Monday, September 28, 2020

The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow



Title: The Ten Thousand Doors of January
Author: Alex E. Harrow
Pages: 371
Finished: September 24, 2020

First Sentence: When I was seven, I found a door.

Summary: January Scaller, Ward of the wealthy Mr. Locke struggles to feel at place in his house of curiosities. In fact, she feels closer to a specimen rather than a human being. And though she struggles to be a good girl, she can't quite shake the memory of stepping through a door into another world when she was seven. And then she discovers a book. A book about doors, other worlds, and the people you find there.

Thoughts: While writing up my review of Piranesi, this book arrived at the library for me. This and Piranesi could be cousins. The plot is similar, the conceit of other worlds is similar though this one involves doors and many worlds and centers around a coming of age story as well as a love story. 

Harrow uses a double narrative. A book within a book. I found both stories so compelling that I just kept reading until it was suddenly midnight, the book was over, and I was crying as I came down from the reading high.

January is a little frustrating at times. At times seemingly helpless and overly whiny, though one understands as the story continues and discovers just how much she was gaslit in her upbringing. The book takes a bit of time to get going. We get a lot of backstory as January catches us up to the current moment. But once she finds The Ten Thousand Doors, things pick up. 

One of the things I'm discovering about myself is that I like books where things come out all right in the end. Even as the tale gets more heated and things look as though they'll never come through, if I know things will be OK, I'm pretty willing to keep going. All that to say, it's easy to infer everything will be all right as the story is written as though January were writing a history of events. 

This is a compelling though somewhat complex tale with a lush writing style.

Read-alikes - Piranesi by Susanna Clarke, The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern, 

This covers a couple of challenges, though I'm not really following or entering anything into the forms anymore.

Saturday, September 26, 2020

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke



Title: Piranesi
Author: Susanna Clarke
Pages: 245
Finished: September 19, 2020

First Sentence: When the Moon rose in the Third Northern Hall I went to the Ninth Vestibule to witness the joining of three Tides.

Summary: Piranesi's World is a vast house of infinite rooms housing statues, oceans, clouds, and birds. He shares this world with The Other who visits with him twice a week to discuss their findings on the Great and Secret Knowledge. But one day, Piranesi finds evidence that someone else is in this world.

Thoughts: This was not the book I expected it to be, but that's okay because it was amazing!

Some background. Five years ago from the writing of this review, I read The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. I was hooked. I immediately started looking up read-alikes and stumbled upon Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. I loved it just as much as I loved The Night Circus. So to have works by both these authors come out this year has been quite the treat.

That being said, Piranesi is a completely different book from her previous work. I struggle to write my thoughts without spoiling anything. So we'll start with The House.

The House reminds me a lot of the Library from The Starless Sea what with it's statues, oceans, and even a mention of bees. For a moment, due to the cover of the book, and the mention of minotaurs, I thought this was a retelling of Theseus and the Minotaur. It wasn't. But the House is stunning and now I want to visit. 

The story is told through Piranesi's journal entries. It starts with just his daily life in The House. But the careful reader starts to spot holes or other unsettling things. We pick up what's happening well before Piranesi himself does... and then once he becomes aware, it's a race to the end to see what happens. 

After reading it, I looked up the name Piranesi and discovered there was an 18th century, Italian artist by the name of Giovanni Battista Piranesi who made engravings of elaborate, labyrinthine rooms. After looking them up, they definitely serve as some inspiration for the setting. 

All in all, this was an incredible book that I happened to devour in a weekend. It's been so long since a book has captivated me quite that way, and I really enjoyed reading this one. It hits all the right appeal terms and a decent frame for me, but I'm still struggling to figure out what those appeal terms are because in general, I'm very eclectic. (Also, I'm going to start flexing some new review muscles as we just had a huge Staff Training on readers advisory.)

My appeal terms for this book:
engrossing character driven story with a magical setting almost dreamy feel to the writing.

Read-alikes: The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

Saturday, September 12, 2020

Twelfth Night by Shakespeare



Title: Twelfth Night 
Author: William Shakespeare
Pages: 200?
Finished: September 12, 2020

First Sentence: If music be the food of love, play on.

Summary: Viola, saved from a shipwreck, disguises herself as a man to serve Count Orsino. As a man, she becomes Orsino's messenger to the fair Olivia, who in turn falls for Viola/Cesario. Viola, of course, has fallen in love with Orsino. 

Thoughts: My only experience with this play was actually through an Amanda Bynes movie called She's the Man from when I was a teenager. So how did reading the play live up?

Do you ever read classics and think, "Huh... English teachers held these to some really high standards, but this is really a bawdy joke that I'd get in trouble if I made it in class in modern terms?" That's how I feel when I read Shakespeare. It's held high as this lofty thing, but it was meant for the masses. That's not to say it's bad, just not the high-brow literature we're led to believe.

Once you get through the Elizabethan language, the plot itself is fairly simplistic. I specifically picked teh Folger Shakespeare edition for the notes I know they add in, but found myself skipping over them once I got into the rhythm of the language. 

In terms of the storyline... meh. It takes a long time to set up, and then the end could have been resolved at least one act earlier if people had communicated rather than talked. I suppose that's part of the comedy though. 

Having not seen numerous movie version of this (the way I have with Much Ado About Nothing), I felt I didn't appreciate it as much as I could. As this is a play, it's meant to be a visual medium. Without that, I do feel like I'm missing quite a bit. I think, in general, I appreciate Shakespeare better when I've seen either a production or a movie version to go along with it. 

That being said, glad I read it and I'm happy to cross another book off my Classic Club list. I believe this counts for a ton of challenges, but at this point, I've basically decided I'm not even attempting to finish them with how my reading tastes have just completely diverged from what I was reading at the beginning of the year.

Friday, September 11, 2020

Time to Parent by Julie Morgenstern



Title: Time to Parent: Organizing Your Life to Bring Out the Best in Your Child and You
Author: Julie Morgenstern
Pages: 330
Finished: September 7, 2020


Summary: Professional organizer Julie Morgenstern sets out to define the parenting job description. Using catchy acronyms that help the reader remember, she divides parenting into two halves. Doing you P.A.R.T and taking care of you S.E.L.F. Each half is divided into further quadrants where she then gives tips on how to help. To avoid summarizing the book, I'll just name the quadrants. P.A.R.T stands for Providing, Arranging, Relating, and Teaching. S.E.L.F stands for Sleep, Exercise, Love, and Fun.

Thoughts: Thanks to Covid19, a new baby, and the rest of 2020, I've been feeling really stretched thin. This book popped out on our parenting display at work and I grabbed it. Was it earth shattering? Meh. The organization tools were neat, but the information was stuff  I knew. What I found helpful mostly was the definition of the P.A.R.T. and how it all fits in with your child. Essentially it's easy to fall into a Providing and Arranging role when the most important thing to your child is Relating with them. With that in mind, I did set some goals for myself this month based off the information in the book. But I have to admit, I didn't feel like I learned how to make things better.

The most useful parts to me were the definitions of the "job description" and the time management skills. There's also a self assessment which was interesting. I came out pretty balanced in all four parts but with super low scores. I didn't feel like there was anything in the book to help me raise those scores... but then there's a chapter at the end about what to do when you're in a time of crisis... and I feel like raising kids during a pandemic while my country hurdles headfirst into fascism may count as a crisis. Or perhaps that's the anxiety talking! Who knows?!?

Anyway, back to the book. Fine information but definitely more of reference book than a sit down and read book.