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The Cats of Tanglewood Forest by Charles de Lint
Rating: 3/okay(1-5/hated-loved)
It's fun writing a review of an awful book, and reviewing books I love makes me happy. Writing about books I'm indifferent about is more like a chore.
There was nothing good or bad about this book. The writing was boring, but I belatedly realized this was a children's book instead of a YA or adult, so that explains that. The story was fine, but had no real ups or downs.
The story was set in either earlier times and/or some alternate Earth. It's unimportant which, but basically it was a time with no technology and supernatural things (spirits, fairies) existed though aren't well known or believed in by most. A little girl (orphaned) lived in the mountains with her aunt. One day the girl got bit by a snake and was dying. The cats of the forest, magical animals, decided to save her.
The only way to save her was to turn her into something that wasn't dying, so they made her a kitten. Of course she didn't want to be a kitten, so blah blah blah, she got sent on quest after quest to try to turn things back as they were.
I liked all the elements of the story, but it never felt like there was any real risk or danger to the main character. (Though I guess that's understandable, since the target audience was young.)
Unfortunately the title and description of the book were quite misleading: The cats were barely mentioned, other than appearing to turn her into a kitten (and she didn't stay a kitten for long). This was not a story about cats at all.
The downside of reading this on a Kindle instead of iPad: The book had illustrations, which supposedly were beautiful. On the iPad, I could have expanded them to full size so I could see them, but there seemed to be no way to do that with the Kindle (and even if they were, the screen is so small the pictures could only be widened so far).
Next up: A book that might be really, really bad or (hopefully) good. Snow Blood, a story about a dog turned into a vampire, told from the dog's point of view.
---
Community: I finally finished all five seasons. Loved season one, season two was pretty darned bad, seasons three and four were no different than any other TV sitcom (thus bad), but season five rocked.
Why, if they could pull the show out of the tailspin and make season five as good as season one, didn't they do it sooner? Anyway, if you haven't watched it yet and are planning to, I'd suggest going straight from season one to season five and skipping two, three, and four.
I did like how it ended, but my experience as a whole was soured by those middle seasons that I had to force myself to get through. Also, I think this was a case where the show would benefit from watching one episode a week instead of multiple per day. The "quirky" nature of a number of characters really got on my nerves when I was exposed to them for so long.
Rating: 3/okay(1-5/hated-loved)
It's fun writing a review of an awful book, and reviewing books I love makes me happy. Writing about books I'm indifferent about is more like a chore.
There was nothing good or bad about this book. The writing was boring, but I belatedly realized this was a children's book instead of a YA or adult, so that explains that. The story was fine, but had no real ups or downs.
The story was set in either earlier times and/or some alternate Earth. It's unimportant which, but basically it was a time with no technology and supernatural things (spirits, fairies) existed though aren't well known or believed in by most. A little girl (orphaned) lived in the mountains with her aunt. One day the girl got bit by a snake and was dying. The cats of the forest, magical animals, decided to save her.
The only way to save her was to turn her into something that wasn't dying, so they made her a kitten. Of course she didn't want to be a kitten, so blah blah blah, she got sent on quest after quest to try to turn things back as they were.
I liked all the elements of the story, but it never felt like there was any real risk or danger to the main character. (Though I guess that's understandable, since the target audience was young.)
Unfortunately the title and description of the book were quite misleading: The cats were barely mentioned, other than appearing to turn her into a kitten (and she didn't stay a kitten for long). This was not a story about cats at all.
The downside of reading this on a Kindle instead of iPad: The book had illustrations, which supposedly were beautiful. On the iPad, I could have expanded them to full size so I could see them, but there seemed to be no way to do that with the Kindle (and even if they were, the screen is so small the pictures could only be widened so far).
Next up: A book that might be really, really bad or (hopefully) good. Snow Blood, a story about a dog turned into a vampire, told from the dog's point of view.
---
Community: I finally finished all five seasons. Loved season one, season two was pretty darned bad, seasons three and four were no different than any other TV sitcom (thus bad), but season five rocked.
Why, if they could pull the show out of the tailspin and make season five as good as season one, didn't they do it sooner? Anyway, if you haven't watched it yet and are planning to, I'd suggest going straight from season one to season five and skipping two, three, and four.
I did like how it ended, but my experience as a whole was soured by those middle seasons that I had to force myself to get through. Also, I think this was a case where the show would benefit from watching one episode a week instead of multiple per day. The "quirky" nature of a number of characters really got on my nerves when I was exposed to them for so long.
