Wednesday, September 10, 2008

A Happy Hippo and Not-so Angst Ridden Teens

Just a few book reviews today. I wanted to get this down and I'm still recovering from a bug that's had me wiped out and zomboid of late, so no great insights that you'd care to hear (though Fringe looks tres cool) - just books.

Book #19 - Moomin: The complete Tove Jansson Comic Strip by Tove Jansson. So the Moomins aren't exactly hippos, but they do kinda' look like them. The crazy characters in these comics are always up to something extra-ordinary. But Moomin would rather have a sedentary existence - "I only want to live in peace, plant potatoes, and dream!" - Ahhhh, doesn't that sound nice? I could use a bit of that myself right now....

Come on, they look a bit hippo-ish wouldn't you say? (Photo by Ksu on igougo Helsinki)

Book #20 - Twilight by Stephenie Meyer. I promised I'd keep an open mind when trying this and I rather hate that I come off sounding like a book snob, but I just did not care for the style and I thought the story very poorly developed. The prose reminded me of the stories of sarcastic princes and tough talking young ladies that I wrote in high school. The characters weren't well developed - I really didn't care about any of them. Teen angst, much alluded to, was extremely wimpy. Drama and suspense, not a ton. After I finished, I found myself building out the story, rewriting it, adding characters, depth and backstory in an attempt to make it whole - but struggling with the lack of starting material. So it did linger, but not because I wanted to be with the characters longer, to live the story withe them, as with many of the books I love, just trying to fix it. A miss on my list.

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