Retro Challenge: The Book Thief

Oktoberfest Is A Sixteen-Day Festival Held Each Year In Munich, Germany During Late September (And Running To Early October). - Read A Book Written By A German Author, Set In Germany, Or A Non-Fictional Book About Germany. (*To Enhance Your Reading You May Choose To Eat Some German Food Or Drink A German Beer But It's Not Required).

Book Title/Author: The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
Publisher/Year Published: 2006 by Knopf Books for Young Readers
Where I got it: My college library
Rating: 5/5 stars

Rarely do I give a book 5 stars. On my Goodreads shelf, I have a total of 5 out of 300 read books listed as 5 star reads. That's a whopping 1%. This book was one of those five.

I discovered The Book Thief when looking for books that fit this task. I found through various sources that it was set in WWII in Germany and follows around a little child. Nothing particularly interesting. I've read that story before, and most of them were done fairly well. What was going to set this book apart for me? What would make this just not another book about WWII?

Answer: The narrator: Death. This character grabbed me from the beginning. How often do you see Death personified? And in such a prominent role! He was entertaining, witty, well-written, and so many other adjectives that listing them all would be quite ridiculous. The point is the addition of Death as a character, the narrator, really gave this book a unique twist.

The Book Thief is a book that dragged me across the spectrum of emotion. I laughed out loud, I cried so hard I could barely see the pages. I couldn't put it down, I dare not pick it up (so I wouldn't lose the whole day reading). It was such a highly engaging book for me.

An interesting fact that you may or may not know is that it was marketed in Australia (where the author is from) as an adult book but in the US as a YA novel. It made me think of the blurred lines between YA and Adult literature. Who defines how it is marketed in which country? Does what a westerner read differ that greatly across the nations? An intriguing through for sure, but maybe for another post.

The Book Thief is an astounding read. It takes a time we know a lot about from school and various PBS specials and gives it a whole interesting twist.

A Grimm Challenge: Loyalty

I am at work right now and I left my nook and home, so I can’t remember the specific ones that I read but I’ll give you a review of what I can remember. I remember reading one about Faithful John, who gave his everything to protect his king and was rewarded with being turned to stone from a curse. The King realized he screwed up and agreed to sacrifice his kids to bring John back. It worked and the kids ended up not dying either.

As I read these, I try and figure out what lesson they were trying to teach kids. What is the message? I’m guessing that this one was a story of loyalty. Loyalty will be rewarded no matter how long you have to wait. A decent message.

Another loyalty was one where a girl accidentally turned her 9 brothers into crows. If she didn’t talk or laugh for 7 years, they would be restored. She got married and her evil mother in law painted her out to be some sort of freak to her husband and convinced him to kill her. Just when she was about to die, the 7 years were up and a happily ever after was achieved. Alright, family (*cough* loyalty) is important.

The Man Who Could Not Shiver (or something to that extent) was kind of creepy. He spent his whole life trying to learn how to shiver. He kept offering people money to teach him how and all these creepy things kept happening to him. But he just didn’t understand and thus was not scared. As for me, the idea of a burning corpse hanging from a rope on a tree is burning into my brain.

I can’t remember for sure how it ended, but I think it was love that made him learn how to shiver, which, if true, provokes a rolled-eyed reaction.

There is one more that I can vaguely remember. It was about old animals leaving their lives where they were about to be killed or replaced. They wanted to start a band, and ended up in a house living out their life in happy peace. What I get upon great reflection is be kind to your elders. Or that singing animals are awesome. Not sure which.

So far I’ve been disappointed in the creepiness of Grimm’s tales. I've heard that they are the creepy to define all creepy tales. They are similar to any Greek myths (like the one where the live children are in the wolves belly alive and whole and they cut it open and replace it with rocks), but where are the kids who dance until their feet bleed? Maybe coming up… I still have 500 more pages to go.

A Grimm Challenge: The Frog Prince

I have decided to start reading my way though the Brothers Grimm fairy tales. Since there are quite a few, according to my nook 607 pages worth, I decided to do a small write up of each, or every couple, as I go through them.

The first one on the list is the story of The Frog Prince. I’ve heard of this tale. Girl goes to a fountain, meets a talking frog, kisses him, he turns into a handsome prince and they live happily ever after the end.

Well not quite.

In the original, we have a beautiful youngest daughter of the king playing with her golden ball. It falls in the fountain and she promises the talking frog that if he gets it for her, she will be his friend and let him live/be with her in the castle. Agreement occurs, but after she’s got her golden ball back she completely reneges and runs away.

The frog hobbles his way up to the castle and demands his fee. The daughter is like, “Ew gross! Frog cooties!”. The king intercedes and is all like “Dude, you made a promise. Stop being a brat.” She begrudgingly keeps her promise until she gets so pissed off at how ugly the thing is that she throws him against the wall.

