Dewey's Read-a-Thon: Challenge 3

Hosted by Til We Read Again, this challenge asks you to nominate people in several categories. How fun!

Favorite Female Character in a book: Elizabeth Bennett (Is this too obvious? My brain's not yet working...)
Favorite Male Character in a book: Sam Gamgee in LotR
Favorite Side Kick in a book: Fang in the Maximum Ride series
Favorite Couple in a Book: Ron and Hermione
Favorite Book Series: Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Chronicles of Narnia
Favorite Author: Shakespeare
Favorite Book Cover: Tough one, but I LOVE the cover of Fallen by Lauren Kate
Favorite Book of 2009: The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery

Dewey's Read-a-Thon: Challenge 1

Hosted by Miss Remmers' Review, here's Challenge 1:

In this challenge we would like you to write a post on your blogs about your kick off strategy.  What have you surrounded yourself with for these early hours of the challenge besides your books?  Is there a coffee thermos, lucky book mark, snacks, pillow....  We want to know how you have prepared so you do not have to leave your cozy reading space (by the way - we'd like to know what is too.... (are you still in bed, a chair, the couch.....)

At the moment, I've only got a bottle of water and a granola bar surrounding me. Oh, and I'm sitting in my office chair because I'm at work. Yes, you read that right. The cardinal sin of the Read-a-Thon has been committed, and it's only the beginning of hour three! I'm at work. Bah.

When I get home, however, I'll have plenty of water (I don't drink soda), whatever food I can scrounge from my fridge (I think I have some pasta salad and chicken tacos...), my couch, some pillows and my cat. You must have that reading companion who occasionally tries to pull off your glasses or eat your book. It's an essential accessory.

Wow, I'm a little loopy this morning! Anyway, that's what I've got around me right now. See you all later!

Dewey's 24-hour Read-a-Thon: Hours 1 & 2

Hello, everyone! I'm posting this a little late (Two hours late, to be exact) because I had to spend the first two hours of the Read-a-Thon getting ready for work and getting to work. But, since I'm here now, I can get going on the first two challenges! Yay!

Here's challenge 1, from the Dewey's blog:

Where are you reading from today?
3 facts about me …
How many books do you have in your TBR pile for the next 24 hours?
Do you have any goals for the read-a-thon (i.e. number of books, number of pages, number of hours, or number of comments on blogs)?
If you’re a veteran read-a-thoner, Any advice for people doing this for the first time?

1. I am reading from work (The library) and home in Illinois.

2. Three facts about me... 1) I like to sit outside and read whenever possible, and today looks as if it may cooperate! 2) I like to read more than I like to do pretty much anything else. 3) I haven't told my husband I'm participating in the Read-a-Thon (Don't know why!), but I will tell him if he wants me to help outside!

3. At the moment, I have 7 books in my TBR pile. I am in the midst of four of them and have the other three as backups.

4. I would really like to be able to spend at least half the Read-a-Thon reading. Since I've already wasted two hours, well, that may fly out the window. So, I'm hoping to finish at least three books. I'm easily distracted...

5. This is my first time! I'll take all the advice I can get!!


I'll be checking in every few hours (I hope) and commenting on other blogs. I'll probably be updating my Twitter feed more often than I will this blog, so check there (@michellesherman) for more!

Review: Claude & Camille: A Novel of Monet by Stephanie Cowell

Title: Claude & Camille: A Novel of Monet

Author: Stephanie Cowell

Pages: 330

Source: Publisher

Rating: 7/10

Challenges: Read 'n' Review Challenge

First Sentence: "Dull late-afternoon light glittered on the hanging copper pots in the kitchen where the old painter sat with his wine, smoking a cigarette, a letter angrily crumpled on the table in front of him."

