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.

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.

Hildy Biddle is a high school reporter trying to prove that she is ready to bring the truth to the world. And her community is definitely a place where the truth needs to be brought forth - the local newspaper has been covering very little other than the haunted house in town, there are mysterious signs appearing on the fence of the haunted house constantly, and there was a staged robbery at the same house recently. Not to mention that there’s something fishy going on with the psychic who has recently moved to town, and the real estate agents from out of town trying to buy a good number of the town residents’ properties. But will Hildy and the rest of the high school newspaper be able to get to the bottom of this story before it’s too late?

This book left a lot to be desired. There characters were extremely one dimensional. Especially the main character, but it was hard to empathize with any of them. I didn’t like any of the characters; I didn’t dislike any of them. I was just completely indifferent.

The plot? Predictable at best. At worst, it felt like it had all been done before. It wasn’t exciting until the last quarter of the book, and even then it was only exciting because things were finally happening. I still knew how the book was going to end, I was still indifferent towards the characters, but gosh darn it something was finally happening!

Show his eyes, and grieve his heart;
Come like shadows, so depart!

I first read this book around the time I was first introduced to the Stratford Festival. Since then my love for the Festival has grown greatly, but I haven’t visited this book in years. In fact, I had gotten rid of my own copy and didn’t get a new one until I mooched it off someone a couple of months ago.

Kinny, a high school student from Montreal, has managed to score a summer job at the Stratford Festival, working as the assistant to a director of one of the Festival’s plays. The director, Jeneva, is taking on Shakespeare’s Macbeth, a play known to have bad luck go hand-in-hand with it. But it’s not just bad luck that is causing the deaths of actors involved in this play this time around - two of the witches from the play are not only real, but have appeared in Stratford and are very interested in a mirror that Kinny has found to be used as a prop in the play. This is no ordinary mirror - when Kinny looks into it, she has her wishes granted. When Luke, one of the actors in the play, looks into it he sees one of Macbeth’s (the real Macbeth, that is) memories. And Jeneva sees something, but no one is quite sure what.

It was definitely interesting to read this now that I have such a great love for Shakespeare’s Macbeth - I didn’t know too much Shakespeare when I first read it, so I had a better appreciation for parts of it this time around. I enjoyed Katz’s interpretation of the three witches in the play (some of my favourite characters in all of Shakespeare’s plays), but at the same time it was so different than how I picture them in the play. And I enjoyed being able to picture some of the story that takes place in Stratford (a positively lovely place!) when I read about them.

I wish this book focused a little bit less on the English Canadian vs French Canadian dynamics, and focused a bit more on the play, or the story of the mirror and the three witches… Overall, it seemed rather unnecessary to the rest of the story.

The last chapters of the book left a little to be desired. Some characters seemed inconsistent when it came to the part of the book; at the end, one of the witches looses her powers as a witch and suddenly comes across as a harmless and friendly old woman. Kinny suddenly seems to be on good terms with the witch, who she had been avoiding and disliked for the rest of the book.

I can see why I enjoyed this so much when I was younger… as it is now, if the ending had been slightly different, I would have enjoyed it much more, but found it a somewhat disappointing re-read. This was my eleventh book for the Canadian Book Challenge.

This is the fourth (and most likely last) book in Swendson’s Enchanted, Inc series. While Swendson has mentioned that she had originally planned it as a five-book series, the publisher apparently hasn’t bought the fifth book. Very sad, because I love this series - it’s definitely one of my favourites, and I’ve reread the previous books numerous times.

Don’t Hex with Texas takes place outside of New York, in a small town in (surprise, surprise) Texas. Katie’s returned home in hopes that if she is away from New York, her lovely boyfriend Owen Palmer won’t be distracted from vanquishing the evil Phelan Idris. However, things in Cobb, Texas aren’t as quiet as she had been expecting - it seems like Cobb, Texas has suddenly gotten a rogue wizard of it’s own, and it’s up to Katie to figure out what’s going on. She soon starts unveiling Idris’s plan to teach people who are magical, but have no magical training, all kinds of spells that can create all sorts of havoc. Of course, if Idris is behind this, then Katie needs help from her magical friends in New York, and soon Sam and Owen appear in Texas.

First thing I noticed when I got my hands on this book is that the cover was not quite the same as the rest of the books in the series. This may not seem like a lot to some people, but as a graphic designer, the fact that the colour of the title in this installment (a bright reddish-pink) is so different than the other books in this series (various shades of purple) really bothers me. It sticks out like a sore thumb, and it’s going to really annoy me when they’re sitting next to each other on my bookshelf, even if all I can see is the spine.

The story itself, though… I loved it. It definitely stood up to the standards set by the previous books in the series - not my favourite one (Once Upon Stilettos still manages to be that), but definitely wonderful. The only thing that bothered me with the actual story is that so much it seemed to be spent explaining who different people were, or different events that happened during the previous books.

I miss some of the characters from previous books that didn’t make it down to Texas for the book, but most of my favourites all managed to make an appearance - Owen, Merlin and Rod were all there, though I think we could’ve used some more time with Rod that we actually got. And I wish we had gotten to see Trix. There were so many great new characters in this book, though. It turns out that some of Katie’s family are magical, and others are immune to magic like she is (we found out about Katie’s mother previously, but one of her brothers is too).

And then Phelan Idris is obviously back, who is a wonderful bad guy. Insane in the most amusing sorts of ways. When first confronted with Owen and Katie, what does he do? Start whining and complaining about how hard it is to be a criminal mastermind. It definitely was one of the best parts of the book, and had me in a giggling fit. Only thing I wish we knew more about was the people that Idris is working for… I suppose that’s what would happen in the fifth book, if it gets published. Oh, one can only hope.