Review- The Long Way Home

 

The tenor of this book is quite different from most of her other work. No murder to start out with just a husband who doesn’t come home on the appointed date.This book revolves around the non-reappearance of one of the two characters I most dislike in this series- Peter. Separated from the long-suffering Clara, the other character I dislike, he fails to return by the agreed upon date and Clara being Clara waffles around until Gamache pries it out of her.

Gamache has now retired to Three Pines and almost reluctantly sets out to search for Peter, joined by Jean-Guy, Clara, and Myrna the search for Peter reveals that he has been searching, too.

Lacking the familiar magic of books set in Three Pines, Home nevertheless kept me reading as Gamache and friends travel around trying to follow in Peter’s footsteps, trying to discover what he is doing.

I know that a lot of readers are/were unhappy with the end but I wasn’t. Sometimes things just happen, there is never a guarantee of a logical explanation and people don’t always act in a logical way. In this case I think Peter’s fate was already set, no matter the distance I don’t believe he would ever have returned “home”. I’m not sure he had truly figured out what/where/who home was.

I was left wondering if Clara would take any responsibility for her part in the end and I hope that Penny addresses this in a future book.

If you are expecting the familiar you won’t like this one, it’s a much different book from the usual but if you can read it as an interlude, a road trip to a disastrous end it might work.

I had never heard of the Garden of Cosmic Speculation before this and I want to thank Penny for the introduction to this most beautiful and fascinating place.

Review- Haunted Hijinks

I picked up this book because it said book 1 and it was, but book one of her paranormal mysteries, turns out there was a whole series with these characters before this book. Consequently I was thrown into a small town with a cast of characters I didn’t know but was expected to. It made for a very confusing story at times.

I love a good cosy but I did not love this one, it was a mildly interesting mystery with too many components and too many characters. At times it felt like the mystery took a backseat to Agnes, Eleanor, and Caroline, and I did not find Agnes, Eleanor, and Caroline all that interesting.

The explanation of Caroline was a tad off, the passage of time does not make some things less than what they are.

I don’t know if it is Johns’ writing style or just this particular book but it was like wading through cold molasses to finish and I won’t be picking up any of her others

How I Rate/Review Books for Kids and YA, yes, there is a pigeon involved

[reblogged from Spare Ammo]

 

I have this little problem, and no, it’s not my dining room. (The dining room is where I keep my Ebay stuff and it looks like a box factory and an estate sale collided and exploded in it) It’s about books, specifically books intended for children, teens, YA.

THESE ARE THE BOOKS THAT I WANT TO BE PROPERLY WRITTEN.

I don’t know how or when you all learned to read but I started very early. I always read above my grade level, I aced my spelling tests. In grades 1-6 we had spelling tests every week and I maybe misspelled three words in all that time. No joke. Why? Because I read

I read good books, good in the sense that the words were properly spelled, the sentences were grammatically correct, the stories had a plot. A simplistic plot maybe but still a plot. The authors cared that they were writing for an audience that would take something away from their writing.

Classes were definitely easier because I could read, and read well. English classes were easier because I had learned by reading. Until I had to diagram, we won’t go there and gerund is a dirty, six letter word to me.

I believe that if any author has a responsibility not to publish unreadable, misspelled, grammatically incorrect, plotless crap it is the author that writes a book for the above mentioned groups.

So when I stumble over a Raani York (her book is listed in teens, YA), a Christin Lovell (make those words up as you go along), or a Pami L Wahl (who can spell her own name but not anything else) then, yes, I am going to leave a freaking 1 star on their crap.

I don’t care if they are a sweet old lady, an upstanding church lady, a Vox Day, or just an over entitled whiner, they are going to get a I star and a pithy little description of their inadequacies.

Kids, teens, they all learn from what they read.

You want to write for minors- you got responsibilities. You want to write crap for minors- I hope I help make your next job asking someone if they want fries with their burger.

Cue pigeon.