The Ice Queen by Alice Hoffman

Be careful what you wish for. A small town librarian lives a quiet life without much excitement. One day, she mutters an idle wish and, while standing in her house, is struck by lightning. But instead of ending her life, this cataclysmic event sparks it into a new beginning.

She goes in search of Lazarus Jones, a fellow survivor who was struck dead, then simply got up and walked away. Perhaps this stranger who has seen death face to face can teach her to live without fear. When she finds him, he is her opposite, a burning man whose breath can boil water and whose touch scorches. As an obsessive love affair begins between them, both are forced to hide their most dangerous secrets--what turned one to ice and the other to fire.  (from goodreads.com)

I rate this book 4.5 out of 5 stars.

I really enjoyed reading this book.  I downloaded/borrowed it from the library but I didn't realize how captivating this storyline would be.  Alice Hoffman is a writing genius and after finishing this book I found myself immediately scouring amazon.com to find another book by her.  So far, I've been able to resist purchasing anything (mainly because it's approaching midnight and my judgment at this time of night is not always very sound). 

It starts off with a little girl who loves fairy tales.  Tragedy strikes her family and she is guilt-ridden for the rest of her childhood and young adulthood.  Her guilt goes so deep that she doesn't allow herself any pleasure or happiness, even with her grandmother.  It's almost as if she sees herself in the third person and her descriptions of events in her life are objective and almost scientific.  She doesn't seem to realize that some of the people she worked so hard to stay detached from were simultaneously trying to get closer to her.  She cared for her grandmother's health when she got sick.  She moved in and did all the cleaning, cooking, and caring for her grandmother because she felt it was her duty.  In return, her grandmother loved her.  Her grandmother thought she did it because she loved her.  Likewise, when Ned, the narrator's brother, returns to the narrator's life, she remains distant and cold.  Hence, the title of the book and the narrator's identification with the ice maidens in fairy tales. 

As time passes, the narrator finds that relationships are much more complicated than fairy tales lead you to believe.  Almost unknowingly, she makes friends and becomes closer with her family.  She adopts pets and finds herself worrying about their welfare.  She starts to care about people.  She becomes involved in other people's secrets.  She tugs you along in her journey of self-realization.  By the end of the book I found myself so entranced that I was sad there wasn't any more to read.  It's one of those books where you get to know the characters and care about them and when it's over, you almost find yourself wondering about them.  The words that aren't said, the meaning between the lines on the pages, are what define a character.  A good character is multi-faceted and has lots of layers.  It's someone that you feel like you know, not just as a character in a book, but as a real person.  How likely is it that I will ever know an actual lightning-strike survivor?  Probably not very.  But, Hoffman has weaved a story here that makes you feel like you know the narrator, her friends, and her family.  What is logical, what is fantasy, what is the difference between probability and absolutes?  Hoffman can make you think that up is down and right is left.  I can't wait to re-read this again and see if there's anything I missed the first time around.

What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty

Alice is twenty-nine. She is whimsical, optimistic and adores sleep, chocolate, her ramshackle new house and her wonderful husband Nick. What's more, she's looking forward to the birth of the 'Sultana' - her first baby.

But now Alice has slipped and hit her head in her step-aerobics class and everyone's telling her she's misplaced the last ten years of her life.

In fact, it would seem that Alice is actually thirty-nine and now she loves schedules, expensive lingerie, caffeine and manicures. She has three children and the honeymoon is well and truly over for her and Nick. In fact, he looks at her like she's his worst enemy. What's more, her beloved sister Elisabeth isn't speaking to her either. And who is this 'Gina'everyone is so carefully trying not to mention?

Alice isn't sure that she likes life ten years on. Every photo is another memory she doesn't have and nothing makes sense. Just how much can happen in a decade? Has she really lost her lovely husband for ever?

(from goodreads.com)

I rate this book 4 out of 5 stars.

