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This Is Your Life, Harriet Chance

Book Notes Written with a loving hand by kitt some time around 17:12 on 24 January 2018

Mom recommended this book to me after I finished A Man Called Ove. What I didn't understand immediately was why Mom kept recommending to me books where the spouse had recently died. Now, I'm pretty sure she's been recommending them to me because they are light, but they also show how there's more after the sorrow of that parting.

This book smacks of Defending Your Life (1991 movie starring Albert Brooks) with its telling of the life of Harriet Chance nee Nathan. The story-line bounces from current time, back to when she was a year old, and all the way through all the times she failed to choose herself during life. We hear of how again, and again, and again, Harriet's deferment to authority and others causes her to become smaller and smaller.

And you know what? It's is hard not to defer to authority. Some people can. Most people cannot.

The story is about redemption, how one can forgive, and how one can choose a different path, no matter when in life that choice is made. I found out this was the point of the story not through the story, but through the author's note at the end. And the study notes. Why do books include study notes at the end?

The book was cute, but I really couldn't get past the Defending Your Life ("NINE DAYS!") feel of it. I kept waiting for the trial at the end, or the movie screens, or an explanation about the Candidate and Chancellor stuff with Bernard. Didn't happen, seemed odd.

I don't recommend this book. If you're a fan of the author, sure. Otherwise, skip it.

Girls Made of Snow and Glass

Book Notes Yeah, kitt finished writing this at 21:48 on 11 January 2018

I so wanted to like this book. I so wanted this book to be magical. I so wanted this book to transform me. Alas.

GIrls Made of Snow and Glass is a retelling of the Snow White fairy tale. It is cleverly done, with all the characters in place, but with many dimensions to and insights of the characters.

And that's where the story lost me. The story has many words dedicated to the internal beliefs, the internal turmoil, the internal confusion of the two main characters and their limiting beliefs that I read probably three times my already fast clip just to get through yet another sob story about how one can't be loved and the other doesn't want to be her dead mother. We see the agony of the inner turmoil through the actions of the secondary characters, the fears of a father who has lost his wife, the greed of a powerful man who has lost his health, the desire for home and family of a young woman who lost both too young, the yearning to understand of a construct thrust into life and allowed the freedom to grow. Not the two main characters though, we're forced to endure every little "I can't be loved," "My father is cruel, but I can't break free of him," "My father is loving, but I need to breathe," "He's perfect, perfect eyes, perfect teeth, perfect hair." No wait, that last one was the crap Twilight series.

Much of the growth of the characters happens suddenly, just at the right time needed to yield a happy ending. I read too many happy endings. I'm glad for this one, yay happy ending when I need something uplifting, though I'm more likely to move to a technical book next. This one was too much angst. It's a fan rating.

The Last Battle

Book Notes Instead of being asleep at 09:14 on 27 December 2017, kitt created this:

This is Book 7 of The Chronicles of Narnia.

I think this book should have been titled Further Up and Further In to be honest, what with the sixty page denouement after the Last Battle.

I have to say, this book was a lot more obvious in the allegorical sledgehammer department. Hey, look, there's a false god. Hey, look, there's a greedy, manipulating, ape of a man who twists and turns the word of God^H^H^HAslan for his own purposes. Hey, look, there are a bunch of people cowed by the words of said ape of a man! Hey, look, there are people who think for themselves! Hey, look, there's the kingdom of heaven. Hey, look, there's a literal Gate.

The Sledgehammer of Allegorical Christ didn't lessen at all during this book. There are the Dwarves who turned away from God, refusing to believe. There is also the lesson that, welllllllll, if you didn't really know the Christian God, but were good and steadfast and trustworthy, then, hey, whatever god you prayed to was a valid substitute, and you can still come into Heaven.

The ending of this book, though, wow, they all died in the end. Though, really, that's kinda the point, no?

The book was a fast read. I'm happy to have read the series. I'm not likely read it again.

“Kiss me, Jewel,” he said. “For certainly this is our last night on earth. And if ever I offended against you in any matter great or small, forgive me now.”
Page 123

Waking Gods

Book Notes Written with a loving hand by kitt some time around 22:21 on 24 December 2017

This is book 2 of The Themis Files.

I enjoyed the first book enough to read the second book, and this was the second book. It starts about a decade after the last one ended, where everyone has pretty much become used to having a large (like 200' large), alien robot hanging out on the world doing book readings and press conferences.

And then another robot shows up and starts killing everyone.

The book moved at a more frenetic pace than the first one did, which is reasonable given the first one needed to world-build and this one can coast along on those words. Not everyone dies in the end, and we don't see enough of the characters we saw in the first one, and the rough edges have been smoothed off everyone's personality, all which contributed to this being a typical sophomoric book: less good than the first, but sufficient.

There's one more book in the series, coming out in May, which I'll read. I think this book is better experienced on audiobook, to be honest.

Military people — people like me — need intelligence to be useful. We need to know what’s going on. Without intelligence, take my word for it, you do not want your fate in the hands of the military. We do not improvise.
Page 18

Scientists are like children: They always want to know everything, they all ask too many questions, and they never follow orders to the letter.
Page 18

— Do you remember what you told me the second time around to get me to take this job?

— I do.

— You said: “I found you a military post where you’ll never have to kill anyone ever again.”

The Lady and the Monk

Book Notes Posted by kitt at 17:25 on 8 October 2017

Again (and again), when a dear friend offers you a book to read, you read it, especially when said friend says, "This book reminds me of us."

I, unfortunately, left this book in my reading pile too long, and Moazam bought himself another copy. Or maybe fortunately, because I now have my own copy.

The book is the tale of Iyer's adventure in Japan to learn about Zen Buddhism "from the inside" while living in a monastery, along with his meeting Sachiko and their subsequent friendship. It is also about seeing a world the way you wish it to be, innocent and unmarred by pain, instead of grounded in a perhaps ugly reality.

Iyer's writing evokes the mood of his surroundings, of his experience, of the world around him, in a way that pulls the reader in. One can almost smell the cherry blossoms, feel the weight of the air heavy with water before the rain, the sounds of the city sleeping but not quite, the silence of the monastery, the disquiet energy of his companions seeking quiet in a place it can't be found.

I enjoyed the book. It wasn't a book I would have chosen for myself, which makes it a good choice by Moazam.

Many of them, he said, had wearied of the worldly aspects of the monastic life - the politicking, the emphasis on sheer willpower, the need for subservience, the stress on hierarchy: all the quallities, in short, that could make temples seem just like any other affluent, rule-bound Japanese company.
Page 24

Underwood See

Book Notes Instead of being asleep at 10:00 on 29 July 2017, kitt created this:

This is book three of the Withern Rise series.

Since I enjoyed the first two books, made sense to continue with the third (and last) book, too. In the first, we have two teens swapping realities. In the second, we have them flying into four distinct timelines. I suspect the author thought, "Well, how do I top that well enough not to have to write another book in this series? I know! An infinite number of timelines!" Which is what we managed to find in this one.

Of said infinite timelines, we managed to follow only a half dozen or so. The Alaric in several of them (yes, the several Alarics that exist) hold true to his core personality traits of wanting something and regretting the choices, which is completely human. Naia manages to figures stuff out in the end, but Adolus? Totally steals the show.

I enjoyed the books enough to pass them along to Anya. No idea if she'll read them.

There was something about this man that calmed her. Warmed her. She knew what it was. He liked her. Simple as that. He liked her. No ulterior motive. She wasn't sure how rare that was, but it touched her.
Page 198

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