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2007 50 Book Challenge: Book Seven - City of Bones by Cassandra Clare

This is the publisher's review of City of Bones - Book One of The Mortal Instruments Trilogy by Cassandra Clare.

When fifteen-year-old Clary Fray heads out to the Pandemonium Club in New York City, she hardly expects to witness a murder -- much less a murder committed by three teenagers covered with strange tattoos and brandishing bizarre weapons. Then the body disappears into thin air. It''s hard to call the police when the murderers are invisible to everyone else and when there is nothing -- not even a smear of blood -- to show that a boy has died. Or was he a boy?

This is Clary''s first meeting with the Shadowhunters, warriors dedicated to ridding the earth of demons. It''s also her first encounter with Jace, a Shadowhunter who looks a little like an angel and acts a lot like a jerk. Within twenty-four hours Clary is pulled into Jace''s world with a vengeance, when her mother disappears and Clary herself is attacked by a demon. But why would demons be interested in ordinary mundanes like Clary and her mother? And how did Clary suddenly get the Sight? The Shadowhunters would like to know. . . .

Exotic and gritty, exhilarating and utterly gripping, Cassandra Clare''s ferociously entertaining fantasy takes readers on a wild ride that they will never want to end.


My thoughts?
To be honest I was a little disappointed. This really is not to say that it wasn't a good book. It had a pretty good storyline and the characters and setting were interesting. I guess my problem was that I found it a little too young for my liking. It's not that I couldn't get the references but it was just more adolescent, geared more towards the young 'uns than to an old fogie like me. This can't be a real negative for the book because it is a young adult novel. I believe that I would have enjoyed it immensely when I was a kid.

So some background about Cassandra Clare.
In the Harry Potter fanfiction world, she is the It girl. Everyone loves her, everyone wants to know her. I'm being dramatic, but the truth is that she's written some works that are highly popular in the fandoms that she writes in.
Now I am one such big fan of Cassandra Clare's fanfiction and I've read her big HP trilogy, the Draco Trilogy. (well I have yet to read the end of DV but that's neither here nor there at this point.)
So in this fandom world, there's been some apparent talk of Clare having plagiarised in her fanfiction. I don't really know too much about all of this hullaballoo. I'd heard some things but obviously don't know the details to have any opinion really one way or the other. I suppose if the accusations are true and Clare did take someone's work as her own, it's unfortunate for that someone that I enjoyed the Draco Trilogy. As for Clare's book, again I don't know enough about plagiarism to be able to determine whether she has done so in her book. I can say though that there are some familiar themes that run through the storyline, common traits that show up in her characters and settings and story details that I've seen before or can recognize from popular culture. I mean, science fiction/fantasy is so often not completely original in its setting when dealing with demons, vampires, werewolves, fairies, etc. I obviously can't help seeing a huge similarity between Jace, one of the main characters in City of Bones, and Draco from Clare's Draco Trilogy. I suppose there can be a link between Jace and JKR's Draco but only in the sense of how Clare has portrayed Draco in her fanfiction. There is one thing in the book that she's taken almost directly from DT, so does it count for her to plagiarize herself? I dunno... The issue is all a little above my understanding.

At any rate, I did enjoy this book from an entertainment standpoint. The plot held my interest enough to get through and I liked some of the characters. Unfortunately, the characters that bothered me the most were the two main characters! It's not that they were unlikable, I just felt them to be a little adolescent for my taste. The banter and play between Clary and Jace seemed to be contrived and not as natural as I would have liked.

I wouldn't go so far as to recommend the book to my friends, but it's not as much that it's an awful book as it's not as good as say Harry Potter or Artemis Fowl or the Bartimaeus Trilogy (as far as young adult novels go). As for me, I'll likely pick up the second and third books of the trilogy when they get released. I'm a trooper that way.

So next up, I'm working on JKR's Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. But I think I'll also finish Anne Rice's Christ the Lord. I've already started it so I should finish it up. If it doesn't hold my interest I'll see about picking up Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsay or perhaps Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. lol now that's quite a range of genres if I ever had to pick from.

week up to and including Easter weekend

oh good... I'm only a week behind in updating. lol

It wasn't an overly exciting week.

