The Aroma of Books

Main book blog: thearomaofbooks.wordpress.com  ///  main tumblr @thewanderingzeppelin

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Greetings, tumblr world!  

It’s been a while since I’ve posted on this blog.  My main book blog is now over on Wordpress here, but I have been thinking about starting to post on this account again.  We’ll see what happens!

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Indiscretion // by Jude Morgan

published 2005

I first read this absolutely delightful book two years ago, and enjoyed it so much that I purchased a copy soon after.  I decided that this would be a perfect vacation book to follow up The Blue Castle.  I was a bit apprehensive, though.  After enjoying Indiscretion so thoroughly, I read two others of Morgan’s books (An Accomplished Woman and A Little Folly), and, while perfectly fine reads, they lacked that magic that made Indiscretion so much fun.  And so, I worried as I approached this book for a second time.  Would it lack that indefinable something that makes a book just as lovely as the first time around?

All that worry was for nothing – Indiscretion won me over completely yet again.  The language is just perfect.  In many ways, it reminds me of a Wodehouse book – just that frothy, verging-on-nonsense dialogue (both external and internal) that had be laughing out loud at multiple points.  Morgan has the knack of describing characters perfectly without bothering to tell us much about their physical appearance (black hair, blue eyes, etc.) –

Her whole demeanour indeed was that of someone just awoken from a refreshing sleep but wondering whether to doze for another half-hour.

Or –

“Parties?  Oh – as to that, Miss Fanny, I am a dull fellow for parties in any event,’ Captain Brunton said; occasioning in Caroline a brief mental review, to see if there were any news that had ever surprised her less.

Caroline herself is a very relateable heroine, being just imperfect enough for me to emphasize with her thoroughly.  Her internal dialogue is not written in lengthy paragraphs, but rather brief little asides (like the one above), that give a glimpse into her true character.

For a better overview of the story, feel free to read my first review.  Suffice to say here, that I was reminded yet again that part of the reason I appreciate Caroline as a character is that I, too, worked as a paid companion for a very rich and very capricious old lady.  Thankfully, I didn’t have to live with her, but I ended up leaving the job as she wasn’t willing to let me switch days with Companion #2 so I could help out my ailing grandmother – needless to say, I felt that I had a strong understanding for Caroline’s position!

I think that one of the things that really struck me this time around is how many people thought that Caroline would be discontent in the country, living a quiet life.  I really liked how, actually, she thoroughly enjoyed it.  She didn’t get bored or pine away, and despite the fact that her relations were completely different from her in every way, she got along with them well and loved them dearly.

While Indiscretion is not a book that is likely to change your life, it is a wonderfully relaxing and humorous read, and one that I highly recommend.  5/5 the second time around also!

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The Blue Castle // by L. M. Montgomery

published 1926

Please excuse the terrible cover.  Barney would never have worn a sweater like that.  Sheesh.

So, when on vacation, I always take an ambitious pile of books – a pile I know I will never finish reading, but I bring them all anyway.  I love to bring books that are old friends when I go on holiday – books that I can read in a leisurely fashion – returning to old friends in a gentle and relaxed manner.

The Blue Castle is one of my most beloved books.  Although Montgomery is famous for her Anne of Green Gables series (which I most certainly love), I am incredibly fond of The Blue Castle and Jane of Lantern Hill.  This is, perhaps, one of the earliest “romance” books I ever read, but the beauty of this story is that it manages to be innocent and thought-provoking at the same time.  Even though I have read this book many, many times, it never fails to make me laugh, to make me tear up, and to make me pause.

At the age of 29, Valancy is “on the shelf” in old-fashioned Deerwood.  An unimportant member of a large and gossipy clan, Valancy lives with her widowed mother and her father’s cousin, and spends her days trying to do what she is supposed to, living by the dull, strict rules of her mother and the rest of the Stirlings.  Never in love and with no real possibility of it in her future, Valancy is more or less resigned to a long, boring life that will continue along the same road it always has.

But Valancy isn’t as meek and mild as the clan believes her to believe, and when she finds out that she only has a year to live, she grabs the reins of her own life and begins to do what she pleases.  In pre-World War I Canada this isn’t anything too crazy, but it’s plenty crazy enough for her family, who thinks that Valancy has gone out of her mind when she begins speaking up at clan gatherings, purchasing pretty clothes, and sliding down the banister.

However, all of that is just a prelude to Valancy’s real adventure – she agrees to go nurse an old school-mate who is dying of consumption, a decision that changes the rest of Valancy’s life.

My friends, I genuinely love this book.  Valancy is one of my very favorite heroines of all time, and her self-discovery is a wonder to behold.  She is funny, kind, and intelligent.  Montgomery weaves a story around her that is both pathetic and endearing, but never too mushy.  She touches lightly on topics that were a bit daring for the time, like Cecily’s unwed motherhood, with grace and an underbite of challenge.  This is a book that I have always wished had a sequel.

As a sidenote, I will mention that two of my brothers and my dad have also read this book and loved it. Montgomery has the knack of writing about girls/women in a way that has universal appeal – while womanly, they never come across as “girly.”  Valancy, and most of Montgomery’s other heroines, has true grit.  While romantic, it is also tough.  Valancy is no wimp, and her story is one that is challenging and engaging.

It is a quick, light, happy read, but crafted perfectly.  The story unfolds exactly as it should – the timing is exquisite.  Every word in this book is precisely the right one for the moment – not a one is out of place or unnecessary.  I cannot recommend The Blue Castle highly enough.

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Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell // by Susanna Clarke

published 2004

This is one of those books that has been floating around my TBR for quite some time, and I have no clear idea how it landed there.  I don’t distinctly remember reading a review of it, but it seems to be one of those books that I frequently hear referred to in a rather sidelong manner.  And I must say – I don’t really know what to make of this books.  In an odd way, it put me in mind of the Series of Unfortunate Events – a book that somehow isn’t at my level of understanding.  For me, a 2/5 – I can understand why its average Goodreads rating is much closer to a 4/5, but it just isn’t for me.

The book is a rich one.  At over 800 pages, it is a brick of a book, and I honestly dithered about finishing it…  I decided to give it 150 pages to make its case, and although I wasn’t completely hooked  by then, I was engaged enough to want to see where things went.  It’s a slow-paced book that covers a decade of time – a decade in which it genuinely feels like more ought to have happened, but didn’t.

The slow world-building, enhanced by Clarke’s numerous footnotes (more on those in a moment), was impressive.  Clarke builds a true sense of this alternate-reality she has created.  Her interweaving of actual history into her world was very well done.

