Serafina and the Black Cloak by Robert Beatty

Title: Serafina and the Black Cloak

Author: Robert Beatty

Pages: 293

Finished: February 25, 2019

First Sentence: Serafina opened her eyes and scanned the darkened workshop, looking for any rats stupid enough to come into her territory while she slept.

Summary: Serafina and her father secretly live in the basement of the Biltmore Estate where her father works as the handyman. Serafina creeps around the place at night, catching rats until one night, a man in a black cloak comes down with a girl. His cloak absorbs the girl in some way and it's up to Serafina to figure out what happened and how to get the girl and all the other missing children back.

Thoughts: New Caudill List in Illinois came out, and this one looked like it was right up my alley. One of the interesting things about reading middle grade fiction as an adult is that things are often more obvious than they are in adult literature. I had Serafina figured out almost entirely by page six, and I had pegged the bad guy the minute we met him even though there were plenty of red herrings. My favorite part of this novel was the friendship between Serafina and the young Biltmore kid. I will read all the books in the series just for their relationship. The book was also super creepy. Enough that I stopped reading it at night. I think it's a solid addition in middle grade horror though.

The Winter of the Witch by Katherine Arden

Title: The Winter of the Witch

Author: Katherine Arden

Pages: 372

Finished: February 24, 2019

First Sentence: Dusk at the end of winter, and two men crossed the dooryard of a palace scarred by fire.

Summary: In The Bear and the Nightingale, we see the start of the battle between the chyerti (Russian folk spirits) and the Christian religion. In The Girl In the Tower, rumblings of the battle between the Russians and the Tartars overarch the story. In this final book of the Winternight Trilogy, we see both battles play out. Cherti and Christianity. Russia and the Tartars. And in the middle of it all is Vasya, a girl strong in her convictions and her loyalties to what she holds true.

Thoughts: Wow! This is definitely one of my favorite trilogies. I don't typically buy books, but I'm considering purchasing this trilogy. I'll have to mull over it for a bit.

As I said in my review for the first book, I'm a sucker for stories where the old religions fight to stay relevant in a world where Christianity is a thing. And this story was so much more satisfying than most.

Vasya herself is a fantastic character. She is strong, and she's smart, but she's not a Mary Sue. She can do things, but she's wrong sometimes. Many times actually. But even with that, she learns from her mistakes and improves.

I also really liked the way Arden handled the character of The Bear. I don't want to spoil anything, so I won't say much more other than I liked it. Very reminicent of the idea of balance in the universe.

Overall, the book was very satisfying end to an incredibly satisfying trilogy. 

The Dreaming Place by Charles de Lint

Title: The Dreaming Place

Author: Charles de Lint

Pages: 138

Finished: February 13, 2019

First Sentence: "I didn't see you at school today, Nina," Judy said.

Summary: Nina dreams she's in a different animal every night. Only in each of these dreams, the animal she's in gets attacked or killed. And then, one night, a woman mentions that Nina is promised to her. Ash, meanwhile, has a hard time adjusting to life with her Aunt, Uncle, and cousin. But when she finds herself having to save her cousin from a manitou, she goes on a journey through the Spirit World both to save her cousin and herself.

Thoughts: This is considered Newford adjacent. It takes place in Newford, but as it's a YA novel, it doesn't have the same characters that we saw in Dreams Underfoot. It's second in the line up simply because of when it takes place, but it's not necessary to read it to really understand Newford.

In terms of my thoughts, I wasn't as thrilled with this one. It's not that the story isn't good. I did like how Ash was busy finding herself. This one felt much more akin to Moonheart though rather than the stories in Dreams Underfoot. We spent more time in the Spirit Realm than we did in Newford. And while I like other worlds, that's not what I go to de Lint for.

Read for my Newford challenge.

Britt-Marie Was Here by Fredrik Backman

Title: Britt-Marie Was Here

Author: Fredrik Backman

Pages: 324

Finished: February 10, 2019

First Sentence: Forks. Knives. Spoons

Summary: Britt-Marie, a very particular woman, leaves her cheating husband and finds herself in the town of Borg. Britt-Marie does not like soccer. Britt-Marie does not like mess. Britt-Marie has never lived for herself. She now finds herself the caretaker of the recreation center and the soccer coach to a team. And one thing is sure, no one will forget Britt-Marie

Thoughts: Huh. This is a weird one. While reading it, I found the book very compelling. I wanted to know what was going on with this very odd woman. Why was she the way she was and what was going to be the outcome. Once I finished the book, I was a bit annoyed.

The good: I really liked Britt-Marie. This is the first Backman book I've read, and I've been told that she's unlikable when she shows up in another one of his books. But in this one, I really felt I understood her. I felt sorry for her, a woman who has lived only for other people. Constantly seeking approval and never getting it. I like that she starts finding out who she is, and in the end, she decides to live for herself and not anyone else.

The bad: This is the stuff that I noticed after finishing the book. The formula. This reads like a number of middle-grade contemporary novels that I have to read for work. Down to the climax where Britt-Marie learns who she is and the soccer game. It was predictable. Also, I will admit I get really annoyed by books where everyone is brought together for the love of a sport. In this book, the kids were pretty inclusive. In real life, my experience is that if you don't love a sport, you are ridiculed and bullied. I know that I should get past that, but I don't care about sports. I will never care about sports. And I have to listen to sports all the time. So the book doesn't even ring true to me.

