Are you still crazy about Maisie? A Reader's Respite is on the fence. On the one hand, Maisie has been a part of our lives for eleven books now, a veritable age for a reader of our limited attention span. But really, how many books do we have to go through before Maisie finally does something (anything) new? If we're to believe the ending of Leaving Everything Most Loved, we only have to wait for the next book in the series. No spoilers, but it might involve curry.
Rating: 3 stars
Source: Advance Reading Copy from publisher
Desperately behind on our teen dystopia, A Reader's Respite listened to this first book of Condie's trilogy, Matched, on audiobook. While the plot was slightly predictable - dystopian world, teen love triangle - we found the underlying themes to be both adult and fascinating: the freedom of choice. Condie, of course, drives home how taken-for-granted this freedom is, but at the same time builds a world where the elimination of those choices seem understandable. Nicely narrated by Kate Simses, we suspect that the audiobook was the better choice, but we still haven't decided whether or not to continue on with the series....
Rating: 3.5 Stars
Source: Library Download
The Winthrop Woman, written in 1958 by historical fiction master Anya Seton, was a title we've been meaning to read for years but didn't get around to it until a read-a-long at GoodReads popped up. The read-along was kind of sucky, but we enjoyed the novel in a this-is-historically-accurate-with-long-stretches-of-boredom sort of way. One of those novels that takes you a while to get through, but you're pleased that you did.
The Winthrop Woman is a fictional account of Elizabeth Fones, a woman who was both daughter-in-law and niece to the first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Company, John Winthrop. Scandalous in her day, Elizabeth is portrayed as a free spirit who suffers greatly at the hands of her fellow hard-core Protestant immigrants to the New World. Seton borrowed heavily from surviving correspondence and legal records to piece together Elizabeth's somewhat sad life. If nothing else, the novel makes us grateful for a world that includes air conditioning, refrigeration, and the freedom to choose not to attend Sunday services.
Rating: 4 Stars
Source: Purchased and languishing too long on our personal shelves
Can you believe we had never read the legendary science fiction classic, Ender's Game? Yeah, we can't believe it either. But anything that has "Special 20th Anniversary Edition" is bound to catch our attention even if we are the proverbial day late and a dollar short. And? We were amazed, blown-away, and enraptured by this tale of young Ender and his space-age education. So much so that we immediately went out to buy the dead-tree version, knowing that in a few short years Big Kid kid should be prime for this stuff. And by then, we'll want to listen to it again.
Of course, who knew that there are about a bazillion sequels and prequels and side-quels (not a real word, folks, but you see where we're going with this)? We want to read them ALL.
Rating: 5 Stars
Source: Purchased via Audible
I read Ender's Game when my son was in middle school because he raved about it so much. I read one of the later Maisie books and didn't get why everyone loves them.
ReplyDeleteTruthfully, I started to get tired of Maisie around book five or so. And as for Ender: YES, I was thinking Middle School would be just about right to hand this over to Big Kid. He's gonna love this stuff.
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