So why can I not summon up warmer feelings for this book?  I wanted to love this book, truly I did.  But, in the end, it just never quite hooked me.  While many layers of many characters are revealed, I still never felt bonded with any of them.  I could never quite believe in the depth of Strange’s affection for his wife, so the many actions he takes to rescue her felt awkward to me.  The entire ending was rather abrupt (especially for a book of such length), and I felt a little betrayed that (SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER) that, after all that effort, Strange and his wife are not really reunited…????

I had very mixed feelings about the footnotes as well.  While I liked them as an alternative to endless explanatory dialogue, they were also more than a bit distracting, occurring as they often did in the middle of sentences and sometimes running on to a page or more in length, entire little stories of their own.  In some ways this was fun, and in other ways  – most of the time, if I’m honest – it was plain aggravating.

By halfway through, I once again felt that I was at a crossroads – should I finish this book??  But I just kept feeling as though something had to happen – that things would pick up – that a plot would suddenly appear – that I would like someone – so I kept on.  Honestly, I regret that decision.  I lugged this incredibly heavy book on holiday to finish the last 200 pages, and then just sat there, staring at the last page, feeling incredibly ripped off.  I don’t usually feel annoyed about books when I’m done with them, but I did this one.

In the end, I think my rather meh feelings towards this book come back to the fact that I didn’t love any of the characters.  They were fine, but I never truly felt bound up in their fate.  It seemed, that with that many pages to tell the tale, there ought to have been at least one person for whom I cherished a sincere affection and concern – but there wasn’t.  Instead, the whole story felt ponderous, heavy, and a bit prosy – Clarke frequently flirted with the line between well-researched and stuffily pleased with her knowledge.

There are many (many) positive reviews for this book, so by no means discard it on my word.  But for myself – I must confess that I don’t really understand the hype surrounding this book that, in my mind, could have been culled down by half quite easily…

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Stormy // by Jim Kjelgaard

published 1959

In this Kjelgaard story, we meet Allan.  He lives, of course, in the wilderness.  He and his father work as hunting guides in an area known especially for its duck hunting.  Unfortunately, a few months before the opening of our book, Allan’s father was arrested and imprisoned for getting into a fight with a neighbor that nearly did the neighbor in.  Allan, a quiet youth presumably around twenty, is doing his best to carry on.  But their property is landlocked by the now-feuding neighbors, who have reduced Allan’s right-of-way to a mere footpath, which means – no hunters and no income.

But Allan carries on, planting a garden, running a trapline, and, in general, eking out a living as best he can from the land, all while traipsing into the city to visit his father on visiting days.  Allan’s peaceful routine is interrupted when a dog shows up on his property – a dog that Allan soon discovers is also an outlaw – wanted for attacking a man.  Allan befriends and earns the trust of the dog, whom he names Stormy, and they work together to survive the long winter.

In many ways, this book is a little different from some of Kjelgaard’s other works.  Despite his woodlore, Allan is not a perfect figure – he struggles to control his temper when provoked by the neighbors, and wrestles with what to tell his father when asked how hunting season is going.  He doesn’t always make smart decisions, and has to live with some poor choices.  More so than most of Kjelgaard’s other books, Allan is a loner, and a lot of the book is his internal dialogue.

The story is also slightly preachier than others that I have read, with a very strong emphasis on the importance of balanced and humane wildlife management – which means that there simply must be some hunting done by humans.  At one point in the winter, Allan comes across deer that have “yarded” – as a herd, they keep a certain area of snow trampled down, but as the snow deepens, they are unable to leave that yard and thus have a limited amount of food to get them through the winter.  Allan reflects on the fact that, with a lack of natural predators, the number of deer have increased.

Allan thought suddenly of a magazine story he had read.  It was an impassioned and over-sentimentalized plea for wildlife and at the same time a vitriolic denunciation of hunters.  The author painted vivid word pictures of wild creatures shot down.  He called deer “the forest’s innocents,” and railed about the viciousness of shooting them with firearms.  Allan decided as he walked along that he would like to bring that author to this yard about the middle of March and let him see for himself what happened to many of “the forest’s innocents” when there was too little browse to go around.  A bullet offered a far kinder death than slow starvation.  If deer were harvested sensibly rather than sentimentally, a fair share of those that died every winter anyhow would provide valuable food for humans.

While not jarring, many of these little side musings are not integral to the story.  And although I generally agreed with the sentiments, I sometimes found myself skimming a bit to get to the next bit of action.

But if I’m honest, Stormy really isn’t terribly long on action.  While there is a certain level of suspense as to what will happen to Allan and Stormy long term, most of the book is just the two of them meandering around doing a bit of this and that.  It’s a book that would probably only be interesting to those who are intrigued by woodlore and the idea of living off the land.  While I give it a 3/5 for a decent read, I would definitely recommend some of Kjelgaard’s other works – like Wild Trek and Lion Hound – first.

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Hot Water // by P.G. Wodehouse

published 1932

As I have mentioned before, nothing brings me the same kind of pure, unadulterated joy as a Wodehouse novel.  His ability to make a plot both complex and simple, unique and predictable, and hilarious and…  well, hilarious, puts him a class of his own.  There are good books, bad books, boring books, so-so books, and then: there is Wodehouse.

Wodehouse is, more or less, impossible to summarize.  Summarizations sound like chaos (which, let’s be honest, isn’t too far from the mark).  From the back of the book:

The house-party at Chateau Blissac, Brittany, features a rather odd array of guests this year…

Mr. J. Wellington Gedge is hoping for smoe peace and quiet while his wife takes herself off for a while.  She, however, has invited numerous visitors to the chateau, to whom he will have to play reluctant host.  Senator Opal and his daughter Jane are expected and the chateau’s handsome, gadabout owner Vicomte de Blissac.  When a certain letter goes missing, landing the Senator in the proverbial hot water, it’s up to Packy Franklyn, a great pal of the Vicomte’s, to sort out the mess.  Unfortunately, this involves a little light safe-cracking. Luckily, Packy bumps into the light-fingered Soup Slattery…

Honestly, I almost didn’t even bother posting that summary. It makes the book sound dreadfully stilted and weird, when, in reality, it is light, frothy, and bubbly.  Wodehouse is, in fact – I have just this moment realized – the champagne of books.  Absolutely no substance whatsoever, but delightful for an evening of entertainment and pleasure.