I'm curious what our discussion will be about.

Read for my family book discussion.

Small Spaces by Katherine Arden

Title: Small Spaces

Author: Katherine Arden

Pages: 218

Finished: February 6, 2019

First Sentence: October in East Evansburg, and the last warm sun of the year slanted red through the sugar maples.

Summary: Ollie escapes from a tragedy by reading. She loves books. So when she finds a woman trying to throw a book into the river, Ollie saves the book without thinking. Said book turns out to be a ghost story of a farm with a horrible love triangle and someone named the Smiling Man at the center. Things get weird when Ollie's class goes on a field trip to a farm that used to belong to the people in Ollie's book. And when on the way home their bus mysteriously breaks down and the bus driver tells Ollie to stick to "small spaces," well, that's when things get really spooky.

Thoughts: Do you ever have those times when things seem to match up in your life? I've been waiting for Katherine Arden's third installment of her Bear and the Nightengale trilogy. I was so excited for it and knew it would be coming out sometime in January. Also in January, I was browsing some Middle Grade fiction lists for work. The cover of this book caught my attention. I read the review and decided it was worth a try. It wasn't until after I checked it out that I realized it was written by the same woman!

I really enjoyed this little story. It was sufficiently creepy enough to keep me going, though I will admit, I guessed who the Smiling Man was pretty early on. That didn't really affect the story for me too much though. The creatures were creepy. I also liked how the kids were real kids. None of them was particularly mature for their age. No one acted beyond their years. It made the whole story so much more believable to my 30 something year old self. As believable as a ghost story is.

Definitely a worthwhile addition to middle grade horror.

The Bullet Journal Method by Ryder Carroll

Title: The Bullet Journal Method

Author: Ryder Carroll

Pages: 296

Finished: February 4, 2019

First Sentence: The mystery box arrived unannounced.

Summary & Thoughts: The book starts with a section explaining basically how Ryder Carroll developed the system and why it's good. I actually really liked this section. It showed a couple things. First, it showed that what Ryder did before he developed this system was close, but kept evolving. It shows that The Bullet Journal system is something that he actually did sort of make up specifically for the internet (basically tightened up his own system to make it more accessible to people.) And it gave kid of a why do people find Bullet Journaling necessary. So to me, it said that, yes, bullet journaling is personal and things are going to change. It's okay for your system to evolve as you need it to.

The next section was the actually system itself. He has a video or three on his website that have the same information, so I didn't find this very useful other than there's some more info in it.

Following that was the Practice. Some of this actually was really good, but it really wasn't anything I wasn't already doing. Some of it, I feel I'd actually find more frustrating to deal with than not. I still think what I'm doing is bullet journaling even if it's not using the deconstruction etc. I also don't agree with Goals vs Tasks, but I think that's a how my brain vs. how his brain works.

Part IV involved customizing the journal for other things you might need. At this point, there was a lot of what felt like, "Yes, do what you want, but do it this way to call it a bullet journal." At this point, I was starting to get annoyed because the constant "A bullet journal is what you need it to be" paired with "Unless it's like this" was just a mirror of what I see online when it comes to fights about what a bullet journal is or isn't. (That's not to say I have my own ideas what is or isn't a bullet journal. I just don't bother to pay attention to the ones that aren't bullet journals in my mind.)

Part V was a sum up.

In general, this book felt unnecessary. Perhaps if you're brand new to bullet journaling, it might be nice? But I feel like if you just watch the videos on the Bullet Journal Website, it gives you what you need and then you can go ahead and do what you want from there. Because the system should work for you. At the very least the book was a quick read.

Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi

Title: Pinocchio

Author: Carlo Collodi

Pages: 135

Finished: February 2, 2019

First Sentence: Centuries ago there lived-- "A king!" my little readers will say immediately.

Summary: Pinocchio, the little marionette who lives wants to be a good boy, but he's so stubborn, ill-mannered, and lazy that it's just so hard. He goes through many MANY hardships before he changes and becomes a good marionette. To reward him, the Fairy With Azure Hair makes him a real boy.

Thoughts: Collodi wrote Pinocchio as a serialized novel in 1883. The story originally ended at chapter 15 with a gruesome hanging, but was so well received that he continued. Up to this point, my only experience with Pinocchio was the Disney film. The book is... different.

First of all, it's writing is very similar to the Oz chronicles by Baum. It's simple and there's no why for anything. Things just are the way they are. An example. No one seems all that surprised that Pinocchio is a marionette or that he moves and talks. In fact, when he ends up in the Marionette show, all the other Marionette's are also walking and talking. The story is dark, but people get out of the situations fairly easily. Everything is told very matter-of-factly. For example, the escape from the shark is really quite uneventful. They climb up the shark's throat, and jump out while it's sleeping.

Like Oz, I figure it's probably more effective to a kid, but the kid that this would appeal to probably wouldn't be able to read it by themselves, so it's more of a readaloud.

The book was quick to read, but I wasn't a fan. I found myself constantly wondering WHY things worked and finding little bits of continuity error that annoyed me. I probably won't read it again.

This counts as a book in translation for my Back to the Classics challenge.