Drinking in the Harry Potter Films

I saw the sixth Harry Potter movie twice. Yeah, I'm a dork. I didn't notice how much drinking there was in the movie until one of the blogs I read directed me to this New York Times article. Context is everything. First of all, the books and movies are set in Britain, a culture which views drinking differently. Secondly, it's a fantasy, a world which doesn't exist. I tend to discount the argument that teens are more likely to smoke/drink if they watch movies with smoking and drinking because it's the same thing as questioning whether or not they can distinguish fantasy from reality.

Flash reviews

The Running Man by Stephen King

King wrote this one under another name, more than a pseudonym actually, more like an avatar with a wife a home and a death. For you see, King killed him off with a heart attack. Sounds twisted and it sort of is, but in a twisted awesome way.

I love King's thrillers, the ones that tread the line of horror, but stay firmly on the side of thriller. I read Running Man very quickly. Had no choice, really, there was so many near escapes, car chases, and betrayals that I had to keep on reading. It sped along so quickly. The only thing was that the main character was a "everyman" character. He seemed like a stock character with gallow's humor and an inexplicable knack with a firearm.

Gods Behaving Badly by Marie Phillips

Talk about dysfunctional families. Phillips brings the Greek gods and goddesses to modern day London. Lightly amusing, but a bit forgettable.

Going Postal by Terry Pratchett

Why haven't I read Pratchett before? Loved this book. Witty, funny, and memorable characters. Especially loved the con artist with the heart of gold (which, strangely enough, is my small quibble, he accepts his fate too quickly).

Rawr.

Finished Tigerheart by Peter David. It's a re-imagining of the Peter Pan story. In the past couple years there's been so many attempts at retelling the story, I wonder why that is? Disney published a trilogy (Peter and the Starcatchers), there was an "official" sequel and now David has given it a shot. I was intrigued because the protagonist isn't Peter Pan or Wendy (or Wendy's relation), instead the main character is Paul, a boy who can talk to animals and fairies.

My first question is this: who is this book marketed towards? You would think young adult, no question, but it seems like this isn't the case. It's just a New York Times' bestseller and not shelved in the children's section. The book is dark in places, but so was the original tale. Yet, the narrator (the teller of the tale, perhaps the author) addresses the readers occassionally and the narrator seems to think that the readers are children or parents reading to children...

Which brings up another point of interest, the narrator addresses the readers frequently and brings up the fact that he is telling a story. Sometimes it seemed awkward, but most of the times it worked and lent a comforting style to the book.

Now I'm reading The Overnight by Ramsey Campbell. A little repetitive, it's all grubbiness and muffled voices and gray fog and dark shadows. But, in a bookshop. What's most interesting isn't the horror aspect of the story, but the workers' dynamics. American versus British, class differences, gender politics, sexual politics. I think the book would work a lot better if it focused on those conflicts than the horror. Whatever is lurking in the fog just makes the tale muddled, there's just too much going on. I'm nearing the end of the book, but I'm in a rut. It'll be an effort to finish.

Notes from a Small Island

Notes from a Small Island by Bill Bryson. For the most part entertaining, but I had a few minor quibbles. Bryson sounds like a cantankerous grouch. He complains about villages and people with a kind of joyful cruelty (though that may be too strong a world). His gibes are amusing, but I can't help wincing at some of them.

Also, after awhile the book became a little repetitive, Bryson seemed to fall into a routine and he spent only a short time in London (my main interest).

Yet, the book informed me and let me get a feel for the island (which is why I picked up a copy in the first place). I am going there in the fall and as a bookworm, I've been reading as much as I can on the island.

Nifty Lists/Maps

woah, the Boston Globe surprised me with their Book section. There's many entertaining interactive features, which I spent some time fiddling with.

100 New England Books list, which allows you to click "read" or "want to read" and keeps track of the total.

And top used book stores in Boston! One weekend I'm going to go on a treasure hunt and splurge at some of these stores.

Secret Society Girl

I had medium expectations for Secret Society Girl by Diana Peterfreund. I read from a blogger whose opinion I trust that the Ivy League series is a witty, funny one, but I had my doubts. I judged the book by its cover. Girl with a green sweater tied around her shoulders? It is just too similar to the many other series about college life for the privileged. And the book's premise seemed to support this view. Amy Haskel is selected to join a powerful secret underground society at an elite university. Not only does this girl attend an Ivy highbrow school, she's also picked to be in a group that's seen as above the school's general populace. She's the elite of the elite. Yet, Peterfreund complicates this because as a member of the first group of girls to join the society, she has to defend her position.

What really drew me into the story, though, was the narrator's voice. She's smart, she's funny, and she makes convincing mistakes.

There's an interesting romantic sidestory that didn't go the way I thought it would as well.

I'll look out for more in this series.

Dust of 100 Dogs

Dust of 100 Dogs by A.S. King

The narrator's (and main character's) voice immediately captured me. What a strong and fierce heroine! She sort of reminds me of E. Lockhart's Frankie-Landau Banks, brilliant and sort of crazy. Saffron often has violent eye-plucking fantasies. At first the flashbacks to Saffron's past life as Emer naive (in love) Irish girl to feared swashbuckling pirate, annoyed me, but only because I didn't understand the point of them. Looking back, though, the flashbacks do a good job in laying the foundation of Emer's character. I enjoyed the 'Dog Tip' sections (Saffron recounts some of her past lives--of which there are 100--they were entertaining and imaginative. However, there was one brief moment I thought a bit off.

Here's the excerpt about the Civil War:

All of this for slavery. All of this for a white man's right to own a black man...Crazy right?

OK, my government teacher in high school would have been upset at this. It oversimplifies the civil war. Yes, slavery was a large part of it, but not the whole part.

Besides that minor tiff, this book was a fantastic read. An angry read, but in the end hopeful. I recommend it to those who love adventure, pirates, and kickass girls.