What I Saw and How I Lied by Judy Blundell

Title: What I Saw and How I Lied
Author: Judy Blundell

Type: Audio Book (Unabridged) Young Adult Novel
Narrator: Catalin Greer
Genre: Fiction, Young Adult
Series: No
Copyright: 2009 (2008 printed edition)

Publisher:  Scholastic Audio
Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Summary:
It is right after World War II and Evie Spooner and her mother Beverly are waiting for Joe to come back from the war. They are living with his mother and feel the strain. When Joe returns he starts a business selling appliances. On what seems to be a whim Joe takes the family on a vacation to Palm Beach, Florida. At first they are very excited and the drive is fun but as the temperature rises so does the tension in the car. Bev and Evie do not ask or talk about the war with Joe and there is much they do not know about him. Staying at the only open hotel in Palm Beach they meet Arlene and Tom Grayson who they become friends with. Tom and Joe start to form a shady business deal for buying the hotel they are staying in and Arlene helps Evie start to grow up by buying her clothes that are for a young woman not a girl. Also, staying at the hotel is Peter Coleridge, someone who had served with Joe in the war. Joe has a clear dislike for Peter but it isn't clear why. Evie finds Peter kind, handsome and finds herself with a crush, which she calls love. What follows leads to betray and a taking of sides. Evie must choice what lies to tell and who to betray.

Feelings:
A National Book Award Winner in young adult this book is told in first person (Something I have been noticing, recently is first person narratives. I thought I read only third person. Turns out I was wrong.) from the point-of-view of a 15 year old girl. Evie wants so much to be an adult and everyone is trying to hold her back. This is a coming-of-age novel with a mystery twist. I'm not sure that the mystery is ever really solved at the end because Evie isn't sure what happened. She does grow up in the process and the change in the character is genuine and well worth reading the book to see. In the south after the war Evie does not see the change that she would have expected and racism is present. This bothers her and she doesn't see why there are these kind of rules. She is innocent in a way that draws the reader in and as she looses that innocence through life experiences and her observations of what is happening around her she begins to grow up. The only problem is that once you grow up you can't go back. The setting for the book was good and I enjoyed the post war atmosphere of plenty. While this is definitely a story told from the point-of-view of a teenager there isn't as much dwelling on girly things as one would expect. I would recommend this book to individuals who like a good coming-of-age novel and a bit of mystery mixed in.

Review: The Girl Who Chased the Moon by Sarah Addison Allen

Genre: Southern Fiction
Series: No
Copyright: 2010
Publisher: Bantam Books
Buy: Amazon

Reviews of other books by Sarah Addison Allen: Garden Spells, First Frost, The Sugar Queen, Lost, Lake, and The Peach Keeper

Summary:
This is the story of Emily Benedict and Julia Winterson. Emily Benedict comes to Mullaby, North Carolina, when her mother dies, to live with a grandfather she didn't even know she had. Julia Winterson who grew up in Mullaby, she saw no reason to return until her father dies. Julia is living in Mullaby until she has paid off the mortgage on her father's BBQ restaurant at which point she will return to her life that has nothing to do with her past in Mullaby. When Emily first arrives she finds the difference between her life with her mother and life in Mullaby hard to adjust too.

Emily hesitated, then paid him and got out. The air outside was tomato-sweet and hickory-smoked, all at once delicious and strange. It automatically made her touch her tongue to her lips. It was dusk, but the streetlights weren't on yet. She was taken aback by how quiet everything was. It suddenly made her feel light. No street sounds. No kids playing. No music or television. There was this sensation of otherworldliness, like she'd traveled some impossible distance. (p. 3-4)

At night Emily sees a light in the woods and finds it odd and interesting. Once she ventures into town she finds that her mother's past in Mullaby is not what she thought and many of the things she thought of her mother are not as they seem.

