Category: Reviews

Book Review: Cold Summer

On By cherylmahoneyIn Reviews, Science Fiction, Young Adult1 Comment

I love a good time-travel novel, especially because people have come up with so many different ways time-travel can work, and so many different challenges that arise.  Cold Summer by Gwen Cole was not the most unusual, but it had an interesting premise.

Kale has always disappeared–his friends and family have simply treated it as his way, to apparently go off for a few days at a time.  But at seventeen, the disappearances are happening more and more frequently, and only a trusted few understand why.  Kale is a time-traveler, unable to control his slips back into the past.  To make matters worse, for the past six months Kale has only gone back to one place: World War II, as a soldier on the front lines.  In the present he’s suffering from PTSD and a growing estrangement from his life.  Meanwhile, next door neighbor and childhood friend Harper has recently moved back to town, dealing with her own family crises.  Something begins to kindle between Harper and Kale, even while Kale’s time-travel threatens to tear him out of his present-day life for good.

This was a little bit like The Time-Traveler’s Wife-light (with 100% less nudity!)  Kale slips through time suddenly, uncontrollably and apparently randomly, until his recent ongoing secondary life in World War II.  The challenge of living two parallel lives was intriguing, especially with one as intense as the front lines of a war. Continue reading “Book Review: Cold Summer” →

Book Review: Between Heaven and Mirth

On By cherylmahoneyIn Reviews1 Comment

I don’t think people in general fully appreciate the humor in the Bible.  I was lamenting this while on a retreat a few months ago, and a woman at my table recommended Between Heaven and Mirth by James Martin, SJ.  On my list it went, and in due time it landed in my spiritual reading slot.  It was excellent!

It turned out to be not quite so much about humor in the Bible (though there was some of that), but rather about how humor and especially joy are at the heart of Christianity.  Or as the subheading says, “Why Joy, Humor and Laughter Are at the Heart of the Spiritual Life.”  There’s also extensive historical discussion about why this is frequently not the viewpoint—or, in other words, why religion can be so grim sometimes.

I enjoyed this one a lot.  I love the emphasis on bringing humor and joy into spirituality—or, rather, why it doesn’t need to be brought in because it should be there all along.  Martin gives examples in history of joyful saints and religious figures, and brings out the more joyful aspects of the Bible, some of them not always apparent.  He argues that many of Jesus’ parables would have been seen as funny in their day; we may intellectually know that he’s exaggerating what a normal wheat crop would be, but an agrarian culture might have been much more struck in a humorous way (as they say, jokes aren’t funny when they have to be explained). Continue reading “Book Review: Between Heaven and Mirth” →

Classic Review: Emily of New Moon

On By cherylmahoneyIn Reviews, Young AdultLeave a comment

Emily of New MoonHaving just finished rereading the Anne of Green Gables series, I’m about to reread L. M. Montgomery’s other most famous heroine’s trilogy, starting with Emily of New Moon.  I thought it would be fun to look back at what I had to say last time I reread!

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It’s been far too long since I read Emily of New Moon by L. M. Montgomery–ten years, I think, since I took the trilogy with me on a school trip to England.  In fact, I found a customs form tucked into my book!

Emily is a lovely and beautiful tale of an imaginative girl who dreams of being a writer–of climbing the Alpine Path to success.  She lives with relatives at New Moon farm, and runs about with her devoted friends, Ilse, Teddy and Perry.

The book sounds at a glance like it’s an opposite number to Anne of Green Gables, and there are certainly overlaps–kind yet not quite understanding guardians, the beautiful expanses of nature in Prince Edward Island, the bosom friends, flights of imagination and inevitable scrapes.  But from the very beginning, when Emily learns in devastating fashion that her beloved father is dying, there’s a tragic strain here that gives a different color to the entire trilogy.

The difference is visually clear, looking at Emily’s midnight hair versus Anne’s fiery red locks, but it goes much deeper than that.  Emily seems to feel things more deeply than Anne (despite all her drama)–both joys and sorrows.

The book also touches (with extreme discretion, of course!) on more mature subjects.  There’s Mr. Carpenter, Emily’s irascible teacher, who drinks on weekends because he feels his life has been a failure.  And there’s Ilse’s mother, who gossip has it left her husband and baby to run off with a sea captain.  Anyone who thinks Montgomery only wrote gauzy fairy tales with no shadows is wrong.

