Category: Reviews

Book Review(s): The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants

On By cherylmahoneyIn Reviews, Young Adult2 Comments

Years ago, whenever it first came out, I saw the movie The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, and thought vaguely that I ought to read the book. Much more recently, I was hunting for a new audiobook, and my library chanced to have the first book of Sisterhood by Ann Brashares (read by Angela Goethals) sitting on the shelf—so I listened to it, and then went on to listen to the other four books in the series too.

The series centers around four best friends, Carmen, Lena, Bridget and Tibby, whose mothers met during maternity yoga classes. All born in September, they have been the closest of friends ever since. The summer before they turn sixteen will be their first significant time apart—and right at that time, a pair of blue jeans comes into their lives, which mysteriously fits all four girls perfectly, despite their different shapes and sizes. The girls exchange the pants throughout the summer, using them as a way to stay bonded while they each pursue separate adventures. Continue reading “Book Review(s): The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants” →

Book Review: Dear Luke, We Need To Talk

On By cherylmahoneyIn Reviews2 Comments

Sometimes it’s a book title that draws me in, and that was definitely the case for today’s book: Dear Luke, We Need To Talk, Darth – and Other Pop Culture Correspondences by John Moe.  It’s rather a long title, but it does pretty much encapsulate the book–a series of letters, interview transcripts and journals, putting a new slant on familiar movies, TV shows and songs.

Like anything based on pop culture, these only really work if you know the originals–but Moe seems to have chosen things that are very widely known, if I can judge from my own experience.  I had at least heard of everything that was spoofed, and had some idea of where the jokes were originating.  The book satirizes a broad range, from Jaws (the therapy journal of the shark), to Elvis (a letter from his severely depressed hound dog), to Harry Potter (the diary of an obscure student) to the Grinch (a disgruntled letter from Max). Continue reading “Book Review: Dear Luke, We Need To Talk” →

Book Review: While Mrs. Coverlet Was Away

On By cherylmahoneyIn Juvenile, Reviews7 Comments

I wish I knew why some books from childhood stayed in my memory, helpfully with titles intact, while others faded out. It well may be a question of how long they stayed in my library’s collection, considering I went to the same library from (roughly) birth to age eighteen. I can only assume that While Mrs. Coverlet Was Away by Mary Nash stayed in the collection for a long time, since it stayed in my memory.

The Mrs. Coverlet of the title is housekeeper to the three Persever children, whose mother has died and whose father is in New Zealand on business. When Mrs. Coverlet has to rush suddenly away on a family emergency, the three children decide that they can manage quite well on their own without any adults to interfere. They find it very easy to hide Mrs. Coverlet’s absence from their neighbors, but keeping enough money is more of a challenge—until they discover the key in youngest brother Toad’s strangely-colored cat, and in a concoction he cooks up with remarkable results.

This is a cute, quaint little book that I had fun revisiting. Although—they say that when you go back to a place you visited as a child it may seem smaller. And this book seemed shorter! I was sure that the question of the Toad’s cat wasn’t resolved until the end of the book (not halfway through), and that the townspeople became strangely energized by the Toad’s sauce for, well, quite a while (not a chapter or two). Continue reading “Book Review: While Mrs. Coverlet Was Away” →

Book Review: The Crown of Dalemark

On By cherylmahoneyIn Fantasy, Reviews, Young Adult9 Comments

The first three books of the Dalemark Quartet by Diana Wynne Jones seem for all the world like they have nothing much to do with each other—until we finally get to Book Four, The Crown of Dalemark, which ties it all together. The funny thing is, it didn’t come along until twenty years after the third book. It makes me wonder if Jones had the fourth book in mind all along, or if she looked back at three slightly-connected books and decided to bring them together.

The book opens with a return to a familiar character, Mitt, who in Drowned Ammet botched an assassination and escaped to the “free North” of Dalemark. Unfortunately, he now finds himself the victim of blackmailing by a northern Earl—his friends will suffer if he doesn’t assassinate Noreth, a noble girl who claims to be the daughter of the One, and plans to unite all of Dalemark.

In the second section, we jump some two hundred years into the future, to a much more modern-feeling Dalemark, and meet Maewen. She happens to be the perfect image of Noreth. A magician(ish) sends her back to Mitt’s time, to take the place of the disappeared Noreth. With hazy ideas of how the history of the time is meant to turn out, Maewen tries to lead her small band of followers, including Mitt and Moril, the minstrel from Cart and Cwidder, to ride the “green roads” and unite Dalemark. But the ancient evil we met in The Spellcoats is stalking them, and someone in Maewen’s band is a traitor.

I really wanted to love this book—and I ended up liking it, so that’s not really so bad. This is much longer than the first two books, and it has a much more sweeping, epic feel to it. We’re dealing with complex plots and significant events, and the fate of the country as well as the particular characters plainly hangs in the balance. Continue reading “Book Review: The Crown of Dalemark” →

Book Review: The Spellcoats

On By cherylmahoneyIn Fantasy, Reviews, Young Adult5 Comments

My favorite book of Diana Wynne Jones’ Dalemark Quartet is Book Three: The Spellcoats.  Oddly enough, it exists completely separately from the previous two books, to the point that (barring one epilogue-type note at the end), you can’t tell you’re in the same series when you read it.  In fact, I read my library’s copy a couple of times without ever realizing it was part of something else!

The Spellcoats is set centuries (millennia?) before the previous two books in the quartet.  Tanaqui, a young woman who is a highly skilled weaver, lives with her father and her siblings along the Great River.  When invaders from across the sea plunge the country into war, Tanaqui and her siblings flee down the river, in danger from their own people because of their resemblence to the invaders.  At the mouth of the river they meet the true enemy, a powerful magician intent on stealing souls.  Tanaqui must learn about her family’s past and her own magic to save her family and the country that will, eventually, become Dalemark. Continue reading “Book Review: The Spellcoats” →