"I'm Julia Winterson. I live over there." She turned her head slightly, indicating the yellow and white house next door. That's when Emily noticed the pink streak in Julia's hair, tucked behind her ear. It wasn't something she expected from someone so fresh-faced, in flour-stained jeans and a white peasant blouse. ... [Of an apple stack cake Julie says,] "It means..." she struggled with the world, then finally said, "welcome. I know Mullaby has its faults, as I'm sure your mother told you, but it's also a town of great food. Your going to eat very well while you're here. At least there's that.".... "My mother didn't tell me anything about Mullaby," Emily said, staring at the cake. "Nothing?" "No." Julia seemed shocked into silence. (p.23-24)

Emily's lack of understanding of the town and everyone else's understanding of what her mother "did" leave her an outcast. Win Coffey is the only one that seems to be interested in her yet he is the only person who everyone wants to keep her away from.

Julia has been back in Mullaby for a year and a half, and she has done everything she can to avoid Sawyer. Until one small slip while she is talking with Stella, her best friend who she lives with, leaves Sawyer wanting to get close to her.

"Don't you want to know what Stella told me last night?" [Sawyer] asked. ... "Stella was drunk last night." "She said you told her that you bake cakes because of me." (p.17)

Julia and Sawyer have a past, and not one that Julia is likely to forget.

She couldn't blame him for being a scared teenager when he'd found out she'd gotten pregnant from their one night together on the football field all those years ago. ... But she resented how easily he'd gotten on with his life. It had been just one night to him. One regretful night with the freaky, unpopular girl he'd barely even talked to at school. A girl who'd been madly in love with him. (p. 20)

Getting over the past is something both Julia and Emily must overcome to find a place where they can fit.

Feelings:
Like with many of Allen's books food plays a big roll in the story. Expect to be hungry when you read this. BBQ and Cakes play a big part in the story and how the characters interact. I really enjoy reading a book were food is an important part of the story. Sometimes when you read a book and you never see the characters eat it makes you wonder if they are real. This makes food seem magical which I really liked.

This is an easy read. I enjoyed the story, a hint of magic and a little bit of tension make it a good read. I enjoyed the characters and how they seemed so real. Yes there were times when you must suspend disbelief but I don't have an issue with this and really enjoyed the magical elements of the story.

As with all of her stories Sarah Addison Allen takes a setting in rural North Carolina and makes it come to life. I like that her setting is real. I'm from North Carolina and while it feels much like some of the places I have traveled in North Carolina it is a setting that is friendly and it is clear that Allen knows what she is writing.

Review: Sapphique by Catherine Fisher

Genre: Young Adult Fantasy
Series: Yes, link to my review of Incarceron
Copyright: 2010
Publisher: Dial
Buy: Amazon


Summary:
The Summary and Feelings on this book are shorter because the story is so linked to the prequel Incarceron that to say much about this book is to give away the story of Incarceron. The story is set in both the prison and the realm. It still follows Claudia, Finn, Keiro, and Attia as well as the problems in both the prison and Realm. In this book we see that maybe escape is not exactly what it seems and that both prison and realm have aspects of confinement. We do learn much more about Sapphique in this book and the story of Sapphique's escape from the prison.

Feelings:
This book explained many things that were left unexplained in Incarceron but still didn't do many things that I would have hoped. I doubt there will be a sequel to Sapphique but there are still things that could be cleared up. The book did resolve many things and end nicely but I would have liked to see a little more resolution. I don't trust what happened at the end of the book. To trust the ending is to trust a character who is not trusted. I know that is an odd thing to say but I don't want to give to much away.

Review: Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

Narrator: Christopher Hurt
Genre: Science Fiction/Fantasy
Series: No
Copyright: 2005 (first published 1953)
Publisher:  Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Buy: Amazon

Summary:
In an alternate time line Guy Montag is a fireman. Instead of putting out fires he starts them. In a day when all houses are fire proof one must take different measures if they wish to get rid of things that the government bans. He and the fire department are in charge of making sure everyone follows the rules. This means no books, and those who have books must be punished. Guy Montag enjoys starting fires to burn the houses with books. He enjoys the heat, the smell of kerosene. He does not question the reason why he must burn the books he just does it, until he meets a 17 year old girl who moves in next door to him and a professor who no longer teaches but hides in fear like everyone else. The girl is different and she makes him think about the world around him and how it got to be the way it is.

