All my Cannonball 1 Reviews

This is more for my own benefit than anything else, but I thought this would be a handy post to refer to when I mention books I've read in the past. These are all the reviews I wrote for the first Cannonball, way back in '08 and '09. It's funny to see how I started out strong with the reviews, then got to around 40 books and I totally deflated. But, in my defense, that was around the time of the coup in Honduras and the nightmare with getting my visa, and writing book reviews was the farthest thing from my mind. Then I just read and read and let the reviews pile up, then just never got around to writing the last 50 or so. How embarrassing. One good thing that might come of this is that I've learned a lesson and won't let the reviews wait too long.

Anyway. There's some good stuff in here, and I had fun putting the list together and reading through some reviews. I like how I go from High-Fallutin' Intellectual Wannabe to Cussing Like a Pirate and Not Really Trying from one review to the next. I'm nothing if not inconsistent.

1. "The Time Traveler's Wife" by Audrey Niffenegger

2. "Everything is Illuminated" by Jonathan Safran Foer

3. "Why Girls Are Weird" by Pamela Ribon

4. "Everything's Eventual" by Stephen King

5. "Embers" by Sandor Marai

6. "The Witch of Portobello" by Paolo Coelho

7. "On Writing" by Stephen King

8. "A Thousand Splendid Suns" by Khaled Hosseini

9. "Night Sins" by Tami Hoag

10. "Guilty As Sin" by Tami Hoag

11. "How to Get Lost" by Amanda Eyre Ward

12. "The Hours" by Michael Cunningham

13. "The First Wives' Club" by Olivia Goldsmith

14. "The Testament" by John Grisham

15. "The Rescue" by Nicholas Sparks

16. "When the Wind Blows" by James Patterson

17. "Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister" by Gregory Maguire

18. "The Partner" by John Grisham

19. "Hannibal" by Thomas Harris

20. "Marie Antoinette" by Hilaire Belloc

21. "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" by John Berendt

22. "The Corrections" by Jonathan Franzen

23. "Ain't Gonna be the Same Fool Twice" by April Sinclair

24. "Wicked" by Gregory Maguire

25. "Cry Wolf" by Tami Hoag

26. "Teacher Man" by Frank McCourt

27. "Tiburcio Carias Andino" by Mario Argueta

28. "The Golden Compass" by Phillip Pullman

29. "The Subtle Knife" by Phillip Pullman

30. "The Amber Spyglass" by Phillip Pullman

31. "Black Hawk Down" by Mark Bowden

32. "Sense and Sensibility" by Jane Austen

33. "Lady Chatterley's Lover" by DH Lawrence

34. "Walking the Bible" by Bruce Feiler

35. "The House of Spirits" by Isabel Allende

36. "Outlander" by Diana Gabaldon

37. "Dragonfly in Amber" by Diana Gabaldon

38. "Me Talk Pretty One Day" by David Sedaris

39. "High Fidelity" by Nick Hornby

40. "Voyager" by Diana Gabaldon

41. "Bridget Jones's Diary" by Helen Fielding

42. "Drums of Autumn" by Diana Gabaldon

43. "Ender's Game" by Orson Scott Card

44. "Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason" by Helen Fielding

45. "The Talisman" by Stephen King and Peter Straub

46. "Rainbow Six" by Tom Clancy

47. "The Godfather" by Mario Puzo

48. "The Fiery Cross" by Diana Gabaldon

49. "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius" by Dave Eggers

50. "The Godfather Returns" by Mark Winegardner

51. "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" by JK Rowling

52. "The Street Lawyer" by John Grisham

53. "From a Buick 8" by Stephen King

54. "A Breath of Snow and Ashes" by Diana Gabaldon

55. "Airs Above Ground" by Mary Stewart

56. "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" by JK Rowling

57. "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" by JK Rowling

58. "To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee

59. "Jurassic Park" by Michael Crichton

60. "Smith of Wooton Major and Farmer Giles of Ham" by JRR Tolkien

61. "Good Omens" by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett

62. "Son of a Witch" by Gregory Maguire

63. "The Three Musketeers" by Alexandre Dumas

64. "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" by JK Rowling

65. "The Kite Runner" by Khaled Hosseini

66. "Sex and the City" by Candace Bushnell

67. "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" by JK Rowling

68. "The Outsiders" by S. E. Hilton

69. "Neverwhere" by Neil Gaiman

70. "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" by Douglas Adams

71. "Rage" by Stephen King

72. "The Long Walk" by Stephen King

73. "The Restaurant at the end of the Universe" by Douglas Adams

74. "Roadwork" by Stephen King

75. "The Running Man" by Stephen King

76. "Life, the Universe and Everything" by Douglas Adams

77. :So Long, and Thanks for all the Fish" by Douglas Adams

78. "Persuasion" by Jane Austen

79. "Mostly Harmles" by Douglas Adams

80. "Coraline" by Neil Gaiman

81. "Fire and Hemlock" by Diana Wynne Jones

82. "The Stand" by Stephen King

83. "The Man in the Iron Mask" by Alexandre Dumas

84. "Under the Tuscan Sun" by Frances Mayes

85. "Dolores Claiborne" by Stephen King

86. "The Da Vinci Code" by Dan 'Hack Job' Brown

87. "The Lovely Bones" by Alice Sebold

88. "Dracula" by Bram Stoker

89. "The Langoliers" by Stephen King

90. "The Library Policeman" by Stephen King

91. "To the Nines" by Janet Evanovich

92. " Day of the Triffids" by John Wyndham

93. "The Catcher in the Rye" by JD Salinger

94. "The Stranger" by Albert Camus

95. "Cuentos de Eva Luna" by Isabel Allende

96. "Desperation" by Stephen King

97. "Pride and Prejudice" by Jane Austen

98. "In Cold Blood" by Truman Capote

99. "Airframe" by Michael Crichton

100. The Brethren by John Grisham

Conclusions: I read a lot of crap there at the end, just desperately trying to make it to 100. But I did! Even if some of the books barely fit the rules. I hope to do much better this year.

