Having fun at BEA! |
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Hi gang,
Just wanted to check in & say we're both having a blast (albeit an exhausted one already!) at BEA, and we can't wait to share more with you through Armchair BEA and some smaller daily updates on this blog.
For the time being, here we are wearing our Evil Librarian devil horns in anticipation of interviewing Michelle Knudsen - keep an eye out on Armchair BEA for our interview!
xoxo,
Arianna & Amber
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Wednesday, May 28, 2014
BEA Update #1
Tuesday, May 27, 2014
ArmchairBEA Introductions ~ AmberBug
| ArmchairBEA Introductions ~ AmberBug |
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Pick 5 questions from those listed below: 1) Please tell us a little bit about yourself: Who are you? How long have you been blogging? Why did you get into blogging? Where in the world are you blogging from? 2) Describe your blog in just one sentence. Then, list your social details -- Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc. -- so we can connect more online. 3) What genre do you read the most? I love to read because ___________________ . 4) What was your favorite book read last year? What’s your favorite book so far this year? 5) What does your favorite/ideal reading space look like? (Pinterest encouraged!) 6) What is your favorite blogging resource? 7) Spread the love by naming your favorite blogs/bloggers (doesn't necessarily have to be book blogs/bloggers). 8) Share your favorite book or reading related quote. 9) If you were stranded on a deserted island, what 3 books would you bring? Why? What 3 non-book items would you bring? Why? 10) What book would you love to see as a movie? |
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Dear Reader,
Hi Everyone, AmberBug from ShelfNotes here. I’m so excited to be sharing my blogging self with Armchair BEA this year. Not only will I be going to BookExpo this year but I’ll be blogging all about it and posting it on Armchair BEA, stay tuned! One of the things that makes ShelfNotes so different is the wide variety of reviews we offer. Between the two of us (Arianna and Amber) we cover everything from Graphic Novels, Teen Lit, Historical Fictions, Literary, Non Fiction, and everything in between! Coming soon, we’ll be working on reviewing cookbooks (I don’t want to give it all away but it’ll be super fun).
So without further ado, I give you my Armchair BEA Introduction:
What genre do you read most?
Literary Fiction, I suppose but my taste is pretty eclectic. I try to mix things up throughout the year. For example, if I just read a “horror” book, I would usually steer clear from that genre for the next couple books. I like the “freshness” this creates and it makes it so that a topic never seems hashed out over and over again. I have trouble reading more than one book in a series unless the book rates about 4 stars, and even then I’ll wait to read the next one and space it between a few books.
Part 1: If you were stranded on a deserted Island, what 3 books would you bring & why?
-Les Misérables by Victor Hugo - One of my favorites, and on the plus side… the book is really long!
-Moby Dick by Herman Melville - Haven’t read this yet (yes, I know!) and what better time to tackle a book of this magnitude (and setting)!
-The Stranger Next Door by Amélia Northomb - Another book I adore but I would love to go over this book with a fine tooth comb.
Part 2: What 3 non-book items would you bring & why?
-My Cat, Richard Dean Anderson (also known as MacGyver). He is the best cat ever and would be able to hunt down some smaller animals to eat, and maybe even figure out a way to get off the island.
-My boyfriend (does that make me cruel?)
-My mind keeps going back to books… so books, that’s my final answer.
What was your favorite book read last year? What’s your favorite book so far this year?
Last year? “The World According to Garp” by John Irving.
This year, so far? “Oryx & Crake” by Margaret Atwood.
Share your favorite book or reading related quote.
If you don’t like reading, you’re doing it wrong. Not quite sure who said this but I love the quote anyways. The quote is actually highlighted on our bookmark/business cards.
What does your favorite/ideal reading space look like?
-My favorite space is outside on my porch on a nice day.
-My ideal is at Fishers Island, on THAT porch on a nice day.
