Book Club Report: Watership Down by Richard Adams

Okay, so here's one of those books that I've felt bad forever for not reading. One of those books you hear about all the time, but just have never seem to get around to. You know the kind? So I was quite pleased when my book club decided to add Watership Down to the line up this year.

But when I saw how fat the book was, I was worried. That's a lot of words about rabbits!

In the end, I read about 130 pages of this popular book and decided I had too many other things to read to suffer through 400 more pages. Yes, people, take note... I DID NOT LIKE IT!

In fact, I was moved to create a DNF (did not finish for those unfamiliar with the term) shelf in Goodreads so I could stick it, and also the Path of Swords somewhere and get them out of my way. It was a sad sad day for me. Here's the thing about books I don't finish.... it's not that I never give up on a book, it's just that usually, when I do, I have all the intention in the world of coming back to it one day and finishing it. (Whether or not that actually is another thing.)

I highly doubt that's going to happen with this book.

And why did I not like it? Seriously, it was just plain boring. I know. How can I even utter the word? But it's true, and so I moved on to a different book, and one that will probably end up in my top ten of the year. See, why waste time, right? Move on, right?

BUT, you may ask, what did the book club think?

For the handful that actually stuck with it and read it, they said:

• loved the characters of Hazel and Fiver
• the ending was worth it, it was actually quite weepy
• how can you write 500 pages about rabbits?
• books (and movies etc.) that take animals and give them human characters are one thing, but those that allow them to "talk" yet keep their animal behaviors are another.
• most of us don't like talking animal books
• the author said in his note "this is a book about rabbits.. there is no other point I'm making" and to that most of us say, "yeah, right. NOT."
• is this a kid book or an adult one?
• there was too much description and much of that was using British terms and plants which we had no idea what they were
• where were the girl bunnies? (I know I know, they show up later after I quit!)
• why do so many people like this? Sentimental reasons? Why do boys like this so much? Adventure? Really?
• In the end, it came down to this... do you or do you not like rabbits? We had book club members that came down on both sides!

For other thoughts:

Jenni Elyse's book club report

Jenny's review

Up next month, Precious Bane by Mary Webb. Have you read it?

Top Ten Tuesday: All Time Favorite Characters

So, at first I thought the prompt for the list today (hosted by The Broke and the Bookish) was going to be FUN! But no, it is HARD. So very hard. I mean ALL TIME favorites? Only ten? Is this possible? I think not. And while I know it's not going to be a unique and/or espeically creative list this time around, here's what I came up with for starters:

Top Ten All Time Favorite Characters

The Guys

1. Harry Potter... you know he has to be on the list. Talk about a character that has defined a whole genre and reader generation. Very impressive Harry!

2. Mr. Darcy... yes Jenni Elyse... he gets better! Is there any other character more swoon worthy? I mean, he STARTED the whole swooning thing, did he not? All the rest are learning from him!

3. Samwise Gamgee... I will forever and always love this guy. His loyalty astounds me.

4. Ed Kennedy...Here's the one many of you may not know (from Markus Zusak's book I Am The Messenger,) but this guy ponders some pretty deep and thought provoking things that make me see the world in a whole new way. (Wish I could find an actor who I think looks like him, but I can't right now, so oh, well.)

5. Robin Hood... the definition of swashbuckling, clever, flirty and gallant. What more do we need?

The Girls

6. Anne Shirley.... her attitude on life is one I would so love to have.

7. Jo March... even if she made a crazy boy decision, I still like her spunk. Another character, along with Anne, that I've always wanted to be more like.

8. Laura Ingalls... she defines my childhood reading and the character that I loved with all my heart back then.

9. Nancy Drew... the character that tuned me into a reader.

10. Katniss Everdeen.... celebrating girl power everywhere!

Well? How'd the list turn out? Do you agree at all? Who's on your list?

Read Along Catch Up: The House at Tyneford by Natasha Solomons

When I heard about this read along (being led by Carrie over at Books and Movies) awhile back.  of course I wanted to join in! But I was still waiting for the book at the library, and waiting... and waiting.. and waiting. So, when I was at the bookstore while on our recent trip... I just bought it, with the hope that I could catch up.