THE END Of THE CANNONBALL!

I have finished the Cannonball! DONE. 100 books in 1 year. No idea on the page count yet, but maybe I'll have time to count. It was pretty brutal at the end, and in the past three days I read four books. All the way through, too.

I had planned on finishing with Gone With the Wind, one of my favorites, but I started it too late and didn't want to rush through it. So I grabbed yet another Grisham and zoomed through it. It was pretty good, too.

In the next few days I hope to finish the reviews (yes! all 40 of them!) and write Best and Worst lists as well as recommendations by genre, etc. I do like writing the reviews a lot, even if they're not widely read or published in Pajiba anymore. And I'll always have them up for quick reference in case anyone asks me for a particular book.

'm so happy I finished. A lot of my reads were re-reads, as I have very limited access to new books and had to supply myself from my shelves as well as my dad's. I'll do a count, but I also read a lot of new books, and it was a great experience. I read books I had never given a chance to before because I was afraid I wouldn't like them, and discovered some great authors along the way. I revisited old favorites, and by writing the reviews I was able to finally articulate why I liked or hated a book. And I look forward to reading some more.

I won't be participating in the second Cannonball Run, but of course I'll keep reading and I hope to be able to do reviews for everything I read from now on. It's just so damn fun.

I loved this challenge. And I'm happy I finished, even if it was a little late. Huzzah!

Book #61: "Good Omens" by Neil Gaiman

I feel like I should have liked it more. I hate when that happens. I come in with outrageously high expectations, thanks to people whose opinion on most things is pretty valuable to me (except when it comes to TV shows), and I'm all excited and then...eh. It was just good. I was expecting to be moved. Shaken. Stirred. To be laughing uproariously.

I barely chuckled a couple of times. I would have been happy with it just being great instead of fantastic, but to be honest I just found it good. But ultimately forgettable.

I've been trying to process my feelings towards it almost from when I started reading it. I liked it, but it wasn't taking me in. There were some cute jokes, but it seemed like it was trying too hard to channel Douglas Adams. And then for the longest, damnedest time it just didn't goanywhere. There were times when it seemed like it would, but then the little vignette with some plot in it would get broken up and taken over by another clever little vignette talking about some clever little character who thinks some things and is never heard from again. It's very choppy, like a movie full of quick little cuts that never let you get a grasp on anything for very long. It's fitting to the manic tone of the book, I suppose, and I can see why it was done, I just didn't like it at all. It was frustrating, and pretty quickly I began to get annoyed at having a good bit that was just getting good get interrupted as we move to yet another unimportant character doing something "funny". It just got exhausting and annoying, and sometimes it just kept me from enjoying what is a fun little story.

It really is a great idea. Eleven years before the Apocalypse happens, the antichrist (in baby form) is delivered to earth by a demon. Unfortunately, he is placed with the wrong family. Of course no one realizes this until, eleven years later, an angel and a demon get together a week before the apocalypse and try to put a stop to it by getting rid of the Antichrist (who is supposed to start the whole thing out). Among the many, many supporting characters are the four horsemen (or...bikers) of the Apocalypse, the descendant of a witch who predicted the whole thing, some witchunters, a few more demons, the metatron, a psychic, the antichrist's gang of buddies and a Dog. The angel, the demon and the dog are pretty funny. The others are really kind of...dispensable. And useless. Even the antichrist is never really there.

So, really, I was just disappointed. It started out with a couple of lame jokes, but I just thought "this can only get better, right?" but then...it didn't really. There were parts that I'm sure are supposed to be really hilarious, but I just kind of read over them and chuckled. It just never really clicked with me. It starts and stops and just wasn't all that compeling. And to be completely honest, the one thought that kept running through my head as I read the jokes and situations was "Meh. Douglas Adams did it better."

I really did want to like it more than I did. I didn't hate it, but I didn't get that happy feeling in my stomach that I get when I really love a book. Ah well.

Book #60: "Smith of Wootton Major and Farmer Giles of Ham"by JRR Tolkien

This will be a short one, so I can get it over with an get to the Good Omens review, a book I read about 2 months ago and have been wanting to post the review for for ages.


The short stories* were Smith of Wooton Major and Farmer Giles of Ham. They were nice little stories, fairy tales really. Written before and after Lord of the Rings (my all-time favorite series), they're really not at all related to Middle-Earth, and seem more like little exercises in story telling that Tolkien wrote for kids. They're more like The Hobbit, really, with Farmer Giles featuring a dragon and the cutesy dialogue and all that. Not bad stories to tell your kids, really.

So, they were a fun read but not really that big a deal. It's always nice to read something else by Tolkien, and after you've read LOTR and The Silmarillion you might as well read this. They're short and pretty funny sometimes.

And if you should really, really, really read LOTR if you haven't yet. And The Hobbit.

*They were each about 200 pages long, so they count.

Book #59: "Jurassic Park" by Michael Crichton

Here's another book whose story everyone knows because of the movie. That was a kickass movie, wasn't it? I remember I was ten years old when I first saw it, and it was the most amazingly cool thing I had ever seen in my life. We made my dad take us to watch it about 5 times in the theater. It turned my brothers (and just about everyone else we knew) into completely dinosaur freaks. I wanted to be the Laura Dern character when she grew up--I even went through a phase when I wore nothing but shorts, long sleeved work shirts and boots. It took me a long time to figure out that studying dinosaurs is one of the most boring jobs you can have these days. Unless they're actually running around trying to eat you it's all just digging around and trying to piece them together. Bo-ring! But damn, that movie was cool.

And it all started with this book. The best thing I can say about it is that well, at least it inspired an awesome movie. But only because Spielberg changed the hell out of it. Thank God, too, because if we had to listen to dialogue straight out of Michael Crichton at his most ridiculous, we would've had one painfully stupid movie.

