"After her father, Nate, is released from prison, shy 11-year-old Polly joins him on the lam to escape the white supremacist group that has marked her for death." So essentially a re-write of True Grit. Got it. Yawn. Jordan Harper is the perfect name for the author of this story. Either that or Harper Jordan.
Monday, November 1, 2021
Summer at Hideaway Key by Barbara Davis
This whole title is a turn-off. Hideaway Key? Summer at this key? No thanks! "After inheriting her father’s quaint beach house, Lily unearths old journals that reveal surprising family secrets" No, it's not a surprise. It's entirely predictable because all these stories are exactly the same "...and embarks on her own journey of self-discovery." What, she didn't already know she existed? Wow. What a dumb-ass. Diane Chamberlain, whoever the fuck she is, says, "A story that moved me to tears." It would have the same effect on me, but I doubt for the same reason. Yawn.
Gone Again by James Grippando
"After a teenage girl disappears, Dylan is arrested when a piece of her clothing is found in his truck. It seems his fate is sealed — until Sashi’s mother claims to receive a call from her missing daughter… Can lawyer Jack prove a man’s innocence before he’s put to death?" How is he going to be convicted on one flimsy piece of evidence? This is the dumbest thing since the last novel this author wrote. And no, innocence does not have to be proved - guilt does! And the cliché of having Jack as your go-to character? Tired. Very tired. Yawn.
Boy Banned by RJ Scott
"When they both fail to qualify for Sing UK, Corey and Angel are given a chance to perform together in a boy band. But is it worth sacrificing who they are in order to achieve their dreams?" This author writes like there isn't a thriving community of performers self-releasing songs and putting up videos all over the Internet, where people get noticed, get acclaim, get contracts, get wealthy. What a maroon! Yawn.
Thorn Jack by Katherine Harbour
"When 17-year-old Finn moves to the sleepy town of Fair Hollow, she’s inexplicably drawn to enigmatic Jack" Again with the Jack-ass! It's jacked-up! It should be illegal to ever again use the name 'Jack' as the 'go to' lad in adventure stories. it's time to jack it in. It's been fucking done-to-death. Stop. Please stop! Get a clue. Try something original for once in your sorry life. I know you think it's a safe, Harbour, but it really isn't. This jack of all trades is a jack-off.
Sex and Vanity by Kevin Kwan
"When Lucie meets George on vacation, she can’t stand him — but something keeps pulling them together." Of course it does because you know the most natural and longlasting relationships on Earth are between people who have nothing on common and can't stand each other. And they never end up murdering each other. Barf.
Black Ocean Galaxy Outlaws Mission Pack 1 Missions 1–4 by JS Morin
"A box set" - so where's the box? There's no box here. "...of rollicking space missions" See? It's that 'rollicking' that turns me right off, but it gets worse. "Aboard the starship Mobius," Oh how cute! "Captain Carl Ramsey and his ragtag crew" See? ragtag. Right there. They're a rollicking ragtag crew. Where did this book blurb writer get their training? The International Retreaded Cliché School (IRCS for short)? Barf. This is a no-no. Black ocean might seem like a cool metaphor for space, but the ocean, as traveled by your everyday pirate ship, is a two-dimensional world. Space is not, and way too many sci-fi writers, especially in the universe of space operas, forget that far too readily. There's no reason whatsoever to think this will be any different - not with that tired and uninventive book blurb.
Brit vs Scot by Anna Durand
"His brother’s destination wedding at a nudist resort gives Grey Dixon time to win over the woman of his dreams - his best friend, Jessica O’Connor." And why would he need time to win her over when she's his best friend already? Another dumb-as-fuck non-romance by an author who, more likely than not, has never been to Britain. The reason I say this is that she seems not to understand that 'Brit(ish)' means a national or native of the United Kingdom - which includes Scotland. So what the fuck, exactly, does the title mean?
Chef’s Kiss by Stephanie Shea
"Valentina Rosas is fresh out of culinary school, eager to prove herself at the job she just landed. Jenn Coleman is the renowned chef of two Michelin-starred restaurants. When Valentina runs into Jenn — literally — things aren’t off to a great start… but soon the kitchen isn’t the only thing heating up!" Seriously that's your book description? That's the best you got? A tediously trope non-romance because you know it's going to be all about hot bodies and sex, and not a word about any other facets of a real relationship. Barf.
Christmas Bump by Trisha Ridinger McKee
"After Winona learns she’s pregnant, she decides it’s time to leave her sheltered life behind and moves to a quaint town famous for its Christmas festival." And the father is going to...what? And how is a quaint town different from her sheltered life? Barf! "But is there room in her new routine for Cooper, the charming local she’s falling for?" Is that a serious question? This whole set-up sounds bad in every aspect.
Love Unleashed by Julie Evelyn Joyce
"Hannah Barker wants to open a new dog park," Barker? Dog park? Are you kidding me? "...but the logistics have made her rivals with Kent Clarkson," Clark Kent? Really? What a super man he must be. "...a concerned single dad." Of course he is. "Before long, they’re going at it like cats and dogs." Of course they are. "But their bickering can’t hide their growing attraction forever." Of course it can't, because this exact same story has been told and retold a billion times. Obviously the best person to hook up with is the one you detest most, because they're never going to lose it with you and kill you in your sleep. Barf.
In Her Wake by Amanda Jennings
“Hauntingly beautiful” (Clare Mackintosh) - who the fuck is Clare Mackintosh and why the hell should I care what she thinks? "After her mother’s death, Bella discovers dark family secrets that threaten all she knows — including her own identity." Yeah because that always happens when someone dies in a family - at least it does in these dumbass novels. And so frequently, too. And the secrets are always shocking or Earth-shattering! Wow! Seriously? Clone much? There's nothing new here; nothing original; nothing inventive; nothing imaginative. Yawn.
The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce
Highly unlikely, I'd say. "After receiving a letter from a dying friend, retired Englishman Harold Fry realizes he’s left some things unsaid — and so embarks on a 600-mile walk to say goodbye." Wait, his friend is dying - could pop off at any time - and this asshole walks there? I don't think I ever heard a dumber plot.
Silver Staked by Shannon Mayer, Denise Grover Swank
"Vampire hunter Lea’s world is upended when she becomes one of the bloodsuckers she was trained to kill." How is this even remotely original? And it took only two authors to write it! What an astounding achievement. Barf. And that title? Really?