Summary (From the back of the book):

In his early twenties, Claude Monet arrives in Paris determined to make his fortune as an artist. Instead, he finds poverty and obscurity but also camaraderie in a group of similarly unknown painters -- Renoir, Pissarro, Degas, Bazille, Manet, and Cezanne -- who share his vision and passion. But the single-most influential person in his life is a charming and vivacious upper-class girl named Camille Doncieux, who rejects a life of privilege to be with him. He falls madly in love with Camille, and his first great success is a portrait of her in an exquisite green opera dress. The two manage to stay together through years of bitter opposition from their families, Claude's artistic failures, and wretched poverty, but adversity eventually takes its toll. Even as Monet begins to sell his work, his marriage to Camille descends into tragedy -- and Monet realizes that he has never completely known his true love and greatest muse.

My Two Cents:

I'm a big fan of not only books about real people (authors, artists, politicians, etc.), but also those which give a little (fictional) insight into the making of famous paintings. I love Susan Vreeland and Tracy Chevalier's work, so I decided to give this one a try.

All in all, I really enjoyed this book. I liked how Cowell showed the reader how much Monet struggled to become as well-known a painter as he was. I also liked that she showed the reader someone who, even according to the few accounts of her real life, had a huge impact on Monet's life and work. In her author's note, Cowell says there is not much written about Camille Doncieux, but she takes what little there is and runs with it.

For the most part, Cowell's writing is very readable, and I was able to see a lot of what she was describing. Her dialogue between the characters, however, was a little stilted at times. This isn't the biggest example of the dialogue (I really need to start putting Post-its on the pages or something), but this is a randomly chosen piece of dialogue that kind of made me raise my eyebrows:

"People died," she stammered. "I ran out when the city was burning. And it all seemed to burn. A boy died before me, shot down. I've not been very good in my life. The nuns raised me to be good, but I've not been. That bullet was perhaps meant for me, no him. I ran back here and waited for it. And it was all ashes from the burning, coming through the window, huge black things that settled everywhere." (p. 244-5 in the ARC edition - Finished copies may have different page numbers)

I also had a difficult time connecting to Monet as a character. I just didn't really feel one way or another about him, but that didn't really influence my reading of the novel, which is strange. I also didn't really connect with Camille that much, but I did feel as if she was more fleshed out and realistic than Monet was. I think I enjoyed all the more minor characters -- Bazille, Pissarro, Renoir -- that I was able to overlook the fact that I didn't really feel that much for the main characters.

If you enjoy fine art, or like reading fictionalized accounts of the lives of famous people, I think you would enjoy this book.

Review: The Swimming Pool by Holly LeCraw

Title: The Swimming Pool

Author: Holly LeCraw

Pages: 307

Source: Publisher

Rating: 9/10

Challenges: Read 'n' Review Challenge

First Sentence: "Bodies, bodies."

Summary (From back of book):

Seven summers ago, Marcella Atkinson fell in love with Cecil McClatchey, a married father of two. But on the same night their romance abruptly ended, Cecil's wife was found murdered. The case was never solved, and Cecil died soon after, an uncharged suspect.

Now divorced and estranged from her only daughter, Marcella lives alone, mired in grief and guilt. Meanwhile, Cecil's grown son, Jed, returns to the Cape with his sister for the first time in years. When he finds a woman's bathing suit buried in a closet -- a relic, unbeknownst to him, of his father's affair -- he decides to confront Marcella on a hunch.

When, to their deep surprise, they fall into an affair of their own, passion temporarily masks their shared pain. But as we are left to believe on the last stunning pages, the betrayals of the past cannot be ignored and will have a ripple effect on these two families for years to come.

My Two Cents:

I agree with My Friend Amy when she says she wishes she hadn't read a synopsis of this book. I went into this book thinking it was going to be one thing, but was pretty surprised when it turned out to be a different book entirely. The synopsis almost reads like a mystery or thriller, even a romance, but it's much more than that. It is, I think, essentially a novel of relationships (Mostly parent-child relationships) and how misunderstandings can resonate for many years.

LeCraw's writing is superb. I was really surprised to learn that this is her first book. She's got an ear for language and she really can paint a picture, especially when describing the beach or a garden. Her ability to make you feel a character's mental state is excellent, too. I just couldn't stop reading the sections with Callie. They were like watching a train wreck -- Horrible to behold, but you want to know what happens.