This is one of those books that has been sitting on my kindle for a while, just waiting patiently for me to remember I ever downloaded it.  I was initially intrigued by the mystery that surrounds amnesia.  I thought this book would be a good foray into the "what-if"'s of the world.  What if I lost large chunks (or, for that matter small chunks) of time?  What if I woke up one day and didn't recognize the people who are living in my house with me?  What if, in the future, I find that I'm a completely different person than the one I am today?  What if my mistakes are so irreparable that they damage myself and my entire family for many years to come? 

This story isn't so much about changing one's past as it is about the importance of constant self-reflection.  The Alice that the readers get to know and love is the one from the past.  She thinks she's still twenty-something years old.  She wakes up in her almost-forty-year-old body and finds that her future self is a bit of a pain.  There are things she's told she does on a regular basis that she never would have dreamed she would be capable of.  The reader joins Alice as the rediscovers herself. 

I was immediately caught up in Alice's amazement.  She learned that relationships fade if you don't make a conscious effort.  She found that it's not as easy to forgive past hurts once they have a chance to fester and boil up inside.  She discovers that being a mother is as much about consistency and schedules as it is about listening to your children and treating each of them as a special human being. 

I thought this book was easy to read, hard to put down, and very charming.  It wasn't a change-your-life kind of book, but it was very heart-warming.  I finished this book in about 2 days.  During that time I didn't laugh out loud, I didn't cry, and I didn't want to put it down.  While I'm sure there are more thought-provoking books out there, I enjoyed this one for the simplistic writing style and easy to follow storyline. 

The characters were portrayed realistically.  Memory is a funny thing; when a big event happens, each person who is present may have a different memory of it.  One person may remember the sounds of the cars passing on the street, another may remember the color of the decor in hospital room, yet another may remember the kindness of a stranger.  There is no omniscient third party voice who narrates real life.  That's what I loved about this book.  Each segment is told from another person's perspective.  You see the same events from different eyes and you find yourself not wondering who's perspective is the "right" one but rather what each person will do with the situation, given their perspective of it.  I strongly believe that each person does the best that he can with the situation that he's in.  It may not be the "right" or the "wrong" course of action, but it is the best that he can think of at the time. 

Breathless by Dean Koontz

#1 New York Times bestselling author Dean Koontz delivers a thrilling novel of suspense and adventure, as the lives of strangers converge around a mystery unfolding high in the Colorado mountains—and the balance of the world begins to tilt….

In the stillness of a golden September afternoon, deep in the wilderness of the Rockies, a solitary craftsman, Grady Adams, and his magnificent Irish wolfhound Merlin step from shadow into light…and into an encounter with enchantment. That night, through the trees, under the moon, a pair of singular animals will watch Grady's isolated home, waiting to make their approach.

A few miles away, Camillia Rivers, a local veterinarian, begins to unravel the threads of a puzzle that will bring all the forces of a government in peril to her door.

At a nearby farm, long-estranged identical twins come together to begin a descent into darkness…In Las Vegas, a specialist in chaos theory probes the boundaries of the unknowable…On a Seattle golf course, two men make matter-of-fact arrangements for murder…Along a highway by the sea, a vagrant scarred by the past begins a trek toward his destiny…

In a novel that is at once wholly of our time and timeless, fearless and funny, Dean Koontz takes readers into the moment between one turn of the world and the next, across the border between knowing and mystery. It is a journey that will leave all who take it Breathless. 

(from goodreads.com)

I rate this book 3 out of 5 stars.

I used to love Dean Koontz.  Sadly, I think that either I grew up or his writing got old because every book I pick up by him just has a, "eh," reaction from me after I finish reading it.  Brethless is no different.  Now, don't get me wrong...it's a great little book if you've got some time to spare and you want something entertaining and simple.  It lays everything right out in front of you on a shiny platter with a big red bow on top.  This is perfect if your brain is tired from working all day and you want to pick up something that will do the thinking for you.  As far as I can tell there are  no deeper meanings or thought-provoking twists that need to be dissected in a book club. 