Which is exactly what I've been doing this past weekend. And once I "let" myself get immersed (meaning not worrying about what other books needed reading) it wasn't hard to do at all! I've read up through part three's assignment (Chapter 21) and now I'm going to do a catch up post so I can just keep reading it and see what happens!

(Beware, spoilers possible below... though I've tried to keep my comments quite vague for the most part.)

Here's some questions from the first part (Chap. 1-10):

What do you think of the writing?

I love the writing. The descriptions are great, but not over the top, so you feel like you're really there, but you don't get bored from it all either. I feel very connected to the characters too, which I feel reflects some awesome writing too. Really, it's pretty perfect.

What are your first impressions of Elise?

I've liked her from the beginning. She's feisty, and brave and a little spoiled. She seems to have adapted to her new life quite well, considering the circumstances. I think she lucked out big time landing this job and joining up with a house and staff as wonderful as she did.

Do you think Elise will ever see her parents or her sister, Margot, again?

I've had a dire dire feeling about this from the beginning. Ugh, I hate that! When you feel like something so terrible is bound to happen!

Part Two (Chap. 11-15)  included the "fun" chapters I would say... the falling in love part! Of course we all knew this was coming, but it was fun to watch. However, like has been mentioned on other read along blogs, I was bugged by the stunt that Kit asked Elise to pull, and then I couldn't believe she really did it. Whatever. Kit seems like a fun guy, but I'm getting weird strange vibes from his dad too. Anyone else? The setting (which is like it's own character) is awesome and I want to go here! I want to live here! 

Part Three (Chap. 16-21) is when things start getting a bit too sad. I've worried all through these chapters about how things will be ending. Another story about the terribleness of war and nothing makes sense. And now it's time to wonder if anything we think is going, is REALLY going on. And what's the best thing for Elise to do next? Where does she belong now? How should she be relating to Kit's dad? Some sad sad stuff indeed.

I can't wait to finish up the last little bit (even if I'm scared about what's going to happen!) I have been totally loving this book. All those that said if you love Downton Abbey, you'll love this... well, they were right. It truly does have the same sort of feel, though it's only following one story line where as Downton Abbey has several.

Be sure to check out Carrie's post for the day to see what other readers have to say about the book so far. I will have my regular review up next Monday to wrap up this read along. So glad I could join in for this last little bit of it!

The Sunday Salon: Non-Readathon

Saturday night here. It’s been a day. Crazy in the beginning, lazy in the end, and kids going here and there and everywhere.

Outside my window: Wow… what a gorgeous day it was today! And I have one kid who went swimming outside at the very height of the beautifulness and she SWEARS she put on sunscreen. Yeah, and now we’ll see how fun the next few days are!

 I am listening to: Nothing at the moment, except the breeze through the window and the bird who suddenly decided to sing his head off.

Song of the week: Lazarus by Porcupine Tree… it’s such a pretty sounding song. I have no idea what he’s singing about though.



TV Talk: Ah, I’m so anxious to catch up on Vampire Diaries! And what’s with voting Colton out in American Idol people? WHAT WHAT I say? That was so so sad. What a dude. Survivor is frustrating, so very frustrating. Someone needs some guts over there! I watched a ton of Merlin episodes this week. and one Dr. Who. Fun stuff as always!

READING REPORT:
Books Finished: I did NOT finish Watership Down, I just don’t have the patience for that one right now. So I created, for the first time, a DNF shelf on Goodreads just for it.. and Path of Daggers of course. Sad sad day. But I did finish Return to Exile and reviewed it here.
Books Started: I started The House at Tyneford and am LOVING it! Sheesh, now THIS is what I needed!
Books Up Next: I will continue on with Before I Go to Sleep, which was also started last week while on the trip. Then I need to read next book clubs book kinda fast this month so someone can borrow the book… Precious Bane. After that, I don’t know what’s up next!

I am thinking: That it was sad to not participate in the Readathon today, but oddly nice too. I did read all afternoon, so that was good, but it was nice not to stress about it too. I hope you all had fun… those that read all day!

I'm grateful for: My grandma and all she has taught me and the fun we’ve had all these years! We had a fun party with her, but she didn’t have much clue what was going on.

