Mostly Good Girls by Leila Sales - Book Review #119

Mostly Good Girls

by Leila Sales

The higher you aim, the farther you fall….

It’s Violet’s junior year at the Westfield School. She thought she’d be focusing on getting straight As, editing the lit mag, and figuring out how to talk to boys without choking on her own saliva. Instead, she’s just trying to hold it together in the face of cutthroat academics, her crush’s new girlfriend, and the sense that things are going irreversibly wrong with her best friend, Katie.

When Katie starts making choices that Violet can’t even begin to fathom, Violet has no idea how to set things right between them. Westfield girls are trained for success—but how can Violet keep her junior year from being one huge, epic failure?

From goodreads.com

With Mostly Good Girls I got precisely what I expected, which is always a good thing for me. Mostly Good Girls was a light, humorous, fast read, with no complicated issues. This is a chick lit for YA.

Mostly Good Girls is a very fast read. One moment I was cracking the cover open and the next thing I knew – I was on the last page. It is not only because this book falls into the short side, it was also quite compelling for me, and the writing was light and unobtrusive.

Even though Mostly Good Girls didn’t have a strong plot line (or should I say – didn’t have much of the plot at all: it was more of the line of events only tightened up together by same characters), it was full of light humor, not satire or irony. For me, Mostly Good Girls read like a book of comical scathes. It was so ludicrous sometimes that it almost reminded of a farce, full of improbable situations.

Unfortunately, characters were mostly plain and full of clichés. Because of an inexistent plot, characters didn’t move forward, neither went though some serious changes during the course of the novel. Even though, Violet – the main character, not once voiced out her goals, I didn’t really notice her moving eagerly toward them. Nevertheless, this doesn’t spoil the novel much, making it what it meant to be – a brief, uncomplicated fling.

I would recommend this book to any female in pretty much any age group, who is looking for quick mood boost and stress relieve that requires no mental work.

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest by Stieg Larsson - Book Review #118

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest (Millennium #3)

by Stieg Larsson, Reg Keeland (Translator)

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Millennium #1) review.
The Girl Who Played with Fire (Millennium #2) review.

Lisbeth Salander—the heart of Larsson’s two previous novels—lies in critical condition, a bullet wound to her head, in the intensive care unit of a Swedish city hospital. She’s fighting for her life in more ways than one: if and when she recovers, she’ll be taken back to Stockholm to stand trial for three murders. With the help of her friend, journalist Mikael Blomkvist, she will not only have to prove her innocence, but also identify and denounce those in authority who have allowed the vulnerable, like herself, to suffer abuse and violence. And, on her own, she will plot revenge—against the man who tried to kill her, and the corrupt government institutions that very nearly destroyed her life.

Once upon a time, she was a victim. Now Salander is fighting back.
From goodreads.com

I’m very glad that my husband talked me into reading Millennium series. As I wrote in my review for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, I wasn’t even planning to look twice on this series, mostly because of the first book’s synopsis, until my husband read these books.

Even though, I enjoyed The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest very much, I still had same issues with the third book as I did with the first two. It started slow for me and for the first fifty or so pages I actually had to push myself to read it. At some points of the novel, Larsson’s past as a journalist and non-fiction writer was easily recognized and this is one of the first times he was trying himself in fiction writing. By the third book, I got used to Swedish first, last, cities and streets names and it made the process of reading a lot easier than previous books. However, I’m still not able to pronounce at least half of the names, so my talking about these books resembles a gibberish puzzle (constantly using instead of proper names “this” and “that”).

I was a bit disappointed that Salander spent the most part of the book in the hospital and was mostly unable to use her extraordinary talents. Synopsis of the third book promised us that Now Salander is fighting back. Unfortunately, it seems like most of the fighting was done by Blomkvist and Säpo. So I didn’t get enough of Salander, the girl who has become one of my favorite fiction characters.

I still consider the first book in the trilogy to be my favorite one, nevertheless, the third book come very close and almost made a tie. Some parts of The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest made me do a surprised “Whoa!” – as an example, the scene with Zalachenko’s “departure”. I absolutely adored dynamics of the questioning in the courtroom scene– superb writing that created a very powerful motion.

In each of three books, Larsson began new part with interesting information. In the first book, it was statistical information. In the second book, it was mathematical definitions. And in the third book, Larsson supplied reader with historical facts on the subject of female solders throughout the centuries. I really enjoyed this special touch of the books.