Girl One Murder by Molly Black / Missed Me by Trevor Wiltzen
There is literally no difference between these two stories:
Girl One Murder by Molly Black
"When she receives a mysterious postcard promising the release of kidnapped women for every cold case she can solve, FBI special agent Maya Gray has no choice but to comply with the sender’s demands — especially because her own missing sister is one of the captives." Barf!
AND
Missed Me by Trevor Wiltzen
"As waitress and part-time private investigator Mabel Davison searches tirelessly for a woman’s missing daughter, she becomes embroiled in deadly local intrigue — and her own niece’s kidnapping raises the stakes even higher." Barf!
Hit Makers by Derek Thompson
Though the two books are unconnected, I think of this in the same light as The Song Machine by John Seabook which I favorably reviewed a short while back. This audiobook, read by the author, tells the same kind of story, but its reach is broader, going beyond music to movies, apps, and novels as well, but it's much more about how some things become popular while others do not, than it is about exactly what mechanics went into constructing something that's likely to become popular.
That said, its breadth extends only to the US borders - like there's nothing outside that's worth considering - and the book is very shallow on it's claim that it discusses "The Science of Popularity in an Age of Distraction." There's no science here. There really can't be - at least not yet, because liking or disliking something is such a whimsical, personal, popularity-based, and ultimately insubstantial thing that even crowd-sourcing it is unreliable. If you go into this as a business student, perhaps hoping to pick up some valuable marketing lessons, this book won't help you.
The book begins a hundred years ago and moves through art and design, to movies, particularly Disney, and to novels, looking at, for example, the "50 Shades of Gray" (barf!) phenomenon. The only sure conclusion is that nobody knows anything, least of all the people in the various entertainment industries who are paid the big bucks to find and promote successes. As often as not, you'd have as much success tossing a coin to decide as you would trusting these over-paid guys to make a competent prognostication. They have failed repeatedly. To give just two examples: over signing the Beatles to a record label, and over signing JK Rowling to a publisher.
Recently I was watching a Netflix show called "The Movies That Made Us" which looks at various popular movies and talks about how they got made, and in a recent season, this show looks at horror blockbusters, specifically, in three different episodes: Halloween, Friday the 13th, and Nightmare on Elm Street. I'm not a horror movie fan, but no-one can deny the success of all three of those movies and the franchises they spawned, yet not a single one of them got any backing from a major stuido, all of which thought the movies would flop.
The same thing happened to the "50 Shades" novel. It was fan fiction to begin with, based on the Twilight novel, but once the author realized it was becoming popular, she pulled it from the fan fiction site, changed it to make it an original story, and self-published it. The rest is history - but the publishing world took forever to realize what was going on! Of course, not everyone has that success, and such authors seem to be rather one note. Meyer never really left her Twilight years, and James is really only one shade. Even Rowling hasn't managed to repeat her Potter success, and it's arguable whether she could have made a decent living as a writer were it not for her pre-existing fame derived from the Potter novels.
So no, there's no scientific pathway to sucess. This would have been a different book had there been any such path, although there are enough ideas explored, and possibilities sprinkled throughout this book that it does offer some sort of potential - albeit by no means guaranteed - pathways to explore at least. I enjoyed it and learned a few things from it, so I can commend it as a worthy read.
Shadowshaper by Daniel José Older
This is your trope story of your innocent kid finding she has superpowers. The problem is that by fully a third the way through this novel, I had no idea whatsoever what her superpower was. None! At all! That was strike one. The story has the tired cliché of her being delivered to 'enlightenment' by some new guy she meets - because you know that no girl can do a damned thing on her own. That was strike two. Worse, it seemed to be going nowhere, and taking its own sweet time even about doing that, so that was strike three, and I ditched it at a third in, and moved onto something more interesting.
The main character is Sierra Santiago, a young artist (who never actually does any art) who is tasked by her grandfather with updating a fading mural painting which evidently offers some sort of protection (I guess) against some sort of a threat (I imagine), which begs the question: why didn't grandaddy get off his lazy ass and fix things in his younger years? This story is written way younger than the characters in it!
Anyway, Sierra meets the new guy in school of course, who is also an artist (who never does anything other than token art), of course, and who will be her validator. Before he even deigns to lift a finger to help her, she's accosted by a reanimated corpse (although she doesn't know it at the time) demanding answers to a question she doesn't even understand. The ridiculous name they give to the corpse is 'corpuscle' which doesn't work (neither does the name John Wick which also turned me off this story). Even then this guy Sierra befriends is really tight with information like he wants her to struggle. Some friend.
There was diversity in this story, but I don't think reviewers at this point should be giving credit to stories for being inclusionary and presenting a diverse array of characters! That should be the norm - the baseline, so I don't give extra credit for that.
The story seemed to be going around in vacuous circles and sure didn't want to tell me anything, so I said the hell with it. You want to keep the story to yourself, why even publish the freaking novel in the first place?! I can't commend this at all.
Sailing With Her Wolf by Ariel Marie
This is probably another novel I should never have embarked upon, but I liked the idea and I always hope for the best when starting a novel. Unfortunately, this one went wrong fast because of the author's focus on sex instead of upon a relationship.
I made it through the first third and quickly grew the feeling that this story was wrong-headed and not remotely appealing to me. I pressed on for a little while, hoping it would improve, but it just got worse. In the end (the end of the first third, anyway!), I DNF'd it for its obsession with sex, and the poor writing.
The story is of werewolf (or whatever the female term is, since the 'were' in werewolf, means man) named Marley, who has the sadly laughable last name of 'Gerwulf'. I mean really? Marley is lesbian and her friend Zara York, who she's known since high school, knows this. They know everything about each other. Yet never once have they connected or even talked about it, evidently, other than being BFFs.
This felt off to me, esspecailly since the book blurb insists that 'Marley's wolf' had identified Zara as her 'mate' the day they met. Yet here they are, both entering their thirties, and...Nothing. Got. Done. The blurb ridiculously says that "the urge to mate was strong," but this made zero sense, since as lesbians, they would not have the offpsring that mating implies, so whence this 'mating' urge? And if it's not mating, then why not use some other term? It felt like the author hadn't thoguht this through.
Don't get me wrong. Anyone who's read anything reasonably deep about the natural world knows that humans did not invent queer. We like to think we did, but the animal - and even plant - world had long had queer before we ever evolved. There are gay relationships all over nature; lesbian ones; bisexual ones, and even transgender arrived in nature long before humans thought they'd invented it. Hell, I just read in the news very recently that California condors have been shown to have reproduced asexually, which was not something science was aware they could do - not until now! Let's hear it for lesbian condors! Yeay!