While this is not, in my opinion, one of Wodehouse’s best efforts, even a so-so Wodehouse is superior to most books I find these days.  His timing is as exquisite as ever, the dialogue genius, and his knack for the perfect twist at the perfect time is just fabulous.

I love the way that he manages to build characters through not just descriptions of their physical appearances, but through their actions and conversations:

When [Veek] rose again, it was so evident that he was a poor swimmer that Packy realized that he had got to do something immediately.

Many men in Packy’s position would have shrunk from diving in to the rescue, fully clad.  Packy was one of them.  He was fond of the Vicomte, but not to the extent of ruining a nearly new flannel suit in his interests.  However, the spirit of Aud Lang Syne was sufficiently strong in him to cause him to climb into the dinghy, and in a few minutes he had gaffed the poor bit of flotsam and brought it safely aboard.

And there you have Packy in a nutshell – not, perhaps, heroic, but imminently practical nonetheless.

The whole tale is the usual Wodehouse tangle that somehow manages to come out perfectly, with everyone paired with the ideal individual, and no one (much) worse for the wear.

4/5 and the reminder that everyone – everyone – should pick up a Wodehouse!

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June Rearview Mirror

//originally published 30 June 2015//

So June – I finally feel like I am back in the swing of reading!  While April, May, and June were insanely busy around this little homestead (you should totally check out the house blog – all those posts under May and June??  I wrote them ALL over the weekend!  Just writing about all our projects wore me out!), the last two weeks have been basically solid rain.  That’s actually been nice because (a) it means I don’t have to spend 1-2 hours every evening watering gardens (which, when you don’t get home until 6, and then cook, consume, and clean up after supper, means that by the time you’re done in the gardens, it’s already 9:00, dark, and time for this earlybird to get to bed!) and (b) I’ve finally been able to catch up on some inside projects – including blogging!

I know the big question on everyone’s minds is – Is Waylon even cuter than the last time you posted a picture of him?  Answer – Yes!

!!!!!!!!!!!!  I can’t hardly stand living with this much adorableness, guys.  Oh. My. Gosh.  So cute.  Wow.  So cute that I’m going to post more pictures of him.  Because obviously what this blog needs is MORE WAYLON.

Waylon’s big news for June, by the way, is that he is working on being a Frisbee dog.  :-D

In other random news, we got chickens, planted vegetables, made a blueberry patch, and painted our floors.  And that, my friends, is just the tip of the iceberg.  Team Awesome has been super busy lately!

It’s been a good busy, though, you know?  The kind that lets you go to  bed content because you’ve put in a good day’s work doing some actual things that you can see.

So yes.  I was too busy to do a lot of quality reading there for a while, but thanks to the rain, to projects shifting from the start up stage to the maintenance stage, and just an overall calming down (ha!) of life, I am back in the groove.

Favorite June Read:  Okay, so this was a month where I read several books that gave me happy feelings, but nothing that really filled me with passion like OH MY GOSH SO AMAZING YOU MUST READ THIS RIGHT NOW.  So…………..  actually, I think maybe Dragonsong?  I don’t know if it was because it was a reread, or just because the world of Pern makes so much sense in context (or maybe both!), but this time around Dragonsong went from being so-so to highly enjoyable.  I just really felt like McCaffrey was hitting her stride with Pern in this book, pulling together a lot of social/cultural threads within the world she’s creating – so, weirdly, the reasons I didn’t really like it the first time around were the reasons I really enjoyed it a lot the second!

Most Disappointing June Read:  So yeah, see above!  I didn’t have a lot of negatively emotional reads this month, either!  I think in the end, probably Heart’s Blood.  I really love fairy tales, and this book started really strong, but in the end it just felt too long and too complicated, and the story did nothing to get me on board with the primary romance, which left me skeptical of the entire rest of the story.  It was one of those books that I really, really wanted to like but just couldn’t.

Other June Reads:

Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell – 4/5 – definitely my favorite of the three Rowell novels I’ve read, this one was just so fun, yet handled some deeper topics with grace.  I also felt like this one wasn’t as dated/striving for nostalgia as Eleanor & Park and Landline, which made it more enjoyable to me.  There are only so many 80’s references I can take in one novel.

Sinner by Maggie Stiefvater – 4/5 – the four book in the Wolves of Mercy Falls trilogy (yeah), I’m embarrassed to admit that it was a close contender for Favorite June Read – I have no idea why I enjoyed these books about werewolves so much, but they were completely engaging, and Sinner was a super fun read.

Dragonquest by Anne McCaffrey – Second Pern book – 4/5 – brilliant writing.  I am so enjoying these books now that I’ve started at the beginning!

Dressed for Death by Donna Leon – 4/5- the third book in the Commissario Guido Brunetti series – I’ve actually read the first two in May and June as well, but this was the first I reviewed – this whole series is just getting better as it goes along (I’m halfway through the fourth book) with Brunetti a delightful protagonist and the mysteries engaging without being so intense that I can’t sleep at night!

Haunt Fox by Jim Kjelgaard – 4/5 – a childhood favorite that stood up to an adult-perspective reread quite well.  Kjelgaard is an excellent place to start if you are trying to introduce young people in your life to the concepts of conservation and self-sufficiency in the package of an engaging story.

If I Have a Wicked Stepmother, Where’s My Prince? by Melissa Kantor – 3/5 – a fun but ultimately so-so little contemporary YA read.

See all those 4/5s??  See why I had trouble choosing a favorite this month?!

Added to the TBR:

Cleopatra Loves Books always tempts me, and this month was no exception.  Thanks to her – THREE new titles!

I’m always up for a psychological thriller that is “clever but not too complex” – actually, those are my favorites!  A Game for All the Family sounds like it may fit the bill!

While Cleo said that this was a bit outside her usual penchant for books with a darker edge, The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets sounded like a historical fiction I would really enjoy – especially since I’m slowly moving out of my World War II reading (haha, not that I’ve been doing much!) and into the 1950’s.

Finally, to get back to that darker edge, First One Missing sounds properly disturbing without being too gruesome, and I always enjoy a thriller along those lines!

But don’t think that Cleopatra was alone in her attempts to keep my TBR at a level of complete unattainableness (I’m working on expanding my vocabulary by creating my own words these days) – Reading, Writing & Riesling is always right there, throwing books on as well, like these FIVE titles!

Okay, so I’m a little terrified of reading The Killing Lessons…  but I still want to!!!

On a completely different note, The Soldier’s Wife sounds like an engaging read – I am way into reading historical fiction set in countries other than the US (so if you have some others – especially set in the 20th century – let me know!!).