Overall, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest was a satisfying ending of the delightful series. It got very close to the fairy-tale ending with a huge pink bow on top of it, where everyone got precisely what they deserved. However, I still got a feeling that Larsson might have being leaving some loose ends for the possible sequel. Unfortunately, Stieg Larsson is dead. At the end of The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, the realization that I was about to finish reading the last Larsson’s book made me very sad.

Millennium series is a serenade to women, their powers and abilities, their place in society. This is a declaration against violence and discriminations towards women. I’m still scratching my head why in the USA Millennium series were promoted as men’s books. So first of all, I recommend this series to all women and only after that to men who are not afraid of strong women.

P.S. The great parody on Millennium series from The New Yorker.

From Dead to Worse by Charlaine Harris - Book Review #117

From Dead to Worse (Sookie Stackhouse #8)

by Charlaine Harris

The supernatural community in Bon Temps, Louisiana, is reeling from two hard blows - the natural disaster of Hurricane Katrina and the man-made horror of the explosion at the vampire summit the month before in the up-north city of Rhodes. Sookie Stackhouse is safe but dazed, yearning for things to get back to normal. But that's just not happening. Too many vampires - some friends, some not - were killed or injured, and her weretiger boyfriend, Quinn, is among the missing.

It's clear that things are changing, whether the Weres and vamps of her corner of Louisiana like it or not. And Sookie - friend of the pack and blood-bonded to Eric Northman, the leader of the local vampire community - is caught up in the changes.

In the ensuing battles, Sookie faces danger, death... and, once more, betrayal by someone she loves. And when the fur has finished flying and the cold blood flowing, her world will be forever altered.
From goodreads.com

From Dead to Worse is the eighth installment in the Sookie Stackhouse series and so far this is my favorite one. Sookie is on the roll. Her life is full of events, as never before: she has to deal with newly discovered family members; she has to keep her obligation to her brother; she has to deal with weres and vampires; don’t forget to throw witches in the pot. I don’t know how the supernatural world would survive without Sookie. And on top of this she has to protect herself from attempts on her life; and still sow up and do her job as a cocktail waitress. However, no love life for our Sookie, I hope she will catch up on this department in future books.

I love this book despite the fact (or maybe because of) it can’t be really called a novel. It doesn’t have one distinct plot line. It consists of multiple short stories put together. So the eighth book doesn’t have a gradational build up for the climax and it doesn’t have one big problem and its resolution at the end. However, it worked wonderfully for me. A lot of loose ends that have been left from previous seven books were tightened in.

I think this was the first time since the beginning of the series, when Sookie is portrait as a truly strong character. It seems like our Sookie is not longer just not-too-smart, wildly smiling cocktail waitress with a bad wardrobe who is ready to jump into any danger without as much as a thought. In this book, she actually made some smart and well thought through decisions. I only hope it will stick on her.

What else can I add what I haven’t said already in my previous seven reviews. It seems like I really like Sookie series and it is not just a fling. This series is here to stay in my life and I’m off to get the next book - Dead and Gone.

P.S. Why did they have to change the size of the book in the middle of the series? The eighth book is couple of inches taller and wider. Now it doesn’t look too good on my shelf with previous Sookie books.

On the Road by Jack Kerouac - Book Review #116

On the Road

by Jack Kerouac

On September 5, 1957, Viking published Jack Kerouac's novel On the Road. Few books have had as profound an impact on American culture. Pulsating with rhythms of late 1940s/1950s underground America, jazz, sex, illicit drugs, and the mystery and promise of the open road, Kerouac's classic novel of freedom and longing defined what it meant to be "Beat" and has inspired generations of writers, musicians, artists, poets and seekers who cite their discovery of the book as the event "set them free."

Based on Kerouac's adventures with Neal Cassady, On the Road tells the story of two friends whose four cross-country road trips are a quest for meaning and true experience. Written with a mixture of sad-eyed naïveté and wild abandon, and imbued with Kerouac's love of America, his compassion for humanity, and his sense of language as jazz, On the Road is the quintessential American vision of freedom and hope, a book that changed American literature and changed anyone who has ever picked it up.
From goodreads.com

Freedom, open road, the wind on your face, hair flying back, new cities, new people, new experiences, new adventures – sounds good, right? Three wives left penniless, countless children scattered all over the US, grown man running to his elder aunt for another fifty bucks over and over again, destroyed lives, broken hearts and all for kicks – sounds not too good.