There's nothing new under the sun, so the problem here isn't with a gay shifter relationship. It's with the 'mating compulsion' which implies a drive to produce offpsring, which will never materialize - not with each of the main characters as a biological parent. So whence this urge? What does it mean exactly? This would have been the perfect place for some self-examination by the main characters: a book like this one.
But the author never touches it! Why not? She never deals with it; never tries to explain it, and never discusses it. It's like she put this out there blindly as a wolf prerogative - a dominant wolf necessity - without thinking it through, and without even seeing the beautiful story possibilities that were here. It's like she was so obsessed with the sex that she never gave a minute's thought to the people she had created and was putting through this lackluster story. That's why this made no sense to me. It felt like a profligate waste of a glorious story opportunity - one that I am now going to have to write, and I don't even like shifter stories that much!
The blurb asks stupidly, "will Marley be able to protect Zara while resisting the call to mate" and the answer is hell no! They jump each other's bones the very first night they're stranded through the tired cliché of sharing a bed to stay warm. It's tedious. And no, there's no 'mating'. They have sex, but that's not what 'mating' implies!
So these two women set sail on a yatch, get caught in a storm which damages the engine, and shuts down all the electronics on their boat, and so they're adrift together until they get rescued. It would be the perfect place to explore a real relationship in depth, but this author sadly takes the path most traveled and therefore least interesting, and she squanders even that journey on sex scenes that read like a thesaurus of body parts. It's not erotic, not romantic, not exciting, and not entertaining, and I can't commend it at all.
Born of Water by Autumn M Birt
This was this author's self-published debut from 2012, and as such it's not awfully bad, but I could not get along with it at all, partly because the writing felt young for the age range it was supposedly aimed at. There were other reason too, which I shall go into. I can empathize, because that's about when I started self-publishing, but I have to judge a book by its content, not how much I might empathize with the author!
This is very much trope from start to - well finish, I assume, but I DNF'd this at just shy of a third in, so I can't comment on the last two-thirds, nor can I commend it based on my reading. I was offered no reason to believe the last two-thirds would be any different from the first third - otherwise I might have been tempted to read on.
The trope approach covered everything from the way the story was written, to the characters, to the romance, to the magic employed. The magic was the usual tedious 'four elements' plus a special additional one - which has been so done to death now that it's a joke: you know: air, earth, fire, water? Which are actually not elements. The additional one in this case was the ability to use all four which is not only rare, but also frowned upon. So more Air-Bender than anything else, and certainly nothing new.
The story is set in the trope world where an authority controls magic, and rather than appreciate something out of the ordinary, this author takes the trope path that it's anathema to exhibit 'alien magic' and carries a death sentence, so naturally (and more trope) one of the enforcers of these laws encounters someone who has this special snowflake magic and instead of turning her in, goes on the run with her and three of her friends.
That wouldn't have been so bad except that it then became a tedious case of endless fleeing; from one port to another and always running into trouble, never getting even a hint of a break. It became boring to read because every arrival at every port was essentially fraught with the same peril. Yawn!
As if that wasn't bad enough, a really poorly-written 'romance' begans stirring between Niri, the main enforcer character, and some dude who was with them, maybe named Ty? I forget. All of these charcters wre really enimently forgettable. But the romance was so slapped together and pasted on that it was pointless, and not worth reading. Instead of it seemingly arising organically, it felt like the author had forced it into being because she felt there had to be a romance - more trope. Gods forbid that there should be a leading female character in a YA novel who can get by without a male to prop her up. Yawn. I didn't like it.
The title of this novel should have warned me off it. Comparisons with Sarah Maas and Anne McCaffery should have warned me off, but I didn't listen and I paid the price of wasting my valuable time on it. That's how it goes. But at least in a couple of months I'll be through reviewing books foever, and I won't have to waste more time on a book I DNF'd by having to pen a review for it! So there's that!
Atom Land by Jon Butterworth
I usually like to favorably review science books that I read, because I usually enjoy them and I learn something. Once in a while my instincts fail me and I end up with a book that didn't do the trick. This, I am sorry to report, was one such book.
Now you can try to make a case, if you wish for books about physics and in particular about sub-atomic physics (see what I did there: sub-atomic - particular?!) to be poor choices for listening to in audiobook form, while commuting, but I disagree. I've enjoyed a variety of non-fiction books, including some pretty heavy (for a layman) science books, and not felt like I've missed anything critical. I can't say the same for this book, which I felt took the wrong approach - or maybe it wasn't so bad an approach, but it was definitely one with which the author became far too enamored, for I felt that his attachment to the metaphor he'd chosen, took the book slowly downhill and made the concepts a lot denser than they needed to be.
On top of that, there are things in books that don't translate well to audiobooks - especially things in science books. I don't want to be read a formula that I can't see, nor do I need a fraction to be quoted to a dozen or more decimal places with a host of tedious zeroes, much less several in siuccession. It's just annoying.
The approach this author used was the metaphor of the world of the atom, with boats sailing from ports to other ports in the various lands on this world, and journeys by air or overland to various places within each territory. I can see why such a metaphor might appear to make sense to a writer, but just because it made sense to this author doesn't necessarily mean it will appeal to everyone or make it any more intelligible. To me, it did not. It just confused things, especially since the author himself was evidently confused, and had to backtrack more than once. That to me is poor writing, or it's poor planning or it's a sign your over-arching concept is failing you.
Some of the land names were a stretch, too - I mean Bosonia? Really? And one extended piece about the airport not being close to the city for these three particular locations, and the tedious endless descriptions of people who may arrive at one airport but be traveling to a different city were obnoxious. They really were.
I think that's about the point where I decided I had had enough. I made it about three-quarters the way through this, which was more than it deserved because I got a lot less than three-quarters of the content of the book, but in the end I'd firmly decided that I really did not want to visit this land, much less travel extensively in it. The thing is that I already have a decent layman's grasp of the ideas here, so if they made little to no sense to me, or bored me even as they made sense, then I fear they're certainly not going to reach anyone who is a complete newbie to this world. On that basis I cannot commend this as a worthy read.
