sonk’s #CBR5 Reviews #59 – #65

I’m finally done!

#59: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling (5 stars)

#60: Dirty Love by Andre Dubus III (3 stars)

#61: Lost in Shangri-La: A True Story of Survival, Adventure, and the Most Incredible Rescue Mission of World War II by Mitchell Zuckoff (2 stars)

#62: The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P. by Adelle Waldman (4 stars)

#63: Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery by Robert Kolker (3 stars)

#64: Yoga: The Spirit and Practice of Moving Into Stillness by Erich Schiffman (4 stars)

#65: The Cuckoo’s Calling by Robert Galbraith (5 stars)

Baxlala’s CBR5 Review #26: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

With this post, I will have made it to my goal for the year, which was half-Cannonball, but I’m still a bit disappointed in myself for this last post, as it’s something I’ve already written so it kind of feels like cheating? I don’t know. I’ve signed up for the full Cannonball next year and hope that, with the help of my 2014 motto (TRY HARDER), I will actually achieve it for the first time ever WOOHOO!

Anyway. HARRY POTTER! Like the three HP posts before it, it has been crossposted from The Harry Potter Medicinal Reread.

BLERP BLARP

Like Ashley, I have a very vivid memory of reading Goblet of Fire, much clearer than my memories of reading the first three (barring that first, life-altering moment in the library break room, of course). I’d been visiting a friend in North Carolina when the book came out and I bought it on my way to the airport so I could read it on my return flight home. I didn’t want the plane ride to end, even though I was wedged between the window and the very large man seated next to me, so caught up was I in this book. It might be my favorite. But then again, my favorite Harry Potter book really seems to depend on what mood I’m in. Or whatever one I happen to be reading at the time. Anyway.

(BONUS FACT THAT NO ONE CARES ABOUT: My NC friend and I met on the internet, brought together by our overwhelming love of The X-Files. Somehow, two summer before, I’d convinced my parents to drive us all to North Carolina from Ohio, so my friend and I could see The X-Files movie together. We saw it four times on opening day. I KNOW.)

CHAPTER 8: THE QUIDDITCH WORLD CUP

You guys, I have a confession to make: I hate Quidditch. Or, to put it more accurately, I hate READING about Quidditch. Luckily, despite the title, this chapter deals with more than just Quidditch. I just said Quidditch a lot. QUIDDITCH QUIDDITCH QUIDDITCH. (Did you know saying it three times in a row makes Oliver Wood appear?)

Hey girl.

The Weasleys, Harry, and Hermione all have seats in the Top Box. They meet Winky, a house elf belonging (gross) to Barty Crouch. It turns out she knows Dobby, but she’s ashamed of him because he wants to be paid for his work now. SPOILER ALERT: this will be important later.

Harry buys them all Omnioculars, magical (duh) thingies (technical name) that can slow down and speed up the events viewed through them. (Later, during the mascot display, Ron shoves a handful of leprechaun gold at Harry to pay him back, not realizing that, being leprechaun gold, it will disappear later. Poor Won-Won.)

There’s a tense moment as the Malfoys enter the box. It’s especially icky when you consider that the last time Lucius and Arthur met, Lucius gave Arthur’s daughter a book that would possess her with the spirit of Voldemort himself. FUCKED UP. Lucius, of course, makes a crack about how the Weasleys were able to afford so many tickets to the match. (Also, and I don’t want to know why, but my brain really wants to write Luscious instead of Lucius.)

sonk’s #CBR5 Review #51: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling

Order of the Phoenix picks up a few weeks after the events of the fourth book, and Harry is in a bad place. He’s still traumatized after witnessing the murder of his Tri-Wizard tournament competitor, Cedric Diggory, and he’s being painted as a liar and attention-seeker by the wizarding media, who don’t believe his statement that Lord Voldemort has returned. To make matters worse, once he returns to Hogwarts, he finds that Dumbledore is acting very strangely around him, and the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, Professor Umbridge, is perhaps the worst one yet.

Read the rest of my review here.

narfna’s #CBR4 Review #74: City of Bones by Cassandra Clare

CITY OF BONES: A REVIEW IN THREE PARTS

In order to fully process the experience of reading the first book in Cassandra Clare’s ever-expanding Mortal Instruments series, I found it necessary to split my review into three sections. Please feel free to skip around from section to section if the whole review is too long for you, but bear in mind it makes the most sense as a whole review. I apologize in advance, because if you’re anything like me, thinking about this book and the shitstorm surrounding it will consume your mind for days on end. If you need evidence of that, please note that it took me nine. hours. to. write. this. post. (Leslie Knope GIFs included because why not?)