I’m not always into domestic noir, but Carol made The Bones of You sound so appealing that I couldn’t resist adding it.

While After the Crash sounds like a bit out of my normal parameters, I am willing to be stretched a bit!

Finally, Carol snuck one last title on at the last minute (although I think it’s technically already July in Australia!) – Limbo sounds absolutely ridiculous, like nothing ever read before, and completely engaging.

Tales of the Marvelous tempted me with two fairytales, by different authors but from the same post –

The Last Dragonslayer

The Sleeper & the Spindle

Stephanie usually has reading tastes similar to mine, so when she said that she never wanted The Fill-In Boyfriend to end, I decided it was quite likely to be a lighthearted romance that I would enjoy as well!

Bibliobeth’s review of Gretel and the Dark sounded completely engaging – magic and World War II??  Yes, please!

FictionFan’s post about Dark Matter convinced me that I definitely wanted to read this book with its “brilliantly executed build-up of psychological terror” – who doesn’t want that on their TBR?!

Do you want to know a secret?  Those are only some of the books I added!  So, yet another sign that I am out of my reading slump – books are clamoring to be added!  :-D

Thanks to everyone for all your awesome reviews – even when they are of books I know I’ll never read, I still greatly enjoy reading the reviews!

Here’s to a happy July!!

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Dragonsong // by Anne McCaffrey

published 1976

So I’ve mentioned that I’m trying to read all of the Pern novels in publication order.  But when I started to read The White Dragon, which my list listed as the third book, I recognized a lot of characters from the original trilogy I read (the Harper Hall trilogy), which felt weird, since they, according to my list, were published after The White Dragon.  So I did some more research and guess what!  The White Dragon was published after the first two books in the Harper Hall trilogy.  Go figure.  Apparently, whoever compiled my original list felt like the two trilogies in the Pern books should be together (The White Dragon is the third in the Dragonriders trilogy), even though they were actually published (1) Book 1 of Dragonriders, (2), Book 2 of Dragonriders, (3) Book 1 of Harper Hall, (4) Book 2 of Harper Hall, (5) Book 3 of Dragonriders, (6) Book 3 of Harper Hall.  Okay, first off, why?!  Secondly, that meant I was stranded without a book for the day because I really didn’t want to read The White Dragon until rereading those first two Harper Hall books!  Tragedy!  Thank goodness for the Kindle app on my phone….

This was my second time reading Dragonsong.  I read it for the first time a little over a year ago, and while I enjoyed it just fine, I found it a bit confusing.  When I read Dragonflight, McCaffrey’s first Pern novel, a few weeks ago, I immediately realized that Dragonsong and its sequels were going to make so much more sense the second time around.  McCaffrey does a lot of world-building in her first two Pern novels, plus Dragonsong actually takes place at the same (Pern) time as Dragonflight and Dragonquest, except from the perspective of a different character, so the whole entire story of Dragonsong suddenly made WAY more sense.

All that to say, Dragonsong was much more enjoyable this time around.  It was actually providing background and insight for events I had already read about in the first two books, and those first two books did the same for this one.  They really wove together to give me a much better picture of the story than I got the first time I read this book.

I liked Menolly, the main character, a lot the first time around, and liked her even better this time.  She is intelligent and determined, and even though a lot of things happen to her that she doesn’t understand, she takes them in stride and then finds ways to make sense of them.  I’m already excited about reading more of the Pern books to see how her story continues (especially since I know she’s at least mentioned in The White Dragon!)

I’m greatly enjoying these books on the whole, especially as I get more into the series – McCaffrey spent less time explaining things in this book, which made it go faster (although made it more complicated when I read it the first time!), and kept it as an overall very engaging read.  Definitely recommend!

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If I Have a Wicked Stepmother, Where’s My Prince // by Melissa Kantor

published 2005

I don’t really know how this little tale got added to my TBR, but there it was, waiting to be read.  While it was a decent read, some of it was a little too cliche for my tastes, leaving me with an overall 3/5.

Lucy, who tells the story (thankfully in past tense), is living in Long Island with  her new stepmother and twin stepsisters.  Her dad is still spending most of his time back in San Francisco, finishing up his job, so Lucy feels lonely and out of place in her new house.  She thinks her stepmother is shallow and unfair, and that her stepsisters are spoiled and annoying.  Starting sophomore year in a new high school also means that she’s having trouble adjusting there – it’s never easy to find friends when everyone else found their friends the year before.

So, things I liked about this book (fyi, mild spoilers, but on the other hand, it’s not like this book was full of unexpected twists) –

First off, I actually did like Lucy.  While she was a little annoying sometimes (most 16-year-olds are) and a little unreasonable sometimes (which most 16-year-olds are), overall she was a likable protagonist who was just trying to adjust to her new life.

Another thing I liked was that Kantor didn’t make the popular kids automatically horrible.  The two girls who befriend Lucy actually end up being really nice, and the basketball star she dates is just a typical high school guy – not super introspective, perhaps, but not a total jerk.

Lucy loves basketball, and is knowledgeable about it, but at the same time she is also a really good artist and really into that.  This was maybe my favorite concept of this book – I really, really liked the fact that Kantor portrayed someone who could like two really different things: sports and art.  So often, authors act as those these are opposing hobbies, and that if you like both, you must be lying about one of them.  The fact that Lucy was into both of these things gave her more depth as a person and made her more realistic.  In real life, most people like a lot of things, and they are frequently things that other people wouldn’t automatically put together.

But while all of these things were good, it almost felt like Kantor was afraid to follow through on them.  It was as though she got partway through the book and then began to get nervous that people wouldn’t like the way she was straying from the typical YA path.  So we end up with Lucy not being able to date the basketball star any more, because the “only” thing he likes about Lucy is that she likes basketball.  Instead, she ends up with the artsy dude.  And yeah, artsy dude was a nice guy, but as far as I could tell, the “only” thing he liked about Lucy was that she was into art, so how does that make the artsy dude better than the basketball dude?  Apparently, though, if you like someone because they like art, you are liking the “real” person, while if you like someone because they like sports, you are only liking the “shallow/not real” person.  That kind of annoyed me.  To me, either both of these guys don’t completely understand Lucy (because artsy dude knows absolutely nothing about basketball and thinks it’s kind of stupid), or Kantor should have found another reason to make it reasonable for Lucy to switch her allegiance to artsy dude.  I think Kantor was trying to avoid making basketball dude a villain (which was a nice change of pace from most YA), but in the end she made basketball dude look like a douche for doing the exact thing that artsy dude was doing, and I didn’t like the double standard.

