Book Grumps isn't moving...

... but the grump herself is!

Let this stand as my apology to you, dear reader, for the lateness of June's book reviews. Most of the time, when I'm not at work, I'm packing boxes. Still, I'm really excited about the books in my review stack. Keep your eyes peeled for upcoming reviews of Stephen King's Rose Madder, Nnedi Okorafor's Who Fears Death, and the Alison Bechdel's Fun Home!

Review Criteria, The Superbowl, and Liking What You Like

I'm sure you will all be overjoyed to hear that I'm adding two new elements to my review criteria: memorability, on the same scale of one-to-five as the rest, and the far less quantifiable overall emotional response, which could be anything along the lines of "curiously hungry," "lying on the floor crying for an hour," or "compelled to research the Outer Hebrides."

You're welcome.

On a different note: I wanted to talk a bit more about something I mentioned in my review of Sunshine (the bad one about the vampires, not the good one about small-town hate crimes.)

But first, two short stories: the Superbowl and The Fifth Element.

***

I'm not a huge sports fan. I like food and good company, though, so I agreed to watch the Superbowl with some friends a few years ago. I planned to enjoy their presence and to vegetate during the actual game.

Unfortunately, one of my friends took umbrage at my lack of investment in the game. They insisted that I MUST pay attention and appreciate what was happening on-screen. So, overriding my protests--and my insistence that I was having a perfectly good time neither knowing nor caring!--they lectured me on the proper terminology, rules, and strategies of football, quizzing me for comprehension during commercial breaks. 

For three solid hours. 

Needless to say, I had a terrible time. It ruined what was supposed to be a relaxing evening. Nor did it increase either my understanding or enjoyment of sports events. (Dear friends, if someone is willing to accompany you in something they don't enjoy, for the sake of your company, accept that as the gift that it is.)

More recently, I invited another friend to watch the movie The Fifth Element with me. I had seen it for the first time the week before. While the movie was terrible--sometimes intentionally, as a nod to the '80s traditions which inspired it, and sometimes due to actual terrible writing--I thought there were parts of it worth discussing. (Sidenote: A lot of my movie-watching commentary is about the difference between the potential of the idea and what actually ended up on film. I think a lot about reviewing occasional movies here. Any takers?)

Whether out of faith in my general taste in media, or out of her own generosity, Sarah suffered through the whole thing so that I could have someone analyze it with me. We had a lot of fun picking it apart later, and discussing what could have been done better.

These are both stories about one person being more "into" a thing than their companion. The approach ("Want to watch this thing I like that you probably won't like as much so that we can discuss it?" vs. "I require you to care about this as much as I do, and I will force you to behave like I would!") and the ultimate outcome of each evening couldn't be more different

What does this have to do with Book Grumps?

As much as I enjoy writing reviews--the good, the bad, and the ugly--I don't require any of you to agree with my judgments of books. If I praise a book which, as far as you're concerned, reads like someone put a thesaurus through a paper shredder, I won't take it personally.  I can't force you to like something. I can tell you what I like about it. Then you get to make your own judgment.

Nor is any personal insult intended if you recommend to me your favorite book in the whole wide world... and I detest it. And even if I plan to compare it to cat vomit in my review for the world at large, I won't shred it to your face, out of respect for you. Something in the book pleased and delighted you, and that's wonderful. I won't try to take that from you.

If I say that a book is terrible, I will never mean that you are terrible for liking it, or that there is something wrong with your taste.

To go for the low-hanging fruit here: I'm not above taking potshots at Twilight, but I don't want to go after fans of Twilight. There's a time and a place for young teen girls (and lonely middle-aged housewives) to feel like they are special and alluring, deserving of attention from someone fascinating and powerful. I'd hope that, in time, they would grow out of that stage and look for healthier, more well-written media, but again, I can't make them.

Everyone's reading experience is unique. A few months on Goodreads has shown me that while I have a lot of book-loving friends, even within the same genres, our tastes couldn't be more different. It's rare to find someone who looks for the same things in a book as I am. I'm grateful to Ed for the suggestion that I break down what goes into my initial "[___] out of 5 stars" rating. I hope that has helped guide your reaching choices. For some of you, the craft of writing--A.K.A., something which ties me in knots--isn't as important as whether your heart is moved. For others of you, the most beautiful story in my collection will never meet your needs, because I can consider character deaths a "happy" ending and you never will.

Instead of being an insult or an argument, that becomes an opportunity to get to know someone better. What makes you like a book that I loathe--and vice versa?

I'd be happy to enjoy a Superbowl party because my friends are there, having fun, even if I don't actually like watching football. Sarah didn't end up sharing my love of The Fifth Element, but afterwards we had a good conversation about its potential to be better.