The Diamond Master by Jacques Futrelle
I made it through 80% of this classic mystery book before I all but died of sheer boredom. It's a very short book - about 100 pages - but it made for a slow and tedious read and I just lost interest in it. Jacques Futrelle was an American author who was on the Titanic when it sank
The basic story is that diamonds begin showing up, delivered anonymously to well-known diamond merchants. When it becomes known there has been more than one such delivery, the merchants meet and discover that each of the five of them has received an extremely beautiful and well-cut diamond that is identical in every way to the ones the others received. Once they're aware of the others, they receive further communcation assuring them the damond is real and is theirs to keep. All they have to do in return is to sell an improbably large quantity of diamonds - which will be supplied to them - and the hundred-million dollar profits of which sales will be delivered to a certain individual.
Despite trying to keep tabs on the man who is runnign this operation, he proves always to be one step ahead of them and the private detectives they hire. This was pretty much the entire story for this first 80%, and it was poorly-written, obvious in many cases what was going on, and with an appallingly presented German accent in one charcter which was frankly obnoxious and nauseating tor ead. I grew bored, as I said, and ditched it. I can't commend it.
Wednesday, October 27, 2021
Sexus Animalis by Emmanuelle Pouydebat
From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.
Subtitled "There Is Nothing Unnatural in Nature" and written with a delightfully playful sense of humor, this books explores a sampling of animal (including non-vertebrates) sexual behaviors and appendages, making for an incredible read. And I mean that literally - it's hardly possible to credit some of these things, although I have no doubt that they're true.
There's the water boatman, for example, which has - and I am stating this correctly - the loudest penis in the world, for its size. There is a fish, known o-fish-ially as the Phallostethus cuulong, that is quite ltierally, a dick head. Since there was a walrus, it would have been nice to have included a carpenter - ant, but I guess that was too much to hope for! I suppose there's nothing particularly special about the ants when it comes to this subject. There's the clownfish - and this ain't your children's Nemo. I've concluded they get their name from the clowning around they do with lines of succession, and gender changes. And the young have a brief rumspringa, too!
Oh yes. Any idiot creationists who try to claim that their god made everything to perfection just a few thousand years ago and exactly as we see it now, will have some serious work to do to supply intelligent explanations for the variety of behaviors - some of which are despicable - that their creator purportedly made. The bedbug comes immediately to mind. It's equipped with a literal weapon - it's not just a euphemism in the case of a bedbug. It's supplied with a beveled penis that stabs right through the female's exoskeleton and it doesn't matter - to the male - where penetration is made. This is only one story of such brutality. There's also rape in the animal kingdom: it's not just a human thing.
On a much more pleasant note, there is also love in the animal kingdon - at least amongst the higher species - which includes rats! There are also gay relationships and transgender changes, and masturbation, so as they say, there's nothing new under the sun and not a whole heck of a lot of difference between animals and humans - who are also animals - when it comes to sexual expression.
There is over thirty such stories of amazing variety included here: of impressive stamina and record-setting activity, along with numberous asides that are relevant if slightly off the main topic. The book made for a perverse and fascinating read and I commend it fully.
High-Protein Plant-Based Diet for Beginners by Maya A Howard
From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.
Aimed at readers who want to pursue a healthier, plant-based diet but don't want to do it through prepackaged and preprocessed foods that have been swarming onto the market lately, this book takes a step back to the original ingredients and follows a logical and step-by-step approach to planning a week-long menu, buying the ingredients, cooking up the food, and enjoying it!
I have to say as an aside that one aspect bothered me a little, in that there seemed to be no concern expressed here over sustainability or the environment. California is the market garden of the US, and its agriculture takes eighty percent of California's fresh water. Almonds alone use a trillion gallons of water every year, and this continues at in the height of an ongoing drought, and as new laws in California have required utilities to reduce water usage by 55 gallons per person per day by 2023!
This book has, as its focus, the creation of plant-based meals, and while that's wonderful as far as it goes, I would have been happier if a word or two had been included about the advisability of, for example, using almonds to create almond milk as the severe water crisis continues. Personally I refuse to eat almonds, but maybe that's just me.
That concern aside though, the main focus here - as the title suggests - isn't just getting healthy and nutritious food into your diet, but also finding plenty of protein along with the other vitamins and minerals a body needs. The book provides ready information on the best plants for protein, and also useful tips on how to combine such foods to make a balanced diet. This information is put fully into play by means of the extensive meal plans that the book is filled with. When it comes to creating a plant-based diet from fresh produce, I do not think you could find a better book, and I commend this one fully as a worthy and useful read.
Friday, October 22, 2021
When I'm a Surgeon by Samantha Pillay, Harry Aveira
From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.
This was an adorable book, written by Samantha Pillay, who actually is a surgeon, and illustrated charmingly by Harry Aveira, but it's more than just about being a surgeon, which might have made for a slightly tedious read! The book is really about becoming a better person all around: about love, kindness, thoughtfulness, empathy, ambition, dedication and a host of other traits.
The story repeats a phrase on each new page and adds something to it that was different from what went before - in a sense like an affirmation, and the sweet illustrations show a warm picture of what that affirmation translates to - even in a small and child-like manner. The book is wonderful, inspiring, and very positive and should encourage young girls everywhere to, as the phrase has it, be all they can be - in whatever life they choose for themselves. I unreservedly commend it.
Basho's Haiku Journeys by Freeman Ng, Cassandra Rockwood-Ghanem
From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.
This was a short, but gorgeously-illustrated book (by the talented Cassandra Rockwood-Ghanem who, I was pleased to see was decently credited on the cover). I loved the dramatic cover, with Basho sweeping back the curtain of night onto a brand new day.
The book briefly follows Japanese poet Basho's travels during his later life after his house burned down. You know what they say? If life hands you lemons, throw them at the son of a bitch who unloaded them on you, but Basho wasn't like that. Instead, he saw homelessness as an opportunity to go walkabout, and he took off on a series of five contemplative trips, some of which were perilous, all of which were inspiring.
Basho did not invent the haiku, but he is credited with being, if you like, the godfather of its enduring popularity. The author, Freeman Ng, tells this whole story in haiku, which in English has come to mean a simple three-line poem, typically associated with the season, which consists of five, seven, and five syllables. In Japanese, the count is seventeen 'on' which is a unit of Japanese speech similar to a syllable. Poems like a haiku, but that don't adhere to the strict haiku rules, are more properly called a 'senryu'.
This book was a delight: nicely-written and with some truly inspiring (and amusing at times) illustrations. I commend it as a worthy read.
The Secret Halloween Costume by Sophie Vaillancourt, Karina Dupuis
From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.