I enjoyed the characters and I thought the Bigger guy (Tom Bigger) was a nice little nod to society's homeless population.  I especially enjoyed Merlin, the Irish Wolfhound.  Koontz gave him humanistic traits but still kept him dog-like.  I thought the underlying theme of order and chaos were nicely done.  I liked that everyone was realistic, but I didn't like that everyone was able to accurately read other peoples' intentions.  Non-verbal communication is often misinterpreted in real life and it's a little disappointing that everyone in Koontz' books always come across as experts in social cues.  If someone feels anxious, the other characters know about it just by looking at his face.  Simple and straight-forward, sure, but that's not always what I want from a book.

All in all, I thought this book was a good choice for summer vacation.  It's perfect for lazing around by the pool or while you eat lunch.  It's not the kind of book that will change your life or that you'll even remember reading in six months, but it is a little fun and it will help you pass the time while you wait for the next Twi/Potter/Games trilogy to be made. 

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

"Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again",
With these words, the reader is ushered into an isolated gray stone mansion on the windswept Cornish coast, as the second Mrs. Maxim de Winter recalls the chilling events that transpired as she began her new life as the young bride of a husband she barely knew. For in every corner of every room were phantoms of a time dead but not forgotten a past devotedly preserved by the sinister housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers: a suite immaculate and untouched, clothing laid out and ready to be worn, but not by any of the great house's current occupants. With an eerie presentiment of evil tightening her heart, the second Mrs. de Winter walked in the shadow of her mysterious predecessor, determined to uncover the darkest secrets and shattering truths about Maxim's first wife the late and hauntingly beautiful Rebecca. (from goodreads.com)

I rate this book 1 out of 5 stars.

I picked up this book at the library because I mistakenly thought it was a ghost story.  It wasn't, but that wasn't really a big deal to me.  It's a classic gothic novel and many people consider it to be a must-read, but I just didn't care for it.  The protagonist, unnamed narrator, the second Mrs. de Winter, is so co-dependent and weak that it's painful to read.  Sure, ok, so she was born and bred poor and her highest aspiration in life prior to meeting Maxim de Winter was to be a whipping boy, er, I mean "lady's companion".  But c'mon she should have some backbone.  Everyone gets irritated and pissed off once in a while.  Why doesn't she?  Probably because she's too busy being a sniveling idiot.  By the way, why doesn't she have a name?  In my opinion, it makes her seem even more insignificant as a person.  I'm going to refer to her as no-name lame from now on.  That's what we called one of our cats before she ran away.

No-name lame also has no personality and her only hobbies (as far as I can tell) are sketching and taking long walks.  Her sketches are apparently as unremarkable as the rest of her.  Why does Maxim ask her to marry him?  Maybe because he's a dirty old man?  Haha, no, I'm joking, there's nothing in the storyline that even hints at that.  In fact, the ending will reveal some very sordid details about Rebecca (his deceased ex) that would have made 1930's society ladies feel faint.  For all intents and purposes, Maxim seems to be a decent guy.  He treats no-name lame well and tries to encourage her to find her own voice.  Except for a couple of times where he called her unintelligent and ignorant (but, I mean, really, who wouldn't??), Maxim is portrayed as a nice, although aloof husband. 

Ah, which brings me to Mrs. Danvers, the housekeeper.  This lady is like a bag of trail mix:  you scoop out a handful and although you can't exactly see or taste the nuts, you know they're there.  Mrs. Danvers is the typical evil villain and very consistent in her hatred of no-name lame.  No-name lame, however, seems to be too self-absorbed in her feelings of worthlessness to notice, or remember, Mrs. Danvers' hatred, although Mrs. Danvers does her best to remind her with snide and condescending comments.  I just couldn't get over the fact that a housekeeper was treating the lady of the house the way that Mrs. Danvers did.  Mrs. Danvers may have been nuts, but No-name lame should have gotten rid of her instead of cowering around and hiding from her. 

I don't like weak characters.  I didn't like that No-name lame was so desperate for her husband's approval.  I didn't like that she acted like a child.  I didn't like that she was too dumb to put any thought into her actions.  I didn't like that she had no idea how to act as a lady of a large estate like Manderly AND that she didn't bother to find out how.  Having no interests not only makes someone boring, it makes a character flat.  I honestly don't know why this book is so famous.  The only thing I liked about it was its ending and how it ties into the beginning without going into any details.  It left a sense of intrigue and made me wonder how the characters got from the ending of the book to the beginning of it and I thought that was nicely done. 