Around the house: We had a college kid move back home this weekend, and she’s organized her room pretty good, but has sort of displaced the kitchen a bit. We need to re-organize that now.

Recipe of the Week: I made bought carrot cake for book club to celebrate the bunnies of Watership Down! :)

Favorite things of the week: the rain at the first of the week, and the sunshine at the end… I enjoyed them both! Book club was a nice thing about this week too. We had such fun jabbering away! Seeing some cousins I haven’t seen in forever was kinda cool also. AND, also, I got tickets to see Rick Riordan! Yep. Awesome.

Least favorite thing: oh… getting sick on Tuesday and Wednesday was NOT fun at all! Where did that come from I say?

Family Matters: One kid back home as mentioned, one kid with a sunburned back as mentioned, one kid just now finally getting over jet lag, and one kid who locked his keys in his car trunk, but we luckily had an extra key!

The coming week: Um… you know. I think it’s going to be a really quiet week. Here’s hoping!

Blog Report: The blog tour, the trip report, pondering time, listing blogger tips, and thinking about one cool character!

Authors Pick Five: E.J. Patten

As part of the blog tour I'm participating in today of E.J. Patten's book, Return to Exile, (see my review here) I've asked him my favorite author question:

What five books are most important

or influential to you?

Here are his answers:


Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling: Years ago, I was trying to decide what I wanted to write. I read Harry Potter and declared, “I want to write something like that.” Harry Potter is the reason I write middle-reader adventure books.


Neuromancer by William Gibson: With Neuromancer, Gibson captured the essence of coolness. It’s one of the defining novels of the cyberpunk genre (a subset of dystopian, which is a subset of sci-fi). The prose are just beautiful. Bleak, but beautiful. They’re recursive, perfectly mirroring the world Gibson’s creating, like the opening line: “The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.” Seriously cool. I read this book in high school and I’ve read it many times since. The reason I like it so much is because Neuromancer combines complex prose with an engaging story— a feat most “literary” works (i.e., prose-focused and boring) and popular fiction (i.e., story-focused with utilitarian prose) never achieve. A warning, though, for my fans: Neuromancer isn’t a middle-grade or YA book. The overall message is pretty nihilistic, and there’s a touch of language and adult themes.


Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein: This is the first book I can remember reading by choice. I read it over and over again when I was a kid, until I’d memorized every poem. I don’t remember any of them now, but I remember loving them.


Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien: I used to read this series every year. I love the depth and complexity of Middle Earth and the history Tolkien created to make the world feel real. When I wrote Return to Exile, I wanted to make my world feel like Middle Earth, even though it’s based in the modern-day United States. I studied the devices Tolkien used to add richness and detail to his world. Because Return to Exile isn’t really a milieu-driven book, I had to figure out how to adapt the devices to a character/plot driven story. In other words, I had to figure out how to balance the richness of the milieu with the demands of a modern middle-grade pacing. But Tolkien put my feet on the path.


Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card: What Tolkien is to milieu, Card is to character. Card has an amazing gift for taking you into a character’s mind and plumbing the depths of their psychological underpinnings. Card not only folds you into Ender’s mind, he drives you through a great plot that arises naturally from Ender’s needs and personality. That’s incredibly hard to do and Card executes it masterfully. In Return to Exile, I took a note from Card and tried to create a plot and world that arose from Sky’s inner needs and conflict. Sky, like most people, struggles to survive in a world that’s full of traps, and constantly changing around him. He wants to fit in like his sister, Hannah, and be normal for once, but he knows he’s not normal. In Sky’s world, nothing is ever as it seems—not even him.

As always, thanks for such fun answers! I love how this question lets us get to know authors quite well!

E.J. Patten lives here in Utah with his wife and three kids. This book, Return to Exile, is his first book... but many more are planned (six in this particular series I think.) I don't know a whole lot more about him because his author bio is quite vague, but I DO know that he's a really nice guy, (even with that goatee!) and he's also, like most in this little crowd of Utah authors, quite funny too! :)



You can read his blog here.
Follow him on Twitter here.
Learn more about the book Return to Exile here.
Follow the blog tour here.

(P.S. I think goatees are awesome!)

