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Here are some more mini reviews of books. I’m going in order of when I read them.

First up: A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

This was recommended to me by someone who said it was one of his favorite books, or one of the best books he’d ever read, or something like that. Highly recommended. I dont know where I’d place it on my rankings, but it did not disappoint.

I have not seen the movie Forrest Gump, but I have seen Mr. Holland’s Opus which I think is the same style of story. And I would put this book in that category. There is the style of story that is a “slice of life” but this is not just a slice, we follow the main character through the majority of his life. There is not really a plot, until later in the book. I’ve seen Napoleon Dynamite, so I know how sometimes a thing without a plot might be annoying or useless, but in this case it is not missed.

Next up: The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle

I had read one of Mr. Beagle’s later books last year, and I quite enjoyed it. I was browsing the library and found this book by him, which happens to be one of his earlier works.

This was a bit different in the writing style, but it is the only book I can think of where I kept reading it for the writing and not the story. The story was fine, but it was secondary to the writing. Two bits stood out to me, then one more caught my attention.

The first one was the phrase “wind that tasted like nails”. I thought it was a good way to describe things. Made me stop and think about it, what the air was like. I have inadvertantly tasted nails, via the standard method of holding a nail in one’s mouth whilst arranging the nailee in place.

The second phrase was about a lady who was no longer in the flower of her youth, and Mr. Beagle described her as having “gone to seed”. That one also made me stop and think about what flowers do after their blooms are spent.

And then one more that caught my attention, not because of how it made me stop and think – because it didn’t – but rather because it had been used (albeit slightly modified) as the title of a recent movie.

“Everything,” he answered her, “everything, all at once.”

And I searched the internet for “everything everything all at once” to see this book is credited as the origin of that phrase, and the internet seemed intent on showing me only results for the movie. And then I put quotes around the phrase so it would search only for that phrase, and it said there were no results. So I’m putting the phrase “everything, everything all at once” here in this blog post so that the internet will be able to report that the phrase originated in the book The Last Unicorn.

And the Red Bull is a character in this book, years before there was a company by that name. But I’m not going to try to take on the internet for that one.

Next up: Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

Given the hype around the movie, I knew approximately what the book was about. But having seen only the trailers and not the whole movie, I didn’t know much about what actually happens in the story. It was generally fine, but it was more adult-oriented than I expected, and also darker in some parts. Certainly not recommended for kids.

Next up: The Icebound Land by John Flanagan

I was a big fan of the original Ranger’s Apprentice book, and would recommend that to just about anyone. The sequel was similar. In this third book, however, I noticed some worse language creeping in, in the form of mild oaths and epithets. And some other things made me peg this as a PG-13 rating, compared to just PG for the previous two.

And just like book 2, this book also ends with a non-ending, so that you’ll have to read book 4.

Last up: The Unwanteds by Lisa M. Mann

I don’t remember how I found this book, but I liked it. It was almost the perfect middle-grade fiction book, as it had only a hint of romance and cartoon-type violence. The “almost” comes into play near the end of the book when the violence changes from cartoon to actual.

slight spoiler alert
There are two deaths on screen
and two off screen
end spoiler alert

It is a series, but I am not starting book 2 because book 1 ended well enough that I can leave it there.

That’s it for this review. More book reviews coming up later this year.

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