Monday, November 12, 2007

Some Books I Neglected to Log

Last month I finally finished The Book Thief. I had trouble getting into it because of the device of having death narrate it, describing things using extravagant similes, because of the interjections of odd fonts and drawings; I'm a little put off by such attention-distracting affectations. Also, given its setting in WWII Germany, you know right from the start that it can't have a totally happy ending. Eventually I did get past all that, and I was absorbed by the last 2/3 of it. I'll give it ***, though if the above doesn't bother you, if you like having your emotions jolted, you might rate it as ****.
I finished it during a road trip to Cleveland. On that trip we also listened to a fantasy book set in Venice called The Water Mirror *** Be warned: it's the first in a series. And some kind of prequel to the Peter Pan story, featuring the schoolboy who would become Hook. It was awful: * at best, we didn't quite finish it, and I was glad. I wouldn't have listened past two chapters if I had free choice.

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