Sunset at Blandings

by P. G. Wodehouse

Grade: Unfinished
Read to: Some random pages

The pages at the end made me feel better. This is exactly how I do it:

(Snippets of his work in progress:)
"Try this. Hero is composer or lyrist with a big show coming on on B'way. He asks Ld Ch for consent--refused as income uncertain. ...
V Good XX)"

"3. Mother leaves (..?...) UF meets Lord E
...
This looks nearly right)"

It's mostly all the "Try this"s and comments like "V Good XX".

Full Moon

by P. G. Wodehouse

Grade: Unfinished
Read to: Page 40 or so

There was an amazingly beautiful heroine who was extremely stupid, and she married the man in horn-rimmed glasses. Bill was very virile and handsome.
The glasses guy could have at least been paired with the other girl instead of the stupid one.
Anyway.

Cover Her Face

by P. D. James

Grade: All right

(I've been giving out "Good"s far too often, so I'm cutting down.)

I didn't guess the murderer, and the murderer was a good person to be the murderer. I was satisfied with that.
Buuuut...it got a bit boring, and I didn't like Dalgliesh enough (except for his name), and the romance at the end irritated me a lot, and there was never quite enough of Felix Hearne. You didn't even really find out what happened to him in the end.

The Long Kill

by Reginald Hill

Grade: Unfinished
Read to: Page 60

The end was very sad, but I liked it. Of course, I didn't really have much of a clue about what was happening, since I didn't read most of the rest of the book.
I think I might have liked it if I liked Anya, but she bugged me. Jaysmith was cool. Cool name, cool occupation, and you could sympathize with him.
It probably got better, but I couldn't really bother reading any more.

The Gun Seller

by Hugh Laurie

Grade: Good

A little too much icky stuff. Why do all the girls have to be so attractive? I guess cause it's supposed to be some sort of James Bond spoof. But it was annoying none the less.

But it was hilarious other than that. I liked how it starts.

"Imagine that you have to break someone's arm.
...
Now, my question goes like this: do you break the arm quickly--snap, whoops, sorry, here let me help you with that improvised splint--or do you drag the whole business out for a good eight minutes, every now and then increasing the pressure in the tiniest of increments, until the pain becomes pink and green and hot and cold and altogether howlingly unbearable?"

It gets better than that, but it's too long to type the whole thing.

Back to Society

by Marion Chesney

Grade: Unfinished
Read to: Page 2

I think I read less of this then even the last one. Boy, they went downhill fast.

Asking for the Moon

by Reginald Hill

Grade: Good

My introduction to Dalziel and Pascoe. Good one to start with as this contains the very first meeting of Dalziel and Pascoe. I can see myself enjoying all the rest. I love the relationship between them, and the fact that Pascoe isn't stupid. I suppose they don't really do stupid sidekicks as much these days. No more Dr. Watsons for us, and actually--I don't mind. I liked Pascoe. And Dalziel was very amusing.
But Pascoe was better because he reminded me of Lewis, except not as nice. Wield's physical description of him was like him, anyhow:

"Nice mover, head held high, good shoulders, slim body, long legs."

And he's educated and well-spoken. Those are the only similarities, I guess.

I felt so sorry for poor Pascoe at the end of the last story. It's cool how he ended up, though.

Colonel Sandhurst to the Rescue

by Marion Chesney

Grade: Unfinished
Read to: Page 3

Now even the parts with the Poor Relations are getting boring.

The Grand Tour

by Patricia C. Wrede and Caroline Stevermer

Grade: Unfinished
Read to: Page 35

I suspect one of the main reasons why I liked the first one was because my friend CH liked it. Even though this one took them all through Europe, which is pretty cool, I couldn't really get around to reading it. Also, CH said it wasn't as good as the first, and if I didn't love the first...

INSERT: Into the Wild

by Sarah Beth Durst

Grade: Good
Inserted: After Charmed Life

Highly original view of fairytales. I loved the Wild.
However, the girl was too young. I thought she was around 14. I can't remember how old she actually was, but I think it's 10 or so.
And there ought to have been more of Puss in Boots. He's always a good character, and now he's her brother as well, and I always love brothers.

Rex Zero and the End of the World

by Tim Wynne Jones

Grade: All right

The time period wasn't my favourite. And I kept on expecting it would be fantasy, and it never was. All in all, it was kind of simple for my liking. An almost teenagers book, but not with the childishness that is sometimes quite appealing (think Winnie-the-Pooh). And in the wrong time period for me. I'm not interesting in the Cold War yet.

The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation: Vol. 1 The Pox Party

by M. T. Anderson

Grade: Good

Good. Black slave experimented on. I liked the experimentation and the torture and the blotted out pages. I liked when his mother died. In other words, I liked all the nasty horrible bits. I have a bit of a taste for the gruesome sometimes.

Conrad's Fate

by Diana Wynne Jones

Grade: Good

Excellent author. I liked the other ones better--maybe. But maybe not. She's really good.

I liked Hugo because I like that kind of person.
I like learning how to be a valet.
I like Christopher because he dresses richly.

The Lives of Christopher Chant

by Diana Wynne Jones

Grade: Good

I decidedly like Diana Wynne Jones. The Lives of Christopher Chant fully lived up to my expectations.
The whole Goddess thing was cool. I didn't expect Millie to be like that as a child, though. I liked her way better than I liked Janet from Charmed Life.
I liked Tacroy a lot too.
I love awesome power displays, such as the part where he lifted the whole house after the silver was taken from him.

"And as his arms went up, he felt something come loose with them--come loose with a vengeance.
Everything in the room went upwards except Christopher, the mirror, the tiepin, the tooth-brace and the money. These slid to the floor as the table surged upwards, but were collected by the carpet which came billowing up after it. Christopher hastily stepped off the carpet and stood watching everything soar around him--all the clocks, several tables, chairs, rugs, pictures, vases, ornaments, and Dr. Pawson too. He and his armchair both went up, majestically, like a balloon, and bumped against the ceiling. The ceiling bellied upwards and the chandelier plastered itself sideways against it. From above came crashings, shrieks, and an immense airy grinding. Christopher could feel that the roof of the house had come off and was on its way to the sky, pursued by the attics. It was an incredible feeling."

All this for a simple levitation spell. Cool.

An Abundance of Katherines

by John Green

Grade: Unfinished
Read to: Page 133

I loved all the math and science and footnotes. I liked this footnote, explaining all the uninteresting things Colin would talk about:

"Among many, many others, the following things were definitely not interesting: the pupillary sphincter, mitosis, baroque architecture, jokes that have physics equations as punch lines, the British monarchy, Russian grammar, and the signifacant role that salt has played in human history."
(Those things are so totally interesting! I'd much rather hear about them than a lot of other thigns people talk about.)

And the cover was fantastic! The best cover ever, definitely.

Unfortunately, there was a lot of yucky stuff in it too. Too much for me to finish it at this time. So I stopped at page 133. (I am planning to read it again someday.)