Books, Fiction

Hiddensee by Gregory Maguire

Worth A Read Eh
Length 304
Quick Review Dirk Drosselmeier died in the forest as a child, and that set him on a unique path full of magic and mystery to become the beloved toy maker and creator of the nutcracker.

 

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Reading Hiddensee by Gregory Maguire | Wool Skirt | Shirt | Heels | Watch 

Gregory Maguire is best known for Wicked, a deconstruction of a part of the classic Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum. In Hiddensee, Maguire tackles another character in a classic tale, The Nutcracker by E.T.A. Hoffmann. Instead of tackling a deconstruction and retelling of the entire Nutcracker, Maguire takes on a critical yet small character in the original and turns him into the star of the story. 

Hiddensee is an anti-fairytale and has nothing to do with the ballet, which is probably why it has a fairly low rating on Goodreads. It’s not a story oozing Christmas, but it is full of magic. I’m not completely sure how I feel about the book. In a lot of ways, I really like it. In other ways, I didn’t love it.  

Dirk is a foundling growing up with an old man and old woman in the woods in 1808 in Bavaria, Germany. When he reaches a certain age, the old man takes him to cut down a tree. Due to an accident, Dirk dies and comes back to life. He goes into the world to find his way forever changed by the accident in more than one way. 

The narrative style adds to the feeling of an otherworldly fairy tale while cementing it in the real world. Though, the narrative style changes from the beginning of the story to the end. In the beginning, Maguire has a rhythm and rhyme to his descriptions of people and places, which helps set the story in a solidly fairy tale environment. As Dirk wanders further and further into the real world and away from his forest upbringing, the narrative becomes more concrete and less flowing. The poetry dims. There is an honesty to the narrative; to the point the narrator calls Dirk “ A bit of a dolt, that is.” I didn’t love the lack of Oxford comma usage. I think it’s necessary, and Maguire – or his editors – obviously is wrong and disagrees with me. 

The imagination in Hiddensee is abundant. Hellenic mythology, curiosity for the after life, hypnosis, German figures from the romantic period, authors, and more mingle in his retelling. The pages are star studded by anyone’s measure. Maguire combines them with ingenuity and prowess.

I loved everything about the book and the way Maguire told the story, but for some reason, it didn’t speak to me. It took me a long time to finish it, and I never really got into the story. I didn’t feel anything for Dirk. Overall, I felt emotionally lackluster about Hiddensee. In theory, I really enjoyed it. In practice, not so much. It is a well done story. I just don’t have any enthusiasm for it. 

Memorable Quotes
“Luck and grace: an unmatching pair of boots with which to address a long dusty road.”
“All paths lead to the same place, and that place is whatever comes next.”

bisous und обьятий,
RaeAnna

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Title: Hiddensee: A Tale of the Once and Future Nutcracker
Author: Gregory Maguire
Publisher: William Morrow (HarperCollins)
Copyright: 2017
ISBN: 9780062684370

 

 

Books, Fiction

Last Christmas in Paris by Hazel Gaynor and Heather Webb

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This was my Christmas dress from Pippa and Pearl. I adore it!!! | These red heels have a gold heel! | Last Christmas in Paris | I love this red clutch

Worth a Read Meh
Length 368
Quick Review An old man looks back at letters written during WWI. The narrative is 98% letters. It’s a sweet wartime love story.

Last Christmas in Paris by Hazel Gaynor and Heather Webb is my last holiday read of the season… a month late. I actually finished it a few weeks ago, but I have been so busy I didn’t get around to writing this review. Oops. Oh well, that’s life.

The most interesting part about Last Christmas in Paris is the narrative style. It’s told mostly through letters from the past between several people during WWI. An old man tells a story in the “present,” which is the 1960’s. There wasn’t anything remarkable about the style or plot. It was a good historical fiction piece. It’s not terribly Christmas oriented, so it works for any time of the year. I liked the characters just fine. It was a fairly bland story. The fact that the narrative was driven by letters made the reading process go really quickly.

My favorite relationship in the book was not the romantic one. That one was very boring. Sweet but boring. I liked the friendship between the two female characters. They were supportive, kind, blunt, and had fun banter.

There was a lot of talk about “war neurosis” in Last Christmas in Paris, which is old timey speak for PTSD. I’m glad this was a part of the book, but it was a fairly minor part of the book.

Overall, it’s a really good mindless read to take your mind off life. It’s pretty forgettable, though.   

Memorable Quotes
“I know you are convinced that my heart was stolen by Tom Harding years ago while I wasn’t paying any attention, and I’m beginning to think you may be right, darling.”

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Title: Last Christmas in Paris
Author: Hazel Gaynor and Heather Webb
Publisher: William Morrow (HarperCollins Publishers)
Copyright: 2017
ISBN: 9780062562685

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I love this dress. Did I mention that?
Books, Fiction

Christmas Camp by Karen Schaler

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Christmas Camp by Karen Schaler | Green Skirt (!!!) | Body Suit (A Steal!) | Shoes | Necklace

Worth A Read Meh
Length 354
Quick Review Haley’s Christmas spirit is less than jolly when her boss sends her to Christmas camp in order to do research for a project. The owner’s attractive son makes it easier and harder to concentrate on her job.

