Possessed

by Kate Cann

Grade: All right
Story: Rayne is overwhelmingly claustrophobic with her current life in London, so she deserts her boyfriend and mother and runs off to a job in the country. There she meets handsome boys and annoying girls and strange fire people and everything is pretty creepy.

Review: So I read this one quickly enough, but there was something missing for me. Partly it was ...

SPOILER, I GUESS

... her infatuation with St. John. It seemed perfectly obvious to me from the start that he was a totally jerk. But it seemed to take her forever. So I had to read on and on about how hot he was, etc., when I knew she would be taking it all back in a few chapters.

END SPOILER, I SUPPOSE

It may also have just been partly that nothing much seemed to happen. I don't know. Maybe it's my mood. Other book reviewers seemed to really enjoy it. (Actually, upon further investigation, bookshelvesofdoom seems to be the only one who reviewed it. But still, she's one of the best.)

But you know, besides the fact that I didn't LOVE it, there were some good points. Rayne was a good heroine, there was lots of nice creepy stuff (but not really overtly creepy, so still good for people who don't like creepy much), and I liked the fire dancer people and the descriptions of the forest.

SPOILER:
OH! And WHY is it called "Possessed"? I guess because St. John is kind of possessed by that super duper evil guy? It doesn't seem at all obvious to me, though.

Gentlemen

by Michael Northrop

Grade: All right
Story: Four highschool guys: Micheal (sic), Tommy (the nice-ish one), Mixer (the clever one), and Bones (the dangerous one). Their teacher tries a new teaching method one day at school, and all of a sudden, there's murder, mayhem, and teenage boys being teenage boys. (Ok, that last one wasn't exactly all-of-a-sudden...)

Review: I didn't actually like this one much. It's simply not to my taste. The front cover describes it as "gritty". Now, I like gritty things, but ... I don't know. A slightly different kind of gritty. More like Rage gritty. This one--well, it's all about teenage guys. Teenage guys from kind of the bottom of the heap. Anyway, I skipped some parts, but I finished it.
But I still thought it was well done. Moody, accurate, fast-paced, and funny. Mostly. Except it's not quite my type of humour either. And I appreciated that it was not a cliched inspiring-teacher-helps-low-life-boys-with-unique-teaching-method story. I actually really like those stories, but slightly guiltily, and I appreciate it when it's done a bit differently.
BUT ISN'T THE COVER PRETTY? In fact, I must admit, I think I mostly finished it because of its cover. And it's title.

The Cardturner

by Louis Sachar

Grade: To Own
Story: Alton Richards becomes cardturner for his very, very rich, very blind, slowly dying uncle who's totally obsessed with bridge. Which means he  informs his uncle which cards he has, and then plays whatever card he's told to play.

Review: I really love books that make me interested in a particular subject. This one is bridge, which I've been interested in, mostly because of Agatha Christie. Thus the "To Own".

Otherwise, it's fun. Much better than I expected, actually.

...

Ok, I'm running out of thoughts here. It's getting late and I'm tired. So: summary. Liked the characters, especially his uncle Trapp and his little sister. But also his crazy (as in actually mentally insane) love-interest Toni, and the slightly awkward friendship with Cliff. The bridge stuff never gets quite as exciting as the Hikaru no Go comics, speaking of books based off games, but it's still fun.


I like this description:

"Have you ever been in a situation where you've been with someone for a while and you don't know that person's name? It's too late to ask, but you know the longer you go without asking, the more awkward it will become. So even though you feel really stupid, you finally just have to bite the bullet and say, "By the way, what's your name?" (pg. 7)
I get this fairly frequently and it's horrible. But I've never heard it described before.


So that's that. Sorry, my ever dear non-existent readers, for the lousy review.

P.S. The only other book I can think of with an actually mentally insane love-interest is Black Jack by Leon Garfield.

Airborn

by Kenneth Oppel

Grade: Unfinished
Read: To some page that I've forgotten because I just lost the book.

Review: This seemed very much like a standard boy adventure story, and I don't feel like reading a standard boy adventure story right now. Good thing I do sometimes or I'd miss awesome books like Airman by Eoin Colfer. So maybe I'll go back to this one someday, in case it's awesome.

Rage

by Jackie Morse Kessler

Grade: Good
Story: Missy cuts herself. Also she's a Rider of the Apocalypse. (See the first book, Hunger, and the third and fourth, Loss and Breath.)

Review: Basically, see Hunger. All my points still apply:
--I still don't like it that Death is described as so attractive and sexy. I mean, I don't mind if he is so much... Because actually, embarrassingly enough, I really like love stories with Death, whether it be grandfatherly affection, as in Discworld, or Romantic as in Keturah and Lord Death. But just ... I really don't like it when he's described as such, especially multiple times. But he's still Death. He's still awesome, even if he IS attractive and sexy. And you know what? War and Death, they do go rather well together.
--And the other three Horsemen are still awesome. They are always awesome and always will be. Why don't more people write stories about the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse? Move over Edward Cullen and the vampires! Move over angels and mermaids and werewolves! Here come the Riders!
--The Issue, in this case cutting, was also handled well, I thought, like the last book. Although, as with the Issue in the last book, I don't really know anything about it, so maybe I'm wrong. I do slightly sympathize more with this Issue than with Anorexia though.

Now here's something that's slightly different from the last book.
This one was about War. War is passionate. In LOTS of different ways. There was a LOT of description of violence in this book, much of it rather gruesome, and a lot of sexual stuff--too much for my taste. Now the violence doesn't worry me too much; in fact, sometimes I almost like it which is slightly worrisome. But I kind of wish there wasn't quite so much lust going around. Anyway.

Anyhow, looking forward to the next one. I believe the next one has a male protagonist, and is about Pestilence, whom I've always been curious about. There's also supposed to be more about the mythology of this world, which would be cool.

P.S. Death shows up on my Top Ten (Or So): Anthropomorphic Personifications of Death.