The story is basically the same. A group of scientists lead by millionire John Hammond has found a way to clone dinosaurs, bringing them back to life and putting them in a theme park on some remote island in Costa Rica. Before opening the park to the public, he invites a group of scientists and his two grandchildren to take a tour of the park. Hilarity and mayhem ensues when the park's security is sabotaged and the animals (including everyone's favorites, the velociraptors and two T-Rexes) get loose and start munching on the tourists. It's a great story, violent, bloody and exciting. The big problem with the book is that the story is drowned under mountains of horrible exposition, awful dialogue and stupid (and I mean stupid), annoying characters.

Unlike the movie, where Hammond is a likable old man and Jeff Goldblum rocked the Malcolm character to great hilarity, the book makes everyone a pompous idiot. Hammond is terrible and you spend the entire length of the story wishing he'd get eaten already. Malcolm pontificates for pages and pages. Grant spends hours spewing a bunch of techno-babble that just serves to make Crichton look like he's adding a bunch of filler to make the book thicker. It's awful, but you really shouldn't worry about skipping most of that crap. You'll miss nothing.

And it's just not as fun reading about dinosaurs eating people when you can't see them. I can't imagine reading this without having watched the movie. We know dinosaur bones, but to actually imagine them running around and eating people is impossible without some reference, and Crichton isn't a good enough writer to give you a complete idea of what's supposed to be happening. Roars are terrible, animals are massive, and that's about it. He writes some good actions sequences, but the actual animal attacks are all over the place. Some just don't mean anything.

But it's undeniable that he has a great imagination and a cool story. All the bad guys get their comeuppance at the end (nom nom nom) and the good guys live. And it inspired a great movie. But a great book it isn't. Maybe a fun airplane read, but kinda worthless without what Spielberg did with it. I guess that's what I get for reading it so many years later.

Book #58: To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

I suppose it's kind of useless to review a classic like To Kill a Mockingbird. Didn't we all have to read it in high school? Hasn't everyone seen the movie? But I suppose there must be someone out there who has kept away from it precisely because it was the sort of thing you had to read for an English class, and everyone knows most of the stuff they made you read back then was pretty horrible. But I think this book is the rare exception to that rule. In fact, I think making young kids read it is a mistake--it's a bit too grown up, there's too much in there for most kids to really get it. Reading it again now, when I'm at least a little smarter than I was in 8th grade, I was able to love it much more, to understand it better and understand why it's considered such a classic.

To those who don't know, To Kill a Mockingbird is narrated by Jean-Louise Finch, known as "Scout", and it's the story of a few defining years in her childhood. She and her brother Jem are raised by their single father Atticus, a respected and upstanding laywer in their small town in Alabama. Along with their good friend Dill they play, go to school, and observe the world around them, including the mysterious Radley house and its occupants. Nothing of any real significance (though of course to kids everything is important) happens to them until their father is asked to defend a black man in a trial where he is being accused of raping a poor white woman. It's then that things really start changing for the children, as they begin to see what people are really like.

It's a pretty simple story and plot, really, but this isn't a plot-driven book. It's about growing up, and how our perceptions change as we leave childhood and become young adults. Scout is a beautifully written character, a tomboy who gets into trouble but always means well. Telling the book from her perspective (as an adult remembering her childhood) is what really makes the book work so well. I could identify with her doubts about having to fulfill everyone's expectations of her--having to behave like a young lady when she really just wants to play with the boys, for example. The supporting characters are all fleshed out and believable. It's really not surprising that Atticus Finch is almost always named as one of the best "good guy" characters in literature and movies--he just wants to do what is good and fair, even if that means having to break through centuries-old racial and social barriers. He's the kind of guy that makes you wish the world was full of people like him.

To put it in few words, this is a Great book. Capital "G", people. It's a coming-of-age story that blends in themes of racism (specially poignant in the 50s when it was written), acceptance, doing good, and learning that there is more to people and situations than first meets the eye. It's funny in parts, exciting in others, and completely devastating in some. It's the kind of book I think everyone should read, is my final point.

In addition, everyone should watch the movie after reading this. It's one of the best book-to-screen adaptations ever made--nothing is lost in the transition, and it's a wonderful movie. And Gregory Peck will completely rock your world as Atticus.

Quickie

OK it's time to catch up on some reviews, and I'm going to buck up and make an effort to do full write-ups and have them count towards my final tally. I'm so close--reading #82 as we speak. Huzzah!

Onwards!

Cannonball Read: Harry Potter series

52.Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

It's cute and imaginative. Funny, sweet and a breeze to read. Definitely the sort of thing that any kid would love. The characters are fun and varied, and though most fit into perfect black or white categories, there's enough darkness lurking in the book to make it smart and enjoyable for adults. Specially if you like fun little fish-out-of-water stories.

56. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

This is my least favorite of the series. Partly because here is where Rowling starts with the pattern that becomes painfully repetitive pretty quickly. Harry is suspicious of something. Harry starts seeing or hearing things. No one believes him. So instead of telling someone who knows how things are (or who can do something about it), Harry decides to take matters into his (sometimes very stupid) hands and try to fix things by himself. So he does, he's extremely lucky and overcomes whatever evil shows up and then Dumbledore wraps things up nicely at the end. It works for this book, sort of, but the plot is really very silly and there is a lot of useless filler. It's still fun and light, but somewhat forgettable.

57. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Definitely my favorite of the series, plot-wise. Rowling takes what seems like a straightforward idea (escaped prisoner tries to kill Harry) and adds a nice amount of twists and turns so that at every turn there's a new surprise or unexpected turn of events. It's a lot of fun, with the revelations being pretty shocking and adding a great deal of depth to the series. And it breaks away from the formula quite nicely, even though the ending is rather infuriating. A great read.

64. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

The best thing about this book is that it opens up Rowling's wizarding world to completely new depths. We get the Quidditch World Cup, the wizarding schools, the Yule Ball, the final, heartbreaking scenes. It's definitely a more mature entry, with the dangers to Harry becoming far more real, with death being a very real possibility to him. It's a very long book, but it never got boring. It's (as cliche as this sounds) action-packed from start to finish, and the final few chapters are truly exceptional in how tense and truly scary they are. I love to read these books in order and see how the books mature along with their audience, and Rowling starts to tweak her writing and tone to get far away from the sillyness and immaturity of the first books, while still keeping that young-adult vibe in her books.

67. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

A bit of a let-down, honestly. It's definitely the most frustrating book of all, with the the-world-against-Harry formula pulled out to an excruciating degree. Quite frankly, after Harry runs into his fourth or fifth obstacle, I just started getting angry at JK Rowling. Let the kid catch a break, for heaven's sake. It's a very uneven book, and unfortunately slow, specially when compared to the previous two offerings. And worse, it takes what should be a more mature group of main characters and just makes them completely and infuriatingly stupid. I know Harry is supposed to be at that super-stubborn-teenager phase, but Rowling really does push it here. It's just not a fun book, being too frustrating and annoying with every stupid decision a character makes. Even the ending doesn't hit too hard, because it comes about from a million stupid decisions and failure in communication between the characters. Definitely an unwelcome bump in the series.

**

And here's where I ended this re-read. My sister took my books with her to college, the idiot. I guess I'll continue the reviews eventually.

Review bombardment! review bombardment! Take cover!

Once again, I'm copping out by spewing forth a pack of short reviews at you instead of the long individual posts. I'm not just being lazy here--it's just that none of these are really worthy of a full review. I've said a lot about Grisham, King and Gabaldon in previous posts, so you can look those reviews up if you're interested. As you can see I'm leaving the Harry Potter books for one big review when I'm done with the series, and when I catch up I can get back to the long reviews. When it's worth it.

#51 The Street Lawyer by John Grisham

Another solid Grisham book. This one's about a wealthy, successful and heartless lawyer who, after being held hostage by a homeless man decides to ditch his career and work for the homeless. It's a bit preachy, as Grisham is obviously trying to bring attention to the problems of the homeless, but it's still a pretty good read. Grisham's always reliable when you want a quick, enjoyable story, and this one doesn't disappoint.

#53 From a Buick 8 by Stephen King

Hands down one of the worst books I have ever read by this guy. It was slow, stupid, and mind-numbingly boring. I found myself skipping pages like there was no tomorrow, as the Good Old Boys in the book talked some more about how weird this car was and oh what could it be and oh tell the kid about this other weirdness that happened with the car. That's it! It's a car. In a shed. Weird crap comes out of the car. They talk about it. Endlessly. Definitely one of King's worst books, and it's convinced me that just about everything he's done since he finished The Dark Tower series has been terrible. I don't think I'll be picking up anything new by him. Better stick to the classics. This book just bored the hell out of me. Shame on you, Mr. King.

#54 A Breath of Snow and Ashes by Diana Gabaldon

Now that's more like it. It's better if one just ignores that the...what? Fifth Book (I'm too lazy to look it up) of this series ever existed, and just skip along to this one if you really want to read anything past the third. This is still a pretty stupid, overlong book when compared to the start of the series, but it's not terrible. That's some compliment, huh? But really, after the 1500th time that Gabaldon puts one of her characters in mortal danger the whole thing becomes a maddening exercise of repetition. Do something stupid, get kidnapped or nearly killed, survive to do something stupid again. Have some boring sex (seriously, are we supposed to believe that Jamie and Claire are having sex at 50 that's just as steamy as it's ever been? come ON) and just talk about how perfect everyone is. That's it. At least there's some interesting bits with the Revolutionary War starting, but of course that's only in the background to all the moronic things these characters do. And there's more Brianna and Roger, two of the most insufferable characters of all time. And for the love of God, just end this series already. I still don't understand why this book had to be 600 pages long. There is NO NEED. Get over yourself, Gabaldon, and just end it. End our pain already.

#55 Airs Above Ground by Mary Stewart

An awesome little spy thriller. It's not spectacular, but I definitely recommend it if you like mysteries and spy stories. I'm not even a fan of the genre, and this one won me over. It's well-paced and smart, with likable characters and some great action sequences. A great read.

Book #49: 'A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius' by Dave Eggers

I don't know if I'm the right audience for this book. I was a very pop-obsessed teen in the 90s, living in Latin America and just as far away as I could be from the San Francisco/MTV in it's hey-day culture that surrounds Dave Eggers' story. Of course that's not all that this admittedly great book is about, but I felt like I was missing out on something by not being to connect to what is such an important aspect of Eggers' life. I suppose to those who grew up with that sort of life it's a great nostalgia trip, but for me it meant detachment from the work and just an overall desire for him to talk about something else. Because everything else is so deeply emotional and poignant that it made the lighter parts a bit frustrating to get through.

Eggers starts out his memoir with a hilarious, lighthearted but meaningful introduction. It sets up the friendly, off-the-cuff tone that remains through the rest of the book, as if he's right there talking to you--I've never seen the guy but I could imagine the picture on the back gesturing with his hands as he talked. It's a great set up, and makes the first few chapters even more of a kick in the gut. Because the memoir proper starts out with a truly heart-wrenching passage detailing Eggers' mother dying from stomach cancer, only a few weeks after their father has died. It's one of the saddest, most painful things I have ever read, and it's Eggers tone of trying-desperately-hard-to-be-lighthearted-about-it that really gets to you. It's brutal, really, and it marks a complete change in Eggers' life.

Eggers is left in charge of his 9 year old brother, Toph. Barely in his 20s and adrift in life, Eggers does his best to be a brother, a friend and a parent to Toph. His sister and older brother help, but for the most part it's the two of them trying to get along, with Eggers alternating between attempts to be responsible and ways to have as much fun as possible with Toph. These are some of the best parts of the book, as I was alternatively horrified and amused at Eggers' attempts at raising his kid brother. Eggers is honest and clearly loves his brother to death, and you can feel his fear of making some huge mistake with the poor kid.

