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toscas_kissBook #13: Blue Highways by William Lesser Heat Moon
Category: Non-fiction travel writing
My rating: 5.5/10
When redundancy and the breakup of his marriage hit William LHM at the same time, he decides to sort his head out with a road trip, and circumnavigate America on it's back roads - the highways traced in blue on the map. This is the story of vanishing America he meets along the way
Four hundred and loose change pages of small, dense text. Rather like LHM's journey, I found this book to have its up and downs, smooth in places, uneven in others, interesting and dull. Sometimes the prose is beautiful and insightful, at other times I thought it rather purple and somewhat pretentious. It's a matter of perspective, I guess. I think American readers would find it closer to their hearts than I did. I'm glad I read it, but I'm not going to put it on the 'Reread' Pile.
Book #14: Cirque Du Freak: A Living Nightmare [Darren Shan #1] by Darren Shan
(supposedly)
Category: Children's Fiction 9 - 12 (see caveat below)
My rating: 5/10
Apparently enormously popular with children. It is indeed a child's story, although Darren (the narrator as well as 'author') makes awfully grown up statements and conclusions at times. The writing isn't particularly good either. The descriptions of the freak show and the plot hook you in however, though I was annoyed to find it really a first chapter in what is currently a series of ten books. And unlike The Spiderwick Chronicles, it didn't have the attraction of beautiful illustrations and a lovely binding to absolve it of that annoyance. I'll probably get the others out of the library.
Caveat: Another book I wouldn't lend to a sensitive child.
Currently reading: The Alchemist by Paolo Coelho
Category: Non-fiction travel writing
My rating: 5.5/10
When redundancy and the breakup of his marriage hit William LHM at the same time, he decides to sort his head out with a road trip, and circumnavigate America on it's back roads - the highways traced in blue on the map. This is the story of vanishing America he meets along the way
Four hundred and loose change pages of small, dense text. Rather like LHM's journey, I found this book to have its up and downs, smooth in places, uneven in others, interesting and dull. Sometimes the prose is beautiful and insightful, at other times I thought it rather purple and somewhat pretentious. It's a matter of perspective, I guess. I think American readers would find it closer to their hearts than I did. I'm glad I read it, but I'm not going to put it on the 'Reread' Pile.
Book #14: Cirque Du Freak: A Living Nightmare [Darren Shan #1] by Darren Shan
(supposedly)
Category: Children's Fiction 9 - 12 (see caveat below)
My rating: 5/10
Apparently enormously popular with children. It is indeed a child's story, although Darren (the narrator as well as 'author') makes awfully grown up statements and conclusions at times. The writing isn't particularly good either. The descriptions of the freak show and the plot hook you in however, though I was annoyed to find it really a first chapter in what is currently a series of ten books. And unlike The Spiderwick Chronicles, it didn't have the attraction of beautiful illustrations and a lovely binding to absolve it of that annoyance. I'll probably get the others out of the library.
Caveat: Another book I wouldn't lend to a sensitive child.
Currently reading: The Alchemist by Paolo Coelho