Review: Cloud Atlas

I have never gotten as many comments about a book I have bought or checked out of the library than Cloud Atlas. I'm not talking about comments on my review of a book, but comments on a post where I said I was planning on reading a book. Now that I've actually read the book, I can see why.

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell is incredibly strange, totally different, and really wonderful.

Cloud Atlas is six loosely connected stories - the first a journal of a sad sack clerk crossing the Pacific in 1850, then jumping forward in time to a bisexual grifter/composer in post-WWI Belgium, jumping again to a journalist in 70's California, to a hapless vanity publisher in England, to a condemned clone in futuristic Korea, and ending with a man in post-apocalyptic Hawai'i. Then, wonderfully, we begin to go back again, finishing each story, and learning a bit more about what connects these characters.

Some of the stories have a happy ending, some left me teary-eyed. Each was markedly different from the next in tone and setting. Despite the fact that I usually don't like short story collections (which this is not, but it resembles), I loved this book. I highly recommend it.

Buy Cloud Atlas: A Novel on Amazon.

Friday Update 5/28

Most Fridays, I update my library and share what new books I bought or received during the past week.

It's Friday! Again! How did that happen?


I bought a couple of things online this week, but only one has arrived so far: The World Is Mine by Lyah B. LeFlore. This is one of the books I'll be judging, with Bookish Blather, for the Nerds Heart YA tournament.

I'm so excited that this is a long weekend for me. Yay! Husband and I have some fun plans for this weekend, including a trip to California Carnivores to buy some new carnivorous plants and massages on Monday.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Review: Glimmerglass

Glimmerglass by Jenna Black is the first book in a new young adult fantasy series.


After her alcoholic mother embarrasses her one last time, Dana Hathaway runs away to Avalon to meet the father she's never met. Avalon is the only city on Earth that exists in both the human world and the magical world of Faerie. Dana's dad is a big deal Fae there and is in the running to be part of the city council. But Dana has no idea that in Avalon, she's not just some teenager - she's a powerful being in her own right, a Faeriewalker, and possibly the key to anyone hoping to gain power in Avalon.

I really loved the world Black has created in this book. Who wouldn't want to visit Avalon? The idea that there is just one place in the world where magic and technology overlap is really quite delicious.

Dana was a bit of difficult character to click with, but I can't fault her for that. She's going through a lot and I think she's doing her best to handle it all. She certainly notices the cute boys, though, even in the middle of a bad situation.

At the end of the book, though, I was just left with such an "oh, that was it?" feeling. The whole book really just felt like the lead up to something else, presumably the next book in the series. This isn't too say that there's no action in the book. A lot happened, actually, but it just didn't seem to go anywhere.

In the end, I'll just say that Glimmerglass was a fun book, but it could have been much more. I look forward to the next book in the series, though and hope that it lives up to the promise of the setting.

Glimmerglass was released yesterday (5/25).

Buy Glimmerglass (Faeriewalker, Book 1)

Teaser Tuesday 5/25

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along!

Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS!
• Share the title & author, too, so that others can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teaser!

Today's teaser is from Glimmerglass by Jenna Black:

I rounded the corner in time to see her pour some Cheerios into a bowl, and had to swallow a laugh. Who knew a Fae ice princess would eat something as mundane as Cheerios for breakfast?

Glimmerglass comes out today. Please stay tuned for tomorrow, when I'll post my review.

Review: Bloodhound

Bloodhound by Tamora Pierce is the sequel to Terrier, part of the newest series set in Pierce's fantasy world of Tortall. Like Terrier, Bloodhound is written as the journal of Beka Cooper, now a first-year Dog in the Provost's Guards (basically, a police officer). In this story, she and her partner have been sent from Corus to Port Caynn to try to discover the source of the counterfeit money flooding their city.


Just as I thought after reading the first book, I liked spending time with Beka. She is a sweet person, though maybe a little dense when it comes to matters of the heart. She's not, I think, a terribly complicated person. Beka is happy when her friends are happy, her family is safe, and she is working very, very hard. It shows in her journal - there are a lot of details about her work and a genuine concern for the well being of everyone around her. Luckily for Beka, there's a bit of fun, too, some of it with a handsome gambler who agrees to show her around town.

Younger readers (say, sixth grade and up) and longtime fans of Pierce's (like me) will definitely enjoy Bloodhound. And for those of us who have read the Song of the Lioness quartet, there are some interesting snippets of information that make me very curious about how we get from Beka's world to Alanna's.

Bloodhound is out tomorrow 5/25 in paperback.

Bloodhound: The Legend of Beka Cooper #2 on Amazon.

Friday Update 5/21

Most Fridays, I update my library and share what new books I bought or received during the past week.

Sorry for the light posting this week. I have been hit by some sort of a flu bug and have been feeling terrible. I don't know about you, but I actually don't read much when I'm sick. I tend to watch TV or movies or just nap. But when I am reading, I'm reading some great books right now, so I look forward to reviewing them here.

As for what books I've gotten since my last Update:


I was fortunate enough to win Glimmerglass (Faeriewalker, Book 1) by Jenna Black from the Librarything early Reviewers program.

I also picked up a few books at a library book sale last weekend. I got:

Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling by Ross King: I really enjoyed his book Brunelleschi's Dome: How a Renaissance Genius Reinvented Architecture.

The Zookeeper's Wife: A War Story by Diane Ackerman: I've enjoyed her nonfiction books over the years and I even got this one for my mother for Christmas. She enjoyed it, so I thought I'd get a copy for myself.

The Ear, the Eye and the Arm by Nancy Farmer: I thought her House of the Scorpion was really interesting.

Teaser Tuesday 5/18

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along!

Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS!
• Share the title & author, too, so that others can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teaser!

The first lines of the book I recently started: The Little Giant of Aberdeen County

The day I laid Robert Morgan to rest was remarkable for two reasons. First, even though it was August, the sky overhead was as rough and cold as a January lake; and second, it was the day I started to shrink.