The Friday Five

Five Awesome Opening Lines (in no particular order):

• There was once, in the country of Alifbay, a sad city, the saddest of cities, a city so ruinously sad that it had forgotten its name. -Salman Rushdie, Haroun and the Sea of Stories
• When Josey woke up and saw the feathery frost on her windowpane, she smiled. Finally, it was cold enough to wear long coats and tights. It was cold enough for scarves and shirts worn in layers, like camouflage. It was cold enough for her lucky red cardigan, which she swore had a power of its own. She loved this time of year. -Sarah Addison Allen, The Sugar Queen
• It is a day of yellow fog, and the Folk are hungry. -Franny Billingsley, The Folk Keeper
• A surging, seething, murmuring crowd of beings that are human only in name, for to they eye and ear they seem naught but savage creatures, animated by vile passions and by the lust of vengeance and hate. -Baroness Orczy, The Scarlet Pimpernel
• I have been afraid of putting air in a tire ever since I saw a tractor tire blow up and throw Newt Hardbine's father over the top of the Standard Oil sign. -Barbara Kingsolver, The Bean Trees

July Book Review #11

Book: Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver
Age-range: 16 and up
Recommended: No

This is a novel about three different people and their lives.  The three different story-lines are separate, yet intertwined.  I don't recommend this book because of the three story-lines I only really loved one.

If you're going to read a book by Barbara Kingsolver, you should read a different one.  In my opinion.  Not to say nobody I know would like it, just that no one who reads this blog would.

April Book Review #4

Book: The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver
Age-range: 13 and up
Recommended: Yes
As good as the first time?: Yes

I don't remember when I first read this book, but it's stuck with me.  It's over 20 years old, but it still reads like it could be today (aside from a few pop-culture references from the 80s).  It's an amazing story about family and what constitutes a family, about illegal immigrants and about abuse.  When you take most of the subject matter individually it sounds depressing, but it really isn't.

The book is about a southern girl, and the voice is perfect.  In the first chapter it's a very thick accent, but it fades as the book goes on so it never gets irritating or overbearing.  She moves from Kentucky across the country to Arizona, with a stop-off in Oklahoma on the way.  While she's in Oklahoma she acquires a baby girl.  In Arizona she meets a lot of colorful, wonderful people.

This book is sort of hard to explain, but it's beautiful and amazing and it makes you see things a little differently.  A definite must-read.