I have a mixed feeling about this book. Somehow I’m certain that I would love On the Road if I would have read it when I was sixteen and so, I would have stayed devoted to it though all my live. But I haven’t read it at sixteen, I read it some years later and now I couldn’t help but notice more than just a freedom of the road; I couldn’t help but notice all the ugly things.

On the Road is probably the only book whose characters I truly hated. Dean Moriarty (aka Neal Cassady) – a self-centered, chauvinistic pig, who doesn’t have a shred of respect, who doesn’t care about anything or anyone; the only thing that he cares about is kicks. And this character is a role model for generations and generations of men? It’s utterly disgusting. Sal Paradise (aka Jack Kerouac) – a wuss and a wimp; coward, looser and sissy, who can only tag alone with Dean Moriarty and admire him, while the second one is spitting on him; who is forgiving everything to the pig - Dean Moriarty, just to see what other kicks he can come up with; and when the situation is hard and money all gone, Sal Paradise doesn’t know any better than to run to his aunt for help. Some men, some role models, huh?

Despite the fact that I hated all characters, I have to admit that initial idea of freedom, new experiences and adventures, does sound appealing. Truman Capote once commented about On the Road: "That isn't writing; it's typing." However, I think that Kerouac’s “typing” style worked out good for the subject matter – the road. The road, same as Kerouac’s style doesn’t have a plot, it only has incidents and accidents; the road doesn’t have the beginning and doesn’t have the end; it doesn’t have any distinct direction – you are the one who has to choose it. The road just exists from horizon to horizon, as far as the eye can reach.

In conclusion, if Kerouac’s On the Road “is the quintessential American vision of freedom and hope”, I don’t want to do anything with this freedom and I want to live my life without such hope.

Linger by Maggie Stiefvater - Book Review #115

Linger (The Wolves of Mercy Falls #2)

by Maggie Stiefvater

In Maggie Stiefvater's Shiver, Grace and Sam found each other. Now, in Linger, they must fight to be together. For Grace, this means defying her parents and keeping a very dangerous secret about her own well-being. For Sam, this means grappling with his werewolf past . . . and figuring out a way to survive into the future. Add into the mix a new wolf named Cole, whose own past has the potential to destroy the whole pack. And Isabelle, who already lost her brother to the wolves . . . and is nonetheless drawn to Cole.
From goodreads.com

I picked up Linger, as I said in my review of Shiver, just out of pure curiosity - what else can Maggie Stiefvater add to the story of Grace and Sam. Linger was on my desk for months, every time moving to the bottom of the to-read pile, when new books were added there, until I finally was in the mood for something completely insignificant that requires no brain activity and would be simply a time passer. And this is precisely what Linger turned out to be.

All the problems that arose for the characters in Linger seemed to be farfetched and forced – just something to write about. Sam acted even more gay than he was in Shiver and I kept wondering when we will finally get out of the closet and stop pretending to love Grace as his girlfriend. Grace was still boring and plain, so plain that I sometimes was completely forgetting about her existence. Isabel was much more significant character than Grace, even though quite far from interesting as well. Cole was a bit of fresh air in this insignificant cast of unnoticeable characters – at least he had some personality.

The only really interesting aspect for me in Linger was further unveiling of werewolves’ origins: is it a disease, how it works, is it curable. I still enjoyed, at times utterly bizarre, Maggie Stiefvater’s original takes on werewolves.

This time, with Linger, Maggie Stiefvater didn’t wrap the story into the happy ending and finished the book on a cliffhanger. However, it is hard to pretend that any sensible person couldn’t guess how this story is going to end. The only mystery is details.

Conclusion: Linger was what I expected it to be – mindless, numb time passer. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mean to call Linger a bad book. I’m just trying to describe it as what it was for me. And I’m a strong believer that each and every book can find its audience whether in different people or in the same people in different moods or at different periods of their lives. So…nothing to see…moving along…

The Black Dahlia by James Ellroy - Book Review #114

The Black Dahlia

by James Ellroy

On January 15, 1947, the tortured body of a beautiful young woman was found in a vacant lot in Hollywood. Elizabeth Short, the Black Dahlia, a young Hollywood hopeful, had been brutally murdered. Her murder sparked one of the greatest manhunts in California history.

