Not So Snow White by Donna Kauffman

Not So Snow White by Donna Kauffman

The fairytales continue with Aurora, Mercedes and Vivian at the Glass Slipper as Aurora puts the company to good use to help get two friends of her family to notice each other.

The novel follows (mostly) the beautiful former tennis star and party-girl Tess Hamilton as she tries to find her place in the world after being retired from tennis (before 30). Whereas most retired tennis players of Tess' caliber would live off of their saved winnings, the hot-headed Tess spent hers as quickly as she got it and the IRS walked off with most of the rest. Not willing to let her family (or the public) know that she is almost broke Tess tries to stir up some advertising interest but doesn't have any luck until she is invited to her brother wedding just weeks before Wimbledon (the last place Tess wants to be).

Tess is taken in by Aurora who (sneakily) invites her to be the "mentor" of a young tennis prodigy with a temper much like Tess'. The only problem there is Gabrielle's big brother Max who is a patient as Tess is impatient and uninterested as far as relationships go. As with any good Donna Kauffman novel the characters win each other over (but with more than the normal amount of strife and tension) and win the reader over as well.

I spent the majority of the first part of the book upset at Tess for being such a hot-headed arrogant party-girl. After several chapters though she sort of becomes less evil and more pathetic as she tries to figure her way out of her financial predicament with her pride intact. I gained a lot more sympathy for her after that.

All in all the book was good and a fast read.

Sarah: A Novel, Canaan Trilogy by Marek Halter

Sarah: a Novel (Canaan Trilogy) by Marek Halter

I read the paperback version: 336 pages

This is the first historical / bibilical novel I have read in awhile. I think the last one that I really read was "The Red Tent" by Anita Diamante about Dinah and I had loved that one novel so much that I actually dug up a copy of the bible to find that one small passage where Dinah is mentioned.

This book was similar to that one in so many ways. Sarah (Sarai) is quite a major character in the Old Testament but is portrayed as quite a shallow character. This novel by Marek Halter takes a little artistic licensing and delves into her character. We see a probable history of her life in Ur, an account of her decisions, the hows and whys she did things the way that we see her doing them in the Bible.

Mr. Halter fills in the gaps in her life with rich period details and made me empathize completely with the character I used to feel apathetic about. After all, most of us probably only remember the bad things about Sarah: sleeping with Pharaoh, casting off her handmaid Hagar, and doubting Abraham and God when he tells her she will finally have a son. Yes those things happened in the Bible but like so much else in life there is always a reason and most people don't set out to do wrong intentionally.

This is an excellent book for those who want to dig a little deeper in the Bible and that era.

The Soloist by Mark Salzman

The Soloist by Mark Salzman

Hardback Edition: 304 pages

This novel took me about two nights to read. It's a little bit abnormal for my usual style of reading but with the way that it is written I'm not really surprised that I finished it that quickly.

The storyline looks at the life of a sheltered child musical prodigy. Renne (short for Reinhart) spent much of the first 18 years of his life learning the cello and touring through Europe. After his teacher died and Renne was trying to become his own person his music failed him (or he failed his music) by focusing too close on the pitch and not the overall piece.

Several years later and Renne is teaching at the university, unhappy with his life but unable to see how to change it. He is called up for jury duty on a case that involves Zen Buddhism and the question of insanity and at first he wants to decline to jury duty but soon the case sweeps him up in its grasp.

So between the case and Renne's newest pupil, a nine-year-old musical prodigy from Korea, Renne must examine his past (both right and wrong moves) and decide how best to move on into his future. It is a very introspective book with very little real action. Somehow though that doesn't impede the interesting nature of the book. Some parts are quite sad but at the end I was feeling quite hopeful for Renne.

The Firebrand

The Firebrand by Susan Wiggs

400 pages

This is the third novel that I have read by Wiggs that follows the lives of some young women who had been touched by the Great Chicago Fire. This third one follows Lucy, the intellectual of the group, as her father dies and she loses all the assets she has lived with her whole life.

In the Great Fire Lucy saves a baby girl from certain death after a woman dropped the bundle out of the window of a burning hotel. The heroic gesture comes after a rather humiliating night of being rejected by a potential lover (Rand, who unknowingly was married, oops).

Lucy raises the child as her own (with the help of her own mother) and names the child Maggie. Several years later (where our story picks up again) Lucy meets again the married man she had hoped to take as a lover. She needs his help as a banker to extend the loan on her bookshop (named the Firebrand after the moniker earned to Miss Woodhull-Claflin for her views on woman's sufragette) and learns that her daughter Maggie is actually Rand's daughter Christine that he thought died in the Great Fire. Since then he was divorced by Maggie/Christine's birth mother and was living all alone with his scars.

Lucy really does not want to tell him about how she became Maggie's mother but does eventually because she knows that it is the right thing to do. Maggie likes her "new" father, but needs her mother too so Rand eventually "proposes" an arrangement. Literally a marriage. Since Lucy had liked him all along it turns into a difficult kind of 'I-want-to-but don't-want-him-to-think-I-do' situation.

It is sort of cute and awkward and not nearly as risque as some of Wiggs' work.

