Once Upon a Bookshelf

Joanna and her friends are all at that stage in their very late twenties where they are starting to make their way in the real world after college, when Lucas’s uncle commits suicide and he inherits Stoneborough Manor. Lucas intends for this large property in Oxford to be the place for their group of friends to get together every weekend, but things don’t always go as planned.

Soon the malevolent atmosphere surrounding the house starts to have an effect on everyone there - especially Joanna and Lucas. Lucas has also become obsessed with films that he found in the house of his parents, uncle, and their friends at the same age where Lucas, Joanna and their group of friends are now. When Lucas starts living at the house full-time, things really start taking their toll on him - he has become, to say the least, unstable. Things continue to get worse for him when he uncovers the secret between his father’s and his uncle’s deaths.

While I enjoyed this book, I had the feeling throughout the whole thing that it wasn’t quite as good as it could have been. It was just creepy enough, didn’t push the boundaries of creepiness. There was almost thick atmosphere that you could taste, but it was only almost there. Then, at times the narration felt extremely awkward. Whitehouse seemed to merge the present with memories of what happened in the past without a noticeable break, which lead to confusion until I realized what was going on. I got used to it as the book progressed, but it never flowed really well for me in those instances.

There were, however, certain redeeming qualities about the book. The characters were well developed, and the growth they went through during the year that the book takes place was sometimes frightening, and sometimes invigorating. The house itself had a characterization that overtook the whole book as well. Rather intense at times (though not as eerie as I had hoped it to be).

I did enjoy this book, even though it wasn’t everything I hoped for. It was a good fluffy read, perfect for the rainy weather we’ve been having recently.

This is my thirteenth, and last, book for the Canadian Book Challenge; I heard about it earlier during this challenge as another participant read it. As soon as I saw that there was a butter tart featured on the cover of the book, I knew I was meant to read it. (Slight tangent: Butter tarts are one of my all-time favourite dessert-ish foods, and I feel only the greatest pity for anyone who is not living in Canada and cannot get one whenever one darn well pleases. Best Things Ever.)

Only in Canada, You Say is a collection of words that are truly Canadian - whether they are words only Canadians use, or whether they have developed a different meaning than what is typically associated with the word. It’s pretty much a glorified dictionary, with words separated into different themes - politics, food, sports, etc. I was surprised, not only by the number of words that I didn’t know (as they came from different parts of the country), but also by the number of words that I did know - I would never have thought if I used them elsewhere in the world (or possibly even elsewhere in the country) that no one else would understand what I was talking about. For example, a stag and doe is apparently an event that typically only happens around here (or at least by that name) - an event to help a couple raise money for their wedding by having guests buy drinks, pay to play games, etc.

It was very informative, and could be used as a great conversation starter. I was reading it while visiting my parents this past weekend, and don’t even know how many times I had to pause and relate to my parents the newest word I had discovered was a Canadian word or had a truly Canadian meaning that we never would have supposed. A little dry at times (as I said it was pretty much a glorified dictionary), and the introductions to each section sounded like they were meant to be funny but weren’t… but other than that, it was quite fun, and I’ve already passed it on to my grandparents, who not only have fabulous taste in books as it is (my grandfather was talking about Will Ferguson this weekend!) but who will also enjoy this book as much as I did.

Based on Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, Confessions of a Triple Shot Betty is the story of three girls working at a drive-through coffee shop for the summer. Geena, our main Betty of the story, is determined to have a fabulous summer. But things don’t go according to plan - her best friend, Amber, and her cousin, Hero, hate each other at first meeting. When they do start getting along, it seems that it’s only to trick Geena into believing the boy she has always had a rivalry with actually likes her. Then, someone posts nude photos of Hero on MySpace - except, Hero didn’t actually pose for any nude photos. This of course causes the boy that Hero loves to ditch her because she is, as he says, a “hoochie.” Now, it’s up to the Geena to get to the bottom of this, and try to put everything to rights before the summer is over.

Teen girls would love this. It’s a good summer book - thoughtless, entertaining and fun. As for me… it was cute, but I didn’t find it phenomenal. It was amusing, but it wasn’t laugh-out-loud funny. It had good parts - Geena’s numerous names for her dad’s girlfriend, for one. It was a very fast read, and kept me entertained, but it doesn’t strike me as one of those books that is particularly memorable.

Let me start with saying that anyone who is a fan of Madeline L’Engle’s Time Quartet ought to read this book.

Sarah’s world is turned upside down when her parents die in a plane crash on their way back home from visiting her genius brother, Sam. Sam has been working at CIPHER, a company that no one knows anything about no matter how much they try to discover, and his parents had been trying to convince him to look into why this company is so secretive. After their parents death and funeral, Sam goes back to work at CIPHER, creating a machine that will allow people to travel to other planets, and even though Sarah wants nothing more than to live with Sam now that they’re on their own, she is sent to live with her father’s step brother, whom she barely knows. That’s only the beginning of when things start to get interesting - someone leaves her notes in the library, a strange man follows her, and she has caught the eye of a cute boy who seems to be intent on protecting her.