Then he starts talking about life in San Francisco and his job at Might Magazine. This is where the book lost me. While everything dealing with his family was moving and hilarious, the parts dealing with his 'career' honestly just bored me. I guess maybe you have to have been the "revolutionary" counter-culture fighter in their 20s to really get it, or maybe those types just bug me. All I know is that the book really dragged for me there, losing the momentum it had started with.

This isn't a book for everyone. Eggers has a very loose style, with each chapter written in a different way--as an interview, as a long confusing rant, as an emotional confession--and it's full of great little moments and stories. But it might frustrate you if you like something more straight forward. But all in all it was a fun book, with possibly the best title of all time. So all I can say is check it out, you might end up loving it. Or not. But give it a chance.

Books #47 and #50: "The Godfather" and "The Godfather Returns"

Book #47 The Godfather by Mario Puzo

There's really not much to say about this. It's an outstanding book, and if you love the movie then you will definitely love the book. There are some extra subplots, involving Johnny Fontane, which are entertaining but not really an integral part of the book. It's really the examination of the Corleone family that makes this book so gripping and fascinating; not just the inner workings of a Mafia crime family, but the relationships between the members of this incredibly proud, incredibly strong group of people who'll do anything to survive in the world they've created. It's really simple, almost stark writing, and really allows you to understand the film a little better, particularly when it comes to the character of Michael Corleone. Definitely a recommended read, and a good companion to the movie. Needless to say it has to be one of the best book-to-film adaptations of all time (some elements of Godfather 2 appear in the book, such as Vito Corleone's backstory) and just a great read.


#50 The Godfather Returns by Mark Winegardner

This one's definitely weaker, though it's understandable. It was written 35 years after The Godfather, by a different writer in a vastly different era. The "golden years" of the Mafia are far in the past, and most of our knowledge of it seems to come from...The Godfather. So it's no real surprise that the book reads almost like a fanfic piece written by a really huge fan of the movies. It's a decent read, but has none of the heart or excitement or grittiness of the original book. Plus, it's just very, very confusing to anyone who hasn't memorized the two original films line for line. It's really a bunch of little stories of what was happening in the background of the films--how Fredo came to betray Michael, for example, or how Michael came to the height of his power. But it's just a very confusing timeline, and again, unless you know the movies by heart I think you'd be completely confused. It's a book for the die-hard fans, I suppose, but not really worth the read. The writing is clunkier and doesn't have Puzo's polished, flowing style and none of the character development. There's a lot of useless filler that never goes anywhere, and I was constantly wondering why I was reading. Really, was this book even necessary? Seems to me like it was just someone trying to milk The Godfather cow for profit, and unfortunately it was just a weak effort.

Book #48: The Fiery Cross by Diana Gabaldon (Book #5 of the Outlander series)

Time for more short, half-assed reviews. This one I "wrote" while reading the book, because I was so angry at so many things and I just decided to take notes on things that made me angry about it. Here's the result. It makes no sense, but it boils down the book to the essentials. It's terrible, too long and meandering and I didn't give a damn about anything in it. Definitely the lowest point in the series.

-Going over the same topics over and over and over and over again. Get the fuck OVER it.

-Roger and Brianna are fucking boring.

-Brianna is a spoiled, selfish brat.

-nothing happens for at least 200 pages. NOTHING.

-300 pages and they haven't fucking left

-brianna is the type of hag that gets angry at the slightest thing then angrier that everyone doesn't immediately know why she's angry. then she starts swearing like a moron. helpful. why the hell does Roger love her so much? there is nothing redeemable about her

-roger is an incompetent asswipe, getting himself captured TWICE for being an interfering nitwit.

-after the 15th time one of these people gets in trouble or is nearly killed, it's really fucking monotonous. either REALLY kill one of them or just fuck off with the near deaths.

-snake bite. bear attack. hanging. for fuck's sake, woman. leave these people alone or just KILL THEM ALREADY.

-someone needs to go back through these novels and figure out how many times the men just stand there looking longingly at the women doing whatever. That's all they ever seem to do when they're not in MORTAL DANGER.

-christ. it's been like 20 pages of them dealing with a snake bite.

-holy fucking cow, two pages on blood types. WHAT THE HELL

At this point I gave up and just started skipping pages like crazy. Horrible, horrible book. No one should read it. Either stop at the one before this or skip to the next one. Jeebus on a piece of toast, this was terrible. Someone stop this woman.

Bunch of reviews. Books 39, 45 and 46.

I think I need to give up pretense and admit what I know to be true:

I'm never gonna write the reviews I've fallen behind on. Mostly because I don't feel like it. Plus, it's been a while since I've read them, and none of them made that great an impression on me. So I'm going to be writing very short blurbs until I catch up, at which point maybe I can get back to the full reviews.

So.

39. High Fidelity by Nick Hornby

Loved it. Really funny, insightful, and I just love Hornby's style. Rob, much like Bridget Jones, is sort of a guide on what Not To Do to Keep a Healthy Relationship. He's a perfectly ordinary, selfish guy still stuck in his 20s, realizing that he needs to change and grow up in order to leave the rut he's dug himself into that he pretends he likes so much. The music talk is way above my head, but that shouldn't stop you. The songs themselves don't matter as much as the idea behind them, and Hornby is great at making the connections. The supporting characters are perfect, particularly the horrible music snobs that seem eerily familiar. I loved it.

45. The Talisman by Stephen King and Peter Straub

Hmmm. It was just OK. Had the usual King staples: the lonely but surprisingly strong young boy. Absent/evil fathers. The mentally challenged sidekick. The batshit insane minion to the batshit evil villain. The quest. The Dark Tower connections. The beautiful, useless mother. Fun plot, but nothing extraordinary. Basically, Jack goes on this quest to save his mother. He can "switch" between our world and a parallel one called the "Territories", where his mother has a "twin" who is the Queen of this kingdom. She needs to be saved or the evil Morgan will...do something bad. It's a fun book, but the writing is honestly kind of clunky and long-winded at times. It gets kind of repetitive in that Jack never gets a break and you know he'll face a new horror in ten pages, but you known he won't die. It's an OK book. Nothing that outstanding.

