Customer Comments

grrlpup has commented on (15) products.

The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia by Ursula Le Guin

grrlpup, August 1, 2012

Can someone who feels alienated from two societies come to be a bridge between them? Ursula LeGuin's elegant writing and sympathetic main character pulled me along in this utopian-or-is-it novel. A book that studies the structure of societies is in danger of being static and boringly descriptive, but the structure of the book-- starting at a decision point, then alternately following the characters forward and going back to illuminate what led them to that decision-- kept things fresh. I'm glad I read it.

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Househusband by Ad Hudler

grrlpup, July 7, 2012

I have a soft spot for books featuring housecleaning, and this novel gets into the nitty-gritty daily routine of a full-time househusband. Linc, a landscape architect, takes over child-raising and setting up house after his wife gets a high-powered job as a hospital administrator. The book is curiously plotless, and I never felt any drive toward a predetermined shape or arc in the story. It's mostly Linc struggling with the daily grind, his feelings of isolation and not being respected, and conversely his satisfaction in seeing his family live a better life because of him. Fun light reading!

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Curse Workers #03: Black Heart by Holly Black

grrlpup, May 19, 2012

This is my favorite (so far!) of the Curse Workers books. The cast of characters is smaller than in the first book (um, partly through attrition) and there's time to focus on Cassel as he faces pressure from all sides yet manages to take action in a big way and stay himself. There were enough surprises from other characters to keep the book feeling fresh, and the writing is solid with some humor in it. If you've read the first two, this one won't disappoint you. If you haven't, start with White Cat and know the best is yet to come.

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Please Ignore Vera Dietz by As King

grrlpup, April 20, 2012

Vera, her circumstances, her emotions, felt utterly real to me. I wanted to hang out and go on her pizza-delivery runs with her forever. The author takes some risks, switching point-of-view briefly to Vera's dad, a dead kid, and even the town landmark. But it never for one minute feels artificial or overly literary. One of the best books I've ever read, and definitely recommended for fans of Blythe Woolston's The Freak Observer (another working-class main character I cared about deeply) and E. Lockhart's The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks (another explication of betrayal and the way society's machinery tries to grind you down).

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Feathers by Jacqueline Woodson

grrlpup, April 13, 2012

Jacqueline Woodson's books for kids and young adults are firmly in the "literary fiction" genre. Characters and relationships take center stage, without a lot of plot twists or tightly wound suspense. Some of the descriptions are lovely, and evoke exactly what it's like to be a kid, seeing everything a little closer up and at a little different speed than the adult world. But the narration can get over-poetic, and doesn't fit well in the mouth of even the most contemplative sixth-grader.

As an adult, non-religious reader, I didn't find this book as magical or interesting as some of her others (After Tupac and D Foster, for example, I loved). Its biggest weakness for me was that the characters had to talk everything over. For every incident in the plot, the narrator and sometimes one or two other characters would muse on what it meant about the nature of Jesus, or how another character felt about what was happening, or a connection with an event in someone's past or an Emily Dickinson poem. I think the book would be a lot stronger if images and events stood on their own, without the poetic commentary.

The main character, Franny, has a Deaf brother, and I liked her descriptions of ASL as they sign together. His interactions in his family and community were one of the most interesting parts of the story for me. The 1972 setting wasn't overdone, but I did wonder about a transracial adoption that's key to the story-- it seems like it would have been very rare for two people of color to adopt a non-disabled white boy at the age of three. I wanted to hear more about that, but we never did.

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