When she receives a package from her brother containing a stone, however, things really start to get strange. Soon Sarah and Angel (the cute boy) are brought to a new planet by the stone, and Sarah has to try to find her brother in hopes that they can all get back to earth safely.

I knew from the first paragraph that not only would I love this book, but that I had found a kindred spirit in Sarah:

Outside the March sky was gray and overcast, threatening snow, but in Sarah Lucas’s room a fire blazed in the blue-tiled fireplace, and the lamp beside her canopy bed cast a cheerful light. Balancing Wuthering Heights on her knees, she poured a second cup of tea from the small brown teapot on the bedside table, took a bite of toast, and licked the honey from her fingers. There was homework to be done, but it could wait.

This was quite the engaging book. The characters were all fabulously developed, the plot was exciting, and it took me to places my imagination reveled in. I love good stories where the characters travel to new worlds, when the author can pull off creating a believable world that is so different than ours.

The is perhaps one of the reasons that The Dream of the Stone reminded me quite a bit of L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time. These two books have so many of the same elements - the journey to another world to rescue a family member, the darkness threatening to take over the universe, the young girl developing the strength to fight off the darkness, the subtle Christian theme throughout… and yet, and the same time they are so different. In this one the main differences being that a stone brings Sarah to this new world instead of three immortal beings, and the darkness is coming FROM our world, not coming TO our world. And then there is the fact that this book isn’t as cheesy as Wrinkle. Don’t get me wrong, I love A Wrinkle in Time - it has always been one of my favourite books. But it can get cheesy. Need I mention Calvin stating that Meg has “dream-boat eyes”?

I also found that The Dream of the Stone felt more modern than Wrinkle. I think it was the way the characters acted, as there wasn’t much mention of technology that could have defined this book to coming from a certain era. I mean, yes, Sarah’s brother Sam is creating a machine that uses worm holes to send people across the universe, and normally human technology like that is considered to be from the future, but as the technology he’s using to create this machine isn’t fully described it could very well take place at almost any point in time. If I hadn’t known that this book was originally written over a decade ago, I would have completely believed it had only been written a few years ago because it doesn’t talk a lot about technology, and technology changes so quickly that it can date a book so fast too. Oh wow, I’m starting to ramble now.

What it comes down to is that this is a positively brilliant book, and Sabrina was positively right in telling me that I needed to read The Dream of the Stone. This will be sitting alongside Wrinkle on my bookshelf and will be pulled out time and again to be reread.

Thirteen year old Rory was happily believing that the world was a completely normal place until the magician Hex played a trick on him that opened his eyes to Mannahatta. Now, he sees strange things everywhere he looks - cockroaches riding on rats, people made of paper mache, as well as people and animals that no one else can see. Rory soon learns that he is a Light - a person who can see the truth, and can make others see the truth of what is really there. Hex is excited about the fact that Rory is a Light - most Lights don’t live more than a few years, so Rory is the oldest one to be found in a Very Long Time. But is Hex just trying to manipulate Rory and take advantage of what he is in order to get what he wants?

Mannahatta, the world that Rory can now see, is a world parallel to the real Manhattan. It’s comprised of gods and other spirits - the gods being people in our own world who, after their death, return to Mannahatta because of something they were remembered for in our world. The gods in Mannahatta don’t die, they just fade away when people in our world stop remembering them. Except recently, someone has been murdering these gods.

Will Rory’s ability to see the truth help figure out who is murdering these gods? And does he really want to help Hex in his plot?

Starting this, I was not completely sure whether I would enjoy it or not… but it turns out that I completely loved it. I think this may be one of my favourite young adults/childrens books that I have read in a while. It was imaginative, and it was quite different. Had all of the things I consider necessary in a really good book: magic, girls kicking butt, and boys prancing about in early 19th century clothing. (But make no mistake, this isn’t a book about girls kicking butt, it’s about boys kicking butt, but there were a couple of awesome female characters.)

The characters were all great. Rory was a little concerning at first - he seemed to sound more like a adult than a young teen, but considering his father left his family when he was super young, and he had to take care of his younger sister since their mother works ALL THE TIME… he had to grow up quickly, so the fact that he sounded quite a bit older than he’s supposed to be seemed a bit more understandable.

The supporting characters were fabulous - especially some of the people who inhabit Mannahatta. I most particularly loved the Rattle Watch. They are definitely people I would like to have on my side in trouble. As for other characters in Mannahatta, well, I was a little upset about the fact that my favourite character ended up being the assassin. He was so much fun, and he reminded me of Draco from Cassie Claire’s Draco Trilogy.

Definitely looking forward to more books about Mannahatta. There’s so many questions I have unanswered about this - especially since Rory saw his father in Mannahatta. I’m dying to know what happened to him.