Translated (from French I'm guessing!) by John Conn, this sweet look at indpendent-thinking on Halloween, was a delight. Beautifully-illustrated in glowing Halloween colors by Dupuis, and written intelligently by someone with the amazingly French name of Sophie Vaillancourt (I hear that with a delightful French accent in my head as I type it!).
Anyway, this is the story of Charlotte, who doesn't want to be scary on Halloween. I adored the illustration on page 4 of the story where Charlotte is contemplatively upset and strutting away from her oblivious mom, who is determnined to have scary witches on halloween.
Rebelling against mom's antiquated ideas, Charlotte decides to try something new, and she recruits her grandmother to help, so that when the day comes, she dresses how she wants, not how tradition (and mom) dictate. She's can still be a witch without being scary; how about a superhero witch who just looks amazing!
I must confess I'm not sure what the 'with two-way sequins' was all about on the cover. Sequin means the same thing in English or in French. I assume this had something to do with the print version, which I do not merit as an amateur reviewer.
I've been reviewing Net Galley books faithfully since early 2015 (and other books for two years prior to that). I've reviewed almost 1400 books from them in that time - a wide range of books, fiction and non-fiction, from a wide vaiety of publishers, but do the reviewers get any kind of consideration or appreciation? Nope! We don't expect it, because it's all take and no give in this business! But it's the time-consuming thanklessness of this endeavor which is why I'm quitting reviewing altogether at the end of this year. I have better things to do with my time!
But the sequins? I have no idea what that's about because there are no sequins in this book! LOL! Despite that dire lack of sequins, I still commend it as a worthy read!
How Does My Body Work? Human Body Book for Kids by Sara LaFleur, MD
From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.
Normally I'm skeptical of a book where the author lists a bunch of initials after their name. You usually see that on idiot diet books! In this case, though, I can see why she did it and it makes sense. Written by a medical doctor, this book, a STEAM tie-in aimed at middle-graders, really gets down and dirty with the deets, and with a whole bunch of fun experiments kids can do which will help illustrate the lessons learned, and just plain be fun!
The book covers all of the body's major systems, chapter-by-chapter, starting with the body's building blocks - cells, and followed by the nervous system, musculoskeletal system, circulatory system, respiratory system, digestive system, excretory system, and the endocrine and reproductive stystems.
It goes into some, but not exahustive detail: enough to give the interested reader a solid grounding without being tedious. It makes sense, is well-written, nicely-illustrated, and has a host of fun projects. I commend it as a worthy read.
Nano's Journey! by Aldo Pourchet
From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.
This was a fun little children's book that is illustrated in color, and for me, as an adult, bordered on the obscure at times, but overall, I think it can teach children important facts about how their body works. Part of a projected series, this one focuses on the heart and lungs and has cute illustrations and an adventure story feel that hopefully will draw children in, they'll have fun, and maybe learn a few things along the way. I commend it as a worthy read.
Speed Reading by Kam Knight
From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.
I was not impressed with this. I'm not saying it can't work, only that I'm very skeptical, and that what works for the author may not be universally applicable. Some of the techniques used are pretty obvious, and are probably in use by thinking readers already. Others seemed problematical, and though I tried employing them, they did not seem work for me. It begs the obvious question: if this is so good and so effective, then why isn't it being widely adopted in schools and colleges
I also did not trust the references this author gives, some of which are not to scientific studies but to some other guy's book. When I did track down one study that was referenced, it really wasn't applicable - not in the way this author was trying to claim it was. It was a controlled study in a set of school districts that used slide projections, and claimed only a modest subsequent improvement in reading and comprehension, and then only over longer texts. There was no significant improvement over the control group when it came to shorter texts, so this felt dishonest to me and made me question whether the author had actually read the study - or whether he'd just speed read it and misunderstood it because he'd read it too fast for comprehension!
There is a big difference in meeting the stated claim "Learn to Read a 200+ Page Book in 1 Hour" when applied to a simple work of fiction, and when attempting to apply that to a more complex work, or to a textbook, so I have no faith in the efficacy of the techniques described here except perhaps in some limited applications. Even the author admits his method has limitations, so on balance I can't commend this as a worthy read.
Makeda: The Queen of Sheba by Marlon McKenney
From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.
This book, aimed at a younger audience than I represent, was gorgeously-illustrated with a nice 3-D effect to the pictures - where the background, for example, was a little out of focus, drawing attention to the main elements of the scene.
I don't see that it has much to do with the actual queen of Sheba, who, if she exited, may have come from Saba in Yemen rather than Ethiopia, or perhaps from further south in Africa. The name 'Makeda' is from an ancient term meaning 'high official', and isn't an actual person's name, but it's a fun choice to go with.
Regardless, the author takes that mythology and runs with it in interesting and entertaining directions. It's definitely a strong-female character story and I'm all for those after reading - or trying to read - far too many young adult stories where the female author seems determined to neuter her main female character for reasons which escape me.
Makeda is the daughter of King Agabos and Queen Ismenie, and when he dies - too young - she is next in line. When her mother proves too upset to rule as a regent, Makeda is forced to step up, and she realizes that it's a tough job. She makes mistakes, but in the end she takes responsibility to fix the scary and deadly problem facing her queedom.
I loved the art and the story, and I enjoyed seeing a young woman refuse to take a back seat, and instead, take the reins. I fully commend this as a worthy read, and would definitely read more of this author's work.
Manga Artists Copic Marker Coloring Techniques by SHIN, Maripori, Yue, Junko Kitamura, Suzu Kawana, Ramiru Kirisaki
From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.
I'd never heard of Copic Markers before I saw this book on offer for reviewing, so naturally I snapped it up and read with interest. I do not consider myself an artist - an amateur cartoonist at best, is what I am, but I'm very interested in the art-making process and I've reviewed numerous books on the topic. I try to learn at least a little from each one, and was pleased to learn something new from this one.
This is a well-written book with copious illustrations showing the materials being discussed and the techniques used to achieve effects. There is a brief Q&A at the end, and FAQ. A lot of the illustrations are from work done by the talented and dedicated artists credited with creating this book, and some of those are really quite stunning. The techniques used, even down to the specific pens (but using only the Copic identification for the pens), to create the art are gone into in some detail.
To my knowledge this book is not sponsored by Copic, so I had to wonder on more than one occasion why alternative tools got no mention. Not everyone has two hundred bucks to blow on a set of pens! A single marker and a refill of ink for it (so there is that) can cost ten dollars. In that way, it's possible to build up a collection over time on a sort of 'installment plan', and Copic are evidently quality pens and rank right up there, if not at the top, but they are very expensive and a big investment for a 'struggling artist' to take on. This needs to be kept in mind. There are cheaper alternatives which may or may not perform as well. I've never used a Copic, so I cannot comment on that score, which is why it would have been nice to have heard from the professionals about alternatives and the pros and cons of those versus Copics.