In this fictionalized treatment of a real case, Bucky Bleichert and Lee Blanchard, both LA cops obsessed with the Black Dahlia, journey through the seamy underside of Hollywood to the core of the dead girl's twisted life.
From goodreads.com

“Cherchez la femme” is a phrase that became international. It is a phrase that has thousands of meanings; can be used and was used in thousands of different situations. However, at the same time it still has the same and the only meaning: “Cherchez la femme.” Ellroy wasn’t the first and not going to be the last author to use this phrase, to build pretty much the whole plot on this phrase. In Ellroy’s The Black Dahlia “Cherchez la femme” radiates with different meanings at every point of the story and still, every time, it stays the same, old, overused, cliché phrase. Paradox? – Most certainly.

I expected to love The Black Dahlia – a fictionalized version of world known, horrific, unsolved murder. So many people loved the book and so many described it as glue that will hold you to your chair until you are done and as a fastest page flipper until the very end. Unfortunately, I couldn’t see anything special in this book – some parts were interesting, some were boring; sometimes I couldn’t stop reading, other times I was finding every excuse not to read it.

There were some aspects that I liked about the book: it was very atmospheric; I learned a lot of 40th slang, in particular 40th cops’ slang. There were also aspects that drove me away from this book: for some reason I didn’t care enough about characters; the book started very slow and it took sixty pages for plot to start unveiling; I didn’t feel any suspense until the almost very end – the whole story read like unconnected, isolated events. No, at the end, fortunately, they all come into one whole piece (the moment when the book actually became glue and a page flipper).

Bottom line – The Black Dahlia turned out to be precisely what it was: suspense, noir, detective story, nothing more – nothing less. It was nothing very significant, however it wasn’t awful either. If you are into noir fiction or you are interested in fictionalized version of Black Dahlia case, check this book out. For everyone else, I would advise to pass on this book. Paradox? – Certainly not.

The Replacement by Brenna Yovanoff - Book Review #113

The Replacement

by Brenna Yovanoff

Mackie Doyle is not one of us. Though he lives in the small town of Gentry, he comes from a world of tunnels and black murky water, a world of living dead girls ruled by a little tattooed princess. He is a Replacement, left in the crib of a human baby sixteen years ago. Now, because of fatal allergies to iron, blood, and consecrated ground, Mackie is fighting to survive in the human world.

Mackie would give anything to live among us, to practice on his bass or spend time with his crush, Tate. But when Tate's baby sister goes missing, Mackie is drawn irrevocably into the underworld of Gentry, known as Mayhem. He must face the dark creatures of the Slag Heaps and find his rightful place, in our world, or theirs.
From goodreads.com

I wanted to read this book since I first saw the cover, sometime in February. Isn’t it creepy-gorgeous in somewhat disturbing way? At that point of time I couldn’t find any information about the book: no synopsis, no rumors, only the cover and the title. Despite that, The Replacement immediately went into my to-read list. Later on when the synopsis was finally available, my excitement for the book went down. Tattooed princess? Living dead girls? Fatal allergies to iron and blood? And the only thing he wants is to be normal and spend time with his crush? It sounded like just another, not too good, YA paranormal. However, when the book was finally released I was in the mood for “just another, not too good, YA paranormal”, so I picked it up.

From the ten thousand foot view, my suspicions were confirmed. However, after a closer look, I found discrepancies with “just another YA paranormal”. The Replacement is getting points from me for… no, not originality of the plot, but reinvention of old, and still can be called as forgotten, fairy lore. And more points to The Replacement for being a standalone novel, not a part of another never-ending series. Well, of course, you can never be sure and the author can always make a series out of standalone novel. However, I really hope that Brenna Yovanoff won’t do that with The Replacement.

Everything else, unfortunately, falls into the mediocre category.

Characters were mostly boring and clichés, with an exception of Mackie Doyle, whose characterization was confusing. He presented as a freak and loner, however he has friends, who are not freaks and loners; and girls (plural!) are interested in him.

Brenna Yovanoff’s writing sometimes read as forced and mouthful. Her selection of words at some points reminded me of the scene from Friends, when Joey is writing a letter of recommendations on Monica and Chandler to adoption agency and to sound better he replaced his words with smarter ones.

Bottom line is The Replacement was an OK book. It has its flaws and has some good qualities. Since it was a debut novel for Brenna Yovanoff, I hope we will see more and better works from her in the future. I will probably keep an eye on her upcoming works.

