Sunday, April 25, 2010

Y.S.K.O.V.

You Shall Know Our Velocity!
This is a novel by the wonderful Dave Eggers. The basic premise is this: the main character, Will, came into quite a bit of money by doing virtually nothing and he doesn't want it. One of his best friends since childhood, Jack, just died and, in addition, Will was just badly beaten up, leaving his face all gruesome looking. Will and his other best friend, Hand, decide to go around the world and give all the money away, but they only have a week to do it. I will let you know that this is not one of those books where they get to the first place and decide, "Actually, let's just stay here." They really do go several places.

The plot is not gripping, but that doesn't really bother me. The characters are amazing and the writing is beautiful. I love the character of Will. Basically, the whole book is just an extended look into his head and it's fascinating. The middle was the best part. I think it fizzled out a little bit at the end. Not that the end was bad, the middle was just better. Overall, if you're looking for gorgeous, quality writing with interesting characters, I fully recommend this book. 8.5 pretzel bites!
KAY

Michael Crichton





Airframe AND Timeline by: Michael Crichton


So i got both these books at a used bookstore about 4 months ago and didn't read them either until about two weeks ago. Then I blazed through both of them.



So: I have learned that Crichton tends toward starting his books with a few people that you never meet again. In this case its a couple who are hunting rugs in New mexico and they find a crazy old man in the desert who only talks in rymes. Next, they logically take the crazy guy to a hospital. He promptly dies as all of his organs fail on him. Cut to some Harvard researchers in the French Dordogne river region, where they are doing some archaeological dig for some medieval buildings. The private company they are being funded by suddenly calls in the leading proffesor. Buisness continues as usual


until the team uncovers an underground room and find a centuries old scroll with the proffesors handwritting on it. The rest of the researchers demand answers from the company. The company then reveals that it has acces to quantum time traveling equipment and the proffesor has been trapped in the past. So the rest of the researchers of course have to go back and save him. I liked the book well. It was about a good and contoversial subject. But I swear Crichton must have taken whole college courses on each book he wrote because he has such a wealth of knowledge on each subject that he writes about. It is a bit rediculous.
Finnal rating:
7 pretzel bites
Fun fact i wrote a book review of this for my teacher for extra credit and he though I didnt actually read the book. Really Mr. Weber?





Airframe Review: So as mentioned before this book starts off with a couple of people we never meet or hear from again. They are are on an airplane that experiences some "difficulties". The rest of the book is just the company trying to figure out what the heck happened. I cant tell you much more because it pretty much all important. Now i know everything about 1980s flight procedures and the FCC. Its pretty interesting and i had a hard time putting it down toward the end.
I give it a
8 pretzel bites

TEE

Sunday, April 4, 2010

She's so dead to us

She's So Dead to Us
This book, by Kieran Scott, is in the vein of such books as the A-list series and the Clique series, and I would imagine that if you liked those books, you'd like this one as well. The basic plot is this: formerly rich Ally Ryan suddenly had to leave town when her father caused her friends' families to lose millions. Now Ally's father is M.I.A., and she's moving back to her old town to live in a crappy condo and face the girls who used to be her friends. She returns to discover that a boy named Jake is now living in her old house and hanging out with her old friends. Ally likes Jake. Jake likes Ally. Ally's former friends do not like Ally and don't want Jake to be with her. Drama ensues.

I feel a little bit bad because we got this book specially from our friends and I didn't even really like it that much. The exposition seemed a little blocky. The characters were not as complex as I would have liked them to be. The plot was interesting, and I'm a little embarrassed to admit it, but I did get really caught up in it in the middle. Overall, though, I prefer my light reading to have just a bit more substance than this novel did. I will also warn you that it's meant to be part of a series, which means that at the end, nothing is resolved. There's just a huge cliffhanger. I give this book 6.5 pretzel bites.
KAY