That said, I was impressed by how well written, useful, and informative this book was, and I commend it as a worthy read.
Boris the Cat by Erwin Moser
From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.
Subtitled, "The Little Cat with Big Ideas." this book was well-illustrated and in color, and the stories I read were amusing, but why it was issued in a Kindle format is utterly beyond me. I've said it repeatedly: unless your text is plain vanilla (with not even dropcaps!), then nine times out of ten, or worse, Amazon's crappy Kindle coversion process will turn your book into kindling - especially if it has images. This one was totally mangled with text and images out of place and mismatched. In other formats the book was considerably better, but even then there was a problem.
The book had almost seventy stories and they're collected into groups by the four seasons, but my copy had only ten stories from 'the spring collection'. The rest of the stories were missing even though they were listed in the content list. And there was no way to tap from the content list to any of the stories, nor was there any way to get back to the contents by, say, tapping on the story title, so this was a serious problem. One reason I'm quitting reviewing books at the end of this year is because of this shabby treatment of reviewers by publishers and Net Galley. I don't expect to get a nice pristine print copy to review by any means, but I do expect to be treated decently, and reviewers deserve better than this.
Since this was an ARC, I checked back on the Net Galley website to see if I'd been sent a sample only, and there was nothing there to indicate any such thing, so I can only assume something got monumentally cocked-up along the way. Anyway this review is of only those ten stories, all of which are about animals and Boris's interaction with them. This is the kind of story where nearly all of the animals walk around on two legs and are all the same size, regardless of species! There are no speech balloons, just descriptive text and equally descriptive and amusing imagery, and each story consists of six such images. Why that is, I do not know!
That said, the stories were amusing to me. I'm not sure why Boris is credited so much with big ideas, but the ones we saw, from a variety of sources, were inventive in a Heath Robinson sort of a way, and were in fact reminiscent of the Mr Bean TV show, so if you've seen that and enjoyed it, you may well find this amusing. I loved the absurdist and off-the-wall humor. These were wacky enough to make me chuckle, so on that basis, and keeping in mind that I was able to read barely more than 10% of this book, I commend it as a worthy read.
Misty Presents: The Jaume Rumeu Collection by Bill Harrington, Jaume Rumeu
From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.
I didn't realize when I selected this to review that it's an antique, and I was not impressed with it. If you like old film noire type stories, or cheesy fifties horror movies, then this might resonate, but to me it was out of date, overly melodramatic, lackluster, and asinine in parts. Aimed at a female audience, it was originally published in 1978, in a comic book named Misty, which was short-lived, but quite ground-breaking for its time. I would have been more impressed if instead of recycling the old stories, they had written new ones that had the same focus.
The story I read, which I DNF'd about 50% through, consisted of a woman with the uninventive name of Black Widow - and she wasn't even black. Her real name is, of course, Webb, so it was like watching an episode of that corny sixties Batman TV show - but the story is set in Britain. The idea is that she's taken this title because her husband died in a "military scientific" experiment, and she's out for revenge against those people who were responsible, by concocting lame and labyrinthine schemes. Her widowhood explains the 'widow' part of the title, but there's no explanation at all for the 'black' portion of it.
She's apparently obsessed with spiders and has a bunch of them that are venomous (not poisonous as the text has it) and deadly. They aren't black widow spiders, so again this makes nonsense of the title. To do her bidding, she recruits two students from a local school (why? Who knows?!). One of these two she hypnotizes, the other she does not. The hypnotized one does whatever she's bidden to do when the phrase 'you creep' is included in the instructions - even if accidentally. Yeah, the language is that antiquated.
Black Widow is supposed to have the ability to determine where each of her little spiders is at any time so it makes no sense when for two issues, she spends an awfully large portion of her time bemoaning the fact that 'one of our spiders is missing'! It was amusing to me because it was so ridiculous - about as amusing, in fact, as having a guy named Roach writing an introduction to a comic book about spiders!
The comic is subtitled "The Jaume Rumeu Collection" but he's the artist. The guy who gets top billing, Bill Harrington, is the writer. Normally I'd rail at this because the artist has by far the greater portion of the work to do. In this 'collection' though, the artwork was poor to middling, and consisted entirely of black and white line drawings, so I didn't have any problem with Rumeu taking second place in the billing, but in that case, why was it not called the Bill Harrington collection? None of this made any sense to me.
But for the reasons listed, I cannot commend this as a worthy read. It was disappointing and unintentionally amusing in parts, and the art wasn't really worth the trouble.
Wednesday, October 20, 2021
The Mice Before Christmas by Anne L Watson, Wendy Edelson
From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.
I fell in love with this book just from the title, so in a way, I was dreading reading it because I feared it wouldn't live up to the amusement I'd had from title. I'm happy to report the book very much lived up to its name.
I have to add that recently I discovered there are other such books with the same title, but this was the first (and only) one of these I'd seen and read, so I cannot comment on the others. I can say that I was pleased to see artist Wendy Edelson given due credit on the cover instead of being some sort of a footnote tucked down at the bottom as illustrators are all-too-often relegated in children's books, like a few sentences takes more work than pages of quality, detailed artwork! I was very pleased that didn't happen here.
The illustrations are rich, and detailed and colorful, with a delightfully Christmas-y tone to the coloring and style. The writing is far more than a few sentences in this case, and is wonderfully poetic and sweet. The whole story about a mouse Christmas is charming. The mice have no less of a festival at Christmastide than do humans. Not a lot of people know that! They deck the halls, and anything else they can get away with (they're mice after all - and thereby hangs a tail!), and they dress in finery and celebrate at eight sharp, handing out gifts, enjoying good company and good food, and finally making sense of that second line in the poem, "A Visit from St Nicholas"!
I commend this as a worthy read and perhaps the start of a new Christmas tradition, replacing the other poem - which is, lets face it, of dubious provenance!
Sparky's Electrifying Tale by Janelle London, Matthew Metz, Ilya Fortuna
From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.
This book is a delightfully devastating indictment of our fossil-fuel culture - specifically internal combustion engines! Written by Janelle London, Matthew Metz, and I'm pleased to say, with a fair-shake (for once in a children's book!) given to a talented artist: Ilya Fortuna, this rhyming and full color illustration book for young kids describes how bad internal combustion engines are (transportation contributes about a third of our climate change problem), without getting preachy and without getting bogged down by too much detail.
