Take an already amusing children's poem about Bert's out-of-control animal collecting hobby and illustrate it with large, fun, cute paintings and what do you get? An absolute delight! I especially like the rabbits (of which there are many), ostrich chicks and domestic cat but the other animals are also wonderful. Forty pages of joy.
For more reviews, check out my blog: Craft-Cycle
A well-written and perfectly crafted story that is pure Gaiman. I loved it. It was lovely and haunting and sad and suspenseful and just all around a great story. As usual, Gaiman also did a fantastic job reading it. I always feel like I'm curled up listening to a creepy bedtime story whenever I listen to any of his audiobooks. A fantastic reading experience.
My only complaint, and what forced me to give it 4 stars instead of 5, was the music. Overall, I enjoyed the music and at times it really added to what was happening in the narration. However, I don't usually listen to music when I read. At times, it was horribly distracting for me. There was a few times I got lost in the intense music and realized I hadn't been listening to the spoken words. I had to go back and listen again. Also, sometimes the music was way more intense than what was actually going on. It added a strange suspense to events that weren't very suspenseful, which was a bit odd.
Don't get me wrong; the music itself was great. It's just that sometimes it was a little too good and distracted me from the actual story.
The story itself is for sure 5 stars, but the audiobook listening experience was a little too intense at times with the music, which is why I bumped it back to 4 stars. Still a great read.
OMG! This was amazing. At the start I did not think I would even finish this book, let alone enjoy it, but it picked up very quickly.
This story was haunting and heart-wrenching and sad and beautiful. Poor Kya lived such a horrible and yet full life. Everyone in her life walks out on her or abuses her, often both. She grows up alone--literally alone and somehow she survived and thrived in her own way. The wholesome, god-fearing church going community shun this poor child rather than help and nurture her. Who she grew up to be was in part because of their neglect and abuse, but somehow they blamed her for growing up alone in the marsh.
UGH this book made me so very angry because of how this poor girl was treated. I have to say I didn't expect the ending, but was very pleased with it. Excellent story!
Didn't really like the book in the very beginning and didn't think I would even get past the first hour. It picked up pretty quickly though and I'm hooked. This is heart wrenching!
| For more reviews, check out my blog: Craft-Cycle I actually came across this book in a librarian group on Facebook (I am working toward my master's in library sciences) and thought it looked interesting. A fun, quick read that is filled with oddity, hilarity, and bookish humor. It was a fun experience to get a glimpse of what it can be like to work in a bookstore. As a book-lover, it is easy to romanticize working in a bookstore, surrounded by books and reading all day, but in reality you have to deal with people, and anything that requires that is going to have some times that are frustrating, confusing, and just plain weird. I liked that Campbell opens this collection by saying that sharing her experiences is not meant "to mock or antagonize our customers". There are definitely some rude customers, strange encounters, and people who maybe should have done a Google search (or paid attention in history class) before asking their question. Because they are taken out of context, some of the entries can feel a little mean-spirited, making fun of customers who may have spoken without thinking. But overall, the tone is lighthearted, sharing some of the silly moments in her experience as well as those of other book-sellers in the US and Canada. The illustrations add another great layer of humor and pair well with the entries. A very fun book to read. I'm hoping to get a hold of a copy of the followup book, More Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops (sadly, my library does not appear to carry it). |
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