Still Foolin' 'Em: Where I've Been, Where I'm Going, and Where the Hell Are My Keys by Billy Crystal

From Goodreads:

Billy Crystal is turning 65, and he’s not happy about it. With his trademark wit and heart, he outlines the absurdities and challenges that come with growing old, from insomnia to memory loss to leaving dinners with half your meal on your shirt. In humorous chapters like “Buying the Plot” and “Nodding Off,” Crystal not only catalogues his physical gripes, but offers a road map to his 77 million fellow baby boomers who are arriving at this milestone age with him. He also looks back at the most powerful and memorable moments of his long and storied life, from entertaining his relatives as a kid in Long Beach, Long Island, his years doing stand-up in the Village, up through his legendary stint at Saturday Night Live, When Harry Met Sally, and his long run as host of the Academy Awards. 


Pros: Audiobook was narrated by Billy Crystal. Listening to him is never a BAD thing.

Cons: I didn't find any of this particularly funny. And when something is not only written but SPOKEN by Billy Crystal, you kind of expect to laugh more than a few half-hearted chuckles.

 To be fair, much of this book is based on the humor to be found in aging, so perhaps in 35 years I will find it significantly funnier.

Eastern Standard Tribe by Cory Doctorow

From Goodreads:

Cory Doctorow's Eastern Standard Tribe is a soothsaying jaunt into the not-so-distant future, where 24/7 communication and chatroom alliances have evolved into tribal networks that secretly work against each other in shadowy online realms. The novel opens with its protagonist, the peevish Art Berry, on the roof of an asylum. He wonders if it's better to be smart or happy. His crucible is a pencil up the nose for a possible "homebrew lobotomy." To explain Art's predicament, Doctorow flashes backward and slowly fills in the blanks. As a member of the Eastern Standard Tribe, Art is one of many in the now truly global village who have banded together out of like-minded affinity for a particular time zone and its circadian cycles. Art may have grown up in Toronto but his real homeland is an online grouping that prefers bagels and hot dogs to the fish and chips of their rivals who live on Greenwich Mean Time. As he rises through the ranks of the tribe, he is sent abroad to sabotage the traffic patterns and communication networks in the GMT tribe. Along the way, he comes across a humdinger of an idea that will solve a music piracy problem on the highways of his own beloved timezone, raise his status in the tribe and make him rich. If only he could have trusted his tightly wound girlfriend and fellow tribal saboteur, he probably wouldn't be on the booby hatch roof with that pencil up his nose.

As a musing on the future, Doctorow's extrapolation seems entirely plausible. And, not only is EST a fascinating mental leap it's a witty and savvy tale that will appeal to anyone who's lived another life, however briefly, online. --Jeremy Pugh

I was hoping Eastern Standard Tribe would be similar to Little Brother, which I LOVED. And the concept is fascinating. To quote above, "As a member of the Eastern Standard Tribe, Art is one of many in the now truly global village who have banded together out of like-minded affinity for a particular time zone and its circadian cycles." Basically, in a hyper-connected and rather homogenized global village, our most meaningful relationships are based on when we're awake.

Both Little Brother and EST have concepts that are a bit complex and a little difficult to grasp if you're not a cybergeek (me) but while Little Brother explained things in terms that were easily understood without making me feel stupid and then completely changed my perception of hacking, EST left me in the dust, assuming I already knew what on earth it was talking about. Which I didn't. A decent explanation of the "tribes" and the ideas I wrote in the paragraph above finally came about 3/4 of the way through the book, long after I had become annoyed at the stupid book and its air of smarty superiority.

Plus, the writing was so-so, the plot was meh, and I didn't care much for any the characters. The book was mercifully brief so I was able to plow through it in an evening but I really just didn't care for it.

In the book's defense, because of where I found it in my library I thought it was YA. So I was totally judging it through the curse words and one rather lurid description of a breast and wondering what on earth made people think it was a book fit for teenagers. I just double checked though and it looks like it was just in the wrong place but thinking it was YA while reading it made me dislike it that much more.

Overall: don't bother.

The Tale of Desperaux by Kate DiCamillo

From the book flap:

This is the story of Despereaux Tilling, a mouse in love with music, stories, and a princess named Pea. It is also the story of a rat called Roscuro, who lives in darkness but covets a world filled with light. And it is the story of Miggery Sow, a slow-witted serving girl with a simple, impossible wish. These characters are about to embark on a journey that will lead them down into a horrible dungeon, up into a glittering castle, and ultimately, into each other's lives. And what happens then? Reader, it is your destiny to find out.