I also didn’t completely buy the sudden change of heart of Lucy’s stepmother, although I do think that Kantor was trying to portray that it wasn’t just a change on the stepmother’s end – that Lucy was also becoming more accepting of her situation and her new family.  However, that wasn’t really very explicit, so it felt like suddenly, magically, the stepmother was this nice lady.  And I just find it really hard to believe that Lucy’s dad, who is supposed to be super fond of her, would really find Lucy’s complete lack of furniture in her bedroom for months to be acceptable.

While there were some fun moments in this book and it was a fine one-off read, nothing about it thrilled me or made me yearn to seek out more of Kantor’s work.  A moderately good YA read, but nothing magical.

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Haunt Fox // by Jim Kjelgaard

published 1954

After Lion Hound and Wild Trek, I believe Haunt Fox was the next Jim Kjelgaard book that I read.  My name and phone number are still inscribed inside the battered Bantam-Skylark paperback that I own, but no date, although from my handwriting I would guess somewhere around 10 or 11.  (Mainly because I remember learning to write my name in cursive sometime around that time so that I could get a library card!)

This story is mostly about a fox named Star.  We meet him as he is experiencing the first snowfall of his life, and follow him through the raising of his first litter.  Parallel to Star’s story is that of Jack Crowley and Jack’s foxhound, Thunder.  Throughout the book, all three youngsters learn, in their own way, what it means to be an adult.

Like most of Kjelgaard’s books, this is not a tale of great depth and intrigue.  However, it has those gentle life-lessons that seem to so frequently be lacking in children’s books these days – the importance of honesty, hard-work, frugality, honor, loyalty, and compassion.  Jack’s parents are portrayed as simple, kind, honest people, and Jack wants to be just like them.  He sees their good, solid, respectable life and wants the same thing for himself.  He doesn’t spend the entire book carrying on an internal  monologue about how out-dated his dad is, or how he doesn’t understand what Jack is going through.  Instead, he looks to his dad as a role model – someone he loves and trusts.  Jack’s dad, in turn, gives Jack opportunities to prove himself.  Some of those Jack fails, but ultimately he succeeds in learning the rather vague lesson of what makes a man a good man – something that cannot really be described in so many words, but is known when someone is.

In the meantime, we have the story of Star.  The fox learns many lessons as he grows, for Mother Nature is a harsh taskmaster as well, leaving little room for mistakes.  Star finds a mate, defeats his arch-enemy, learns to run from the hounds, out-thinks the hunter, and raises a family.  Kjelgaard paints a simple yet complex picture of wilderness life.  He always does an excellent job catching essence of animals – he doesn’t try to make them have actual conversations with words, but describes an animal’s more simplistic way of viewing life in a way that makes the animals more real – not only are we learning about Star, we are learning about foxes in general, including foxes I may see in my own woods.

Haunt Fox is one of my favorite Kjelgaard books, and an easy 4/5.  If you have animal-loving children in your life, I highly recommend this book.  There is some violence and some death, yes, but that is the way of nature.  Kjelgaard balances this with the importance of thoughtful hunting and trapping as a means of preserving a natural balance of life.  A truly great conservationist, Kjelgaard shows rather than tells how critical it is for humans to take responsibility for the nature upon which they have infringed, to preserve and protect it, not just for the sake of nature, but for the sake of ourselves as well.

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Heart’s Blood // by Juliet Marillier

published 2009

This was a book that I really, really wanted to like, but, in the end, felt quite meh about it – 3/5.

The story starts strong, with Caitrin, who tells her own story, fleeing into a dark and creepy countryside and being taken in by nervous and suspicious villagers.  We come to find Caitrin’s story slowly, but it is obvious from the beginning that she is running away from a bad home life and hoping to make her own way as a scribe, a trade she learned from her now-deceased father.

There isn’t much business for a scribe in the wilds, and one begins to wonder why Caitrin would flee there instead of to a city of some sort, but, luckily for her, the lord of the area just so happens to need a scribe for the summer.  The catch?  Everyone is terrified of Lord Anluan, who is cursed and lives on a cursed hill with his demons.  Caitrin decides beggars can’t be choosers and heads up the hill the next day anyway.

The story is a rough retelling of Beauty & the Beast, but lacks many of the basic elements (the fact that Caitrin’s father is dead and has nothing to do with the situation being one).  One of the keys, though, to successfully recapturing the essence of Beauty & the Beast is that Beauty is able to look beyond the Beast’s exterior to love, cherish, and appreciate who he actually is.  (And, actually, Beast does the same for Beauty.)  But in Heart’s Blood, I just never got that feeling.  Yes, Anulan is crippled and not very good looking, and yes, Caitrin falls in love with him – but I never believed the love story.  There were never scenes of Caitrin and Anulan having real conversations, or learning that they both really loved something, or just enjoying each other’s company.  Their conversations always seemed to end in misunderstand or in Anulan getting angry, or whatever.  We went from Caitrin being scared of him and uncomfortable in his presence, to her suddenly not being able to live without him, being “filled with desire”, etc.

Beyond that, the book just went on for too long.  Instead of focusing on Anulan’s home, his curse, the dangers threatening him and his people, we had to deal with this really long section of Caitrin basically “discovering herself” and learning to be strong by going home to face her own problems and get them all taken care of.  Nice sentiment, except it really just threw off the whole groove of the story.  Marillier manages to make it sound like Caitrin going home to face up to an abusive family and claim her rightful inheritance was at the same level of importance and difficulty as Anulan facing an entire invading Norman army while at the same time dealing with a century-old curse.  I am not at any level belittling the suffering and difficulties people face at the hands of abusive relatives, but it just really didn’t fit in with this story, and it really felt like the whole side-story with Caitrin going home was merely being used to add another hundred pages to the book.

Heart’s Blood had its strong moments, with some good characters and intriguing premises, but overall I just couldn’t get behind the love story, which felt stilted and forced.  And since the love story is really the crux of Beauty & the Beast, the whole book ended up a bit meh for me.

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Dressed for Death // by Donna Leon

published 1994

AKA The Anonymous Venetian 

In this, the third installment of the Commissario Guido Brunetti series, Brunetti finds himself investigating an unusual death.  While I have read the first two books in the series, Death at La Fenice and Death in a Strange Country, it was last month when my reviewing at low ebb.  These books are quite popular at the library, so I had to return them before reviewing them.  While solid, enjoyable mysteries (first brought to my attention by FictionFan, of course), they were nothing so brilliant that I felt the urge to re-check out the books just to review them.