However–don’t come to the conclusion that the book is dark or morbid or depressing!  It’s still Montgomery–and it’s still Prince Edward Island–and there’s still more beauty than sadness.  Emily has her trials and her sorrows but she is also surrounded by love and buoyed up by her dreams, her joy in the beauties of nature and her passion for writing.  And while it’s been some time, I don’t remember being strongly conscious of the darker undertones when I read this at a younger age.

It’s fascinating to read this after all my reading of Montgomery’s journal.  There are strong autobiographical strands, especially in Emily’s writing goals and experiences.  I get a fun little moment of recognition every time I spot something from her real life–like when Emily’s aunt describes her blank verse poem as “very blank” (LMM’s father said the same once) or when Emily mentions a compact with a friend to never say good-bye (LMM had such an agreement with her beloved cousin, Frede).

You know I’m always going to recommend Montgomery books.  🙂  Emily of New Moon is a beautiful novel with an appealing heroine–and for adult readers, more depth and maturity than you might expect.

Other reviews:
Reading the End
Books4Fun
Bookshelves of Doom
Anyone else?

Buy it here: Emily of New Moon

Book Review: Monstrous Regiment by Terry Pratchett

On By cherylmahoneyIn Reviews1 Comment

Monstrous Regiment by Terry Pratchett has been on my radar as a soon-to-read Discworld novel, so when I needed a new audiobook and it was available–perfect!  This turned out to be one of Pratchett’s more overtly satirical novels.  It was still funny, but there were also some darker elements highlighted.

This one takes out of the familiar territories of Ankh-Morpork or Lancre, to Borogravia, a tiny country fighting a war against all its neighbors.  Polly’s brother Paul went away to war some time before, and now Polly has decided to set out in search of him–by joining the army disguised as a boy, of course.  She joins the last party of recruits heading for the front, a motley group including a troll, a vampire and an Igor (pretty much what you’d think).  It become quickly clear that nearly all are girls in disguise, although their commanding lieutenant remains blissfully unaware of that fact.  Meanwhile, Borogravia’s war is disrupting transcontinental communication for Ankh-Morpork, and Commander Vimes of the Night Watch has been sent to handle the situation.

Pratchett is at some of his gender-political satirizing best here.  A thematic issue since the third Discworld book (Equal Rites) he’s fully engaging here.  There’s much discussion of how the world feels different (and regards the girls differently) when they do something as simple as putting on a pair of trousers.  I don’t think (I might be wrong) that Pratchett ever directly states that women are as capable as men (but not necessarily wiser or more interested in peace).  He simply tells a story that shows equality between the genders in no uncertain terms.  It’s far more effective that way. Continue reading “Book Review: Monstrous Regiment by Terry Pratchett” →

Star Wars: Thrawn

On By cherylmahoneyIn Reviews, Science FictionLeave a comment

Sometimes I hear about a book and promptly put it on reserve at the library.  Such was the case with Star Wars: Thrawn by Timothy Zahn.  Thrawn is the charming, brilliant villain of the landmark Thrawn Trilogy, the three books that probably set the path of the Star Wars universe prior to the new movies—and are the major sticking point for me in not wanting to throw out said-extended universe.  But this new book, after the demotion of the other books, writes Thrawn back into the official Star Wars canon, with a prequel set just before A New Hope.  It wasn’t all I hoped for—and was an oddly un-Star Wars book—but was great fun to read all the same.

This book charts the rise of Thrawn within the Empire.  He belongs to a race called the Chiss, who are known only by legend within the reaches of the Empire.  He’s found alone on a planet on the Outer Rim and impresses the Imperials enough to be taken back to Coruscant—where he briefly meets the Emperor, who takes an interest in his career.  From there we watch as Thrawn, and his interpreter/protégé Eli Vanto, work through the Imperial Academy and up through the ranks.  Meanwhile on a parallel path, Arindha loses her family’s mine to Imperial takeover and sets out to wrest power back through rising in the Empire’s political structure.

This was a very good and engaging book that felt…not very Star Wars.  Most of the usual hallmarks were missing.  None of the film characters appeared or even were referenced, save a brief cameo from the Emperor and a briefer one from Darth Vader.  The Rebel Alliance is barely a whisper at this point, and while readers can guess that the Empire is buying up great quantities of a special metal to build the Death Star, that never takes front stage.  In a mostly human Imperial navy there were few recognizable alien species, and with the Jedi gone I don’t think the Force came up even once. Continue reading “Star Wars: Thrawn” →