Feelings:
I really enjoyed listening to Fahrenheit 451. The descriptions were amazing. There is nothing like a good book burning when described with such beauty. This is the first Ray Bradbury book I have heard/read. I have to admit I'm surprised I didn't find him sooner. Guy Montag is an interesting man who starts out just like everyone else in the book he doesn't think for himself. He doesn't love. He doesn't feel anything. The world Bradbury creates is so like our own yet so different. I wonder if we are moving towards a world like the one in Fahrenheit 451 or if books will survive in this area of immediate pleasure. The characters in here were vibrant and full of life until the very end. The mechanical hound with eight legs is such a strange hound we wonder how it can be a hound. The fire engine named after the mythical salamander that breathed fire is such an interesting image. I don't imagine wheels but legs that crawl down the roads to start the next fire and then back to the station. I would recommend this to anyone that likes science fiction. It is a vibrant colorful book.  

Review: Time and Again by Jack Finney

Genre: Fiction
Series: Yes, next From Time to Time
Copyright: 1970
Publisher:  Simon  Schuster
Buy: Amazon

Summary:
Simon Morley is one of a very small number that is selected to be part of a project in New York City in the 1970s. This project believes that time is like a stream and we are only stuck in one place because we do not know enough of anther time to get off there. With some convincing of the project director and the board Simon, called Si, is going back to January 1882 in New York City. He has an apartment in the Dakota an old building which was around in 1882 and though it would have been on the outside of the city it was there. He prepares himself for the project by eating and dressing like they did during the time. It is not easy for him to disconnect himself from his own time but with a little help and lots of studying he is able to do it.

"You'll sleep for only a little while, Si. But it will be a marvelously restful sleep. Deep and dreamless. Restful as you've ever known. And when you wake, everything you know of the twentieth centery will be gone from you mind; it will dwindle to a motionless pinpoint deep in your brain, and lost to you....But you know what the world is like; you know very well. You know all about it. Why shouldn't you know what the world is like tonight, January 21, 1882? Because that is the date; that is the time we're in of course...Now hear what I say. I am going to give you a final, irrevocable instruction; you will hear it, you will obey it. You will sleep for twenty minutes. You will awake rested. You will go out for a walk. Just a little walk, a breath of air before you go to bed. You will be as careful as you possibly can be . . . that on one sees you. You will be absolutely certain to speak to no one. You will allow no act of yours, however small, to influence anyone in any way, however trivial." (p. 99-100)

Thus starts Si's adventures into 1882 to discover the mystery of a letter and a picture of a grave that Katie his girlfriend has wondered about her entire life.

"If a discussion of Court House Carrara should prove of interest to you, please appear in City Hall Part at half past twelve on Thursday next. In blue ink below the fold, in a large half-illegible scrawl, blot-stained in four places, it said: That the sending of this should cause the Destruction by Fire of the entire World (a world seemed to be missing here at the end of the top line where the paper was burned) seems well-nigh incredible. Yet it is so, and the Fault and the Guilt (another word missing in the burned area) mine, and can never be denied or escaped. So, with this wretched souvenir of that Event before me, I now end the life which should have ended then" (p. 72)

The grave stone is simple with no name just a nine pointed star within a circle all formed of dots. It had confused the decedents who did not know why such a thing would have been made. As did the letter that did not make sense to them.

Si is to go back and watch the mailing of the letter without interfering in what happens. The project starts small and grows with each trip Si makes to 1882, until the letter is decoded and Si is left with an important decision to make.

Feelings:
I had a really hard time liking this book to start with. Si really annoyed me at times. His attitudes were difficult to deal with because he thought of himself as good and self-riotous at times. I think this quote is a good example of how Si can be even when he doesn't realize what he is doing. It is clear to those reading yet not to others.