Set in Venice, the series follows a policeman by the name of Guido Brunetti.  Brunetti is a delightfully normal man.  He has a wife and two children, all of whom he loves and who love him.  He enjoys his job, but has an irritating supervisor.  Some of this coworkers are intelligent and helpful, while others are lazy and annoying.  Brunetti is intelligent, but not a genius.  He does not spend his spare time getting drunk, and he does not think that he is a god among men and thus above the law.

Despite all this (ha ha), these books are a pleasure to read.  Leon leads the reader through the story at a comfortable pace.  While these books have yet to keep me up at night, I definitely am engaged while reading them.  The author does an excellent job of providing the reader with some grey situations, leaving food for thought even after the book is finished.

My only personal problem with these books is my own lacking – I don’t really know much about Italian culture, government, or law enforcement.  Overall, though, I have still been able to understand and enjoy the books.

Dressed for Death seemed like the type of story that should irritate me, focusing on the death of a transvestite whore, yet somehow Leon manages to avoid making the entire story a political issue.  Instead, she presents us with gay people who are kind, hardworking, and overall positive characters, and also gay people who are liars, sneaks, and overall negative characters.  She does the same with straight people – in short, she writes very realistically, reminder her readers that “good” and “bad” people are not defined by any single aspect of their lifestyle.

I don’t have a good place to insert this quote into this review, but it just really stuck with me, so I will finish with it.  I think that it illustrates the way that Leon manages to advocate a sensible, balanced approach to many of the issues that arise in her books.

“I always think of Savonarola,” he said.  “He started by wanting to make things better, but the only way he could think of to do that was to destroy anything he disapproved of.  In the end, I suspect zealots are all like him, even the ecologisti and the feministi.  They start out wanting a better world, but they end up wanting to get it by removing anything in the world around them that doesn’t correspond to their idea of what the world should be.”

With 24 books (and counting), this is another series I will be reading through for quite a while, so stay tuned for further reviews!

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Dragonquest // by Anne McCaffrey

published 1971

Book II in the Dragonriders of Pern series was another solid outing for McCaffrey.  Her world-building is excellent, her characters believable, the story engaging, and conclusion satisfying.

As I mentioned when I reviewed the first book, Dragonflight, I originally read another trilogy from the chronicles of Pern.  While moderately enjoyable, there were many aspects of those books that seemed abrupt or poorly explained.  However, they are already making more sense when viewed from the perspective of a second trilogy – McCaffrey goes into much greater detail about the Dragonriders, Dragons, fire lizards, the hierarchy of Pern’s society, etc., in this first set of books.  I am already anticipating rereading the second trilogy.  I think that they are really going to be way more enjoyable now that I have a better grasp on the word of Pern.

McCaffrey does an excellent job of writing a story that builds on the last book, but still stands as its own story.  While it would probably be difficult to understand some of it out of context, Dragonquest has a satisfying beginning, middle, and conclusion, while still leaving plenty of potential directions for the next story.  These first two books have really set a firm foundation of a different world, doing an excellent job of creating characters where another book could pick up following any of them and be engaging.

However, in some ways, that is also the book’s weakness.  There are so many people, PLUS there are dragons and fire lizards.  When the people talk about each other, they usually talk using people names, while when the dragons talk, they refer to people by their dragon’s names, so you have to remember not just F’nor, but the fact that F’nor rides the dragon Canth and owns the fire lizard Grall, because at any point in the story, McCaffrey may reintroduce F’nor to the story by his, Canth’s, or Grall’s names.  Although there is a list of characters in the back, constantly flipping to it can interrupt the flow the of the story.  While it’s fairly easy to remember the main players, there are not only Dragonriders, but also Mastercraftsmen, Craftmasters, and their apprentices; lords of various Holds (and the names of the Holds, and the names of the lord’s ladies), and then the names of the Weyrs (where the dragons and their riders live), plus the principal Weyrleaders and their women.  Tied in with an incredibly involved socioeconomic world, the story borders on being too detailed, but, for the most part, manages to avoid getting completely bogged down.

The only aspect of this society that still seems really weird to me is the connection between the mating of the dragons and their riders.  Because each dragon imprints with its rider when the dragon hatches, their minds are connected at a very deep level, allowing them to communicate telepathically and to share, sometimes involuntarily, intense feelings and emotions.  Thus, when a queen dragon rises to mate, her rider is also overwhelmed with lust, and the rider of whichever dragon mates with the queen has sex with the queen’s rider.  It’s really weird to me, and it’s actually a critical part of this story, as apparently dragon-induced sex is pretty awesome, so the one Weyrwoman causes all sorts of trouble.  It’s not ever graphic or anything, it’s just that the whole concept is strange.  However, McCaffrey uses it as an important tool in the hierarchy of the Weyrs, as the strongest queen is automatically the high queen of the Weyr, thus making her rider the top Weyrwoman.  The rider of whatever dragon mates the queen becomes the Weyrleader.  Riders do not marry, or partner for life (necessarily), because they are tied to the strengths and lusts of their dragons.  The dragon mating can be an intense power struggle and can cause changes in the leadership of the Weyr.

ANYWAY all that to say it’s just a super weird part of the story, but McCaffrey makes it work.  Her whole world is pretty awesome, and I am actually thoroughly enjoying her books.  The best part?  There are something like 25 books set in Pern, so I have plenty of reading ahead!

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Sinner // by Maggie Stiefvater

published 2014

After racing through the Wolves of Mercy Falls trilogy, I found myself reluctant to read Sinner, mostly because it meant I would be finished with these surprisingly engaging books! 

In Sinner we only have two viewpoints – those of Cole and Isabel.  Isabel has moved to California, and Cole follows her there.  Since Cole somehow became my favorite character in the trilogy, I was happy to be back with him.  He’s just a really enjoyable character, and I loved the way he interacted with people around him.

Sinner was definitely more of an angsty YA romance than it was paranormal, and there were times that I got really aggravated with Isabel especially, but overall I have no idea why I enjoyed this book, but I did.  It was one of those books that even the parts I didn’t like I still liked, I think maybe because I really liked both Cole and Isabel’s voices.

My only beef with this book was that I felt like we spent way more time on why a relationship was not going to work than we did being convinced that it was.  So in the end, while I was definitely behind them as a pair, I still had a lot of misgivings about all the issues they had had throughout the book, because I felt like their solutions were just basically that they decided those weren’t issues any more so they would just go away.  And while that sounds like it (kinda) works, things like substance abuse and an inherent distrust of relationships because of your emotionally abusive family don’t just fade away into the sunset.

