True Statement!
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Puzzle Me This!
Maybe you remember my post of my “Bizzare Bookshop” puzzle earlier? Here’s a picture of it; it is now hanging on my bedroom wall.
I also had two more puzzles to complete. I love puzzles almost as much as I love books, so to be able to do puzzles of books is a-m-a-z-i-n-g for me! Ravensburger makes the best puzzles, ever. And believe you me, I have done my fair share of puzzles.
The next one is finished, and hanging on my bedroom wall. This one is “World of Words”. This took less than a week.
The one in progress is “Sanctuary of Knowledge”, which is taking me already two weeks….I did this one last year and one of my girls took it and put it in their room. Fair enough. I have just really been struggling to sit down and work on this: holidays, back to work, MBA classes started……
And the toughest, but my favorite Ravensburger puzzle? “The Last Supper”. A very close friend of mine from church bought this for me and my girls. 3000 pieces. Took us all 6 weeks to complete it but it has been hanging on my kitchen wall for over two years and I love looking at this. Every. Single. Day.
What do you think? Are you a puzzle solver?
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What-The-Dickens: AKA The Tooth Fairy
Are You Familiar With Gregory Maguire? Have you read Wicked? If you have, then you’ve read Gregory Maguire. Being a huge Wizard of Oz fan, I have of course enjoyed all of the books in the Wicked Series (Except the last one, I haven’t read that yet). Gregory Maguire has a way of taking common fairy tales that we are all familiar with, or other stories we think we know, and giving them his own unique twist; taking you on a journey you never expected.
Do you like Cinderella? You want to read “Confessions of an Ugly Step-Sister”.
How about Snow White? Then you would love “Mirror, Mirror”.
“What-the-Dickens” is a story about the tooth-fairy. It revolves around Dinah Ormsby, her older brother Zeke, their 2 year old sister Rebecca Ruth, and their just showed up on their doorstep distant cousin Gage. There isn’t a definite time frame, or year that this book seems to be set in. The back story on the family is the parents disappeared, Gage shows up. On page 5 we read that “the Ormsby’s were trying the experiment of living by gospel standards, and they hoped to be surer of their faith tomorrow than they’d been yesterday”. This is also a family who lives with no cable television, internet service, or visits to the mall.
This isn’t your run-of-the-mill tooth-fairy either. He is what would be called a Skibbereen, or Skibberee. “His arm webs were filmy, nearly transparent, and his skin was suggestible, like water. I suppose his circulation worked on a capillary system; his coloring could shift from pale to dark and many shades in between” (pg. 20). He sounds kind of like a dragon fly to me.
So are you interested? Good. Because I have just started this book, and “What-the-Dickens” (yes, that is his name) seems like he has a lot of trouble coming his way. I can’t wait to share it with you!
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Unwholly – Neal Shusterman
This book started pretty much where Unwind left off; and I appreciate the fact that the author does not cover every single detail from the first book.
Conner is now running the Graveyard, and they are down to about 700 teens. The age limit for unwinding also got lowered to the age of 17, which means thousands of 17 year olds at harvest camps had to be released.
There now appears to be a shortage of organs, and tissue, so children are now being kidnapped and sold on the black market. The Juvey Cops (that is what they are called in the story) are well aware of the Graveyard, but have a very good reason for leaving the kids there alone.
Supply and Demand
The powers that be can charge enormous fees for body parts while there is a perceived shortage. They want the AWOL teens to stay in the Graveyard, or they will have to lower their selling costs.
And then there is the advertising campaign. One such ad as in the book:
“When Billy’s behavior became too much for us to bear, and we began to fear for our own safety, we did the only humane thing. We sent him to harvest camp, so he could find fulfillment in a divided state. But now, with an age restriction preventing seventeen-year-olds from being unwound, we wouldn’t have had that choice. Just last week a seventeen-year-old girl in our neighborhood got drunk, crashed her car, and killed two innocent people. Would it still have happened if her parents could have chosen to send her to harvest camp? You tell me.” VOTE YES ON PROP 46! End the Cap-17 law, and lift the ban on late teen unwinding! Paid for by Citizens for a Wholesome Tomorrow. (Shusterman, N. 2012, pg 36).
And I thought all of the political advertising was ridiculous!
As for Risa and Lev, they are both still a huge part of this second book; Risa dealing with feeling abandoned by Conner, and Lev being worshipped by everyone for being the “clapper” that didn’t clap. (Clappers are teens who have their blood mixed with explosives, and basically do a suicide mission by clapping their hands, where detonators are implanted, and killing themselves and everyone in the vicinity).
This book has kept me just as interested as the first story did, and I hope to have this finished by tomorrow.
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Tuesday’s Thought For The Day!
Some of my favorite books are thought of as “children’s books.” OK, the majority of my favorite books are!
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“The Race” Review, Richard North Patterson
For being a political story written around a presidential election, I really enjoyed this book. I do not tend to lead toward politically-centered books, but this book seemed to have the right mix of everything. Corey Grace, the main character, went through numerous challenges to stick to his morals, while two other contenders fighting for the Republican nomination played less than fair, and nowhere near honest enough. There were certain aspects of this story, where “buying” votes was basically main stage and every day occurrences, that I truly wonder how often this goes on, because I know it does, at least to some extent. The back dealing of if we get this states votes, we will have this person, but lose this other state’s votes.
The story remained exciting without getting weighed down by too many details that weren’t necessary. There was a romantic twist, without being vulgar; just enough information to hold your attention, and have you rooting for Corey Grace to have a romance that works for him.
Although I am not likely to read this book again, as it isn’t my normal type of book, I would definitely recommend it to anyone to read. You do not have to be a political expert to follow the plots that are going on, and it is certainly a page-turner.
Next I think I am recycling a book because I am pretty sure that was the last book on my shelf that I haven’t read.
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Tuesday’s Thought For The Day!
True statement for me! Barnes and Noble loves seeing me walk through the door. Happy Reading!
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