46. Rainbow Six by Tom Clancy
Awful, overlong, unnecessary piece of crap book. Just painfully awful. It's 1500 pages of descriptions of guns and 20-second battles as an elite group of anti-terrorist soldiers train, then are called into action, they win, they come out alive and go back to training. There's a massively stupid and overarching plot regarding a deadly virus about to be released upon the world, but you know that absolutely nothing will come out of it. I don't know who the audience for this thing might be, or why the hell it has to be so damn long. I skipped about half the pages, to be honest. I'm not at all interested in descriptions of training sequences or weapons, nor do I want to read about 15 equally boring missions that you KNOW will turn out perfectly for the good guys. You know what it is? It's like reading a 1500 page detailed walkthrough of a videogame, only you never get to play it. It's horrible, long, tedious and just stupid. The dialogue is just PAINFUL, and none of the characters are interesting. Everyone in the background is a robot spouting off really horrible lines. There's 15 subplots that no one cares about. It's just awful. Don't read it. Really makes me wonder who the hell is a fan of Tom Clancy, and who can get through his monstrosities. Did I say it was AWFUL? I need to say it again.

Book #44: "Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason" by Helen Fielding

Pff. I knew it couldn't last. The crazy, endearing sillyness of Bridget Jones' Diary is almost completely gone from this frustrating sequel. Worse, the whole thing felt unnecessary, written only because people loved Bridget so much and they just wanted some more. But all the heart is gone out of it.

It's still mildly enjoyable, I guess. On the one hand, Bridget is still the same crazy, paranoid, self-doubting geek from the first book. Her parents are still insane, her friends are still giving her bad advice that she's still taking. On the other hand...well, see everything I just said. It's the exact same ingredients that made the original so much fun, but with a second serving the whole quirky soup gets a little exhausting. On top of that there's the frustration when you realize that Bridget didn't learn a damned thing from her trials and tribulations in the first book. She has Mark Darcy, who she spent an entire book learning loved her for who she was and didn't want her to change. But within a few pages she turns into a paranoid idiot again, terrified when a woman at Mark's work even comes close to him. And poor Mark is left completely bewildered when Bridget goes into freak-out mode, trying so hard to be the perfect woman for Mark that she ends up making him think she hates him. She spent the whole of the last book learning that her friends might not be the best people to take relationship advice from, but in this book the advice gets even worse and Bridget keeps listening to them. And so, Bridget goes from someone who's just slightly confused to someone who just might be an idiot.

The plot feels clunky and forced. Fielding keeps throwing Bridget into increasingly dumber situations, and like in any cliched romantic comedy, you know that something (stupid) will drive Bridget and Mark apart. The whole thing just gets annoying and cliched, and where the first book made me go "Oh, Bridget..." a lot, this one was more of a "Dammit, Bridget. Stop being an idiot". And don't even get me started on the whole stupid Thailand trip. It's cringeworthy.

There are still some funny scenes, and some very cute allusions to "Persuasion", my favorite Austen book. Bridget's parents are still just as hilarious as they were before, and their scenes with Bridget are some of the best in the book. But unfortunately the weaknesses of the first book just get augmented here. Mark is never completely fleshed out, so you never really get a hold of what his character is like. Though I suppose that that's sort of the point. Bridget's silly paranoia becomes irritating, and she's made a little dumber and clueless here. The whole thing is sadly predictable, just your cliched romantic comedy.

So, to conclude, this was just flat out disappointing. Funny and a harmless, easy read, but definitely a step down from the original. Too bad.

Book #43: 'Ender's Game' by Orson Scott Card

If there's one thing I've learned after having read 44 books for this challenge, it's to not be so judgmental about books before even having cracked them open. Sure, I still know that Twilight is a steaming pile of cow crap without needing to read it, so there's no fear that I'll completely do away with shunning books I think I'll hate. BUt I think I've become a little less gung-ho about it. I've broken my "never-read-a-book-about-lawyers" rule with Grisham, and was glad, I've broken my "never-read-a-Clancy-book" and regretted it (more on that in another review) and with Ender's Game I've broken my (admittedly stupid) rule on never reading books set in space.

I'm glad I did. This was nothing at all like I was expecting. It was smart, dark, gripping and damn exciting to read. And it was just very, very good. And really hard to review.

It's set sometime in the future. Families are only allowed to have two children, and Ender is special in that he's a third child. He is recruited by the army to go into space-fighter training at the age of 6, which is standard procedure I suppose. He's thrown into a military school that seems to be run by largely absent adults. The older children handle and train the younger ones as they learn how to fight in space battles in preparation for joining the war against the enemies of humanity. The army knows that Ender is special, and he's put into increasingly more brutal and cruel tests to prepare him to become the greatest commander humanity has ever known. At the age of 11.

The idea of throwing children into very adult situations runs throughout the book, and its jarring all the way through. It's like Lord of the Flies, only that in Ender's world the adults pit the children against each other so that they can carry out their plans. It's heartbreaking in that Ender is manipulated into being almost completely alone; exhausted physically, emotionally and mentally, and then you remember that this is a six year old KID, and everything becomes even more powerful.

The setting is also perfectly drawn out. The school and its technology seem incredibly advanced for the time that this book was written. There's personal computers, virtual reality games and even a type of internet. The simulated battles are expertly described and not sunk in technobabble. Watching Ender beat the obstacles the adults place in his way is specially cool, as is the bizarre computer game he has to play. And the way that it ties in to the ending of the book is really bizarre and kind of terrifying.

It's just really, really gripping. Ender as a character grabs you immediately--the sad, lonely underdog who gets thrown into extraordinary circumstances. By having children as the protagonists the story becomes more bizarre and disturbing, the adults acting like gods playing around with little people and manipulating their destinies.

