books #115-120

I'm so behind... This is the last of 2006.

115. Little, Big by John Crowley ****. This was recommended by a spammer, whose comment I didn't delete because the book recommendations seemed decent. It was actually a very good book. The beginning reminded me a bit of Stardust by Neil Gaiman (which is a good thing), but it got more complicated further on. It's the story of the somewhat magical Drinkwater family and how their lives cross the boundaries between the real world and one inhabited by fairies.

116. The Squirrel Mother by Megan Kelso ***1/2. This was graphic short stories, and I again reaffirmed my lack of enthusiasm for short stories. Most of them were nice; I just prefer novels. There were a couple of excellent ones that made the book worth reading, though.

117. Glass Mountain by Cynthia Voigt ***. I was excited to discover that she had written a book for adults that I'd never heard of, but I think I should just stick to rereading the Dicey and Jeff books because this was almost as disappointing as the last book of hers I read. It was a fairly lame story with a predictable short story style twist at the end. What I kept wondering about (more than the characters or plot) was when the book was supposed to be set. It was written in 1991 and there are references to HIV (I think she took the opportunity to put more gratuitous sex in than might be acceptable in a YA book) but it had a weirdly old fashioned feel. The characters' attitudes to women and the kind of prudish-while-trying-to-appear-otherwise treatment of sex reminded me very much of Madeleine L'Engle, and sadly not in a good way.

118. The Funnies by J. Robert Lennon ****. This was recommended by a commenter at the Comics Curmudgeon, as part of a discussion of how dysfunctional the real family behind the Family Circus must be. The comic strip in the book is a fairly thinly-veiled imitation of the Family Circus so I was expecting it to be at best an amusing dig at that strip, but it was actually a lot closer to what I wanted The Position to be. The parents were largely absent in this case, so it did focus on the different ways the children coped (or not) with being drawn as cartoon characters, and the disparity between their real and imagined families. It's also about figuring out how to have a life you actually want, rather than coasting along, reacting to old dynamics.

119. The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly ****. At the beginning, I thought this was just going to be a standard quest novel, and it mostly was, but it got more interesting, too. It reminded me of Coraline by Neil Gaiman (again, a good thing) so I wasn't sure why it wasn't a YA book, though, until later. It was a very good book, but it contained descriptions of some of the most disturbing torture I've ever read. It also had some good retellings of fairy tales (though Snow, Glass, Apples still remains the best, by far - if you haven't already, go listen or read (it's rather disturbing, too, though)).

120. Very Far Away From Anywhere Else by Ursula K. LeGuin ***1/2. I liked this book, but then I got a bit impatient with the main character, Owen, for giving up so easily in the middle. It was a lovely story of friendship, though.