Greg was in Rome. The week before he was in Mexico.
Picked Rich up from his trip to Holland.
(yeah, how miserable am I that everyone is going overseas but me? :( )
oh wait, I was in Paris less than 2 months ago. hee. I'm good!

Liam had hockey Monday and Thursday nights. He does pretty good but sometimes he skates too fast for his own good! In trying to outskate the opposing team to get to the puck, he ends up overskating it or wiping out altogether. He always gets back up so it's not too bad that I think it's pretty funny.
Olivia had school 3 times this week, again to make up for missed classes during March Break. I also took her to her first ballet class of the session. Well her first class of the session, she'd missed 2 weeks beforehand. I'm glad she enjoys it.
Did I mention that I signed us all up for soccer this summer? Liam has soccer Tuesdays and Thursdays, Olivia on Saturdays and myself on Friday nights.
Olivia is so excited about playing soccer. She's also thrilled about going to school in September. Off and on she'll ask when it will be June (for soccer) or September (for school)!

Dodgeball was good last week. It was our first playoff game and we won! That's 3 straight victories in a row! We play this Wednesday for 5th place in the division. I've also confirmed a school for us to play pickup/practice on Fridays until mid-June. I hope we get a good turnout of people!
This Wednesday also marks the last day we'll get to see Spencer before he leaves us for Vancouver. Our team captain who brought such a great team together is taking off on us. :( But his memory will live on in the name of our new team. And I'll make some cookies for our last game. :D

Thursday was a crazy evening for us. First Liam had hockey from 5-6pm. Then I got him dressed and cleaned up for Beavers at 6:30pm.
I brought Olivia to Rich's place for babysitting and instructions to pick up Liam at 7:30pm. I then went off to watch the last home game of the Ottawa Senators season. It was an ok game. We played the Pens (who we're going to see in Round 1 of the playoffs) and we lost in the last 10 seconds! ugh
Hopefully the Sens will pull out more during playoffs to get them past Pittsburgh in as few games as possible!
I have tickets for Game #2 on Saturday. woohoo! go Sens go!

Liam had no school on Good Friday or Easter Monday so we took a long weekend and headed back to Newmarket. It worked out well since Greg was coming back from Rome and hadn't seen us in 2 weeks. He flew in Saturday early afternoon and we had Easter dinner Saturday night. Then I got my mom, dad and my sister to play poker. My mom is crazy aggressive! She ended up winning.
Sunday we woke up with our easter egg hunt and then the kids and I joined my sister, her hubby and baby Cole for Easter mass. In the afternoon we sat around and watched Children of Men.
I thought it was a pretty good movie. The last part was a bit horrid with all the shooting but it was really well done. I like the idea of the story but there was no explanation behind the infertility in the world. That was something that I thought was missing. I'll have to read the book. I really enjoyed Clive Owen. He's pretty awesome.
After that we then watched Bon Cop, Bad Cop. There was hesitation to view this one. I don't really know why since it's a comedy and supposedly the highest grossing Canadian film since Porkey's but I put it on while I was waiting for Greg to pack for Waterloo. It ended up that he enjoyed it immensely and watched the whole thing with us. Man, it's a funny movie. The whole hockey theme was so fitting for this time of the year too.
Then we went bowling with my dad. The kids love going. We played 5 pin which I'm not really a fan of but I kicked butt.
We left just after noon on Monday to head back to Ottawa. It was a relatively relaxing weekend. The kids got their fill of sweet stuff. To think of it, so did I.

2007 50 Book Challenge: Book Six - Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by JK Rowling

Doesn't matter how many times I read through this series, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is by far my most favourite book.
It's short, concise and the story is just so perfectly thought-out. It's also extremely well written.

I remember the first time I read the story I was a little confused about the ending. I really had it in my head that Harry had seen his father but it didn't jive with the ending. I believe that I was so excited to see the ending in that first read that I stayed up way late into the wee hours and was too tired to find it coherent. It's kind of funny that I remember that. Of course, now it makes perfect sense and I wonder what hallucenigen I was on. :D

At any rate, this book is just so perfect and I just enjoy it tremendously with every reading. And btw, it's also the best of the movies made thus far.