Now Face To Face by Karleen Koen

A bride at fifteen, widowed at the tender age of twenty, Barbara, Countess Devane, embarks for colonial Virginia financially ruined by the death of her husband in scandalous circumstances. Dressed in mourning as is proper for a woman, she is patronizingly described as a “fragile black butterfly,” but the fragility is deceiving. She makes a place for herself in the new world, takes lovers and friends across political divides, and questions the established traditions of slavery. Facing enemies she never suspected, she must return to England and deal face to face with the problems created by her husband, who haunts her even in death. Back in London, she quickly finds herself pulled into Jacobite plotting, and the treachery of powerful men suddenly threatens her family, her friends—and a new love.

(from goodreads.com)

I rate this book 0.5 out of 5 stars

Yes, that's right, this book got half a star from me, and I'm thinking even that much is a big gesture of generosity on my part.  This book was a drag.  Literally.  It went on and on with the same storyline elements.  Yeah, ok, we get it...Barbara is multi-talented and everyone loves her.  Can we move on with the story now?  No?  Well, then...that's how you end up earning half a star from me. 

This is the sequel to Through A Glass Darkly.  It picks up a little after the first book ended and the first few chapters move at a snail's pace.  Barbara is in colonial Virginia, learning how to plant tobacco.  She's trying to make a life for herself and all the men are in love with her (surprise, surprise) and all the women are jealous.  There's virtually nothing interesting going on in Virginia.  Oh, smugglers, right. Woohoo.  Then.....



*************************************SPOILER ALERT****************************



**************STOP READING THIS IF YOU PLAN TO READ THE BOOK **************


Hyacinth gets kidnapped and I think that finally the book will begin to pick up.  But I was wrong.  His disappearance is sad and Barbara moves all mountains and oceans to find him (because, in case you didn't get it in the last 1000+ pages, Barbara does everything perfectly and everyone loves her).  That's about it.  Barbara and her maid go back to England when she receives a letter informing her that Walpole didn't do everything he could to reduce her deceased husband's debt and she goes back home to investigate.  There's a lot of mutinous talk and boring plotting that amounts to nothing.  The rest of the book just drones on and on about how Walpole sucks...oh, and don't forget that Barbara is perfect and everyone loves her. 

Anyway, there are some deaths, some loss, and some of the side characters start to get real depth, but overall this book was just plain boring.  I kept telling myself that the book would get more interesting as the pages turned, but I was a liar. 

Through A Glass Darkly by Karleen Koen

Karleen Koen's sweeping saga contains unforgettable characters consumed with passion: the extraordinarily beautiful fifteen-year-old noblewoman, Barbara Alderley; the man she adores, the wickedly handsome Roger MontGeoffry; her grandmother, the duchess, who rules the family with cunning and wit; and her mother, the ineffably cruel, self-centered and licentious Diana. Like no other work, Through a Glass Darkly is infused with intrigue, sweetened by romance and awash in the black ink of betrayal.

(from goodreads.com)

I give this book 2 out of 5 stars.

Normally, I don't bother with romance novels.  The plots are usually too cookie-cutter for me.  There's a lot of love, lust, hurt, then resolution and everyone lives happily ever after.  blah blah blah.  This book, however, was a free download on my kindle and it had some decent reviews so I decided to give it a try.  The characters were interesting and the storyline was not dull.  The main character (Barbara) is a child (and yes, I say child even though she gets married) of 15.  She has a soft spot for her grandmother and young children.  Her grandmother and all the children in the story are very endearing.  Koen does a good job making you like the Duchess and her grandchildren.  My favorite part of the story was when a shocking turn of events sweeps through the family and reminds the reader of the cruel hardships and lack of proper medical healthcare that were rampant in that time of our history. 

Contrasting the beloved relationships between the children and their grandmother is the sadistic relationship the children have with their mother, Diana.  The author does her darndest to make you bleieve Diana is evil and to be feared.  She manipulates and bullies people into doing what she wants.  She is the perfect "bad guy" until you meet Phillipe. 