Happy Reading,
AmberBug
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ArmchairBEA Introductions ~ Arianna
| ArmchairBEA Introductions ~ Arianna |
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Pick 5 questions from those listed below: 1) Please tell us a little bit about yourself: Who are you? How long have you been blogging? Why did you get into blogging? Where in the world are you blogging from? 2) Describe your blog in just one sentence. Then, list your social details -- Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc. -- so we can connect more online. 3) What genre do you read the most? I love to read because ___________________ . 4) What was your favorite book read last year? What’s your favorite book so far this year? 5) What does your favorite/ideal reading space look like? (Pinterest encouraged!) 6) What is your favorite blogging resource? 7) Spread the love by naming your favorite blogs/bloggers (doesn't necessarily have to be book blogs/bloggers). 8) Share your favorite book or reading related quote. 9) If you were stranded on a deserted island, what 3 books would you bring? Why? What 3 non-book items would you bring? Why? 10) What book would you love to see as a movie? |
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Saturday, May 24, 2014
Eleanor & Park (review by Arianna)
| Eleanor & Park Rainbow Rowell 3.5 / 5 |
 First Sentence "He'd stopped trying to bring her back." |
| Publisher's Description: Two misfits. One extraordinary love. Eleanor... Red hair, wrong clothes. Standing behind him until he turns his head. Lying beside him until he wakes up. Making everyone else seem drabber and flatter and never good enough...Eleanor. Park... He knows she'll love a song before he plays it for her. He laughs at her jokes before she ever gets to the punch line. There's a place on his chest, just below his throat, that makes her want to keep promises...Park. Set over the course of one school year, this is the story of two star-crossed sixteen-year-olds—smart enough to know that first love almost never lasts, but brave and desperate enough to try. |
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Dear Reader, I read this a while ago, but it's taken me some time to get around to writing a review. I guess because I didn't love OR hate it, really, so my dispassion helped me avoid considering it really at all. I actually did LOVE reading it, weirdly enough. It was an engaging story which I couldn't stop listening to. The audiobook was read by two different voices (Eleanor's and Park's) and it was well done by both the (I think they were) teenaged readers. The story was really interesting: Eleanor is a new girl who was considered a serious "weirdo" in the 1980's by her schoolmates, who connects with quiet but cool Park over comic books and music. I loved the premise, of course - I was certainly never the "cool kid" in high school, so I understand Eleanor's situation (although I was lucky never to be treated as poorly as she was!). I loved the idea of the two bonding over the kinds of things I love. I loved that they were two misfits who found love with each other, and how they supported and cared for each other so well, despite all of the obstacles to their being together. And I don't really know what I didn't love about this book, but there was definitely something. As much as I could really relate to a lot in the book, I just couldn't connect to it on the level I wanted to. There was something holding me back. And that's why I haven't been able to review this well - because I can't really pinpoint my feelings towards it. I would definitely recommend this book to people, too. I just can't express why I would, save from that it's about the 80's and mix tapes and teenage romance and how you feel at that age that you can save each other from the rest of the world. I'm gonna change this to a 3.5, at least (I had it rated as a 3 before). I'm sorry that I can't really review this one well. (Maybe part of it was the build-up from others who had read and enjoyed it - almost nothing lives up to the hype, I've found, and my expectations are probably always too high.) I'd still definitely recommend reading it. Yours, Arianna P.S. Amber's review of this book was WAY more articulate than mine, and actually explains why she felt the way she did about the novel. I think she's right - it started off GREAT, but didn't stay great, and that's really where the problem lay with it. I think the ending was ultimately also great, but the middle had some blah-ish parts. Plus, she's right: having to be dragged back to the feeling of teen angst and super-dramatic relationships might just have not worked as well with those of us who were lucky to survive it and move past it, haha. Thanks, Amber! |
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Support Shelf Notes! Purchase your copy of Eleanor & Park here:
Thursday, May 22, 2014
Dark Places
| Dark Places Gillian Flynn 3.5 / 5 |
 First Sentence "I have a meanness inside me, real as an organ." |
| Publisher's Description: "I have a meanness inside me, real as an organ." Libby Day was seven when her mother and two sisters were murdered in “The Satan Sacrifice of Kinnakee, Kansas.” As her family lay dying, little Libby fled their tiny farmhouse into the freezing January snow. She lost some fingers and toes, but she survived–and famously testified that her fifteen-year-old brother, Ben, was the killer. Twenty-five years later, Ben sits in prison, and troubled Libby lives off the dregs of a trust created by well-wishers who’ve long forgotten her. The Kill Club is a macabre secret society obsessed with notorious crimes. When they locate Libby and pump her for details–proof they hope may free Ben–Libby hatches a plan to profit off her tragic history. For a fee, she’ll reconnect with the players from that night and report her findings to the club… and maybe she’ll admit her testimony wasn’t so solid after all. As Libby’s search takes her from shabby Missouri strip clubs to abandoned Oklahoma tourist towns, the narrative flashes back to January 2, 1985. The events of that day are relayed through the eyes of Libby’s doomed family members–including Ben, a loner whose rage over his shiftless father and their failing farm have driven him into a disturbing friendship with the new girl in town. Piece by piece, the unimaginable truth emerges, and Libby finds herself right back where she started–on the run from a killer. |