"I like women, I never run them down as somehow inferior to men, and I have a contempt for men who do. And I think, for one thing that women are just as principled as men--but they sure as hell aren't the same kind of principles. I knew I could trust Kate in virtually anything, relying on her absolutely, her sense of right and wrong as lively as mine. Yet now we argued interminably: Kate at the stove, where she'd taken over dinner preparations, I at the kitchen table, waiting; then, sharing my two chops, we continued the battle at dinner. ... With no trouble at all Kate saw through the transparency to the truth--the feminine truth--underneath the serious pretense. She knew this was really a great, big expensive fascinating toy; we were all of us playing with it, and like a determined tomboy on a playground shouldering her way into a circle of boys, she was damn well going to play, too." (p. 108)

This is the kind of attitude that made it hard for me to like Si. Although by the end of the book I did. I think for the most part this book might be better for the male reader than the female. It is in first person from a male perspective and it shows. That made it harder for me to read and really get into. I have a feeling I will read the next in the series because I did enjoy the contrast between the time periods and I liked the descriptions. I have to admit that sometimes the descriptions were over powering and really slowed the plot. However, I think that was a big part of the story, dwelling on the past and what comes of it.

I would recommend Time and Again by Jack Finney to men, but would really think twice before I suggested it to a woman just because of the narrator's views and how they made me feel.

Review: Blink by Malcolm Gladwell

Narrator: Malcolm Gladwell
Genre: Non-Fiction
Series: No
Copyright: 2005
Publisher:  Hachette Audio
Buy: Amazon


Summery:
An exploration of what our brain does without us knowing we are doing it. Those fast decisions that help us cross the road when a car is coming up faster than you expected, and you dash out of the way before you know you are doing it. How do we make these decisions and can we control or do we want to control these fast judgement we make. Also looks at micro expressions that we perceive but don't know we see because of the speed at which they happen.

Feelings: 
I enjoyed listening to Blink: The Power of Thinking without Thinking, it was read by the author which was enjoyable. Some of the book wasn't as engaging as other parts but I liked the opening where snap judgments and science were compared. I'm sure there are also examples that can go the other way where science was better than intuition. I think what I liked most was the part of the book that talked about micro expressions and the expressions we make and how they communicate more to us than what is said. We learn these expressions before we learn to talk they are vital to our communication with others as well as the way we feel about others after we meet them. This is a book I would recommend but not to everyone. There are some people that will really dislike this book because of the discussion about thinking without knowing we are doing it. Those that need to be in charge every moment will not enjoy this book as it is letting the subconscious take over for a while. However, we may be able to use snap decisions and judgments to our advantage with some amount of practice at which point we may be in control of them more than we would know.

Review: My Ántonia by Willa Carther

Narrator: Jeff Cummings
Genre: Fiction
Series: Yes last of the prairie trilogy
Copyright: 2007 (first published 1918)
Publisher: Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Buy: Amazon


Summery:
Told from the point of view of Jim Burden, who has just arrived in Nebraska as a young boy to live with his grandparents. Ántonia and her family arrive on the same train in Blackhawk as Jim. Ántonia is 14 and Jim 10 and they become friends from the first time they meet. They are neighbors out in the country. There are many characters from the old country out in the country that Ántonia and Jim visit. Ántonia's family suffers greatly in the first years they are there but they make it through by their own hard work. The story follows Jim on his way to being a lawyer in New York were we are first introduced to him in the introduction.

Feelings:
I liked and disliked the narrator Jeff Cummings. The language in the book was beautiful but I didn't always like the accent that he used for the Bohemians. It didn't seem completely authentic.  I really enjoyed listening to this book. I had heard about it before but it was never a book that I picked out at a bookstore to read. This book was an exploration of the country from a young boy's perspective. The heroine Ántonia, from Jim's perspective, is a strong girl who has a hard life. This is a story of friendship over time. What really drives the book is the language rather than plot or action. The grasses of Nebraska are described lovingly as are the sunflowers that line the roads. The characters are strong and enjoyable. It has been a while since I read/listened to a book in the first person. I was very aware of it being first person and that I was being told everything from Jim's perspective. I enjoyed the insight into life in the early years of settlement in Nebraska, yet I felt disconnected from many of the events that took place. I would recommend My Ántonia only to people who enjoy the beauty of language.