Barbara has a girl-hood crush on a man (Roger) who's something like 3 decades older than her and her family arranges for her to marry him, which she does.  She gets the man of her dreams and he gets her grandmother's prime real estate in London.  They travel to France and she does some growing up.  He starts to fall in love with her and she's sickeningly puppy-love-struck for him but their adventures in married life are not quite what one would expect.  Roger is your typical historical romance novel hero.  He's occassionally a jerk but the heroine always forgives him because he swoops in and saves the day or buys her expensive presents.  See, the thing about Roger, though, is that he's hiding a very dark secret that, when it gets revealed, devastates Barbara and smashes her expectations to smitherines.  This revelation was very well-written and leaves the book with a cliff-hanger that tempts me to buy the sequel, Now Face To Face.    

In a nutshell, this book is about a girl who grows up to realize the world isn't what she expected it to be.  I thought it was an "ok" read.  I wasn't overly disappointed when it ended but, like I said, the cilff-hanging ending makes me want to read the sequel just so I can find out what happens.  I may borrow it from the library because I just don't think I can convince myself that it might be worth money to read another one of these long-winded tales.  Oh, did I mention it's more than 700 pages long?  No?  Well, it is.  I've been known to enjoy long books because I hate when a good story ends but another 700 pages of this stuff?  Meh, guess we'll wait and see if the next post I make is about the sequel. 

 

The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey

Alaska, 1920: a brutal place to homestead, and especially tough for recent arrivals Jack and Mabel. Childless, they are drifting apart—he breaking under the weight of the work of the farm; she crumbling from loneliness and despair. In a moment of levity during the season's first snowfall, they build a child out of snow. The next morning the snow child is gone—but they glimpse a young, blonde-haired girl running through the trees. This little girl, who calls herself Faina, seems to be a child of the woods. She hunts with a red fox at her side, skims lightly across the snow, and somehow survives alone in the Alaskan wilderness. As Jack and Mabel struggle to understand this child who could have stepped from the pages of a fairy tale, they come to love her as their own daughter. But in this beautiful, violent place things are rarely as they appear, and what they eventually learn about Faina will transform all of them.

(from goodreads.com)

I give this book 5 out of 5 stars.

I absolutely LOVED this book.  There is no part of it that I can say anything negative about.  The plot was complicated yet simple and it reached out and grabbed ahold of me from the first page.  I have always adored fairy tales (in fact, my college honors thesis was based on fairy tales and urban legends) and that is what initially drew me to this book.  Eowyn Ivey does a marvelous job painting a world where the lines between reality and fantasy are so blurred that you often find yourself wondering if a fantastical element could be possible in reality.  The characters are also very well thought out.  They are each strong yet vulnerable, sympathetic yet aggravating, and very true-to-life. 

The story takes place in the wilderness of Alaska in the 1920s.  A middle-aged couple seeks adventure and independence on a farm in the middle of nowhere.  The town is so small it doesn't even have a doctor.  That first year is rough for the couple and things start to look very bleak.  Then, the couple makes a snow child (a child-sized version of a snowman) and voila!  The author begins to weave the classic fairy tale into her plot.  Without even realizing it, you find youself hoping that the snow child is a real child that the couple can care for and keep safe.  She comes and goes as she pleases and her innocent facade holds many secrets that the reader can't wait to have revealed. 

My favorite thing about it is that the author meanders through time at her own pace.  Sometimes she spends several pages focused on the span of single day, then she'll skip over an entire year in a sentence.  She shows the characters growing older and wiser.  She shows the goodness in each person that we all secretly wish for in our own reality.  She reveals that bad decisions don't define a person.  It is possible to betray someone in the heat of the moment then regret it and make amends through a heartfelt act.  It is possible to hurt someone over and over again and still have them look at you with love in their eyes.  It is possible to love someone and let them go without knowing when, or even if, they will return to you. 

How subtle is it to fall in love?  When does a child become a woman or a man?  Is it when they kill their first hunt?  Is it when they share a first kiss?  Is it when they risk their own physical health to be near the person they love?