katiedermody's reviews
1931 reviews

This book satisfied the literary nerd in me, big time and was really the only 'adult fiction' book I managed to read this month. There are four doorways to reading, according to super librarian Nancy Pearl, and these are what draw people into reading and inform their preferences. Most people utilize a combination of these: Story, Character, Setting, and Language. I learned about them during my library degree and maybe I'll write a separate post about the topic, but what you need to know now is that I generally read for story and language. Let me tell you, this book gave me language!!! During my English Lit degree, I always read with a pen in hand to underline things that stood out to me as important or beautiful. This is not a habit that continued into my everyday reading life EXCEPT for when a book gives me language, and I wanted to bust a pen out multiple times during this one (and I did!). It is the story of an unnamed literature scholar giving guest lectures about lost books while at an unnamed university in an unnamed city. The novel is a mixture of his lectures, experiences, and recollections, and has a very modernist feel with its run-on sentences and air of mystery. Yet, the entire book somehow feels like it is also mocking that type of literature. As the reader, I noticed how meta some parts were and the resulting ironies. Also, it was so satisfyingly confusing--the narrator could be the author but nothing is ever clearly real. In fact, the 'about the author' section states that the author loves to work in pseudo-biography but mainly writes fiction. I got this as an advanced reader copy and it doesn't come out until April, but I think other lit nerds will enjoy it!

**Bonus: Here are a couple of the lines that warranted underlining, in my opinion, because of how concisely and beautifully they expressed my own feelings about the topics at hand:
During a discussion about 'good' literature: "I wanted to tell her how I believed that literary greatness wasn't an innate quality but something formed through machinations of culture and society and history. I wanted to talk about the subtle formation of canons and discriminations against particular kinds of taste and style, about race and gender and nation" (Rose, p. 81).
On searching for a book he recalls experiencing in childhood but none of the details of: "I was trying to find something I cannot ever be sure existed, something I myself may have imagined" (p. 84).
About the fallacy of memory (like I wrote about in my post about mis-remembering and mis-quoting!): "That, at least, was how it was in her memory, but memory makes up its own stories every time" (p. 86).

Here again, I was disappointed in the book because of my fondness for the Disney version starring Julie Andrews. As I was contemplating the stiff, harsh version of the titular character in the book, I recalled that a movie was released a handful of years ago about the making of the movie and the author's struggles with Walt Disney (Saving Mr. Banks (2013)).  I watched the movie and now feel like I better understand the book's intended purpose (so far as it was portrayed in the film).  My heart broke for what Mrs. Travers went through and it gave me more sympathy for her character, but I will likely always prefer what I knew first. I just love musicals and Julie Andrews too much, and the songs I sang in childhood have nestled too far down into my memories.

Having grown up watching the Disney movie version, I enjoyed reading the book and learning how it differed from the story I knew. That said, I was disappointed that a few of my favorite story elements were not from the book, including my favorite bit of ridiculousness: The Walrus and the Carpenter. Thankfully, I visited with a friend the morning I finished the book and she happened to be a big fan of the original story. She let me know that the movie's plot was a hybrid of the book I read and the sequel, Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There. So, I immediately ordered that book from the library. More about that in a bit.

Time to finish what I started. So many things from the movie were taken from this book! My favorite, the aforementioned The Walrus and the Carpenter poem, mannerisms from the Red Queen which were combined for the movie version of the Queen of Hearts, Tweedledee and Tweedledum, the talking flowers, etc. In general, I wasn't as thrilled with this book's overall plot as the first one, but watching for the elements I knew from the movie was entertaining.

I’m not sure how, but I had never read this book before. I am a big fan of The Lord of the Rings movies and had read the books in elementary school, so after the first Hobbit movie was released I started reading this book. However, I was borrowing my Dad’s copy and had to give it back before I finished it. When we read The Fellowship of the Ring in our Tolkien and Lewis class I purchased a set of books that included The Hobbit, so I made sure to read it this summer and I now understand (but don’t agree with ALL) the issues that people had with the movie trilogy. As always, well done Tolkien.

The five short stories in this compilation feature musicians and all intertwine to some degree. I read this directly after finals when my brain was tired and I already forget details. I do recall enjoying the stories as I read them, though.

This one was cute too! The last three were definitely better than the first two, and this was a nice way to round things out. It was very well rounded as far as telling the whole story, the couple having a bit more of a set up and history, and a bit more time with them together post initial hookup. She's a freelance comic artist on a deadline, who keeps finding handmade ornaments left for her. She has a crush on her upstairs neighbor and there's a party on the top floor (costume theme: Only Santas in the Building; host: an aging former songwriter...those were the two main little references I assumed were to Only Murders in the Building that I caught, but it was just enough), and mistletoe happens. I like this author and am looking forward to her book coming out next year, so this was a nice little teaser in a way. 

I really liked this one! I think it's my favorite of the bunch so far, with only one left to go. The author's one of my two faves of the group, so it makes sense. For a short story, it spanned over a week but didn't feel rushed, contained a bunch of events that brought the leads together over and over (he's a firefighter and she's having a run of bad luck), the spice was good, and though the ending was a little wham bam thank you mam, made sense in a way that wrapped it up well. 

This third story was short and cute. I really like Olivia Dade so I figured I'd enjoy this one and I did. They're colleagues, adjunct professors who take on a short term seasonal job as marketing elves in a giant decommissioned weinie-mobile, now unfortunately painted to look like a minced meat roll but mostly just resembling a schlong. She's liked him for a while but thinks he's gotten together with her best friend, until the two of them are stuck in the truck overnight on the highway. A little bit of spice, a little bit of the fat rep I love from this author. 

This second short story, I didn't like as much as the first. It was fine, and decently spicy, but the whole thing felt a little insta-lovey/he falls first/man obsessed but not totally in a good way. I like all three of those tropes at times but it felt forced in a story this length and I also am not a huge fan of this author so thos tracks. Was fine, and it could have had potential as a full novel, but hoping the rest will be better. I did appreciate that she was a redhead and a single mom, and that he was a big guy, though. 

This first short story in the collection was fun, cute, emotional, and featured a dude just super gone for the woman, which I always seem to enjoy. They've been friends literally since birth, grew up together (she was closer to his sister's age) and now they get snowed in before Christmas and have to deal with something that happened four months ago. A bit of spice right at the end.