Review: Return to Exile by E.J. Patten

Book: Return to Exile by E.J. Patten
Genre: MG Fantasy (of the urban sort)
Rating: ★★★☆ ☆
For: Local Author Blog Tour
From: I bought this one at an event last Christmas at "my" library wherein I actually sat by Eric while he signed books! So that's kinda fun, yes?

The story is that last fall when this book came out the author (E.J. Patten aka. Eric) was recovering from surgery and wasn't able to promote it as he would have liked. Thus, this sort of delayed blog tour was formed thanks to Diana from Book Adventures who put it together, and we are now reading and blogging and touring it!

Let me just say right up front that this book is full of monsters! Chuck full of them! So if you love monsters, you can't go wrong with this book. If you are scared of them? Well, I say you read it anyway! :)

In this story we have Sky Weathers, a boy just turning 12, who idolizes his eccentric uncle who has been his best friend his whole life. This uncle suddenly disappears on Sky's birthday, even as Sky and his family are moving to a new house. This, to say the least, is a bit disturbing for Sky and he plans to figure out what's up.

Meanwhile, all sorts of other strange things are going on. There's the bullies at school who are a bit strange. There's also the teachers at school who seem sort of off. There's this strange mark that Sky has on his hand that acts up now and then which confuses him. Even his Mom and Dad are acting weird.

Of course, then there's the monsters that attack him when he went to investigate where he thinks his uncle might be!

Basically, this book is one crazy event after the other where Sky and his new friends have to save the day several times over. To me it was sort of a mix between ghost (or shall we say monster!) busters, and an alien (or monsters) "men in black" sort of feeling... with kids in the starring roles of course. These kids who hunt the monsters are called Hunters, which is where the series title, The Hunter Chronicles, comes from. Yes, of COURSE this is the first of series!

The only problem I had is that there's so much monster detail! Sometimes I felt the story itself got lost among all the explanation about the monsters... and the pacing suffered a bit for it. However, I think kids will find this quite fascinating. In fact, there's a fun monster handbook included at the end so they can get all the explanations in one place. Oh and wait! There's lots of riddles too. So monster loving AND riddle loving kids will be pleased!

My daughter (just turned 13) also recently read this book, and while I think she liked it for the most part (it did take her awhile though, it's a long one!) she did mention that she didn't like the ending. This made me prepared for something not so good to happen, yet, I actually found the ending quite satisfying.

Bottom line: I liked it! It's a fun, very adventurous story that I think lots of monster loving kids will really enjoy.

Be sure to check out the other reviews on the blog tour! 

Pondering the Past, the Present and the Future

Tomorrow my grandma turns 90.

It makes me wonder what the world will be like when I'm 90. I will just go ahead and tell you that this will happen in the year 2055. I wonder if I'll still be around? If I inherited much my grandma and grandpa's genes (my grandpa is nearly 92) perhaps I actually will.

And when I think about what's happened to the world in their lifetimes, and what's happened in my lifetime so far, it truly freaks me out as to how different things will be in 2055. Can you even imagine?

Think about how different things are today than in the 20s. Cars. Computers. Medicine. Airplanes. And then how different they are now from the 60s! Computers in our pockets! Chatting with the world.

What WILL it be like in 2055 do you think? Will we actually have the internet in our heads? Will we wear it around on our face, instead of in our pockets? Will "beam me up" ever be invented? Or hover boards? Or autopiloted cars? Or those wands that diagnose sickness with a sweeping wave over your body?

Or will we be living in a dystopian novel by then? Divided into districts... or factions... or living loveless, with our choices and memories gone? We will be all killed off by some sort of plague, or will we have regressed to living a version of the past?

Which makes me wonder... does my grandma think our world NOW is dystopian-like? Actually, she was quite fond of the computer and all it could do, and lamented the day that she decided she could no longer see to manipulate the thing. (Which gives me the vision of me at 90, trying to blog still! I bet I could just speak my posts and thought then, and the computer will interpret!)

Well, whatever it's like, hopefully I'm around to see it! I think. Assuming it's a good thing.

What do you think life will be like in 2055? Do you think the changes will be good, or bad, or a little of both? Do you want to be here to see the future? And to make this more bookish, what futuristic book would you NOT mind our future actually turning out like?