She throws him against the wall! And this causes him to turn into a prince!

What kind of promotion of violence is this? What I get from the heroine in this story is make false promises and violence will lead to awesome rewards.

According to the footnote, the story is supposed to represent the scared virgin afraid of a man’s beastly desires, and then after the fear is gone it is replaced with happiness, because sex is not that bad. I guess I could see this, but taken at face value and not reading into it so much, the lesson I get is being a bitch will result in great rewards.

Maybe next time someone is annoying me I’ll throw them into the wall and get a prince in return.

Retro Challenge: The Blood of Flowers

So technically I read this book before I started doing reading challenges, but as I was looking through the Goodread's Giveaways today, I ran into a book that reminded me of how much I liked The Blood of Flowers. I thus thought, "I must review it"

Book Title/Author: The Blood of Flowers by Anita Amirrezvani
Published: 2007 by Little, Brown and Company
Notes: I picked it up off the new books shelf at my local library because I liked the cover and the title drew me in.
Rating: I originally had it as 3/5 but the longevity of the feeling that has stayed with me made me bump it to a 4/5

In 17th-century Persia, a 14-year-old woman believes she will be married within the year. But when her beloved father dies, she and her mother find themselves alone and without a dowry. With nowhere else to go, they are forced to sell the brilliant turquoise rug the young woman has woven to pay for their journey to Isfahan, where they will work as servants for her uncle, a rich rug designer in the court of the legendary Shah Abbas the Great. Despite her lowly station, the young woman blossoms as a brilliant designer of carpets, a rarity in a craft dominated by men. But while her talent flourishes, her prospects for a happy marriage grow dim. Forced into a secret marriage to a wealthy man, the young woman finds herself faced with a daunting decision: forsake her own dignity, or risk everything she has in an effort to create a new life.

These are some of the notes I jotted back in November 2007:

What I liked most about this book were the myth-like stories interwoven within the prose.

A well researched look into the live of a girl's journey to adulthood in the 17th century. I loved any scene when she was making a rug, her true passion which is withheld from her due to her gender.

Through many twists and turns this story kept me wanting to know more and more. A wonderful look at the evolution of this your girl to a woman.

It's funny. I reread this now and don't even remember the cute myths. What I do remember is the feeling that I got from this girls life. How I felt lucky to live in a time and place where I can make my own decisions about myself and my life.

I actually have no idea if this was well researched because I have not read much about ancient Persia, but I do know that this was an evocative tale that will stir the emotions of any woman. For better or for worse.

To tie this in to the "challenge" theme, this book takes place in ancient Iran so if you do the read around the world challenges, this is a good bet. Also Anita Amirrezvani is also Iranian.

Virtual Foreign Vacation

Summer is traditionally the time of year for family vacations. It is not always feasible to go to the places you wish to see, so for this task..

A. Read a fictional book that takes place in a country that you have always wanted to visit but have never had the chance to.
AND
B. Read a book that was originally written in a foreign language.

Book Title/Author: The Taming of the Duke by Eloisa James
Publisher/Year Published: 2006 by Avon
Where I got it: It haunted me from the end cap at Wal*Mart... and I gave in to it's awesome cover
Rating: 3/5 stars

This book is the third of the four in the Essex sister's quartet of books. There are no plot spoilers other than what you would find in the summary on the back of the book, but just in case this is my warning.

This was a reread for me. I loved the tension between Imogen and Rafe throughout this series. This book, their book, is book three and the culmination of that, but the "big reveal" wasn't enough for me and was kind of a "Wait... what?" I still thought it was good, and I still really love the secondary characters. It just seems that there was not enough time spent with just Rafe (and I mean Rafe) and Imogen. It was like their relationship was on the back burner.

But I can't hate this book. It is still so wonderful. And it introduced me to Eloisa James as a writer.

In another note, the cover is to die for and may be my favorite cover that I own.

Book Title/Author: Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Süskind
Publisher/Year Published: 2001 by Knopf Publishing Group (first published 1985)
Where I got it: Library
Rating: 3/5 stars

I sort of stumbled into this book. I don't normally read whatever genre you would call this, so I went in with a little trepidation. I like plot driven novels more than character driven, and unfortunately this falls mostly in the latter. There were times when Grenouille was doing something that I was completely engaged, turning pages to see what would happen next. And others, especially during chapters told from people I just met, where I wanted to get back to the point.

It was an interesting novel though, and at some points I was really thrown. I did not expect the ending at all but it was fitting for this story.

The idea of scent as the main focus is intriguing to me. I always found it one of the harder senses to capture in media. But Süskind (or his translator I guess) does a good job of helping me smell what Grenouille did through vivid vocabulary. The evolution from form to perfume also really interested me.

So I give it three stars. It's a good book, just not the kind that I fall in love with.