The magic hamster frankly to me, looks a bit more like a guinea pig, but I've had both as pets in my youthful years, and I'm not going to quibble about that when it's so delightfully drawn. The book briefly lays out the story of how oil came to be formed, and how it's extracted, and what it does when it's burned - returning all that sequestered carbon into the atmosphere quickly and in large volume. I love this book and commend it fully. We can only hope that the children who will read this will still have a planet worth saving by the time they get old enough to do something about the disaster that we adults are still, even now and knowing what we know, hell-bent on creating for them.
Mommy, What is Confidence? by Shal Chirkut, Brianna Baker
From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.
Again on the topic of confidence, this is another well-done book for young children, but I have to make a point once more that yet again the artist, in this case Brianna Baker, is badly underserved here. Predictably she gets a tiny text mention on the cover, but her name doesn't appear on the Net Galley listing where I downloaded the review copy of this book, nor does Amazon-owned Goodreads Jug O'Nought review website bother to credit her. I can tell you that's because they're a bunch of self-serving jerks at Goodreads, but I would have thought the publisher might treat her with a little more appreciation and consideration on the book cover and in the Net Galley listing.
The observation I'm about to make is far less applicable in this case, because there's a lot of well-thought text in this book - more than you'd usually see - but it's a fact that very many children's books have very little text and to be honest, it's not like it takes months to put together a book like this in terms of the writing. The artwork on the other hand, especially when it's as well done as this, does take time, and thought and work.
As I said, in this case the writing and art are more balanced, but that still doesn't excuse the artist being treated like a minor player. Maybe it's just me, but it bothers me that book illustration artists are treated so shabbily. And no, I am not a book illustrator for hire, so I have no skin in this game. I just feel that every contributor should be fairly treated.
That aside, this book was sweet and well done, and it told a worthy story of a young child, Nikko, who lacks confidence, and the lessons he learns with the aid fo his teacher and his mopm, abotu putitng himself otu there a bit more than he's used to. I commend this as a worthy read.
I Can Believe in Myself by Jack Canfield, Miriam Laundry, Eva Morales
From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.
This book is a little bit on the simplistic side, but for the age range it's aimed at, I think it does the trick. It tells the story of young Molly, who is expected to give a speech the next day in front of class, and she's soooo nervous about it. I can relate to Molly since I was that way myself in school. When I was very young, I didn't care so much, but as I grew a little older, something, I know not what, happened and I lost whatever confidence I'd had.
It seems that Molly never did have confidence, and it's quite the ordeal for her. She makes rather bizarre excuses which her teacher seems to buy, to get herself out of speaking, but then she has an epiphany as she realizes that she's not alone: everyone is lacking confidence in doing something or other. She comes up with an ingenious idea to get her friends to dispose of their fear and grow some confidence in themselves.
The only issue I have with this book is the short-shrift that Eva Morales gets for her excellent illustrations, which are beautifully-done and very sweet. I know that writing, particularly in a book of this nature is important, but in terms of sheer effort and work, the artist is the one putitng in the hours and I felt she deserved better than a tiny acknowledgement way down at the bottom of the front cover, and not a word about her at all on the Net Galley page where I downloaded this copy for review. But that's just me, and it's not just this book that underserves artists.
A Crocodile in the Family by Kitty Black, Daron Parton
From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.
A crocodile is hardly the companion you'd think of as someone who might be kind to birds. I think a better subject could have been chosen, but if you're willing to let that slide, then this was a fun book nicely and amusingly illustrated by Daron Parton and well-written by Kitty Black.
The birds find a stray egg and naturally take it home with them to raise the chick as their own, but it's all a croc! The chick isn't all the egg is cracked up to be! It's green with a large jaw and some dangerous claws, and you might think that bites, but this is Australia where they have bites for breakfast. And we certainly shouldn't expect everyone else to be just like us - in fact that's the whole point of the story!
Croccy grows large and enjoys dancing and wearing colorful sweaters, and he always helps people crossing the river. The family is often asked if one or another of these various aspects of his personality are the reason why they keep him, but the answer is always no. I fully expected the answer at the end to be "Because we love him" but it isn't! Now you'll have to read it to find out what that answer is!
Rebel Girls Powerful Pairs by Rebel Girls
From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.
This is one of a series pf books aimed at younger readers, highlighting powerful, adventurous, and inventive woman - in this case pairing moms and daughters. I'd have loved to have given you a list of contents, but the app was so tightly locked-down that it wouldn't even let me copy that. Why a publisher would be so short-sighted as to want to hobble a reviewer from highlighting who's who in this book, and not even list that information elsewhere is a complete mystery to me, but I sure don't have the time to manually type all that out when I have other things I need to be doing! So this review will be short!
As the book cover says, it's 25 moms and daughters, some of whom, such as Beyoncé and her curiously-named daughter "Blue Ivy," or the Pankhursts, or the Curies, you may well have heard of. Others are much more obscure to the general reader, such as Wang Changyi and Nu Mei Mei, and Kim Yeshi (aka Pema Dolkar) and daughter Dechen, but they are no less important. All have inspiring stories to tell, and they are worth reading, so I commend this as a worthy read.
Octopus, Seahorse, Jellyfish by David Liittschwager
From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.
Note that reviewers such as myself are allowed only an ebook version and in this case only a 16 page sample of the actual book, so it's hard to make a good judgment from this. It's not like it's a work of fiction where you can read a few pages and tell pretty quickly if the book is well-written or a piece of trash, so this review is only of the sample I received, of which only five pages were the actual book, the rest being introductory preface, contents, etc. So not much of a sample!
The second problem with getting only the ebook version is that you can't comment on the print version, nor can I say if this is ever going to be released as an ebook. I suspect not, but that's just an opinion. The problem with the ebook is that the publisher made the dire mistake of releasing it in Kindle format. I have said this many times and I say it again: unless your book is plain vanilla text (without even so much as dropcaps) it's a grave mistake to put it into Kindle format because Amazon's crappy Kindle process will, nine times out of ten, reduce it to kindling. In the Kindle version, viewed on an a standard iPad, it trashed pictures, slicing and dicing and Julienning them turning the book into a disordered jumble. The book looked much better in Blue Fire Reader and in Adobe Digital Editions.