Christmas Camp by Karen Schaler hits all the Hallmark moments we have come to expect from feel-good Christmas stories. If you have a Netflix account, you’re probably familiar with her script from The Christmas Prince, which was a huge hit last year.

Haley is a marketing executive. Her company needs to make a pitch for a Christmas loving toy company. Haley wants to make the pitch more than anything to make partner, but she doesn’t have much of the Christmas spirit. Her boss sends her to Christmas Camp to find her own spirit to help her company. She joins a group of people who are there for many different reasons. The owner’s son is attractive and distracts Haley from completely her job.

To be completely honest, I really did not like Haley. Not for the reason we’re supposed to not like her. I didn’t like her because she just wasn’t terribly likable. Her ambition was about the only thing I could actually relate to.  

I didn’t hate the storyline in Christmas Camp. I definitely did not love the storytelling. It reads a lot more like a script than a novel. It makes sense consider Schaler’s background as a screenwriter. There is a lot of telling who there characters are without showing. It’s almost like a “Hi. I’m Haley. I’m a workaholic, but I’m also very nice.” The dialogue is clunky and feels a little bit like I’m being spoon fed the novel. It over simplifies everything.

I think Christmas Camp is a nice novel for the season. If you’re looking for a complex look into human interaction, this is not that. It is all the things a Hallmark movie is but in novel form.

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Memorable Quotes
“”There’s always something about Christmas that makes you feel like a kid again.””

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Title: Christmas Camp
Author: Karen Schaler
Publisher: William Morrow (HarperCollins)
Copyright: 2018
ISBN: 9780062883698

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Books, Fiction

Christmas at Little Beach Street Bakery by Jenny Colgan

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Reading Christmas at Little Beach Street Bakery with Beau in my favorite pajamas.

Read Yes
Length 320
Quick Review Christmas at Little Beach Street Bakery is the last book in Jenny Colgan’s trilogy. It’s a giggle worthy story about love and morality.

Christmas at Little Beach Street Bakery by Jenny Colgan is an adorable book. I don’t think you can read this without smiling a little bit. It’s the right combination of sweet, funny, and sassy.

Polly is the owner and baker behind the bakery in Mount Polbearne, a teeny island in Cornwall. She has a hunky, American fiancé named Huckle. A puffin named Neil decided to stick around. They all live in a very, very cold lighthouse. It’s Christmastime and everyone is bustling about dealing with family and friend drama.

I don’t want to give too much away because Christmas at Little Street Bakery is adorable. Jenny Colgan has a way of making a sweet story not Hallmark ridiculous. She is funny and smart in her usage of language. There’s a certain amount of conversational tone in her writing, which draws in the reader. It’s very enjoyable reading her writing; it’s not overdone nor underdone. I like that she includes a few recipes at the end of the book.

It’s a great read for Christmas.  

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Memorable Quotes
“Then he’d accidentally fallen madly in love with this strawberry-blond whirlwind of baking powder and capability”
“It sounds a thousand years ago, but it wasn’t really.”

Title: Christmas at Little Beach Street Bakery
Author: Jenny Colgan
Publisher: William Morrow (HarperCollins Publishers)
Copyright: 2017
ISBN: 9780062662996

Books

The Sweetness of Tears

Difficulty: II
Length: III
Quick Review: When a conservative Christian family’s secret is revealed by science, Jo’s path changed drastically opening her mind as she navigates life in a Muslim country.

I’ve read a bunch of not great books lately… So I approached this hesitantly because I was temporarily, literarily jaded. Thank goodness, this lifted my spirits considerably. I loved it! 20180420_131241.jpg

In The Sweetness of Tears, Nafisa Haji weaves complicated stories to create a beautiful novel full of truly human experiences. In today’s society, Christians and Muslims are viewed as opposites and even enemies. Haji contradicts these assumptions through parallels, by placing the two in the other’s worlds, by creating situations calling for openness and understanding instead of hostility and animosity.

Jo March is a twin raised by a conservative Christian family with a legacy in the evangelist circles. When she studied genetics in high school, she learned the impossibility of her brown eyes by her blue eyed parents. When she found the answer she was looking for, her life changed. She studied Arabic and Urdu in college before embarking on a career as a translator in the Middle East during the beginning of war. Her time there lead her to seek out the answers to questions she had been to scared to ask before. I won’t tell you more because you should read the book, and I don’t want to spoil anything.

I found it addicting from the first page, which rarely happens. I shy away from books with conservative Christians at the center because well, it’s just not my cup of tea. Haji confronts those stereotypes of intolerance, close-mindedness, and more the way she confronts similar to those that plague Muslims.

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Haji writes for a largely American audience with the assumption they have a Christian upbringing. She explains Pakistani and Islamic customs for those who are not familiar, but she does not condescend or dumb down her culture. There are so many themes, ideas, customs, and cultures running through the book, I would be a fool to try and talk about them all. She is truly a wonderful storyteller. She is able to put questions in the reader’s mind while waiting to answer them until the time is right.

