Scored a B- – My Book Report, by Jean Age 20-Something

Sketch Me If You Can by Sharon Pape

Title: Sketch Me If You Can by Sharon Pape
Scored a: B-
Status: Finished

Summary:

She’s a police sketch artist. He’s a dead lawman. Together, they put a face on murder.

When her uncle dies, police sketch artist Rory McCain get’s a list of clients from his private detective business and a beautiful, old house with a ghostly inhabitant: Federal Marshal Ezekiel Drummond, aka Zeke.

Having a ghost as a housemate is bad enough, but as Rory’s drawn into one of her uncle’s unsolved cases and faces a cold-blooded killer, she may need the marshal’s supernatural help to stay alive.

I’ve actually been reading this one for… well, it doesn’t appear to be logged when I bought it in my email. Needless to say, a long time. I didn’t stop reading out of dislike, but distraction. Fortunately after literally years, it was easy to pick up where I left off and finish this book. Which is sort of funny, because during when I was reading it the first time I totally forgot the prologue where you witness the murder and then was like ‘how does she know that her uncle’s murder WASN’T an accident then?’ because I am a sillybilly.

Rory was pretty great. Capable and interesting to listen to the narrative of. The ghost’s sexism, while time appropriate, made me sigh, but I enjoyed how they seemed to gel pretty quick. The series is ‘A Portrait of a Crime’ and I’ll be reading the next one to see what they’re like when they haven’t just met.

And, most importantly for a mystery? I liked the ending.

Johnny and the Bomb

Johnny and the Bomb by Terry Pratchett

The last of the Johnny Maxwell trilogy! Johnny and the Bomb takes Johnny from helping videogame aliens (Only You Can Save Mankind), helping out ghosts (Johnny and the Dead) to straight up time travel. It all starts because Johnny was determined to help the local homeless woman after finding her in a bad case in an alley (first chapter spoiler: She had set off an unexploded bomb back in the ’40s).

It was definitely the best one of the series, which makes the fact it ends there kind of worse. The characters were getting all nice and developed and Johnny was finally developing a personality (but one scene especially proves it would have been better with him being a girl instead of a white guy looking on.)

There’s an emotionally painful scene in the book, involving Yo-less (who is black) and the racism back then, except it’s not the people who did it that hurt him so much as one of his friend’s reaction to it and it was rather on the nose.

Anyway, it was fun YA, but I still haven’t recovered enough to read The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane yet.

I read three Diana Wynne Jones stories last night when the streets flooded and I was trapped at my dad’s, but I’ll talk about that later when I’ve composed my thoughts vis a vis ‘how much is Earwig and the Witch to be blamed on the fact it’s a posthumous book?’

Cardcaptor Sakura

Comic talk! I just finished reading the first Cardcaptor Sakura omnibus #1 which both delighted and totally horrified me.

The good: Fancy, cute art with lots of costumes and general sweetness. Every character seems to be pretty darn gay. Sakura fighting with Li (her future love interest) over the affection of the same boy (who may actually be with Sakura’s older brother). Sakura’s bff Tomoyo’s crush on her.

The bad: I can live another thousand lives without seeing a teacher/student thing ever again. Fortunately one is in the past (her parents), and one is very much in the background (and actually the reason I’ve been reluctant to read this at all) and not involving Sakura in any way.

Plot of Cardcaptor is these sentient tarot-ish cards (Clow cards) have escaped their confinement and are causing magical havoc, and it’s up to Sakura with the help of her best friend Tomoyo (who makes costumes for Sakura and films her exploits, is her biggest fan) and the magical guardian of the cards Kero-chan (Cerberus) to catch them all. She gets to use them as attacks once they’re hers. So around that framework, the plot happens.

It’s not Castle Waiting level, but it’s good eyecandy and a fun read. Just warning for the squick. No nudity, gore, or major violence so far and I think it stays that way? Either way, I ordered the next ones.

ALSO. The omnibus has a bunch of colour prints throughout it! Super pretty.

Only You Can Save Mankind

From ‘Only You Can Save Mankind by Terry Pratchett, first in the Johnny Maxwell Trilogy

I’ve been reading a lot lately and forgetting to, well, mention it. A lot of it’s been comics (I heartily recommend Castle Waiting by Linda Medley, Nothing Can Possibly Go Wrong by Prudence Shen and Faith Erin Hicks, and of course I’m super excited they’re publishing the Ruby and Sapphire arc of Pokemon FINALLY. There is something satisfying I can’t even explain about seeing the games in art the way they were in my head. Also, the Ace Attorney comics are surprisingly pleasing! This has been a long sidetrack.) which aren’t as easy to review, but the books have been pretty good for the most part.

Read some Christie, Poirot’s Early Cases as well as And Then There Were None, both of which I really enjoyed. The second creeped me out pretty good in parts. The basic plot is, people are summoned mysteriously to a house and then they start dying.

Right before the above quoted book, I was reading The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo which is about a porcelain toy rabbit who is loved very much by a little girl, but doesn’t care about her. One day he’s lost at sea and ends up passing through the ownership of people he comes to care for very much and anyway, I had to shut that book down in the middle while I was reading because it made me start crying on an airplane. Considering I was also suffering from pretty bad food poisoning, I felt I’d alarmed my seatmate enough for that ride.

Kate DiCamillo wrote Tale of Despereaux, which remains one of the best books I ever read, and this one isn’t disappointing. When I found her other books were available as ebooks, they got boosted way the hell up on my to-read list, but are now officially ‘do no read in front of other people’ books.

Right after shutting down the book to regain composure, I had to choose another book and fast to switch gears. I chose Only You Can Save Mankind by Terry Pratchett, a YA book he wrote early on. His early stuff is kind of dire, but it was just what I needed. It’s full of interesting character descriptions and a fun videogame story with an alien race I like.

The only problem was the main character, Johnny Maxwell who was inoffensive but so generic that once he started interacting with the girl in the story I started desperately wishing he was Janie Maxwell because at least I wouldn’t feel like I was reading about a cookie cutter protagonist and it would have made parts of their interaction a lot less urgh to read.

I’m starting on the next book in the trilogy now, Johnny and the Dead which ominously starts off with Terry Pratchett explaining Pal battalions.