The pictures, when presented properly, were beautiful to look at and the supporting text informative. Based on this sample alone, the book appears to be a worthy read.
Tuesday, October 19, 2021
Sixth Sunday by Arielle Haughee, Anastasiya Yanovskaya
From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.
This was a charmer of a book written by Arielle Haughee, and beautifully illustrated by Anastasiya Yanovskaya. I have to say it's a personal peeve of mine that writers get so much credit and the illustrators, who in a book like this do by far the most work, get second billing - if they're lucky! The cover mentions Anastasiya Yanovskaya - who is an excellent artist - but the Net Galley listing for this book makes no mention of her at all. I find that reprehensible. But this review is of the book and not the Net Galley listing, so here we go!
The nameless family depicted here seems to consist only of child and mom, and the child is fantasizing about how the day will go when Mom finally kicks loose and breaks all the rules (cue the Footloose song!) - which we're assured will happen on the sixth Sunday of the month. Which I feel I must warn you is considerably rarer than a blue moon!
The riotous plans start with jumping on the bed after waking up, then down to a raucous breakfast (via the means of rollerskate crocs!), off to baseball, burping the alphabet, and a host of other nonsensical but fun activities, ending with a mom passed out from exhaustion and snoring on the couch. I thought this was a great book, full of the joy of living, and fun ideas for kids to try themselves for that matter. I commend it fully as a worthy read.
Saint Nicholas the Giftgiver by Ned Bustard
I can't give this a positive review because it's nothing short of a religious tract that takes hazy and unreliable legends as facts and runs with them. Yes, there was a Nicholas, and yes, he himself was a church leader, and after his life was over, he had many improbable legends built-up around him and became a saint, but to present these folk-tales as fact - for example that he slapped an Arian bishop because he disagreed with him, when early roll calls of that very congregation do not list Nicholas as even being there, is problematical, as is a Christian church leader resorting to a violent act like that when the Bible itself calls for turning the other cheek! That's hardly saintly!
This book presents the story of Nicholas donating three bags of gold to a father so he could marry off his three daughters as fact when it's highly unlikely this happened, and the whole story is a problem even if it did happen because of the way it treats women as property to be bartered. A real saint would have taken a different tack! I know this is how things were done back then, but that merely serves to highlight the shortcomings of this man, not enhance him.
Gift-giving was a Roman tradition long before Nicholas ever came onto the scene, so he wasn't the one who originated that habit, although he was copted as a post-hoc excuse for it once commercialism saw the value of promoting the purchase and swapping of seasonal gifts. So overall I cannot commned his as a worthy read.
Will You be the I in Kind? by Julia Cook, Jomike Tejido
From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.
This was a gorgeously- and diversely-illustrated (by Jomike Tejido) and sweetly written (by Julia Cook) picture book about putting the 'I' in kind by stepping up when kindness is called for, and setting a good example for others to follow. Several examples are given,such as offering to help up someone who has fallen down, by having a ready smile, by making sure trash gets into the trash bin where it belongs, by taking an interest in others, and by letting a young kid go before you if you're waiting in a long line.
This is a good sentiment and we often forget to follow it for a variety of reasons, which is why a reminder such as this one is so helpful. I commend this book as a worthy read.
Geckos Don't Blink by Kelly Tills
From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.
This is the first to two related books I got for review purposes from Net Galley. They were by the same author, and were two small volumes in a series of short, illustrated children's books about interesting animal facts, which I thought might be fun. The problem was that they both were unreadable.
They came in three reading options. One was the Kindle version, which I knew would be a disaster, but which I sent to my Kindle app anyway, and got exactly what I'd expected. Actually I got less than I expected, because I expected at least to have some images that were sliced, diced, and julienned, which is what Kindle routinely does to anything that's not plain vanilla text. Instead I got completely blank screens! This isn't even the kindling I expected Amazon's crappy, limited, and destructive system to deliver.
Not losing heart, I progressed to one of the two other options Net Galley offered, which was an epub format. Usually there is no problem here, but in this case, it was almost as bad as the Kindle. At least I could see the images for the book's pages, but they were truncated. Normally, if a book runs to two pages, you half-expect it to be chopped up in electronic format, but the other half of the image was not on the next screen - it was gone completely! This meant that sometimes the image had been chopped, but usually it meant that the text had been curtailed and was unreadable because so much of it was missing.
Finally, there was a Net Galley reading app format, which normally is acceptable, but with which I've occasionally had problems. In this case, what I got was exactly the same result I got from the epub version: seriously bowdlerized images and text. Both of these books suffered the same problems. I honestly do not know how a publisher can distribute a book in this condition. Did no one think to check?! I imagine these books were designed from the ground up as print books, but we reviewers still need them to be legible in the electronic version!
Normally I like to positively review children's books if they have any redeeming features at all, but this one had zero. Consequently I have no choice but to declare this book warty to the max!
Cows Have No Top Teeth by Kelly Tills
From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.
This is the first to two related books I got for review purposes from Net Galley. They were by the same author, and were two small volumes in a series of short, illustrated children's books about interesting animal facts, which I thought might be fun. The problem was that they both were unreadable.
They came in three reading options. One was the Kindle version, which I knew would be a disaster, but which I sent to my Kindle app anyway, and got exactly what I'd expected. Actually I got less than I expected, because I expected at least to have some images that were sliced, diced, and julienned, which is what Kindle routinely does to anything that's not plain vanilla text. Instead I got completely blank screens! This isn't even the kindling I expected Amazon's crappy, limited, and destructive system to deliver.
Not losing heart, I progressed to one of the two other options Net Galley offered, which was an epub format. Usually there is no problem here, but in this case, it was almost as bad as the Kindle. At least I could see the images for the book's pages, but they were truncated. Normally, if a book runs to two pages, you half-expect it to be chopped up in electronic format, but the other half of the image was not on the next screen - it was gone completely! This meant that sometimes the image had been chopped, but usually it meant that the text had been curtailed and was unreadable because so much of it was missing.
Finally, there was a Net Galley reading app format, which normally is acceptable, but with which I've occasionally had problems. In this case, what I got was exactly the same result I got from the epub version: seriously bowdlerized images and text. Both of these books suffered the same problems. I honestly do not know how a publisher can distribute a book in this condition. Did no one think to check?! I imagine these books were designed from the ground up as print books, but we reviewers still need them to be legible in the electronic version!
Normally I like to positively review children's books if they have any redeeming features at all, but this one had zero. Consequently I have no choice but to declare this book warty to the max!
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