Book Review: The Princess Bride

Most people have seen the movie The Princess Bride. It's iconic, and extremely quotable. The book version is just as hilarious, if not more so.

[Spoiler Warning] For the record: there is no S. Morgenstern, and therefore no actual abridgement, and the book is entirely fictional. There are parts where author William Goldman talks about himself, and the trouble he went through with the Florinese historians, and the Morgenstern estate... Not a word of that is true. It's written to be funny, so please don't take it seriously!

Book Review: Gamer Girl

If it's possible to have a crush on a book, I think I have one on Gamer Girl! After picking it up off a library shelf at random, I tore through its 224 pages in three hours and forty-five minutes, because I just had to know what happened next. It's not that it's packed with action; it was just such a refreshing change from the average young-adult fare that I couldn't help but enjoy it.

Maddy is a skater/emo girl who loves manga (Japanese comics), drawing, and recently for her, video games. Her parents have just divorced, and she's going to a new school. Unfortunately, things at her new school take a bad turn on the very first day, and she has a hard time making new friends. She also won't get to see her dad as often due to the divorce, so for her birthday, Dad gives her the game Fields of Fantasy so they can hang out in the virtual world. However, Dad doesn't seem to be able to hang out much there either, and so Maddy (alias Alora in the game) ends up hanging out virtually with a kid named Sir Leo. Sir Leo is a lot of fun, and before Maddy knows it, Sir Leo is also Maddy's best (and only) friend.

The book is good with this, too, however. Maddy's dad tells her not to give out too much information to strangers online, pointing out that he could be anyone-- not neccessarily the sixteen-year-old guy he says he is. And later, the book points out the dangers of gaming too much when Maddy's dad ditches her for his online gaming buddies. Maddy clearly sees that there is a difference between being a gamer and being a computer addict. Conquering her fear of the bullies at school, she learns to stand up for herself, makes some new friends, and discovers Sir Leo's true identity.

The book, published in 2008, is written very much in the "now"-- you'll find references to things like Facebook, Myspace, cell phones, and actual manga titles like Fullmetal Alchemist. This part of it was especially well-done. Too often, name-dropping feels like an advertisement, but in this book, Mari Mancusi makes it work, adding to the feel that Maddy could very well be someone you actually know. I also felt that Mancusi did a good job with the 'internet dangers' part, making sure that her readers know to watch out, without lecturing. Overall, I really enjoyed the book, and felt that it was refreshing and well-written.

Book Review: The White Dragon

Jaxom, the young Lord Holder of Ruatha, and his unusual white dragon Ruth star in this volume of the Dragonriders of Pern by Anne McCaffrey. Chronologically set at the same time as the Harper Hall trilogy (or roughly thereabouts), it was interesting to see Pern and other major characters (such as Menolly) from yet another point of view.

However, I found this book somewhat tedious (though fairly well-written), because the basic plot doesn't ever really pick up. Things are seen from Jaxom's point of view, and he is discontented during the majority of the book. (You'd think he'd spend more time doing something about his situation than whining about it.) Eventually Jaxom does figure this out and takes a few steps in the right direction, but I felt that his full potential as a character was never very well realized. Instead of sympathizing with him or cheering him on, I mostly felt annoyed with him. Much more interesting were the support characters (who are main characters in the other books). Overall, I thought this book was "just okay," but not worth purchasing for my personal library or even really worth re-reading.

Book Review: Death of a Ghost

It's high time for a break from fantasy and sci-fi books. Need a little mystery in your life? Meet Albert Campion. While author Margery Allingham is no Agatha Christie, her characters and plot ideas are quite good. Her writing style and deliverance of the story, however, is somewhat lackluster and predictable. It's still a decent enough read, although if you're prone to figuring out the ending before finishing a mystery, this may not be the book for you.

Book Review: Dragonquest

I enjoyed Dragonquest far more than the previous book in the "Dragonriders of Pern" series, Dragonflight. The brown dragon Canth and his rider F'nor are the most major characters in the book, and I liked them a lot. Also, this book takes place at the same time as Dragonsong and Dragonsinger from the Harper Hall trilogy, so there were a lot of the same events happening from a different viewpoint than Menolly's. I thought this was a very entertaining and fairly well-written book.