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Dear Reader, I could not put this book down. I selected it, having read Gone Girl, on the recommendation of a friend who assured me it was way better than Flynn's most famous novel to date. I do agree with the friend, although I still didn't adore it. (I've since had Flynn's novel Sharp Objects also recommended as even better than both, so perhaps I'll have to check that out, as well!) In any case, both of the books I've read by this author have been gripping and suspenseful, and they constantly throw you for loops. You cannot stop reading until you learn the truth! I really enjoy those sorts of books, even if they are not my favorites, and even if they're not the best literature in the world. You can't help but be sucked in by the characters, dying to learn their motives and certain you know what the real story is, only to be thrown off the scent by a little clue tossed in by the author. (This is very much like Gone Girl, for those who are familiar with the feeling of reading that.) Libby is not a very likable character from the get-go. She's lazy and unmotivated and a general misanthrope, although all of that can of course be explained by her formative experience of hearing her mother and siblings murdered when she was seven years old. The author thought up a really clever way to draw this totally uninterested character back into real life, including back to the night of the murders, which she'd been assiduously avoiding for over two decades. Flynn also introduces a wonderful cast of characters, both in the flashbacks as well as in the wide assortment of wacky personalities that Libby encounters as she searches for the truth. They are enough to save the book from Libby's attitude, and ultimately you kind of end up liking her, I think. It's just that you have to read the entire book to really understand who she is and where she comes from. I think I especially connected with this book because it was essentially about the Satanism scare that was a popular scapegoat for many bad things that happened in the 1990s. I vaguely recall that being a thing, and that many people suspected their own loved ones of being drawn in by the devil. It was a sensation much like the Salem witch trials or McCarthy's Commie hunt. I always find those "groupthink" situations fascinating; how people buy into them and how they will find ways to make anything fit into their predefined conceptions. We live in a strange and fearful world, we do. Yours, Arianna |
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Support Shelf Notes! Purchase your copy of Dark Places here:
Wednesday, May 21, 2014
Mathilda
| Mathilda Mary Shelley 3/5 |
 First Sentence "It is only four o'clock; but it is winter and the sun has already set: there are no clouds in the clear, frosty sky to reflect the slant beams, but the air itself is tinged with a slight roseate colour which is again reflected on the snow that covers the ground." |
Publisher's Description: But my father, my beloved and most wretched father... Would he never overcome the fierce passion that now held pitiless dominion over him? With its shocking theme of father-daughter incest, Mary Shelley’s publisher—her father, known for his own subversive books—not only refused to publish Mathilda, he refused to return her only copy of the manuscript, and the work was never published in her lifetime. His suppression of this passionate novella is perhaps understandable—unlike her first book, Frankenstein, written a year earlier, Mathilda uses fantasy to study a far more personal reality. It tells the story of a young woman whose mother died in her childbirth—just as Shelly’s own mother died after hers—and whose relationship with her bereaved father becomes sexually charged as he conflates her with his lost wife, while she becomes involved with a handsome poet. Yet despite characters clearly based on herself, her father, and her husband, the narrator’s emotional and relentlessly self-examining voice lifts the story beyond autobiographical resonance into something more transcendent: a driven tale of a brave woman’s search for love, atonement, and redemption. It took more than a century before the manuscript Mary Shelley gave her father was rediscovered. It is published here as a stand-alone volume for the first time. |
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Dear Reader, Did I tell you how much I ADORE Melville House for coming up with a Novella subscription service? Each month, I get two small but colorful volumes dropped at my door! Just the right size, and I get to read some classic lit mixed in with all the other books I happen to be reading. Genius! Want to be included in the fun? Check it out here! The Art of the Novella. So yes, now that I have that out the way... I can tell you ALL about how this first Novella didn't quite strike my fancy, unfortunately. Oh Mathilda, this one seemed promising but it became apparent early on that this was going to be very long-winded (even for a novella). Don't get me wrong, it was written beautifully (I mean it is Mary Shelley!) To be frank, the book started off pretty interesting but after the part with her father panned out and we met her poet beau, I found it downright dull. I can barely understand the idea behind her father lusting after her (super creepy). I mean yes, the father wasn't in her life growing up and I'm sure she looked quite a bit like her Mother when they finally met... but REALLY? To make matters worse, he made her life miserable because of his own guilt. The guy was a terrible human being, so why should I care that he met his fate tragically? I don't. It made me so angry that Mathilda succumbs to depression after he passes, she has the chance at a normal life but she is stuck under the shadow of her dastardly father. It wasn't a waste to read this though, the book is quite unique and has a very interesting background story. Apparently, Shelley and her Father shared a different kind of relationship themselves (cough, gag). When Mary wrote this novel, her father (who was sent the Novella to be published) never allowed her to do so, saying that the themes were "disgusting and detestable". This Novella wasn't published until 1959, but was written 1819. The story behind the book is fascinating and definitely gives the book a little more depth. I can't wait to check out my next Novella, and I encourage you to join me in this endeavor. Happy Reading, AmberBug |