– – –

1. The Book Itself
In the spirit of full disclosure, I devoured this book. I read it in about a day and a half, neglecting things I was supposed to be doing (important things) just so that I could see what crazy thing would happen next. Also, the story was jam packed full of tropes and story arcs that appeal to me. Why was it so full of those things? Well, more on that later, but to be starting out with, all that’s important was that it was ridiculousy readable.

From this point, be warned, SPOILERS AHOY:

If you’ve read much YA, you probably already know the basic plot of City of Bones. Clary Fray is our supposedly normal teen of choice, and she lives in a fictional version of New York City with her artist mother. Her father is dead (. . . OR IS HE?) and her best friend Simon is secretly but obviously in love with her. She’s pretty, but unaware of it. Her farts probably also smell like roses. Then one night when she witnesses a handsome blonde stranger seemingly murdering someone in a club, she finds herself falling into a hidden world where demons are real, and because she can see them (and the people who hunt them) that means she must be part of that world as well. The young man is named Jace, and he is a Shadowhunter/Nephilim, a half-angel being whose mission is to hunt down demons and keep Earth safe. And Clary is a Shadowhunter as well. Surprise!

But Clary’s not just ANY Shadowhunter. She is the daughter of the feared Valentine, a psychotic Master Race kind of Nephilim whose dream it was to cleanse the Shadowhunter world of Downworlders (anyone not Shadowhunter or human, i.e. vampires, werewolves, etc.) and to convert as many humans as possible into Shadowhunters, despite the fact that doing so would kill 80% of them. Clary’s mother took her into hiding when she was little but now she’s discovered her heritage, and her mother has been kidnapped by Valentine’s forces, who are trying to find the Mortal Cup, which Clary’s mother Jocelyn stole from Valentine the night she escaped. So Clary joins forces with the local Shadowhunter team (made of teenagers her age, natch) in order to track it down and rescue her mother. Of course she falls in love with Jace, and there’s a bloody love triangle (actually, a love pentagram). From there, other stuff happens, too, but the important takeaway here is that Simon loves Clary and Clary loves Jace and Jace loves Clary but Jace thinks Valentine is his father and Valentine IS Clary’s father, and also Isabelle hates everyone and Alec is in love with Jace because he’s gay, and there’s also a handsome bisexual Asian Warlock in there as well, and some vampires and werewolves and Simon turns into a rat. And that’s, like, 0.07% of the crazy that happens in this book. (Please do note, however, that no book will ever top the crazy that is Breaking Dawn.)
So what did I think of it? Well, like I said, it’s readable. If you read it really fast with your brain on autopilot, you might even be fooled into thinking Clare has a way with words (and characters). But upon closer inspection, most of Clare’s turns of phrase don’t actually make any sense. For example, after the scene where Clary and Jace rescue Simon the rat from the vampire nest and she’s taken a hefty fall, Clary thinks,

“Is that blood? She opened her eyes hazily. Her face felt like one big bruise, her arms, aching and stinging, like raw meat.”

HelloKatieO’s #CBR5 Review #27: Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Book Store by Robin Sloan

I read this book after seeing pyrajane’s review which described this book as a book about books for people who love books. And that’s exactly what this book was, and it was delightful.

Mr. Penumbra runs a mysterious bookshelf, and our protagonist Clay takes a job working the night shift at the store.  Mr. Penumbra’s requests seem a little unusual, and Clay starts to pay careful attention to the books in the store, the customers who borrow them without paying, and the peculiar tasks he’s required to do.

Ultimately, this is a mystery. It’s a worldwide network of people racing to crack a code, and to do it under their terms. You feel the tension between the old school and new school attitudes towards technology as the characters race to the finish. And Clay reminded me a tiny bit of Harry Potter.

HelloKatieO’s #CBR5 Review #4: The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling

Based on earlier reviews I read of J.K Rowling’s first post-Harry Potter release, I had fairly low expectations for this novel. It’s definitely not Harry Potter, but I found it enjoyable once I got into it. In The Casual Vacancy, a city councilor in a small town dies unexpectedly, leaving an opening on the city council just when a historically contentious issue is coming up for a vote.  Rowling builds the town, family by family, neighborhood by neighborhood, local store by geographic landmark, until you almost feel like you live there.

Having grown up in a small town mired in its own constant controversies over flood control and developments, I actually kind of liked this novel. The political maneuverings were funny, and interesting, and sometimes its nice to read a book where the stakes are something small like winning a local election rather than saving the world. I related to the town, and to the characters, and the suburban struggles they dealt with.

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