Reading Rambo

I got a lot of confusing feelings about this book. Like, hey, it's cool that you're doing a backstory on the Queen of Hearts from Alice in Wonderland. I am INTO it. But like...how...sympathetic are we going to make her.



Or, more to the point, how UN-INSANE are we going to make her? Are we going to make Wonderland a place where anything makes sense? Wonderland is where the Jabberwocky lives, and therefore where the author lives who wrote 'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves/Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:/All mimsy were the borogroves,/And the mome raths outgrabe.

But yeah, all those people are just noooormal.

So...the deal here is that the princess of Wonderland is named Dinah (sure), and her father rules Wonderland, but he's a bloodthirsty tyrant who hates her (and maybe thinks her mom banged another dude? unclear). He brings in some girl he says is his bastard daughter (suspicious) and she's super pretty, so immediately you're like "oh, no way is Dinah t…

The Time Fetch is a delightful romp through ponderings of atoms, time, and Christmas cookies. 

I snatched it from someone's table at Book Expo America last year (me: "Can I take this?" guy: "um...maybe?" me: "ok cool" *takes it*) and it's been sitting on my shelf ever since. UNTIL NOW, when I read it and loved it.

So there are these little time-gnat/fairy things and they steal tiny bits of time. Not so you'd really notice. It's just that when time seems to go faster than normal and you are shocked it is already 2 o'clock, and how did that happen so quickly?--time-gnats. (note: they are not called time-gnats in the book, but it how they are best described)


At a certain time of year, namely, the solstice, they go back into their home (the time fetch), which is a little rock/walnut-type thing, and they wait to be picked up. But if someone disturbs the time fetch, like an idiot teenage boy named Edward who didn't do his homework assignm…

Our journey through the Megan Whalen Turner series continues! With The Queen of Attolia. I was assured by certain parties that this would be much better than The Thief, despite me liking The Thief muchly. I HAVE SOME THOUGHTS.


So The Thief was pretty much a big road trip book, and this is more a sitting around, plotting & scheming book. THE SCHEMES ARE COOL, but I do like me some road tripping, so that was a lost element IMO. Along with the road trips came the made up mythology stories (more made up than normal since they came from Megan Whalen Turner's mind and not the zeitgeist of an entire nation), and in this book there is only ONE made up mythology story. It's a really good one. But still. One.

In Queen of Attolia, we're still in the place that is basically Ancient Greece, with the kingdoms of Eddis, Attolia, and Sounis. This book obviously has a pretty big focus on Attolia, but the series overall focuses on the dynamics between these countries (kingdoms? places? …

Kathleen Hale's kind of nutty. We all know that. I started liking her when she responded to that 'Against YA' piece from last June with this piece of brilliance. "This woman is hilarious," said I. "Does she have any books out?"

And yes. She does. It's called No One Else Can Have You, which, when I was creeping on her Instagram feed, I'd thought was just a very funny slogan on a baseball hat she was wearing. But no. It was book promotion.



You can tell through her Instagram, Twitter and various articles (particularly this one about killing feral hogs) that she's a bit off. So it wasn't a huge surprise to me that she went to someone's home and was a big weirdo to them. I think I assumed people just knew that that was a Kathleen Hale thing, and not some "All authors could think this was ok!" sort of thing.

Anyway. I ordered her book. From her. Because that way she would draw in it, and what is the point of owning books anymore …

I think it was Elizabeth Fama (I want her book covers as posters) who told me to read The Thief. AND I TRIED TO TAKE THIS ADVICE. But the library kept not having it. Then it finally had it, I checked it out and -- oh it's in first person.

You know when you go into something expecting one thing, and because it's NOT that thing, you're like "I CANNOT DO THIS." Even if the thing is really good? Yes, so I had to put The Thief down for a couple months, and only the other week when I was noodling around Oyster did I pick it up again.

It's a YA/middle grade book about a thief (ah-ha!) who's basically in Ancient Greece, but it's a place called Sounis, which is right by the kingdoms of Eddis and Attolia. Said thief ("Gen") is in prison. For STEALING something (surprise!) and is basically just languishing away in misery and filth when the king's adviser comes and gets him! "I need you to steal something for me" is essentially how it goes…

I have great amounts of love for YA lit. But a specific kind of it, which is what I'm going to term "fanciful and well-written lit for 10 to 12-year olds."
Part of it is assuredly centered in nostalgia, but the other part is that good books are good books. I might have a different reaction to The Mysterious Benedict Society now than I would have when I was 12 (or at least I hope I do), but it's still a Very Good Book and I thoroughly enjoyed it from my current vantage point.
Someone on twitter was discussing atrocities performed on Gaddafi before he was killed, and it made me think of A Series of Unfortunate Events. For those unfamiliar, it's semi-gothic, extremely funny, and consists of 13 books. The first nine are excellent. The others are okay until we got to the last one, entitled The End. I hate The End. It sucks. If I ever meet Daniel Handler, I'm going to scream at him, despite all the good work he did in the others.
...but that is not related to what hap…

Hunger Games was way better than I thought it was going to be. Because I didn't want to let myself like it, but then I did, DESPITE MYSELF. I don't even know how technically "good" it is; it's just really entertaining. Which then makes me feel a bit nasty because that's why the people at the Capitol watch the Games. For entertainment. So I'm really like the stupid Capitol people. I mean, I can live with that, this all being fictional, but I feel like it's a dirty trick on the part of the author. *shakes fist*
I still thoroughly plan on reading the next two, even if I am a bit annoyed by the direction I believe it's going to take (down with the oppressive regime! let's outsmart them by being sneaky and out-of-the-box!). If anything, it's taught me that I don't care at all that girls were arguing to death about the Twilight battle of Edward vs Jacob. Because I would engage in a lengthy debate about Peeta vs Gale, and I haven't even re…

So, despite railing against YA book blogs, I do indeed read YA fiction. But I like to think of the YA I read as "not shitty," and therefore, it is different than what those blogs talk about.
Last year I became a big fan of Rick Riordan. No, his prose isn't the most carefully crafted, but eh. He blends mythology into modern life really well, and he's actually much funnier than his dorky author pic would have you think (this picture makes him look like he still plays with Howdy Doody dolls).
So I bought The Throne of Fire in May (the second in The Kane Chronicles trilogy) and, as I am horrible about reading books I own, have only recently picked it up. It's Riordan's Egyptian mythology series (the other is Greek/Roman), and it's really good and I very much like it, but it's made me face some things about myself, people. Some unpleasant things. Yeah. Short sentences make better points.
The book blogger's default position on censorship is "GAHHHHHH …

Hello! It's a Happy Labor Day (or Labour Day, as our friends to the north say) posting from Reading Rambo! Did you forget the blog was called that? Because to be honest, I do sometimes. But I guess I tend to think of my blogging compatriots by their blog titles, so maybe right now you're looking at me like you have no idea what I'm talking about.
Right then! In honor of today, I finished a book. Yes, a book. The Mysterious Benedict Society. And OH, what a journey it was. An awesome, awesome journey, with illustrations by Carson Ellis of Decemberists fame.
I possibly laughed. I know I cried, because I am an emotional mess today (turns out it wasn't allergies, but rather a pernicious cold, which I am still battling), and I pretty much all-around loved it.
Those who are my friends on Goodreads, don't hate on me for using the same review in both places. In this one, you get bonus stuff! (see above) So it all turns out well in the end.
So there's children's lit and…