Some thoughts:

- I love that Harry's Patronus is a stag

- best line of the book:
"So you did see your father last night, Harry ... you found him inside yourself."- Albus Dumbledore

- and definite foreshadowing for Book 7:
"'Pettigrew owes his life to you. You have sent Voldemort a deputy who is in your debt. When one wizard saves another wizard's life, it creates a certain bond between them ... and I'm much mistaken if Voldemort wants his servant in the debt of Harry Potter.'
'I don't want a bond with Pettigrew!' said Harry. 'He betrayed my parents!'
'This is magic at its deepest, its most impenetrable, Harry. But trust me ... the time may come when you will be very glad you saved Pettigrew's life.'"

This is definitely going to have some major impact in book 7. I just know it! :)


I've been holding off reading any other books other than HP at the moment. But since I'm ahead right now I'll go back to my other reading which is Cassandra Clare's City of Bones. I'll also have Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire nearby in case it beckons me to begin reading it.

What's Your Crime?

oh this is a fun photo shoot!
Done at Sundance: http://www.janemag.com/magazine/slideshows/2007/03/SundancePortfolio

My crime? Stealing cookies from the cookie jar.
What's your crime?

2007 50 Book Challenge: Book Five - Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by JK Rowling

I posted this on the Harry Potter Read-Along group in Facebook as well.

okey doke... thoughts on Chamber of Secrets: - this is probably by far my least favourite of the books. It doesn't have the magic of the first where we are introduced to everything and it doesn't have the complexity and drama of books 4-6. The whole event with Aragog is too much of a distraction for a red herring and there just seems to be too many disparate things going on, like the Ford Anglia, theWhomping Willow, etc. I didn't like Lockhart or Myrtle or Dobby and the DeathDay party seemed unnecessary. However even given these complaints I still found the book entertaining. I still laughed when the car came to the rescue in the forest. I will grant that there are so many aspects of the story to come that are introduced in this book. I guess I just don't believe JKR did such a great job of pulling them all together as coherently as she's able. I enjoyed the introduction of Lucius Malfoy (and his obvious influence on Draco) and Tom Riddle and Cornelius Fudge (what a change of character this guy goes through between Chamber of Secrets and Half-Blood Prince). Such great historical content going on here. The magic was good too, with the diary, the basilisk, mandrakes, skele-gro, polyjuice potion and duelling club. But again, there was just too much stuff for such a small book. Dobby being set free was fun too but then after that the goodbyes for summer holidays happened in one page! - I've read these books over and over and only now have I seen the foreshadowing that Snape is a Legilimens! In both books so far, Harry makes some comment about Snape seeming to be able to read his mind. LOL I'm so dense sometimes... - I wondered too about the similarities between Tom and Harry. JKR made it a point to highlight the fact that the two looked similar. And for a little while I believed that there was some genetic connection between them. But I think that overall it was just one more red herring to make everyone think that Harry might be Slytherin's heir. Which is another reason I didn't like this book as much. JKR seemed to go a bit overboard in trying to distract us from the real culprit. We probably could have done without thinking that Tom and Harry looked alike. - Ginny: As much as she ends up being such a central character in this book, there's very little said about her. Even up to Book 6 she never gets pushed into the forefront, always remaining a secondary character to the trio and even Draco, Crabbe and Goyle. Later on, there's not even any mention regarding how this encounter with Riddle and his diary has affected her. It's like it didn't even happen. Perhaps she didn't suffer any ill-effects but you would think Harry would find it helpful to use what Ginny experienced in his fight against Voldemort. Then again, Ginny is just a first year here and she may not have been able to glean anything helpful from Riddle or his diary... ah well, enough analysis. On to book 3!

The Tudors and 2 weeks of life

good lord, that's a lot of good looking people in Showtime's new series, The Tudors. I'm so going to be watching that. mmm mmm mmm Jonathan Rhys Meyers is hot!