My only complaint with the book are the scenes with Ender's siblings. They're good characters but just don't seem to fit in with Ender's story, particularly because they almost never come into contact with him (his brother never does). Their subplot is just a little distracting, and just made me impatient for the story to return to Ender.

But other than that, this is just a solid book. It's dark, original and really addictive. The ending is seriously weird and surprising, so I highly recommend not spoiling it for yourself before you read it. Don't be like me and dismiss just because it's Sci-Fi. That's a really dumb thing to do.

***

I heard that there were several sequels to this. But that they weren't very good. I don't know HOW they could be. Anyone read them?

Cannonball Reading List

To be Read (probably not in this order):

47. The Godfather
48. The Godfather Returns
49. Black House
50. The Fiery Cross (don't wanna finish it but ugh)
51. The First Man in Rome
52. Gormenghast
53. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
54. The Lovely Bones
55. The Kite Runner
56. In Cold Blood
57. Under the Tuscan Sun
58-61. Chronicles of Narnia
62-67. Hitchhiker Series

I have until November. I don't think I'll make it to 100. I'll be happy with 80.

Book #41: Bridget Jones' Diary by Helen Fielding

Bridget Jones has issues. She thinks she's overweight at 130 lbs. She obsesses about every single thing she does, wondering what Cosmo would say. She drinks too much, smokes too much, hates her job and and has bad luck with men. Most of these issues would easily go away if she just stopped reading fashion magazines, collecting self-help books that constantly contradict themselves and most importantly, stop listening to her clueless friends.

And still I can't help but love her a little. Bear with me. I know that I shouldn't like this book. I know that Bridget is insane and this book gave rise to a thousand other confessional diary-type imitators and that Chick Lit should be derided and ignored. But you know what? This book grew on me, and it was so damn funny and lighthearted that I just ended up loving the hell out of it. And it's because Bridget is so damn likable and could easily be someone I know, and even sometimes, myself. Bridget has moments of crippling insecurity, where, because she's a little bit different and doesn't look out for every single thing she says she ends up looking like a weirdo. Bridget just wants to fit in and be a perfectly poised lady while not realizing that people like her because she is different. Particularly men. So to me, it seems that Fielding is setting her up as an example of what not to do. And it's great.

So the whole thing is a sort of modern retelling of Pride and Prejudice. Bridget meets Mark Darcy (*snort*) at a party given by her mother, and they dislike each other immediately. Bridget eventually starts having an affair with her boss, who used to know Darcy and fuels Bridget's dislike for him. And you probably know the rest of the story. Fielding cleverly inserts all these cute little Austen references, and the plot keeps moving along nicely, if predictably.

But it's really the character of Bridget that sells the book, and how well Fielding writes her. She's that clueless girl in high school who got drunk and never quite knew what she was talking about. There are some scenes, written by "drunk Bridget" that are just hilariously funny as the words start slurring and blending together. Bridget's mother is everyone's nightmare and she's just so perfectly insane that she steals every single scene she's in. I only wish Mark Darcy were better developed, but he's as much a mystery to us as he is to Bridget, and the rest of the characters more than make up for it.

I would almost say that this book is like "High Fidelity" for girls. A book on what NOT to do in relationships. I'm not saying it's nearly as good or insightful as Nick Hornby's book, or that this is what all women are like. Just that it's got that same brand of British humor and both main characters are both perfect examples of how to screw up your relationship.

And it's just really freakin' funny. It's silly and lighthearted and shouldn't be taken too seriously. Bridget's particular insecurities may not be something that we all relate to, but I think that we can all relate to her being insecure because she's a little bit different. And in the end, it's just a hell of a lot of fun to read.

Books #40 and #42: "Voyager" and "Drums of Autumn" by Diana Gabaldon

I'm going to take a break from the woeful Honduras news (there's nothing happening right now anyway) and try to get back into the normal flow of things on this 'ere blog. So I'm going to try and catch up on my book reviews. As you can see on the list to the right, I'm almost at the halfway point. Woo-to-the-Hoo!

Voyager and Drums of Autumn are parts 3 and 4 of Gabaldon's Outlander series.

Voyager starts out telling us what happened to Jamie Fraser right after he sent his wife Claire back to her own time. He fought at Culloden, was imprisoned, release to work for an aristocrat, let go, moved to Edinburgh. It's been twenty years since he last saw Claire, who is back in the 1960s trying to find her way back to him with the help of her daughter Brianna and her loverboy Roger. Claire goes back, finds Jamie, everyone rejoices for a bit before they start getting into trouble again.

Really, if I were Jamie I'd be a little more concerned over how every time he's starting to settle down, up comes trouble to get him back into things again. In no time at all, Jamie's nephew Ian gets kidnapped and taken to the American colonies, so of course Jamie and Claire have to go after him and get to adventurin'.

While all this fun stuff is happening, Brianna is back in the 20th century being a complete whiny bore with her bore of a lover Roger. They are boring. Really boring. I never cared about anything that happened to them. Brianna whines, she pouts, she throws stupid temper tantrums. Roger stands around not understanding her but somehow loving her and they spend an inordinate amount of hours wanting (but not actually doing it) to have sex with each other. It's beyond me how Gabaldon could think that foisting these insufferable characters on us was a good idea.

Anyway, the actual historical parts are as great as ever. We have the usual amount of near-deaths, attacks, sicknesses, blood everywhere, sex scenes, etc. And the best part is that they go on a ship across the atlantic, so you can probably guess what happens to them. Yes, they get attacked by pirates. Of course they do. It's great.

Drums of Autumn starts out in South Carolina, 1750-something. Gabaldon, as usual, provides a huge and impressive amount of research to recreated the world of the American colonies. It's fun and interesting, like Last of the Mohicans without all the war. Jamie's giving a piece of land in the mountains and off they go to colonize. It kind of drags, as nothing exciting happens for a while, but I liked reading about pioneers and starting out their lives, etc.