Still, this was still a fun read, although one I wouldn’t recommend outside of the context of the trilogy.  It left me hoping that Stiefvater would revisit these characters again someday, and kinda sorta wishing that my husband was a werewolf.  ;-)

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Fangirl // by Rainbow Rowell

published 2013

So this is my third Rowell book.  Landline, which I never got around to reviewing, was the first.  Then, not long ago, I read Eleanor & Park, which, unexpectedly, I actually enjoyed.

Fangirl wasn’t like either of those.  It was more lighthearted.  There were some genuinely funny characters, some fantastic dialogue, and some solid conversations/themes underneath.

The main character is Cath.  A college freshman, Cath is nervous about being on her own for all the usual reasons, and some that aren’t so usual.  She can’t believe that she is going to be rooming with another random student in the dorm – she’s always shared a room with her twin sister, Wren, but Wren has shown a spark of independence by declaring that it’s time to meet new people, have new experiences, and embrace life – which means having a new roommate in a different dormitory.

Cath is a huge fan of Simon Snow.  As Rowell explains to us via an “Encyclowikia” entry at the beginning of the book, Simon Snow is the main character of a fantasy series that sounds a great deal like Harry Potter.  Cath isn’t just a fan, though – she writes fanfiction about Simon Snow, and her stories are immensely popular.

Throughout the story, Cath adjusts to her new life, and we learn more about her old life, and why she is the way that she is.  Cath is an incredibly relatable and likable heroine, and I really enjoyed reading about her ups and downs of college life.  There is plenty of good stuff about family, relationships, friendships, and just overall becoming-an-adult stuff, and Rowell handles it all well.  I really loved watching Cath’s relationships with her dad and her sister transition from relating as a child to relating as an adult.  It’s one of those weird things about growing up that people don’t really talk about – while you’ll never be a contemporary of your parents, you do become an equal.

Eleanor & Park was about a pair of high schoolers; Landline is about a middle-aged couple; but I really felt that Fangirl was where Rowell belongs – she brought life to her college characters incredibly well, capturing that awkward whoa-we’re-adults-except-we-have-no-idea-how-to-adult feeling perfectly.

Fangirl was a super fun read.  I could have done without some of the passages of Cath’s fanfiction, but overall the story moved well, the characters were both likable and believable, and the story was adorable.  4/5.

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Rearview Mirror: May 2015

Note:  So in 2015 I started doing a review for each month, recapping the books I’ve read and some of the books I’ve added to my To Be Read list.  Most of the TBR links go back to a Wordpress blog.  If you are really into book reviews and such, you should totally be following blogs over there.  There are TONS of blogs devoted solely to reviews and it is SO MUCH FUN.  It’s also part of the reason that this tumblr blog has languished...  I’ve totally been hanging out in the Wordpress community when I have time!!!

Anyway, here is May’s Rearview!!!  (Originally published 15 June 2015)

*******

Okay, okay, I know it’s the middle of June, but we’re just going to pretend that waiting this long to do the May Rearview has just given me a better, more holistic picture of my reading habits in May.  :-D

But the truth of the matter is that we are still doing tons of stuff around the house – incidentally, I also have about 59 posts for the house  blog that need written – while having tons of other adventures.  Plus we got a puppy!!!!!  Is he like whoa cute or what!?  He’s a border collie and his name is Waylon, and he also has his own blog(that I’m behind on updating) if you’re interested in seeing a ridiculous number of pictures of him being ADORABLE.

Anyway, May review!

So I haven’t been reading a great deal, just so many other things to do.  I am outside ALL THE TIME these days… even a lot of my reading is outside!  We have a much bigger garden than we should, chickens, puppy, chaos.  My reading schedule reflects that.  I’ve been reading snatches here and there, not making very fast progress through anything.  I’m slowing getting back into the groove.  The madness of spring is over, and things are starting to settle out into their maintenance schedule, so that’s good!

Favorite May Read:

Embarrassingly, it was probably the last book in the Wolves of Mercy Falls trilogy, Forever.   Stiefvater did a great job pulling things together, and I loved the perspectives from all the different characters, each one with a different back story, perspective, situation, and goal.  While a bit angsty, it still had some lighter, happier moments, and overall left me with the feeling that these characters – especially Sam and Grace – were going to be okay.

Most Disappointing May Read:

Ummm honestly I didn’t read a lot of books, and everything was pretty solid.  I guess I would go with Girl Missing, which was, for me, a rather ambivalent thriller/mystery.  While fine for a once-over, it wasn’t a book that I wanted to read again, or a book that inspired me to find any of Gerritsen’s other books.

Other May Reviews:

French Leave by P.G. Wodehouse – 4/5 – typical Wodehouse chaos and froth – every page was absolutely delightful.

Golden by Cameron Dokey – 4/5 – a retelling of Rapunzel with some hidden depths.

Shiver and Linger by Maggie Stiefvater – 4/5 – the other two books from the Wolves of Mercy Falls trilogy.

Dragonflight by Anne McCaffrey – 3/5 – the first book about Pern…  I just finished the second, and I am really engaging in the incredibly intricate world McCaffrey builds.

Hidden Trail by Jim Kjelgaard – 3/5 – average Kjelgaard tale of outdoors adventure with some conservation rhetoric mixed in.

Added to the TBR:

As I have said before, when I’m not reading much, I don’t tend to add as much. So those of you who made it on the TBR this month should be quite flattered – I am way pickier about adding books in warm weather than I am during the eternal winter!  :-D

Cleopatra Reads Books convinced me to try The Lost Garden by reassuring me that this historical fiction is a “gentle story … with the echo of The Secret Garden”.  Can’t go wrong with that, can you??

She also added another book, that sounds completely different from The Lost Garden – a crime fiction called All the Little Pieces.  Cleo says “The moral dilemmas posed by this novel present the reader with a superb premise and this promise is realised in the execution.”  The haunting question of whether or not you would let someone in your car, possibly endangering your child, sounds completely engaging.

While I’ve heard some mixed reviews about The Girl on the Train, Reading, Writing & Reisling ultimately convinced me to add this thriller to the TBR.

Stephanie said that Eeny Meeny kept her completely engaged, with 3rd-person POV and short chapters…  sounds like my kind of thriller!!