One of the most overarching themes in the book connects to the way Haji wrote the book. The present is hard to define without first knowing the past, the choices, the situations, the people which created the present. Whether we like it or not, we are products of our parents and grandparents choices and experiences.

Other things I really appreciated: the character of Grandma Faith. She is what a good Christian should be: loving, accepting, and kind. I loved everything she said and stood for, though I am not a Christian myself. None of the characters in the book were dislikable, except for maybe Uncle Ron – the stereotypical evangelist.

I truly can’t recommend this novel enough. In today’s America, there is an overwhelming amount of mistrust, fear, and hostility when it comes to unfamiliar cultures. Haji writes a beautiful story about opening oneself to new and different, to accepting culpability, to being an intersectional world. It’s amazing.

Memorable Quotes:
“family values- only thing I ever saw being values when I’ve heard those two words getting thrown around is the act of not minding your own business.”
“Belief is about closing yourself off – a lie you tell yourself to make the world fit in with how you’ve decided it should be.”
“Real change in the world, real justice, cannot happen without the participation of women.”

Title: The Sweetness of Tears
Author: Nafisa Haji
Publisher: William Morrow (HarperCollins Publishers)
Copyright: 2011
ISBN: 9780061780103

 

Books

The Bookshop on the Corner

Read Yes
Length
Quick Review A sweet story about a young librarian hitting a low point in her life decides to follow her dreams, which lead her to new places, a van, people, and even herself.

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I liked this novel a lot more than I thought I would. I set the bar pretty low. I wouldn’t call it canonical, but I would call it entertaining and sweet.

From the very beginning, it is obvious Colgan loves to read. Her first words are the dedication different from most, the book is to all readers. The introduction spends eight pages describing all the best places and ways to read. She is a bookworm like the best of us. It becomes even clearer she has a passion for books because they are not only a central theme but become a character in their own right.

Nina Redmond is an introverted librarian in a big city who has devoted her life to books: reading them, acquiring them, and making sure the right book finds the right person. Nina finds herself jobless due to layoffs. Between friends joking she should and telling her she can’t, she finds her way to Scotland where she buys a bus renovating it into a mobile bookstore to bring books to those who have gone without for so long. Nina finds herself loving and becoming a part of her new home in spite of herself.

Nina starts out incredibly shy to the point of meekness in her actions and her thoughts. Throughout the novel she becomes more brazen and confident as she is met with obstacles beginning with friends telling her she can’t to sexism to being underestimated to a rude and sullen landlord. Nina finds her inner strength along her journey spreading warmth, kindness, and books.

When Nina first moves to Scotland, she has always had a book as a companion. She has spent her life reading and living within the worlds books provide, she has forgotten to inhabit the world she physically resides in. Leaving the city and entering a small town life, she is able to stop using books as a fortress against the constant barrage of noise, people, and activity. She becomes a part of something for the first time.

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Colgan isn’t just writing about books. She is making astute observations on the changing world we live in. A recurring theme she touches on is how the job market is changing. In a very short amount of time, there is an emphasis on youth, media, technology, and extroversion. There is also less interest in paying people living wages or caring about the generations who have not yet caught up to the new world. Colgan drives home the fact that libraries and bookstores are disappearing at alarming rates.

I really enjoyed how Colgan made sure each character was different than what they appeared. She took the effort to make each character human. There was no evil. Every character had redeeming and less than admirable qualities. Colgan ensures each character’s faults can be understood because we all have our quirks, and there is always a reason for said quirks.

I enjoyed the emphasis of the novel was not on love or finding love. Romantic love was a part of the plot; however, it took a backseat to Nina’s search for herself. Romance was not even mentioned until page 87.

I found The Bookshop on the Corner to be evocative of Nina (coincidence!) George’s Little Paris Bookshop. They both have main characters owning nontraditional bookshops: a bus and a barge, respectively. Each character likes to think of themselves as a purveyor of more than books: a matchmaker or apothecary – setting each person up with the correct book at the correct time. Although the idea is not groundbreakingly original, I much preferred Colgan’s story. It focused less on love and more on books.

The only real downside of the story for me is the fact that Colgan made up book titles within the novel. I just think there are more than enough books currently in print or out of print that could have been name dropped instead of creating new ones. But I’m being nit-picky.

The Bookshop on the Corner by Jenny Colgan is not a book requiring a great deal of intense thought or deep contemplation. It is a lovely summer read or quiet afternoon read. It is a great novel to pick up when you want to follow along on a sweet story.

Memorable Quotes
“But sometimes she felt the world wasn’t built for people like her.”
“…she bought stationery the way other women bought lipsticks…”
“It’s like an entire generation has been thrown into a world they don’t understand and where nothing makes sense, and. they’ve just been told, tough luck, learn how to type or you can just starve to death.”
“There was a universe inside every human being every bit as big as the universe outside them.”
“Everyone’s love life went badly until the end.”

Title: The Bookshop on the Corner
Author: Jenny Colgan
Publisher: William Morrow Publishing (HarperCollins Publishers)
Copyright: 2016
ISBN: 9780062467256