Book Review: Dragonflight

For many years, I've been reading and re-reading the Harper Hall trilogy, loving it each time and taking the general social structure within the book for granted. However, I recently became interested in Pern outside of the scope of the Harper Hall. As I read Anne McCaffrey's first book in the Dragonriders of Pern series, Dragonflight, I learned that things were not always as I had thought. This book is the story of how the Pern I've always enjoyed came to be. I had a bit of trouble keeping everyone's name straight, as several different characters frequently have similar names (for example, F'lar is not to be confused with F'nor; and T'bor is not the same person as T'sum) due to the method of naming children on Pern. Thankfully, in this particular copy there was a "Dragondex" in the back that helped to keep the main characters straight.

Lessa is a lowly kitchen drudge at Ruatha Hold. However, there's more to her than meets the eye. It turns out that she's actually one of the last true Ruathans, and the cruel Lord Fax killed the rest of her family when she was eleven during his conquering of Ruatha Hold. Since that day, Lessa has been planning her revenge so that she can take over the home that should have been rightfully hers.

Everything changes on the day that F'lar, rider of a bronze dragon named Mnementh, visits Ruatha Hold with Lord Fax. (A bronze dragon is the highest-ranking male dragon.) With F'lar are his twelve wingmen, other dragonriders, including his half-brother F'nor, who rides a brown dragon named Canth. F'lar is on Search-- in other words, he is looking for a strong woman who is capable of becoming Weyrwoman. Lessa doesn't know this--she only sees an opportunity to rid her Hold of Lord Fax forever by making him renounce his claim on it in front of dragonmen. She subtly manages to make Lord Fax's meal inedible in various ways, which makes him angry, and he swears an oath that he will not have a Hold that cannot support itself.

However, things do not happen as Lessa has planned. Fax ends up dead, Ruatha Hold goes to his newborn son Jaxom, and F'lar has found the woman he wants to become Weyrwoman: Lessa. As Lessa consents to go to Benden Weyr, she has no idea that she will have to learn to work with F'lar, and together, somehow find a way to save Pern from the deadly spores of Thread...

Book Review: Beastly

Ever wonder what it was like for the Beast? When I first started reading this book, I planned to write a review describing it as "a refreshing, modern-day retelling of 'Beauty and the Beast' from the Beast's point of view." While that's essentially accurate, after finishing it I'm much more inclined to tell people that it's simply one of my "new favorite books." Alex Flinn is a new author to me, and I was fairly pleased with the way she handled this take on a classic story.

The son of a wealthy news anchor, Kyle Kingsbury is one of the "Beautiful People" at his high school. He's just about to be elected prince of the ninth-grade dance, and most people--including himself-- seem to think that he deserves it. He's gorgeous, after all. Unfortunately, Kyle is also a jerk. He asks a "fat girl" named Kendra to be his date to the dance-- all the while planning to embarrass her by ditching her when he shows up to the dance with his real date, Sloane Hagen, the hottest babe in school. Sloane is all for Kyle's ditching goth-chick Kendra, and is happy to go along with it so that Kendra will actually show up. Both girls want corsages: Sloane wants a purple orchid to go with her barely-there black dress, and Kendra wants a white rose. "For purity," she says. However, when the night of the big dance comes, the new maid has messed up and gotten just a white rose. Sloane is seriously ticked and refuses to wear it. Unsure what to do with it, Kyle gives it to the girl selling tickets at the door. (She's thrilled.)

Unfortunately for Kyle, Kendra turns out to be a witch-- and extremely good looking, even if she does have green hair. To teach Kyle a lesson, she transforms him into a beast. Since looks are all he values in people, he needs to learn what it is to be beautiful on the inside. Kendra tells him that because he performed one small act of kindness--giving the rose to the girl at the ticket booth-- that he can have a second chance. To break the spell, he must find a girl within two years that can look past the fur and claws and love him for who he is (and kiss him to prove it), and what's more, Kyle has to truly love her back.

When I first picked up Beastly, I was just planning to read the first few pages to get a taste of what I'd be in for. However, the presentation of the story was so intriguing and new to me that I couldn't put it down. (I think I finished it in about 3.5-4 hours, straight through.) I'll have to read it again to be sure, but I think I just might have to buy a copy of this one.