The Autumn of the Patriarch by Gabriel García Márquez - Book Review #112

The Autumn of the Patriarch

by Gabriel García Márquez

“Over the weekend the vultures got into the presidential palace by pecking through the screens on the balcony windows and the flapping of their wings stirred up the stagnant time inside”

As the citizens of an unnamed Caribbean nation creep through dusty corridors in search of their tyrannical leader, they cannot comprehend that the frail and withered man lying dead on the floor can be the self-styled General of the Universe. Their arrogant, maniacally violent leader, known for serving up traitors to dinner guests and drowning young children at sea, can surely not die the humiliating death of a mere mortal?

Tracing the demands of a man whose egocentric excesses mask the loneliness of isolation and whose lies have become so ingrained that they are indistinguishable from truth, Márquez has created a fantastical portrait of despotism that rings with an air of reality.
From goodreads.com

I dreaded the moment when I would have to write a review on The Autumn of the Patriarch, because I’m so out of my league here, trying to describe the genius of Gabriel García Márquez. However, I’m unable to stay silent, unable not to mention probably one of the greatest and unique books I’ve ever read, one of the books that blew me away, one of the books that showed me that there could not be any other limitation in the literature other than author’s own abilities; and if an author is not afraid to break shackles that his own mind or society put on him, even the sky is not a limit.

It is probably the writing style that makes this book so unique. Márquez broke all the rules here: there are not paragraphs; there is hardly any punctuation: sentences run for five – ten pages, there are not quotes to distinguish the dialogs; Márquez switches the point of view multiple times in one sentence and sometimes in one line. I won’t lie to you, his technique intimidated me at the beginning. I was imagining that it will be a very frustrating and confusing experience that will drag for a while, despite the fact that the book it not long at all. However, what could have been a recipe for the disaster in any other hands, turned out to be an unforgettable delight in Márquez’s.

It took Márquez seven years to write The Autumn of the Patriarch and I’m surprised it didn’t took him seventeen – to write in such style and still make everything crystal clear for the reader: whose point of view it is, what time is that, did someone said it, or it is the General talking to himself in his own head. Márquez achieved impossible with The Autumn of the Patriarch, he managed to put in words and on the paper person’s thoughts and experience of the world as they are – we rarely think in full, grammatically correct sentences; we almost never experience the world in distinguished paragraphs; and we never put conversations in quotation marks in our head.

General of the Universe, the usurper, the patriarch, the dictator and the main character of the novel is another Márquez’ stunning achievement. In General Márquez united the characteristics and abilities of the world known dictators – Stalin, Castro, Mussolini, Kim Jong-II and many others, dead or alive. Through the whole story at one point or another, I could see one of these faces staring at me from the pages. Márquez also showed us the other side of probably any dictator’s character – the weakness, paranoia, inability to most of the human emotions and loneliness (complete and overwhelming). Márquez combined in General the best and the worst of the human nature, making it impossible for readers to have one defined emotion toward him (hate or pity) and also making General a real person, not some one-dimensional caricature.

There are so much more in this novel that can’t be explained or described. There are so much more that everyone should experience and feel for themselves. At times, The Autumn of the Patriarch read like a dream, completely distant and enchanted. At other times, it reminded to me Hieronymus Bosch’s triptych The Garden of Earthly Delights. And at all times it was an unforgettable experience. I would recommend this book to everyone, who is not afraid of the challenge, because this book can be quite demanding sometimes when Márquez is drowning you in words, metaphors, similes and magical realism as whole. I would recommend this book to everyone who wants an amazing, breathtaking, overwhelming and magical experience. After all this is the only book that describes how the sea is sold, put on the ship, moved to another location and what left after in its place.

Book Blogger Holiday Swap

Come one, Come all!

It's Book Blogger Holiday Swap!

I found it on Linus's Blanket and loved the idea. You can read about it and join the fun at the Book Bloggers Holiday Swap. Hurry up, the sign up ends on November 14, 2010.

Chess Story by Stefan Zweig - Book Review #111

Chess Story

by Stefan Zweig

On a cruise ship bound for Buenos Aires, a wealthy passenger challenges the world chess champion to a match. He accepts with a sneer. He will beat anyone, he says. But only if the stakes are high. Soon, the chess board is surrounded. At first, the challenger crumbles before the mind of the master. But then, a soft-spoken voice from the crowd begins to whisper nervous suggestions. There are perfect moves and brilliant predictions. The speaker has not played a game for more than twenty years, he says. He is wholly unknown. But somehow, he is also entirely formidable!
From goodreads.com

Chess Story, also known as Royal Game, is a very short – fifty to one hundred pages, depending on edition, novella. This was the last work of Stefan Zweig, published posthumously, after he and his wife committed double suicide in Brazil, exiled from Germany by Nazis.