I was prepared to love The Tale of Despereaux. I finally got around to picking it up because the author, Kate DiCamillo is going to be at the National Book Festival in September but I was looking forward to it because I saw a little blurb about the book on tv once right before the movie came out and it sounded so wonderful.

And then, for me, the book fell totally flat.

It felt a lot like The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, actually. Sparse, with two-dimensional characters that left me bored and just chugging through to get to the end. Except I felt like the ending of TBitSP redeemed it a bit while the ending to The Tale of Despereaux just felt really abrupt and unsatisfying.

Plus, the book would be all charming and then there would be random bits of darkness and violence. I don't mind dark fairy tales, but this one felt a little uneven and I wasn't expecting it at all. Most dark fairy tales thoroughly acknowledge they're dark, but this one still sort of tries to pass itself off as a shiny happily-ever-after type story, even when the ending isn't actually all that happy.

The illustrations were gorgeous though.

I'd still like to see the movie...maybe it will play out better for me on screen than on the page.

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne

From Goodreads:

Berlin 1942

When Bruno returns home from school one day, he discovers that his belongings are being packed in crates. His father has received a promotion and the family must move from their home to a new house far far away, where there is no one to play with and nothing to do. A tall fence running alongside stretches as far as the eye can see and cuts him off from the strange people he can see in the distance.

But Bruno longs to be an explorer and decides that there must be more to this desolate new place than meets the eye. While exploring his new environment, he meets another boy whose life and circumstances are very different to his own, and their meeting results in a friendship that has devastating consequences.

I've heard very mixed reviews on this one. Some people loved it. Some hated it. But most people argue that the whole premise of the book was totally implausible.

I disagree with the people who thought so many things about this story were so unlikely. Very few people knew about the concentration camps until they were liberated, plus it was a time of greater innocence for children in particular and people in general, so it's entirely possible for Bruno to have no clue what was going on right outside his front door. I don't know if you've ever met a 9 year old boy, but they're kind of clueless about a lot of things and that kind of horror was likely beyond his wildest imaginings. It's also possible that the Commandant would not have placed his children in Hitler Youth. Eva Braun was never an actual member of the Nazi party and she was sleeping with Hitler himself, so it kind of seems like sometimes those who are closest to the action were the ones who were most shielded.

Also, the use of "Out-with" and "the Fury" are literary devices. Get over it.

I thought the ending was perfect. The book needed some kind of redemption and that was the only way to get it.

Now, having defended it, I will tell you that I thought The Boy in the Striped Pajamas was kind of boring.

Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl

According to the back cover:

Lena Duchannes is unlike anyone the small Southern town of Gatlin has ever seen, and she's struggling to conceal her power and a curse that has haunted her family for generations. But even within the overgrown gardens, murky swamps, and crumbling graveyards of the forgotten South, a secret cannot stay hidden forever.
Ethan Wate, who has been counting the months until he can escape from Gatlin, is haunted by dreams of a beautiful girl he has never met. When Lena moves into the town's oldest and most infamous plantation, Ethan is inexplicably drawn to her and determined to uncover the connection between them.

I got an ARC of this one from the publisher (thanks to Janssen's secret ninja channels, once again) and I was really really excited when it showed up and then it sat. And sat. and sat. on my bedside table for like 2 weeks. Because I have a huge stack of library books with a time limit and I had to work through some of them first.

I FINALLY got around the reading it over the past couple days and, despite the fact that it has a ridiculously high rating on Goodreads, I just felt kind of meh about it. But since pretty much everyone else who has read it seems to disagree with me, take my opinions with a grain of salt. You may love it, who knows?

Pros: I really loved the setting and the Southern gothic touches. It made it different from anything else I've read lately and I could totally smell the damp and see the swampiness and the busted down old graveyards and houses and whatnot. The story itself is fine. The supporting characters were really enjoyable...I loved Macon and Link in particular, but even the nasty kids at school and Lena's family members who showed up in small scenes were fun. I loved that I couldn't figure Amma out..she was this God-fearing crazy voodoo person and I loved her. Plus the cover is really pretty.

Cons: It was about 200 pages too long. 626 pages is a long freaking book and I'm really not sure how those pages were filled. It's Twilight length but lacks the Twilight relationship development. Granted, Twilight was ridiculously heavy-handed, but you GOT the relationship. I didn't GET Lena and Ethan. A little more development there would have gone a long way in helping me love the main characters together. Also, I felt like there were several rather big questions left unanswered but the ending implies that this might be the first in a series? So maybe those will get answered later? I don't know, but these were things I waited like 550 pages to find out and then there was no satisfactory explanation. Which was annoying.


If you really like YA fantasy, this is probably worth a read. If not, don't bother. It won't convert you to the genre or teach you any grand life lessons or anything.