***

hmmm... 2 weeks since my last update. I've been lazy to update...

ok, what have I done:

Dodgeball: 2 weeks in a row our team won! woohoo! The first week we really rocked.
Funniest play ever: Dan and one of the guys on the other team both grabbed a ball at center court. They tussled over it and Dan obviously wanted it more because he wrenched it out of the guy's hands. Then because he had the ball and the other guy was so close, Dan proceeded to attempt to throw the guy out. However in typical Dan-style this didn't mean just lobbing the ball at the guys legs. oh no, at a distance of less than 2 feet, Dan whipped it at the poor guy. Then he yelled at him that he was out, while celebrating with arms high in victory-mode. omg, it was a riot!
We did well this week too but there weren't so many funny moments. I think everyone was a little beat because it was a late 9pm game.
Unfortunately our wins didn't shoot us up in the standings but now we know where we stand for the playoffs. I've updated my schedule to reflect our first playoff game.
And speaking of dodgeball, since the season is coming to an end there's been talk of getting our team registered for the spring/summer session. I think that Sonny is going to be our new captain because Spencer is heading out west and leaving us. :( But it looks like we've got enough people so we're likely a go for Tuesdays next season.
I've also been looking to set up some pick-up games and to use these sessions as practices for the team. I've been visiting a couple of schools in the area. The catholic school board here offers their school gyms free of charge. I tried to get a school for Wednesday nights but its principal isn't back until beginning of May which leaves all of April without a place to play. So I'm going to try to get another school for Friday nights, at least until beginning of May. That would also mean that Greg can play once in a while. From mid-April through into June he'll actually be in Ottawa more on Friday nights than he will be out of town.
I also contacted the OSSC about purchasing dodgeballs directly from them. That would be so much easier and hopefully cheaper than getting them online. And the balls we would use for practicing and pick-up would be the same as those used in the league! woohoo!

Kindergarten: I finally registered Olivia for JK! I was waiting for her baptismal certificate to come in from Newmarket. I had to call them to send me a copy since I could not find the original for the life of me. My paperwork is sorely lacking any kind of organization. More on that below...
It's really cute that Olivia is so looking forward to going to school. Not only because she genuinely likes school but also because she's so excited about going to school together with Liam! When we talked about her taking the bus, she said that she was going to sit with Liam on the bus and she even asked Liam if he was going to take care of her. Liam said that of course he would. oh my, I just wanted to cuddle them!
Also, we were at the school the next day after I registered her to pick Liam up early before heading to Newmarket. His teacher knew that Olivia was coming to the school in the new year and asked her if she was excited about it. And then we saw the kindergarten teacher in the halls and she also knew that Olivia was coming in the fall. She asked Olivia about it as well. So it seems that everyone already knows Olivia before she even starts one day at the school!
And speaking of school, Olivia missed classes during March Break. Her preschool program still held classes but I didn't take her. Made up a class this week and next week we'll make up the other one.

Newmarket: Drove to my parents place last weekend to see the hubby before he took off for 2 weeks to Mexico and then Rome. Rented Casino Royale which I watched the entire weekend. Well, I watched it twice, once with my brother and mom and then again with my dad and Greg. It's such an entertaining film. Daniel Craig makes an excellent Bond. The action is crazy unbelievable but I like that there isn't so much cheese in this one.
Also went to Mongolian grill on Saturday night. man, I had too much to eat! But it was gooooood!
Took the hubby to the airport really early on Sunday morning so he could get his flight to Mexico. The boy wanted to come to wave his daddy farewell but he slept the entire way. When my brother asked Liam if he went to bring his dad to the airport he said that he hadn't gone! lol he didn't even remember going. The girl on the other hand opted to sleep in and stayed home.
We drove back home Sunday afternoon.

Extracurricular activities: Olivia's missed 2 dance classes of the new session. We skipped the first one so we could have lunch with Greg before he left for Toronto. And then this week we missed it because the class I wanted to bring her to in the afternoon isn't the one for her. I have to suck up bringing her in the mornings and just bring Aidan out with me. No morning naps for Aidan on Mondays!
Liam finally got back to Beavers the past 2 weeks after missing about a month and a half of meetings.
Liam also had a hockey game Tuesday night. The first goal his team had was one from Liam! It was an awesome shot on the net and it went in!

I got my hair cut! It's pretty much the same style, just shorter. The stylist textured it nicely so when it's flat-ironed it's pretty straight and hangs nicely. When it's not straightened it's pretty curly though. well wavy.