Please feel free to disagree with my review of a book at any time, whether privately or publicly. If you thought a positive review of mine was misleading, let me know. If I canned a book you recommended to me, I'd still be happy to talk with you about why you recommended it, the things that it sparked in your heart and mind.  I've changed my mind on books before!

You can always leave me a recommendation in a comment or by email. Or you can follow me on Goodreads, where I do star ratings and short comments for the books which I didn't feel warranted a full blog post.

Now go enjoy the Superbowl in whatever way seems best to you. 

Navigate By Ratings + Books For 2015

Aaaaand welcome to 2015, dear readers!

It seems to me that the number of reviews have become unwieldy for easy navigating. I've updated the tagging system so that you can now browse by rating as well as by genre. This will apply to everything posted from this date forward, as well as to past reviews.

Looking for that new book you never knew you needed to read? Click "five star review" over on the right. Looking for something really grumpy? Then it'll be "one star review" you want!

(Of course, I have a few decimal point reviews. For fairness' sake, I'm rounding down. The 2.5 stars with be with the two star reviews, the 4.9s will be with the fours, etc.)

On another note, I capped out 2014 with a total of one hundred and thirty-five books read, finishing Frank Herbert's Dune just last night. I'm aiming for at least another hundred books in 2015. I'd like to start reading more new releases and using the blog to get exposure for newer, lesser-known books as well as for old favorites. This means that--as always--I am looking for recommendations.

Looking forward to another year!

The 2014 "Books Read" List Has Been Updated At Last!

As you may not have noticed, dear reader, I took a few months' vacation from updating my Goodreads account, as well as my own list of completed books in the sidebar. A little racking of the brain (and of the library's "past checkouts" list) later, I've filled in the months from June to November. The total number of completed books is currently one hundred thirteen on Goodreads, or one hundred twenty-five by my own reckoning.

I'm not sure where the discrepancy lies there. One way or another, though, I've succeeded in my annual goal of one hundred books read, with one month still to go before the year comes to an end.

If you're not a member of Goodreads, you can still check out the list over in the right-hand sidebar. I've linked to every book for which I've completed a full review. If there is a particular book in the list you'd like me to go back and review for your enjoyment, or a book you think I would enjoy reading, let me know in the comments or by email!

Well, well, well!

Dear reader, are you aware that it has been one year (and change) since the first Book Grump was posted here? I am.

Are you also aware that there have been, as yet, been no Book Grumps this month? That's rather more likely, and for which I apologize.

Looking at my blog calendar, it seems like every few months, I take a whole thirty-day stretch off to flex out my brain. October 2014 is going the same way as March 2014. I have a wealth of books I'm excited to tell you about, and a few more I can't wait to shred, but I've given myself permission to take a vacation.

Book Grumps will resume in November. Until then, thank you for all the comments, the recommendations, and the pageviews from the past twelve months. It means a lot to me that people are reading this blog. I hope that all of you are coming away amused and with a new list of books to check out.

The Death of the Google+ Comment Monster

It was brought to my attention that, while I thought that the commenting system had been set up so that anyone could leave a remark, the Google+ Monster had in fact been barring the gateway, snarling and slavering at anyone who dared to approach.

I have now, to the best of my knowledge, slain the Google+ Monster. Alas, over the course of our battle, I had to sacrifice the existing Google+ comments. Thank you to everyone whose comments are now lost; I have the email notifications saved, and I treasure them.

If all goes well, from now on anyone can leave a comment, not just Google+ members. You can even leave anonymous comments if you like. Please let me know if you have any problems.

Thanks!

A Revised Rating System

Several of my dear readers have mentioned a wish for a more detailed rating system. Let's give it a try! The goal is to provide a better idea of a book's contents to potential readers, and to explain the degree to which I do or do not recommend it.

These are some of the categories I've come up with, based on how I judge books while reading them. (This applies to fiction only.)

• Complexity of Writing -- how advanced the language of the book is (a relevant question when discussing YA lit in contrast to general fiction)
• Quality of Writing -- how effectively the author uses language to tell a story, regardless of complexity
• Strength of Characterization -- which may need to be broken down into protagonist/antagonist, in some cases
• Logic of Plot Development -- whether the protagonists make the plot happen or whether they're just along for the ride; whether the story relies upon coincidences and gimmicks
• Evocation of Setting -- is this a book of talking heads, or does the author set the stage? Have they done their research? Do they worldbuild?
  
• Emotional Engagement with Reader -- frankly, do we care?
• Mental Engagement with Reader -- does the book stretch the reader's worldview, does it challenge us in any way, do we remember it long after the book is done?
• Effectiveness of Pacing -- my most common cause for grumping
• Resolution of Conflict -- my second most common cause for grumping

Hopefully this will be more helpful to people who want to know if a book is for them. Some of these categories will be more important to certain readers than they are to others.  If I slam a book for its terrible pacing and logic, but the reader only cares that it has a high score in emotional engagement, they can make that judgment for themselves. I'd also like to include general content notes about violence, animal abuse, sexual assault etc., as well as my usual side comments about diversity and the Bechdel Test.

