Review: Pirate Hunter of the Caribbean: The Adventurous Life of Captain Woodes Rogers

Pirate Hunter of the Caribbean: The Adventurous Life of Captain Woodes Rogers by David Cordingly

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



The title is a too obvious attempt to trade on the popularity of the Disney movies (Cordingly was a historical advisor on the first one) and that's too bad because the book stands on its own merits as a lively piece of non-fiction. Woodes Roger's life doesn't quite fill out a book, but add in historical figures who's life he's only one degree removed from, and you've got a good story. The book gets rolling with William Dampier who has a connection to the man that might have been the real Robinson Crusoe before he went on to be Rogers' navigator on a circumnavigation in 1708-1711, on to the actual rescue of that man, then on to Rogers' terms as the first and third Royal Governor of the Bahamas, when the pirate hunting actually comes into the story by Rogers' contracts with former pirates to bring those that didn't take "the pardon". This isn't so much a biography of Rogers as a story of a period of history that he was at near center of much of the time. Well a well researched book with decent references and foot notes for the reader who wants a story with their facts.





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Review: Happily Ever After

Happily Ever After by John Klima

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



"Fairy Tales Retold" is the subtitle, and the only thing truly negative I can say about this collection is that I would have liked to see a broader selection in source material. Why do so many authors want to rework Little Red Riding Hood?

Although some of the books are told in a style that's not my favorite, there's not a bad tale in this book. My favorites, in the order they appear in the book:

Michelle West's heartbreaking version of Beauty and the Beast, "The Rose Garden"
Kelly Link's very original "The Fairy Handbag"
Rober J Howe's "Pinocchio's Diary", a dark story that hits on the reason I've never thought of Pinocchio as a children's story
Wendy Wheeler's "Little Red", gloriously and obviously inspired by another classic piece of literature
Gregory Frost's grown up version of Rapunzel "The Root of the Matter"



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Review: Buddha Standard Time

Buddha Standard Time by Surya Das

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



Stop and smell the roses.

Repeat.


Choose your relationship with the universe from the menu of any religion or philosophy, leaving out the parts that dwell on the past of stress you about the future.

Now stop and smell the roses some more.


Snark aside, I actually thought this was a decent book for bits and bobs about how to dwell in the present.



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Review: Haunted Tales from The Region: Ghosts of Indiana's South Shore

Haunted Tales from The Region: Ghosts of Indiana's South Shore by Dorothy Salvo Davis

My rating: 2 of 5 stars



Is a story a legend if only one person has told that story? In several of these tales, only one person seems to have experienced the manifestation, and by their own admission, they'd been drinking a bit (The Boats, as we of The Region refer to them, are an apparent hot bet of hauntings, especially after you've done the welcome drinks bit).

The one story that did pique my interest was the relationship between an long serving Michigan City Lighthouse keeper and her companion, Salvo Davis includes many of the obituaries and memorials of both ladies, proving that people have always been capable of seeing they best in people, even if they wouldn't or couldn't agree with all of their choices.



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Review: Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

My rating: 2 of 5 stars



Reading the other reviews here, apparently I'm not the only person who didn't know this was YA fiction before they read it. However, I might be the only one who thinks it's being called YA because it's mediocre writing and there are a lot of publishers who think YA means lower standards. In my opinion, it doesn't, and cliched writing is still cliched writing, no matter who the intended audience is. The idea behind the book is something every writer and wanna be writer has done - use a photo as a prompt. Riggs goes all the way, building a very interesting plot around some unusual and some mundane antique photos. But a novel is more than an idea, there's that nasty execution to deal with, and that's where this book falls apart. The dialogue passages are decent, Riggs knows how his speak. But when it comes to action and inner dialogues, the book reads like a quickly written first draft. The book is cliched, flat, and worst of all, dull when the characters aren't being introduced. This is a great looking book, but not so great writing.



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Review: A Dance with Dragons

A Dance with Dragons by George R.R. Martin

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



For a very good review that says almost everything I'd want to say about this book if I were as good at reviewing as she is, see Kelly's review . I agree with everything she says, and double for some of the let downs. The plot is stretched far too thin to cover the approx 1000 pages. There's also the lesson that Martin isn't above playing using "He's dead!.....Or is he????" plot device that works once and then becomes a mark of cheesey writing.

So why still three stars? The physical world of ASOIAF is still the most detailed and rich of any epic, and getting lost there with less than stellar story telling isn't such an awful thing.



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Review: The Inverted Forest: A Novel

The Inverted Forest: A Novel by John Dalton

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



One of the best books I've read this year. Beautiful writing with original, deeply developed characters. Some of them are intriguing, some are heart breaking, some are endearing and some are down right evil, yet none of them are one note. The story appears to be about a young man who, having spent his entire life living down to the expectations others have of him, takes an opportunity to rise above that. However, as the book goes on, the reader discovers that it's not just Wyatt that wants to prove that he is more than meets the eye, but almost everyone in this book, even many of the campers that fateful session at Kindermann Forest Summer Camp.

So why four stars and not five? The time shift at the end seemed unnecessary to me. It brought a supporting character into the main story when she wasn't needed, and added a level of superficiality that hurt the book's literary tone. The story was telling itself up to that point, and then suddenly we have someone who had stayed on the sidelines take over and not add anything that couldn't have been revealed by the main characters themselves.



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Review: The Darling Dahlias and the Naked Ladies

The Darling Dahlias and the Naked Ladies by Susan Wittig Albert

My rating: 2 of 5 stars



Once again, great historical setting with details galore, told in the traditional cozy style of people first, plot second. I'm not a big fan of mixing true crime with cozies, so when one of a fictional member of Al Capone's outfit shows up in Darling to deal with a fictional ex-girlfriend of Capone, I lose all interest in the mystery aspect of the story. But the gardening and life in a small town in the 1930s kept me reading this very light and fluffy story.



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Review: Daughters of the Revolution

Daughters of the Revolution by Carolyn Cooke

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


More a set of linked short stories than a novel, there's so little solid story telling in this book that it goes nowhere. The settings are handled well enough, with obvious references to actual historical events thrown in to establish the time period, but the characters read like plot devices more than people. They're there to demonstrate the societal changes that were occurring for women, not to be flesh and blood lives of their own.



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Review: Before I Go to Sleep

Before I Go to Sleep by S.J. Watson

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


Intriguing plot about an amnesiac who begins to recover memories that don't fit with her current reality. However, the author seems to have confused loss of memory with loss of intelligence, because Christine is just too accepting of her current situation and does little to improve it without others giving her a shove in the right direction. It's not just that she waits to long to ask the obvious questions, it's that she takes so little action to take responsibility for herself. As to the mystery of why her slowly regained memories don't fit, it's no mystery, it's stock characters doing exactly what you think they're going to do.



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