Taxes: I've had to go through all my papers looking for our notice of assessments. I'm not really an organized person. And I tend not to throw anything away. This results in piles and piles of papers and files all over my house, pretty much in every room. It pisses Greg off I'm sure. A few months ago, I did a bit of purging and threw out some old papers and files. However, this still ended up in piles, though admittedly smaller ones. Unfortunately I didn't bother setting aside my paperwork for taxes. Instead it ended up in the piles. So this weekend I went through everything and organized them in a system. I'm not going to say that it's the best system but it's far more organized and I think I should be able to find things I need now. Not only that, but I found the assessments! woohoo!
I've still got some work to do with the filing but I'm on my way...

and lastly,
Modeling: So I've got it in my head that Olivia would do a great job doing the modeling thing. I like the idea that she can get into it now when she doesn't have to worry about body image and being self-conscious of how she looks and acts. So I looked up some agencies on the net and found 2 that had open calls for people looking at getting into the business. On Friday I brought the girl to an agency called Lawxy. I had some pictures printed but they didn't even look at them. Based on a small talk with Olivia, the representative determined that she was a little young yet. She said it wasn't worth it for all involved to be going to auditions in Montreal and Toronto if there wasn't a good chance of Olivia getting work. There isn't a lot of work locally for kids her age and that's why all the auditions are out of town. She suggested coming back in a couple of years when Olivia's around 6 years old to see if she's more ready.
Given that I figured I would still bring her to one more agency today. I also took Liam with us. We got to the place and it was pretty packed with people. I guess this agency doesn't hold open calls very often. This modeling agency is called Angie's and she was there to speak to all the people and explain what was involved, how her agency works with the models and then had each of the people walk down a runway, tell her their name, age, school and grade point average. It's important to this woman that each of her models upholds at least a 70% average.
I really like the mentality this woman has for her models in this business. She wants her models to be smart and stay in school, gives each of them excellent advice without giving them big egos, is very straight-forward and honest and holds great relationships with the parents to ensure that everyone is comfortable with the processes of being a model.
So we were at the agency for an hour before my kids got the chance to walk the runway. Liam went first. He did well. He answered Angie's questions and she would like to register him. Then it was the girl's turn. She walked down the runway and also answered Angie's questions well. She was asked what her name was and how old she was. Then Angie asked her if she wanted to have her picture taken or to act in commercials. Olivia thought about this for a bit (as she is wont to do whenever asked any question), looked Angie straight in the eye, and loudly and clearly answered, "No."
wait for it... *facepalm* oy...
Angie looks at me and says, "She really doesn't want to do this. Bring her back when she's ready and we'll register her too."
So Liam is in. Olivia is out. *rolls eyes*
Honestly, given this response, Olivia is definitely too young to even understand what's going on. I'll give her a little more time, see if she likes what Liam will go through (if I decided to sign him up) and try again in a couple of years.

So when Angie said I could register Liam with her agency she sent home some papers for me to read. Now it looks like when you register, you're supposed to take this on-camera workshop. This is great, really. I mean, it's understandable that the agency wants their models to know what they're doing and what they're getting into before sending them out to work. With that said, the cost of the workshop is an inordinate amount of money. I'm talking as much money as I paid for Liam to play the entire season of hockey this year and the workshop is only 14 hours. I'm sure that there will be a lot to learn but I wonder how much a boy of 6 could possibly retain from this workshop. This workshop is available to all ages from 4-18. And it costs the same for everyone. Can they really expect a 6 year old to get as much value from the training as someone who is 13-18? It could be that the training is optional so I'll have to contact Angie before Monday when I'm supposed to go in and register Liam. If I have to pay that much money for something I don't even know that Liam really wants to do, or if he finds he doesn't really like it, I'm pretty hesitant to shell it out... we'll see...