Heroics for Beginners

Heroics for Beginners by John Moore

256 pages; medium-size print

This book seemed to take me quite awhile to finish - and not because it was bad or anything - but because it was such a parody that there was no urgency to get it done, get it read and make sure the characters live happily ever after.

Everything is mocked in this novel. The overall plot is that of a fairytale with princes and princesses trying to defeat an evil overlord. Once you get reading though you realize the fairytale plot is just a vehicle for the mockery. The prince is named Kevin and the princess is Rebecca or Becky.

The evil overlord took the path of most evil overlords and started out teaching. Giving essay tests and homework over the weekends sure paid off though because this evil Overlord, He Who Must Be Named, Lord Voltmeter has acquired an Ancient Artifact Model 7. With his Fortress of Doom (open Monday through Friday 9 a.m - 4 p.m. including gift shop), Ancient Artifact and a horde of minions Voltmeter is ready to take over the 20 fairytale kingdoms.

Prince Kevin is not exactly the heroic type and so when Princess Rebecca's father choses Prince Logan over Kevin to lead an army to defeat Lord Voltmeter (the prize being Princess Rebecca's hand in marriage) Kevin borrows the Heroics for Beginner book and starts off on his quest. Nothing quite goes right for Kevin starting with Becky wanting to be his comic sidekick and entering the castle through trickery (getting himself hired to clean the castle ducts).

It's cute and funny and worth reading but it didn't drag me into it. Several parts are just ridiculously comical and sarcastically amusing. It's great for a rainy day.

The Secret Swan by Shana Abe

The Secret Swan by Shana Abe

I've read Shana Abe before. My mom accidentally picked up a borrowed copy of "Smoke Thief" before I got to read it. She was bored at first, but then I noticed she couldn't put it down. :) The funny thing was that I asked her about it later and she said it was the most sexually explicit or risque thing she'd ever read. So I had to read it after that shining endorsement. I had to know if my mom's sensibilities were more sheltered than mine. (Of course)

A friend wanted to know -- was this book as risque as those Drakon books? My answer: Yep.

I think a lot of it just has to do with the author's preferences. Yes, some of it is gratuitous but other parts are used to make a point. Since sexuality happens to be a rather large part of life anyway...

The plot of this one is fairly medieval (I must be on an unconscious kick). The main character (whose name escapes me because it was hard for me to say so I always glossed over it: Amalgarin?) a plain girl infatuated with the Tristan (easy enough to remember) is arranged to be married to him. Tristan didn't really want to get married and so leaves immediately after the wedding for France to fight in a war after doing the whole consumation thing.

Eight years later he returns to the castle where he left his young wife to find only one woman remaining - a beautiful girl named Lily (also easy to remember) who claims to be the cousin of his late wife. 'Late' because she died of the plague. Yes, that plague.

They both get sick and there is a lot of personal history backtracking for them. Which is a bit annoying really. Also Tristan seems to be bipolar. A lot. He's all melancholy about his lost wife but is all hyped up about Lily.

It's readable and even enjoyable in parts, but I definitely liked the Drakon series much better. I'll have to try the Mermaid one to see if the pattern holds or if this was a fluke...

Good Masters! Sweet Ladies!: Voices from a Medieval Village by Laura Amy Schlitz

Good Masters! Sweet Ladies!: Voices from a Medieval Village by Laura Amy Schlitz

This is (technically) another children's book ...

Again... I didn't really realize it would be a children's book. I just knew that I wanted to read the latest Newberry award winning book. I guess I figured that if it fell into the same category as "A Wrinkle in Time" by Madeleine L'Engle then it must be good.

I was a little surpised at how thin it was. I was also surprised at how it is not just one coherent story (or even a story in the general prose form).

They are monologue and dialogue plays written by a librarian for the children in her school classes. She wrote them so that each child would have a starring role for three minutes.

They are poetic and easy to read with nice large print. The tone and vocabulary is all medieval - let's face it, I learned a few new words. Large colorful pictures are on every page and even the margins are colored and have text that explain certain words or aspects of the medieval culture/life. A large colorful map is on the first or second page and instead of locations being labeled the specific characters in the story are shown and labeled.

The tempo of the words is good and interesting -- I was particularly impressed with the two monologues done by the sisters talking about the apprentice boy their father has taken and how one of them must marry the apprentice for the apprentice to inherit the shop. The older daughter likes the boy and wouldn't mind marrying him but thinks the boy would want her sister (younger, prettier) instead. The younger sister thinks the boy will want her older sister (so he doesn't have to wait to inherit) but thinks that it's terrible that one of them will have to marry the boy in the end. The dialogues are completely different but manage to come together for a chorus type of refrain.

Another one that does this is the dialogue between the Jewish boy and the Catholic girl. They are able to put aside their differences for a little while and just be children playing together. The dialogue ends with the children saying together "Almost like she's a Jew;" "Almost like he's a Catholic."

The one down spot I can see - if I were the one performing the plays - would be having to play the role of the beggar child or the child of the villein where you obviously are not well-cared for and have to scrimp to survive. Or maybe that's just me being a girl and wanting the character I embody to be noble somehow...

All in all, it was a beautiful book and very easy to read. It took me maybe forty minutes of carefully thumbing through and looking at the pictures to complete it. :)