Even though I really liked this book, I can't honestly say I liked any of the characters. I felt somewhat sorry for many of the characters, but I didn't really like them in that "Oh, I hope this one thing doesn't happen to this person because that'd really upset me" kind of way. I felt sorry for what was happening and what had happened to Callie, but I couldn't connect with her. There pretty much was nothing at all I liked about Toni or Anthony. Jed had some good qualities about him, such as his devotion to his family (Well, the living family members, at least), but his actions kind of creeped me out. The only character I could say I liked in any way, and even then her actions were none too honorable, was Marcella. I felt sorry for what she'd been through in life, and she seemed to want to have a decent relationship with Toni, but otherwise I just wasn't too fond of her.

I liked that this book dealt with some more sensitive subjects -- Pregnancy loss, postpartum depression -- without beating you over the head with them. If you're at all squeamish about sex or extramarital affairs, I wouldn't suggest reading this book.

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?: April 5, 2010

This week, I read:

Claude and Camille: A Novel of Monet by Stephanie Cowell


No Hope for Gomez! by Graham Parke

Fang (Maximum Ride #6) by James Patterson

This week, I reviewed (Click on the title to read my review):

Sea Glass by Anita Shreve 

Fallen by Lauren Kate 

This week, I'm reading:

Angelology by Danielle Trussoni

Sherlock Holmes: Selected Stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Vampyre Blood: Eight Pints of Trouble by George Earl Parker

This week, I hope to begin reading:

Belong to Me by Marisa de los Santos

This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Every Last One by Anna Quindlen

What are you reading this week?

Review: Fallen by Lauren Kate

Title: Fallen

Author: Lauren Kate

Pages: 452

Source: The library where I work

Rating: 9/10

Challenges: Read 'n' Review Challenge

First Sentence: "Around midnight, her eyes at last took shape."

Summary (From book flap):

There's something achingly familiar about Daniel Grigori.

Mysterious and aloof, he captures Luce Price's attention from the moment she sees him on her first day at Sword & Cross boarding school in Savannah. He's the one bright spot in a place where cell phones are forbidden, the other students are screwups, and security cameras watch every move.

Except Daniel wants nothing to do with Luce -- he goes out of his way to make that very clear. But she can't let it go. Drawn to him like a moth to a flame, Luce has to find out what Daniel is so desperate to keep secret ... even if it kills her.

My Two Cents:

This book took me awhile to get into. Over the course of two weeks, I only read about 200 pages. I'd read a little, not really getting captured by the book, and then put it down for something else. But, I persevered because it was everywhere getting so much positive praise. I had to see if I would like it, too, or if this would be another case of The Postmistress syndrome.


Once I hit the 200-page mark, though, I couldn't put this book down.

I really liked Luce as a character. She was one of those girls that I could easily have seen myself being friends with in high school. She's smart, somewhat shy, and very confused about what's going on with her life. She knows something went wrong enough to land her in a reform school, but she doesn't know what and she's pretty sure she didn't cause it. I liked that she was a typical teenager with a somewhat rebellious streak (There's some teen drinking that goes on here), but she's very respectful and loving toward her parents. You don't see that sometimes in young adult fiction, and it's refreshing to see that. She's also a loyal friend, not only to her friend back home, but also to her new friends at Sword & Cross.

Kate's writing is really smooth and flows nicely. She's great at giving you a lot of the clues, but not revealing her hand too early. I knew what the big "secret" was going to be, mostly because I'd read some reviews and synopses, but it was still surprising to see how it all played out.

The concept behind this book is what I liked the best. It was paranormal without being too unbelievable. Sure, I'm not looking for any of the otherworldly creatures presented here to be knocking on my door anytime soon, but I could see it happening in some alternate reality. Make any sense?

Besides the slow start (And 200 pages is a really slow start), I overall enjoyed this book and can't wait to read the sequel.