I've finished another book which I'll post about next. And I've been watching ANTM (Rene is such a bitch, but the competition is pretty fun to watch, everyone is looking good), Project Catwalk (I love all the english accents!) and CSI Season 6.
I also watched She's The Man a couple of times in the past couple of weeks. I love that movie! Like my cousin says, that Amanda Bynes is one sassy young lady. It's such fluff but it's just so enjoyable for me. And I just love all the mixed up identities. It just warms my heart. :)
oh and I've been listening to The Fratellis and Scissor Sisters. Good fun music to bring in the spring, which by the way, we've been having such lovely warm weather lately.

well, that's 2 weeks in an overgrown nutshell.

haircuts, movies, week in progress

So March Break was fairly uneventful but I forgot to mention an important thing that I did! I cut the kids hair!
I suppose this isn't too big a deal. I cut Liam's hair all the time. I don't however cut Olivia's hair all the time. In her 4 short years, I've only cut her hair a total of 2 times. Maybe 3 times at most. Her hair was getting so very long so I hacked it all off.
Olivia looks more her age with her hair shorter.

***

I watched Borat on the weekend with the hubby. yeah it was pretty crass and it was so very uncomfortable to watch some parts. There are some situations that he goes into and you're just thinking Oh No, please don't! Hardest to watch had to be the naked wrestling. Definitely hilarious was Pamela Anderson in the wedding sack. Funny movie but disturbing. I don't think I'll be viewing it again though.

Yesterday morning I managed to get all of Just Like Heaven viewed. I was entertained. I like me some Mark Ruffalo. The reason I can enjoy such fluff I think is because I'm very good at just accepting things that are done just for the sake of advancing the story. It doesn't matter how unrealistic it may be, I'll buy it if it will keep the story going and keep me entertained. There's nothing really new in this movie but it's tried and true and I liked it.

Also viewed Stranger Than Fiction today. What a lovely movie. I enjoyed this one so immensely. The characters are great. Will Ferrell is excellent and so is Maggie Gyllenhaal, as usual. I really like her. And there are so many famous people acting in this movie. The story was good, the plot was unique and the ending was terrific. Now I want some cookies...

***

Card night was good on Saturday. We sat about for a little while before getting in a game of euchre (which An and I won) and then we played several hours of poker. Not just Hold 'Em either. We took turns calling different games, dealer's choice. Greg and I both lost which means that he's going to be even less likely to ever play again. The kids stayed up almost the entire night. We left after 1:30am and the girls were still going strong. Even Liam had passed out on the couch. The next day we were told that the reason the girls were probably good so late was because they were eating straight sugar! Gerry found little tea plates of sugar in Jacqui's room! *rolls eyes*

Sunday was relaxing day. Monday was help Greg pack day. He's in Toronto this week and then off to Mexico for a week. Just today we found out that they want him in Rome the week after. We thought it had been cancelled but now they're begging him to go. The way I see it, it's ok for him to go and travel for weeks at a time so long as he can take multiple weeks off to be with us in the summer. We'll see him next weekend since we're driving to Toronto to be with him before he leaves for Mexico. Then we'll head back again to see him when he arrives back from Rome before he heads to Waterloo for a course. so yeah, he'll be gone for 4 weeks straight.

well that's all for now...

2007 50 Book Challenge: Book Four - Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by JK Rowling

This was an easy one but I'm still including it in my 50 books, dammit!

Whenever a new Harry Potter book comes out I will typically read the entire series in full before starting the newest book. With books 5 and 6 though I opted just to read Order of the Phoenix and bypass reading the first 3. So it's been a while since I've read Philosopher's Stone.
And I'm so glad I did. It was almost as wondrous to be introduced to this world in this reading as the first time. There are so many things that I'd forgotten or that have become so much more important. And I've watched the movie so much more often than I've read the book, so much of what I do remember has come from the movie. There are so many details that have been excluded from the movie or changed for visual effect. It was really good to be able to use the descriptions JKR writes to get that picture in my mind of setting and characters than to have to rely on the movie.

It is quite a short read as well since it's missing the complexities that the following books contain. It's simply an introduction to the world of magic and the characters that will make the next books in the series so complete.

Let's see... my favourite Philosopher's Stone moment?
you know, this is such a hard one. There isn't one moment that I can say is my favourite.
What I do like about this book is all the little details of Harry Potter's world and the nostalgia of going back to the beginning with these characters that I feel I know so well but have rediscovered new things about them yet again.
I also like that Harry's not so angry. :( He's not yet been bogged down in being a boy hero wizard.