Somehow, FictionFan managed to weave her magic and convince me to read a book told in 2nd-person POV!?!?  While You objectively sounds horrible (which she admits she thought, too), she claims that it actually did manage to draw her in completely, pulling off the unique perspective with class.

FictionFan was also responsible for adding A Good Way to Go to the list, with the recommendation that if anyone is in the market for a new author, Peter Helton may be one to try.  (And who isn’t always in the market for someone new??)

Even though Songs of Willow Frost doesn’t sound completely like my type of book, Bibiobeth’s review still convinced me to read it.  I am still really engaged in reading historical fiction from the early part of the 20th century, and this story that alternates between stories in the 20’s and the Great Depression sounded engaging.

So that pretty much sums up May…  I’m already doing better in June…  four books sitting in the Need Reviewed pile!!!!

[thearomaofbooks]

May Minireviews // even though it’s September ;-)

 [originally posted over on Wordpress so... a bit delayed??]

Gah, so yes, I’m always so behind on reviews, even though I haven’t been reading nearly as much!!  Is it June 4?  Yes it is.  Have I been working on this same post for days?  Yes I have.  Does it only have three minireviews so it really shouldn’t have taken that long?  Yes it does.  Ah well!  Better late than never! :-D

Dragonflight // by Anne McCaffrey // published 1968

A while back I read a trilogy by McCaffrey set in the world of Pern.  While I enjoyed the series, I found much of it complicated and involved.  However, as I did some more research, I found out that McCaffrey wrote a LOT of books that take place in Pern.  I decided to start at the beginning and start reading through them and see if they made more sense that way.

Apparently, even though the trilogy I read (Harper Hall) were technically a stand-alone trilogy, they are set later in the history of Pern than the Dragonrider trilogy, which is the first trilogy McCaffrey wrote.  I’m working on reading the Pern books in their published order (which is roughly, but not completely, chronologically, from my understanding).

All that to say, Dragonflight is the first Pern book McCaffrey wrote, and I actually really enjoyed it.  And, bonus, it made my retrospective reading of the Harper Hall trilogy more enjoyable as well, as a lot of what was going on in those stories make way more sense in the context of these earlier books.

These are definitely high fantasy in the sense that the world-building is extensive and the tone is somewhat serious.  However, besides the dragons, there really isn’t a lot of “fantasy.”  The people of Pern do not have magic or wizards or spells or witches.  They are simple farmers, craftsmen, and dragonriders.

I’m looking forward to delving more into Pern; I just started the second book (Dragonquest) today.  McCaffrey weaves a strong story, doing a good job of making Dragonflight a whole book while still building for the next.

Girl Missing // by  Tess Gerritsen // published 1994 as Peggy Sue Got Murdered; this edition 2004

I originally read about this book in a review over at Reading, Writing & Riesling, so thanks!!

Girl Missing is what I think of as a “lite” thriller.  While there is definitely a mystery and some edge, I never reached a point where this book would have kept me up all night.  It’s actually a really fast read, and a solid 3/5 for me.

The protagonist, Kat, is a medical examiner.  When a Jane Doe shows up at the morgue it isn’t too unusual – but when several more bodies crop up, Kat is afraid that a new drug of some kind is sweeping through the streets on the “bad” side of town.  But because they’re “just druggies,” Kat’s boss, the mayor, and Kat’s ex-husband (who is also the DA), are way more concerned about the celebrating the city’s bicentennial and making themselves look good than they are about pursuing the possibly-but-not-proven connected deaths of some local lowlifes.

Like I said, this was overall a decent read, but it lacked something for me. I never really felt connected with Kat or with what was going on with her.  She was from that “bad” neighborhood, but we never really got a lot of back story as to how she got out.  We’re told that her mother wanted her to be a doctor and come back to the neighborhood, but Kat is basically like “yeah, not for me” and that’s kind of the end of it.  She meets a rich dude and they become the unlikely duo, but because Kat isn’t sure if she can trust  him or not, I wasn’t sure if I could trust him or not, so I ended up not connecting with him, either.  Somehow this book was just a little too fast, so it felt like a lot of things kind of glossed, and while the ending made okay sense, it didn’t make brilliant sense – I didn’t really feel like Gerritsen had given me a lot of clues, so it kind of felt random.

Also, speaking of random, I was completely distracted by the original title and kept waiting for Peggy Sue…  who never appeared.

So yes, a definite middle-of-the-road read for me.  Enjoyable, but not super engaging.  It didn’t really drive me to read any of Gerritsen’s other works…  does anyone out there have a suggestion for a favorite of hers that they think is a better representation of her writing??

Hidden Trail  //  by Jim Kjelgaard  //  published 1962

I’m still working my way through all the Kjelgaard books that I own.  Hidden Trail is a typical Kjelgaard read, with plenty of wilderness adventure.

Jase is the hero of this story.  He’s a photographer for the Conservation Department, and is assigned by the government to take pictorial record of various natural happenings in parks, national forests, etc.  Along with his faithful companion, Buckles the Airedale, Jase heads out into the wilderness at the drop of a hat, often for weeks at a time.

When our story opens, he is being sent to record the migration of elk from their summer feeding grounds in a big national park to their winter feeding grounds.  Along the way, they have to face hunting season (outside the park), plus plenty of natural predators and dangers.  However, a secondary project for Jase is figuring out why there are so many more elk at the summer grounds than the winter grounds.  The difference (over a thousand elk) cannot be accounted for by hunters.  How could that many elk simply disappear?  Jase formulates a theory, and follows a rogue herd of elk east instead of south, encountering dangers – including poachers – along the way.

This is an interesting little story, perhaps more interesting fifty years after it was written.  Several pages are devoted to Jase’s careful choosing of various photographic equipment and explanations of how he can make it work despite cold and possibly damp weather.  How far that kind of thing has come over the decades!

While this is a great adventure, it bogs down a bit when Jase discovers that the Indians are hunting some of the elk illegally.  He’s befriended by an Indian, then they are caught by poachers, then Jase escapes and then…  his Indian friend is just gone for a while?  And then shows back up?  And then the whole story just ends really fast.  So while it was a fun story, it felt a little disjointed and rushed at the end.  Some of the time, Kjelgaard puts a little too much emphasis on conservation/natural history, interfering a bit with the flow of his story.  This book wasn’t too bad, but there were definitely points where it felt a little preachy about the importance of preserving a natural balance.

Still, I always enjoy Kjelgaard, if for no other reason than all the happy memories they bring back, of a time when I was convinced that my future life would be lived out in a small trapper’s cabin in the wilderness with no companions other than my faithful dogs!