Chess Story glued me to the chair until I finished it. This is a quite unique story and it manages to stay unique without leaning towards the bizarre angle – everything in this story is realistic, everything is tangible.

Chess Story is a novella about two people: the world chess champion – an extraordinary person in quite ordinary situation; and a lawyer – a very ordinary person who was forced into the extraordinary situation. This is the story about human limitations. This is the story about survival and what it takes. This is the story about dark secrets and painful mysteries from the past. And of course, this is the story about chess; about excitement, passion and vehemence that this game (or is it more than a game) evokes.

"And are we not guilty of offensive disparagement in calling chess a game? Is it not also a science and an art, hovering between those categories as Muhammad's coffin hovered between heaven and earth, a unique link between pairs of opposites: ancient yet eternally new; mechanical in structure, yet made effective only by the imagination; limited to a geometrically fixed space, yet with unlimited combinations; constantly developing, yet sterile; thought that leads nowhere; mathematics calculating nothing; art without works of art; architecture without substance - but nonetheless shown to be more durable in its entity and existence than all books and works of art; the only game that belongs to all nations and all eras, although no one knows what god brought it down to earth to vanquish boredom, sharpen the senses and stretch the mind."

The narration is overwhelmingly excellent – it will make you shiver.

I loved this story so much, that I recommend it to everyone. I believe that every person will be able to find something for himself in this short, but powerful novella.

Moscow-Petushki by Venedikt Erofeev - Book Review #110

Moscow-Petushki

by Venedikt Erofeev

In this classic novel of Russian humor and social commentary, a cable fitter is fired from his job after accidentally sending out detailed graphs charting his coworkers' productivity against the amount of alcohol they consumed.
From goodreads.com

Moscow-Petushki, also known as Moscow to the End of the Line, Moscow Stations and Moscow Circles is a pseudo-autobiographical prose poem about a cable fitter, intellectual and alcoholic – Venichka – who was fired from his job, for the graphs creation of his and his coworkers’ productivity against the amount of alcohol they intake. After he is fired, Venichka decided to travel from Moscow to the 125 kilometer (77 miles) away town – Petushki, to visit his lover and a child.

The whole novel is set during Venichka’s travel. While on the train, he drinks and engages in conversations with different people and with himself, discussing the wide variety of subjects from politics to religion, from philosophy to literature, from recipes to make different alcoholic “cocktails”(from eau de toilette, nails polish and other products that contain alcohol) to the meaning of life. As novel progress and as more Venichka drinks, novel becoming more and more surrealistic, hallucinogenic and dark.

Some view this novel as a sarcastic overview of the soviet life during late 60th. Other, consider it to be a cry for help, a cry for changes in the system and in the everyday life. I will not get into discussion on this, because I don’t think that this novel can be easily classified. For me it was hilarious and tragic, illuminating and devastating at the same time.

I really enjoyed Erofeev’s humor, which was based on paronomasia, or play on words. The grace, with which he interlaces words into most elegant and unobtrusive humor, was amazing and captivating. It is hard for me to judge, but I think that the novel in general and its humor in particular, might be hard to understand for people who is not closely familiar with everyday life of regular Russian people during late 60th, with policies and views of same period, with Marx’ and Lenin’s quotes and with Russian literature.

Moscow-Petushki also seems like a very hard to translate novel. First of all, it is prose poem, so it has a specific rhythm and pace. Second, it seems to me that in hands of not very good translator a lot of nuances of the humor might be lost (or maybe these nuances even untranslatable). I read this book in Russian and I didn’t check any translations, so I can’t really comment if a good job or not was done or not.

I loved Venedikt Erofeev’s Moscow-Petushki. It might be the best Russian book that was written at the crack of 70th. I would recommend this book to the Russian literature enthusiasts and to the satire lovers. For everyone else? – Only in case you are really interested.

All Together Dead by Charlaine Harris - Book Review #109

All Together Dead (Sookie Stackhouse #7)

by Charlaine Harris

Betrayed by her longtime vampire love, Louisiana cocktail waitress Sookie Stackhouse must now not only deal with a possible new man in her life-the oh-so-handsome shapeshifter Quinn-but also contend with a long-planned vampire summit. With her power base weakened by hurricane damage to New Orleans, the local vampire queen is vulnerable to those hungry for a takeover. Soon, Sookie must decide what side she'll stand with. And her choice may mean the difference between survival and all-out catastrophe.
From goodreads.com

Ah Sookie, Sookie… Can’t live with you, can’t live without you. As I already said not once in my previous reviews of earlier books of Sookie Stackhouse series, these series are not a great literature, at any stretch of the imagination. However, these books are definitely entertaining so much that I’m willing to forgive all the holes in the plot, all the imperfections in characters development, all the insanity in the story and far from perfect writing style. I keep reading this series, because after a long tough day, when my brain and my limbs are numb and I just physically can’t think or do anything anymore, these books are the perfect solution not only to relax your body and brain, but also to boost your mood.

