January has been a rough month so far, as I've not been able to get my infusion for Crohns because my insurance company has been ignoring requests for approval for the past 6 weeks, and therefore my Crohns has been acting up so I'm in pain in the bathroom for hours on end, and we've had snow and sleet and very cold rain to contend with as well. My main source of book news, Shelf Awareness, was on the fritz this month, so I wasn't getting their daily email newsletter at all. I emailed their subscription person, who told me that they were experiencing technical difficulties, and now I'm getting the Shelf Awareness wit and wisdom in my daily email box once again. Though I have over 25 books to read in my TBR, I have discovered that some of them are not terribly well written, and have plots that are sluggish at best. I also found that there were times when just streaming a movie or a TV program online was easier on my attention span than ploughing through a mediocre memoir or a dull novel. Hence, I have only 3 books to review after the many tidbits I've collected. So here we go, and thanks for hanging in there with me, fellow readers/bibliophiles. I hope your Januaries are going better than mine.
This movie looks outstanding! I can hardly wait to see it.
Movies: Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar
Wes Anderson will direct and write The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar https://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz50836116, based on Roald Dahl's 1977 story, for Netflix, Deadline reported, adding that the "original book is made up of several short stories, and while it's unknown which ones would be covered in this project, sources do say it would consist of three mini-films similar to the Coen brothers' The Ballad of Buster Scruggs. Production is expected to start next week in London."
Benedict Cumberbatch will play the title role, with Ralph Fiennes, Dev Patel, and Ben Kingsley joining the cast, sources told Deadline. Anderson's previous adaptation of the author's work, Fantastic Mr. Fox, was an Oscar-winning animated film. Netflix acquired the Roald Dahl catalogue last September.
There was a show on Netflix that had this exact same plot/storyline...it starred Hugh Jackman and Rebecca Ferguson, and it had a kind of Blade Runner/Noir feel to it. I hope to find a copy of this book, and see if it ends the same as the Netflix program.
Book Review: Tell Me an Ending
Set in the town of Crowshill outside London, Tell Me an Ending by Jo
Harkin boldly imagines an eerily plausible present where people with unwanted memories can have them deleted by a secretive British tech company named Nepenthe. Harkin's intriguing debut features multiple interconnected narratives nestled within the larger whole, as well as characters whose memory deletions send them traveling across the globe in search of answers to missing pieces of their lives.
Central to the story is the enigmatic Noor, a socially awkward Nepenthe psychologist with a tea addiction. Noor falls in love with her client, Elena, precipitating a personal and professional crisis that deepens when she discovers her boss and mentor, Louise, is committing an even more serious violation of company policy involving Elena and other clients. As Noor investigates Louise's actions, she is drawn into a horrifying cover-up at Nepenthe that threatens to destroy her faith in its mission.
Nepenthe's premise is deceptively simple: a PTSD sufferer or someone struggling with a distressing experience can have that traumatic memory erased in a safe and highly effective manner, deleting only the targeted memory and leaving everything else intact. The technology, it turns out, is not foolproof--some former clients start experiencing "traces" of removed memories. Nepenthe is sued and must offer all clients the opportunity to restore deleted memories, including those who had requested to erase the act of memory deletion itself.
For college drop-out Mei and former police officer William, there is initially some relief in discovering that the traces they experience are not signs of madness but actual memories that were removed. Meanwhile, for Irish architect Finn, the revelation that his wife secretly deleted a memory sends shockwaves through their marriage. Oscar, a young man with no memory at all but a full bank account, worries that he must have done something terrible in his past. He travels from Budapest to Marrakech, leading a life on the run until the truth of his life story catches up to him.
Harkin masterfully probes her characters, questioning whether deleted memories translate into altered narratives that fundamentally transform who a person is and their relationships with loved ones, echoing a question Noor asks herself: "Does wiping a note change the rest of the symphony?" As Noor uncovers the extent of Louise's deception and its impact on William, Mei and others, she finally confronts the true cost of the technology she has devoted her career to promoting. --Shahina Piyarali, reviewer
I've adored Sandra Boynton's work since I first came across her cards and children's books nearly 40 years ago. Her animals are hilarious and her artistry amazing. I love that she makes a Star Trek Next Gen reference below.
S&S Launches Boynton Bookworks Imprint
Simon & Schuster has launched Boynton Bookworks, an imprint devoted to the past and future works of American cartoonist, children's author and songwriter/producer Sandra Boynton. The imprint will bring Boynton's considerable backlist under one roof for the first time.
"Sandy's work is deceptively simple and utterly original," said Jon Anderson, president and publisher of S&S Children's Publishing. "Boynton Bookworks will be a showcase for her singular genius (she'll hate my using that word, but it's true!) and is the obvious next step in her remarkable career."