I'm interested in hearing feedback on these categories. Dear reader, if you have a suggestion for a rating category, or a refinement upon these notes, please feel free to leave me a comment at the bottom of the post!

(P.S. Soon www.bookgrumps.com will direct here! Hurrah for simplicity.)

Farewell, 2013!

The end of a really good book provokes nostalgia in many readers. As we turn the final page, we look back on the paper-and-ink road that led us there, remembering the adventures we have had. We wave goodbye to characters who have grown dear to us. The hypnotic cadence of the author's voice falls abruptly silent, and we return to ourselves with a jolt.

We heave a sigh of mingled contentment and regret. Then we pick up the next book.

You can see where I'm going with this, dear readers. (And a happy new year to you, too.)

To be entirely honest, The Year Of Our Lord 2013 had very little in common with a good book, insofar as I experienced it. It was not a good year for me. It was a really terrible year. If it were a book, I'd recommend it to no one. I'd give it one out of five stars, perhaps 1.5 for certain artistic ironies. Dorothy Parker would tell us not to set it aside lightly, but to throw it with great force.

And yet, at the close of the year, Book Grumps is approaching its three-month birthday. There are seventeen full book reviews posted here and more waiting in the wings. Blogger reports almost 1k pageviews--not counting my own. For a baby book blog, that's pretty good. I'm very proud of it.

And then there's you, dear readers. Without you I wouldn't be grumpy. Hold on, that's neither true nor complimentary...

Thank you all for reading my sourpuss book reviews. Those of you on Facebook, thank you for all the times you have reshared or commented on the link, and thank you for every single "like." Those of you who hang out with me in meatspace, thank you for arguing with me face to face about ratings. Thank you for listening to me yell about spoilers from books you haven't yet read.

Thank you for the books you have recommended or loaned to me. Thanks for being so forgiving when I turn around and trash your favorite tale. Thanks for laughing at my bad jokes.  Thank you for your brave attempts to save books from merciless dog-earing on my part. (Mouschka, whenever you see this, the bookmark was very well chosen.)

Turning my grumpiness about books into "Book Grumps, The Blog" was one of the best parts of 2013. I count it among the few qualities that made the "book" of this year not an utter waste of time. I could never regret the experience of sharing my thoughts, and my love of stories, with all of you.

Fortunately for all of us, a year is not a book.  The chiming of the clock isn't a closing cover, cutting us off from the story of what has already been done. When we crack open the brand-new spine of 2014, we find that we have not said goodbye after all. This is not an ending. This is only the beginning of the next chapter.

There we go--I've fulfilled my yearly hackneyed metaphor quota, right on schedule. Here's to 2014 and the books ahead!

Not Dead!

Hello dear readers!

This is just a PSA that I'm not dead. I've been very busy with work, and I haven't read anything really rant-worthy for a bit. I do still have a stack of recommendations some of you have offered me, which I'm looking forward to reading. More grumps will be forthcoming over the Thanksgiving weekend, I hope, or failing that, in December. Thanks for reading!

Filing Systems and the Mystery of "Mystery"

After doing a bit of research on other book review blogs, I cleaned up the tags system and added a "file by label" system (over there to your right.) This way, dear reader, if you're interested in reading my grumps just in a certain genre, it's easy to find. Perhaps in time I'll add a "file by star rating" list as well.

While reassigning labels to these book grumps, I got stuck on how many of them can be called "mysteries." Even without the trappings of trench coats and forensic kits (or, depending on your taste in mysteries, cats), whodunits are found in absolutely every genre.

I now propose my own version of the "only [n] plots in the world" theory: there are three.

• Get the thing
• Defeat the thing
• Find out who did the thing

For fairness' sake, I'm only going to use the "mystery" tag if the book specifically describes itself as such.

My Own Favorites

It occurs to me that while I've been posting all these grumpy reviews of new books I've found, I haven't talked about the books that I already love, the ones which cancel out all the grumps.

 For the record: my absolute favorite, Best Beloved, accept-no-substitutes book is The Once and Future King by T.H. White.


 The rest follow in alphabetical order.