All Together Dead is a seventh installment in the long running series about cocktail waitress Sookie Stackhouse living in normal (real) paranormal (there are so many creatures, humans just have not idea exist) world. The seventh book started very slow for me. It seems like Charlaine Harris was just touching basis with all the secondary characters and updating the reader on their latest live events. Unfortunately, neither these characters, no these events didn’t play any role in the story, so I couldn’t care less about them.

However, I really enjoyed the culmination of the story. Somehow it felt more realistically dramatic than culminations in the previous books, which read like a child’s make-believe play. The climax and Sookie’s decisions at the end showed how much she grew as a person in the light of these events. No, she probably still is not acting or thinking like an adult, but at least she is much less clueless, as she used to be.

Overall, I’m continuing to enjoy Sookie Stackhouse series. After All Together Dead, I’m more than ever curious to find out how the story will unravel and I already have the eighth book on my desk, waiting for me to read it.

Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw - Book Review #108

Pygmalion

by George Bernard Shaw

Written in 1912, Pygmalion quickly became a legend in its own time. The characters, situations, and dialogue Bernard Shaw supplies are rich, ebullient, and unmatched in wit as the infamous Henry Higgins prepares to "make a duchess of this draggletailed guttersnipe.”

Thus begins this classic tale as Shaw pokes fun at smugness and priggish conventionality. Who can forget professor Henry Higgins with his passionate interest in the science of phonetics and the improvement of British speech, or of course, poor Eliza Doolittle, who is one of the great heroines of the 20th century?

Get ready to enjoy the greatest Shaw romp of them all as Higgins prepares to transform a common flower girl into a creature "the king of England would accept as royalty.”
From goodreads.com

When I was around six years old, my mother took me to see Pygmalion for the first time. It was most likely my first adult play that I saw. At that time I didn’t know what Pygmalion meant, who was George Bernard Shaw and what was phonetics. I saw Pygmalion play countless times performed by different troupes. I saw different movie adaptations. And very fast the story became one of my favorites.

After each play we saw, while we were walking along the sea coast line in downtown, my mother told me something new about Pygmalion. It was from her I learned that phonetics was a study of human speech sounds. She was the one who told me that Shaw’s Pygmalion was loosely based on Ovid's tale about sculptor who created an ivory statue of a beautiful woman, fall in love with it and begged Venus to change the statue into the real woman. The more my mother was telling me about that play, the more I was falling in love with it.

However, I have never read Pygmalion until now. And I couldn’t deprive myself of this satisfaction, even though plays are not meant to be read – they are meant to be performed and watched. I remembered almost every line, I remembered even intonation with which actors were delivering that line and I still couldn’t stop reading or laughing. When I reached the end of the play, I was shocked that I actually didn’t remember the original ending of the play. The whole time, while reading, I was thinking about My Fair Lady’s variation of the ending. The whole time during fourth and fifth acts, I could not believe that Bernard Shaw will end his play the way I remembered; I could not imagine how could he, under such circumstances. And of cause he did not. Even though George Bernard Shaw wrote a story based on Ovid's tale, he added a feminist twist: at the end his beautiful statue refuses to be his creation.

This wit, enlightening and brilliant story has been entertaining generation after generation since its first production in 1914 and I believe it will continue doing so for countless more generations to come.

Perfume by by Patrick Süskind - Book Review #107

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

by Patrick Süskind

In the slums of eighteenth-century France, the infant Jean-Baptiste Grenouille is born with one sublime gift-an absolute sense of smell. As a boy, he lives to decipher the odors of Paris, and apprentices himself to a prominent perfumer who teaches him the ancient art of mixing precious oils and herbs. But Grenouille's genius is such that he is not satisfied to stop there, and he becomes obsessed with capturing the smells of objects such as brass doorknobs and fresh-cut wood. Then one day he catches a hint of a scent that will drive him on an ever-more-terrifying quest to create the "ultimate perfume"—the scent of a beautiful young virgin. Told with dazzling narrative brilliance, Perfume is a hauntingly powerful tale of murder and sensual depravity.
From goodreads.com

I read Perfume because I loved the movie and also because the world of smells is very important to me. I quite often use olfaction to distinguish or remember events, people or feelings. No, I cannot smell people like Jean-Baptiste Grenouille could, though I usually remember their perfume, or smell of soap; I can remember the scent of the blossoming jasmine outside of my window while I was talking to someone on the phone; or perhaps the smell of ozone just before the rain starts and odor of wet dirt after it is over while I was reading some book on lanai.