"And I'll be in the Picard role," said Boynton. "I get to set an improbable course and say 'Make it so.' Then the supremely competent crew takes it from there. I'm so stunned and grateful that Jon is giving me this wild opportunity."
Along with becoming the new home for Boynton's entire Little Simon backlist, Boynton Bookworks will publish its inaugural list in Fall
2022, including two new board books--Pookie's Thanksgiving and Moo, Baa, Fa La La La La!--as well as a deluxe picture book edition of Boynton's
Hippos Go Berserk!, first published in 1977 and in print ever since.
Boynton has completely redrawn and redesigned Hippos Go Berserk! for the
Boynton Bookworks launch.
In addition, beginning in Fall 2022, the new imprint will welcome all of
Boynton's previously published titles, including new editions of 22 Boynton books and six songbook/CDs.
This was a fantastic book that I loved reading and reviewing, so I'm thrilled to see that they're making a movie out of the first novel. Though I have a copy, I've not read the second book in the series.
Movies: Children of Blood and Bone
"Following a bidding war that saw several major players in the mix," Paramount Pictures has acquired the rights to the Children of Blood and Bone https://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz50867416 trilogy, the action fantasy film based on Tomi Adeyemi's YA novels, Deadline reported. Adeyemi will adapt, write the script and executive produce.
Paramount is "fast-tracking this big-screen adaptation with Wyck Godfrey and Marty Bowen of Temple Hill Entertainment and Karen Rosenfelt of Sunswept Entertainment producing," Deadline noted. "Children of Blood and Bone and its sequel Children of Virtue and Vengeance are published by Henry Holt Books for Young Readers, a Macmillan imprint, and sources say the third and final book in the trilogy will be published in 2023."
"Tomi Adeyemi's Children of Blood and Bone has not only become a phenomenon in the YA world, it has transformed every expectation of what world-building fantasy can be," said Daria Cercek, co-president of Paramount Pictures Motion Group. "It's with enormous pride that our studio--along with Tomi and our partners Wyck, Marty and Karen--set out to bring this franchise to life on the big screen. With its thought-provoking and timely themes, we know that this story will resonate with a global audience."
"Paramount's passion and enthusiasm to bring this story to life has been incredible," Adeyemi said. "We are all so excited for this new chapter and are already hard at work."
A Dark and Hollow Star by Ashley Shuttleworth is a strange YA fantasy novel that combines Dungeons and Dragons with Anime and LOTR with popular videogames to create a LGBTQ coming of age story that I suspect has more than a little Mary Sue (placing the author in the story thinly disguised as the protagonist) involved in it. The prose is decent, if slightly amateurish, and the plot very much like a D&D game, where you know the outcome before you get halfway through the book. I do appreciate that the author wanted the story to be all about LBGTQ relationships, as those are most often sidelined in fiction, but having nearly all the characters hew to stereotypes of gay and lesbian or bisexual people got to be more amusing than realistic, eventually. I also felt that, as an imprint of Simon and Schuster, the editors were probably not young enough to feel comfortable editing Ms Shuttleworth's prose. This book came in at over 500 pages, and at least 150 of those should have been edited out to make it a leaner novel with a swift adventurous plot. Here's the blurb:
The Cruel Prince meets City of Bones in this thrilling
urban fantasy set in the magical underworld of Toronto that follows a
queer cast of characters racing to stop a serial killer whose crimes
could expose the hidden world of faeries to humans.
Choose your player.
The “ironborn” half-fae outcast of her royal fae family.
A tempestuous Fury, exiled to earth from the Immortal Realm and hellbent on revenge.
A dutiful fae prince, determined to earn his place on the throne.
The prince’s brooding guardian, burdened with a terrible secret.
For
centuries, the Eight Courts of Folk have lived among us, concealed by
magic and bound by law to do no harm to humans. This arrangement has
long kept peace in the Courts—until a series of gruesome and ritualistic
murders rocks the city of Toronto and threatens to expose faeries to
the human world.
Four queer teens, each who hold a key piece of
the truth behind these murders, must form a tenuous alliance in their
effort to track down the mysterious killer behind these crimes. If they
fail, they risk the destruction of the faerie and human worlds alike. If
that’s not bad enough, there’s a war brewing between the Mortal and
Immortal Realms, and one of these teens is destined to tip the scales.
The only question is: which way?
Wish them luck. They’re going to need it.