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An Untamed State
| An Untamed State Roxane Gay 4.5/5 |
 First Sentence "Once upon a time, in a far-off land, I was kidnapped by a gang of fearless yet terrified young men with so much impossible hope beating inside their bodies it burned their very skin and strengthened their will right through their bodies." |
Publisher's Description: Roxane Gay is a powerful new literary voice whose short stories and essays have already earned her an enthusiastic audience. In An Untamed State, she delivers an assured debut about a woman kidnapped for ransom, her captivity as her father refuses to pay and her husband fights for her release over thirteen days, and her struggle to come to terms with the ordeal in its aftermath. Mireille Duval Jameson is living a fairy tale. The strong-willed youngest daughter of one of Haiti’s richest sons, she has an adoring husband, a precocious infant son, by all appearances a perfect life. The fairy tale ends one day when Mireille is kidnapped in broad daylight by a gang of heavily armed men, in front of her father’s Port au Prince estate. Held captive by a man who calls himself The Commander, Mireille waits for her father to pay her ransom. As it becomes clear her father intends to resist the kidnappers, Mireille must endure the torments of a man who resents everything she represents. An Untamed State is a novel of privilege in the face of crushing poverty, and of the lawless anger that corrupt governments produce. It is the story of a willful woman attempting to find her way back to the person she once was, and of how redemption is found in the most unexpected of places. An Untamed State establishes Roxane Gay as a writer of prodigious, arresting talent. |
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Dear Reader, Wow, just wow. This book is very powerful, cruel and terror inducing. After reading this, you might never leave home again. If you know anything about my tastes (from reading this blog, or just knowing me), you'll know why a book like this will shine for me. Not because I need to be shocked but I need to "feel" something, when a book elicits an emotion (good or bad), the Author is doing something right. Roxane Gay did everything right with "An Untamed State", so much that I even had tears in my eyes and even had quite a few gasping moments (which is VERY unlike me, it takes a lot to make me upset). Roxane writes so believable, I could feel way too much of what the main character was going through (it was that good). I almost wished the Author didn't have that talent due to the graphic nature of the novel (although, I think that was the idea, to get through to you in that way). The main character, Mireille is a privileged woman who lives a pretty "normal" life with a caring husband and a beautiful new baby. She was born in Haiti but the family moved to the United States during her early childhood. The parents decided to move back to Haiti when the kids had grown up and the family business was booming. Although the family comes from Haiti, Mireille considers herself an American with Haitian parents. The family has an enormous compound in Haiti and will never be "without" (which is a stark contrast to the majority of residents of Haiti). Mireille's friends don't understand her origins very well, thinking Haiti to only be the one depicted on the news (poor and crippled). Her world falls apart when she is kidnapped (right in front of her family compound in Haiti), and things grow darker when her father refuses to pay the ransom, thinking if he gives in, the kidnappers will just come back and take another member of his family. Her husband, not having the money to pay the kidnappers, tries to find another way to find Mireille. The worst part, Mireille is so proud and strong, she doesn't give into the kidnappers demands of her and she ends up suffering at the hands of her captors because of it. She suffers some unimaginable things and almost everything you CAN imagine. Part of the skewed beauty of the story is the main character discovering the other side of Haiti, even though the circumstances, kidnapping, aren't ideal for a sociology lesson. Before reading this book, I was very unaware that Haiti was so dangerous. I've heard of kidnapping cases but didn't know what countries and areas they were prevalent in. An Untamed State really opened my eyes to certain things, I learned quite a bit about a place that I knew only by name. This book also made me search within myself, asking if I would have been strong enough, if I would have survived? How would I have coped with the situation after? The entire situation is so far removed from my life and yet... It had me thinking and trying to relate in ways I couldn't fathom. One of my favorite parts of the book was the relationship that formed with Mireille and her Mother In-Law, both when Mireille came and stayed to nurse her back to health and then when she herself was nursed back to health. I found that relationship comforting and true, the way her Mother In-Law treated her before she truly got to know her. I'm always fascinated when characters go through a transformation in their way of thinking (especially in this case), being weary of someone who comes from a different culture but coming around in the end and seeing that everyone has feelings that are not unlike our own. I'd like to say this book should be read by everyone, but I know there will be those who won't be able to handle it. This book will make you feel dirty and it will hurt to read it, but I'm still going to recommend it to everyone who I think can stomach it. Roxane Gay brings up so many topics that are gritty and challenging, she wants us to really look inside the deepest, dark parts of ourselves and come out with a little clarity. I think I've come out with a better understanding of Haiti, human trafficking, bondage, rape, kidnapping and how far a human mind can go before snapping. So, if you think you can stomach a few scenes within the book that will make you queasy, then you should read this book and learn from it (more about yourself and the world around you). Step out of the bubble and join us in the land of uncomfortable ideas, I believe it's important to feel squirmy about things every now and then. Happy Reading, AmberBug |
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