Well, I have just finished reading the last book in Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series, Breaking Dawn. SPOILER ALERT for those of you who haven't got around to reading this one yet - there's been such a fuss about this book it seems unlikely, but then, I only just finished it.
I must admit, I enjoyed this one much more than I did the rest of the series. Maybe because a large chunk of it was in Jacob's voice, instead of Bella's (I find Bella whinging and self-deprecating and an affront to feminists everywhere, as you may remember from the last blog about my Twilight readings) - and once it switched back to Bella's perspective, she was a vampire, and therefore more confidant and less whingy. She has finally matured, got her priorities in order and her head on straight. Also, I'm sure being invincible boosts one's ego somewhat. As is typical of Meyer's novels it was a dead easy read - I find myself having sat there and read for hours straight without having noticed, because her narrators all have very natural voices (even if I find them annoying sometimes). It's 754 pages and I finshed it in under 24 hours.
Anyway, as entertaining as it was for the time being, I would like to move on. Other things I have read since I last updated my reviews include:
which was a perfect example of how librarians are the same type of annoying people the world over. I picked this book up because I have been working in libraries for the past 5 or 6 years, and because it was written by a contributor to McSweeney's, which is always a good recommendation, or so I thought. (I should have remembered how much Dave Eggers' A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius annoyed me...) But reading this book was too much like going to work, and I ultimately found the narrator/author too irritating - the sychophantic kind of young male librarian who belives every new trend introduced in library circles and thinks he's here to change the way we use libraries and spends a lot of time waxing poetic about the library being a community focal point. Sickening stuff after about 50 pages, let alone 200 odd. Every chapter took a funny anecdote and made it a moralising sermon on the role of libraries. Librarians are both dull and infuriating at the same time. There is rage and apathy in my heart when I read books like these.
The last book on my list for today was Philip Pullman's The Ruby in the Smoke.
This was my first encounter with Pullman's writing, and I must say, I was pleasantly surprised. I've heard so much hype about him that I pessimisstically (?) expected it to be a bit crap. His writing style reminded me a bit of J.K. Rowling's (yes, I know Ruby was published in, like, 1984 or 85, he got there first, bully for him, but I knew Rowling before I knew Phil, so you'll just have to live with that comparison) - lots of adjectives. It was a bit dull to read, but only because I'd already seen the BBC miniseries episode, so I knew how it ended. I intend to seek out the rest of the series, I'll let you know if I enjoy it more when the element of surprise is on the story's side.
I'm sure I've read other things since the last review I wrote, I must have, but maybe I just haven't finished them yet. There have been a few books I've started and given up on - World War Z: The Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks, for example. I liked the idea but all his characters had the same voice and came to the same conclusion as the last, and after reading 20 stories about how this one person evaded having his brains sucked out and the "plot" (such as it was) going nowhere, I gave up. Could have been such a good book too.
Anyway, I hope my reviews are interesting or useful to someone, even if just to Future-Me, looking back and trying to remember what I read last year.
Toodles. xoxox
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