My only problem with scents was always my inability to actually describe it. So my descriptions usually go as: it smells like a dream; it is a smell of victory; this is the scent of late March; or this is how the mid summer afternoon smells. Maybe because of this my inability I was so much impressed with Perfume. Patrick Susskind’s skill to describe smells (any smells – pleasant or utterly disgusting) is amazing. He could not only make me understand what he was talking about, he actually made me smell it.

"Odors have a power of persuasion stronger than that of words, appearances, emotions, or will. The persuasive power of an odor cannot be fended off, it enters into us like breath into our lungs, it fills us up, imbues us totally. There is no remedy for it."

Perfume is probably the only book that deals with scents on such level. The scent is a main character in this novel, not Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, who is merely a this scent‘s guide to our world. That’s why I disagree with the second part of the book title (The Story of a Murderer). No, Grenouille did commit murders, but only to achieve his goal, which completely unrelated to these murders. Patrick Süskind not revealing anything about murder victims: we don’t know who they were, what their interests were, what they dreamed about, who they loved or hated; in most cases we don’t even know their names. In this situation it is almost impossible to care about these victims as people, we made by Süskind to only care about their scent, same as Grenouille does.

I enjoyed the ending of the book beyond any reason – an utter grotesque on one hand, and on the other, something breathtakingly beautiful:

“For the first time they had done something out of Love.”

I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the world of fragrance. Süskind did a tremendous research to deliver us the knowledge how the perfumery business worked in eighteen-century, including detailed descriptions of different techniques. I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in reading something completely original. I would recommend this book to anyone who is looking for strong emotions, because Perfume undeniably delivers that.

"He who ruled scent ruled the hearts of men."

Paranormalcy by Kiersten White - Book Review #106

Paranormalcy

by Kiersten White

Weird as it is working for the International Paranormal Containment Agency, Evie's always thought of herself as normal. Sure, her best friend is a mermaid, her ex-boyfriend is a faerie, she’s falling for a shape-shifter, and she’s the only person who can see through paranormals' glamours, but still. Normal.

Only now paranormals are dying, and Evie's dreams are filled with haunting voices and mysterious prophecies. She soon realizes that there may be a link between her abilities and the sudden rash of deaths. Not only that, but she may very well be at the center of a dark faerie prophecy promising destruction to all paranormal creatures.

So much for normal.
From goodreads.com

It either I was on the roll when I was picking up a bunch of YA paranormal romances lately or the genre itself, finally, has being getting some good works. Either way, I’m happy to report that Paranormalcy have a solid plot, interesting characters and gorgeous boys. It is undeniably cute and definitely paranormal down to the bone.

Paranormalcy is a cross between Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Gallagher Girls series (I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You) and something else that I can’t really pin point. A vague resemblance to this two works doesn’t make Paranormalcy any less original or enjoyable. Kiersten White managed to combine strong heroine who can kick some serious paranormal asses from Buffy and the whole secret agency with lots of cool gadgets extravaganza form Gallagher Girls, add some romance and humor (Evie's fascination with lockers) and present us with something completely new – an YA paranormal chick lit.

My only concern with Paranormalcy was that the plot and events in the book were too lightheaded. There was not enough urgency and villain wasn’t bad and scary enough. It seemed like there was no serious threat to Evie and she was shielding herself out of issues almost during the whole story (I mean, I can understand her: what was going on – wasn’t really her problem. Why should she give up everything and run towards the danger?). And almost at very end Kiersten White, finally, made Evie face problems that were piling up and not only face them, the author also made these issues Evie’s issues. Unfortunately, the resolution to the problems was too easy.

However, overall, Paranormalcy was very enjoyable, relaxing and cute read. I can’t wait to read the sequel – Supernaturally. I would recommend this book to every chick lit, YA and paranormal romance genre lovers. I think that so far Paranormalcy might be one of the best works in this cross gender mix.