Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs?: Big Questions from Tiny Mortals About Death - Caitlin Doughty

Review:

For my second Transformation I'm turning Baker Street Irregulars into Black Cat.The books that could have fit Baker Street all ended up as something else. And this has such a perfect cat on the cover.

 

It's all perfect, really. The art features a girl and a skeleton, minimalist, just a tad creepy, but also adorable. Which is pretty much the same as the text. It's fascinating what questions kids ask, and Doughty is clear and accurate in a casual, slightly snarky tone. The answers are age-appropriate for even quite young children because there's nothing scary: it's all the debunking of scary, really.

 

Really entertaining and clever. Now I'm eager to read her other books.

 

And this gives me my second and third bingo on my way to blackout. (top left to bottom right diagonal and last column)

Original post: Defenestraethe.booklikes.com/post/1978734/will-my-cat-eat-my-eyeballs-big-questions-from-tiny-mortals-about-death-caitlin-doughty

Up and down the Scratchy Mountains - Laurel Snyder, Greg Call

Review:

Fairy tales must be hard to write so few people ever manage to produce a good one. There are many retellings, of course, particularly popular in YA, but few new ones. Snyder does an excellent job of getting the tone right: close enough to respect the conventions, but with enough of modern sensibility to avoid sounding fake.So sure, there's some magical transportation to keep things moving, but a realistic evaluation of the boredom and discomfort of travel.

 

There's some mystery, some menace, inflexible tradition, and motherless kids setting off for adventure. There is some silliness, but the children are taken seriously for their concerns and needs and desires.

 

Charming and a little corny, but never smarmy. Not too scary for preschoolers, but better for the 5 and ups.

 

Library copy

 

Original post: Defenestraethe.booklikes.com/post/1978731/up-and-down-the-scratchy-mountains-laurel-snyder-greg-call

Lyra's Oxford - Philip Pullman, John Lawrence

Review:

More books should be published in small editions with illustrations.

 

Lyra is a bit much in The Golden Compass; Will was my favorite character in that series. But over the years she's really grown on me.

 

This is just a short visit to check up on her well after the events of His Dark Materials are past. Her life is different and she is changed. But it's lovely to see her back in Oxford, in her natural element, up to at least some of her old tricks.

 

Plus, who doesn't like to imagine what their daemon would be?

 

And in joyful news, this little book gave me a bingo! And now it'll likely be at least one bingo with every book I finish.

 

I made a mistake: there should be a Bustopher on Full Moon. That's the one I transformed to New Release for Emergency Skin.

Original post: Defenestraethe.booklikes.com/post/1978705/lyra-s-oxford-philip-pullman-john-lawrence

Reading progress update: I've read 50%.

Thanks to Obsidian Blue, Chris' Fish Place, and Char's Horror Corner!!! (That's an exclamation point for each of you.This is so good!

Original post: Defenestraethe.booklikes.com/post/1973275/reading-progress-update-i-ve-read-50

The Imp of the Perverse

 

I'm enjoying seeing how close to a blackout I can get without a bingo.

Original post: Defenestraethe.booklikes.com/post/1973272/the-imp-of-the-perverse

Lies Sleeping - Ben Aaronovitch

Review:

Disclaimer: there's not a lot of vampires in this, but a key element nonetheless. For some reason I'm really bent on sticking to my squares as they are, without transformations. Probably that will change.

 

So we get to see Peter Grant dealing with a very modern problem and I quite liked that. More Folly, more ghosts, more gods, more big bad, but really, don't much care. That last, I mean. I enjoyed it enormously for all the reasons I mentioned re Hanging Tree and I'm almost certain to keep reading as long as Aaronovitch keeps writing them. His cast is growing so huge that he could write easily feature other characters as leads, the way he does in the stories, and that would be fun, too.

 

Library copy

Original post: Defenestraethe.booklikes.com/post/1973235/lies-sleeping-ben-aaronovitch

The Hanging Tree - Ben Aaronovitch

Review:

This one wasn't going to get reviewed. As soon as I'd finished it I started in on the next one. And by the time I'd got to the end of that I couldn't even remember the plot. Well, a week later I still couldn't, so I looked.

 

And that's when it hit me: although there is plot that isn't why I read them. They're cozies. The mystery itself isn't the point. I read them because I like Peter's snarky voice, and his relationship with his immediate and extended family; his alternate family at the Folly: both the unusual denizens of the house, but also his magical and nonmagical police associates; plus, too, there's the snug domesticity with his girlfriend and then her whole extended family. I like all the scientific questions that Peter asks about magic, and the experiments he comes up with as well as the tools, the sheer geekiness of him. I like how we're reminded that policework is all about evidence and grinding routine, even as there's always an opportunity for Peter to jump in with something brave and disastrously dangerous. And like everyone else, I appreciate seeing some of the millions of non-white and non-wealthy residents of London. And then too, there's rather a lot about food.

 

Really the only way it doesn't fit the archetype of Cozy in my head is that the lead isn't a woman, which isn't an assumption I was aware of before now.

 

 

Library copy

Original post: Defenestraethe.booklikes.com/post/1973234/the-hanging-tree-ben-aaronovitch

The Duchess of Malfi - John Webster

Review:

Having just brushed up my Shakespeare I was more-than-usually susceptible to a mention in another book: Sleeping Murder. Since the original publication date is more than 400 years ago, it is quite easy to find a free copy. Total instant gratification!

***

The saucy Duchess just popped again, as an epigraph in Silent in the Sanctuary, a book with quite a bit of Shakespeare as well.

***

Curiosity is satisfied, but I did not love it.

***

After pondering some more: it's all very one dimensional. At the very beginning we are introduced to all the bad guys. We are told and shown that they are bad guys. Bad guys put out a hit on their sister, her second husband, and their four children. For the money. And then the hitman decides to go after the bad guys for revenge. Lots of murder, sure, but no jokes, no reversals, no mystery, only one character ever changes course and no very satisfying motivation is ever given. Without good special effects, which you don't get in a script, there isn't anything else of interest. You'd have to really love going to the theater, or be a superfan of some actor, to be anything more than horribly disappointed after sitting though it. All that murder and yet, boring. The only interesting thing here is that this script didn't disappear.

personal copy

Original post: Defenestraethe.booklikes.com/post/1973232/the-duchess-of-malfi-john-webster

Haunted House Mini-Edition - Jan Pieńkowski

Review:

Just as I have Christmas books that I break out and read every year in November and December, I have this one book that I read every year as part of my All Hallow's Read/Halloween Bingo/spoopy-months celebration (spooky-adjacent sorts of things that aren't scary but are amusing).

 

This is something I picked up lo! these many years ago, because of course part of the Halloween observance is giving seasonally-appropriate books. They lost interest in it ages ago, but the mix of expected (skeleton in the closet) and unexpected (octopus washing dishes) still it delights me every year. And amazingly, hardly any of the moving bits came off or tore. Some of my September and October reads are re-reads, but the only other piece I return to very often is Click-Clack the Rattlebag, the audio version read by Neil Himself.

 

Personal copy

Original post: Defenestraethe.booklikes.com/post/1973227/haunted-house-mini-edition-jan-pienkowski