On to Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.

a slow and relaxing March Break

weekly update: Not too much to relate. It was March Break so I had all 3 kids with me in the mornings and then my own 2 to entertain the rest of the time. Wasn't too bad. Mostly watching tv, movies and playing video games, punctuated by hockey, hockey and hockey. We had a playdate with Jacqui on Tuesday and I managed to fit in a dodgeball practice and NMF on Thursday before heading to the Sens game. Every other night except Monday we took in some form of hockey. Today was more of the same with liam's day starting out with a hockey practice (though Greg was home and was a nice man to let me sleep in while he took the boy!), then Greg went to do a light weights workout while we kept Rich company packing for his trip. A little more NMF for luck on his trip then we took Rich to catch his flight from the train station. don't ask... Card night tonight with An&Gerry. not too much exciting this week...

2007 50 Book Challenge: Book Three - The Birth House by Ami Mckay

I'm going to start off by saying how thrilling it is for me that I've finished 2 books in 2 weeks!
I know it sounds kind of sad. I mean it's just 2 books. And they weren't any great literary works that will change the world. But for me, I've been so distracted by life in the past few years that I've missed the joy I get from just reading. I used to immerse myself so completely in a book that my hubby knew not to bring up any casual conversation while I had a book in hand because I just wouldn't register anything. I miss that feeling of being so utterly caught up in a story and its characters to the point of shutting out whatever is going on around me. It's definitely an inexpensive escape that I've ignored for far too long. I do hope that I can keep up my reading from now on. I just enjoy it so much.

So onto the review...

The Birth House by Ami Mckay was a highly pleasant read. This is a story of a woman in the early 1900's just before the First World War broke out and through its duration. It's not a war story. It's a story about life in a small village in Nova Scotia in those times from a woman's perspective. This is by no means a chick lit book, but it is a woman's book. I don't really recommend it as a great read for the men that I know, unless they want to get a sense of the conditions that women lived in at that time. It was a time when women didn't have the right to vote, marriages didn't happen for love, and women (in this rural village anyway) were expected to keep house, have babies and were looked down upon for having any independent or intelligent thought. It was a bit of a rub for women back then because they really held so much power in their hands, they took care of everything, from house to home, cooking, cleaning, shopping, children, husbands. And yet, none of this power could be used to gain some independence for themselves because there was no such thing as feminism. Men ruled the households, they ruled their wives. And women lived like that willingly because that's what women did. I don't want to make it out like this is a problem. That was just the way of the world back then. We get a glimpse of the suffragette movement going on down in Boston but it was the lot of women in tiny Scots Bay, Nova Scotia to marry and have children. Reading this book gave me a sense of what it was like to live as a woman in those times. It reminded me that the rights and privileges we have now as women are taken for granted. That it wasn't so very long ago that women had a very different way of life.

Particularly I enjoyed the way in which the book was written. Mckay writes her story with letters, journal entries and newspaper clippings. It's like sitting down with her main character, Dora, over a cup of tea at the kitchen table as she goes through her scrapbook. There's almost a comfort in the simple way of life, tea and brown bread, the bliss of ignorance through the belief of just following tradition. I loved the anecdotes and quotes passed down and between the women in the book. There's such a history and sense of community surrounding that way of life, where recipes and stories were shared so personally.
However, the author doesn't pull punches either when relating the negative aspects of life as a woman back then. Marital abuse, child bearing and birthing problems, the pushing of new medical practices over practiced traditional midwife procedures, as well as the quickness to diagnosis independent thought and unwanted intelligent behaviour in women as hysteria. I did enjoy that the practices of midwifery were portrayed as sound compared to the almost barbaric way obstetrics medicine was practiced on the poor women of that day.
It's almost a fantastical tale because it's difficult to think of living that kind of life in this day and age and culture, where women have as many rights and ability to express free thought as any man, where we have the ability to choose how we live our lives.

It was a very enjoyable read and I would recommend it to any woman. Mckay's writing style was very easy to read and I liked that it had a distinct Canadian flavour to it.

Next up: City of Bones - Book One of the Mortal Instruments trilogy by Cassandra Clare