drink from China and Changed World History by Sarah Rose

What can I say? I really love my cuppa tea.


245 pages; finished Feb. 12, 2011

14.) The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

I find it really odd how popular the character of Lisbeth Salander is. I read reviews and hear people speak of this book, and they think she's just the bee's knees, and most of these people would absolutely hate a person like Lisbeth Salander if they had to interact with them for five seconds. She is tough, yes, so I can understand them appreciating that within a fictional context, but most people aren't very tough themselves, and don't necessarily care to be around people who are so hard. And she is legitimately anti-social, not a hip, affected "I'm so cool and anti-social" youth who is quite well-adjusted within a chosen subculture. How many of the yuppies reading this book have anything nice to say about the mentally disturbed wards of the state with criminal records that exist in reality? Actually, take anyone who meets just one of those criteria, and ask your average middle class American how much they're capable of EVER admiring them. I liked Lisbeth Salander. She represents social non-entities like myself who make their own goddamn way, and it makes me laugh to fully realize that so many people who are all up on this book like all their other pals with Kindles would be afraid to look a Salander in the eye when passing her on the street. LO-MF-L.


644 pages; finished Feb. 15, 2011

I found Lisbeth prickly but compelling. She is not your typical heroine. I just saw the Swedish movie of The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets Nest and when she is all gothed up with the piercings and tatts she is one tough looking broad. The thing I liked about her though was that she did have a moral compass even though it probably isn't one shared by many people. She is definitely a survivor.

Very true about the moral compass, and it's good to see a character who in reality might not be so well-liked by much of the populace upon immediate impression portrayed as someone who is still human, with a brain, strength, and purpose, to give those reading something for their brains to chew on when it comes to how we see different flavors of person in the spectrum of humanity.

15.) The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.

Running Man 4 Teens!


374 pages; finished Feb. 18, 2011

16.) Ruined by Paula Morris.

Why do teenagers hate moving to the south so much? Why do teenagers prefer mall brand clothing and text messages over tarot cards and voodoo? I don't understand what pleases and displeases youth. They seem to want a colorless world, poor things. But this was nice. I could have used more ghost-time, though. The whole book could have been about ghosts, as far as I'm concerned. Yes, three-hundred pages of walking about looking at ghosts around the city of New Orleans would have been great -- ghosts don't need high school drama.


309 pages; finished Feb. 20, 2011

17.) Under the Skin by Michel Faber.

That... was not what I was expecting. No, sir. Or ma'am. Goodness, me. Beautiful, sad, and nasty, all up in my brain at once. Sticks to the ribs like a bowl of hot oatmeal, only it ain't oatmeal. Phew. Michel Faber, the mad Dutchman. What things lurk in that little blonde head.


311 pages; finished Feb. 23, 2011

18.) True Grit by Charles Portis.

They used to laugh and call me "baby sister" when I was a teenager. And then I kicked 'em in the shins and snarled.


150 pages; finished Feb. 23, 2011

19.) A Hat Full of Sky by Terry Pratchett.

Some parts dragged a trifle, and the plot wasn't quite smoothed over throughout, but there were bits which made up for it a hundred times over. Pratchett warms my innards with the very, very mundane and the very, very cosmic.


278 pages; finished Feb. 25, 2011

20.) Oscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey.

I liked the way this one so sweetly, so kindly squeezed and tickled and wrung out my heart. Beautiful and clever and sad and thorough. I loveded it. And the build up to and eventual occurrence of the kissy bit about made me blow my top. I want to bake an Oscar and Lucinda pie, and eat the whole thing myself very slowly in one long sitting.


432 pages; finished March 14, 2011

21.) The Ladies of Missalonghi by Colleen McCullough.


22.) The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford.


23.) Love in a Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford.



24.) Voices of Dragons by Carrie Vaughn.


25.) A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf.


26.) The Children of Green Knowe by L.M. Boston.


27.) Dragonwyck by Anya Seton.


28.) Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta.


29.) Outlander by Diana Gabaldon.


30.) City of Bones by Cassandra Clare.


31.) Beauty: A Retelling of the Story of Beauty and the Beast by Robin McKinley.


32.) Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist.


33.) The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga.


34.) The Hollow Kingdom by Clare B. Dunkle.


35.) The Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England: A Handbook for Visitors to the Fourteenth Century by Ian Mortimer.


36.) In the Cities of Coin and Spice by Catherynne M. Valente.