Of all the characters, I liked Naus the excommunicated Fury the best, mainly because she knew who she was, and she didn't deviate from that place of self knowledge/understanding much at all. Unlike the main protagonist, Arlo, who constantly whines about being scared, feeling inadequate, lacking courage and wanting to run away. She makes tons of mistakes and is generally too naive and innocent to live...she's almost sickeningly sweet and nice. Blech. I much prefer a pissed off Fury kicking ass and taking names. Still even for being over written and under edited, this was a fun book to read, if way too long and with an unsatisfying ending. I'd give it a B, and recommend it to anyone under the age of 25 who is a fan of videogames, Anime and D&D.
The Silver Bullets of Annie Oakley by Mercedes Lackey is the 16th book in her Elemental Masters series, all of which I've read and enjoyed. Somewhat like reading Jim Butcher's Dresden Files series, Lackey's EM books just get better and better with each iteration. This edition, as the title suggests, revolves around legendary shooter Annie Oakley, who traveled the world with Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show in the late 19th century. Here we are lead to believe that Annie and her husband Frank Butler are both untrained elemental mages (she's an air mage and he's a water mage) who encounter fully fledged EMs in Germany while they're on tour during the Autumn and Winter. Here's the blurb: The sixteenth novel in the magical alternate history Elemental
Masters series follows sharpshooter Annie Oakley as she tours Europe and
discovers untapped powers.
Annie Oakley has always
suspected there is something "uncanny" about herself, but has never been
able to put a name to it. But when Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show goes
on tour through Germany, Bill temporarily hires a new sharpshooter to be
part of his "World Wide Congress of Rough Riders": a woman named
Giselle, who also happens to be an Elemental Master of Air. Alongside
this new performer, Annie discovers that she and her husband, Frank, are
not simply master marksman, but also magicians of rare ability.
As
they travel and perform, Annie must use her newfound knowledge and rare
skill to combat creatures of the night scattered across the
countryside, who threaten both the performers and the locals. Annie's
got her gun, and it's filled with silver bullets.
Turns out that there's a werewolf who abused Annie during her childhood and put a spell on her so that only he can have sexual relations with her once she's reached adulthood and he's "turned" her into a werewolf against her will. This scumbag is on the hunt for Annie, so she has to train fast to be able to protect herself and her friends/family from this dangerous pack of animals. As with all of her novels, Lackey's prose is pristine and her plots dash along like a full team of horses pulling a cab or sleigh. I love that Lackey never allows her books to slow down or meander along, you're grabbed by the novel from the first page to the last. I'd give this book an A, and recommend it to anyone who has read any of her other Elemental Masters series.
When You Get the Chance by Emma Lord is a delightful YA novel that combines theater kid tropes with a coming of age novel about finding yourself and your birth mother and your place in this world, all at the same time. There's also a "frenemies" to "Beloveds" romance that is full of zippy one liners and all sorts of dramatic hijinks. Here's the blurb:A bighearted novel about falling in love, making a mess, and learning to let go, from Emma Lord, the New York Times bestselling author of the Reese Witherspoon YA Book Club pick You Have a Match.
Nothing
will get in the way of Millie Price’s dream of becoming a Broadway
star. Not her lovable but super introverted dad, who raised Millie alone
since she was a baby. Not her drama club rival, Oliver, who is the very
definition of Simmering Romantic Tension. And not her “Millie Moods,”
the feelings of intense emotion that threaten to overwhelm. Millie needs
an ally. And when an accidentally left-open browser brings Millie to
her dad’s embarrassingly moody LiveJournal from 2003, Millie knows just
what to do—find her mom.
But how can you find a new part of your
life and expect it to fit into your old one without leaving any marks?
And why is it that when you go looking for the past, it somehow keeps
bringing you back to what you’ve had all along?
Though I adored Millie, I found her parents to be utterly ridiculous and terrible at the same time...and her birth mother gets away with being an awful person because she was young when she had Millie and "couldn't handle raising a child." If you really feel that you can't raise a child and you're unexpectedly pregnant, get an abortion, or give the child up for adoption, don't leave the poor thing with a weak father who struggles to raise himself, let alone a kid...plus he seems rather cowardly as a person, so Millie ends up having to parent him by the time she's a teenager, something no kid should ever have to do (she has to set him up on dates and help him figure out how to act in public or at parties, because yes, he's just that immature and wimpy that he can't go out of the house himself). Personally, I think Millie should have told her mother what a pain in the arse her father is, and how much of a terrible impact her mom's abandonment has had on her life. Instead, because she sobs and cries and wails, Millie feels sorry for her, and tries to build a relationship with this fool. What a waste of time. Lord's prose is bouncy and bright, and her plot easy and well choreographed. Still, I knew who Millies mother was fairly quickly and I also knew the ending well before I was halfway through the book. I'd give it a B-, and recommend it to anyone who remembers what it was like to be a "Drama Geek" and have a crush on someone you see as a rival at first.
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