And then, Brianna. Ugh. She somehow finds a notice from 1760-something saying that Claire and Jamie have died. So she decides that the best thing to do is to travel through the stones, on her own, completely unprepared and try to find her parents. Because she is a moron. Roger finds out and follows her later. Again, Brianna is completely frustrating. She seems to go through the whole thing like it's a game instead of actual reality, thinking that her 20th-century views and conventions will somehow work in the 18th century. I guess we're supposed to like her for her independence, but she's nothing but irritating. When she gets into trouble for not thinking anything through, I admit I felt a sort of perverse pleasure. I can't help it, I just really hate the character. We never connect to her and Roger. Everything seems glossed over and fake and uninteresting. I did love the introduction of John William Grey, a rich and gay british soldier who's madly in love with Jamie. He's a great character.

This is the book where things sort of start going downhill, series-wise. There's very little of the excitement that was so prevalent in the first three books. The pace slows down considerably in "Drums", and I'm sorry to say that as of the first part of "The Fiery Cross" (Book 5), things haven't gotten back to normal.

Book #38: 'Me Talk Pretty One Day' by David Sedaris

This is a short review, because there's only a handful of things you need to know about Me Talk Pretty One Day.

Read this book. Immediately.

But don't read it in public. Not unless you like trying to smother your laughter into and then you do that weird puffing thing where you sound like you're choking and then you go all read and people stare at you like you're that psycho who talks to himself on the bus. Take a handkerchief or have some kind of dry cloth handy, because if you're like me the laughter will make you start crying and then you'll look like even more of a complete psycho.

That's it, really. This book is basically a collection of real-life stories about Sedaris' family, childhood, "artistic" life and his time in France. Sedaris has this amazing talent for being self-deprecating and half-insane, and every single one of the chapters is flat-out hilarious. Anything involving his family is absolutely brilliant. His sister is Amy Sedaris, for crying out loud. That entire family was born demented.

Really, people, this is the funniest book I have ever read. Hands down. The story about the turd made me literally howl with laughter. It made my stomach hurt. It's also a pretty quick, easy read. The only bad thing is that it's over too soon.

I can't recommend it enough. I need to get some more of Sedaris' stuff like, yesterday. This guy is a genius.

Book #37: 'Dragonfly in Amber' by Diana Gabaldon

Warning: May contain some slight spoilers for book 1.

Book 2 of the 'Outlander' holds up surprisingly well to it's predecessor. Having established her characters and her setting (Claire Randall travels back in time to 18th century Scotland, falls in love with Jamie The Perfect Highlander), Gabaldon rushes ahead with a book that's bigger, better and all around just as entertaining as the first one.

As we know from the end of the first book, Claire decides to stick around with Jamie the Most Dashing Man in History instead of going back to her own time. But this second book starts with Claire back in the 20th century, around 1965. We learn that she returned after three years with Jamie, as war broke out in Scotland. So the book is largely told in flashback style, as Claire tells her daughter Brianna and her an historian friend, Roger Wakefield, about her time travel and how she came back to her own time. They find out early on that Jamie didn't die at the battle of Culloden (where Charles Stuart attempted to regain the Scottish throne in 1745), and so they decide to look for him and find out what really happened after he sent Claire back through the stones. So we jump between Claire's telling of what happened between the last book and her return, and Claire, Brianna and Roger doing some investigations.

The parts in the 18th century are definitely the most exciting in the whole book. Claire tells Jamie about the upcoming Rising, and together they decide to try and find a way to stop the destruction of the Scottish clans. They travel to France and are (conveniently enough) put to work in the service of Prince Charles Stuart, the young man who is the heir to the Scottish throne. They find themselves as part of the French court, getting to meet Louis XIV and going to fancy parties as they spy and plot their way to stopping the rebellion. As with the first book, the best part of all this is that the amount of research Gabaldon has done creates this incredibly detailed world for the characters, and with Claire and Jamie actually being part of an historical event, well, it's just that much more exciting.

Claire and Jamie are just as perfect as ever, of course. They are seriously entertaining characters, and while the sex scenes are still all-around ridiculous, their relationship is really well done and we get to really like the both of them. And, knowing that their time together is limited, it becomes pretty tragic eventually, as they're unable to stop the rebellion and find themselves going to war. This is definitely the highlight of the book. By putting her characters right in the middle of everything, we get a seriously badass account of the battles and sieges, and it's perfectly done.

Unfortunately, the parts where she breaks away from Jamie and Claire are pretty damn boring. We're introduced to Brianna, Jamie and Claire's daughter. I don't quite know what it is about Brianna, but I almost immediately disliked her. She just really doesn't fit into the story and sticks out like a sore thumb. She's whiny and impulsive, which I guess we're supposed to find charming, but she has none of the likeability of the other characters. Which is really too bad, because she quickly becomes a main character, but everything involving her is just lackluster and boring. She instantly falls in love with Roger (because in Gabaldon's world, people either want to rape you or become your soulmate), who's an OK character when he's not being profoundly bland, and we have to read through some of their adventures in...going to the library and falling in love. Snore.

But thankfully, there's enough meat in Claire and Jamie's story to keep the book entertaining. The villain from the first book returns, adding more drama. As usual there's always someone wanting to kill either Jamie or Claire. There are, I think, about 3 more scenes of rape or near-rape. Plenty of killing and chases, a lot of intrigue and a lot of nasty, detailed medical scenes. And, again, the fact that they're being part of history adds another level of excitement to the book, even if their efforts to change things seem pretty weak to me. Call me cold-blooded, but I think I'd just go up and shoot the damned Prince instead of trying to reduce his funding. But people in time-travel stories never just go for it. I guess time-travel makes you a morally upstanding wuss.

I definitely recommend getting this one along with the first book. It nicely completes the story, and the historical aspects of it make it an even better book than the first. I'm fascinated by everything related to France in the 18th century, so this one was just perfect for me. It also sets up the third book rather nicely, so you'll probably want to get that one as well. It's just too bad that Brianna and Roger don't hold up to Jamie and Claire, but who could? They're the most perfect couple in history, after all.