• Margaret Atwood: Cat's Eye
• Peter S. Beagle: The Last Unicorn 
• Isabella Bird: A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains
• Ray Bradbury: The Martian Chronicles
• Gillian Bradshaw: Imperial Purple
• Charlotte Bronte: Jane Eyre
• Bill Buford: Heat
• Novella Carpenter: Farm City
• C.J. Cherryh: Foreigner
• C.J. Cherryh: Rider at the Gate
• Evan Dahm: Rice Boy
• Tom DeHaven: Sunburn Lake
• William Goldman: The Princess Bride
• Joanne Greenberg: I Never Promised You A Rose Garden
• Kim Harrison: The Hollows
• Stephen King: Hearts in Atlantis
• Stephen King: Lisey's Story
• Rudyard Kipling: The Jungle Books
• C.S. Lewis: Til We Have Faces 
• James W. Loewen: Lies My Teacher Told Me
• George R.R. Martin: A Song of Ice and Fire
• Geraldine McCaughrean: Peter Pan in Scarlet
• Patricia McKillip: The Forgotten Beasts of Eld
• Robin McKinley: Spindle's End
• Hayao Miyazaki: Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind
• Patrick Ness: Chaos Walking
• Naomi Novik: Temeraire
• Mervyn Peake: Gormenghast
• Julie Ann Peters: Far from Xanadu
• David L. Robbins: The War of the Rats
• Craig Thompson: Blankets
• Megan Whalen Turner: The Queen of Attolia
• Catherynne M. Valente: The Orphan's Tales
• Elizabeth Warnock Fernea: Guests of the Sheik
• Daniel Woodrell: Winter's Bone
• Patricia C. Wrede: The Enchanted Forest Chronicles

Feel free to share your favorite books in the comments!

Comments Reminder

Hey everyone!

Thank you so much for all the feedback y'all have given me on this blog and the books you've recommended for my (dis)pleasure.

Food critic Anton Ego says hello again

For those who aren't familiar with Blogspot, you don't have to wait until the next time you see me in person or catch me online to talk to me about books or grumps! The comments system is set up so that anyone can reply without having to sign up for this (or any) site.

Please feel free to post your remarks or complain about my font choices--or possibly vent your wrath at my misappraisal of your favorite book. I'd love to hear whatever you have to say.

Looking forward to it!

What's On The Menu?

Food critic Anton Ego from Pixar's "Ratatouille"

I'm not like that food critic in Ratatouille, who remains skeletally thin because he will not so much as swallow food that does not meet his exacting standards. I am critical about my books--hence the name of the blog--but I love them.

So what is it that I look for in a book?

I look for heart. I look for authors who use language like a scythe. I look for well-built worlds, where the setting lives and breathes alongside its inhabitants. I like stories about women, people of color, marginalized people getting their own voices. I like unusual corners of history, fantasy, sci-fi, and other places and times not too much like my own (on the surface, anyway.) I have a funny soft spot for evocative memoirs and authors who wax poetic about food.

I'll grump more than usual if I read a book whose plot hinges on cheap coincidences, or one populated by bland dude protagonist types coming of age in the exact same way that all the other bland dude protagonists have come of age. But I don't waste time grumping about books I didn't like at all (unless they were so terrible that I want you, dear reader, to be spared my suffering.)

On my previous blog, I was told that I write more about the negatives in a book than the positives. Part of that is because it's more fun; it's also easier to talk about what went wrong than to describe what went right.

Another reason is because I don't like to "spoil" books for new readers, particularly those I am recommending. Very often, the best parts of a book--the ones that make me sit upright in my chair and start gleefully reading aloud to my roommate--are the well-crafted plot twist, the revelation, the emotional crux of the story. How could I rob you of the joy of those discoveries? I'd never forgive myself.

I have a small backlog of reviews to repost, and a few library books on the shelf waiting to be read and reviewed in turn--a mix of historical fiction, sci-fi, and fantasy. Otherwise, I am always happy to hear recommendations for new books! You can post them in the comment section on any post, or email them to me.

I think, for an introduction, that will suffice. Time to serve up some book grumps!

A Fine and Private Place... To Grump About Books

[Thanks to Peter S. Beagle for the post title!]

Hello, and welcome to the most recent--and hopefully the last--of my blogs.

I've been reading since I was five, blogging since fourteen, and blogging specifically about reading books for about the past three years (in various places on the internet, now lost to the pixelated sands of time.) Credit or blame for this blog goes to the friends who told me to just go ahead and make a website specifically for book reviews.

"But I want to be a published author myself. It would be rather tacky to grump about other people's books in the same place as I try to promote my own," said the Voice of Reasonable-Sounding Excuses To Procrastinate.

"Then make that a separate blog," said the Voice of Wisdom.

So here we are. The personal writing blog will happen another time. For now, there are plenty of books already written and demanding my attention. I aim to introduce them to you, dear reader--to find for you diamonds in the published rough, and to warn you away from narrative wastelands where ne'er heart was stirred by story--and to hone my critical skills along the way. I hope you enjoy reading my book grumps.